Tidings of Great Boys (3 page)

“Just getting ready to go home for the holidays.”

“Home to the UK?”

“That’s where it is.”

“We do have big plans,” Lissa put in. Carly looked up suddenly, and her hand jerked, as though she wanted Lissa to stop. I
looked at her, puzzled, as Lissa went on, “A bunch of us are going with her. It’s going to be great.”

“Huh? You’re all going to Scotland?” Tate’s eyebrows rose into his carefully mussed hair.

“What’s this?” Brett looked round the glass-topped table, stopping on Carly. “Scotland?”

The penny dropped. She hadn’t told him yet about our plans, which in itself was unusual. Those two talk constantly. What about,
I don’t know—couple stuff, one presumes. Not that I envied her or anything. After all, I had my chance with old Tate here,
anytime I wanted.

“Are you going with them?” Brett asked Carly.

“Nothing’s for sure yet.” Her voice was soft. “Mac invited all of us, but I haven’t had the guts to bring it up with my dad
yet.”

“Don’t wait too long, or we won’t all be able to get seats on the same plane,” Lissa told her. “We’re cutting it pretty close
as it is.”

“Your dad’s not going to let you go to Scotland.” Carly looked up from her gelato at the finality in Brett’s tone. “If he
won’t let you come to my place, he’s not going to let you go there.”

“I know,” Carly said. Why did he have to make such a point of it? “It would be fun, though.”

“So would Christmas with us.” He slid an arm round her shoulders and smiled. “Even if he did say yes, you’d still come to
our house, wouldn’t you?”

Carly’s answering smile, which had been all soft and besotted, faltered. “I don’t know. That’s a tough call.”

Brett drew back a little. “It is?”

This was getting far too serious. Time for me to step in and lighten it up. “Oh, yeah. Nineteen-sixties plumbing versus the
latest in high-tech bathrooms. Stone walls versus Italian drapes. A howling gale off the Hebrides versus the sun on the Golden
Gate. That’s a tough call, that is.”

Any more and I’d convince myself to stay with Carly instead of the other way round.

Brett had been so focused on her that he looked surprised at my horning in. “I think we need to talk about this in private.”

“Brett, relax,” Carly told him. “There’s nothing to talk about, because my dad won’t let me go anywhere but the mall on the
day after Christmas. If I’m lucky.”

Not that I’m competitive or anything, but somehow his proprietary attitude with her rubbed me the wrong way. “Carly, if I
came to stay with you at the weekend, maybe I could talk him round.”

She laughed. “Thanks, Mac, but you don’t know my dad. If I even bring up Scotland, we’ll have another rolling blackout on
our hands.”

“But what if I bring it up? I could even get my dad to call him.”

“Great idea.” Brett’s dark eyes have a rep for slaying the girls. Only in my case, slaying took on its literal meaning. “Break
the ice for me. ’Cuz if he okays Scotland, then for sure he’ll okay Christmas with the Loyolas. The old bait and switch. The
lesser of two evils.”

“You’re not an evil,” Carly assured him. “You’re my guy, and I’m sure the only reason he’s bent about it is because he’s been
in Guadalajara for, like, the last month. He misses Antony and me. It’s got nothing to do with you as a person. You know that.”

Me, I thought it had quite a bit to do with Brett as a person. What dad—Latino or not—would ship his daughter off to her boyfriend’s
house for a bunch of overnights? I mean, even Mummy, who trusts me despite certain evidence that she shouldn’t, wouldn’t let
me spend a weekend with a boy, family hanging about the place notwithstanding.

When Brett spoke, he dropped his voice. But I’ve got ears like a cat. Gillian and Shani had already gone on to some other
topic, so I was the only one besides Carly to hear him say, “I just want to know that you’d pick me, that’s all. I’ve already
got your Christmas present.”

Oh lovely. Would you like a side of guilt with that?

“I’ve got yours, too,” Carly told him. “But can we drop this? You sound jealous, and that’s totally not like you.”

“It’s important. Of course I’m not jealous. I just don’t want you running off to the other side of the world when it’s winter
break and we could do stuff together. We could go up to Napa or go to our house in Tahoe and ski. Both my brothers and their
wives are coming, and they’re all rabid skiers.”

“I don’t know how to ski,” Carly said.

“That’s okay. We can snowboard.”

“I’ve never done that, either.”

