Note: It's still Friday where I am. This totally counts as me not missing Famoux Friday.
BIG NEWS: Emeray/Emilee is getting interviewed by an actual magazine! The magazine is called Characters Magazine, and they need your questions! They sent me a Google Doc so you could submit Em some of your questions. This is similar to the character interviews I did after finishing the first Famoux, but the fact that it's for a magazine makes it a million times more awesome and official, don't you think?
This is the Google Doc for asking Em a question:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1k9kZLZNJGUugv_sOe4nhtKpRM9Xj8pMP3J6DO8uvoGA/viewform?c=0&w=1
I understand you can't exactly click on that from here, so it'll be on my BIO ON MY PROFILE as well as on MY MESSAGE BOARD. I'm trying to make this very very clear so you can ask a question, because your name and question will get to actually show up in the piece. GAHH!
PREVIOUSLY ON THE CLASSIX: We had the interviews with Ansel. Carstan and Emeray sorta got into a mild argument. It was, as the kids say, "lit."
emeray
Click-click. Click-click.
The sound of paparazzi outside the restaurant is soft and sporadic. Most restaurants we go to are apt to shoo away cameramen so the Famoux can eat in piece, but it seems to me that this establishment, Gat, isn't about to pass up the opportunity for free publicity. The captions come to mind as I steal a glance at the window, meeting a flurry of hungry bright lights.
Spotted having lunch at Gat: Emeray Essence, Till Amaris, Cartney Kirk, and new Fanatix members Sarah Craik and Lexi Bukow.
We're seated on the opposite side from the windows, but from the look of their massive lenses, a couple yards isn't proving to be much of an obstacle. They persist, growing in volume as we go through our courses.
Initiating conversation among two Famoux members, two diehard Famoux fans, and one fake boyfriend proves to be a struggle in and of itself. The easiest talk revolves around our interviews with Ansel last week, which, according to the press, were a massive success. Delicatum was charmed almost effortlessly by our new members. It makes Sarah and Lex starry-eyed over their salads when we remind them that with every passing day in the public eye, they're developing fans of their own.
Lex has yet to bring up any more accusations or questions about my love life since her first night in the Famoux, but regardless my breath catches all the same whenever she opens her mouth. Luckily, most of her anecdotes today have been harmless comments: Cool! Wow! Yeah!
Nevertheless, I pull out all the stops with convincing Lex and Sarah that Cartney and I are the happiest couple in Delicatum. Our hands are intertwined on the table like a flower arrangement, and my eyes soften dreamily whenever he speaks, even when it's something short and simple. It's halfway through our lunch when I realize that nobody can actually see the way my foot taps against his tenderly, but I keep at it anyway. From the look he's worn on his face everyday just before we step outside into the chaos of cameras, whatever threat DEFED's given him hasn't gone away.
I would've liked to have gotten some time to discuss this threat with him privately, but for the past week our daily walks have been replaced with lunches with a revolving cast of Famoux members. Since Kaytee, Race, and Chapter don't seem to jump at an opportunity for a two-hour meal with Cartney and I, Till has had to join us for lunch everyday with different Fanatix members. That being said, there is never a free moment to talk without somebody breathing down our necks.
As we finish our main courses, Till, who has acted as discussion-initiator for the entire week, prompts the table. "So, who's excited about tomorrow?"
Lex's face lights up. "Moving day."
Big as the Metropolix is, the bedroom situation has been getting much too crammed for most everyone's taste. While this made Carstan roll his eyes and mutter, "Spoiled," under his breath, Norax took the liberty to speed up the moving process. She decided with her employees earlier this week that we'd be in our new house as soon as possible.
Since the moment I woke up this morning, staffers have been gathering, boxing, and trucking our belongings from the Metropolix uptown to our new massive residency just outside Colburn. Norax's plan is to have everything completely moved in and situated by tomorrow morning. She wants us to, in her words to us at breakfast, "Enter our new home and have it truly be a home."
"It's going to be so much quieter uptown, away from the city," I remark. I gesture with my shoulder toward the window where the paparazzi wait. "Norax said it's going to be far away from other houses so it's harder for people to find. That means there's probably going to be a lot more privacy, too."
"That's right," says Till. "I heard we're going to have balconies. Imagine being able to stand outside without getting your picture taken."
Sarah shifts in her seat. "But I like the cameras."
"Well, of course you do. They're still new to you!"
