hampers were properly packed. And occasionally, occasionally, I get to set up royal visits. We open at special times for those, and I make sure that there’s someone in the necessary departments. One day, we got a call from the palace that the queen wanted to come over that evening, in just a few hours. She never does that. She’s always very carefully scheduled weeks in advance. But this night she wanted to come in, and there was no one else available. So I had to take care of her.”
“What did she want?” Ginny asked.
“Pants,” he said, dabbing on even more ketchup. “Underwear pants. Big ones. Very nice ones as well, but big ones. I believe she also got some stockings, but all I could think as I wrapped them up in the tissue was, ‘I’m packing up the queen’s pants.’ Peg always did like that story.”
At Peg’s name, Ginny looked up.
“It’s a funny thing,” he went on. “I don’t know what you’re meant to be doing here or how long you’re supposed to stay, but you’re welcome, as long as you like.”
He said it very sincerely but kept his eyes trained on his steak.
“Thanks,” she said. “I guess Aunt Peg asked if I could come.”
“She mentioned that she wanted you to. I mailed the package. I suppose you know that?”
She didn’t, but it made as much sense as anything else. Someone had to send it.
“So,” Ginny said, “she was your roommate, huh?”
“Yeah. We were good mates.” He pushed his steak around for a moment. “She told me a lot about you. About your family. I felt like I knew you before you ever got here.”
He poured a bit more ketchup, then set the bottle down very deliberately and looked at her.
“You know, if you want to talk about it at all…”
“It’s fine,” she said. His sudden directness…the closeness of the topic, the it…it made her nervous.
“Right,” he replied quickly. “Of course.”
The waitress dropped a handful of forks next to their table. They both stopped to watch her pick them up.
“Is there an ATM in here anywhere?” Ginny finally asked.
“Several,” he said, looking eager to take up this new topic of conversation. “I’ll show you when we’re done.”
They were done just a few minutes later, as they both developed a sudden interest in eating very quickly. Richard showed Ginny to the ATM and returned to work, with the promise of seeing her in the evening.
To her relief, Ginny found that English ATMs looked exactly like American ones. She approached one and stuck in the card. The machine politely asked for a code.
“All right,” Ginny said. “Here we go.”
She entered the word pants into the keypad. The machine purred and showed her a few advertisements about how she could save for a home, and then it asked her what she wanted.
She had no idea what she wanted, but she had to pick something. Some number. There were lots of numbers to choose from.
Twenty pounds, please. That seemed like a good, basic kind of number.
No. She was on her own. She would need to buy things and get around, so…
One hundred pounds, please.
The machine asked for a moment. Ginny felt her stomach drop. Then a stack of crisp purple and blue notes (different sizes: the purple ones were large, the blue ones little) emblazoned with pictures of the queen popped out of the slot. (Now she got it. Aunt Peg’s little joke also ensured that Ginny would never forget the code.) The large notes didn’t fit in her wallet, so she had to crush them in.
Her balance, the machine said, was £856. Aunt Peg had come through.
Dear Ginny,
Let’s get right down to business.
Today is MYSTERIOUS BENEFACTOR DAY. Why Mysterious Benefactor Day? Well, Gin, let me give you a because: because talent alone doesn’t make an artist. You need a little serendipity, a little luck, a little boost. I stumbled right into someone who helped me out, and it’s time to return the favor. But it’s also good to be mysterious. Make someone think that wonderful things are happening to them for no reason they can see. I’ve always wanted to be a fairy godmother, Gin, so help me out here.
Step one: Withdraw 500 pounds from the account.
Step two: Find an artist in London whose work you like, someone you think deserves a break. This is going to require some looking around on your part. Any kind of artist—a painter, a musician, a writer, an actor.
Step three: Become A MYSTERIOUS BENEFACTOR. Buy a new invisible box for a mime, get a mile’s worth of violin strings for a violinist, roll up in front of a ballet studio with a year’s supply of lettuce…whatever you want.
Now, I think I know what you’re thinking: This can’t be done in a day! You are so wrong, Gin. Those are your orders. When you’ve successfully done this, you can open the next letter.
Love,
Your Runaway Aunt
The next morning, after reading her letter and splashing around in the tub, Ginny joined Richard at the kitchen table. He was loosely dressed—unbuttoned shirt, undone tie—and was roughly flipping through the sports section of the paper and shoving pieces of toast into his mouth.
“I have to find an artist today,” she said. “Someone who needs money.”
“An artist?” he said, his mouth half full. “Oh, dear. Sounds like a Peg task. I don’t really know much about that stuff.”
“Oh. That’s okay.”
“No, no,” he said. “Let me think a moment. It shouldn’t be hard. Giving people money can’t be hard.”
He munched on his toast thoughtfully for another moment.
“Hang on,” he said. “We’ll have a look in Time Out. That’s what we’ll do.”
He reached under a pile of shirts that sat on one of the kitchen chairs, felt around for a second, and produced a magazine. Ginny had a strange feeling that leaving laundry on the kitchen chairs was something Aunt Peg probably didn’t allow when she was here. For someone who lived pretty randomly, she was a bit of a neat freak.
“They list everything in here,” Richard said brightly,
