A meeting of the Granny Mafia was in progress when Rose and Olivia entered the sitting room with the boxes of invitations. A sample had to be extracted and passed around so that each old lady could examine it closely enough to ensure that it didn’t deviate in any way from the standard.
Malcolm Watts, impeccably attired in a dark suit, was pouring tea and handing cups around, but Rose noticed that his attention was not on the old ladies but on Olivia. It made Rose uneasy. Poor Jennifer.
After they’d escaped upstairs, Olivia let out a sigh and gave an exaggerated shudder. ‘Whew. I’ll be glad when he’s gone!’
‘Malcolm?’
‘I did.’
They went into Olivia’s bedroom and she shut the door behind them. ‘I’ve been avoiding him, but this morning he caught me alone for a minute in the breakfast room. He asked me to go out with him on Saturday night. I told him I was busy. He asked me when I wasn’t busy, just to name a day. I reminded him that I didn’t date. He begged me to give him a chance. He was practically on his knees, Rose! I felt like throwing up!’
Rose gave a snort of sympathy and dismay. ‘I thought he was supposed to be dating Jennifer Banks!’
‘Well, he didn’t mention that. If I’d known, I guess I could have thrown it in his face, but I’m sure he would have told me it didn’t mean anything, and offered to sacrifice her on the altar of our love …’
‘Did he actually say he loved you?’ asked Rose, horrified.
‘I don’t believe he actually used the L-word, but the implication was there. I told him that I was very sorry, but I couldn’t possibly date someone who worked for the family, so would he please not bother me again. And then he let me go, and I went and drove myself to school, while he went straight upstairs to Nanny and gave notice.’
‘He quit?’
Olivia nodded unhappily. ‘Not that I’ll be sorry to see him go. He agreed to stay through the weekend; I got the impression that he would have walked out this morning if she hadn’t insisted.’
‘He quit his job in the hope that you’d go out with him?’ Rose gazed at her friend in awe.
‘Maybe it’s egotistical of me to imagine the two events are connected. He told Nanny he was going back to college in the New Year, and that he needed the time to study and get ready. I don’t know; I’d have thought if he was going back to school in January he’d need all the money he could make.’
‘Maybe he’s got another job that pays better.’
‘Who knows. I’m sure not sorry he’s leaving. But I’ll bet I haven’t seen the last of him.’
‘Poor Olivia,’ Rose said, unable to keep a faint trace of resentment from her tone. ‘How awful it must be to have everyone in love with you.’
Olivia made a face at her. ‘Be fair. I’ll bet you wouldn’t want Malcolm Watts mooning around after you. And Orson isn’t in love with me. I don’t care what Farren told you. Orson likes the way I look, that’s all. He doesn’t know the real me. If he knew what I was really like inside, he’d run a mile!’
Although she’d had similar thoughts, Rose had to protest. ‘Now who’s got self-esteem problems! If you gave him the chance to really get to know you, he’d be as fond of you as I am!’
Smiling at some secret, Olivia shook her head. ‘He knows me better than he thinks he does. We’ve met in Illyria, and your precious Orson – Count Orsini, as he is there – doesn’t like me at all!’
Rose stared at her in astonishment. ‘You go to Illyria? But you said – I mean, the things you’ve said about computer nerds …’
‘When all along, I’m a closet nerd? I know, I know …’ Olivia smiled ruefully. ‘You shouldn’t take everything I say so seriously. I have moods, like everybody else. I was probably hating myself whenever I said that, making a resolution to spend my time constructively, working on French or math, or reading one of the great books instead of playing in a MUD or chatting to complete strangers all over the world for hours every night.’
‘I didn’t think you had time to surf the Net.’
Olivia shrugged. ‘So who needs sleep?’
‘You go to Illyria? Regularly? You said it was a waste of time.’
Olivia sighed. ‘Please, don’t keep throwing my words back at me. I was wrong. That’s what I thought at first. All last year when Illyria was being set up, I stayed away. I decided I was too good for the computer club. But then I thought I might as well check it out, just once, and am I ever glad I did.’ She came over and sat beside Rose on the bed. ‘You know Illyria?’
Rose nodded. ‘I never said anything about it, because I thought you’d be bored.’
‘How funny that we’ve never met there,’ said Olivia with a little burst of excited laughter. ‘Or maybe we have! Oh, I’m so glad, Rosy – I’ve been needing to talk to someone … I was going to tell you anyway, but I wasn’t sure you’d understand. But you know what it’s like on-line – how you start out playing a part, and then it turns real. And now it’s the realest thing of all.’ She caught her lower lip between her teeth, then let it go and expelled her breath in a sigh.
‘I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Illyria, too,’ Rose began, but Olivia, caught up in her own internal drama, didn’t seem to hear.
‘I’ve fallen in love,’ Olivia blurted.
Rose stared at her, astonished. ‘Really? You mean – on-line? In virtuality?’
