Love On-Line

by Lisa Tuttle

  I shall be biting my nails with anxiety for the fate of my official invitation at the mercy of the post awful … Olivia has warned me that there’s no admittance to the Midwinter Ball without the properly designated square of card. As soon as it arrives I shall keep it upon my person at all times, near to my heart.

  As for your friend Orson – as I’m already Olivia’s Roberto, I suppose I can handle the slight impersonation necessary to take him in as well. So you can stop fretting. Now, go to sleep, sister dear, and know that your loving brother has your own best interests at heart … as well as his own.

  At last, Olivia’s love for Roberto made sense. Rose smiled and sighed happily as she logged off. Simon and Olivia, Olivia and Simon made perfect sense, and she could let them get on with developing their relationship, which was nothing to do with her. Now all she had to worry about was Orson and Roberto, and Rose and Orson.

  Rose didn’t see the smile on Orson’s face when he received her invitation, but the warmth with which he accepted when he saw her at school the following day made her certain that he was genuinely pleased, not just pretending as a way of being nice to Roberto’s sister.

  Was he still in love with Olivia? Her name didn’t arise in the brief but still regular e-mail messages which arrived addressed to ‘Ro’ every day. Watching him at school, Rose thought that he didn’t gaze as often or as mournfully after Olivia as he once had. As for herself, he was still straightforward and friendly and didn’t seem to regard her in a different light now that she was his date for the Midwinter Ball. This disappointed her, but if she couldn’t take Olivia’s place in his heart, she could at least become his friend in real life.

  Although it was hard, Rose deliberately let his e-mails go unanswered for two or three days, and then replied only briefly. She had to establish some distance between Orson and Roberto, so Orson wouldn’t be so shocked if Simon seemed strange.

  Rose heard from Simon when Alice and Chris arrived back in England, and spent a somewhat hilarious hour on the Internet communicating in real-time with her parents and Simon simultaneously. She invited Gran to join in the conversation, but found her reluctant.

  Si: Tell Gran that her beloved telephones were once, too, newfangled technological horrors!

  Rose beckoned Gran to the computer. ‘Look, see what Simon says?’

  Gran snorted. ‘And how do I know that’s Simon? It could be anyone. Tell him to pick up the old-fashioned telephone and let me hear his voice!’

  As she finished speaking, the telephone rang. Rose burst out laughing. ‘If that’s Simon, he must be psychic!’

  ‘It’s not Simon, it’s your mother, and she’s not psychic, she’s just like me – would rather talk to somebody than type out little messages for them to read off a screen!’ As she finished speaking, Gran was leaving the room to reach the telephone extension in the hall. Rose paused with her fingers above the keyboard and listened:

  ‘Alice? Hello, darlin’, how are you! Yes, I’m looking forward to having all of you here for Christmas. You’re not going to miss your plane, now, are you? And it had better not be late! Yes, darlin’, me too. We’ll see you the day after tomorrow. I’m counting down the hours. I can hardly wait! Yes, I’ll get her. Rose! Come away from that computer and talk to your real mother on the phone!’

  14 Roberto in Real Life

  Orson’s father’s birthday was the day after Christmas, which meant he had felt cheated of a proper birthday throughout his childhood. During the first year they were married, his wife threw a surprise party for him on the day after Christmas, and he had declared it was the happiest birthday he’d ever known. After that the party had become a regular event. Orson and his sisters had grown up feeling, slightly resentfully, that their father’s birthday cheated them out of a proper Christmas. Of course, there were presents for everyone in the morning, but the rest of the day was given over to a flurry of preparations for the party. The children were expected either to keep out of the way, or to help with cooking, cleaning and the moving of furniture. Christmas dinner was nothing more exciting than peanut butter sandwiches; all the goodies whose delicious scent filled the air were off-limits, jealously horded for the next day and the company which would arrive.

