Inferno (Page 10)

‘Dammit, Gracewell.’ She yanked the back of my T-shirt and dragged me away from the window. ‘Listen very carefully to what I’m about to say.’

‘Can you just humour me and take a look—’

‘Persephone Elizabeth Gracewell, listen to me.’

‘All right,’ I said, refocusing. ‘I’m listening.’

She inhaled a giant breath and did a slow-blink. ‘OK. Have you ever met my mum’s friend, Emily?’

‘The millionaire from London?’

‘She married a millionaire,’ Millie corrected. ‘She’s from the same estate as my mum.’

I tried to act like the distinction mattered to me. ‘OK, what does she have to do with anything?’

‘Trust me,’ Millie said, moving close enough so I could count her freckles. ‘Emily has everything to do with this.’

‘I’m listening.’

‘So the first thing you need to know is that Emily is a total bitch. And these days she has way more money than sense.’

‘You better not be about to compare me to Emily,’ I interjected.

‘No, I just don’t want you to feel sorry for her.’

‘It already seems a little one-sided.’

‘Some people are just assholes, OK?’ Millie said. ‘Like, one time Emily tried to get with my dad at a party, in front of my mum, who’s supposed to be her friend. The last time she came to visit us, she hit on Alex. Major no-no. Do you see what I mean?’

‘Um, I suppose,’ I reasoned. ‘But in a wider context? No. Not at all.’

‘So, Emily went on this cruise a couple of years ago,’ she continued. ‘She likes to flaunt how mega-rich she is now – if there was a cruise ship made of gold, she’d be on it. Anyway, at one point on the cruise, which I can only imagine was all kinds of boring, she got to go out and see the dolphins close up. There was a group of them on this little speedboat and they were riding along and the dolphins got so excited they started chasing the boat. After a while, they came level with the boat and were jumping out of the water at the same speed. Emily was loving it, snapping photos and flooding her Instagram while she stood as close to the side as she could. All her captions were like “OMG best day ever”, “Ahh, this one is definitely smiling at me. I think he fancies me!” and “Free Willy LOL”, which is annoying because Willy was a freaking orca and you know I hate when old people overuse text abbreviations.’

Millie paused to assess my reaction.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘So … this is all still very vague …’

‘Well, you won’t believe what happened next,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘One of the dolphins overshot the mark. He jumped out of the water and ended up headbutting her in the face. He knocked her clean out.’

‘What?’

Millie’s eyes went impossibly large. ‘Yeah.’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘That is really not how I saw that ending.’

‘So,’ she said, stepping back from me and lacing her fingers in front of her. ‘What are your thoughts?’

‘Was the dolphin OK?’

‘Yeah, he went right back on swimming.’ She grinned, before adding, ‘She had to get a second nose job, though.’

‘Right,’ I said, still trying to figure out the point of the story. I never was that good with metaphors in English class, but this one seemed particularly obscure. ‘And the reason you told me this story is because …’

‘Because, Soph, life is unpredictable. One minute you’re sipping champagne on a boat deck and laughing about how rich you are and the next minute you’re getting hit in the face by a dolphin. Shit happens, OK? No matter where you are or what you’re doing, you are still susceptible to the uncertainty of life. You can’t just roll yourself up in bubble wrap and close off the rest of the world. My point is that you need to get off your ass and come back outside before we lose the tail end of this summer and get sucked into the oblivion that is senior year.’

‘Well,’ I said, feeling very much like I had just had my ass handed to me. ‘I can’t really argue with that.’

‘No you cannot. The Dolphin Philosophy always prevails.’ She raised her palm in the air. ‘Now let’s get you back to normal, OK? Up top.’

I high-fived her and she grabbed my wrist. ‘Hey, where did this bandage come from? Did you cut yourself?’

Oh, yeah. That. ‘Accidentally …’ I hedged. ‘I sort of fell asleep with Luca’s switchblade in my hand.’

‘As you do,’ she deadpanned, moving her suspicious gaze from my hand to my face. ‘You really need to get rid of that.’

‘I will,’ I lied. The thought of relinquishing it brought an uncomfortable twinge to the base of my spine. It was in my pocket even then, resting heavy and sure against my thigh. I liked it. I needed it.

‘The sooner we get you out of this house the better. Tomorrow night, OK? How does bowling sound?’

‘Like fresh hell.’ I withdrew my hand and pulled the sleeve of my shirt over it. ‘I’d rather take a dolphin to the face.’

‘You should be so lucky,’ she retorted. ‘The movies, then?’

‘Only if we can watch that one with the robot who falls in love with the human who made him.’

‘Sophie,’ she whined. ‘You know I can’t relate to non-human love stories. That’s why The Princess and the Frog was so problematic for me. They spend way too much time as frogs.’