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“Grandpa.” I crossed my arms and waited.
“Shouldn’t you be more worried about me? Like helping me to bed or something?”
“You said the moment I helped you to bed would be the last time you ever got out of bed. Which, now that I think about it, is a horrible thing to say to a ten-year-old.”
“Noted.” He nodded as he tried to walk around me again.
“Grandpa, seriously!” I frowned trying to give him my puppy dog eyes while pouting. But he pushed my head back with his index finger.
“That look has no effect when you try so hard. Move it.” His voice much more serious now and so I moved but I didn’t give up.
“Grandpa, you know why I love Malachi Lord’s books?” I asked him and he stopped mid-step to hear me out. I’d never given an explanation before and he’d never asked. “I love them because the pain he puts his characters through allows me to live optimistically. Mom abandoned me before I was even a week old and my father is dead. I continually feel like I’m failing to live up to some obscure greatness, and just as everything is bubbling to the top, just as I start to panic and want to hide away in my room forever, Malachi Lord releases a new book. I read it and reread it, sobbing over the pages, and you know I’m a crybaby, I cry at the most random things, but I never sob, never really weep, until I read his books. Afterward, I take a deep breath and smile, because I get to live on even though the characters died. What am I going to do in the future if Malachi Lord stops writing? Oh, the horror!” I added the last bit as I placed the back of my hand over my forehead and tilted my head upwards like the women in those old Hollywood movies did.
When he didn’t say anything I had to look back at him. He was staring at me with those old brown eyes of his. “Put your hand down.”
I did so immediately and when I did he flicked my forehead.
“Ouch!” I flinched moving back. “Grandpa!’
“Esther.” He mocked me even rocking his head. “What are you going to do in the future if Malachi Lord stops writing? I ought to kick you in the rear. What kind of question is that? You will live like the seven billion other people on this planet and you will be the bringer of your own happiness and optimism. Not a book. Not a man. But you.”
My mouth dropped open in shock. “Wait, why am I being lectured? Plus you’re the one who told me to be passionate about the arts.”
“The arts. Plural. Not a single author or book. This is how I know you’re not ready to take over the publishing house. You’d probably turn it into the Malachi Lord foundation. Huh!” He huffed eyeing me up and down before heading up the stairs.
I stood there dumbfounded for a second. Not a single question I’d wanted to ask was answered and worst of all... I got lectured, and the evil eye too, as if I’d done something wrong. My shock shifted to amazement and my amazement to amusement. Nodding to myself, I clapped my hands together and then turned to the stairs.
“One of these days, Grandpa I’m going to…to…to figure whatever it is that you do to make me forget all my questions!” I hollered up at him.
“Good luck!” He yelled back and he laughed so hard he started to cough. But before I could ask if he was alright he shouted, “I’m fine. You gotta be quicker than that.”
“You gotta be quicker than that.” I mocked under my breath making a face at his now closed door.
“I heard that!”
“No way,” I whispered backing up and tiptoeing back to my room. Why was I tiptoeing? God, I was so lame! I could legally drink, get married, and go to war in every country in the world and yet I still felt like a kid playing grown up. With a sigh, I headed back towards my room behind the stairs. I dragged my feet across the bright red Persian rug and crawled into my futon-styled bed opposite the massive windows that overlooked the city.
“Ahhh,” I moaned happily wiggling under the sheets. The downstairs bedroom was meant to be the master bedroom. However, when I was four, I’d always came down to sleep in my grandpa’s room…not on his bed but on my pillow by the window. Every time I was high up on a bed I ended up falling off. When I was ten, a certified big kid, my grandpa gave me his room. And now I could look out at the city lights which looked like stars once I got really sleepy.
Like now… I could feel my eyelids getting heavier when all of sudden the sound of Beethoven’s Für Elise began to play softly. I listened, feeling as if the bed and I were spinning, drifting, floating, and just as it was getting good it stopped and it felt as if I were being abruptly pulled out of the sky by my ankles and back to the ground. Sitting up, I picked up my phone from the wood frame of the bed that was just thick enough to hold my laptop and phone. Looking at the screen I saw that I had not only missed Li-Mei’s call but also her text…
“Are you up?”
“No…because no one but doctors, 911 operators, and cops should be up at this hour. Goodnight,” I replied and no sooner had I leaned back did Beethoven’s Bagatelle start to play again. Groaning I kicked my feet out as I answered.
“You better be dying,” I said into the phone.
“I think I’m in love,” she said, speaking in Mandarin, not English.
“With whom?” I sat up, the idea of sleep was now erased from my mind.
“Guess?”
“I suck at this game just tell me.” I was excited now.
“Fine. But only because I’m excited.” She paused.
“Well?”
