You Auto-Complete Me

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

YOU LOGGED ON

DRU I was thinking about your situation.

EM Ohai. What situation?

DRU The Daniel Situation.

EM What about it?

DRU I don’t think you need a man. I mean, we don’t these days, do we? Lots of the feminist sites say we don’t.

EM You’re just saying that because you have a boyfriend. I don’t.

DRU I can’t believe he said you had s****l hang-ups.

EM I know, right? I am so not an ice queen!

DRU Still, jumping the bones of the first guy you meet may not be smart.

EM Meh. I’m determined to make things different here. I’m not going to sit around wondering if he’s the right man to jump into bed with. I’m just going to go for it.

EM You know, once I find someone I want to go for it with. With whom I want to go for it. That sounds awkward. Gah. Grammar!

DRU You didn’t finish telling me about the ghost in your room.

EM Didn’t I? I thought I did.

DRU You’re telling me stuff in your head again, aren’t you?

EM It’s the jet lag. OK, pull up a chair. Let me go voice-to-text again.

DRU And here I was worried the ghost had gotten you. Who would have sympathy cramps for me if you get taken by an underwear-fetish poltergeist?

EM Luckily, the ghost doesn’t seem to be interested in anything but my undies. Which is creepy enough, let me tell you! The thought of spectral hands fondling my bras gives me the willies.

Here’s what happened—we arrived two days ago. Since Bess is off to tour England for a week, I got the first dibs on the best bedroom. Brother and Mom took the Old People’s room downstairs (so the Ancient One doesn’t have to climb the stairs every night, and let me tell you, that’s a blessing for those of us who like to sleep at night—Brother’s knees sound like cannons going off when he climbs stairs).

So there I was with pick of the prime rooms, and of course I chose the tower room. Now, get this—the room is almost totally round. There’s a turret overhead, but the room itself is round, with great curved window seats. Of course, the first thing I did was check the storage space under the window seats for dead bodies, severed limbs, pulsating hearts, etc., but they were empty.

DRU I really would not like to have your imagination.

EM Fine and dandy, say I, and I snag the room. I unpack my meager belongings right away into a hulking piece of furniture Brother says is a wardrobe (don’t the English understand the necessity of a really big walk-in closet?) and tuck the undies and stuff away in a minuscule dresser. A side note: I can’t believe Mom only let me bring two suitcases. How can I go out in public with only two suitcases full of clothes? I’d go shopping, but until I get a job, I’m sans funds.

Anyway, I went to do family stuff and when I came back, my underwear was all over the room.

All.

Over.

The room.

It was so creepy. I, of course, did the only thing I could do. I screamed.

Brother cracked and popped his way up the stairs (which was really kind of nice of him considering how old he is), and charged into the room looking like a sixty-two-year-old deranged rhinoceros—he had a hair thing going on that looked just like a horn. I really need to have a talk with him about the benefits of mousse.

“What’s wrong? Are you hurt? What happened?” he asked in between gasps for air.

I stared pointedly at my undies lying all over the floor. “My underwear is all over the room!”

He looked around, the hair horn kind of quivering in an agitated sort of way. “Your underwear?”

There are times when I am positive that he doesn’t speak the same language I do. “Underwear. As in, those things I wear under my clothes? Get it? Underwear?”

“I know what underwear is, Emily. And I can do without that smart tone.”

“This from the man who springs Vlad the Impaler trivia quizzes at the drop of a hat.”

“Those are different. They are educational,” he said, trying to look noble ’n stuff.

I took a deep breath. “The fact remains that my undies are not where they should be.”

He ruffled back the horn o’ hair and looked around the room again. “Why have you strewn your clothes around the room? I thought you were excited about having the tower room?”

“I didn’t strew anything around, Old One. I put my things—pitiful and in need of immediate replacement, not that you’ve offered to do so—in the drawer, but when I got back, they were all over the floor. I just knew this house was haunted, and now I’ve got proof.” I shook an underwire b*a at him. “We’ve got ghosts. I just hope you’re happy! God only knows what the ghost is going to do with my—”

Oops! Almost let the cat out of the bag there. Don’t need to explain to him about my boyfriend hippopotamus.

“With your what?” Brother asked.

“My ... um ...” I had to think fast. You know how suspicious my father can be. “Um ... my personal things. You know, women’s things.”

“Oh.” He didn’t look like he believed me. “Regardless of that, there are no such things as ghosts, Emily. You probably simply forgot to put your things away.”

“Even if I did forget—and I didn’t, because unlike some members of this family who are so ancient they can recall what the Holy Grail looks like, I can remember things—but even if I did forget, I would not have thrown all my underwear around the room. Thus, either there’s an ax-murdering maniac with an underwear fetish living in the basement who came up here while I was downstairs trying to make your laptop understand English wireless connections, or this room is haunted.”

“Emily—”

“I’d prefer a ghost to an ax murderer, thank you.”

