Kiara stretched her back and held it in an arched position as she sat on her bed until she felt something go pop in her back. Relaxing her muscles, she turned on the TV that was mounted on the wall. Clicking on YouTube, she played her happy playlist before quickly grabbing her headphones, linking it via Bluetooth to the TV. As the songs started, she felt a smile pull at her lips and she started nodding and mouthing the lyrics. Her gaze fell on her knuckles again, and her smile faltered.
It was another day of bad posture with Mrs. Jones and the reprimand was clearly imprinted on her knuckles. She was lucky that her mum was at a ladies' tea party, or as the other Pakistani ladies called it, Kitty Party. Kiara was sure that had her mum been home, her hands would have been bruised purple rather than just pink.
Looking at the clock, she saw that it was only 6.00pm. She had another half an hour before Emre was to get there. She had texted both her parents informing them that he was coming to work on a project and probably staying for dinner. She got a call instantaneously from Moussa, telling her; brooking no argument, that they will be doing their project in the piano room, the door wide open with Maria their daily housekeeper sitting outside to keep an eye on them. Kiara almost laughed at her father's tone and the fact that he was panicking over a boy coming over to the house, but she knew better.
As the beat of the drums swelled in her ears, Kiara bounced herself off the bed with a little chuckle and did a little spin. Eyes glued to the TV, she followed the steps done by the actors and dancers nimbly with a smile on her face. Pushing her round glasses up, without even realising it Kiara started acting out the video clips that were playing on her TV; she acted coy when the actress did so, she fluttered her lashes as well as pretended to be mad with a lover. She had soon started singing along to the songs, her voice ringing in the otherwise silent house as she lost herself to the magic of Bollywood.
Emrey shifted uneasily at the front door of the Moussa residence. He knew Kiara's family was rich, but at that moment he realised he wasn't aware how rich exactly. He looked at his watch, a six-year-old Fossil square watch with a white face and thick, worn brown leather straps. It was five minutes to 6.30pm, the time he had agreed to meet with Kiara for their project. He took a deep breath and reached to knock the dark blue front door before noticing the bell that was installed on the brown stoned wall.
He pressed the bell twice and adjusted his backpack on his shoulders as he waited for the door to open. He heard the locks clicking open and smiled brightly, only to be disappointed to be coming face to face with a middle-aged Hispanic-looking woman.
"Hi, I'm Emre. I'm Kiara's schoolmate," he said, quickly pasting a smile on his lips.
"Hey Emre, come on in. I'm Maria, the family's housekeeper," Maria said kindly as she ushered Emre in. "Now, please take off your shoes and place it right there," she pointed to an open shoe rack. "Mrs. Moussa really hates it when people track their outside shoes in."
Silently Emre toed his worn red Vans off and quietly picked it up and placed it on the shoe rack. He was presented with a pair of hotel-esque white slippers and he took it from Maria and slipped it on. He noticed that Maria too was wearing a pair of indoor slippers.
Shifting uncomfortably, Emre stood up as he followed Maria through the hallway and into the house. He couldn't help but be overwhelmed by the luxury that seemed to blanket every inch of the house. It wasn't a blatant show of wealth, no it was tastefully done. Warm beige walls, dark leather, fluffy carpets, lightly scented candles, fresh flower arrangements; he finally understood Max's comment from lunch earlier.
He stopped at the stairs, waiting for Maria's instructions as she paused to answer her phone that was ringing, afraid of touching anything - when he heard singing. "Is that Kiara, singing?" he asked with a small smile as he looked up the stairs.
"Yes, that's Kiki alright," Maria smiled affectionately. "I'll go get her," she said as she made a move up the stairs.
"Do you...do you think maybe...I...could go?" Emre asked hesitantly, Maria paused hand on the bannister as she studied Emre. Emre didn't know why, but she nodded slowly.
"It's the first door on the left, first floor. Now, Mr. Moussa said that the two of you are not to be left alone. So, I'm giving you five minutes, before I come up. Clear?" Maria asked, needing to know Emre understood it unmistakably.
Emre swallowed heavily, "Crystal." He walked up slowly past Maria, his head still spinning at the luxury that seemed to surround him.
As he walked up, the singing was louder and clearer. And Kiara very much sounded like she was out of breath. What the hell is she doing?, he thought chuckling to himself.
He knocked and waited but there was no answer as Kiara continued her singing. He knocked louder this time, but it still was as though she hadn't heard him. Shifting his backpack, he slowly turned the doorknob and sucked in a deep breath. Kiara, with her headphones on, was flushed pink as she danced her heart out in her room. He couldn't stop the smile that overtook his face. Who would have thought that the chirpy, perpetually happy girl could dance like a Bollywood starlet? It was full of expression as she executed each move flawlessly.
As he followed her movement with his eyes, he saw that she had the TV on and was following the moves of a videoclip or something. Crinkling his nose as he chuckled lowly, he quickly made a grab for his phone that was tucked in his jeans pocket. Pulling it out, he clicked on the camera app and recorded as Kiara continued to dance and sing to herself. He also caught the exact moment of her shrieking when she saw him leaning at her doorway with his phone up.
Ripping off her headphones, she stared at him with wide eyes, her glasses knocked askew. She looked between him and his phone as though she was trying to make a decision on what to do next. Emre was taken aback when he saw Kiara suddenly make a running start towards him and backed out of the room hastily.
