“By the way, I sorted out your car-repair bill for you,” Jake says to Leila. “I rang the guy. I said, ‘You’ve been messing my girlfriend around. Try again.’ He backed down on everything.”
“Jake!” gasps Leila. “You’re my hero!”
“And then I think you should upgrade,” Jake adds carelessly. “Let’s get you a newer model. We’ll look at the weekend.”
“Oh, Jakey.” Leila’s eyes glow, and she turns to me. “Isn’t he the sweetest?”
“Er … yes.” I smile feebly at her. “Totally.”
At this moment, Morag and her customer—a middle-aged woman—come up to the till. Immediately Jake switches into top customer-service mode, beaming at her and asking, “Did you find everything you need? Ah, a paring knife. Now, I’m afraid I will have to ask a delicate question: Are you over eighteen?”
The woman giggles and blushes, and even I crack a smile. Jake’s pretty charming when he wants to be. As she leaves we all say, “Goodbye,” several times, and smile until the door closes. Then Jake gets his car keys out of his pocket and starts swinging them round his finger, the way he’s done ever since he first got a car.
I know what I want to say to him. It’s almost as if I can see the words forming in front of me in a thought bubble. Articulate, passionate words about the business. About what we do. About Dad. But somehow I can’t seem to get the words out of the thought bubble and into the air.
Jake’s face is distant and I know better than to interrupt him. Leila is poised like me, waiting, her eyebrows anxiously winged together.
She’s so pretty, Leila. Pretty and gentle and never judges anyone. The thing she takes most seriously in life is manicures, because that’s her business and her passion. But she doesn’t even blink at my tatty nails, let alone sneer at them. She just accepts everyone for who they are, Jake included.
Finally, Jake stops swinging the keys and comes to. I have no idea what kinds of thoughts have been transfixing him. Even though I grew up with him, I really don’t understand Jake very well.
“We’ll head over to the house, then,” he says. “Help Mum out.”
By “Help Mum out” I know he means, “Get myself a beer and turn on Sky Sports,” but I don’t challenge him.
“OK,” I say. “See you there.”
Our house is only ten minutes’ walk from the shop; sometimes it feels like one is an extension of the other. And I’m turning back to sort out a display of table mats which has gone wonky when Leila says, “What are you going to wear, Fixie?” in excited tones, as if we’re going to the school prom.
“Dunno,” I say, puzzled. “A dress, I suppose. Nothing special.”
It’s Mum’s birthday party. It’ll be friends and neighbors and Uncle Ned. I mean, I want to look nice, but it’s not exactly the Grand Embassy Ball.
“Oh, right.” Leila seems perplexed. “So you’re not going to …”
“Not what …”
“I just thought, because …”
She trails off meaningfully, as though I’ll know exactly what she’s talking about.
“Because what?” I peer at her, and Leila suddenly swivels on her clippy-cloppy heel to Jake.
“Jakey!” she says, in her version of a reproving tone. (Basically still an adoring simper.) “Haven’t you told her?”
“Oh, that. Right.” Jake rolls his eyes and glances at me. “Ryan’s back.”
What?
I stare at him, frozen. I can’t speak, because my lungs have seized up, but my brain has already started analyzing the word back like a relentless computer program. Back. What does back mean? Back to the UK? Back home? Back to me?
No, not back to me, obviously not back to me—
“He’s back in the country,” elaborates Leila, her eyes soft with empathy. “It never worked out with that American girl. He’s coming to the party. And he was asking after you.”
Three
I don’t know how many times a heart can be broken, but mine’s been shattered again and again, and every single time by Ryan Chalker.
Not that he’d know it. I’ve been pretty good at concealing my feelings (I think). But the truth is, I’ve been in love with Ryan pretty much solidly since I was ten years old and he was fifteen and I came across him and Jake with a group of boys in Burger King. I was instantly fixated on him. How could you not be fixated on him, with that blond hair, that profile, that glow?
