Like I said, it was a strange week. I’d really thought I would never be able to close my eyes again, but in fact, I slept almost as if I were in a coma. Every evening, I was just waiting to go to bed as early as possible without anyone noticing. But only to sleep. I kept strictly away from my dream door. Senator Tod could practice on someone else—I was no longer available.
I did have a guilty conscience about Anabel, though. Sure, she was a lunatic who had tried to murder me, but she still didn’t deserve to be sedated and isolated by her own psychiatrist, using heaven knows what methods. So last Sunday I had looked up Anabel’s father’s number in the phone book and made out that I was Anabel’s friend Florence Spencer calling to find out how she was. When Mr. Scott said I was the third person today to ask after her, Anabel’s friends Henry and Arthur had called, too, and he was just off to the hospital himself to see with his own eyes that his daughter was all right, I felt relieved.
As for Mia—like me, she was sleeping all night again, and I was beginning to wonder whether someone else really was responsible for her sleepwalking. Couldn’t there have been some natural cause for it? If not, the person to blame seemed to have given up trying to get into my little sister’s dreams.
Mia herself had taken the precaution of installing a complicated anti-sleepwalking system in her room, a clever construction made of wires, string, saucepan lids, and a Swiss cowbell that would set off an earsplitting alarm if she got out of bed without first removing the string around her ankle. I almost stumbled over this device when I went into Mia’s room on Saturday evening, only to find Lottie turning critically back and forth in front of the mirror.
It was just before six, and the whole house was buzzing with activity because this was Ernest’s fifty-third birthday, and he wanted to celebrate it at a restaurant with a small family party, as he put it (he wasn’t to know that the family party had been infiltrated by a clone). It was nice that the family party included Lottie, not so good that the Boker and Emily were in it. And naturally Charles would be there as well, which had Lottie in a state of great agitation. I mustn’t forget to tell her that she’d recently had a boyfriend called Jonathan—just in case Charles mentioned it to her.
“No, this one’s no good either!” Lottie was grimly inspecting her reflection in the mirror. “I look like my aunt Friederike in the dress she wears for housework. Like a country bumpkin.”
I exchanged glances with Mia. “That’s the eleventh dress she’s tried on,” Mia whispered, and then her piercing detective look was back. “Are you okay?”
It wasn’t the first time Mia had asked me that question this week. To be precise, it was the twenty-sixth time. I’d kept count. And when she looked at me through her glasses, like now, wrinkling her nose, the real Liv was very close to surfacing again. I couldn’t let that happen. It was just too dangerous.
So Clone-Liv replied nonchalantly, “Of course. Thanks for asking.” Then I turned to Lottie. “You look great!”
“No, I don’t,” she wailed.
“I’d wear the green dress if I were you. That’s the one that suits you best,” said Mia.
“But Ch—er, but everyone will have seen it so often before,” said Lottie, sighing deeply.
“You don’t want Ch—er, everyone thinking you’ve dolled yourself up specially for them, do you?” replied Mia.
“That’s true.” Lottie took off Aunt Friederike’s housework dress, picked up the green dress lying on Mia’s bed with a whole heap of others, and slipped into it. I helped her to do up the zip fastener and looked at her admiringly.
“Perfect,” said Mia. “Now you just have to do something to your hair to make it look as if you hadn’t done anything to it.”
If it wasn’t too late for that, because Lottie had used the curling iron on it, which had much the same effect on her natural curls as pouring water on burning oil.
“Maybe I could dampen it down a bit,” said Lottie, making for the bathroom.
“Yes, or get it wet right through,” I murmured, wondering how and when I could broach the subject of Jonathan.
Mia pushed the sleeping Buttercup aside and dropped on her beanbag. “Are you really all right, Liv? You look kind of funny.”
“If you ask me that once more, I’ll ask Lottie to do you one of those elaborate braided hairstyles, like that fruit basket the other day.”
Normally Mia would have put out her tongue at me, but not today. Was it my imagination, or did she squint at one of her decorative cushions in passing?
I went out of her room, to be on the safe side.
