Phoebe's Performance

Expectations

Chapter 10

I blink my eyes open and my gaze adjusts to the dim light. My head's filled with Miss Shower Curtain and Ben. I'd been dreaming about them and I feel slightly ill. I close my eyes.

"Phoebe," Mickey's voice cuts through my continuing dream about how I'm showing Ben and Miss Shower Curtain how successful I am on a grand piano.

"What?" I murmur.

Of course I'll play again.

I need to feel normal again and the last time I felt truly normal was before the accident, before all of the emotional and physical scars, and that was when I played the piano.

"Answer the bloody thing?"

"What?" I blink my eyes open and the shrilling sound continues. Of course my phone isn't part of my dream. It's not Ben's face I see as I'm lording my success over him. It's Mickey and she scowls, standing over the sofa bed almost like an apparition.

She kicks the sofa bed and I groan.

She's clearly there.

Why can't I be delusional about that?

Her green eyes blaze and I wonder why the hell she didn't answer the phone herself if she's so concerned because obviously I would have slept through it. But then a stab of guilt hits me. The last time there was an urgent call it was about the fire. She's hovering by the bed and before she has a coronary my hand snatches the phone. Immediately I notice the caller identification screen and my chest tightens.

It's the Arnold residence.

I stare at the screen and Mickey prods me again.

"Aren't you going to answer it?" her voice has an urgent edge to it.

"Otto?" I say into the phone and Mickey's eyes widen. She folds her legs and sits on the end of the sofa bed. Of course she listens.

"I can't sleep," he says down the phone.

"Oh," I say, feeling my eyebrows rise. Annika did warn me that there might be a few late night or early morning phone calls. "Is there anything on your mind that you want to talk about?"

There's a long pause down the line and I'm beginning to feel a little put out, he's rung me at three o'clock in the morning and I'm supposed to listen to his deep breathing. Fantastic!

"You rushed off so quickly and didn't tell me you were leaving."

"You didn't come downstairs at all. I thought you wanted to be alone. I called up the stairs...." I screw my eyes shut and chastise myself. Despite my frustration at Otto being so blatantly rude, he is my boss. I should have made the effort to go and see His Royal Highness. Damn it. He thinks I'm slack. "I didn't know the protocol."

"No, it's fine I just prefer a progress report before you leave, that's all."

"Is that why you rang?" I scratch the side of my head. "You want a progress report at three o'clock in the morning?"

"Oh...." He pauses down the line. "I thought you'd be like me, a musician who practises into the evening especially with a full time job. I'm sure your resume said something about the Royal College of Music. You'd have to practise at some point, right?"

"I'm not a morning or a night person."

"I just assumed you'd perform on the side. Most musicians' assistants are aspiring performers. Aren't you?"