I Like Your Shoes | ✓

Chapter 38 | Time For Murder, Er, Dancing

[Ambrosia Bellemore]

I had a plan.

And at first, I thought it was a pretty great plan.

I evaded Calum Achorn like the flu the moment we got off the plane. He probably thought it was because of the nose comment, and I really, really wanted to assure him that it was not (because my mother's been asking me, since I was twelve, to get a nose job and get rid of that huge, bulbous nose so almost nothing hurt me now), but I couldn't have him guess my intentions, so I kept my mouth shut.

And my eyes open.

One of the most beautiful things about Venice: there were no cars. Which meant no honking, no cursing and no stifling traffic. The only way to travel in Venice was to take the water buses, or by foot.

Even though I was tempted to wander through the entire city by foot, Calum Achorn insisted that we must get to the hotel and freshen up, since the grand ball was this evening. So he demanded to be taken to the hotel by the largest boat I'd ever seen in my life.

There was little talk on the way to the hotel. We were both too busy taking in the view. The buildings and houses around us were old and slowly crumbling down, but it just added to the mystical beauty of the place.

The Ca'Sagredo Hotel was more a palace than a hotel, so it made the perfect venue for the ball. The suites were huge, with bathrooms that could make an atheist believe in God, bed that could fit a giant, and showers that could make you smell like fifty different flowers.

Calum Achorn has the room facing mine. After he inserts the card key into the lock, he turns around to face me.

"Be downstairs by eight, Miss Bellemore." He says in his authoritative tone. I nod.

"And," he says, hesitant. I look at him earnestly while my mind reels.

What is he going to say?

That he really, really, really, really, really, really likes me? (A/N: A Carly Ray Jepsen song reference?)

Admit that he was impersonating Benjamin?

Wants to give me a real, live, breathing unicorn?

"No hideous costumes, please." He says instead. The whole of my body deflates in the next exhale.

"I wouldn't dare, Sir." I say and slip into my room without another word.

I'll show him a hideous costume.

~•~

By seven, I was in my dress. By seven fifteen, I was pacing the floor with my heels on. By seven twenty, I was on the floor crying.

"I look like a gnome in a pretty dress." Sob.

"I look like one of Hades' minions." Sobs.

"They'll throw rotten tomatoes at me." Sobs².

"I'll be the ugliest troll in the party." Sobs³.

"Calum Achorn will run away with a beautiful venetian girl." Sobsⁿ.

Just then, a knock sounds on the door. Wiping my eyes, which were surprisingly very dry, I get off of the floor and peek out into the corridor.

"I heard crying." A middle aged woman with a heavy Italian accent stands in front of my room. "The room next door is mine." She adds.