CW: mentions of SA
"You came by personally to pick me up? I'm touched," I say overdramatically.
Sparky looks at me severely over his sunglasses. I don't even get why he's wearing them. He can close the windows of our private jet any time he wants. "We're going to Argentina."
My week in Iceland has ended. Now comes the boring part of vacation. "Great," I say. "Do we have strawberry daiquiris on board?"
Sparky gives me a withering glare. "Don't tell me you've picked up English drinking habits."
"I haven't! I was just thinking about how I've always wanted to try a strawberry daiquiri."
"Anyways," he continues, completely ignoring my request for a strawberry daiquiri, "good job making that connection with Rivera. We're meeting his family for a dinner. They obviously don't have time to leave Argentina because of state requirements, so we'll be going to them."
Sparky compliments me, but I know he's doing all the real work. My relationships with people are just little school friendships. He's probably done some real connection-wrangling to make friends with all my classmates' parents.
"Not for the rest of break, I hope."
"We're going to St. Barts after."
Fantastic. St. Barts is all white sand and blue water and superyachts. It'll be enjoyable at the very least. "Anyone we know there?"
"The Mnisis and Rochesters will be there. We're having dinner with them too, next week."
I roll my eyes. Ugh. Rochesters.
Sparky sees my expression. It seems like he's given up on forcing me to be civil with Jasper. "Just enjoy your break. Don't ruin it for yourself."
"Sure," I mumble.
The flight to Argentina is long and boring. I spend most of it idly watching movies that I've downloaded to my computer. There's nothing good; I really need to find some new ones to watch. Or maybe it's just because I'm uninterested. I can't seem to turn off my mind. I keep thinking about Iceland. The pictures in my camera roll that Jasper took. The questions. His answers.
He was lying. Something happened that night, and his reaction was only further confirmation. I didn't expect him to tell me, but I asked anyway just to get that reaction.
My only regret is that he pried so much information out of me during that exchange. I should've lied more. I don't think he's the type to leak all that, but then again, I don't know Jasper nearly as well as I thought I did. I still don't know what happened on that night either.
One way or another, I'll find out.
꧁꧂
Argentina is cold and dry. When we arrive in Buenos Aires, we spend the night at one of the more expensive hotels near the airport. I'm too jetlagged to do anything except scroll on social media and sleep in the next day. I have to heave myself out of bed by the evening though, because that's when we have our dinner with the presidential family.
A special chauffeur greets us at the door of the hotel. They drive us to a northern area of Buenos Aires, one that's near the sea. I can see a visible difference as we get nearer to our destination, the buildings becoming more and more suburban. When we finally arrive at a gate cutting straight into a brick wall, it opens to let us through.
Half of the compound is open to the public, but this part is utilised solely for residential purposes. We approach a white house. It's less imposing than I thought it would; it almost looks like a normal person's house. The chauffeur lets us out and we walk the rest of the way. As we get closer, I see two people on the porch.
One is Teddy, his brown hair slicked back neatly. He's dressed in a casual but formal outfit, with a loose blue button-up and slacks. The woman who stands next to him must be his mother. She wears an elegant white cocktail dress and her brown hair is styled in an impeccable bun.
"It's so good to meet you!" the woman greets. "I'm Isabela Rivera. I'm sure you've already met my son, Teodoro."
"Marco Bianchi," Sparky says, shaking her hand firmly. "Likewise with Valentina."
"My husband is just finishing up some work, but he'll be here soon. Let's take some tea in the living room."
She welcomes us in. Their house is plainly decorated with modern furnishings in stark tones of black, white, and blue. Some historical photos of La Quinta de Olivos hang on the wall, all in greyscale and kind of blurry. It's fantastically ugly, but I tell Mrs. Rivera that it's beautiful and she beams at me warmly. Mrs. Rivera and Sparky begin to talk over tea. Their tea is bad—even political power can't get you good tea sometimes—and their conversation is boring. I catch Teddy's eye, nodding subtly at the door in a question. You want to ditch?
He seems to catch my message. "Mamá," he whispers, "I'll take Valentina and show her around, if that's alright."
Mrs. Rivera waves her son off with a smile. She clearly dotes on him.
"How was Iceland?" Teddy asks as we start down the hallway, idly wandering.
"Great," I say, keeping my tone light. "I did something awful to my leg while hiking, but the geothermal spa we went to made up for it. And the food there was amazing. I think you need to experience Icelandic Christmas once in your lifetime. Have you ever been there?"
Teddy shakes his head ruefully. It's so easy to slip into thinking he's just a normal guy when he's like this. "No, too much work at home."
