In other news, I'm now attending college at the California Polytechnic University of Pomona as an English major. I will most likely have a more in-depth entry about the current status of my life sometime in the near future. Until then, I bid you farewell. Au revoir, tout le monde!

[Exit Orpheum.]

Chapter the First

     "Remy, dear, your dinner is ready. Come and eat before it gets cold."
     Remington Alexander Graves flinched involuntarily and looked up from his computer. He was simultaneously startled and annoyed by the interruption; this calculated and strategic invasion upon his privacy, and thus his sanity. More vexing, however, was the insufferable familiarity so flaunted by the matronly woman in the doorway. No one, save for the gauche or otherwise socially inept and ignorant, dared refer to Remington Alexander Graves as "Remy," an uncultured vulgarization of a perfectly aristocratic name.
     Yet one look at the rotund silhouette formed by intrepid sunlight flooding into the darkened room was enough to tell that the woman, arms placed firmly on hips, would not succumb to passive resistance, would continue her righteous vigil until Graves surrendered and forced some food down his gullet. So, with a carefully suppressed sigh, he wrenched himself away from his desk. Before trudging in the direction of the dining room, Remington switched off a desk lamp that jutted from heaping piles of paper and other detritus like a monolith, its shade imparting a green tint to Remington's shadow-embraced study.

     As he plodded toward the impending and inexorable meal, Remington pounded on a door adorned with an antique bronze knocker.
     "Magnus! Supper's ready. Come on out of there!" Remington bellowed, then muttered that if the rest of the family had to suffer through the ordeal, so would his elder son. Remington was in a foul mood, and chose not to mince words, as base as it may be to speak bluntly.
     "Please do use the knocker, father. I installed it for the expressed purpose of ensuring that people would not be forced to assault the door so," came Magnus's muffled reply through the door. Remington sighed resignedly and continued down the hall, ignoring the fine paintings and family portraits artfully situated along the walls.

