by Rumer Haven
“But it leaves something to your imagination. It lets you decide what happens later, like a litmus test of your optimism.”
“It lets the writer off the hook, is what it does. So, what do you think happens? Do they meet at the train station six months later?”
“Well, before I saw the sequel that tells us exactly what happened, I believed they didn’t.”
“Always negative.”
“Always realistic. I presume you think they do meet up.”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t they?”
“Life happens. Things come up. And maybe what people think is love just fades given enough time apart.”
She’d struck a blow; the impact appeared in his eyes, which even in low lighting she at last distinguished as a dark teal. She made note of every feature on his face.
With a smirk and huff of air out his nostrils, James sat up and took a long drink of his beer. He then lowered the glass between his knees and held it in both hands, which assured Margot he wouldn’t attempt further contact.
“So, what does happen?” he asked. “In the sequel.”
“Nope, no spoilers.”
“What’s it called, then?”
“Before Sunset.”
“How clever.”
“Shut it. Watch it before you judge.”
“Maybe, if I remember.”
Margot ignored the wounded insolence. “Never mind the ending of the first one. What did you like about the rest of it?”
“I dunno. That it took place in Vienna. I like that city. We have an office there.”
“Uh-huh.” Should’ve figured.
“And, you know, the conversations. They seemed natural, like a real couple just hanging out. And I remembered that one scene you talked about once, with the woman telling their fortunes and how we come from stars. But Ethan kept—”
“Jesse.”
“What?”
“The character, his name’s—”
“So, What’s-His-Face,” James continued after shooting her a why-do-you-do-it look, “kept killing the romance with some smart-ass comment about that palm-reading stuff being a fraud.”
“Well, it probably is.”
“Yeah, you would say that. He reminded me a lot of you, actually.”
“Oh yeah? How so? The eternal pessimist?”
“No, more like how he’d reflect on stuff and develop little existential theories.”
“Pretty annoying, huh?”
“No. Pretty interesting.”
If you’d ever paid attention, that is.
“I did pay attention, you know.”
“Huh?” How did he do that?
“I did listen to you. I just don’t always know what to say. I can’t express myself like you. If I tried, it would sound stupid.”
“I wish you did try.” If there was one thing James was, it wasn’t stupid; he just always left his savvy at the office.
“Yeah, well…” He rolled the glass between his flattened palms. “There were some interesting things Jesse brought up. How if there’s such a thing as reincarnation, for the world’s population to increase like it has, souls would have to be split between more and more people.”
When he didn’t elaborate, Margot took the liberty. “So we’d just be scattered fragments of previous selves.”
“Yeah. I thought that was interesting. Maybe it explains why things could get worse in the world as people become more disconnected. Or maybe it means we’re more connected, I dunno.”
“Uh-huh.”
He had tried.
Walking along the Embankment after lunch with James, Margot wondered what meaning, if any, there was to their chance encounter. She could’ve caught the Tube at a station near the pub but desired more of the cool summer air to think now that the rain had passed. As she languidly made her way to the Underground at Westminster, the London Eye floated off the water, watching her.
She practically pissed her pants again when she walked into Rand’s flat to see the Man of the House himself sitting on the sofa, watching television.
“No way!” She ran to plop down on the cushion next to him.
His meetings in Luxembourg had gone well, and he knew he could further conference remotely from London, so he’d decided to catch an earlier flight home.
“Disappointed to lose your alone-time?”
“Thrilled.” She cozied beside him to watch a celebrity chef cook up some classic British fare with a modern twist. Sticky toffee pudding was the dessert du jour, and she sinfully moaned in thought of the molasses-soaked sponge.
“Ignorance is probably bliss there,” Rand said in time for the chef to drop half a block of butter in a bowl of sugar to cream them together. “So, pudding at the pub tonight?” he teased.
Margot both laughed and groaned, but as she looked away from the TV and at his boyish grin instead, dread of ever saying goodbye to it soon overwhelmed her. The time was ticking nearer.
“Actually, I should enjoy it while I still can.” Before she could help it, she added, “I want to enjoy you as much as I can, too.”
“Aw, come here.” He reached his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, then rested his cheek on her head. “I’m going to enjoy you as well, as much as I can.”
She slid an arm around his waist and closed her eyes contentedly. For all her efforts to resist relying on him, being with Rand was like riding into a tunnel that blocked all wireless signals—even those transmitted from the grave. She couldn’t help but sink into the remote peace of it.
“But, really, what are your plans for tonight?” he asked softly into her hair.
“Mm…” she murmured in drowsy thought. “No plans.”
“Is that so? Because I haven’t any either.” He wrapped his other arm around her waist.
Margot’s pulse quickened. Opportunity was practically crawling into her lap, and she wondered if she should just seize it. Take her chances now that he was technically available and deal with any awkwardness afterward.