Ernest’s invitation for this evening had taken us all by surprise. Or more precisely, the reason for it. Not even Mom had known it was his birthday. Incredible. Even if she’d met him only in February last year, you’d think she’d at least have checked the key data before moving in with him, and his birthday was part of that.
We’d baked a cake in honor of the day, with 53 picked out on it in mandarin segments, and Florence had departed from her principle of not being in the same room as tree murderesses. Ernest had been moved to tears that his daughter could actually bring herself to have breakfast at the same table as us and the cake.
On the other hand, I didn’t get a chance to tell Lottie about Jonathan before we set off for the restaurant. It was only a couple of streets away, but Ernest drove there with Lottie, Mom, and Florence, because their shoes weren’t suitable for a walk. Mia and I set out on foot. Grayson was coming straight from basketball, and Charles, Emily, and the Boker were meeting us at the restaurant. After a few rainy days, it was bright and cold again, and ice had formed on the puddles. Mia enthusiastically broke it to splinters by jumping on every puddle with both feet at once.
“No one would think you’re going to be fourteen in March,” I said.
“Oh, come on, it’s fun,” said Mia, hopping to another puddle. “And it helps you to work off your aggression.”
She looked challengingly at me, and for a moment I wondered whether it might be a test. By way of an experiment, I crunched the layer of ice under my feet to pieces, and I had to admit that Mia was right. This was as satisfying an activity as bursting the blisters of Bubble Wrap. And who was going to tell me what I was too old to do and what I wasn’t? For a while we hopped from puddle to puddle like girls possessed, and for the first time that week, I could really laugh again. Not the pretend, Clone-Liv laughter that I’d been practicing, but a genuine Liv laugh.
Only when we realized that someone was watching us did we stop. But it was only Grayson on his bike, staring at us in a slightly disconcerted way and looking as if he could do with a bit of therapy to work off his own aggression.
“Did the team lose?” asked Mia, not very sympathetically.
“Don’t ask,” he growled, getting off his bicycle and pushing it across the road.
The restaurant was directly opposite. It was a very classy joint, with a red-and-gold awning and a doorman, and although the best icy puddle of all lay between the sidewalk and the road, Mia and I managed to walk to the entrance in a very grown-up manner.
In fact, we were the last to arrive, and unfortunately everyone else was already sitting down. Mom waved. She had the Boker sitting next to her, so not surprisingly she looked nervous.
“I can see three empty chairs at the end of the table,” remarked Mia, razor-sharp as usual, while she slipped out of her coat and gave it to the waiter. “One next to Emily, one opposite Emily, and one beside the empty chair opposite Emily. I’ll have that one.” With a gloating giggle, she left us standing there.
Grayson was helping me out of my own coat. “Now we can argue over the other two places,” he said.
“Hmm. Cholera or the plague?” Clone-Liv didn’t bother to conceal her dislike of Emily. The real Liv wouldn’t have been so forthright. But Grayson just gave me a good-humored smile. “Well, since it wasn’t me who gave Emily a genuine sterling silver sign of infinity, I’d rather sit beside her than opposite her.” I added, “Th
en I won’t have to look at her all the time.” And I could also sit next to Lottie. I still had to speak to her, and it was urgent—unless it was too late for an explanation, because Charles was already deep in conversation with her. I hoped the name Jonathan hadn’t cropped up yet.
Grayson had given my coat to the waiter, and now his eyes wandered from my hair down to my boots, inspecting the effect. “Wow! You look terrific.”
“I know,” I said, for once sharing his opinion. I’d finally found the right things to wear with the short, cream-colored layered tulle skirt that Mom had given me for Christmas; I needed a style that wouldn’t make me look like a confused ballerina or a would-be bride. Worn with black lace-up boots, thick gray tights, and Mom’s gray cashmere pullover, the skirt suddenly looked cool.
“The later the evening, the lovelier the guests,” agreed Charles as we went over to the table. I gave him my best Clone-Liv smile, which even extended to the Boker. It didn’t matter that she wasn’t about to smile back; the main thing was that she was sitting at the other end of the table. Although I did feel a little sorry for Mom. Grayson had sat down in front of Emily. He had given the Boker a peck on the cheek and Emily no kiss at all, which lowered the warmth of her expression to zero on the sourpuss scale.
