‘Beautiful,’ Mum says wistfully. ‘I like that Seventies vibe. It sounds just like what I’ve been imagining for myself.’
And then she gasps, shuts her mouth, stares at me for a moment, grabs her glass to hide her embarrassment and chokes on her wine.
It would have been fine if she’d just carried on talking. I wouldn’t have noticed. Or I’d have assumed she was being theoretical, or picturing some future party. But the gasping and the staring and the choking have given the game away. And my shocked expression must mean she knows it.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says to Crow. ‘I was thinking about . . . something else. So, tell me about . . . the other dress. The one for the evening do. Who’s doing that one?’
The trouble is, it’s too late. Mum’s got as far as picturing her wedding dress, and she still hasn’t talked to me. If she’s actually marrying Vicente, it must mean she’s thinking of moving to Brazil, because there’s no way he could live in London. He’s got all his eco-projects to look after. No wonder she hasn’t wanted to talk about it.
Liam touches my arm.
‘You OK?’
I nod. This is Crow’s evening and I can’t spoil it for her. The conversation goes on for a bit, but I can’t concentrate on it and nor, I can tell, can Mum. Then the restaurant lights go low and a man comes out of the kitchen with a big chocolate birthday cake, lit with sixteen tall white candles. It’s beautiful. Liam touches my arm again. I realise that everyone else is clapping, so I clap too.
The evening goes from uncomfortable to weird. The man carrying the cake isn’t one of the normal waiters. It’s the man from next door. The one who’s going to buy our house when Mum goes to Brazil.
‘This is Peter Anderson,’ Mum says, for the benefit of the people who don’t know. ‘He owns this restaurant. He kindly gave us the best table.’
Oh. So that explains the whole restaurant-in-Mayfair thing.
Harry and Edie shove up so that Peter can sit at our table. We all sing happy birthday to Crow. We eat cake. We drink coffee. Mum offers to pay the bill and Mr Anderson says no, he wouldn’t dream of it. We get our coats. We go outside. It isn’t until Liam’s face is about two centimetres from mine that I realise he’s about to kiss me goodbye. Normally I spend the previous half-hour building up to this moment. Now I hardly get the chance to savour it at all.
He looks into my eyes, worried.
‘Tell me tomorrow,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘Whatever it is.’
I watch him go, and I wonder. There are things I haven’t told Crow, or Edie, or even Jenny. There are things I thought I’d never tell anyone. But this time I think, perhaps, I will.
We meet at the caff. Liam’s dad offers to make me a special sausage and egg combo, because he says I need feeding up, despite the steak last night. I suppose I don’t look my best at the moment.
‘So?’ Liam says, while we’re waiting.
I’ve already told him about Crow and the MIMOs and how worried I am that she’s avoiding me, but he can tell there’s something else.
‘It’s Mum,’ I say. I’ve decided to tell him everything. ‘She’s getting married. She let it slip last night.’
‘And? She’s been single for ages, hasn’t she? This could be good.’
‘It is good,’ I say carefully. ‘She’s been single all my life, really, apart from the odd boyfriend. It’s great.’ I pause.
‘So?’
‘So . . . it’s just that she’s marrying the man she should have married in the first place,’ I explain. ‘Before I came along and messed things up. And he lives in Brazil.’
Liam looks at me, puzzled. ‘Whoa!’ he says. ‘Back up a minute. You messed things up? How?’
I explain about Vicente and Harry, the affair with Dad. Me being an accident. Mum wanting to go back to Vicente but not being able to. It’s super-embarrassing and personal, the whole thing, but actually, it’s great to be sharing it at last. At least it’s not just my secret any more.
Liam shakes his head. ‘I don’t get it. This is all stuff that happened before you were born. Or just after. How do you know?’
I think back. It’s trickier than I thought. ‘I’m not sure, really. Things Mum’s let slip. Things I’ve heard her saying to friends. Stuff Granny told me. Granny confirmed it, really.’
‘And he lives in Brazil?’
I nod.
‘So your mum will go there, you think?’
I nod again.
‘What about you?’