"Aw. That's sad to hear. I hope you get at least a little vacation time this break though. Are you going anywhere?"
"Stockholm. There's a conference there, so I'll be able to see some sights on the way. My older brother is there right now—he's gone early."
Ah, the infamous older brother Jasper told me about. I did some research on him at the hotel. I hope I never meet him. He has so much scandal surrounding him that some of it has even been leaked to the public. And that's saying a lot—most rich-people drama never gets leaked to the public. Not unless it's seriously criminal. There's a bit of a code of silence around all that.
"Well that'll be fun. You should do some ice skating while you're in the colder countries. Did you know, Jasper has never skated before?"
"I always made fun of him for it," Teddy laughed. "Did he fall on his face?"
"Multiple times," I confirm.
Teddy nods. We stop at a room. "This is the dining room," he says. I peek in, catching a glimpse of white tablecloth and a diamond chandelier.
He takes us downstairs to a basement area, which is definitely more modern than the rest of the house. "Movie room," he explains, pointing into a small home theatre. "We should watch something after dinner."
"Hm. You'll need to recommend some good Argentinian movies. My taste has been lacking lately."
Teddy smiles. "We can watch Nine Queens. It's my favourite."
"Nice. I've never watched it. Oh—by the way, can you get me on the Wifi?"
Teddy helps me set up the Wifi on my phone. I check Instagram to see what's going on. "Seung-jun just posted a picture of him in Korea," I say. Teddy looks over.
"I've never seen him in a suit before," Teddy says incredulously.
It's a picture of him in some sort of high-end restaurant. Most of the following pictures are clearly taken from beneath a tablecloth, because all they show are awful angles of Seung-jun's chin and various people's feet (not in a weird way; it's because they're all sitting at a table). The caption reads: going to jump off a cliff if i have to go to another dinner.
"Filial duty seems to be doing him good," I laugh. I pocket my phone.
"Seung-jun's a little wild at times," Teddy admits.
"He crashed into everyone while ice skating," I reminisce.
"Wow. That's ... not unexpected."
"Yeah. I think we were all recovering from the bruises still when we went to the geothermal spa thing. It was fun though. Cyra said that wasn't your thing."
He shakes his head. "No, it's not."
I watch him carefully. Prying into things is like poking a lion. You have to do it delicately, with care. You have to make the lion think you're on their side. "Yeah, I figured as much. She also told us about Nandika." I say it so casually that I can visibly see Teddy not process it for several seconds, before his shoulders hunch.
"Her?" he says disdainfully, artificially so. "What about her?"
"Halloween," I say, stuffing my hands awkwardly into my pockets as we continue down the hallway of his house. "You know. Don't worry about it though, Cyra explained."
She didn't explain anything, but Teddy relaxes a little at that. People like him always have an explanation. An excuse. "Oh, okay. That's good then. Out of context, it sounds a little ... well, you know how it sounds. But you get it, right?"
"Yeah. How'd that go down?"
The way I talk seems to put him at ease. "Nandika's ... she's not one of us. You know how it is."
"I do," I agree. "She lived in L.A., didn't she?"
"Yeah." He seems to be gaining confidence. "People like her ... they get a kick out of making a fool of themselves. She showed up in that stupid bunny costume and kept throwing herself at Jasper all night. It was pathetic. And ... well, not my proudest moment. I was bored."
Bored. I feel bile rising in my throat and I force it down. "She let you?"
He waves a hand. "She was drunk. Of course she let me. It was so easy I felt like I was talking to a prostitute."
"Hm," I say noncommittally, not betraying any emotion. "Did she say yes?"
"Well she didn't say no. Don't start on me—"
"I'm not, I'm not," I say, raising a calming hand. "Just curious."
"Well then, she didn't say yes. She didn't need to. It doesn't matter what people like her think anyways."
"Yeah."
There's an awkward silence. However blasé Teddy is about this whole thing, awkwardness is inevitable. He breaks it as we pass by a room with pleasant blue-and-white chequered tiles. "My mom insisted on this flooring for the bathroom. She and my dad fought about it endlessly," he says, with a small smile.
"Oh, perfect. Sorry—I do kind of need to go. Can I meet you back in the living room?"
Teddy nods, seeming glad to get away. I enter the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind me. The sink is stone; there's a Japanese toilet. It's all so mundane. There's apple-scented hand soap on the counter. I look in the mirror, fix my hair a bit, and exhale.
From within my pocket, I pull out the recording I'd started ever since Teddy helped me with the Wifi. Now that I'm alone, I allow myself a smile. Gotcha.
꧁꧂