She stirs her peach tea with a dainty silver spoon, watching the cream swirling in her cup like it's the most entertaining thing she's seen in weeks. In actuality, Sarah is simply having trouble looking most everyone at today's lunch directly in the eye. I can't exactly blame her for that: Up until about two weeks ago, Till and I used to only exist to her in the posters on her wall. And here she is now, splitting sandwiches with us at a restaurant with prices higher than the cost of her old house. It's been very difficult for the Fanatix members to adjust from their initial state of starstruckââsignificantly more difficult than it was a few months ago with me.
"The paparazzi are at their nicest when you're new," Till continues, her fingers tapping rhythmic against the edge of the table. "But the moment they find one thing bad to say about you . . ."
She shakes her head to me, prompting me to pick up the torch. Norax advised us earlier to be very casual with the Fanatixââto include them in discussions that seem a little more personal than the things we put in our interviews for global magazines. The perils of dealing with paparazzi definitely falls under one of those topics.
I nod automatically, leaning toward Sarah. "You should hear some of the stuff they've said to Cartney and I on our walks."
"Really?"
"The worst things. Trying to disrupt the peace." I pause to shudder. "It's like they can't accept when we're doing all right."
"That sounds horrible."
"Really horrible," adds Lex.
Beside me, Cartney coughs. To my surprise, he plays right along. "If they get a rile out you, they'll get you remembered. But never in a good way. Keep that in mind when they're shouting insults as you walk by."
Beneath the table I give his foot another tap, lightly terse, and he meets my gaze. I watch as his face twitches in slight with every click from the paparazzi. What I wouldn't give for a spare moment of solitude to talk about whatever DEFED's threatening him with. For all I know, they could start threatening me next.
"You're gonna have to take a road trip just for our afternoon walks now," he informs me, perhaps reading the worry in my eyes. "You know, now that you guys are going uptown and leaving me in the city."
Something in his voice seems to scream to me that leaving him on his own like we're about to is the last thing he needs.
"You . . . you should come to the house," I offer. It comes out without any thought or considerationââI surprise myself as I say it.
His brow raises, along with everyone else's at the table. "Huh?"
I carry on in a ramble. "I mean, well, according to Norax there are going to be plenty of guest rooms. You could stay in one of those. We could go on a couple walks uptown instead of our usual course, you know?"
"You forget the fact that Kaytee and Race would sooner sleep on the pavement in rush hour traffic than under the same roof as me."
"Um . . ." Lex's soft voice peeps up into the conversation cautiously, like a child trying to tiptoe around sleeping parents.
Cartney nods. "Yes?"
"Uh, ourââ" She signals to Sarah. "Our manager Carstan showed us a bit of the floor plan for the new house. The guest rooms are on a different level than our rooms. So it's not like you'd be stepping over their feet in the hallways all the time or anything, if you do end up staying for a night."
"That's a wonderful observation, Lex," I say.
She blushes. I can't find even the smallest sign of proof that the accusatory Lex who interrogated me last week still exists. "Thank you."
I turn back to Cartney, giving his hand a squeeze. "What do you say? Stay with us for a day or two?"
He knows plainly that I'm requesting this of him so we can talk about his DEFED threat, but a part of me hopes he knows I'm also trying to be a considerate of his wellbeing. Keeping him in my sight instead of miles away downtown ensures that whatever's facing him isn't going to pounce without the Famoux around. I give his leg another kick, as if it says everything for me.
Cartney shrugs, but I faintly see a smirk on his cheeks. "I guess I'll have to buy a housewarming gift to bring with me, huh?"
After the check comes and is paid, the five of us brace the paparazzi on our way back to the car. I keep one hand on Cartney's and the other's on Lex, taking in the different shouts and screeches as we move by.
"Why are there moving trucks outside of your apartment?
"Any comments?"
"Till, are the rumors about you and Calsifer Race true?"
"How does he feel about you going to lunch with Cartney Kirk?"
"Cartney, why aren't you one of the new Famoux members?"
"Emeray, Tillââdoes it frustrate you that the Fanatix might end up replacing you? Any comment about that, ladies?"
"Sarah, Lex, look this way for meââ"
The voices become muted when the car door shuts. From one of the backseats, Sarah lets out an exasperated sigh to Till.
"Why'd you stay quiet?" she asks her. "Why didn't you just tell them that the rumors about you and Calsifer aren't true?"
"Too many people are asking too many questions," she says. "The one you heard might've been asking if it was true, but somebody else was asking if it wasn't. Simply saying no to an entire crowd can backfire if you're misquoted."