  Over the years it had become more and more a family celebration, as the children invited their own friends, and Orson had come to appreciate it more as an alternative to the traditional day-after-Christmas trek to the malls to return unwanted presents and spend money.

  This year, he looked forward to his father’s birthday as never before. This would be his first real-life meeting with Roberto. Or Simon, as he must get used to calling him.

  He was so wound up about it that he went out for a run on Christmas day to try to relax. He was as apprehensive as he was excited, gripped by the dread that something was wrong. Normally he would have gone on-line to discuss his feelings with Roberto, but that was just what he couldn’t do. Ironically, with Roberto so close in real life, they were suddenly farther apart than they’d ever been. They had been such good friends, so close, and then, starting at around the time of the voodoo incident, Roberto had started to slip away.

  Maybe he was just busy, as he’d said. Orson had been busy, too. But now that school was over and Simon was here in Georgia, Orson had expected at least a phone call. Maybe not the first day, with jet-lag and all. Maybe there wasn’t time on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day Orson had phoned Rose, just to wish her a merry Christmas. She had sounded pleased to hear from him. He hadn’t asked to speak to Simon, and she hadn’t suggested fetching him to the phone – Orson realized then that he had no idea how much she knew about his friendship with Roberto. Maybe that meant it had never been as important to Simon as it was to him. Maybe for Simon it had never been more than a game on the Internet, a game he had outgrown.

  Orson tried to keep calm. He tried not to brood. Phone calls were not important. He and Simon would meet each other tomorrow at the party.

  *

  ‘What do you mean you’re not going? You have to go.’ All dressed up for Orson’s party, Rose stared at Simon in his stained grey tracksuit in horrified disbelief.

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Simon calmly, and he yawned. ‘I’m jet-lagged. I need a nap.’

  ‘You can’t stay here! Everyone else is going – me, Alice, Chris and Gran!’ Alice had been at school with Orson’s father and was looking forward to catching up with some of her old friends.

  ‘So the house will be nice and quiet for me to sleep,’ Simon said.

  ‘Simon, you can’t do this to me! It’s not fair to Orson! What’ll he think if you don’t come?’

  ‘What’ll he care?’ Simon looked innocently surprised. ‘Bloke doesn’t know me from Adam. You’re the one he wants to see.’

  ‘He wants to see Roberto – and he thinks that’s you! Simon, you promised!’

  ‘Oh. Yes, well, I know I did, Rosy-posy, but I’ve had second thoughts. And you should, too. It wouldn’t be fair on Orson, and it’s not fair on you, either. You fancy the bloke, and he obviously likes you as well; he likes Roberto, so, when you tell him that you and Roberto are one and the same, his liking for you is bound to be doubled, no?’

  It sounded so simple and logical when Simon said it, and Rose wanted to believe his words, but the tight, twisting feeling in her stomach wouldn’t let her. Simon didn’t know that Orson was in love with Olivia. Or at least he had been. Even if he was over Olivia – and she wasn’t sure of that – he might feel that Rose was no sort of replacement. He would be upset at losing Roberto; he would feel betrayed. If she told Orson the truth now, she might lose him forever.

  ‘Simon,’ she said, in a voice that brooked no argument, ‘you promised.’

  He sighed and held up his hands in surrender. ‘All right. I’ll come to this wretched party where I won’t know anyone. If only Olivia was going to be there! Why’d they have to go off to Tennessee for Christmas?’

  ‘Because her Tennessee cousins came to them last year, so
this year it’s their turn. That’s their family tradition.’

  ‘I know, I know. But that doesn’t mean I like it.’

  ‘You’ll see Olivia at the Midwinter Ball.’

  ‘Well, I can’t say it’s not appropriate for our first meeting. A fairytale setting for a fairytale romance.’

  Simon looked as if he’d be content to lie on the couch and dream of Olivia all day. Rose scowled at him. ‘Simon! Would you get a move on? We’re going to be late as it is! Poor Orson, he thinks you’re avoiding him.’