"You are going to delete whatever you just recorded," she all but screamed into his ear as Emre lifted his hand up so that she couldn't reach it. Kiara grabbed on his arm and tried to reach it, jumping up and down trying to grab the phone, as she pushed her glasses back up her nose.
"What is going on over here?" Maria asked, eyes wide with shock.
Kiara spun around, her face red from all the exertion as well as embarrassment. "Maria!! Why didn't you tell me that Emre has already arrived!" she screeched, breathless. "He took a video of me dancing and I am pretty sure it's going to up on TikTok! Or have you posted it already?!" she said as she glared at Emre.
"What's TikTok?" Maria asked confused. "Is it something like Instagram?"
"Yeah, something like that," Emre answered with a big smile. He rubbed his arm, when Kiara had unexpectedly punched him.
"Kiara!" Maria exclaimed.
"I will make sure you fail the History project if you post my video on TikTok!" Kiara threatened, her face still red, chest heaving. "On any social media, and I will make you fail!"
Putting his hands up in surrender, Emre nodded. "I promise, no posting your video anywhere without your consent," he said chuckling at her indignant face.
"Promise?" she asked again, somewhat mollified her hands crossed in front of her chest.
"Promise," he said, as he smiled down at her indulgently.
"Ahem," Maria cleared her throat rather loudly and bit her cheek when she saw Kiara jump slightly turning to face her. "Maybe you two want to gather your things and get started with the project, you know before your mother gets home from her Kitty Party?" Maria said pointedly to Kiara.
Taking a few steps backwards, Kiara nodded as she breathed deeply. "Just give me a minute," she said offhandedly to no one in particular.
Emre's eyes followed her as Kiara almost stalked into her room. He finally noticed that she had changed out of her school clothes. Her feet in one of those fluffy, novelty slippers, she had on a pair of light pink sweatpants, and a white long-sleeved t-shirt. Her long black hair bounced behind her as she walked away.
He looked at Maria, as though silently asking for permission if he could follow Kiara into the room and she nodded hesitantly, but not leaving her post at the top of her stairs.
"You really like pink and white, huh...," Emre said as he surveyed her room. There was a Queen sized four poster-bed in the middle of the room, dressed in what looked to be silky white sheets with a thick knitted white blanket draped artfully across it, with fluffy pillows. The walls were wallpapered with large white and pink flowers, the colours so soft nothing like the garish pink that covered his sisters bedrooms.
All the other furniture in her room was white with accents of soft pastel pinks. He walked over to her vanity and saw a small jewellery box on the table. He reached out to look at it, when Kiara walked up behind him.
She looked at him with a raised brow in the mirror, silently asking What are you doing?
"I've never seen you wear any jewellery," he said swallowing nervously, feeling like a creep.
"Ah, it's a piano player thing. Dangly earrings, rings, bracelets; all are a big no no," she said with a sigh.
He nodded towards the neatly arranged Chanel nail polish bottles, from nudes to bright neons. "Don't ever remember you wearing those as well," he said wincing, giving away how much he actually noticed Kiara.
Kiara couldn't help the blush that climbed her cheeks, clearing her throat, "Another piano player thing, we need to keep the nails short and natural. It's a pledge of allegiance," she tried to joke. "Those usually go on my feet," she bounced on her toes.
Emre scratched the back of his head, not realising the small things that Kiara had to do to be taken seriously as a professional pianist. "Let's get to work," he said clearing his throat again.
"Let's go," Kiara said, as she spun to pick up her books that laid on her bed and walked out the door with a bounce in her step. Emre silently followed her back downstairs and walking through another hallway, she led him into what she told him was the Piano Room. Aptly named because there was a baby grand piano off the centre of the room. Emre did a slow twirl, the room had floor to ceiling bookshelves, two comfortable looking dark green couches, and a large dark wooden coffee table, complete with think plush carpet under his feet. He watched as Kiara plopped her laptop, phone, history book, notebook, stationary on the coffee table without giving second thought to all that she was surrounded in as she sank to the floor.
He slowly sat down on the floor wordlessly as Kiara powered up her sleek rose gold Macbook Air as she rifled through her notebook for the notes she had made in class.
"Why do you go to our school?" Emre asked her quietly. His eyes trained on the fraying bits of his watch, scrutinising as his fingers pull at it.
"What do you mean?" he heard her ask distractedly.
"I mean, you are crazy rich...," he trailed his hands gesturing to everything around him. "You could go to a school nearer to your place. Or even a private school."
"My dad's rich not me," she said, taking a deep breath when she saw him give her a pointed stare. "Well, it's true," she said vehemently.
"We weren't really always this rich," she huffed knowing he genuinely wanted to know why. "I think around the time that I was maybe about nine or ten that Baba's business really took off. And by the time this came about," she mirrored Emre's actions, "I didn't want to change schools."
"But why?" he pressed.
"Well, I didn't want to leave the friends that I had already made," she said not looking up at him as she started to type something into Google, avoiding his eyes.
She watched as Emre ran his hand through his hair again from the corner of her eye, "Does it make you nervous being here?" she asked quietly.
"A little bit, yeah," he chuckled. "But whatever...let's get on with this project. What's my first lesson, Ms. Kiara?" Emre asked, his pale green eyes glittering with mischief as he looked at Kiara.