It was all very well, thought Lulu, for handsome, world-traveling Liam Fitzcharles to decide he wanted to spend the evening with Lulu. She herself, however, might have other ideas.
“I have things to do,” she said.
“No, you haven’t,” said Charlie. “We were going to watch Friends, and explain to Javier about Ross and Rachel and Monica.”
“I have to cook dinner,” she said.
“Of course you don’t,” said Charlie. “We’re capable of feeding ourselves, you know.”
“If you think,” said Lulu, “that I’m letting either of you two anywhere near my lamb—”
“We won’t touch your precious baa-aa-ah lamb, Little Bo Peep,” said Sophie. “I’ve heard tell from them as know that there are places out in the big wide world these days serving something called pizza. I do believe they even have a couple right here in London town.”
“Do come to dinner,” said Liam. “Even if you think I’m awful, the food in this place is supposed to be good. And even if it isn’t, at least it’s a spot of secks.”
“Excuse me?” Incredulous, Lulu turned to Charlie.
“Secks,” explained Charlie. “Someone Else CooKS. It’s his little joke. I’ve been covering for him all along, but the jig’s up now. He’s as weird as his friends.”
“Someone Else CooKS,” said Lulu. “Got it.”
“And you like it!” exulted Liam. “Don’t pretend you don’t, because I can tell. Are we on, then? Pick you up at seven?” He stopped. “If that’s okay with you, of course,” he added.
“Seven thirty,” said Lulu. “Contrary to what your sister thinks she knows about my every waking hour, I really do have some things I have to do first.”
As soon as he had gone, Lulu turned on her flatmates. “Don’t say a word,” she warned them. “Not a word.”
“I don’t intend to,” said Charlie. “The idea of you and my brother is so close to incest, it makes me feel all grubby just thinking about it. Sophie, can I show you something in my bedroom, please? I’ve torn a shirt and I think it can be mended, but I’m not sure.”
“Then I’d better take a look at it,” said Sophie. “You never know with shirts. And your luck just happens to be in, Alfrederesco, because I just happen to have some time to spare right now.”
“And there’s no time like the present, is there?” Charlie observed.
“None whatsoever,” Sophie agreed. “We might be a while,” she added to Lulu, pausing as she passed to snatch an unopened package of ginger nuts.
A few hours later, dressed in a chocolate-brown skirt and a cream shirt that flattered her coloring, and smelling lightly of Jo Malone’s lime, basil, and mandarin bath oil, which Emma had dropped off earlier on the grounds that anything of Sophie’s was too girly for Lulu and anything of Charlie’s would remind Liam of his sister, Lulu looked at herself in her bedroom mirror, missing her hair. Everyone who had seen her new hairstyle had complimented her on it, from Tom, to her mother and Joanna, to a couple of the more regular mothers at the toy shop, to Maureen Carroll’s father, Sean, who had winked and told her she was a gorgeous girl and he wishing he were fifty years younger by God; but Lulu herself was still not so sure. She had liked having hair at the edges of her vision; it had comforted her and hidden her just a little from a world that at times seemed to change with a suddenness that was little short of alarming.