Air the exact perfect temperature washes over my damp skin, bathing me in a cool breeze. Priceless antiquities surround me in the form of statues, artwork and heavy antique furniture. The marble floors glisten mutely in the sunlight and are covered with woven rugs. Beautiful vases adorn ornate tabletops and even the ceiling is gilded in what appears to be gold. Glittering chandeliers hang overhead and crystal doorknobs adorn the doors. Everything is beautiful, but so perfectly in place that it seems almost sterile. I feel like I should whisper from the reverence of it all.
“Your home is beautiful,” I tell Dante politely and in a hushed voice. He grins.
“It is, isn’t it?” he answers. “But it’s not really my home. My family home is on the outskirts of Valese. Valese is the capital of Caberra, by the way, and we are in the very heart of it right now. My home is in the Giliberti olive groves, where it is beautiful and peaceful at all times. That sounds stupid, right?” He gestures around us. “But I always feel like I am in a museum here. It’s too uptight.”
It does feel as though I have stepped directly into the National Museum of History. I’m not surprised to find that some of these things, probably priceless relics, had actually been cordoned off with red velvet ropes.
“Well, at least there are no creepy suits of armor standing around,” I tell him wryly.
And no lie, just as the words are out of my mouth, we round a corner and there stands a small suit of armor.
No. Lie.
And it is, in fact, creepy with its empty blank holes for eyes and dangling arms and legs.
“You were saying?” Dante asks, with a raised eyebrow.
“Um. Yes. You do seem to live in a home straight out of an old Scooby Doo episode,” I laugh.
He chuckles as I step closer to look at the tiny suit of armor. It seems to be bronze and it is no more than five feet tall.
“It’s so small! Were your ancestors dwarves?”
Dante’s eyes twinkle.
“No. Caberra used to have armies made from children so that our strapping adult men didn’t die in battle.” As my mouth drops open in horror, he laughs, a rich sound that sends goose bumps erupting down my arms.
“I’m kidding,” he assures me. “People used to be much smaller hundreds of years ago,” he explains. “Surely it was the same in the United States. People were simply littler. By way of evolution, we have grown bigger and bigger.”
“How big are you?” I ask, sizing him up as I spoke.
“That’s kind of personal, isn’t it?” he answers impishly. My cheeks catch fire as I realize his implication.
“I’m sorry,” he apologizes quickly. “That wasn’t polite or appropriate. I hope I didn’t offend you.”
“Not at all,” I assure him. “I grew up in a rural town full of cowboys and farm animals. Trust me, I seldom get offended.”
“But still,” Dante continues. “I’m sorry. It came out before I had thought about it. I’m 6’3”, to answer your question. How tall are you?”
“I’m 5’8”,” I answer. “Tall for a chick, I know.”
“Yeah, but you were supposed to be a boy, so I would totally expect that out of you,” he replies, his eyes sparkling again. I really like it. It is just so ornery, like he always knows an entertaining secret.
“Yeah, yeah,” I answer with a sigh. “Keep it up, smarty.”
He laughs as we step onto yet another landing and then start climbing our third flight of stairs.
There are So. Many. Stairs.
“Yikes, how many floors are in this building?” I’m practically panting.
“I know,” he sighs. “It’s too big to be a real home, right? There are three stories sprawled over two city blocks. First story is government offices, parliament, etc. Second story has the ball rooms and museums. And the third story is the personal living quarters of the Prime Minister. And me.”
“There’s actually a museum in your house?” I ask, trying not to laugh, although secretly I’m impressed.
He shakes his head. “Yeah, yeah. Keep it up, smarty.”
I go ahead and laugh, at his embarrassment, at the way he threw my words back at me, at his cute dimple, at the absurdity of the situation. I shouldn’t be standing in a Scooby Doo episode because I’m supposed to be in London having an uncomfortable dinner with my father right now.
That last thought is actually sobering.
Dad is probably having a steak so rare that there is blood in the plate and a finger of Pimm’s, which is just a weird way of saying that the liquor is poured to the height of a finger held against the glass.
If I were there, he’d be trying to talk to me about baseball, horseracing and any other imaginable male topic of conversation and I would be attempting to act interested. But I’m not there. I’m here, standing in a beautiful old palace in the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen with the most beautiful boy I’ve ever laid eyes upon.
But all good and beautiful things must come to an end. I turn to Dante with a sigh.
“Do you have a phone…a landline? I really have to call my dad.”
And if I’m really, really lucky, Alexander Ellis, NSA Agent Extraordinaire, won’t kill me dead right on the spot.
Dante shows me to a phone and I settle into an ornate carved chair. I don’t want to speculate on how antique and expensive it might be. My father answers on the first ring, a bad sign, but he isn’t angry at all. I am pleasantly surprised when the conversation doesn’t go badly at all.
In fact, he seems in awe of the fact that I am staying in the Prime Minister of Caberra’s palace.
“Tell me again how you met this boy,” he instructs me in his London accent.
Interesting fact: My dad doesn’t actually have a London accent. He was born and raised in America. He says he’s acquired it from living abroad for so long. Um, I haven’t picked it up after spending every summer in London since I was small, so I know that he really just wants to seem sophisticated. But I’ve never called him out on it and I’m not going to start now.
Instead, I answer his question and he tells me that he’s already up to speed on everything because Dante’s father had personally called him and explained the situation. Since my father can’t exactly be angry with the Prime Minister of a country, he seems perfectly okay with me being here.