     Remington entered the dining room and noted that his younger son, Fauntleroy, and his daughter, Guinevere, had already joined his wife at the table. It appeared as if dinner was, once again, leftovers, this time meatloaf that had not been spectacular to begin with two weeks before.
     Magnus, gangly, blond, and bespectacled, strode into the room and immediately affronted Remington, his brows furrowed with frustration.
     "Father, how many times must I politely ask that you respect my wishes before you deign to do so? I have requested that you use the knocker innumerable times." An uncomfortable tension caused the others to avert their eyes and focus on draperies and silverware.
     "At the moment, Magnus, I hardly possess the disposition to humor your pointless bickering. I am your father and I shall 'deign' to respect your wishes when I see fit. Deign, indeed! We did not raise you to speak to your superiors in such a fashion." Remington's curt tone cut through the silence that had gripped the room.
     Magnus seemed about to rebut, thought better of it, and huffed dramatically.
     "Well! Dig in, everyone. It's not getting any warmer," interjected Elise, Remington's wife, seeing an opportunity to speak up.
     "Or fresher," Fauntleroy murmured. He resented these mandatory "family" meals, which were invariably awkward, meaningless, and peppered with obviously contrived conversation. He would much rather be making progress on his latest story, a satire based on the preposterous characters of his own family. He hoped to someday publish it and finally allow other people to understand his feelings of captivity and bitterness, not to mention at last deflate the collective ego of four-fifths of the Graves family.
     "Care to repeat that statement, Fauntleroy?" Remington had heard the quip, and, frankly, agreed with it, but could not allow any ostensible dissension in the ranks.
     "No. And I told you, I go by Alex." Fauntleroy loathed his first name, and hated his parents for burdening him with such an invitation for mockery. Instead, he went by Alexander, a middle name he shared with his father, and strove to prevent anyone from learning of his real name.
     "As long as you live in this house, you shall answer to Fauntleroy, and only that. It was good enough for your great-grandfather, whose success in life and prominence in society paved the way for our family. You should be honored to have such a worthy namesake. Have I made myself clear?" Remington had grown weary of Fauntleroy's insolence, which seemed to have mounted with the advent of high school.
     "Yes, sir," Fauntleroy said, although his glowering said otherwise.
     The stale meatloaf remained untouched.
     "So, how was everyone's day?" Elise said, futilely attempting to smooth things over with such blatant banality that it seemed as if she were either completely oblivious of the situation, or dense enough to believe it possible to patch things up with a cheerful inquiry. Remington was willing to bet that either, or both, was entirely correct.
     Elise had once been intelligent, beautiful, and capable; the envy of every woman and the desire of every man. Apparently, Remington thought, childbirth is dangerous to the health. She had never been the same since Magnus was born, and had only degraded further with each successive child. For there was a time when "matronly" was the last word one would use to describe Elise Graves, a slim, sparkling young woman full of hope and ideas. Long ago, Remington had married her for her brilliant mind and ravishing body, both of which, alas, had promptly vanished with pregnancy. Perhaps brain cells are transferred from mother to child through the umbilical cord, Remington reasoned.
     Whatever the cause, Elise Graves had devolved into a dull, overweight, simpering lump of a woman. A devoted, indeed, doting mother, but absolutely useless in every other regard. Remington felt another sigh bulge in his throat, but swallowed it with a chunk of tough meatloaf.
     Everyone at the table was so thoroughly disgusted by Elise's triteness that they elected not to grace it with a response. She smiled and hummed to herself softly while the others ate in edgy silence, careful to pace the glasses of milk that helped to wash down the meatloaf, which tasted horrible despite their dousing it in Worcestershire sauce. Elise chose to answer her own question, desperate as she was to fill the awkward lapse in conversation.
     "Well, my day was simply delightful. I stopped by the hair salon, you know I get my perm on Mondays, and you'll never guess who I saw there. Can you guess? No? Mabel Fairweather! Imagine that! After all these years, we just run into each other like that. Why, I haven't seen her since before Magnus was born! You'd think she were avoiding me or something!" Elise chuckled, a horrible clucking noise that, unfortunately, was accompanied by her bobbing double chin, below which wobbled a well-developed wattle. Elise continued, "So we get to chatting, and she's doing splendidly! Just last week..."
     Remington began tuning her out for the sake of his sanity; from the looks of it, he noticed, his children were studiously ignoring her blathering as well. To occupy his thoughts, and to distract himself from Elise's drivel, Remington assessed his progeny: Magnus was still fuming over that blasted knocker, as if such a stupid little trinket were even worth such emotion; Fauntleroy (a thousand pardons, Remington thought: he goes by Alex now) looked murderous, as usual; only Guinevere was smiling, a dreamy grin spread across her pretty face.
     Remington turned his reverie to business, and was sorting out the details of a new deal he and his partners were working on, when it struck him that something was amiss. He reviewed the scene: Elise, tittering about some triviality of her moronic life, unfortunately par for the course; Magnus, fuming, O.K.; Guinevere, silly grin, fair enough; Fauntleroy, murderous, nothing out of the ordinary there.
     Wait a minute.
     Guinevere, smiling? Truly, something had gone awry; Remington had never known his daughter to smile, much less in such a moony fashion. What was going on here? Remington had to know, and was willing to derail the seemingly unstoppable train of Elise's thought to do so.
     "...the doctor says that Harold, you remember Harold, don't you? Mabel's husband? Of course you do. Anyway, he, the doctor, that is, says that Harold's baldness is completely normal for a man at his age. After all, his father never had a hair on his head so long as I knew him! Poor soul. Of course, Mabel is perfectly appalled by it all; imagine having to go out in public with a bald man! Mercy me! I'm glad you have such a full head of ha-"
     "Dear, perhaps Guinevere would like to share something about her day now. Guinevere, honey?" Remington did not relish interrupting his wife midstream, glad as he was to put an end to her incessant babbling, but was compelled to brave the icy reception so that he may unravel the mysterious aura surrounding his daughter. What could it be? Surely not happiness. Perhaps she was simply thinking of what terrible things she would like to do to shut Elise up. That was more Guinevere's style, Remington thought.
     Elise, as Remington had expected, crossed her arms and did her best to look put out, pouting her lips and puffing out her cheeks (which imparted upon her a rather unpleasant resemblance to a hideously obese chipmunk wearing mascara), although she, too, yearned to know why her daughter appeared so... joyful.
     And, in truth, Guinevere had felt joyful, until her idiot of a father had to bring her to everyone's attention. Now, feeling the stares of her family heavy upon her, she reverted to her usual self: dark, brooding, unapproachable. A thin-lipped scowl replaced the grin, the dreamy look in her eyes disappearing to make way for sullen rage. Guinevere Graves, at the top of her form, epitomized teenage angst and ire.
     "Nothing worth stopping the presses for, Daddy dearest," Guinevere said, all apparent traces of her former happiness drowned in a sudden flood of sarcasm.
     Remington was relieved to see his daughter back to normal; that smile had been simply unnatural, alien to the Guinevere Graves he knew. Everything once again made sense in the world, and he was free to blunder about without worries. Resisting the urge to mop his brow with a flourish and exclaim "Whew! That was a close one!" (he thought taking that perspective may seem a tad insensitive), Remington grinned and returned to his meatloaf, then winced as he lost a filling to its sinewy substance.
     The remainder of the family seemed satisfied with Guinevere's answer as well, seeing once again the Guinevere Graves they knew yet did not understand, and also turned back to the daunting task of stomaching Elise's meatloaf. This was fine by Guinevere, who only wished to escape one of the accursed family dinners unscathed, and was glad to be rid of the limelight.