I shrug. ‘No idea. I mean, I’ll stay here, obviously. But I don’t know where I’ll live. Somewhere.’
For a brief second, Liam gives me his smile. He looks relieved. I realise that he was worried I’d be going to Rio and he’s glad I’m not. It’s lovely to feel wanted. Fabulous, in fact. Worth telling him for.
‘We’ll find you somewhere, don’t worry,’ he says. ‘Assuming we have to. But you really need to talk about this with your mum. I mean, really.’
‘I know,’ I shrug. ‘It’s just, we never get round to it.’
‘Well, you’ve got to.’ He sounds very firm. Like me telling Edie or Jenny what to do. Or Crow, for that matter. I realise that we’re more alike than I imagined. ‘I had no idea you were going through all of this.’
I smile. ‘I’m not “going through” anything. It’s just stuff that happened, that’s all.’
He takes my hand in his and starts playing with the rings on my fingers.
‘You are, Nonie,’ he says. ‘More than you know. You can’t carry this around with you for ever. Talk to her. Promise me.’
I promise, to keep him happy. But I know that there’s no point. What is there to say? It’s life. It’s over. Lots of children are accidents. What’s the big deal?
‘No, I mean really promise me,’ he insists.
I laugh. ‘I really promise,’ I say.
It’s the first time I’ve lied to my boyfriend and I hope he can’t tell. Luckily, his dad chooses this moment to put my fry-up in front of me. I dig into it with a big, innocent grin and change the subject as fast as I can.
I half expect Edie to collar me at school and ask about what happened at the birthday party to make me go all quiet, but luckily it seems she didn’t even notice. Even though she’s looking a lot better now, she’s still in a world of her own. She says she’s busy with her own uni applications, which her parents have persuaded her to do after all, but I know she’s thinking about something else. Something other than our Shakespeare mock A-level paper, which is coming up any minute. She’s working something out and she’ll tell me when she’s ready. I just have to wait.
Eventually, she comes up to me just as we’re about to go into the exam. Now is not the best time to give me new information. I’m struggling to remember the finer points of King Lear’s decision to take early retirement (on which I thought I was an expert at about three o’clock this morning) and wishing I’d retired a bit earlier myself.
‘About Gloria – I’ve realised I’ve got to see Jenny face to face,’ Edie says.
‘Uh huh,’ I mutter. I try to look like I’m listening harder than I really am.
‘It’s the only way to make her see sense.’
‘Yeah, sure.’
‘Because now it’s really serious.’
‘Uh huh. Absolutely,’ I add, not concentrating.
‘So I’ve persuaded Mum and Dad. I found some cheap flights and I’m going to New York at half-term.’
‘Uh huh. I mean, WHAT?’
‘New York. At half-term,’ she repeats. ‘To tell Jenny properly about Gloria. And explain how she really has to come home now.’
‘Close your mouth, Nonie,’ our teacher says, rounding the corner. ‘And you can go on in, girls. We’re ready for you now.’
They might be ready, but I totally am not. I worked hard for this paper, and now I sit, staring at it, unable to make sense of the questions. Edie? Alone in New York? And having a showdown with Jenny? This can’
t possibly be good. Edie is a rubbish traveller. And I know Jenny doesn’t show it, but she must feel guilty enough about leaving Gloria as it is. She really doesn’t need Edie to make it worse.
I do the best I can with the exam, but all the while my brain is churning. I have to do something to stop Edie, or Jenny, or both, saying something they’ll regret for ever. But how can I do it if I’m stuck here and they’re both on the other side of the Atlantic?
‘You’re not going,’ Mum says. ‘Don’t even think about it, Nonie. You’ve only just come back from Chicago.’
Harry gives me a sympathetic look and helps himself to what’s left of our Chinese takeaway. ‘But Nonie’s been working really hard,’ he says. ‘And you should have seen her that day at the hospital. She was brilliant. And Issy’ll look after her. She’ll be in New York for Fashion Week.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Mum says, lips in a thin line. ‘She has mocks. This is an important academic year. She can’t just flit about like a . . .’
There’s a pause while she thinks of something that flits.