“Suckling pig in plum sauce.” Mia was deep in the menu. “With cavolo nero and orchids? Genuine orchids?”
“This restaurant has two Michelin stars,” said Emily cuttingly. “I’m afraid you won’t find hamburgers on the menu.” At the other end of the table, the Boker smiled approvingly.
“Could you keep your voice down a bit?” asked Grayson, sounding annoyed.
One place farther on, Charles was looking inquiringly at Lottie. “Have you been to the cinema recently? Any films that you’d recommend?”
Only now did I begin to appreciate the full extent of Ernest’s courage in getting all these people whom he called his family together around the same table. It was as if he’d seated barrels of gunpowder next to burning fuses. The Boker despised Mom, Mia, and me. Mia and I couldn’t stand the Boker, any more than we could stand Emily, who thought even worse of us than we did of her. Obviously she was also at odds with Grayson. In his own turn, Grayson had quarreled with Florence. Florence would happily have had Mia and me publicly whipped. Mom feared the Boker even more than earthquakes and tax returns. Charles hated his mother for treating him like a child. And so on and so forth. While Ernest sat in the middle of the party, feeling fond of us all. For the first time, as he raised his glass, looked around the company, beaming, and thanked us for coming, I felt deep admiration for him, and I could understand why Mom had fallen so much in love with him, never mind his Dumbo ears and bald patch. That is to say, the real Liv could understand it, and even Clone-Liv felt emotional enough to take herself off to the parallel universe where she belonged.
A kind of solemn feeling spread through me, and at the same time, I didn’t feel well. I’d functioned like a machine all this week, I just had to get through it, not feel, not think, not remember anything. But now, in view of Ernest’s generosity and optimism, I suddenly couldn’t keep all my suppressed feelings from sweeping toward me like a tidal wave and closing over my head. Along with my memory. It was all back again, and it hurt horribly. In my mind’s eye, I saw Henry sitting on that marble slab, pale and calm, looking at me.
“Is that it?” I heard him say.
Was that it? It was too much for my self-control, anyway. I tried desperately to breathe calmly, but found that I was doing the exact opposite. I met Mia’s inquiring eyes. This time I wouldn’t be able to avoid her question, and everyone at the table would see me collapse.…
Emily, of all people, rescued me.
“Oh, yuck, Liv!” She flapped her hand in the air in front of her nose. “What’s that disgusting old-lady perfume you’re wearing? It takes my appetite right away.”
My breathing returned to normal. No, I wasn’t going to collapse. I’d hold out for Ernest’s sake. “What a shame, you’ll miss eating the two Michelin stars,” I said. “And how did your exams go?”
“Just fine.” Emily was ostentatiously speaking through her nose. “It’s all a matter of organization and discipline. Unfortunately there are always people in our year who think they can take it casually, between parties and basketball games.”
“Why don’t we change places?” Grayson suggested, looking at her and obviously ready to pick a quarrel. “I like Liv’s perfume.”
I was about to explain that I wasn’t wearing any perfume at all, when trouble started up two places away.
“I can recommend About Time—that’s a really good film,” Lottie was telling Charles, and Charles asked, “Did Jonathan like it too?”
I swiftly interrupted. “Have you all decided what you’re going to order? I think I fancy … er…” I opened the menu. Duck liver marinated in bitter chocolate and creamed beetroot, for fifty pounds? Calf’s head with radish and mint vinaigrette and aioli with capers, seventy-five pounds? Heavens, this wasn’t a menu: it was a horror story. But at least I’d averted the escalating argument for now; everyone was busy studying the dishes on offer, and I’ll say one thing for them, there wasn’t a wide choice so you could see the whole range easily.
Just then the waiter arrived to take our orders.
Determined not to spoil Ernest’s evening, I opted for tortellini stuffed with mascarpone, flavored with Périgord truffles. I hoped there couldn’t be much wrong with that.
Mia said she’d like spaghetti carbonara with Aquitaine caviar, but without the caviar, please.