     Guinevere Graves, like her brother Fauntleroy, abhorred her given name. (In fact, of the three Graves children, only Magnus proudly brandished his full name: Magnus Alastair Graves.) Unlike Fauntleroy, however, Guinevere could not safely go by her middle name, which she had inherited from her grandmother: Agnes. Instead, she had elected to shorten her Arthurian name to Gwen; no one, aside from her parents and substitute teachers who simply read from the roll sheet, called Gwen Graves Guinevere.
     And Gwen had good reason to be happy, although she would no longer allow her family to worry about abnormal behavior; she had been through enough pompous psychiatrists in her shattered childhood to deduce that they were just expensive quacksalvers, eager to make more of things than is necessary to pad their one-hundred-dollar-plus-an-hour expense accounts. So this joy would be hidden behind her usual faÁade of apathy and barely restrained anger, to protect both Gwen and her family.
     Gwen's reason for being happy, her reason for being at the moment, as far as she was concerned, came in the form of a dashing young man whom she had met earlier that day in Journalism class. He was the newest addition to the staff, having just moved from some distant state; she, the temperamental, but indisputably brilliant, editor-in-chief of The Harbinger (a name of her devising to replace the school rag's previous, and pitiful, Gazelle Gazette). Her scathing editorials denouncing the school for its incompetence, or the students for their ignorance, and usually both, had made her the stuff of legend; her sardonic style was unmistakable.
     But this boy with the strong chin, chiseled cheekbones, clear gray eyes, and carefully mussed black bangs had cut through her zealous feminism and quickly done away with Gwen's promises to herself that she would never let a silly boy get to her. His allure was enhanced by perfect paradox: he was soft-spoken, yet assertive; incredibly handsome and sure to become popular, yet markedly down-to-earth. And he was a breathtaking writer! Gwen sighed inwardly, but made certain that she did not betray her euphoria to her happily oblivious family, who would only fret. She vowed that this young man would love her as she loved him, that they would be deliriously happy together forever. Perhaps he would propose! She trembled with excitement at the very thought.
     "Is it too cold in here for you, dear?" Elise asked, obviously concerned about her daughter's strange demeanor. Perhaps she was coming down with a fever, Elise thought; that would certainly explain why she appeared to be flush but shivering.
     "No, mother, I'm fine," Gwen said, concealing again her inner joy for the sake of her mother's nerves and instincts, both of which were undoubtedly going haywire at the moment.
     But Gwen's thoughts soon drifted from her mother to her beloved, her husband-to-be! She pictured him in her mind's eye and spoke his name in her thoughts, calling to him as if they were linked telepathically, and he could respond from wherever he may be.
     Only then did she realize the irony of her beloved's name, chortling to herself until she caught the others staring, after which she quickly changed it to a bitter bark. Their complacency fulfilled for the time being, the Graves family shook its collective head and wondered if it were time to take Guinevere to another shrink. But Gwen still felt like laughing. She could hardly believe that she had not noticed the unbelievable coincidence before: her betrothed was named Arthur Paladin.