by Holly Miller
As I approach Caleb’s studio, I slow my pace. He’s standing outside, embracing a tall, dark-haired woman I’d recognize anywhere.
As they’re pulling away from their hug, he spots me. Following his gaze, Helen turns. I can’t tell from here if she’s smiling—I’m rooted to the spot about a hundred meters away—but if I had to guess, I’d say her expression remains steady, unyielding, and entirely unflustered.
Caleb calls my name, but I’ve already turned and started walking away.
“Lucy.” I hear his footsteps behind me. “Lucy.” He grabs my arm, pulls me to a halt.
I turn to face him but say nothing. He urges me a few steps farther along the street, presumably to escape earshot of his wife.
“Lucy . . . it’s not how it looks,” he says, his breath like hot smoke in the air between us.
The cliché is so bad, I have to resist the urge to wince.
Caleb sighs, glances down at his feet. “As in, she just showed up.”
“Right.”
“I had no idea she was coming.”
I nod again, more tightly this time. “What does she want?”
“Just to talk.”
I’m not too sure why that had to involve bodily contact—especially considering he’s always claimed things weren’t amicable between them—but I say nothing further. It’s up to him to explain, not me to ask.
“Listen.” I can tell he wants to take my hand but is sensing I might snatch it away. “Would it bother you . . . if Helen and I went and got a bite to eat?”
I swallow, feeling my stomach tip and pitch. Yes, it would bother me. Why is she really here? What is her game, showing up out of the blue like this?
I glance over Caleb’s shoulder back toward her. She’s not even looking at us, is staring down at her phone instead, her face made ghoulish from the blue light of the screen. Her lack of interest fits perfectly with the mental image I have of her—high-flying, someone utterly unaccustomed to hearing the word no. You don’t rise to the top of the magazine publishing hierarchy without having a shard of ice somewhere inside you. I picture her at work in the West End—a corner office, floor-to-ceiling glass—with assistants running around after her as she stalks between appointments and meetings, yelling at people to just get it done.
Does her indifference mean she has no interest in Caleb, or that she sees me as entirely inconsequential?
“I thought you said things weren’t amicable between you,” I say, folding my arms, already resenting him for turning me into someone with suspicions, a role I have no interest in playing. I think slightly bitterly back to what my sister said about him the first time they met, back in June: He just seems like someone who . . . wouldn’t be into playing games.
“They’re not, particularly. But . . . we’ve got stuff to discuss, and I’ve not eaten, so . . .” He puts a hand to the back of his neck. “Can we meet at the cottage later?”
I wrinkle my nose. What could be more pathetic than waiting at my boyfriend’s house for him to get home from dinner with his wife? “No, I’ll stay at Tash’s tonight. Call me tomorrow.”
“Luce.” And now he does grab my hand, before I can walk away. “I swear, this is just . . . business.”
Business? Stuff to discuss? Is he being deliberately evasive, or is he trying to protect my feelings? Does business mean divorce? And isn’t that what solicitors are for?
Maybe it’s just a clumsy choice of words, but calling it business seems slightly disingenuous. Because since when was having dinner with your wife to discuss your divorce devoid of all emotion, something toward which you have no significant feelings at all?
I’m half expecting him to try to kiss me, but he doesn’t. He just squeezes my hand, then lets it gently drop before walking back along the cobblestones toward her.
Go
Max has joined me and a group of people from Supernova for after-work drinks. It’s not often he finishes early enough, so I felt my pulse quicken with excitement when I saw him walking into the bar earlier. I still feel that way every time I catch sight of him, even after all these years.
The bar is a favorite of Zara’s (she’s related in some way to the owner, I think) and is popular with the advertising and media crowd. It’s one of those underground places with a secret door, so dark inside you can barely see. As a rule, I hate spaces without windows and an obvious escape route, but if Zara suggests somewhere, you don’t chip in with an alternative.
I’ve been here once or twice before. Because the room is so small, it always feels crammed, thus perpetuating its exclusive, popular vibe. You end up feeling almost lucky to be here, which is ridiculous. It’s just a bar.
“Lucy tells me you’re in property litigation,” Zara says to Max, once I’ve introduced him to everyone. He’s just bought a round, which has made all eleven people in this corner of the room fall a little bit in love with him.
“I am, for my sins,” he says, with a friendly wink.
“You might be able to help me, then.”
“I can certainly try.”
“My neighbors. Nightmare couple. They’re building an annex,” Zara says, in the same way most people would say sex dungeon. “I’ve seen the plans. Completely unnecessary, and a hideous eyesore. It’s going to take all the light from my kitchen.”
Max clears his throat politely. “Okay. Sometimes that’s more of a planning issue, but it depends on—”
“Tell me about it.” Zara leans forward, martini in hand. Her chunky gold bracelet keeps banging against our table, and she’s wearing a navy blue jumpsuit that on anyone else would look prison-issue but on her resembles something at the top of a magazine trend-o-meter. “Who are these jokers at the council? I objected, but they granted it anyway.” She shakes her head. “They’re building it for their teenage devil children, who are only going to use the thing to snort drugs and play loud music. Nothing you can do? Send them a threatening letter, or something?”
