You Must Fall In Love

Chapter Twenty-Two

By the time she washed her hands, grabbed her new clothes, hunted for a new towel, rinsed her mouth out, brushed her teeth, washed up, bundled her clothes in the rubbish bag, brushed her teeth, and rinsed her mouth out again, she was feeling well enough to think.

There was only one way to interpret Ming's words, even though she didn't want to see them that way. She was descended from the Hart Princess.

This meant, that in all likelihood, that she was a candidate to fulfill Jen's stupid prophecy.

There was a high chance that she was the person Rob, Yusuke and August were trying to marry.

Christine was stubborn at the best of times and incorrigibly boneheaded at the worst, but even she knew when to throw in the towel, or as things were the puke-covered PJs.

Alright. So maybe I can't get out of this. That's fine. All I have to do is work out a better way to avoid it.

When she showed back up in her room, cloaked in shower-steam as a defense from the cold, she was almost glad to see Rob. The smell had gone down to a vague and wispy sourness, but she could still see the stains, which somehow bothered her even more than her nose did.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

"I guess," she said, putting the rubbish bag down.

On the dresser was the same red basin, this time containing a spatula, more wet wipes, and a tin filled with baking soda. She picked up the spatula and squinted at it. It was cream-colored and had a tiny dog carved into the handle.

"What do I..."

"If you want to stop the stain from sinking in, you'll scrape it off with some baking soda."

"Not what I meant. Whose spatula is this?"

"Mine," said Rob. "I'm tossing it out after."

"Cool," said Christine. "So I'm the Cutlery Destroyer, too."

"It cost three bucks at the thrift store," said Rob. "Don't think about it too much."

"I wasn't..."

Rob folded his arms. She took the hint and shut up.

"Sure. Whatever."

"Good girl," said Rob, clearly luxuriating in his ability to say such things. She could see it in his eyes.

So she dumped as much baking soda as she could on the stain and attacked it with as much vigor as she could, applying enough wet wipes to sate an elephant, and scraping like she was trying to get Rob out of her mind.

By the time she ran out of baking soda, the stain had shrunk to a vaguely orange smear in a patch of growing wetness. The smell was finally gone.

"That didn't help too much," she said.

"I know," said Rob. "I should have done it when the stain was fresh, but I couldn't work out whether to sacrifice my spatula or my plastic ruler."

"Your... but Rob, you eat with this."

"Not really. Unless you're telling me that you don't use spoons in Singapore?"

Christine took the hit again, for charity.

"Rrgh. Okay. Bad phrasing. Sorry, my English no good one. But if you knew it wasn't going to work, why did you do it?"

"If you didn't do anything, you'd probably fold up and start feeling sorry for yourself. I figured one spatula was a small price to pay."

Christine rubbed her eyes.

"I'll make it up to you, I guess."

"Don't be too sure of that," said Rob, wiping his glasses on his sweater again. "Have you ever actually made anything up to anyone?"

He wasn't being unkind, but he wasn't being kind, either. His voice was as alkaline as the white on her palms. But in her experience, kind people clucked and cooed and made you feel useless, and she detested those kinds of people, and so she was willing to take this version of Rob over any other.

"We'll see," she said. "I had a dream last night about the Hart Princess."

Rob dropped his glasses. She waited, smugly, for him to pick them up.

"I'm... I'm sorry," he said. "I don't think I heard you. What was that?"

"I had a dream about the Hart Princess," she said. "Her name was Ming."

"Understandable," said Rob, although it clearly wasn't. It was like she had tied him to the bottom of a roller-coaster. "What did she say?"

Your enemies are coming.

"That she and I were related," said Christine.

"That you're..."

Rob almost sat down, looked at the bed, then at last walked over and grabbed the chair. He took two deep breaths, leaning with his hands on the back.

"Do you tend to have dreams about ancient mythical grandmas?" he asked at last. "Was it your dinner talking?"

"No," said Christine. "But I've learned enough from my Mum to know when dreams are real."

Rob stood up and turned around. He still looked shaken, but it was clear that he was collecting himself, organizing every detail of his face. It just didn't seem to be working entirely.

"So you're a candidate to fulfill the prophecy," he said.

"Exactly," smirked Christine. "And now that you know that, there's no way that you can include me as part of your plans, can you? So I guess it's time to wait for someone else. I mean, who'd want to marry the girl with the crazy mum, anyway? It'd be..."

"And the revelation that you were in fact a possible candidate was enough to make you lose your lunch."

"No," frowned Christine, "that was something else completely..."

"It's okay," said Rob, glancing out the door. "I can work with this."

"You can... hold on, wait! That's not what I meant!"

"Nice knowing you, Christine. Don't tell anyone else about this."

"Hey, Rob? Come back!"

He took the red basin and left. It was three seconds before she realized that he had forgotten the can of baking soda — it was sitting on the bed, abandoned, like a mark of something she couldn't quite understand.