Two Loves

Chapter 11

ISAAC

The first thing that goes through my head as I recover from my unconsciousness is "What has happened?" and then "Ouch!" as Cym's palm hits my cheek. No eloquent, wordy monologue. No excitement. Just confusion.

"Isaac?" Her voice is somewhere between worried and amused. "Wake up, come on!"

With a blink, I open my eyes. The dizziness still sticks like fog to the corners of my skull, and the edges of my view blurr as I slowly sit up. Cym is bowing over me, my head lies in her lap, my feet on a chair.

Disappointed I combinate that she did not catch me when I fell.

It takes a Prince Charming to do this, I guess.

For a second the phantasy of what would happen if I fainted in Atticus presence crosses me, and the consideration if the embarrassment would be worth it, but then I remember why I fainted and sit up suddenly.

Not good. The edges of my vision blurr again, into a dark purple, but my senses are suddenly sharper than ever.

"Tell me everything" I say and slide closer to my sister.

"Are you sure?" she asks. "Don't you want a glass of water? Or Scotch?"

"No, I'm fine", I say, with trembling hands, "now tell me!"

Cym sighs. "Alright." With her left hand, she picks up an envelope from the ground beneath her, then she starts: "Cust wrote to me, yesterday evening already. Since you worship his work - Wilde, not Cust, dear Christ! - like a poor little alcolyte, I must guess that you know that Mr Wilde planned to write another play - and because the other two were very successful in disappointing the audience, this message caused uproarious outrage in our office. Especially since Wilde seemingly did not think on his former colleagues, that might have written him a pleasing review, no matter how bad the play itself would be, and sent not a word, not a single note to us. The tickets were sold in a blink - there was no possibility to get in anymore. We would miss the next big thing London would talk about for the next days. A catastrophe."

I shake my head. "Nah. Seems like I missed that drama."

What is unsurprising, since I am always too occupied with my own drama.

Cym rolls her eyes. "I was going on about it for weeks! You weren't listening!"

"Perhaps I heard it, but it is very hard to understand what you are saying and to differ what is important, and what nonsense. Perhaps you should start listening to yourself, then you would see the problem."

"Ah poor you, I also have to listen to myself, even when I'm not talking" she replies sarcastically.

I cut her off before she can get wordy. "Go on."

She pouts, the continues. "Well, it seemed like it. But, as I read from this letter, Cust's secretary, Miss Cecily, was looking through his letters from the past month last evening to decide what could be thrown away and -- tadah!" - she holds up one beige sheet of paper and two little rectangles - "Mr Wilde did send a very kind invitation and two tickets for us! Cust just glossed over it."

She grins from one ear to the other. "God bless dear Cecily! She found it just in time, messaged him, and he, still having a grudge in me and thinking that Wilde is a dandy without talent, decided to give me extra work for the week-end and sent me both the tickets, with the instruction to write a review and, here it comes, responding to Wilde's offer, interview him!"

She rattles that sentence down in one breath. After a second of silence, she laughs. "Dear, dear, you look as if you had seen a ghost!"

"You mean Oscar Wilde sent you an invitation to his play?" I ask weakly.