By the time I joined secondary school, Ryan and Jake were best friends and Ryan used to hang around our house every weekend, cracking jokes and flirting with Mum. Unlike every other boy in that year, he had flawless skin. He knew how to style his hair. He could make our school uniform look sexy—that’s how hot he was.
He had money too. Everyone whispered about it. Some relative had left him a small fortune. He always hosted parties and he got a car for his seventeenth. A convertible. I’m twenty-seven years old and I’m sure I’ll never own a convertible. Ryan and Jake used to drive around London in it, roof down, music blaring, like a couple of rock stars. In fact, it was Ryan who introduced Jake to that posh, flash, hard-partying set. The pair of them used to get into the kind of clubs that you read about in tabloids, and they’d boast about it at our house the next day. When I was old enough, Mum let me go out with Jake and Ryan sometimes, and I felt like I’d won the lottery. There was such a buzz around them, and suddenly I was part of it too.
Ryan could be genuinely kind too. I’ll always remember one evening when we went to the cinema. I’d just broken up with a boy called Jason, and a bunch of his friends were behind us. They started to laugh at me and jeer, and Ryan whipped round before anyone else could and lashed into them. People heard about it at school the next day, and everyone was saying, “Ryan loves Fixie!”
Of course I laughed along. I treated it like a joke. But inside, I was smitten. I felt as if we were connected now. I kept thinking, Surely we’ll end up together? Surely it’s meant to be?
There were so many moments over the years when I thought I had a chance. The time in Pizza Express when he kissed me lingeringly on greeting me. The time he squeezed my thigh. The time he asked if I was single at the moment. Dad’s funeral, when he sat with me for a while at the reception and let me talk on endlessly about Dad. At my twenty-first birthday party he sang a karaoke version of “Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” straight to me, while my heart fluttered like a manic butterfly and I thought, Yes, yes, this is it … But that night he went off with a girl called Tamara. Over the years I watched and secretly wept as he dated what seemed like every girl in West London and never looked my way.
Then, five years ago, he moved to L.A. to be a movie producer. An actual movie producer. You couldn’t pick a more glamorous or unattainable job. I’ve still got the business card he gave me before he left, with an abstract logo and an address on Wilshire Boulevard.
It would have been easier to forget him if he’d disappeared forever—but he didn’t. He flew back to London all the time and he always came to see Jake, in a blast of light and excitement. His wavy blond hair was permanently sun-bleached. He had endless stories of celebrities. He’d casually say “Tom,” and I’d think, Tom? Who does he mean, Tom? And then I’d suddenly realize he meant Tom Cruise and my heart would be gripped and I’d think, Oh my God, I know someone who knows Tom Cruise?
Meanwhile, I went out with other guys; of course I did. But Ryan was lodged in my heart. And then last year, a full sixteen years after I first met him, he arrived at Jake’s birthday drinks really drunk and unhappy—I never got the full story, but it was something about a studio executive playing him around.
I’m a good listener, so I let him slag off this guy and nodded and said sympathetic things. At last he ran out of steam, and I could see him looking at me. Like, really looking at me. As though he’d only just realized I was an actual grown-up woman. He said, “You know, I’ve always fancied
you, Fixie. You’re so genuine. You’re so bloody refreshing.” Then he added, as though puzzled, “Why have we never got it together?”
My heart was hammering, but for once in my life I managed to play it cool. I just looked at him and left it a moment, and then said, “Well.”
And he gave me one of his lazy smiles, and said, “Well.”
Oh my God, it was amazing. We left about three minutes later. He took me back to the flat where he was staying and we spent the night fulfilling every teenage fantasy I’d ever had, and then some. My brain kept screaming, It’s happening! I’m with Ryan! It’s actually happening! For ten solid days I was in a trance of delight.
And then he went back to L.A.
I mean, of course he went back to L.A. What did I expect, that he was going to propose?
(I’m not going to answer that. Not even in my own head. Because I might give away my most pathetic fantasy of all: that we’d be one of those pairs of lovers who were “meant to be” all their lives and finally realized it and never left each other’s sides again.)
