The Year of the Great Seventh (23 page)

“This is going to be really expensive,” I managed.

“It’s okay, don’t worry. It’s on Shaun and Evelyn,” Nate said with some cynicism.

He dropped the bags next to the door, and then the awkwardness started. I realized that I’d only known Nate for a couple of months, and I wasn’t sure whether to bring up the one bed situation.

At this moment I was utterly confused. I wanted to know how it felt to be with someone as special as Nate. My first time had to be with him. There was no one else in the world I wanted more than him.

Was he going to think I was a kid if he discovered how nervous I was about sharing the bed with him? It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do it. It was just that I wasn’t sure what he exactly expected from me. At the same time, I knew I wasn’t ready just yet. I didn’t want to rush into this without giving it some thought.

Then Nate picked up his suitcase. “Let’s meet tomorrow in the lobby, say around 9:00 a.m.?”

“Where are you going?” The words flew out before I thought.

Nate looked at me, bewildered. “You didn’t think… we were going to spend the night…?”

“Of course not.” I quickly interrupted, my face turning scarlet.

Nate shook his head from side to side. He was holding the door open with the suitcase. “That’s what you think of me? You think that I would bring you to New York so I could spend the—”

“No, it’s okay.” The blood continued rushing to my face. I could feel the warmth around my ears. I didn’t know if Nate was making fun of me or not.

Now that I thought of it, Nate hadn’t even considered the option of staying in the same room with me. Maybe Nate didn’t have the same feelings for me. I hadn’t really weighed that possibility. We’d had a few intense moments, but he could easily have thought of me as just a friend. That hurt.

The disappointment on my face probably wasn’t that subtle. Nate walked over to the bed and sat at the edge.

“Hey, come here.” He tapped on the bed next to him.

I wasn’t really sure where this was going. The phrase “careful what you wish for” rapidly came to mind.

Nate hesitated for a moment as if he could tell how I felt.

“Let’s set things straight so there are no misunderstandings.” He spoke with the same comforting voice adults do when they’re about to break bad news.

I came and sat next to him, thinking this was when the New York trip was going to get eerie. How was I supposed to look him in the eye for the rest of the week after he told me this didn’t mean to him what it meant to me, or that exchanging a couple of kisses didn’t mean much more than friendship? That I had it all mixed up.

I wasn’t sure if I could deal with the cruel reality. What had I been thinking? Why would Nate fall for me when he could have anyone?

“Okay, I won’t lie to you. I won’t deny that it hasn’t crossed my mind. But I won’t take chances with you. You mean everything to me. I need to know what’s happening to me first. We know that has an effect on me,” he said, glancing at the bracelet, “but we don’t know why or how long it’s going to last.”

Then he looked out the window for a moment. “Sophie, I can’t do it. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hurt you.”

The silence stretched out between us.

Nate tugged my hand, looking for my response. “Please, Sophie. You need to understand.”

I ducked my head. He was right, but still, did that mean we would never be able to spend the night together?

Nate silently got up and grabbed his suitcase. “I’ll be just next door. See you in the morning.” He walked out of the door without meeting my gaze.

I didn’t know why, but I knew there was something else. I knew it wasn’t all about not hurting me. It was bittersweet. I knew he was just being protective, but there was a part of me that wanted him regardless of what could happen.

I lay down on the bed and watched the New York skyline. It was as if there were a panoramic photo glued to the windows. But there was no trick. The sparkling lights outside the windows were really New York City bowing at my feet.

I finally decided to unpack and have a shower. While getting my suitcase, I spotted the hotel brochure on top of the night table. Flipping through the pages, I saw photos of the hotel’s miraculous rooftop pool. It was right on the sixtieth floor. Then on the last page, I saw a chart with the prices.

An immense sense of guilt invaded my body when I saw that Nate—or his parents—was dropping a staggering thirty-two hundred dollars per night—
each
room.

Nate’s parents were going to kill me as well as him.

I turned my suitcase upside down and dropped all my stuff on top of the sofa. I shuffled through the pile of clothes and managed to locate my pajamas. Well, it was just a pair of boy shorts with a banner along the butt that said “Love Late Night Parties” and a red T-shirt.

After tying my long hair into a ponytail, I went to the bathroom and undressed. The shower reminded me of a Swedish sauna, even though I’d never been to Sweden or seen a sauna before.

There was a control panel fit for a spaceship inside the shower. I flicked the largest switch, expecting to make the water run, but instead, Frank Sinatra began to scream his lungs out through the suite’s sound system.

The music was so loud it resonated inside the room. I pressed the same button over and over again, but Frank didn’t feel like stopping. There was a turn-style switch that wasn’t likely to silence Frank, but at least seemed to be the one to make water run. I turned it around and instead, the main lights went off and the dimmed lamps came on.

I randomly pressed the panel buttons, trying to get the main lights back on, but I’d managed to turn on the living room TV and a small one placed next to the sink. Now it was a competition between Frank Sinatra and CNN. Magically, the Swedish sauna-looking shower was steaming from the sides.

Putting on a bathrobe, I trailed around the bathroom without knowing what to do until I spotted a red button to the left side of the shower. That had to be it. Red buttons were always the “switch it all off” emergency buttons. I climbed inside the shower with the bathrobe on and pressed the button. Then a stream of water with the force of Niagara Falls fell on top of me, soaking me and the bathrobe at the tempo of Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.”

I ran into the bedroom, groaning, to find Nate standing next to the door.

“What are you doing?” A faint smile spread across his lips. “The door was unlocked, by the way.”

This was terrible. My bathrobe was soaked, my hair was stuck to my face, and the clothes from my suitcase were scattered on the sofa. Nate surely was thinking I didn’t belong here—and he was right.