To feel the situation out, she was about to make a few saucy suggestions for what they might do together—in jest—when she realized this gift of time with him should probably be used to own up to everything she’d experienced in his flat. For all that he knew, there was so much he didn’t, and if Gwen had separated herself from Rand even remotely because he wouldn’t believe in her ghost, Margot would bear the guilt if her own truth could’ve made the difference for them. If it could still, before a break became a breakup.
On an inhale, she opened her mouth to come clean when “Shit!” came out instead. She felt Rand start before holding her a little tighter.
“What is it?”
“I almost forgot. At six-thirty. I’m meeting a friend for dinner.” Talk about denial; Fitz would’ve called her out on another massive case of it in already forgetting such recently made plans.
“Someone from school? The French hen?”
“No, someone from home. Well, someone I knew from home, a while ago.”
“Well, she’s free to stay here this weekend if she’s visiting you.”
“No, he’s here on business. We only happened to run into each other.”
Rand’s arms slackened. “Oh, well if he wants to spend the weekend here with you, that’s fine.”
“No, we already had lunch together this afternoon, too, so…”
He removed his hand from her waist to scratch his nose as his other relaxed its grip on her shoulder. “Well, it’s up to you two.”
Sobering from a sense of rejection she’d only brought on herself, she sat up to look at him. “No. And I need you to be my excuse in case he suggests that, too.” With hesitation, she confessed, “It’s James. We’re having dinner tonight and nothing more. I need you to help me enforce that.”
“Why do you need help? Think you won’t resist him?” He stood to warm a kettle for tea, leaving Margot to feel cold in his absence.
“Tuh.”
“Push a button, did I?”
&
nbsp; James had needed to return to the office after lunch, but he wouldn’t part ways with Margot until securing a dinner date. She’d suggested a Chelsea gastropub to stay within Rand’s territory—and far from James’s corporate housing—to keep temptation at bay. No need being in stumbling distance of a private apartment in case anything she drank to fortify herself ended up crumbling her defenses instead. It was a cool place anyway and would show James a different, more residential part of London, so it wasn’t the most selfish suggestion she could’ve made.
“I’m going to shower,” she said, reckoning their once-promising afternoon had officially been spoiled. The heavy, hoppy lunch would also make her sleep if she didn’t get up and refresh. “I might pop into the bookshop before dinner, too.”
“Hm, your disregard of my question just answered it, I think.”
“Interested in joining me?” she offered.
“Fair enough,” she heard Rand say under his breath. Then, with a grin, he answered, “That’s charming of you, but I’ll wait to shower after my run.”
“I meant the bookstore, cheeky.”
He winked. “You go on and have a good rest of the day. And night.”
Margot sneered at his lack of help and was just lowering the TV volume against a blaring insurance ad when she heard a scream peal out from the square—and then the clopping of hooves, clear as anything.
She looked at Rand. “Hear that?”
“Huh?”
He was preoccupied with refilling his kettle as Margot made for a window to pull up the shade. “What the hell?”
“What?”
“Horses! Swear to God! I wonder if they bucked their bobbies off.”
Rand abandoned the running faucet and jogged over to her, but the horses didn’t reappear. “Must be off to violate traffic law elsewhere.”
“Ever see that?”
“Christ, no. Did a wormhole just puncture through from Victorian London?”
“If so, dear Randolph, I needs must make myself decent!” Margot theatrically threw her hands to her cheeks. “Some dashing gentleman in a cravat and morning coat may come through next to reclaim his steeds.”
She pulled the wide neck of her T-shirt down over her shoulder and pumped her phoenix tattoo flirtatiously, hoping it would make him reconsider the bookstore. Rand smiled with approval at first, appearing to trail his gaze from her bare shoulder to her clavicle, which renewed Margot’s faith in wishful thinking. But then he grit his teeth and squinted, rubbing his fingers against his thumbs distractedly before fisting them as he turned back to the kitchen.
“Someone’s reclaiming his mare, anyway,” she thought she heard him murmur as he poured steaming water into his mug.
“What’d you say? Did you just equate me to an equine, sir?” She planted a fist on her hip in mock offense.
He toasted her with his mug. “If the horseshoe fits.”
Her lips parted on a silent gasp, which would’ve been out loud in more fake indignity were it not for the way he’d said it with a straight face. Her breath halted a moment, and she could only press out a shallow huff before striding to the bathroom to shower and in other ways avoid her flatmate until she could leave.
Dinner conversation remained casual enough. Margot made sure to ask most of the questions, sticking to James’s life in Zurich, mainly, and how the logistics of his relocation went, though also sharing a bit about her studies in London. Unless he was holding back, it didn’t sound like a new lady friend had entered the picture yet, and Margot spoke of Rand as nothing more than a live-in landlord, which for all intents and purposes was true yet didn’t keep her cheeks from burning whenever he came up.
James escorted her home afterwards, but with what expectations, Margot had no idea. When they rounded onto Rand’s street, she simply pointed out his upstairs windows.
The closer they got to his address, the heavier the air around them became. It held the weight of awkward first-date goodbyes, the anxiety over whether there’d be a second-first kiss on the doorstep or if she could tactfully send him off without one. Jumping out of a moving car wasn’t an option this time, much as she now pined for Derek to tease her about it if she did. Or would it be easier to just invite James up? Introduce him to Rand and let James see himself out once he saw they wouldn’t be alone?
