Chapter 9
Elvis was singing to her. It was ‘Love me Tender’ and he was dressed in a white, flared jumpsuit covered in rhinestones. His hair was jet black, styled in a quiff and he was wearing huge, gold sunglasses. And then her nose felt wet and scratchy. It was like someone was rubbing a damp emery board across it.
Freya opened her eyes and felt fur touch her cheek and whiskers poke her eyes. It was Willis, licking her nose.
‘You hungry?’ Freya asked him.
She turned on her side, trying not to make Willis topple from the bed, and reached for her glasses on the nightstand. She caught sight of the time on the clock radio. It was almost seven-thirty.
‘Daddy up early again, Willis? Come on, let’s go and get you some breakfast and see what he’s up to,’ Freya said. She stroked the cat’s head.
She got out of bed, tied her robe around her and headed out of the bedroom. Willis skipped in front of her and led the way down the stairs.
The door leading to the basement was open. That meant Nicholas was working out. Converting the cellar into a state-of-the-art gym was the only modification they’d made to the house since moving in.
Freya knew he found it tiresome, but keeping himself in shape was essential for Nicholas’ profession.
When the equipment was first installed, she’d attempted to have a turn on the running machine. She soon found out it wasn’t an activity you could multitask on. She had nearly choked on a chocolate muffin and almost scalded herself with a hot cup of tea. She hadn’t been near the equipment since.
Willis weaved in and out of her legs as she negotiated the stairs down to the gym. Nicholas was seated, his back to her, bare from the waist up, using the lateral pull-down.
Freya stood and watched him. He had an amazing physique she could look at all day. She quickly pulled a small digital camera out of the pocket of her robe and snapped a couple of pictures.
‘Hey,’ he greeted. He let go of the weights and turned around to face her.
‘Morning. So, at what hour did you decide you’d rather spend time with these boring, ugly, stiff machines instead of me?’ Freya asked, walking towards him, Willis hot on her heels.
‘It was about six, or just after. I woke and I couldn’t get back to sleep and I thought if I do this now, I won’t have to do it later. I thought maybe we could go out to dinner tonight.’ He stood up, reached for his towel and rubbed his face with it.
‘My choice?’
‘Yeah, why not. I’ve just about recovered from the last feeding frenzy we went on when we did four different restaurants in the one evening.’
Willis let out a miaow and jumped up on to the stepper machine. It started to move and scared him.
He leapt off and raced up the cellar steps.
‘Willis is hungry and so am I. Have you eaten?’ Freya asked. She took the towel from him and rubbed the sweat from his back.
‘No, what have we got?’
‘The leftover pizza’s still there. It’s probably still good for one more day. Or there’s a carton of Chinese we didn’t finish on Tuesday. Or there are blueberry muffins from the diner but they’ve been hanging around a while so perhaps they ought to go in the bin,’ Freya recounted as they made their way back up to the main house.
‘Do we not have bread and eggs or cereal?’
‘Well yeah, we have those things. But they aren’t very exciting.’
‘I’m making scrambled eggs with toast and I’m putting all that leftover takeaway food in the trash,’ he told her.
‘The bin, God damn it! The bin! Even the pizza? It’s got everything on it.’
‘Especially the pizza. If it’s been around that long, it’s got everything on it and a whole lot more.’
Willis was sat on the kitchen counter when they arrived in the room, rubbing his head against the cupboard housing his food.
‘So, you haven’t forgotten what we’re doing today, have you?’ Nicholas asked.
‘Do we have something planned?’
‘The new scanning equipment’s going to be used for the first time at Carlton General Hospital today. We’re doing a meet and greet with the patients, cutting a ribbon and having lunch with the hospital board. You really had forgotten, hadn’t you?’
‘Oh God, is that today?! Yes, I had forgotten, but that’s fine. I’ll call Sasha, have her check the diary and cancel anything I might have stupidly put in. I did say I wasn’t an organiser,’ Freya reminded him.
And Nicholas definitely hadn’t told her. His assistant probably sent her a bossy email and she probably deleted it.
‘Well, while you’re on the phone to her, you can ask her to check appointments for next month and then we can make a firm date for the wedding.’
‘I will.’
‘No second thoughts this morning then?’ Nicholas asked her. He cracked some eggs into a pan.
‘No, but I had a rather terrifying dream about an Elvis impersonator. Hey, did you make tea for the photographers when you got up?’ Freya asked.
‘No. I looked out and there was only one guy there and I didn’t recognise him.’
‘Well Donny will be there by now. I’ll make a pot.’
‘You are crazy, you know that, don’t you?’ He shook his head at her.
‘And that makes you crazy for wanting to marry me.’
The phone rang and Nicholas crossed the kitchen to pick up the cordless handset stationed on the wall.