People do this a lot to Max—imagine they can engage him over a swift half down the pub. I smile into my Virgin Mary. It’s the drink I order more often than not these days, because it reminds me so much of seeing Max that night in The Smugglers, when he appeared outside the window and back in my life.
He asks Zara some questions, starts talking about the enforceability of restrictive covenants. Zara, eager, gets out her phone. I appreciate the effort Max is making: he could so easily have dismissed her, spelled out in no uncertain terms that her complaint is legally baseless—but he knows how important Supernova is to me, and how eager I am to earn brownie points with the toughest woman in the world to impress.
Phoebe, my deskmate, leans over. She’s wearing a headband and crop top—the weather never seems to factor when she’s choosing what to wear—and I envy her easy confidence. She called a member of senior management dude in a meeting last week and he blushed more than she did. “Anyone in for karaoke later?”
As Zara gives Phoebe a look I can only describe as withering, I smile. “Unless Max is keen, I think we’ll—”
“Actually,” he says, “I wouldn’t mind blowing off some steam.”
I stare at him. Back in the day, we always used to laugh at karaoke, maybe even feel a little smug that we didn’t have to get up onstage to prove we lacked inhibition. “Really?”
“What’s your song?” Kris asks him.
“ ‘Wonderwall,’ ” Max says, without missing a beat.
Kris looks surprised. “Huh. I’d have had you down as more of a ‘My Way’ kind of guy.”
I meet Max’s eye and smile. He used to sing “Wonderwall” to me at uni, whenever it came on in a bar or at a gig, and every time he did, my whole body hummed with happiness.
* * *
—
It’s been just over a month since I agreed to try again with Max, to put the past behind us. We didn’t even kiss bef
ore I left his flat that night, but forty-eight hours later, I called him, suggested a supper club Jools had recommended. The idea of eating around a table with strangers appealed to me—I thought it might be a simple way to ease back into each other’s lives without the pressure of a one-to-one meal, or the temptation of jumping into bed together if we spent our first night hanging out at home.
In the end, though, I realized I hadn’t fully thought it through—we had to answer lots of awkward questions about where we’d met and how long we’d been together. Still, it served as an icebreaker, and we did meet some interesting people, including a weather presenter who Max and I both half recognized, and a former X Factor contestant, who we definitely didn’t.
The idea of being physically intimate with Max again felt a bit like approaching the top of a roller coaster. My biggest fear was that Tash would rear up in my mind like a jack-in-the-box whenever he tried to touch me. But in the end, it didn’t work out that way. After supper, Max and I went back to mine, our nerves slightly quelled by the preceding hours of conversation. And that first kiss, which I initiated, on the doorstep, felt entirely natural, like something I’d been craving after many weeks of abstinence. In fact, I was surprised by how hungry I felt for him, by how much I wanted to go straight upstairs and start where we’d left off three months earlier.
Once we were in my bed, Max let me lead, and for the first few minutes I imagined we were back at university, on that very first night before we went home for Christmas. I pretended we were starting all over again, that the past had been erased. And then my body took over, the pleasurable twitch of muscle memory, and everything felt better than even I had thought possible. Afterward, we lay naked on the bed together, breathing hard, the curtains still open, listening to the sound of kids passing by on the street below, swearing and shouting and laughing through the single glazing. And I felt strangely at ease, like I’d just found the missing last piece to a jigsaw that had been driving me crazy.
Since then, we’ve been a little stop-start. I know Max wants me to set the pace, to say how often I want to see him, to suggest the things I fancy doing. Which is thoughtful of him, and in some ways helpful. But sometimes I just want to pretend the whole Tash thing never happened—I definitely don’t want to discuss it any more than we already have—and I think Max is aiming for some kind of middle ground that doesn’t really exist.
The worst part has been wondering what everyone else thinks. Only Jools and my immediate family know the true reason behind our temporary split, and when we’re out with friends or colleagues, I occasionally catch a sideways glance, an uncertain smile. Like they’re thinking, Who cheated on who? Is he bad in bed? Is she actually really boring? Is he an unbearable snob?
I try not to think too hard about what they’d say if they knew the truth.
* * *
—
On the pavement outside the karaoke club, I dither for a moment. For some reason, I feel nervous about going inside. Maybe it’s the prospect of another dark space with no windows, being crammed into one of those hot, airless booths together. I don’t want to take the risk.
“You okay?” Max asks, as I hesitate, watching the others go in ahead of us.
We could just go home, I think. Zara’s gone back to Highgate. Everyone’s drunk already. I wouldn’t be letting anyone down.
“Come on. Let me be all cheesy and bellow ‘Wonderwall’ at you.”
I smile and squeeze his hand, because to be honest, that’s an offer that’s hard to resist. So I take a breath and follow him inside.
As we’re waiting to be shown to our booth, my gaze is drawn to a tall, dark-haired figure in front of us. He’s with another group, and I can only see him from the side, but he looks horrifyingly familiar. Same slim build and pale shirt. A demeanor rippling with confidence, a self-possession that chills me. He’s only a couple of meters away. He could turn, and . . .
