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‘Did you come down here drunk last night and disturb my ledgers?’
‘What do you mean?’ Emily asked. She’d opened her door to find her mum standing outside, arms folded across her chest, looking at her, unamused. ‘We’ve both been in bed the whole night – haven’t we, Clarissa?’
Clarissa stared at Emily. ‘Oh, yeah right. I’m pretty sure … er, yes, we were both here all night.’ She frowned, thinking about her dream during the night – that she’d ventured downstairs and discovered Joss and Alice talking together in the lounge, drinking wine, and that Alice had said something about her daughter. Then she’d returned to bed and Emily had seen her and asked her what she was doing.
Clearly it hadn’t actually happened, otherwise Emily would have remembered – wouldn’t she? Unless she was telling her mum a fib so they didn’t get into trouble. One look at Emily’s mum’s face said that was a definite possibility.
She ushered them both downstairs, even though they were still in their pyjamas, to show them where she’d found it.
‘I found this on the desk.’
Emily didn’t get what the problem was. ‘Yeah – so? Perhaps I left it out ready for the next guest to turn up?’
‘This is from the second year we opened. So, I want to ask you again – did you take this ledger out of the cabinet?’
Emily exchanged a glance with Clarissa and shook her head vehemently. But as soon as her mother’s back was turned, she mimed at Clarissa,Did we?
Clarissa shrugged.
‘Well, put it back for me.’
They both watched Emily’s mum walk off. Clarissa whispered, ‘To be honest, I can’t remember. I know we were talking about it …’
‘I remember that,’ said Emily. ‘The thing is, I was so drunk.’
‘Me too. I mean it’s not as though I drank a lot last night, but with the kids, and my new career, I haven’t had time for the simple pleasure of just putting my feet up and chilling with a glass of wine – or several.’
Emily could only imagine.
‘We fell asleep.’
‘Did we do anything before we fell asleep?’
‘Maybe,’ said Clarissa. They both turned to look at the ledger. ‘I want to take a look.’
‘So do I.’
‘Let’s take it up to my room,’ suggested Clarissa.
‘Good idea. I don’t want my mum catching us nosing through this. We obviously found something, but for the life of me, I can’t remember.’
‘Me neither.’
Tucking the journal under her dressing gown, Emily took the stairs, two at a time, followed by Clarissa. Their timing was a bit unfortunate. As they reached the top of the stairs, Joss walked out of his bedroom. He looked like he was nursing a headache. He stepped back in surprise when they rushed up towards him. ‘Where’s the fire?’ he joked.
Emily looked at him. ‘Pardon me?’ she said coldly, unhappy that she’d been snubbed for the second time. He hadn’t come to her get-together. In fact, he looked as though he’d had a party of his own. ‘Excuse me,’ Emily said, barging past him.
‘What’s with her?’ said Joss, following her with his gaze.
Clarissa rolled her eyes at the daft question. ‘I think she might be cheesed off that you didn’t take her up on her invite last night.’
‘But I did. We both did.’
‘You and Alice?’
‘Uh-huh.’
Two doors down, Emily had stopped outside the bedroom door. She turned around to look at Joss, overhearing what he’d just said.
