“Kurt Cobain Wasserstein.” Josh says it slowly and laughs. “Nah. Doesn’t have the same ring.”
“Kurt Donald Cobain Wasserstein. You can’t forget his middle name. I can’t.”
“Which would make you…Joshua Elvis Aaron Presley Bacon.”
Kurt startles. “Are you serious? That’s your middle name?”
Josh’s stone countenance makes me snort with laughter.
“Isla, is he serious?” Kurt asks again, but then he reads my own expression correctly. “Oh.” He wilts. “Never mind. You were just…”
But then a perfect moment occurs as Kurt straightens back up. He grins.
Josh points a finger. “You are not going to say it.”
“…joshing me.”
Josh clutches his chest in agony as Kurt explodes into loud belly laughter. My heart might burst from happiness. Josh shakes his head. “I’m only letting you get away with that because I’m trying to make a good impression on your lady friend, okay? My real middle name is David.”
Kurt considers it for several seconds. “Deal. I’ll take it.”
Josh takes his first sip of coffee. “Oh, man. You weren’t kidding. This is terrible.”
“So what should we call Isla?” Kurt asks.
Josh sets down the stein to properly examine me. He gazes into my eyes as I think, David. Josh’s middle name is David. Thanks to sleepless nights on Wikipedia, I know it’s also his father’s middle name.
“Isla is a good name,” he finally says. “The right name.”
Kurt isn’t impressed. “Isla was named after something, too, you know.”
“Don’t you dare,” I say.
Josh sits forward. His eyes shine. “Do tell.”
“Prince. Edward. Island,” Kurt says.
There’s a long pause. And then I’m the one sighing. “Yeah, so my parents did that horrible thing where they named me and my sisters after where we were conceived.”
Another pause.
“They did not,” Josh says.
“Alas. Geneviève was named after the patron saint of Paris. ‘Hattie’ is short for Manhattan, and, yeah…Prince Edward Island. My parents were on vacation. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad my name isn’t Prince or Edward. But the notion of island travel? Completely ruined for me.”
Their laughter is interrupted as the stairwell door opens with a booming metallic clang. A swarm of girls peer in at us as they pass by my open door. More than one eyebrow is raised. I hear my name murmured down the hall and into the lobby, accompanied by laughter that’s not nearly so friendly.
“You know,” Josh says, with a glance towards me. “I’d almost forgotten how annoying this room is. Those stairs drove me nuts.”
“I don’t like the window,” Kurt says.
“Seriously. The prisonlike bars, the traffic. Do you remember that opera singer who used perform out there?”
“So what are you doing today?” I ask, pushing the girls from my mind.
My question catches Josh off guard. “Um, working. Drawing. By myself. In my room. On the top floor?”
“Oh. Cool!” I try to sound chipper. How naive for me to assume that we’d be hanging out. Of course he’s busy. “We’ll be working down here. On homework. Like usual.”
But Josh seems…confused. Disappointed.
It takes me a moment. And then I realize that he’s just told me that he’ll be alone in his room and where his room is located. And I told him that I’ll be here with Kurt. The guy who slept in my bed last night.
“Unless you wanted to hang out?” The words spill from my lips. “I’ll come up. To your room. If you want.”
Josh’s entire body brightens. “Yeah?” He glances at Kurt. “You’re invited, too, of course.”
“I don’t think you mean that.” Kurt drains the last of his coffee. “And I’d pass, anyway. I’d rather not watch you guys feel each other up.”
Chapter twelve
The sixth floor isn’t a regular floor. True, it has the same peculiar contrast of crystalline fixtures and fluorescent bulbs, antique wallpaper and industrial rugs, but it’s what the French call les chambres de bonne. The maids of the aristocracy used to live up here. The ceilings are lower, and there are fewer rooms. It’s also silent. No voices, no music. Eerie.
I pass a door that’s been plastered with a dozen images of the same boy band, another with a small whiteboard that has a phone number scribbled on it, and another with a large whiteboard that’s been tagged with the words DAVE HAS TINY BALLS!
Room 604’s door is blank.