Just Dreaming

  “The couch over there not only has the best view in London, it’s also very comfortable,” he murmured in my ear. “And I promise that you will never forget your first time.”

  He began kissing my throat, from the collarbone upward, and I immediately felt even queasier. Although what he was doing was really exactly what I’d wanted. A training session in the flight simulator. No one would ever know. All the same …

  “No kissing!” the words involuntarily escaped me.

  Matt slackened his grip. “What? No kissing? Hello? And maybe no undressing and no touching?”

  “Does that work?” I asked hopefully.

  Matt rolled his eyes. “No, it doesn’t work. What’s the matter with you? I thought you were dead keen on it.”

  Yes, what was the matter with me? I’d reached this point, and now I was about to spoil everything again. Surely I hadn’t gone to all that trouble for nothing?

  “Sorry,” I said remorsefully.

  “That’s all right.” Matt let his hand slip under my jacket. “No kissing, then.”

  I had to summon up all my willpower not to push him away. I was Agent Silver on a secret mission, and this was only a dream. Only. A. Dream. If I closed my eyes, maybe I could simply think of it as Henry’s hand. But it didn’t feel like Henry’s hand. It felt like a stranger’s hand. A hand that had absolutely no business on my bare skin.

  And a hand that now suddenly froze when it reached the hook of my bra. “What on earth is that?”

  Oh no, not again. My subconscious mind had fitted me out in Great-Aunt Gertrude’s armored flesh-colored underwear. I’d lost control of this.

  “Hey, that’s mine,” said Matt, but this time in Mia’s voice. There was a tweaking sensation in my hair—and then I was awake.

  Even though Mia had pulled out at least ten hairs to get back the frog-shaped hair clasp I’d stolen from her, at that moment I had thought how lucky I was to have a reliable Sunday alarm clock called Little Sister.

  And it was also Mia who now brought me back from the depths of my embarrassing memories to the breakfast table and made sure that Pascal was interrupted in the middle of his monotonous lecture. She had stacked seven scones on top of one another, but when she added an eighth, the entire structure collapsed, knocking over a glass.

  “Oops,” she said, to which the Boker responded with an acid, “You mean sorry, child.”

  “Sorry, child,” Mia repeated.

  Pascal smiled, just as we might have expected. “I was about to move on to the next point on my checklist anyway,” he said.

  “That would be point three thousand and forty-four,” murmured Grayson.

  I was about to drift back into my state of half sleep, but against all expectations, things suddenly turned exciting. The guest list was under discussion. It turned out that the Boker had already done some work in advance and had written down, on her deckle-edged notepaper, the names of the eighty-four people whom Ernest must at all costs invite, and another ninety-eight names of those who really ought also to be invited, but could be dispensed with if absolutely necessary.

  She had also started a list for Mom’s guests “at a rough reckoning.” Mom stared at it in consternation.

  “Brother of the bride with companion,” she read out loud. “I don’t have any brothers. Or sisters.”

  “All the better,” said the Boker, delighted. “I hoped I’d put the figure too high rather than too low.”

  Mia leaned curiously over to Mom. “Oh, great, you can invite your best friend and your second-best friend. Who’s your best friend, and who comes second best? Papa?”

  The Boker gave a start. Presumably “ex-husband of the bride” hadn’t made it to the deckle-edged paper.

  “Oh goodness, I don’t rank them in any order. I love all my friends the same. But that doesn’t mean they have to come to my wedding.” Mom cast Ernest a quick sideways glance. She really did have friends all over the world, and quite a number of them were men. “Particularly as they all live so far away.”

  “Yes, that’s what I thought.” The Boker smiled, extremely pleased with herself. “Someone from Ernest’s second list, the reserves, can be invited instead of every guest of yours who doesn’t want to make the long journey from the States or wherever else.”

  “Everything depends on good planning,” Pascal agreed.

  “Can I see those lists, please?” asked Ernest.

  “Of course.” The Boker passed several sheets of deckle-edged paper over his empty scrambled-egg plate, and Ernest studied them, frowning.

