Note: Isn't the edit attached gorgeous? If the maker of this edit could step forward and remind me of their expertise, I would love to make them a character in the book really soon. I have a feeling it's from Mel, though, who's already the nanny for Callan. I love you, Mel!
PREVIOUSLY ON THE CLASSIX: Norax is making everyone choose a new member because Foster makes nothing simple and basically needs a hundred million people to replace him. Also, some of those new members could be haters. Or extreme fans. Or both!?
emeray
There's a place I like to sit, tucked away in the corner by the massive rack of shoes in my closet. It's a narrow fit, even for my generally thin frame; I have to really work to wriggle myself into a comfortable spot where my shoulders hit the wall and the metal rack in a way that isn't entirely unpleasant. The moment I'm finally settled snug, I cannot move without disrupting the peace. It's imperative that I find a good position and stay put.
Trapping as it sounds, it doesn't discomfort meââI've never had a problem with falling into a state of paralysis, especially when the whole world seems to go careening south before I even know something's been done.
I started sitting in this spot in the closet after we came back to the Metropolix for the first time without Foster Farrand. Needed a spot nobody knew about, too small for any regular human being to evade, where I could sit without needing to move. God, that's all the world wants from me: To move.
Go, they say.
Go over there, closer to Cartney Kirk.
Go right here, closer to my camera so I can get a better shot.
Go somewhere I can meet you, Emeray Essence.
Sometimes I just want to stand still.
There's solace in knowing that when the Metropolix gets flooded with our new Famoux members, I'll still have this spot. It may very well become the only area here I'll have entirely to myself. That is, if they don't start invading my closet too.
We didn't choose them today. Norax told us to take the pictures with us, so we'd be able to review our options. She thinks it'd be best if we only chose one of them, since that would double the Famoux from five members to ten.
"Ten, though pretty large, is manageable," she told us. "If you chose two people each, we'd end up with fifteen members in total, and I fear the public would be overwhelmed and would not want to get to know ten new people."
Personally, I feel like she's underestimating just a little. After all, the public was quite incredibly overwhelmed getting to know just me, and I was only one person.
But five people now?
From my spot in the closet, my fingers move in small shuffling motions, flipping through the four Polaroids from my file, wondering in earnest.
I wonder if the guards who approached them for these pictures told them the detailsââthat they were the prime candidates plucked from a secret lottery they didn't know they'd entered. I wonder if they know how much they apparently talk about me more than anybody their age. I wonder what country they're from.
Four potential Famoux members, their fate at the mercy of my volatile tendencies. Mercy. The word brings a smirk to my lips. I was never graced with mercy in my life as Emilee Parvenu, not even for a faltering moment. I'm not sure I ever really understood the word until I believed I had found itââreally, sincerely found it.
If I were to be truly merciful, the way of which I have learned, I would make them all members. I'd give them the lavish living spaces and the white-hot spotlights and the closets that seem to accumulate more and more clothes in them with the turn of dawn. I'd put them in the Fissarex so they'd never have to worry about their weight, or hate their bodies, or question whether or not the cameras being jabbed into their faces are getting an unflattering angle. I'd hold their hands and walk them across the street, knowing where they think they should go, but leading them to the better place. The greener grass. The grass I'd watered especially for them.
If I were to be truly merciful, I would be Norax.
I wish someone had written down their names somewhere, so I'd be able to think of the blonde boy as anybody but my brother. Just looking at the picture makes my stomach turnââNorax was able to find this boy with the press of a button on the Analytix, yet she still hasn't been able to find Dalton after months and months of assuring me that there are guards out there searching for him.
Perhaps that's Gerald's new shift: finding Dalton. I haven't seen him at around the Metropolix since Norax had him replaced with Angad, anyway.
But a part of me wonders if Norax is actually sending anybody out to find my brother at all, or if she'd quit that exploration long ago in hopes that I wouldn't notice.
I push the boy with the blonde hair to the back of the pile. I can't bring myself to choose him as my member. If I were to have to spend prolonged time with him in the Metropolix, I fear that he would only become a constant and thrumming reminder of what I left and what's been lost.
Satisfied with my work in cutting down the options by one potential member, I wriggle my way out of the corner, smoothing out the bottom of my shirt before taking it off and grabbing a velvet hanger. There's a rack set off at the other end of the closet, a dozen new dresses waiting patiently for me to try on for dinner tonight.