With Derek still in mind, she remembered how he’d similarly expected their Ouija spirit to dismiss herself from the game. If Margot’s stomach weren’t being such a contortionist, she might’ve laughed at the memory. But as it was, she couldn’t pin down what exactly distressed her—only that, unequivocally, a threshold of no return was about to be crossed. Was being crossed. This very moment.
She distracted herself with windows again.
“The stained glass is so pretty when lit up at night, isn’t it?” This time, she pointed at the dark stone church across from Rand’s building. “Makes me think of those cute miniature villages at Christmastime.”
James glanced over. “Would be even prettier if the panes were different colors.”
“What are you talking about? They are.”
“I’m sure they were. Probably had to replace them over the years with something more cost-effective. Or maybe it’s because it’s not all the way dark yet that they just look clear. I can’t believe how long the days are here in summer. You can tell it’s a higher latitude.”
Margot wasn’t to be sidetracked by daylight savings. “Clear? But can’t you also see the colors? Blue and green? Yellow and red?”
He stopped to stare at the leaded glass straight on. “Am I looking at the right windows? You mean this large row here, right?”
She nodded insistently.
“Margot.” James pinched his features as he looked from her to the church. “I’m not colorblind. Those are clear. Maybe you had too much to drink.”
She stared at the windows directly across from them in silence. Her gaze trickled down the vivid fragments of multicolored glass, and she exhaled in short, measured huffs.
The sound of James’s “You okay?” crackled in her ears.
Do not lie to me.
“Margot?”
“Take your hands from me.”
“I-I’m not touching you.”
The volume of her breathing rose, picking up in pace like her pumping heart. James did touch her now, only to steady her. He did so just in time for her to collapse into his arms.
“Take your hands from me.”
Swift pursuit brings me to further ravages in the bedroom.
“Must we endure this again?” I ask.
“Ah, but there is nothing to fill you with trepidation, my dear. Why, you will never be alone for as long as you have her.”
Her, her. The “mysterious M.” From the banshee cries of the day’s accident to this, my evening’s nightmare. I can scarcely recognize whom I love and scarcely recognize in me the woman capable of such love.
“You ought to refine that laughter of yours. It would be most unpleasant if you betrayed your breeding whilst enjoying one of the multitude of soirées upon which you must be so certain you shall encroach. It would be a pity indeed for some gracious benefactor to spoil your champagne when he tosses a shilling into your glass as alms.”
Moments later comes the final prick that leaves me on the floor in the spill of my overturned washbasin. My options are spent, I am certain, and I have nothing but expected decorum and acceptance of my lot as so generously bestowed by a spiteful, merciless Fate.
Chapter 15
Le Bain
MARGOT RAISED HER LIDS to see the ceiling glow dully from the church light below. Beside her, the computer screen cast its own blue illumination against the wall. Her bedroom door was closed, but through it, she heard the hum of deep voices. Shadows flickered in the slim gap beneath it.
She reached for the journal on the desk and, sitting up in bed, removed the pen she’d clipped onto the first few pages. Flipping to an empty space, she wrote:
My companion…my lov
er? My friend? My companion betrayed me, left me—laughed and spat and smeared black, then kicked an easel, and it crashed at my feet. Something launched at me, something that burnt me with its ice and pricked before it and I both fell.
“An easel,” Margot said. When had she seen an easel before? She shut the book and tossed it back onto the desk.
The shadows beneath the door congealed into darkness just as she heard two soft thuds on its wood.
“Come in,” she called out.
The door scraped a wide arc along the carpet to reveal a large two-headed silhouette.
“Margot?” She knew the voice.
“Did we wake you?” That one, too.
She shook her head. “No, I’m just getting up.”
The black figure backed out of the door, where it divided into James and Rand. Squinting beneath the bright foyer light, she scuffed her way around to the dimmer living room to sit in the armchair, with the two men meekly following her. In her foggy state, seeing those two faces side by side on Rand’s sofa was tough to comprehend. She’d never imagined a time when they’d coexist, and it made her claustrophobic.
But facing her expectant panel, she spoke. “I just had a dream where my life flashed before my eyes, and I thought I was going to die.”
The menfolk dumbly shook their heads out of rhythm with each other. She didn’t know what kind of response she’d expected, but no mincing words anymore.
“The thing is, it wasn’t my life that I saw.”
Rand cleared his throat. “Ah, that’s… Whose life was it?”
“Charlotte’s, I think.”
“Who’s Charlotte?” James asked.
“I don’t know.”
The men exchanged a look before Rand asked, “No one in your classes? Friend or family from home?”
“No.”
“A character in a book or movie?”
“No.”
Rand’s voice faltered, but his gaze never left Margot’s, which she found strangely unnerving. If he was withholding any apology in front of James for his comments earlier, it wasn’t even reaching out to her through his eyes.