‘Model?’ Harry suggests.
He seems innocent enough, but Mum flashes him a look. When she was my age, she was successfully modelling in several cities and knew New York like the back of her hand.
‘It would be a cultural visit,’ I point out, after I’ve given Harry a grateful grin. ‘Think of all the galleries I could go to. And museums. You know. The Met. And the, er . . .’
I kick Harry under the table. I need help here.
‘And the Guggenheim, of course,’ he says, kicking me back. ‘Just think. Nonie’s lived eighteen years and she’s never seen it. And the Frick.’
‘The Frick, obviously,’ I say.
‘Do you know what the Frick is, Nonie?’ Mum asks.
Damn.
‘Yes. It’s—’
‘—your favourite, Mum,’ Harry butts in. ‘You know how much you love that place.’
Mum smiles fondly. Whatever the Frick is, she’s obviously got some happy memories of it.
‘Well . . .’
‘And it would only be for three days,’ I add. ‘And Isabelle could look after me. Not that I’d need it. And if I don’t go, Edie will do something . . . Edie-ish, and it will be a disaster. Honestly. Please?’
I can see Mum hesitating.
‘What did you get for your last three assignments?’ she asks in her strictest voice.
‘Two Bs and a C.’
Of course, if I was Edie, this would be a horrible admission of defeat, but for me it’s actually quite amazing. Mum seems to think so too.
‘Honestly?’
I nod. ‘You can check.’
She sighs. I can tell she’s thinking about changing her mind.
‘And I’ll help pay for it,’ Harry chips in. ‘The gigs are going pretty well at the moment. And I seem to remember that I gave you a rather small birthday present, Nonie.’
‘It was a book,’ I remind him. ‘A nice one, about Alexander McQueen.’
‘A book. Exactly,’ he says. ‘An airline ticket would be so much better, wouldn’t it?’
Well, of course it would. (Even though Alexander McQueen was a fashion god and that book is gorgeous.)
Mum laughs. ‘I know when I’m beaten. I’ll call the head in the morning, Nonie. If she says you’ve earned it, you can go. Oh Harry, you are incorrigible, you know.’
She gives my brother a tender smile. He drives her crazy sometimes, but she can’t help giving into him. She’s like most females in that respect. And he makes it easy for her. He knows all about art, because he studied it at college. He has a great career. He dates supermodels. If he tidied his room a bit more, he’d be almost perfect.
‘Thanks,’ I tell him later, when we’re watching TV and Mum’s back upstairs, working.
‘No problem,’ he says with a friendly shrug. ‘I just called Issy, by the way, and she says you’ll just catch her at the end of Fashion Week. She can’t wait to see you. She’ll even take you both to the Frick, if you ask her nicely.’
He looks across at me, challenging me to ask him what it is. But I refuse to rise to the bait. I’ll look it up later. Right now, I’m thinking about Isabelle. I feel really mean for taking advantage of her, when I’m starting to wonder if she’s actually the one for my brother. Maybe I can use the time in New York to work it out once and for all: is she marrying Harry for love, or is she just using him so she can go down her petal-strewn aisle in the perfect tiara, with her ecru lace bridesmaids following on behind? She’s always struck me as unnecessarily nice for someone so beautiful. It makes sense, somehow, to spot a fatal flaw in her character. But if there is one, won’t it make Harry miserable for ever? I sort of want to find it – just to prove she’s human after all – and I sort of don’t.
Next day, the head admits that I’ve worked harder this year than in the previous six years put together, and Mum says yes, I can go. I tell Edie the news about my trip.
‘Really?’ she says. ‘Are you sure? I think I can manage on my own.’
‘Don’t worry, it’s sorted,’ I tell her. As opposed to ‘No you can’t – you’d be a walking disaster area,’ which is what I’m thinking.
Liam is thrilled for me, and really jealous. He’s always wanted to go. We spend long evenings on Instant Messenger, saying how much we’re going to miss each other, which in my case is totally true, but there’s something else that I’m not admitting to.
