“Pippa, it’s like you’re waiting for something to go wrong.”
“Because it always does. Have you been with me for the last several hours? It’s been one disaster after another. It’s only a matter of time before I do something like trip and fall, breaking your hand and ruining your football career, or somehow causing the ceiling to cave in, or, or, or—” I sputter, really truly running out of gas.
Chase glances up. “How would you cause that to happen?”
“You don’t know me and my tendency toward bad, weird, unfortunate luck.”
“But the whole time we were dancing, nothing bad had happened.”
I rock back on my heels, considering this. He kind of has a point. “Just while we were dancing. Before and after are different stories.”
With a wink that threatens to agree to our mothers’ wild courtship idea, he says, “Perhaps I’m your good luck charm.”
“Do you eat Lucky Charms cereal? If so, let me caution you now against choking hazards.”
“Pippa,” Chase says gently.
“Chase,” I answer with a tremble in my voice because I’m just about spent.
“Pippa,” he repeats, rubbing his thumbs on my shoulders slowly, calmingly, and draining away all the tension that builds up inside when I’m out among what Mum and Dad would call “the people.”
“Chase?” My voice is a barely there croaky whisper.
Before he answers the question that amounted to his name, our parents parade toward us, signaling the end of the moment,of the night. Thank goodness, because I cannot be trusted to make rational decisions right now.
He leans down and whispers, “Let this be my comeback story of redemption...and if I have anything to say about it, there will be a giant vanilla cake on our wedding day, but no sponges, promise.”
At least that’s what I think (Hope? Fantasize? Imagine?) he says, but I could’ve misheard because Mrs. Collins and my mother cluck like a pair of hens.
Cluckety, cluck, cluck.
And with that, the next fifteen minutes of goodbyes are a blur. I think I wave at Chase as he exits with his parents, but he becomes a fading figure as I zone out and tune out, no longer able to process the chatter and my surroundings.
As the car brings me from the Smythe’s back to my parents’ place in London, the world comes back into focus. The driver is a quiet companion and I slowly recharge. But I still experience a sense of exhausted disconnection. It also feels like I’ve traveled back in time.
Dancing with Chase at the soiree wasn’t a date per se, but it wasn’t me biting into a sponge, him ruffling my hair like a little kid, or teasing me with my brother.
I try Phoebe three times so I can recap the night with her, eager to pick apart the minutiae of Lady Libby the Love Liaison’s choice for my future husband, but she must be “in the library studying.” However, I’m beginning to wonder if she has a beau of her own.
The next morning,I depart early for Concordia and check my father’s newspaper to be sure of the date because the previousevening comes back to me with a surreal, moving picture quality. Plastered across the front is the headlineBruisers Shock Fans Under the Full Moon.
“Good morning, Phillipa. That young man made quite the splash,” Dad says, pointing to the paper.
“He’s Freddie’s best friend. How could he not?”
“Phillip has never been in the newspaper.” As if Dad missed the memo, he rarely calls my twin, Freddie. Likewise, I’ll always be Phillipa. The man operates in his own sphere.
“That’s because you don’t read the society pages,” I mutter, not wanting to throw my brother under the bus, but he’s had some headlines, even if they’re buried deep in the paper.
“The two of you make a fine pair.”
“The two of whom? My twin?” Mum calls us two peas in a pod, even though we couldn’t be more different.
“You and Chase, of course. I’m looking forward to walking you down the aisle.”
I tear the bag on my tea, spraying leaves everywhere. If I were the kind of person to read into that kind of thing, which I’m not, but if I were, I’d take it as a bad sign.
“What makes you say that?”
