Chapter 10 – Percy
Percy catches her peeking at him through the curtain. She smiles, lets the curtain fall back into place and then opens the door to him.
He says, "Hi, Callie."
Callie probably says, "Hi, Percy."
Except he is not paying attention to what she says. He's too blown away by how she looks.
Callie is wearing a light grey, short-sleeve wrap dress. The dress drapes over and clings to every well-defined inch of her body, from its low neckline to the hem that hits just above the knee. It's a simple dress, but on Callie, it looks anything but simple. To put it mildly, she looks incredible!
On her feet are high-heel black boots. On her ears are beautiful earrings of brown and yellow that peek out from under her caramel hair and pick up the color of her bright almond eyes.
And her smile, Callie's smile, is so warm and wide, Percy could just reach out and -
"Maid's night off," Callie says, breaking into Percy's thoughts.
He laughs at her joke. However, the moment he sets foot insider her door and finds himself standing in her perfectly appointed, turn-of-the-century foyer, he realizes she probably is not joking. She shows him down the hallway, past the richly furnished living room and into an oak-and-leather recreation room that she calls the den.
Callie tells him she's sorry her parents are not here for him to meet, but, she explains, they've driven to Vermont for the weekend.
Instantly, Percy finds himself wondering if he and Callie have the house to themselves. And he wonders, if they do have the house to themselves, how long do they have it for? But then he laughs at himself for what he's thinking and for the fact of how readily he's forgotten that Callie is "taken," that she's Jack Hamilton's girl.
"What's so funny?" Callie asks him.
"I've forgotten," says Percy.
Callie looks at him like he's a little strange, which he probably is. She's dropped into an oversize leather chair and stretched those long legs out on the oversize leather ottoman that stands in front of it.
Percy sits on the leather couch, opposite her.
Remembering, her manners, Callie says, "Can I get you anything?"
"No, thanks," says Percy. "It's pretty late, if we're going to see an eight o'clock movie." Percy takes out his Droid phone and is searching to see what movies are playing.
"Aren't you going to tell me?" Callie asks.
"What?" he asks her.
"Florida," she reminds him.
"Oh," he says. "Are you really interested?"
She looks at him like he's crazy. "Of course I'm interested."
Which kind of surprises him and kind of pleases him and definitely persuades him to put his phone away and tell her about Jason Sullivan. He makes it short and sweet for her – as Sullivan made it for him – and when he's done, she says, "That's fantastic!"
"Yeah," says Percy. "It's nice that they want me. Now how about helping me pick a movie?"
"Don't you think it's fantastic?" Callie asks him.
Resigning himself to looking to the bright side, but not wanting to make too much of it, Percy looks up from his phone and says, "Well, it does mean, if I want to go to college, I won't have to go to one here in the city and live at home with my mom for the next four years."
Percy loves his mom, adores her even, but her life is changing now, too and Percy, well, he just thinks it would be better if he gave her some space.
"So, yeah," he says. "That's pretty fantastic, I guess. To know that. Sure." Then, thinking he's answered her question, Percy takes another shot at his phone.
"Pretty fantastic?" she says. "Don't you realize what being an athlete at a school like Florida can mean for your future?"
Percy cannot believe how seriously and personally she's taking all this. "I think I can," he tells her.
That does not seem to satisfy Callie. Getting up from her chair, she crosses the room and perches on the edge of the coach next to Percy. And then, as is she was confiding a major secret to him, she says, "According to Jack, if you're a college athlete and a good student and attractive and well-spoken, you start out on an inside track that runs straight from the campus to the boardrooms of the biggest corporations in America."
"Oh?" says Percy. "But it's not like football or basketball. Hell, it even isn't hockey. It's just swimming. Granted, it is better than track and field."
"It doesn't matter. You look at the people who sit on the boards of directors and you'll see that a lot of them are former college athletes. Plus, look how popular swimming is now after Michael Phelps."
He cannot believe how serious Callie has become. In fact, it's so sudden and so surprising, he can't help by laugh. "Jesus!" he says. "You and Jack should be running Florida's recruitment program. You two could sure teach Jason Sullivan a thing or two!"
"I don't get it," Callie confesses. "Isn't that what you want? To be successful?"
Percy smiles, shrugs and says, "Could be. I don't know."
"Well," she says, "what do you think?"
"Me?" says Percy. "I think I want to see a movie."
Callie tugs at his sleeve. "With your life?" she asks.
"I don't know," he says.
"Well," she says, "what do you like to do?"
"Finally!" he says. "A question I can answer." So Percy tells her. In no special order. Just as it comes to him.
"Taking pictures. Thinking up stories about the people in them. Listening to music. Especially in a car, driving somewhere, late at night. Walks in the woods and in out-of-the-way places that I don't usually get to in the city. Food. Good people. The ocean. Playing video games. Skinny dipping. Sleeping late…."
"Movies!" says Callie.
"Love 'em," he tells her.
"What time is it?" she asks.
Percy looks at his trusty Timex watch that is water resistant to 100 meters, and sees that the time is 7:54.
"We blew it," he tells her.
Callie laughs and says, "Perfect!"
"Why?" he asks her.
"Because" she tells him, "going to a movie is no way to celebrate."
"Celebrate what?"
"Florida!"
"My alma mater. So where should we go?"
Callie's got an idea – an idea that delights her and sets her eyes blazing and brings her to her feet.
"I know!" she says. "You wait here, okay?" She turns and heads for the door.
"Wait!" he calls after her. "Where are you going?"
Reaching the door, she pauses and turns back to him. "Upstairs. To make reservations and change."