As he left for his flight that gray April morning, he kissed me with what looked like genuine regret and said, “You’ve been so good for me, Fixie.” As if I were a juice fast or a series of TED Talks.
I said, as lightly as I could, “I hope you come and see me again.” Which wasn’t quite true. I actually hoped he’d suddenly exclaim, “Now I realize the truth! Fixie my darling, I can’t live without you and I want you to get on this plane with me now.”
Anyway. Astonishingly enough, that didn’t happen.
Then I heard from Jake that he’d got a new girlfriend in L.A. called Ariana and they had rows all the time, but it was pretty serious. I looked at them on Facebook a few times. (OK, all the time.) I wrote casual, friendly texts to him, then deleted them. And all the while I pretended I was fine with it. To Mum, Jake, everybody. Because what other option did I have?
But it was all lies. I never reconciled myself to having lost him. I still secretly, crazily, hoped.
And now he’s back. The words are thudding through my head like a drumbeat—he’s back, he’s back—while I stand in Anna’s Accessories like a starstruck fourteen-year-old, frantically trying out hair clips. As though choosing exactly the right hair decoration will somehow magically make Ryan fall in love with me.
I couldn’t cope with going straight home from the shop. What if he was there already, lounging on the sofa, ready to catch me out with his irresistible smile? I needed time. I needed to prepare. So at 5:00 P.M. I told Greg to close up and headed to the High Street. I bought myself a new lipstick. And now I’m standing in front of a display rack, trying to transform my appearance beyond belief with a £3.99 diamanté hair clip. Or maybe I should go for a flower.
Glittery hairband?
I know this is all displacement. I can’t even contemplate the momentousness of seeing Ryan again, so instead I’m fixating on an irrelevant detail which nobody else will even notice. Story of my life.
At last I gather up two beaded hair clips, some diamanté hair grips, and a pair of dangling gold earrings for good luck. I pay for them and head out to the balmy street. Mum will be laying out the table by now. Stacking the paper cups. Wrapping knives and forks in napkins. But even so, I need more time. I need to get my head straight.
On impulse, I duck into Café Allegro, which is our family’s favorite local café. I buy a bag of coffee beans for Mum’s cappuccino machine—we’re always running out, and Café Allegro does the best ones—then order a mint tea and go sit by the window. I’m trying to think exactly how to greet Ryan. What vibe to give off. Not gushy or needy, but self-possessed and alluring.
With a sigh, I retrieve my Anna’s Accessories bag, take out the two beaded clips, and hold them up against my hair, squinting into my hand mirror. Neither looks remotely alluring. I try the gold earrings against my ears and wince. Oh God. Terrible. I might take them back.
Suddenly I notice a guy opposite me, watching in slight amusement over his laptop, and at once I flush. What am I doing? I would never normally start trying on hair clips in a coffee shop. I’ve lost all sense of propriety.
As I shove the clips and earrings back in the bag, a drip of water lands on the table, and I look up. Now I think about it, there’s been a steady stream of drips from the ceiling ever since I sat down, only they’ve been landing in a bucket on the floor.
A barista is nearby, giving a hot sandwich to a customer, and I attract her attention as she turns to go.
“Hi, the ceiling’s leaking.” I point upward and she follows my gaze briefly, then shrugs.
“Yeah. We put a bucket down.”
“But it’s dripping on the table too.”
As I study the ceiling, I can see two sources of drips and a patch of damp. That whole area of ceiling looks very unhealthy. I glance at the guy opposite to see if he’s noticed, but he’s on his mobile phone and seems totally preoccupied.
“Yes,” he’s saying, in a voice which crackles with education and polish. “I know, Bill, but—”
Nice suit, I notice. Glossy, expensive shoes.
“They’re doing building work on the floor above.” The barista seems supremely unconcerned. “We’ve called them. You can move seats if you like.”