‘Yes.’ Olivia covered her face with her hands for a moment. ‘You were right and I was wrong. I thought I was bullet-proof. I thought I could resist it until the time and the place were right. And all along, I just hadn’t met that bullet with my name on it.’
‘You make it sound so … fatal.’
‘That’s how it feels.’ Olivia jumped off the bed and began to pace the room. She stared at her computer as if her lover were locked inside.
‘Who is he?’ asked Rose.
‘I don’t know,’ she said flatly. ‘He teases me so. I don’t know his real name, or where he lives, or even what he really feels about me. He’s clever, sensitive, funny, mysterious, romantic – sometimes. Other times he acts like he hardly knows me. It started out as a game, and maybe it still is for him, but for me it’s turned real, and it hurts. These feelings … It’s the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me, but it could turn out to be the worst.’
‘It might be, but I think you have to risk it.’
Olivia laughed shortly. ‘I’m not planning on giving him up!’
‘I meant more than that. Don’t you think it’s time to take the next step?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Have you asked him his real name?’
‘No.’
‘Well, why don’t you? Find out who he is and where he lives and arrange to meet him.’ Olivia was staring at Rose as if her suggestion was completely crazy. ‘Well, why not? Don’t you want to see how your love translates into the real world? It shouldn’t be too hard to arrange a meeting. You said you met in Illyria? He must be a student somewhere in the state.’
‘What an innocent you are, my Rose.’
‘What do you mean? Access is restricted to students.’ Even as she spoke, Rose remembered that it was Simon who had first told her about Illyria.
‘In your dreams. Anybody who really wants to can get in. All you need is the access code – which I happened to see posted on a bulletin board once, in case anybody else was curious – and a student ID number, which you could probably make up if you didn’t happen to know somebody who had one. Not that Illyria is such a hot destination spot to the hordes of Net-surfers, not when there are so many other virtual worlds to explore. Most outsiders wouldn’t bother to come back after one visit. But some might. And if my virtual love is really a forty-something pervert with an interest in sweet young girls, I’d rather not know. Don’t look so horrified. I’ve got it under control. Anyway, chances are he is a student, like me. But with my luck, instead of being a handsome, eighteen-year-old planning to go into Pre-Med at some Ivy League college next year, he’d turn out to be an extremely overweight fourteen-year-old comic book collector.’
‘So you’re not going to risk it.’
‘Absolutely not. Why ruin a good fantasy with reality? I don’t want to know who he really is. I like my Roberto just the way he describes himself on my screen.’
Rose’s mouth went dry. She wanted to believe she hadn’t heard correctly, but she knew she had. ‘Roberto,’ she said numbly.
‘Yes – have you met him?’ Eagerly, Olivia crossed the room to sit on the bed beside her. ‘Have I met you? What’s the name of your character? I call myself the CyberQueen.’
*
Orson had decided it was time to take the next step. He had taken Ro’s advice about pursuing Olivia more actively; now he was going to apply the same technique to Roberto. It was time to unmask and meet in the real world. He didn’t know how Ro would take it. He’d always been so careful about giving away any personal details. Maybe the guy wasn’t straight, maybe that was it. It could be that he thought Orson would reject him if he knew the truth. Maybe he had a disability, or was sensitive about his looks, his weight, his race, his family background …
Orson believed he had considered all the possibilities, and he also believed that nothing would affect his feelings. He didn’t spell it all out for Roberto like that; he didn’t want his friend to think he’d been spending a lot of time brooding over his possible looks, race or sexual preference. It might seem kind of creepy. They were two guys, after all, and this was a friendship, not a romance. And it was crazy for two friends not to meet.
Dear Ro,
I think it’s time we took the next step, don’t you? Meeting you in Illyria was cool, and I’ve really enjoyed our exchange of views via e-mail. Over the past two months I have come to feel that you are my closest friend. I don’t believe that anyone, in or out of cyberspace, knows me better than you do. But …
You know my name and where I go to school, two basic facts I don’t know about you. I know lots of other, possibly more important, things about you, of course: your taste in music and books and films; that you don’t have a car but are learning to drive; that you once had a fox cub for a pet; that you’re opposed to violence, racism and cruelty to animals; that you feel an unrequited love for someone who loves someone else. You have shared all this, and so much more, with me – so what is the big deal about your identity? You’re not Batman, are you? Does Ro stand for Robin?
Let’s meet this weekend. I can borrow the car on Sunday, and I will drive to wherever you are, no matter how early in the morning I have to get up. Tell me where to go.
If you don’t want to meet me, that is your choice. If your privacy is more important to you than our friendship, tell me now and I won’t bother you again. I’ll miss you, Roberto, if that is your choice. Our friendship began as a game in Illyria, but it has become real – or so I feel. If I am wrong, do me a favour and end it now.
Your friend, Orson Banks.