"Change?"
"It will only take a second," she tells him. "You'll need a jacket and a tie. You can borrow one of daddy's."
"This place we're going…?"
"It's my party," she assures him. But her assurance has the opposite effect.
"What kind of place…?"
"Trust me," she tells him. "You'll love it."
"I will?"
"You have to," she insists with a smile. "It happens to be one of those out-of-the-way places that you usually don't get to in the city."
"Oh!" he says like he finally knows what she's talking about. Although he doesn't. But at least she's been listening.
Callie nods, as if everything is all cleared up and then she turns and walks off.
For a moment, Percy watches after her and wonders what he's gotten himself into.
Callie calls to him from down the hall. "If you want a drink," she says, "help yourself. I don't know if they'll serve us where we're going."
"Thanks!" he calls back to her. He turns to the well-stocked bar in the corner of the room. Ordinarily, he's not a drinking man, but this is turning out to be quite an occasion.
Percy asks himself what a debonair gentleman of high distinction might say at a time like this. "Don't mind if I do," he drawls.
Floating at the top of Fifth Avenue, just a step down from the stars and countless stories above the twinkling lights of the city below, the Penthouse Lounge at 230 Fifth is like a joke. It's like one of those swanky clubs you see in the movies from the 1940's – the kind of place where Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers used to spend their evenings, sipping champagne and tap-dancing their brains out.
Except, of course, Fred and Ginger are not here tonight, because this happens to be seventy years later. Only nobody seems to have noticed. Not the maitre d' who greets Callie and Percy at the door. Not the hostess who shows them to their table. Not any of the waiters who've been fluttering around them since they first sat down.
None of the people sitting at the other tables seem to have noticed, either. All decked out in their formal best, most of them look like they got themselves laminated sometime back in the forties.
Out on the dance floor, the story is not any different. It's nineteen forty-something out there too, as Tommy Whexler and His Orchestra take one musical stroll down memory lane after another. The dancers flow through fox-trots and jitterbugs without batting an eye or missing a beat.
In fact, the illusion of yesteryear conjured up by this dazzling, art deco of a room is so persuasive that Percy feels from the moment he walks in like he's actually passing through a time warp and entering into Another Dimension of Reality.
"Act natural," is what Callie says him when she leads him out the elevator and he see where she has taken him. As they approach the maitre d', when Callie sees that Percy is about to burst out laughing and blow the whole deal, she clutches his arm and whispers, "Pretend you are one of them."
Wiping the silly grin off his face, Percy glances over at Callie, nods, and says, "Piece of cake." Unfortunately, passing for one of them is not as easy for him as it is for Callie. For one thing, Callie is not wearing running sneakers. And she does not have a silk tie knotted around her neck or wearing blue sports coat that was a little too tight in the shoulders.
More to the point, in her formfitting navy blue silk cocktail dress, with her hair swept up off her bare shoulders and her mother's diamond earrings dangling from her ears, Callie does not look much like your average, underage high school kid, either. Callie looks so fabulous; a man would have to be a blind man or a fool to make an issue of her age.
Fortunately, the maitre d' at the Penthouse Lounge is neither. He's so enthralled by Callie, he barely has the presence of mind to give Percy's outfit the contemptuous glance it so richly deserves, before he passes them along to his captain for seating.
From there on in, it has been a cinch.
Percy and Callie sit down at their table and study the menu. Deciding to skip the first four courses and go directly to dessert, they order champagne and chocolate covered strawberries.
At Callie's suggestion, the first thing Percy does when their order arrives is raise his glass in a toast to Jason Sullivan and the University of Florida. Once that is done, they sit back and sip champagne like Fred and Ginger and nibble strawberries and try – without much success – not to laugh or crack a joke at all the incredibly unbelievable fuddiness around them.
When Percy makes a joke about the frisky museum pieces and premature antiques that are out there cutting a rug, he is not prepared for Callie's response of "if you think you can do better, Mr. Jackson."
Which is kind of a joke, too. And kind of a dare, as well. And not a bad idea – at least as far as Percy can see at this time. Except, just a second ago – after Percy smiles at the joke, takes the dare, rises from the table and escorts Callie to the dance floor – a funny thing happens.
What happens when Percy and Callie reach the dance floor and Callie turns to face Percy – at the moment her eyes meet his and just before she comes into his arms and they begin to dance – isn't funny.
It is so like a dream come true that Percy can not quite believe it. "Do you believe it?" he asks Callie.
He feels her hair against his cheek, her head against his shoulder, her body moving against his.
Callie laughs and says, "It isn't the kind of place you usually get to, right?"
Which is not an answer to the question Percy is asking her. He is talking about dreams coming true, because he is feeling like maybe they could. In fact, he is feeling like maybe a dream is coming true, right here and right now.
Callie's misunderstanding his question brings Percy back to his senses. He reminds himself that he's been drinking. Then he reminds himself that Callie belongs to Jack Hamilton. Then he says, "No, it isn't like the kind of places I usually get to. It's beautiful."
Callie looks at him like he is crazy.
And maybe he is. Because, all of a sudden, with Callie in his arms, he realizes something – he is, quite literally, floating on air, sky-high above the clouds and dancing among the stars.
And Percy wonders if this is what it feels like to be in love.
A/N: Okay, do not send the firing squad out to get me for this chapter. I can guarantee more sparks in the next chapters. The next Annabeth chapter is almost done and should be posted in the next few days.
As always, thank you for the amazing loyalty and for the extremely helpful feedback. Any and all thoughts and suggestions are appreciated.
Enjoy and Happy Reading! - MFP