"Oh." She leans back in her chair. "I didn't think about that."
"It's all right. You're still learning."
Judging by the look on Lex's face beside me, it appears the Fanatix have much, much more to learn about the inner-workings of our lives. The cake-walk the public seems to picture isn't always as sweet as it presents is self.
A few blocks up, the car dips into the garage beneath the Metropolix. We retreat into an empty mudroomââthe hangers and drawers completely bare. Somebody must've boxed up their contents and shipped them off to the new house during our lunch. When we make our way into the kitchen, we find a similar scene.
"It's a little eery to see the place so empty," says Till.
I drag my finger along one of the countertops, half expecting to pick up dust. The place feels like it's been abandoned for years.
"Spooky," Cartney says, agreeing.
"It doesn't feel right," she continues. "It's like walking into a really creepy dream. This apartment is never meant to be so . . . empty."
Lex swallows hard. "I wonder what the bedrooms look like."
My heart jolts. My room. Bree's room. All of the books and the notes from DEFED I've kept stowed within them must be binned away right now in a truck. If the staff is reassembling the massive library we have in the Metropolixââmaybe even giving it a bigger room, I fear they're going to stow away my entire collection without noticing. It could take months for me to find the proper copies in the thousands our library already has.
After kissing Cartney goodbye and trekking up the stairs with Lex, I'm met with the disappointment I already felt coming: My room is completely empty minus the bed and a change of clothes for Lex and I in the closet. As for my book case and the rest of my belongingsââI didn't even get the chance to pack them myself.
"Hey, all the toiletries are still in here," Lex tells me, flicking on the yellow bathroom light. She looks over at me. "They're probably just gonna restock our bathrooms at the house with new stuff, right?"
"I'm guessing that."
She turns on the faucet, announcing to me that she'll be taking off her makeup. Every night she's spent here, Lex has taken it upon herself to give me a play by play of whatever she's doing, exactly when she's doing it. I suppose it to be a nervous habit of hers she must've done even before the Famoux, so it bothers me less than it probably could. I understand all too well how nerve-wracking being here can be.
As Lex prepares for bed, I decide to give her space and wander into the closet. Just like every other place in the Metropolix, this room is completely barren, with the exception of the clothes folded neatly on the ground.
Two pairs of pajamas and two outfits for tomorrow morning. Looking over the selections, I notice my Stones shirt is already packed away, and I can't help but wonder to myself what the staffers must've been thinking when they put it into a box. Just picturing the scene in my mind brings a grin.
The pajamas set out for me are black and satin. I've never seen them before until tonight. Picking up the shirt, I examine its onyx buttons, its soft collar. The interior fabric, I notice, has a hidden gold trim.
The thing that makes me freeze is the tag at the back of the neck. Printed on it directly I can make out the words Jack & Jill Designs. However, the tag is covered in nearly illegible pen scrawl.
Jack = Your Cartney.
Jill = You, my dear.
Game on.
My brow furrows. What does that mean?
I turn over the tag and find more printed words. If I didn't choose to squint my eyes and read them, I would've just assumed the words to be instructions on how the shirt should be washed. But instead of dry clean only, I find a nursery rhyme.
Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a glass of water
Jack fell down and broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.
A chill rockets down my spine. Lex is calling for me beyond the closet, asking if I know where the spare toothpaste is, but I can barely hear her. It feels like my ears have been filled with an entire ocean.
I let go of the tag. As it drops into its place my eyes catch two of the words before moving like lightening to the empty rows of hangers.
Game on.
xxx
Tell me your thoughts on that.
I sorta liked putting Emeray and Cartney into another lunch situation. It's so different from the lunch they have with Kaytee and Marlon in book one. Remember, chapter 21? Right before chapter 22 when we met Callan and figured out Chapter was actually, as the kids say, "daddy."
(I'm sorry, I hate me too, but I couldn't resist.)
(Also, I don't know why I keep going, "As the kids say" when I am, in fact, still basically a kid. My birthday's coming up soonââJuly 20. I'll be NINETEEN.)
Okay, that's about all for today. Please remember to ask Emeray your questions with the Google Doc on my profile. It'd be majorly embarrassing for the doc to get absolutely no questions. I'm trying to impress this magazine.
All right, love you. Stay strong through all the hurt and sadness going on in the world lately. I can't even put to words how crushed I feel seeing all these headlines and trending topics. All I want for this world is peace, however impossible it may be.
Remember: Sticks and Stones may break your bones, but haters make you famoux. Stay classy, stay classix.