  “Who’s Eleanor?” he asked.

  “Eleanor?” The Boker looked at him as if he had gone out of his mind. “Why, my cousin Lucy’s daughter, of course, the one who married Lord Borwick. You used to play with her as a child.”

  “Yes, very likely, but I never saw her again after that,” said Ernest.

  “As I have always deeply regretted,” replied the Boker. “It is extremely useful for a man in your position to be in contact with members of the House of Lords.”

  Ernest skimmed the lists again, then put them down and took off his reading glasses. “Mother, these are all names of people I don’t know from Adam.”

  “That’s the list of reserve names. And of course you know them. Or at least you ought to know them.” The Boker compressed her lips. “But if you don’t want my help, then by all means draw up a guest list of your own by tomorrow evening, complete with full names and addresses. Pascal has to order the printing of the invitations by the weekend at the latest, isn’t that so, Pascal?”

  Pascal nodded. “I work with a very exclusive little printing press in Highgate. They also do very fine stamps for embossment work.” He looked at his file. “Well, I think we’re almost finished for today.…”

  Grayson groaned. “I really don’t want to be uncivil, but exactly why do we have to sit through all this?”

  “Because it’s a family matter, Grayson,” said Florence, although he hadn’t been asking her. “And because I want to be sure that no one puts Liv, Mia, and me in the same silly dresses.”

  “Don’t you worry! I’d sooner die,” said Mia.

  Grayson looked at Florence in annoyance. “Surely we have better things to do than bother about dresses and silly stuff like easy-iron tablecloths? Such as studying our chemistry, for instance.”

  “You think I’m enjoying this?” Florence venomously retorted. The Boker cleared her throat, but Florence ignored her and glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome to push off, Grayson. Emily is coming at quarter to twelve to do some studying with me, and we don’t want her seeing you.”

  “Why not? Am I supposed to go into hiding whenever Emily comes to visit you?” asked Grayson indignantly.

  “Yes,” said Florence. “If you were a more thoughtful person, you’d spare her a meeting until she’s recovered from you dumping her.” She sniffed. “Although, if you were a more thoughtful person, you’d never have started something with my best friend in the first place.”

  “Now you’re finally going crazy! Emily can damn well stay at home if she doesn’t want to meet me.”

  The Boker cleared her throat again. This time it sounded like a sick horse. “If you could kindly keep your private conversations until later! Pascal’s time is valuable.”

  “So is mine,” said Grayson. He was unusually quarrelsome today.

  “We’re nearly through,” said Pascal amiably, before the atmosphere could finally become impossible. A vein was already standing out on the Boker’s forehead, and Charles looked as if he wanted to jump up and walk away. Mom and Ernest were holding hands tightly. “There’s only the question of who supports the bride and groom to be considered.”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” said Mom, relieved, and she smiled at Ernest. “Charles is going to be Ernest’s best man, and of course Lottie will be my maid of honor.”

  Charles nodded loyally, and Lottie beamed.

  “Oh, how exciti
ng!” she said happily.

  “Yes, indeed,” murmured the Boker. I was waiting for the insult that was bound to follow, but it never did, because someone rang the front doorbell and the next disaster got going.

  14

  “I’LL ANSWER IT!” cried Grayson and Florence in unison, leaping up at the same time. Buttercup, who until now had been sleeping peacefully on the sofa, looked up in alarm.

  Grayson and Florence stared into each other’s eyes across the table.

  “That’s Emily,” snapped Florence. “And no way are you going to let her in, or she’ll be upset and angry all day.”

  “So what? Can’t I even answer the door in my own house these days?” Grayson snapped back. The rest of us looked alternately at one and then the other, like when you’re watching a tennis match.

  “It could be Henry. We’re studying for chemistry ourselves.”

  And zoom, all heads turned back to Florence. “Yes, that’s just typical! Studying at the last minute, just so long as you don’t miss any parties.”

  “Mad because you missed something at Jasper’s the other night?”