Ever since I blabbed about my birthday being on March 8th during my first live interview with Ansel on Eight, the world seems to have set their calendars before the words even came out of my mouth. My likability might be dropping from whatever new rumor comes up with the weather reports, but it hasn't slowed the anticipation for how Emeray Essence will spend her long-awaited birthday. To live up to the grandeur expected, Buchan Records decided it would be great if Cartney took me on a (very well documented) fancy dinner every single night for five nights straightââfrom today, the 3rd, all the way to the actual 8th.
On that day, will Cartney have some sort of pre-planned surprise for me that the world will get to accumulatively swoon over. I've only received these plans in a folder from Norax, so I haven't had the chance to demand Cartney give me a head's up as to what the surprise entails. I resolve to do so at tonight's dinner.
Despite the winter storms Colburn has endured these past few months, every single dress Teah has designed for me is short. A note attached explains that the public initially were drawn to my legs, since I'd been wearing something really short the first time they got photos of me. She's hoping if we return to that simpler state of just meeting me, after this long time of only seeing me in long, dark pants, it'll subliminally make the public start liking me as much as they used to.
To account for the frozen temperatures outside, Teah has provided me with quite the plethora of coatsââstyles ranging from fluffy, to sleek, to tweed, to wool, to velvet and corduroy. Attached to the first in the rack is a note: Remember: you are a Famoux memberââyou should never wear a coat twice.
I roll my eyes. Even she's bothered by my lack of coat diversity.
After sifting through the options, I settle on a white-grey dress with sleeves to my elbows. It's made of a close-fitting elastic material that looks almost like a bandage rolled around my bodyââa very chic, designer bandage, of course. The neckline drops a little lower than I'm comfortable with, but after going through the painstaking effort of shimmying into the tight thing, I decide that taking it off may take an hour, at least.
Thanks to the Fissarex cosmetics that nearly do the whole job for me, putting on makeup is a mindless activity. I use the time to think about other thingsââabout the other three Polaroids of potential members, about how drastically life is going to change when the ones we choose arrive at the Metropolix. As spacious as the apartment is, I'm not sure how we'll be able to house five more people without it becoming crammed.
I suppose that's the pointââmaking it so crammed inside that no secrets can be hidden from them.
Just thinking about it makes my stomach drop. Everything is going to have to be concealed. Even worse, it'll have to genuinely look like there's nothing hidden behind the curtainsââthat there aren't any curtains at all.
But if there's anything in my life that isn't going to change when the new members show up, it's going to be my excursions outside the Metropolix with Cartney.
They might feel like a prison sentence, but they're about to be some of the freest moments of my life.
As I button up a dark blue corduroy coat and don a new purse filled with absolutely nothing, Angad leads me to the front door, where Cartney and I usually start our walks. It's no surprise that I'd be leaving so publicly instead of through the garageââthe paparazzi is meant to get pictures of me walking out of the Metropolix.
He wears a grey suit and a smile, a bouquet of lilies in his hand. Our greeting is a picture perfect moment, as per usual. An excited look from me, an outstretched arm from him, an embrace, a quick kissââlong enough for the photo, but not too long so as to look just as scripted as it is.
"Happy almost birthday," Cartney whispers in my ear. He extends the bouquet out to me cordially. I accept it like a kiss on the hand as he points to the car. "Shall we?"
The drive isn't too long. There's a new place downtown called Oggsford that opened a few months ago, in desperate need of some public attention. It's run by some world renowned chef, but it appears he made an error when choosing an opening night; the winter in Colburn doesn't do much to attract tourists at this time of the year. The fine people at Buchan, along with Norax, jumped at the opportunity of making Cartney and I the first celebrities to sit down for a dinner there. Something like that, they predict, ought to boost the attendance immediately.
Oggsford is barren when we first arrive. Besides the paparazzi roaring outside, the interior boasts a sad assemblage of fine wooden tables and cream-colored china sets with no one to put them to use.
But we arrived at dinner early for a reason. By the time our waiter has brought out the appetizers, at least four more tables are flanked with various members of Colburn's wealthy upper class. They gawk quite un-aristocratically at us as Cartney and I pretend not to notice their blatant staring.