I’m quite relieved that there will be a few days at least when he can’t pester me about talking to Mum. I know he thinks it’s a great idea for us to have a heart to heart about Vicente, but frankly, I’d rather do that Shakespeare mock ten times over. And it wasn’t fun the first time, believe me.
‘If you tell me ONE MORE TIME how much nicer it is in First Class, I will personally attack you with this plastic spoon,’ Edie says about halfway through the flight. I realise I might have mentioned the big seats a few times, and the legroom, the clothes, the magazines and movies, and the celebrities . . .
Edie is deep in one of her four guidebooks, and making notes.
‘I’ve got it down to twelve major sights that we can’t afford to miss,’ she says. ‘If we start with Ground Zero at the south end of Manhattan Island and work our way systematically north towards Central Park, we should be OK.’
‘This is a trip to see Jenny,’ I point out. ‘Not an expedition to the North Pole.’
‘Yes, I know,’ Edie says irritably. ‘But while we’re there . . . I mean, imagine not seeing the Guggenheim, or the Met, or the Public Library. Oh, goodness. I’ve left out the Statue of Liberty.’
She goes back to her notes and starts scribbling again.
Frankly, the Public Library, lovely though I’m sure it is, would not make my top twelve sights. Not since I’d have to fit in Saks Fifth Avenue, Barneys, Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdales, Tiffany and all the little shops in the back streets of SoHo. And the Frick, whatever that is. But I don’t have a list. I’m more a ‘take it as it comes’ sort of a girl.
Also, I have better things to do with the rest of this flight than make lists. Liam gave me a longer than usual goodbye kiss yesterday, to last me until I get back to England. I close my eyes and try to remember it. Turns out, this is even more fun than sitting in First Class.
We land in the evening. A bright yellow taxi whisks us down freeways and through tunnels until suddenly we’re in the high-rise corridors of Manhattan by night. To start off with, Edie tries to chat to the taxi driver and ask for his advice on places to see, but we eventually realise that he’s not talking to us, he’s talking into a headpiece attached to his phone, and he’s speaking a language we don’t even recognise. Edie gives up on the tourist advice and makes do with staring out of the window at the lights.
We reach a wide, low-rise road, where the trees are hung with fairy lights. West Broadway, in the heart of SoHo. I’m thinking it can’t get any more magical, when the driver pulls up.
‘Here,’ he s
ays gruffly. He points at the meter and I start scrabbling around for dollars. I’m the one in charge of money on this trip. While I’m counting, he extracts our bags from his boot and the second I’ve paid him, he’s gone.
‘Huh! Not exactly an advert for his city,’ Edie says to his departing tail-lights.
But I don’t care. I can’t help grinning. I’m in New York. It’s freezing cold and so far we’ve only heard one word in English, but this street is beautiful. The lights all around us are twinkling their welcome. We’re about to hang out with a supermodel during Fashion Week. So far, so extremely good.
Isabelle has spent the whole day doing shows and interviews. She’s been up for sixteen hours. She opens the door wearing no makeup and looking like a Botticelli angel.
‘I’m sorry I’m not going to be here much,’ she says, showing us around. The apartment has two small bedrooms and an open-plan kitchen and living room overlooking the street. It’s furnished with a mixture of antique textiles and junk shop finds and I love every centimetre of it.
‘I’d show you the city, but I’m only here until tomorrow night, then I’m off to London,’ she says. ‘I’ll have to leave you to it, but I’ll tell you where to go, if you like.’
‘That would be great!’ Edie says. She may have several pages of notes on exactly what to do in New York, but she’s gradually returning to her old self, and her old self can never have too much information.
‘First, though, you must be starving,’ Isabelle says. ‘I always am when I get in. What would you like? I recommend the Thai curry. Or the dim sum.’
She rummages through the drawer of a mirrored console table and throws us a menu. It’s several pages long, covering every world cuisine I can think of. And several others that I suspect have been made up by New York chefs, just to be different.
She’s right about us being starving, but wrong about us feeling adventurous. We settle for burgers and chips. Later, while we’re making a small dent in the largest portions of food I’ve ever encountered – apart from in Chicago – she tucks her long legs under her and asks us about London.
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