I didn’t know how to use smart panels that controlled appliances. I’d never stayed in a fancy hotel like this and probably never would again. The last notes of Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” came to an end.

“Someone called from reception complaining about the noise. I thought you were having a party here and you hadn’t invited me.” Nate joked, trying really hard not to break into a laugh.

Nate reached to a control panel next to the door that looked exactly like the one in the shower. He pressed the touchscreen, and at once, everything switched off and the normal lights went back on.

“Please, stop it. This is too cutting edge for me. I couldn’t find the dammed switch to make the shower water run.”

This wasn’t fair. Nate looked as stunning as always. That really short haircut accentuated his bad-boy smile. It was just cruel to have him in front of me, knowing he’d never be totally mine. His bare torso was unveiled through his unbuttoned shirt. I just wanted to scream. He had to stop doing that. He had to stop taking control over me.

A puddle of water had formed under my feet. I stood there with my arms crossed over my drenched bathrobe and my hair plastered to my scalp, waiting for Nate to make another joke.

“It’s okay. Don’t worry. It took me a while to learn how to use the smart panels at home. If you press the top right corner of the screen, you’ll see the names on the buttons,” Nate explained, trying to make it sound as if you didn’t need a PhD to maneuver those panels.

Nate’s cell phone rang. He reached into his pocket and sighed while checking the caller ID.

“I have to take this,” he said, shrugging at me.

“Preston, can you hold on for a minute?” Nate whispered.

Nate moved the phone away from his ear. “We’ll talk in the morning. Oh… one last thing.”

“Yes?”

“Make sure you always lock the door at night, and the most important thing, do not let anyone in.” A light crease appeared in Nate’s forehead. “Anyone.”

“What? But…” I was unable to stop the words from tumbling out.

“You’re going to have to simply trust me on this one,” Nate said, moving the phone back to his ear and closing the door behind him. “See you in the morning.”

Once I locked the door, I heard Nate stepping down the corridor. He’d been waiting outside to check that I locked the door as he instructed.

After finally managing to have a shower, I put on my old T-shirt and shorts and lay on the bed with my laptop. I logged into my email and the first five were from Dad.

Don’t worry about Mom. She’s not as upset as I expected. Please call or email ASAP. We’re worried.

I quickly typed an email, telling them I was okay and explaining how sorry I was to have acted behind their backs and that I was planning to be on my best behavior for the rest of the year. Dad especially must’ve been panicking as I’d promised to call him as soon as I landed in New York.

There was another one from Megan.

How’s the NYU tour going? Can’t wait to hear from you!

Megan was about the sweetest, most down-to-earth person I’d ever met. If I remember correctly, she’d been to New York many times, doing press for her movies, and she’d never made a big deal out of it. Now that she knew I was here, she was trying to make me feel like this was the most exciting adventure that could ever happen to anyone. She had all the reasons to act like a celebrity, but all she wanted was to be normal.

I really didn’t deserve a friend like Megan, even less so when I hadn’t told her the truth about what I was really doing here.
Operation Calypso
was doing fabulously at the box office, and the movie producers had decided to extend the promotional tour to Asia and Europe. Megan jetted off to Japan the day after the L.A. premiere. She was going to be in nine countries in the next three weeks. That’s what I call a packed schedule.

It was just ironic. Megan was trotting the globe from red carpet to red carpet, but she seemed to be more interested in some trivial university tour than her celebrity life. Megan had confessed that she wanted to take a break from acting to go to college, but her agent told her that vanishing from the industry for four years would be committing career suicide. She kept saying she was still planning to go to college even if she had to put it off for a couple of years. Sadly, we both knew if her career continued escalating at this speed, college was never going to happen.

With Emma, it was a different story. Since I’d known her, she’d been clear about not having any interest in college. She always said, after having been out there in the real world, school felt like going back to the playground. Emma wasn’t as successful as Megan, but she knew she could make a decent living out of acting.

I scrolled down through my other emails, and I spotted an old one from Dad with the subject “Your school project” that I had previously missed.

I quickly opened the email.

Sophie, I found from where the prophecy that you were studying originated. Surprisingly, the prophecy from the papyrus was a copy of the engraving that appeared on top of the main entrance of the Caesareum—a temple that Cleopatra built for Mark Antony in Alexandria. Next to the entrance there were two obelisks known as Cleopatra’s needles. One of them happens to be in NYC. Maybe you have time to go take a look at it.

The symbols were exactly like the ones in the papyrus, and the translation was totally accurate:

“Ammateus, marked by the legend of Orion, will suffocate with his own hands the life that guides him. Then he will bring the sons of Satan back from death, marking the end of it all.

Only the divine stone found where heaven meets earth will save her. The salvation to both lies beneath.”

Hope this is of any help for your school project.

Love,

Dad

How could I have missed this? I knew that the divine stone must refer to Syenite, and Cleopatra was obsessed with these two obelisks made from Syenite, but I hadn’t realized that the prophecy had been engraved at the entrance of the Caesareum. It was as if Cleopatra had tried to leave a hidden message on the obelisks. If she’d gone through the trouble of moving those two Obelisks from Heliopolis to Alexandria and writing this message next to them, it must’ve been for a reason. The prophecy had stood carved in stone alongside Cleopatra’s needles for almost a thousand years.

We’d been on the right track after all. The obelisks seemed to be the answer. Now that I read it again, all the pieces fit perfectly.
Ammateus
, the word Nate repeated each time he’d gone into a trance. The legend of Orion was the constellation-shaped freckles on his back. The divine stone was the Syenite. There was no more doubt; the text referred to him.

CHAPTER XIII