The waiter didn’t bat an eyelid, but Emily said, “In this case, the caviar is the main ingredient, Mia.”
“Leave her alone,” said Grayson.
“It will cost your father seventy-five pounds, and she’ll only push it about on the plate looking desperately for the pasta,” said Emily, and she turned to the waiter. “Maybe you can simply bring her a children’s dish, pasta with some kind of neutral sauce. And I’ll have the lobster velouté with artichokes and coriander.”
“You are—” Grayson began, but I interrupted him. “That sounds delicious, Emily. I was thinking of it myself.” Well, thinking of it so far as wondering what velouté meant.
Grayson shot me a rather irritated glance, but for now he kept his mouth shut.
Lottie and Charles ordered monkfish à l’Armoricaine. That’s to say, Lottie ordered it, and Charles just said, “The same for me, please,” and leaned toward Lottie. “About this man Jonathan…,” he began.
“Yes, the monkfish does sound delicious too,” I cried. If you ignored the oysters and curried apple and cucumber salad that came with it. I was getting rather agitated. This was like watching Wimbledon—no way could I keep an eye on all the doubles players at once.
“Sure, delicious,” muttered Mia, drawing my attention to the table next to ours, where the waiter had just served up a fish. A whole fish, glazed eyes and all.
Now it was Grayson’s turn. “I’d like the turbot, please, without the palourde clam compote,” he told the waiter.
“But that’s the best part of the dish,” said Emily when the waiter had gone away. Grayson seemed to have been just waiting for that.
“And I’m sure you’re about to tell me why, teacher.”
Oh God, I couldn’t take much more of this. We hadn’t even reached the starters yet. I looked helplessly from one barrel of gunpowder to the next. And those were only the people I could hear. Who knew what was going on at the other end of the table?
“Palourde clams are the only Venus clams that can be eaten raw, and they…”
“Who is this Jonathan you keep talking about?”
“What makes you think anyone’s interested in that?”
“But you told me you didn’t like action films!”
Maybe I ought to reconsider and stage a collapse after all—at least that would take their minds off their own problems, and later they could say I had spoiled the evening and it was al
l my fault.
“Is that it?” I heard Henry’s voice at the back of my mind again.
At this moment Ernest struck his wine glass with a fork, and silence fell.
“While we’re waiting for our orders to arrive, I’d just like to say a few words, if you will allow me. It won’t take long.” He smiled at all the guests. “When I celebrated my birthday this time last year, I would never have thought that a year later I’d be standing here”—rather clumsily, he pushed back his chair and got to his feet—“as the happiest man on earth. Because of meeting you, Ann.”
Mom blushed.
“I had come to terms with my life—I’d never have expected to fall deeply in love again.” Ernest’s voice was so solemn that it gave me goose bumps. Not just our table but the whole restaurant seemed to be listening, because although Ernest was speaking softly you could hear every word he said.
The Boker pretended to have a fit of coughing.
But Ernest went on, entirely undeterred. “I didn’t realize what I was missing, but now I know that I never want to let you go again. Ann?” He reached into his jacket pocket and brought out a little box. When he opened it to reveal a ring with a shining stone in it, Mom let out a small, stifled sound. So did the Boker.
Tears came to my eyes. I couldn’t do anything about it. And I wasn’t the only one with moist eyes sitting there. Lottie even gave a quiet sob.
“Ann, will you be my wife?” asked Ernest.
Mom was fighting tears back too. “Yes,” she whispered. “Oh yes, I will.”
22
YOU HAD TO say one thing for Mia’s anti-sleepwalking device: it definitely did what it was meant to do. When the saucepan lids began clattering, I woke at once. By the time the cowbell joined in, I was sitting upright in bed. And I was on my feet long before the last lid stopped clattering.
I wasn’t the only one. Everyone else in the house, even Lottie on the top floor, had been woken, and within a few minutes, we were all in Mia’s room. Mom and I were the first. As we came through the doorway, we immediately saw that Mia was the only one still asleep. It was icy cold in her room, the window was wide open, and Mia was sitting on the windowsill with her back to us. To be precise, sitting on the very edge of the windowsill, with her legs dangling in the air outside.