"So." Cartney twirls his fork around the arugula leaves in his salad. When we don't have music to listen to instead, and have to actually sit face to face for a meal, conversation is hard to come by. What is there for the two of us to talk about other than Kaytee or Race or Chapter? "Um, how's your life been?"
"You're a part of my life every single day," I remind him.
"You know I don't mean our walks."
I shrug, trying to look indifferent. Telling him about the new members in a public place like this doesn't feel like the best idea, even though Norax made sure we were seated far away from the other tables and right next to the live band.
"Nothing really happens in the Metropolix nowadays," I lie. "It's still really dismal and quiet, for the most part."
"Still?"
"I mean, Foster was always the one who made things happier."
He raises an eyebrow. "But shouldn't Chapter make you happier?"
I deadpan. Is he being serious? "Maybe he could if there weren't a dozen guards everywhere constantly making sure that we're not even in the same room."
"Well, shit," he remarks, as casual as a comment on the weather. "Right. I forgot about that part of the contract. Never had anything like that with Kaytee since, you know, I had no idea she loved somebody else."
"But we all know how that turned out."
Cartney grins, patting his chest proudly. "I made it everyone's business and ended up becoming Delicatum's golden boy."
While the world ridicules the Famoux more and more, their praise for nonfamoux celebrities like Cartney increases tenfold. I'm almost surprised that Norax didn't consider trying to make him Foster's replacement instead of a legion of laypeople.
"Funny how things work out," I say.
"Indeed. Look at us, having dinner." He gestures to the table. "Tell me, Ray, before all that stuff happened that made you look differentââdid you ever expect to be sitting at this table with me by the time you reached your seventeenth birthday?"
I stifle a laugh. "I can confidently tell you that this moment never once reached my daydreams."
Reminiscing about my past in terms like that makes me nervous. I consider the Polaroids, and how the people in them might have no clue what might be coming their way if I decide to choose them. I surely didn't know when Norax pulled me aside months ago to take me under her wingââto virtually be doing the same with another person feels inherently strange; too mature for how sophomoric I feel.
I'm barely in the swing of things, and it's already time for me to pass the torch to somebody else?
Cartney doesn't know of the crisis going on in my head. With blissful ignorance, he continues fueling the fire with another harmless comment.
"At the rate things have been going," he says, "I can't imagine where you're going to be by your eighteenth birthday."
I nod, feeling lightheaded at the thought. "I'm not sure I even want to imagine where I'll be by then."
"Understandable."
There's a pause, and I seize the moment to change the subject to something, anything else. Remembering the reason for this dinner, I clear my throat, giving Cartney a look that's teasing enough to not arouse any negative rumors from onlookers.
"Hey, wait," I say. "I heard something in the plans about you having a surprise for me after all these dinners."
His eyes widen like a child's. "Oh man, your surprise."
"I'm not sure I like the way you reacted to that."
"Don't panic, Ray. You're going to love it."
"Can't I get a heads up about it beforehand?" I ask.
Cartney cocks his head to the side. "A head's up? You want me to tell you what the surprise is before it's revealed?"
"I'd preferably like for you to tell me what it is right now."
"Never."
I frown. "Cartney, I can't react to a surprise with all of Delicatum watching. I need to know how I'm supposed to respond."
"You should obviously act amazed and astounded."
"Oh, no," I say, putting a hand to my forehead. If there's anything I've grown to get especially anxious about since becoming a Famoux member, it's surprises. "Please don't make this something massive. We've only been dating for three months, remember?"
"You can't put a size limit on good surprises." He grabs my hand over the table, putting on his signature wide, fake smile. "You also can't put a timestamp on love."
xxx
I am actually so excited to be able to share with you all my ideas for this book. It's about to get crazy. I hope you don't mind being my testers--consider these trial balloons (AP government terms for the win!) for the actual final book. I have so many ideas and I don't know which ones should or shouldn't happen. That's where you come in!
Tell me your thoughts on today's chapter. Not much, but hey, there are like uneventful 40 chapters for every 2 jam-packed intense chapters in Famoux.
In other news, the Allegiant movie is out today and I'm hyped to watch everyone I love die. Aren't you?
Have a wonderful Friday, Wattpad. Always remember:
Sticks and Stones may break your bones, but haters make you famoux. Stay classy, stay classix.