“I’ll teach you. It’s easier than riding a dirt bike.”

“If I’m going to go up the side of a mountain, fall on my butt, and freeze, I may as well be at Strathcairn.”

I barely managed to keep my mouth shut as I carefully scooped the last of my gelato out of the cup. Our place wasn’t that
cold. Some years it didn’t even snow.

Brett was silent for a second. “You really want to go, don’t you?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want. Papa isn’t going to let me go anywhere, so that’s that.”

Thankfully, he dropped the subject. But I didn’t. When we got back to the dorm, I launched another sneak attack. Call me a
troublemaker, but deep down I sensed Carly wanted to go with us. It kind of makes her feel bad that we’ve all traveled and
she hasn’t. I mean, Gillian has been to so many countries, she’s run out of places to sew patches on her duffel bag. I’ve
tripped all over Europe on various holidays, and Lissa certainly doesn’t hide the fact that her dad shoots films all over
the world and she’s been on most of his sets.

If Brett were a proper boyfriend, he’d be delighted to see Carly’s dream of traveling come true. But no. He wanted her all
to himself instead of sharing her with us. That needed to be nipped in the bud, and tonight I was in a nipping mood.

I twirled off the lid of my pot of Crème de la Mer and rubbed a bit of it into my skin as Carly brushed her teeth. “I meant
it, you know. About coming to stay with you this weekend. Do you think your dad would mind?”

“Of course not. He likes you. He calls you
la chiquita con el pelo rojo
.”

Rub it in.
“I also meant it about me asking if you can come to Strathcairn.”

She rinsed her mouth and put her toothbrush in the holder. “You’re welcome to try. But don’t be mad if he says no.”

“Someone else will be mad if he says yes.” In the mirror, I saw Shani come over and lean on the door, as if she thought things
were about to get interesting.

“He won’t. Trust me.”

“But what if he does? Is Brett really going to make you choose between him and us?”

Carly hung up the towel with care. “If Papa says I can go to Strathcairn, it will be totally different than going to Brett’s.
You guys know why.”

“Because he’s your boyfriend,” Shani said quietly from the doorway. “Because he thinks Brett’s going to try something on if
he gets you alone overnight.”

Carly snorted. “How alone can we be with the whole family there? But that’s exactly what he thinks. Which shows how well he
really knows Brett.”

“I bet the luscious Mr. Loyola has thought about it plenty,” I said. “You guys have been going out for six months. He wouldn’t
be normal if he hadn’t.”

“Maybe he has,” Carly said. “But I told him I don’t believe in sex before marriage, and I mean it.”

“No matter what the provocation?” I teased.

“That’s right,” she said with a rueful grin. “Which is why, if I had the choice, I’d choose a nice cold castle in Scotland
to help me protect my man’s virtue.”

Shani threw back her head and laughed, and I couldn’t help it. The picture of Carly protecting the captain of the rowing team
from her hot little self was just too funny.

Funny, but kind of sweet and admirable, too. Because of course she would put him before herself. Do the right thing. Keep
everything on the up-and-up.

These Christians. Sometimes I just didn’t know why they put up with me.

G
LOBAL STUDIES. HISTORY. CLASSICS.

The term ticked down in two-hour increments, one for each of my exams. I don’t think I even saw Shani or Lissa on Thursday
and Friday, even at meals. A blur that might have been Gillian buzzed the sandwich case and swiped something to eat, but other
than that, she was holed up in her room. No wonder. My course load is a holiday in Tahiti compared to hers.

This is the beauty of having done my A-levels already. Well, okay, U.S. History is not a holiday, nor is Economics, but compared
to Gillian’s honors science classes, I’m practically skiving off in Ballet and Intro to Computer Science and Medieval History.
Not to mention Art, where I think I’ve actually managed to complete one collage in time to be graded.

By Friday afternoon we were all in a state of collapse. I lay on my bed, waiting for the cramps to ease out of my cortex—not
to mention my shoulders—while Shani checked e-mail on the bed next to me, comfortably propped up with pillows.

“Hey, girl,” a male voice said from her laptop. It took me a second to realize it wasn’t some random YouTube video, but Danyel
Johnstone.

“Do you want me to leave?” I asked her.

Shani paused the video and turned the screen toward me. “Of course not. What do you think he’s going to do, take off his shirt?”

“One can hope,” I said coolly. “I thought you might want some privacy, that’s all.”

