The King Effect

00 | "Here Are the Introductions"

NOTE: Only the prologue, which is a flashback, will be written in third person!

***

           The room sparkled with anticipation and nervous chatter between the accomplished strangers. Through the glass paneled windows surrounding the perimeter of the vast room, bright constellations scattered the moonless night sky. With every minute that passed, the hour hand on the antique grandfather clock inched closer and closer to nine. Time slipped through the intermittent waves of silence, summer disappearing in the blink of an eye.

Mounted on the railing that connected the Kings' extravagant double staircase was a banner ordered specifically by Alexander King's campaign committee for the celebration. New York's most beloved businessman recently turned politician won the election for the position of the 57th governor by unprecedented margins. With a year short of being forty, Governor King was basking in all his glory, the fizz of fresh champagne in stainless glasses becoming his new favorite sound.

The newly elected governor's son, Griffin, stood at the peak of the staircase, arms crossed defiantly over his chest. He had grown nearly five inches over the summer, his old suit suffocating him in all the wrong places. As his field of vision shifted from his parents standing in the spotlight to the edges of the overwhelming crowd, he noticed her, the only other person close to his age in the entire room.

More by a force of will than voluntary pleasure, Kennedy Marx was seated at the grand piano near the mahogany bookshelves. Her eyes skimmed across the untouched novels from time to time, a pastime activity to spare her boredom. She'd been hired to play a baroque arrangement during cocktail hour, which had longed past. The Kings had gone through cases and cases of champagne and wine since then, the waiters and waitresses meandering through the crowd to refill empty glasses. As long as the alcohol kept coming, the party would never stop. 

Kennedy didn't want to be there anymore than Griffin did, each with their own reasons. It was the last week of summer, the week before high school officially started for the both of them. She was supposed to be home, finishing all of the assignments she had purposely put off. He was supposed to be at a bonfire down the street. If they listened closely enough, they could hear the beats of the stereo booming in the background.

Kennedy was waiting for her grandmother to return her phone call when she felt a presence behind her, a shadow casting over the black and white piano keys. She turned around to see a boy with sun-kissed golden hair and tanned skin, his eyes the color of the ocean. The longer she stared at them, the more she was starting to think that the hue was an impossible shade of blue.

"This party's pretty boring, huh?" the boy with ocean eyes said in a low whisper that could barely be heard over the incessant chatter of the adults circulating around them. As he spoke, a hint of a grin tugged at the corner of his pink lips.

"Um..." Kennedy faltered, taking a couple seconds to quickly scan her surroundings. Even though there was no one remotely close to her in a five feet radius, she still asked, "Were you talking to me?"

"No, I wasn't." Griffin shook his head twice, a couple strands of his golden hair falling across his forehead, covering part of his brow. There was a wide smile painted on his face now. "I was actually speaking to the piano behind you, but I'll let you in on a secret if you promise not to tell anyone."

Her eyes shifted momentarily to the piano and then back again to his face. His eyes had never left her. She nodded her head slowly in agreement, her mind wondering where he was headed with this.

"The piano says it thinks this party is pretty lame, too."

"That's funny," she responded, arching her brow slightly as she tilted her head to in the direction of the piano whose keys remained untouched. "I've been sitting here the entire night, and the piano hasn't said an entire thing to me. I didn't even know it could speak. You must bring out another side in it."