  The doorbell rang for a second time, and Buttercup couldn’t stand it anymore. She jumped off the sofa and barked at us. Grayson and Florence took no notice of her; they just shouted even louder to be heard above the noise.

  “Hardly likely. Maybe your immature basketball friends getting drunk is exciting—personally, I think my A-level results are more important, if you can imagine such a thing!”

  “For heaven’s sake, how old are the two of you—five?” asked Ernest.

  The doorbell rang for the third time, and the Boker said, to no one in particular, “I feel so ashamed!” Buttercup was still barking. She hated quarrels.

  “I’ll answer it.” Mia stood up. Relieved, Buttercup wagged her tail and followed her out into the hall. “If it’s Emily, I’ll whistle so that Grayson can hide behind the sofa,” Mia called back over her shoulder.

  “What a delightfully lively family! Too, too wonderful!” Smiling, Pascal closed his folder. “Separately we are words; together we’re a poem,” he said. I supposed he meant to tell us he’d finished.

  “Amen,” whispered Lottie, much moved. Everyone else, including Mom and Ernest, stretched inconspicuously as if they had been on a long rail journey. The Boker massaged her temples.

  “All clear!” By now Mia had opened the door. “It’s only the guy from next door, the one that Florence used to be in love with,” she called, and my heart missed a beat, “And he has—shit!”

  “He has shit?” repeated Mom.

  Spot, our ginger cat, came racing into the living room, closely followed by Mia, Buttercup—and Matt.

  Shit.

  Spot leaped over the sofa and landed on the piano, where he crouched beside the bust of Beethoven and stared at us crossly, his face all fluffed out.

  “What’s that in his mouth?” asked Florence, while I sat back in my chair and tried to look as small and inconspicuous as possible so that Matt, standing at the end of the table, wouldn’t notice me.

  “A blackbird.” He blew a black feather off the sleeve of his sweater. “Sorry, but he dragged it into our conservatory and let it go flying about there. My mother almost fell down in a faint. Luckily your cat caught the bird again, but in the process, he knocked over two containers planted with some kind of exotic greenery, so I picked him up and—”

  “And brought him here, so now he can let the bird fly about in our dining room? Thanks very much,” said Florence. She cautiously approached the piano. “Poor little Spottikins! Did nasty Matt hurt you?”

  “More like the other way around. Spot scratched poor little Mattikins quite badly,” claimed Matt. “Not to mention what he did to poor little birdikins. And about the plant containers … I’ve been told to ask if your insurance will cover them. Seems they were rather valuable.”

  “Then maybe your family ought to keep their conservatory door closed,” snapped Florence.

  “Good Lord, you’re in a temper.” Matt inspected her, shaking his head. “And you used to be so cute.”

  Florence’s eyes flashed angrily. “Huh! Since then I’ve found out that being cute doesn’t get you anywhere in this world.”

  “But common civility does.” Ernest had risen to his feet. “Mr. Gobineau,” he said to Pascal, “I think we’d better show you the way out before things get even more chaotic in this—what did you call it?—delightfully lively family.”

  Pascal was still smiling. I was beginning to get the creeps.

  “I must be going too.” The Boker quickly stood up and reached for her beige cardigan. “I can feel a migraine coming on, and bad-mannered domestic pets and children only put an unnecessary strain on my nerves.” For once, her withering glance was not for Mia and me, but for her real grandchildren.

  “Would you like a slice of the tart to take home?” asked Lottie, but the Boker had already disappeared into the hall without another word. Mom, Pascal, and Ernest followed her.

  “We’ll talk about this later. You see to the cat,” Ernest told us, while Pascal waved good-bye—still smiling. For the first time, I thought maybe he didn’t smile like that all the time because he wanted to; he could be suffering from facial paralysis of some kind. Was that the secret of his success?

  “Oh, what a nice man,” said Lottie with a deep sigh. “So positive! Probably because he’s busy all day setting the scene for love and happy endings.”

  “All that posturing and grinning is only a dodge to rustle up more business.” Suddenly Charles looked wide awake. “To give people the feeling that they can buy love and happy endings.”

