The Accidentals(59)

I throw myself on the couch by her feet. “Really? Who is he?”

She shakes her head with a wicked grin. “I don’t think I’ll tell you. It was probably a one-time thing. Christmas Dinner is, I think, some kind of aphrodisiac. At the party, I saw people hooking up everywhere.”

“Tonight was a good night.” I giggle again, which I never do. But who knew a few kisses from Jake could make me crazy?

“No,” Aurora argues. “Tonight was fabuloso.”





COMMAND PERFORMANCE





COMMAND PERFORMANCE: presentation of an opera or concert at the request of royalty.





Chapter Nineteen





Sadly, Jake and I both do more studying than kissing for the last week of the semester. I pull an all-nighter before my last exam, and he departs to meet his parents before my last test finishes.

I’m bleary by the time Frederick and I climb into the back seat of a hired car headed for the airport. I wake up halfway to Boston with my head on his shoulder.

“Sorry!” I sit up quickly.

He gives me a smile. “You look like you just played a three-week tour. In Asia.”

I rub my eyes. “I’m too tired even to be nervous about this trip.” We’re flying to Kansas City tomorrow.

“Good. Because you have nothing to fear. It’s me who’s in the doghouse.”

“Still?”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

“She can’t stay mad forever.”

“Alice? Yes she can. She’s been pissed for twenty years that I didn’t become a surgeon like my father.”

I swivel to look at him. “Really? Why would she care about that?”

He tips his head back onto the seat and closes his eyes. “I don’t know. Wasted potential. Blah blah blah.”

What a startling idea. It had never occurred to me that Frederick would be anything but a musician. His choice seems obvious. Fated, even.

Outside the car, the sky has gone dark. Frederick’s reading light reflects in the window. I have the sensation of floating through the night with him, as if we’re the only two people in the world.





Another driver picks us up at the Kansas City airport. My father directs him off the highway and into a residential neighborhood. “It’s that house, the one with the tree in the window.”

We pulled up in front of a big old house with a gambrel roof, like an old-fashioned barn. There’s a smattering of snow, and it crunches underfoot when I step out of the car.

“You grew up here?” I ask. Another piece of the puzzle.

“According to Alice, I never grew up at all,” he answers.

As the front door swings open, I feel jumpy, like a nervous cat.

The first person I see is my grandfather, who looks a lot like Frederick. When he smiles, the corners of his mouth turn up just the same way. And when I come through the door, his smile goes wide.

“Rachel,” Frederick says behind me, “meet Dr. Richards.”

The older man gives me a polite bow. “At your service,” he says. He’s charming, and I appreciate that he doesn’t run up and hug me. This is easier when everybody gives me a little space.

But then Alice comes bounding down a flight of stairs. “She’s here!” she trills, her eyes shining. “I’ve been impossible all week, waiting for you to come. My friends wanted to put me on sedatives, let me tell you.”

Frederick smirks. “I should have brought you some,” he says. “With a ribbon around the bottle.”

Alice ignores him. “Let me show you your room, honey,” she says to me.

I’m given the guest room. Frederick is down the hall, in his old childhood room. Since my grandparents have their bedroom on the main floor, the two of us have the upstairs all to ourselves.

After I put my suitcase away, I hover in the doorway to my father’s room. He sits on the bed, taking off his shoes.

“There’s an AC/DC poster on your wall? Really?”

“They’re in good company,” he points out. There are posters of U2, the Who, and the Stones. “AC/DC was the first concert I ever went to. What was yours?”

My stomach dips, and I sit down on the bed next to him. He doesn’t know what a loaded question he’s just asked. I’m never telling him about my first concert.

He mistakes my silence. “You haven’t been to concerts?” He sticks a fake knife in his heart. “That’s terrible. It’s what I lived for when I was your age. Still is. If I can go hear somebody play—watch some guy with a quirky banjo technique, or a great drummer—that’s what makes me feel okay. Even if everything else is going to shit, I hear some live music, and I feel all right.”





After a dinner of Alice’s homemade lasagna, she chases everyone into the living room, where a Christmas tree stands eight feet tall. It’s covered in tiny white lights.

“Rachel, you really rate,” Frederick teases as Alice brings in dessert. “Usually I’m not allowed to eat in the living room.”

“Frederick, any time you come home to Kansas City, I’ll serve you high tea in here.”

“Easy,” he cautions. “I’m here now. And to hell with tea. I’m ready for a big piece of that pie.”