I feel for a moment as though someone’s clamped their hand across my mouth. My body goes stiff and rigid, skin prickling all over like I’ve been pushed into nettles. If a fire broke out now, I wouldn’t be able to flee. My pulse becomes an urgent, fluid rush between my ears.
Nate.
No. It can’t be.
Nate. He’s here. He’s found you.
Finally, I force my body to move, and in the next moment I’m back out on the street. Heaving cold air like I’ve just run the race of my life, I bend over in an effort not to pass out, but my heart is beating so fast, it’s touch and go.
Feeling a hand on my back, I jump, before realizing it’s Max.
“Luce? You okay?”
“Sorry,” I gasp. I’m ridiculously relieved to see him, like I’ve just woken up from a nightmare.
“God, what’s wrong? You’ve gone gray.”
It takes me a couple of moments to find the words. “I just saw someone in there who . . .”
He waits, but I can’t say it.
“Someone you know?” he prompts.
I shake my head. “Someone who . . .” Maybe it’s time to finally tell him.
I must look quite ill, because Max doesn’t ask any more questions. He just removes his coat and wraps it around me—it’s only now I realize my teeth are chattering—and orders us a cab.
Thirteen
Stay
“What—so you actually saw them hugging?”
I frown, nod. “Yep.”
I’m with Tash in her kitchen, the morning after seeing Helen and Caleb embracing outside his studio. I’ve been reading through the latest hard copy of my manuscript since dawn, scribbling all over it with red pen. I’ve realized recently that whenever anything’s troubling me—no matter how serious, or trivial—delving into my writing has become my way to deal with it. Or not deal with it, depending on how you look at things. Anyway, it helps, being able to lose myself in something. Whatever’s playing on my mind, I always end up finding some version of it somewhere on the page.
The kitchen is bright with chilly light and filled with those homely start-of-the-day scents—browned toast and brewed coffee and freshly laundered clothes. Simon and Dylan have already left the house, and now it’s just me and Tash, grabbing half an hour together before she’s due in at the office and I open up at Pebbles & Paper.
“Did Caleb call you, afterward?”
I smile, grimly. “Yeah, at one a.m.” I didn’t pick up, and he’s not sent me a message since. So as to how his dinner went with Helen, I’m still firmly in the dark.
Tash winces. “Ouch.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know—maybe it was too much to expect, that she’d be out of his life so soon after they split up.”
“What, you think . . . he still has feelings for her?”
The idea of Caleb rediscovering his love for Helen at dinner last night—laughing at her jokes, flirting through dessert, not wanting to leave the restaurant—makes my chest contract and my heart spin. “I didn’t think so, but . . . he messaged me at one o’clock. So they must have gone out for drinks, and . . .” I sigh. “Who knows? Maybe.”
This is what comes, I think grimly, of risking your heart with someone who seems too good to be true.
“You could check his phone.”
I laugh, glumly. “Come on.”
She shrugs. “Why not?”
“If you reach that point, you’re better off not being together at all, aren’t you?”
Tash swallows, then looks down at her hands, spins her wedding ring a couple of times. “I don’t know. Sometimes . . . if you just need that reassurance . . .”
For some reason, the expression on her face takes me back to the argument she and Simon had in the garden at Dylan’s birthday party.
“Tash,” I say, softly, though my heart is thundering. “Did Simon cheat on you?”
She waits for what seems like minutes before answering, her for
ehead creasing like a mask beginning to crack. “Yes. Once. With this woman called Andrea, a few months after we got married. She worked with him.”
I swear under my breath, grab her hands across the top of the kitchen island. “God, Tash . . . why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was ashamed,” she admits, her voice suddenly reed-thin. Her hands are quivering slightly. “It was embarrassing. We were newlyweds. I felt humiliated. I just wanted to pretend it had never happened.”
I think of what she just said, about checking Caleb’s phone. “You don’t think Simon’s still—”
“No.” She shakes her head. “We worked it out. We got through it. And I actually think it was the right thing at the time, not telling you, or Mum, or anyone, because . . . Simon’s the most amazing dad to Dylan, and he’s a really brilliant husband, and . . . we chose to make it work, Luce. And every day, I’m glad we did.”
I’m pleased to hear her say that, obviously, but I’m not sure what she thinks that means for me. “So, what—if something’s happened between Caleb and Helen you think I should just . . . be cool with it?”
“Of course not. But you can be in charge of how you deal with it.” Her frown deepens a little. “You know, this is why I never really bought into that whole soulmates idea, Luce. I think love is a choice, not a feeling. I think it’s something you have to work really hard at.”
I smile faintly. “Didn’t you say a girl at your work read a magazine article about soulmates that sounded terrifically convincing?”
She shrugs softly, like everything I’ve just told her has put paid to that brief dalliance with sentimentality. “Must have just got caught up in the moment.”
I might not align with my sister’s pragmatic approach to love, but I have to admit, it does all sound impressively mature. I squeeze her hands. “It’s amazing. That you could forgive Simon, move past it.” It would be hard to argue that this wasn’t a good thing—because if she hadn’t, Dylan wouldn’t exist.