‘Hello… Oh, hi Sasha. That’s OK… I’m fine, thank you and you? That’s good… Yeah… Uh huh… Well, that was good thinking…’
‘Hey, does she want to speak to me at all? Her boss?’ Freya asked.
‘Freya’s right here. Yeah, I’ll put her on… Yes OK, I will,’ Nicholas said. He held out the receiver for Freya to take.
‘Hello.’
‘Hi, Freya, I’m sorry to bother you at home this early but I wanted to remind you about your visit to Carlton General today. I meant to mention it yesterday but I had my meeting with Heather Malcolm and it went right out of my head.’
‘That’s OK. My fiancé is thankfully better organised than me and he also has a PA who emails lots of intricate-looking schedules. But thank you for reminding me. Have I got anything else booked in for this afternoon?’ Freya wanted to know.
‘No, but there’s a message from Jonathan Sanders on the answer phone suggesting he meet you for lunch tomorrow to discuss the plan he put to you yesterday. He was a little vague.’
‘Jonny,’ Freya said out loud.
‘Shall I call him back to accept or did you want to do that?’ Sasha questioned.
‘Sasha, are you in the office right now?’ Freya asked. She moved from the kitchen out into the hallway.
‘Er, yes I am.’
‘Sasha, it’s not even eight. What are you doing there? Don’t you have a bed to be in? Or someone else’s bed to be in?’ Freya asked her.
‘Well, Heather Malcolm accepted my proposal for the college football photographs so I wanted to make a start with the organisation.’
‘Sasha, why can’t I be as efficient as you?’
‘I…’ Sasha started.
‘This afternoon, we’ll do what I said yesterday. We’ll turn off the phones and get stuck into something. Maybe we’ll go out somewhere and take some pictures,’ Freya suggested to her.
‘I’d really like that.’
‘Good. Well, while you’re on the phone and in the office, could you check the diary for next month and see when I have some free time? I’ll need a week or so clear,’ Freya said.
‘You’re pretty busy. There are meetings about the Every Day project, but there is a reasonably clear week at the end of the month. There are one or two appointments but…’ Sasha began.
‘You mean around Christmas.’
‘Yes.’
‘Could you cancel those appointments? And give me the date of one of the Saturdays either end of that week,’ Freya asked her.
‘Twenty-second?’
‘Great. That’s perfect. Right, well could you book me out that Saturday and the whole of the following week?’
‘Are you taking a vacation?’
‘Holiday, Sasha. Yes I am: a honeymoon.’ She smiled to herself. A honeymoon.
‘Oh. Well, that’s great, congratulations.’
‘Thank you. Well, I shall see you a bit later and if Milo at the patisserie has any new recipes he’d like me to try out, save me something for this afternoon,’ Freya finished.
‘Sure. See you.’
Freya returned to the kitchen and replaced the phone on the wall.
‘Everything OK?’ Nicholas asked. He buttered toast.
‘Everything’s fine. In fact, you’d better call your brother later and make sure he can get here for the twenty-second of December.’
‘You’ve decided on a date.’ He turned to face her.
‘Can you make it?’
‘I think I’m supposed to be meeting with Arnold Schwarzenegger that day, but I’m sure he’ll understand,’ Nicholas replied, slipping his arms around her waist.
‘Tell him you’ll be back,’ Freya suggested with a laugh.
‘I’ll tell him I can’t meet him because I’m going to be made the happiest man alive.’
‘You’ll make me blush and you know I hate blushing in front of Willis.’
‘He’s gotten used to it. Come on, let’s eat breakfast and then I’ll call Matt, tell him the good news.’
He let her go and picked up the plates from the work top.
Twenty-second of December. She was going to be a winter bride. Now the date was set, she had to think about what she wanted and where she wanted it. Where did she start?
‘So, who’s Jonny?’ Nicholas asked, sitting down at the table.
‘Jonny?’ She swallowed. She should have told him yesterday. Whatever she told him now, after the event, was going to sound lame. Unless she lied to buy time. Why did she need to lie? There was nothing between her and Jonny.
‘Yeah, Sasha said something to you on the phone and you said Jonny in kind of a weird way.’
‘Oh, Jonny! That Jonny! Oh, that’s Sasha’s latest guy. He’s nothing to write home about and if you ask me, she could do a lot better than him. He stood her up last week with no good excuse.’
There was the lie, tripping from her tongue. She sat at the table with a thump.
‘She seems quite a nice girl. She certainly likes to talk.’
‘She is nice and talented. Obviously not as talented as me, but I’m trying to pass on a few things to her,’ Freya told him.
‘So, December twenty-second.’ He looked across the table at her, a smile on his face.
‘Yep, twenty-second of December, it’s a date.’
If God didn’t smite her for the lying.