The Truths Behind the Life of Maeve Sun Lively

74

THERE'S A PENTHOUSE UNDER MY name in Beijing, so I was thinking maybe Beijing over Shanghai. And because I have my eyes on this one school there." Klarise says to me over in bed. I was reading a book in my reading glasses while she had been on that laptop of hers, typing away loudly.

I put my book down, taking off my glasses. "Penthouse? Since when did you have a penthouse in Beijing?"

She types one last word and closes the laptop, so her attention is fully on me. "It's not exactly mine, more like my grandma's. She left it under my name before she died, and so since it wasn't under my parents', when they were arrested the government didn't take it away." My eyes must've been sort of wide, because she chuckled and added: "Okay, I was her favorite grandkid, alright?"

"Well then it's decided. Beijing it is, in a nice good penthouse."

I am picking up my book again, relaxing my head back into my pillow, when she says something else. "One downside though." She smiled cheekily but also nervously, scratching at her head unawarely. "It's...kind of, um, what do you say? Uhh, out of place? Okay, no one has taken care of it for maybe over fifty years."

"Fifty years?" I couldn't hide the shock in my voice.

She nodded gingerly. "Yeah, even though my grandma left it to me, she wasn't even living in it when she was alive. It was left to her maybe from my great-grandparents. So it might need some cleaning. Maybe more than that. Like, uh, maybe renovating because some things might be kinda too old to be in use."

I looked away from her, at the wall in front of me. There's a mirror there, reflecting my shelf of Oscar and other rewards I've won over the years. When my head has done its thinking, I look back at Klarise, this time less shocked and more grinning.

"You know what? That makes it even better."

From her apologetic face, she manages to smile along bit by bit. "It is?"

"Yeah, I mean, we get to remodel a place the way we want it. It'll be like, really really ours." I bring my hands up, making a weird house figure with my fingers, stacking them up on one top of the other. "I've actually never lived in a penthouse, did you know that? Not that it matters, but anyway, we could do so many things with that penthouse. It will be like our dream house. And then," I stop with the random house stacking with my fingers and grab ahold of her hand. "We will live in it together, for the rest of our lives. Happily ever after."

She looked at me, eyes wide and unmoving. Then a smile cracks up her face as she draws away her hand, turning off the lamp light on her side of the bed. "That last part was cheesy," she says, but I could sense that excitement in her that has now also been ignited in me.

"Fine, that last part was cheesy. But you get the idea, right?" She nodded, yawning and ready to go to sleep. "Here's the plan, after I sell this house of mine here, we will rent somewhere in Beijing when the penthouse is getting renovated. Mason and Cameron, since we already discussed this with them a few days ago with Jackson, we will find them a place close to the penthouse. Of course Jackson will be living with us, Mason can come over to visit if he and Jackson wanted to hangout. Jackson is already seventeen, his birthday celebrated with mine last month, and so after a year he'll be off to college and me and you can focus solemnly on ourselves and our career. Sounds nice?"

She was already tucked in cozily, blanket over her shoulder. She yawned once more. "Since when have you become a planner?"

"I've always been one, you just never saw this side of me." I packed up my reading glasses and book to set away, turning off my side of the lamp light.

"I'm seeing it now, and I want to say sexy but it's actually very ordinary."

I engulf myself with the blankets, digging my arms into her under the quilts. "I will take that as a compliment. If I don't love you the way I do, that sharp tongue of yours will be cut off someday."