My Lolita, Cassandra [RFK/Bobby Kennedy] (Alternate Universe)

Part Seventeen

"It's Always Rosy in Philadelphia"

On your way to Philadelphia looking for someone on the opposite coast, you wonder if the lie is worth your time. It is not the biggest one you've caught yourself in—John can attest to it—but it's who you're deceiving that contributes to the heaviness in your heart.

The ride has been in complete silence, not a word from you two, but before Robert could turn on the radio, you intercept: "I have a surprise for you."

His facial muscles pull his brows upward. "Should I be scared?" Then he laughs, completely at ease in your presence.

You whip out a signed copy of Nabokov's finest work—John once told you it cost him a thousand dollars, but you don't know if you should believe a word he said.

"Oh, you sneaky thing," mutters Robert, taking a glimpse at your hands.

"It's not often I get to educate an educated man..." except for Mr. Prescott; the man graduated summa cum laude, but those days are over the moment you left Juliet on the stage.

Robert slightly turns, his eyes darkening as though he is getting into the character of Humbert when it is you who'll be narrating his wrongdoings.

You fly through Humbert's introduction of his wealthy Danubian father; his photogenic English mother who died being struck by lightning; and most importantly, his unforgettable Annabel smelling of Spanish toilet powder.

It's strange, you think to yourself, John has read you the damned book a thousand thousand times—albeit years ago—but whenever you read it; the texts perpetually change. It's always been the question of did Lolita love Humbert? Has humanity ever asked the opposite? Did he ever love her? Or did he only choose to love her in such a way due to his unconsciously mutating her to be akin to his first love, Annabel who died of typhus in Corfu during his springtime childhood? Not only did his sempiternal grief lead him to destruction; he dragged along a little girl while being sinfully aware of it.

You can't find your answer, but in John's words, whether true or not: "Humbert loved Lolita, but a girl like her could never fathom an evolved love from an old-world man like him."

"She was on the whole an obedient little girl and I kissed her in the neck when we got back into the car," you read a passage from page 115, unwittingly deepening your voice to match the tone John used when he read it to you. "'Don't do that,' she said looking at me with an unfeigned surprise—"

You mean to continue, but the huff of air expelled from Robert's nose catches your attention.

"Sorry, continue," he said, eyes apologetically wide.

"Don't drool on me. You dirty man." You did something you haven't done in a while: channel the nymphette energy that's been dormant after the days of John and boarding school.

"She's such a tease," remarks Robert in a bizarre suddenness, as though he anticipated such lines to come.

You're slack-jawed for a moment, shifting in your seat. "That's what you gathered?"

"Well, she is, isn't she?" His tone is imbued with irreverence, telling you his role in the book is the Devil's advocate. "She was all over him, and now she's playing hard to get."

"She's 12!"

He only laughs, getting a kick out of the bantering, and you can't help but smile as warmth creeps up your cheeks. "That's such a brutish way to look at it!" Nonetheless, you humor him.