I should have wondered why this window seat was empty, when the rest of the coffee shop is full. I look around to see if there’s another available seat, but there isn’t.
Well, I’m not fussy. I can put up with a few drips. I’ll be leaving soon, anyway.
“It’s OK,” I say. “Just thought I’d let you know. You might need to get another bucket.”
The barista shrugs again, with a look I recognize—it’s the famous “I’m going off shift so what do I care?” look—and heads back to the counter.
“Strewth!” the guy opposite suddenly exclaims. His voice has risen and he’s making exasperated gestures with his hand.
The word strewth makes me smile inside. That’s a word Dad used to use. I don’t often hear it anymore.
“You know what?” he’s saying now. “I’m sick of these intellectual types with their six degrees from Cambridge.” He listens for a bit, then says, “It should not be this hard to fill a junior-level position. It should not. But everyone Chloe finds for me … I know. You’d think. But all they want to do is tell me their clever theories that they learned at uni. They don’t want to work.”
He leans forward, takes his cup for a gulp of coffee, and meets eyes with me briefly. I can’t help smiling, because even though he doesn’t know it, I’m hearing my dad again.
On the face of it, this man is nothing like my dad. My dad was a weather-beaten former market trader. This guy is a thirty-something professional in a posh tie. But I’m hearing exactly the same note of energy; the same pragmatism; the same impatience with clever-clever know-it-alls. Dad had no time for theories either. “Get on and do it,” he’d say.
“All I want is to hire someone bright and savvy and tough who knows how the world works,” the guy is saying now, thrusting a hand through his frondy hair. “Someone who’s been in the world, hasn’t just written a dissertation about it. They don’t even need a bloody degree! They need some sense! Sense!”
He’s lean and energetic-looking, with an end-of-summer tan. Deep-brown hair, lighter where the sun’s caught it. As he reaches for his coffee again, the fronds cast shadows over his face. His cheekbones are two long, strong planes. His eyes are … can’t quite tell. Mid-brown or hazel, I think, peering surreptitiously at him. Then the light catches them and I see a tinge of green. They’re woodland eyes.
It’s a thing of mine, classifying eyes. Mine are double espresso. Ryan’s are Californian sky. Mum’s are deep-sea blue. And this guy’s are woodland eyes.
“I know,” he says more calmly, his ire apparently vanished. “So I’m having another meeting with Chloe next week.
I’m sure she’s really looking forward to it.” His mouth curves into a sudden, infectious smile.
He can laugh at himself. That’s one up on Dad, who was the sweetest, most softhearted person in the world but didn’t really get the concept of banter or laughing at yourself. You could never have sent Dad an irreverent, jokey birthday card. He would have just been hurt or offended.
“Oh. That.” The guy shifts on his chair. “Look, I’m sorry.” He passes a hand through his hair again, but this time he doesn’t look dynamic; he looks upset. “I’m just … It’s not happening. You know Briony, she gets ahead of herself, so … no. No home gym, not for now. Tanya’s designs were great, she’s very talented, but … Yeah. I’ll pay her for her time, of course.… No, not with dinner,” he adds firmly. “With a proper invoice. I insist.” He nods a few times. “OK. I’ll see you soon. Cheers.”
The wry blade of humor is back in his voice—but as he puts his phone away, he stares out of the window as though trying to rebalance himself. It’s weird, but I feel like I know this guy. Like, I get him. If we weren’t two uptight British people in a London coffee shop, maybe I’d strike up conversation with him.
But we are. And that’s just not what you do.
So I do that traditional London thing of pretending I didn’t hear a word of his phone call and staring carefully into midair in a way that won’t attract his gaze. The guy starts typing at his laptop and I glance at my watch—5:45 P.M. I should go soon.
My phone buzzes with a text and I reach for it, madly hoping it’s Jake saying: Ryan’s here. Or, even better, Ryan texting me himself. But it’s not, of course; it’s Hannah, replying to the text I sent her earlier. I quickly scan her words:
I Owe You One: A Novel Page 3