“What he says to me, he can say to all of us.”

“I thought he was your boyfriend.”

“He is. But he’s a musician.”

“And that precludes romantic videos?”

“If he’s got something private to say, he does it in a letter or he writes me a poem. Two weeks ago he even wrote a song for
me—and sent me the MP3.”

I stifled a pang of jealousy. What did Shani have that I didn’t have? She turned down a prince for a surfer boy who wrote
her poems. And what did I get? Propositions from disgusting Rory Stapleton and mind-numbing boredom from Tate DeLeon.

She pressed Play and Danyel’s face unfroze. “It’s Friday and I bet you never had a better reason to say TGIF, huh? All the
exams done? Ours were done yesterday and Kaz and I are going to celebrate by having a Halo smackdown at his place. Can you
dig it—we’re talking solid hours here, babe. His dad’s at some meeting in L.A. and won’t be back till late, and my mom is
cool with it ’cuz she knows what a grind it’s been this term.

“Ahhhh, I love Christmas break. High-pressure front coming in, which means lots of sun, which means—yep, you got it—surfing.
What’s this about heading off to Scotland? I can’t believe you and Lissa would pick haggis and frostbite over me and Kaz.
What is up with that?

“We going to see each other before you go? Let me know. I can be there before you know it.” He blew her an air kiss. “Later,
ma. Your present’s in the mail.”

The video ended and I glanced at Shani, who had a goofy smile and soft eyes. “Another song?” I asked.

“I hope so.” She closed the laptop slowly. “You know, Rashid would have made me a real princess. But that boy there makes
me feel like one.”

“Then I guess you made the right decision.” I spoke hesitantly. What did I know? I’ve had boyfriends since I was twelve, but
none of them ever put that soft look in my eyes. None of them ever wrote me songs, either. How come no one thought enough
of me to write a song?

I hauled myself back from a slippery slope that had a big puddle of self-pity at the bottom.

“Sounds as though he wants you to stay and spend Christmas in Santa Barbara,” I said. “You aren’t going to change your mind,
are you?”

“Not me. I want to be well out of reach before my parents realize the term’s over and make the standard familial gesture of
inviting me to Chicago.”

“Have they found a place to live?”

“Mathilda—she was our housekeeper—stays in touch with them more than I do. She sent me a note saying they’d found a little
house in her neighborhood and scraped up enough for a down payment.”

“At least they have someplace.”

She nodded. “They’re adjusting.”

I couldn’t imagine what I would do if Mummy’s money suddenly disappeared and we lost both the house on Eaton Square and Strathcairn.
I couldn’t see my parents making do in a semi-detached in Clapham. I mean, where would they put four hundred years’ worth
of furniture and art?

But this was essentially what had happened to Shani’s family. Shani had refused to marry Prince Rashid of Yasir, the heir
to the Lion Throne, and consequently her parents, who had brokered the deal when she was a baby, had lost the financial backing
of Rashid’s dad, the Sheikh. All of it was gone—the company, the seven-million-dollar house, the trips to Paris to buy couture,
everything.

No wonder she wanted to escape to Scotland with me. I could just imagine the first Christmas in the new house. “Silent Night”
would take on a whole new meaning.

“When is Carly due back?” Not a very graceful change of subject, but it would do.

Shani glanced at her watch. “Another half hour. They moved the language exams to this afternoon.”

I nodded. “I had French right after lunch. I saw her outside the Spanish classroom when I came out.”

“There was something I wanted to ask you. About Carly.”

That got my full attention. “What?”

“Are you going with her tonight?”

With a nod, I said, “She okayed it with her dad. I’m to spend tonight there, and Saturday, too, if we don’t convince him right
away to let her come to Strathcairn.”

“So you’re going to talk to him?”

“Who better? Even if it takes two solid days.”

“You’re a braver woman than I. Her dad is all about family and budgets and grades. A very serious guy. I don’t think trips
to Europe figure into his worldview.”

“Doesn’t he spend half his time in Asia for work?”

“Sure, but Carly doesn’t. She’s never been anywhere except Texas and Mexico, and she’s got family in both places. I don’t
think she’s ever spent a holiday anywhere there
wasn’t
family.”

“As far as I’m concerned, she’s the closest thing I’ve got to a sister,” I said firmly. “So I’m going to play that card for
all it’s worth.”