  “Only an unromantic person who doesn’t believe in love could say a thing like that,” said Lottie, tucking a strand of hair back behind her ear and looking at him challengingly. “Someone who doesn’t know what passion is.”

  “Just because I don’t tie bows around everything doesn’t mean I’m unromantic,” said Charles, annoyed. “Or that I don’t know what passion is.”

  “Really?” Lottie shrugged her shoulders. “Excuse me, that’s only my personal impression.”

  I looked incredulously from one to the other of them. Here we went again. There seemed to be something in the air today, turning everyone into quarrelsome kindergarten kids. All we needed was someone saying “Yah, boo!” after every remark.

  “And you think that everything presented to you with a smile is romantic,” retorted Charles. “Speaking of smiles, I for one wouldn’t smile as superciliously as that guy if I had a nasty inflammation of the gums.”

  “He wasn’t being supercilious, only charming. And he doesn’t have an inflammation of the gums,” said Lottie.

  “Yes, he does, around the canine tooth top left! Only, you couldn’t see it because you were sitting on his right.” Even Charles himself seemed to notice that he sounded childish. “Can I have some of that tart before the bird gets away again and leaves droppings on it?” he asked in a more conciliating tone.

  “I don’t think it can still fly,” said Matt. So far his glance had fallen on me only briefly, and I had calmed down a bit. Not many people could remember their dreams once they were awake, and if they did, it wasn’t for long. But even in the unlikely case that Matt did remember, it was still his dream, and he hadn’t the faintest suspicion that I had smuggled myself into it and manipulated the whole thing a little. If anyone had to be embarrassed about the dream, it was Matt. So why did I still feel I wanted to crawl under the table and hide until he had gone away again?

  Spot growled at us quietly.

  “That poor cat is totally traumatized,” said Florence, casting Matt a furious glance. “I hope you are insured against that.”

  “Stop taking your bad temper out on Matt, Florence. If anyone around here is traumatized, it’s the blackbird.” Grayson picked up Spot and carried him out to the terrace. The idea that the bird might really leave droppings on what was left of the tart had probably made him step in. Not a st
upid idea, because it turned out that the blackbird was alive and well and perfectly capable of flying. Spot must be sorry that he had opened his mouth, but with Grayson gently shaking him, he couldn’t help it. He grumpily watched the blackbird as it flew straight into Matt’s parents’ garden (stupid creature), but then, without further protest, he let Grayson carry him back indoors, where he curled up on the sofa with an injured expression and didn’t favor us with another glance. Buttercup showed solidarity by lying down beside him and looking at us reproachfully.

  “At least that makes two who aren’t quarreling,” said Mia cheerfully.

  “Anyone for blueberry tart?” asked Lottie.

  “I wouldn’t say no,” replied someone in Henry’s voice, and I spun around at once. Henry was standing in the open doorway of the dining room, and there was Emily behind him, peering over his shoulder. They had both obviously come in while Mom and Ernest were saying good-bye to the Boker and Pascal—as they were still doing, to judge by the voices coming from the hall.

  “I’d like a piece of the blueberry tart as well,” said Matt.

  The dining room was beginning to look to me like a theater with too many actors suddenly on stage all at once, performing a play that made no sense.

  Mia was whistling. And many of the others had peculiar lines to say. Mia was brilliant at prompting, in a tone of voice that could be heard only onstage. “Grayson, hide!” she whispered. “Emily is here!”

  “I’d rather have a piece of blueberry tart, if it’s all the same to you,” muttered Grayson, sitting down at the table again.

  Florence didn’t know who to attack first. “You’ve already eaten half the tart on your own,” she told him indignantly, and correctly, at that. “You’re not getting another slice until everyone else has had one, if there’s any left. Emily, would you like some blueberry tart?”

  Emily strolled into the room in Henry’s wake and looked at the almost-empty breakfast table. It didn’t look to me like she didn’t want to meet Grayson, in fact on the contrary. Right, so she wasn’t as scantily clad as at yesterday’s party, but her jeans were very tight and her T-shirt neckline was cut extremely low. She had put on makeup too.