“You can always use another room if you don’t like this one.”

“But I do like it,” I said, grabbing the rest of my things and stuffing them back into the drawer. “It’s the only nice room in this whole nightmare of a house. You always say I have to make the best of a bad situation, and in this case, that means I get the cool room. It’s only fair.”

“Fine,” he said, running his hand through his hair again. It only made the horn stand up even more. “If you’re done having this morning’s histrionics, I have work to do. The dean of the college I’ll be working for is coming by in a few minutes. I trust you’ll be available to greet him?”

What is it with parents having you meet all their cronies? All they do is ask if you’ve met someone you want to marry, and why you ran into a parked cop car, and stuff like that. The last thing I wanted to do was to meet his dean, but never let it be said that I, Emily Williams, let an opportunity slip past me. “Let’s make a deal,” I said.

Brother groaned. “Not now, Emily—”

“The deal is this: I come down and be charming and pleasant to your dean, and you take me to the nearest mall and fund a shopping trip.”

“I don’t have time to drive you around, and we agreed that you would get a job while you’re here if I got you a work permit. Which I did. The rest is up to you. Besides, I need to be ready for the start of term next week—and speaking of that, so do you. Don’t you want to bone up before you start university?”

I sighed. You know my feelings about that whole school thing—just when I think I’ve found a good degree that I’ll really like, it turns boring after a couple of semesters, and I have to start all over with a different degree. I can only hope that something here will be different than what they have back home, because I’m running out of options of anything that interests me enough to stick with it. “About the mall—”

“Not today, sweetling,” he said as he creaked and popped his way out of the room. I almost rolled my eyes at the “sweetling,” but to be honest, I’m used to it by now. Brother thinks using medieval terms is cute. “Maybe you can worm some money out of your mother, although I wouldn’t count on it. I’ll expect you downstairs in fifteen minutes.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?” he asked, pausing at the door.

I waved my hand at the wardrobe. “I don’t have anything to wear. That’s why I have to go to the mall.”

“What you have on is fine. Downstairs in fifteen, madam, and none of your sulks, please.”

I hate it when the parents pull that authority crap. Just because I was forced by fate and a lot of bad luck to have to move back home doesn’t mean he can treat me like I’m twelve. Sulks! Did you ever? I have never sulked. I don’t even know how to sulk!

DRU Wow, you say the word “sulk” enough and it really starts to sound weird.

EM ...

DRU What?

EM You interrupted my train of flow. Flow of thought. Train of thought. Whatever, you interrupted.

DRU Sorry. I got caught up in your drama and forgot we weren’t talking on the phone.

EM Aww. You’re forgiven. Where was I? Oh, the dean. I thought about ignoring Brother’s demand altogether, but figured it might peeve off Mom if I did, which would lessen the chance of wheedling some pity money from her. Besides, it wasn’t like this dean person was anyone important. It didn’t matter what I wore. Right?

A few minutes later, there I was sitting in the room Brother calls the library, but which really looks (and smells) like a mouse’s playroom—it’s full of boring old books, not even the good kind like that Victorian e*****a book I found (you remember, the one with all the “manly pillars of alabaster”).

DRU And “grottoes of Venus.”

EM Plump pigeons of breastitude.

DRU You made that one up.

EM Maybe, but it sounds like something the erotic Victorians would have said. Well, these books weren’t like that. They were sermons and other deadly things like that—and Brother brought in this old geezer who’s the head of the college. I started to stand up to shake his hand, when this totally fabulous guy came in behind the dean. Girl, I’m telling you, I must have swallowed back gallons of slobber! He wore skinny jeans that looked at least ten years old, a ratty old sweater over a “This is what a feminist looks like” tee, and he had dark gray eyes, a hipster goatee, and dark blond dreads. You know that I don’t like blond men, but holy huevos rancheros, Dru, this man made me rethink my dark-haired-men-only stance.

DRU I’ve always thought that was weird of you.

EM I’m not weird. I’m fascinatingly odd.

DRU If that’s what you want to call it ...

EM Shush, you’re distracting me again.

“Emily,” Brother said, waving toward the hipster. “This is Aidan, the dean’s son. He’ll be working as my teaching assistant this year.”

Aidan. Mama likes sexy names.

DRU Oooh, that is a good one. Almost as good as Raphael.

EM Crapbeans, I have to go. Mom insists I go with her to the grocery store, and since I’m hopeful of hitting her up for some much-needed funds, I shall toddle off to be the doting daughter. I’ll text you as soon as I’m back. I haven’t told you yet about what Aidan said, and why I almost committed Brother-acide, and Holly, and why I’m going back to high school. Kind of. Not really, but kind of. Oh, I’ll tell you about it later.

DRU WHAT? You’re going back to high school? What about Aidan? Emily! Don’t you dare Game of Thrones cliff-hanger me like that!

EM Gotta run.

DRU You can’t do this to me! Emily! COME BACK HERE!

EM Hugs and kisses.