  ‘And he’s right. And I’ll avoid him at the party – won’t he find that suspicious? Because if I don’t, I’ll be putting my foot in it within five minutes of conversation …’

  ‘I’ll look after you, I’ll keep you out of trouble.’

  ‘Ah, but for how long? And can you keep yourself out of trouble as well? You know, the longer this goes on, the harder it’s going to be—’

  ‘I’m not asking you to do it for ever. Just until the Midwinter Ball is over.’

  ‘And then you’ll tell him the truth?’

  Rose hesitated. She was still hoping that Orson would never have to know. He would find Simon strange and unapproachable, and the friendship would simply end. As for her own relationship with him, maybe that would really begin after an evening spent dancing together in romantic surroundings. If he still wasn’t interested after that, well …

  ‘Rose.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Promise me you’ll tell him the truth. If you can’t manage to tell him at the ball, well, I’m not going to pretend any longer. On the stroke of midnight, like Cinderella’s coach, I’m letting him know I’m a pumpkin.’

  She couldn’t help laughing. ‘OK, OK. I’ll tell him as soon as the ball is over.’ If Orson was going to hate her, at least it wouldn’t be until after she’d had her romantic evening with him. ‘Now get your clothes on and meet us downstairs in five minutes!’

  *

  Orson’s duty was to answer the door. He’d volunteered to do it so he would not risk losing Roberto in the crowds.

  The first guests arrived punctually on the stroke of twelve, and for the next few minutes he was kept constantly busy as a stream of people – none of them the Durcans – kept arriving. Malcolm Watts sneered at him – although, to be charitable, it may have been meant for a friendly smile – and chuckled. ‘Well, well, so Master Banks is studying to be a butler now, eh?’

  ‘Actually, this is my house,’ Orson said mildly. ‘You do know today is my father’s birthday?’

  ‘Your sister invited me to the party,’ Malcolm replied rather stiffly. ‘If I’m not welcome, then of course I’ll go away.’

  What was the guy in such a huff about? ‘I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t welcome. Of course you are. Please, come in, and I’ll let Jenny know that you’re here.’

  ‘Don’t bother; I’ll find her myself.’

  ‘Do you want me to take your—’ But Malcolm had already pushed past him without attempting to shed his overcoat. Orson shrugged mentally, consigning him to Jennifer. Poor girl, with no other option than to go to the Midwinter Ball with that rude cuss …

  The doorbell rang and his heart bounded in Pavlovian reflex. But, again, it wasn’t the Durcans. As Orson greeted Dr and Mrs Abernethy he glanced at his watch.

  ‘Oh, my, we’re not late, are we?’

  ‘No, ma’am, of course not. It’s an open house, from noon till four.’

  But next time he opened the door it was to see Rose, looking pale and nervous. His heart gave a funny little jump; he wanted to ask her what was wrong. But his thoughts were all for Roberto, and he turned his attention to the boy beside her. His face looked a bit like Rose’s but his manner was so different. He was taller, and his dark brown hair was longish and rather limp, with a tendency to fall across his face. His attitude was one of wariness and faint dismay; he looked as if he would really rather have been somewhere else.

  ‘This is Simon,’ Rose said. ‘Si, this is Orson Banks.’

  Orson’s mouth was dry. He suddenly felt as nervous as Rose looked. He extended his hand. ‘How d’ye do?’

  Simon shook his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you,’ he replied automatically. His eyes, which were as bright and warmly attractive as his sister’s, did not linger to share Orson’s unspoken joke about this not really being their first meeting.

  ‘Well,’ said Orson taking a deep breath, just as Simon said, in a rush, ‘Rose has told me a lot about you.’

  ‘She has?’

  They both looked at Rose, who was blushing and shaking her head.

  ‘Er, no, perhaps not,’ said Simon. ‘Sorry, of course she hasn’t. Why should she have to? What would she say that I didn’t already know? I meant to say that I know so much about you, and yet I don’t know you. Something like that. But it got a bit garbled coming out, that’s all. You know the way one simply says things sometimes without thinking about them, they just pop out because they are the sort of things one is expected to say? Er, yes, well.’

  ‘Simon, will you move so we can all come in?’ said the attractive older woman behind him.

  ‘Oops, sorry, Alice! No, no, I’ll keep my jacket, thanks anyway, Orson …’ Simon tapped the breast of his tweed jacket. ‘Something very valuable in here, something I would not want to lose!’

  ‘Hi, I’m Alice Durcan. You must be Orson. I’m so pleased to meet you. I knew your father, years ago. This is my husband, Chris – and of course you already know my mother.’

  Orson stammered out something, took coats, and inquired after everyone’s health and holiday experience, mentally imploring Simon to stick around. But although Rose lingered, her brother quickly vanished from view.

  A few minutes later, as Valerie carried another stack of coats upstairs, Orson thought it might be safe to abandon his post for a while. He was just about to leave when Jennifer, very red in the face, came rushing past him and charged up the stairs. She looked like she was about to cry. Startled, Orson called after her, ‘Hey, Jenny, what’s wrong? Jennifer?’

  She continued up the stairs without replying, and a few moments later he heard the slam of her bedroom door. Orson hesitated, considering going after her, then shrugged and continued on into the living room. He saw that Valerie was behind the bar, helping her father pour drinks, and he made his way across the room.

  ‘Something’s wrong with Jennifer,’ he said when he managed to catch her ear.

  Val frowned. ‘What do you mean? I saw her two minutes ago smiling like the cat that’s got the canary and talking to Malcolm Watts. You could almost believe she liked the guy.’

  ‘Well, she just ran upstairs and shut herself into her room. I think she was crying.’

  ‘I guess I should go check on her. Here, would you fetch some more ice from the kitchen?’

  ‘Sure.’ What Orson wanted to do was to talk to Simon, but that was obviously going to have to wait. On his way back to the kitchen, he scanned the crowds until he spotted Simon, who was in a corner with Malcolm Watts. The two of them were oblivious of everyone else. Something about the tableau made Orson anxious, and as soon as he’d fetched the ice he took a deep breath and went over to them.

  ‘Well, Simon, I’m glad to see you’ve found somebody to talk to. I didn’t mean to desert you like that—’

  ‘Hmmm?’ Simon turned a puzzled smile on him. ‘What? Oh, Orson, no, of course not. I’m fine. Absolutely fine. You need have no worries on that score. I really don’t need any special looking after.’

  ‘Well, I know that,’ Orson said rather wretchedly. ‘But I did think we could … I mean, I would like a chance to talk with you, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, hey, of course – so would I! And we will. But you must be busy with your other guests, and then I ran into Malc, and he started telling me about—’

  ‘Nothing that would interest you, Orson,’ Malcolm cut in. ‘I mean, not to be rude, but we were having a private conversation here.’

  ‘Not to be rude
,’ said Orson, feeling his face blazing, ‘but just what did you say to my sister to upset her? She’s upstairs crying her eyes out.’

  ‘Oh, dear. How unfortunate. I am sorry to hear that she’s taken it so hard.’

  ‘Taken what so hard?’

  ‘A family emergency has called me away. In fact, I really can’t stay any longer. I’ll just pay my respects to your parents, and then depart.’

  ‘Really? You have to go so soon?’ said Simon. He sounded as if he really minded. ‘But I thought—’

  Malcolm tilted his head at him. ‘Walk me out to my car,’ he said. ‘There might be enough time to finish our conversation.’

  Simon grinned and walked away with his new friend. Stunned and disbelieving, Orson watched them go. He realized that Farren was standing nearby, and turned to him. ‘What were they talking about – did you catch any of it?’