I Owe You One: A Novel

by Sophie Kinsella

  “Oh, you will,” he assures me. “Many have.”

  “Well, anyway … thank you,” I say, giving the hairbrush a loving pat. “Thank you for breaking the law for me.”

  “Anytime.” He grins. “It was fun.”

  A thought occurs to me and I reach into my bag. I pull out the coffee sleeve, and Seb laughs with appreciation. I take out my pen and start to write Paid, but Seb puts a hand on mine.

  “Paid in part,” he says. “Only in part.”

  “Don’t be silly.” I roll my eyes.

  “No, I mean it. I haven’t even begun to pay you back,” he says, and now there’s a serious tone to his voice. “What you did—”

  “I told you. It was nothing.”

  “You saved my life,” contradicts Seb. “In some cultures we’d be bound together forever now,” he adds lightly. “Bonded for life.”

  And I know it’s a joke, but my stomach stupidly flips over—and suddenly I’ve lost my cool. I can’t find a witty answer. I gaze back at him, at his honest handsome face, and he’s silent too, but unreadable. And I’m thinking desperately, Say something, Fixie, for God’s sake, say something—when there’s a cry from the rink: “Yoo-hoo!”

  We both turn our heads and there’s Briony, waving to catch Seb’s attention. She sees me and her face instantly tightens and Seb calls out easily, “Remember Fixie?”

  “Of course! How’s it going?” says Briony, her smile dazzling and her voice so acid it could strip paint.

  “Fine!” I say. “I should go,” I add automatically to Seb.

  “Don’t go! You want to skate?” he adds, bringing a ticket out of his pocket. “I can’t use mine, obviously. Go on, have a go!”

  I stare at the ticket silently, all kinds of thoughts shimmering around my brain. The music is thudding and the lights are twinkling and Seb is asking me if I want to skate.

  It’s kind of irresistible.

  “Sure,” I say at last. “Sure. I’ll have a go.”

  —

  The first few laps I make are like taking out an old musical instrument, tuning it up, playing the notes slowly, alert for defects and flaws. My body’s older than it was, but it’s still strong and taut. I still have muscle memory. You don’t train for that many hours and not know what you’re doing.

  As I cut across the white surface, I try not to think longingly of my old skates, hanging up at home, and instead make the best of what I have: a crowded public rink, strange skates, and ice that’s already getting wet from people falling over on it.

  I don’t care. I’m loving this.

  I whiz past Briony, turn round, and see her gawping at me as I skate backward. I turn again, make sure I have enough space, then lift a leg in an arabesque. And I’m stiff—really stiff—but my leg still obeys, even if it’s screaming, “Whaaat? Seriously? But we don’t do this anymore!”

  Poor legs. I send them a quick message, saying, Do this for me and we’ll have a hot bath later.

  I head into the center of the ice and do a simple spin. Then a faster, flashier spin, ignoring the tremble that begins halfway through. Come on, legs, you can do it.… Then, for the first time, I dart a look at Seb. He’s gaping at me in such openmouthed astonishment that I can’t help laughing and doing a few dance steps. I feel so light out here; I feel so happy.…

  And suddenly it hits me: I’m performing. I’m blossoming. Because there’s someone I want to perform to.

  All the other skaters have moved to the sides of the rink, giving me space, nudging each other and applauding. I’m aware of the staff conferring and pointing in a group and I know they’ll come and chuck me off any moment. And I’m not going to hog the ice, I’m really not, that would be obnoxious … but there’s room enough now to spread my wings. To jump. To do a big jump.

  “Dancing Queen” is playing through the speakers, and it’s not the music I did my junior free program to—but even so, I find myself falling into its familiar patterns. The intricate footwork sequence I practiced, what, a thousand times? My feet are performing it without my brain even switching on. And now I’m out of that sequence and building up momentum for the jump. I’m sweeping in more powerful circles, focusing my mind, remembering the calm voice of Jimmy, my coach.

  My thighs are burning and my heart is thudding as I prepare, and even as I’m taking off I’m thinking, This is crazy! I’m going to break my ankle, my neck …

  As I’m rotating in the air, I feel a moment of sheer terror. I can hear the silence. I can feel the drawn-in breaths. I catch a glimpse of the staff, all turned to watch. And then, like a miracle, my skate lands cleanly, and the whole place erupts in applause. My leg is shaking horrendously, my ankle feels like putty, and every muscle in my body is protesting—but I’ve done it, I’ve nailed it, only fourteen years too late. Everyone is still clapping and cheering me and I’ve never felt like such a show-off in my life.

  And I’ve never felt so good in my life.

  I make a little curtsy to the crowd and skate off, unable to wipe the ecstatic smile off my face, replying, “Thank you!” again and again as people say, “Well done!” As I reach the gate to leave, I suddenly come across Briony, standing in her twirly skirt, clinging tightly to the barrier.

  “Nice skating,” she says, shooting me daggers. “Didn’t know you were such a pro.”

  And I know I shouldn’t, I know I shouldn’t … but I can’t help myself.

  “Yeah, well,” I say, and give Briony exactly the same pitying look that she gave me in the hospital. “I kind of think if you’re not going to do it properly, you shouldn’t even try?”

  Eighteen

  I’m still in my surreal glow as I return my skates, put on my everyday boots, and go to find Seb. As I approach him, he’s clapping and nodding, an astounded grin at his lips.

  “Well,” he says as I get near. “So that wasn’t what I was expecting.”

  “Oh yeah,” I say nonchalantly. “Did I mention that I used to skate?” I meet his eye and we both start laughing, and then I wince and rub my thighs ruefully. “I’m going to pay for this tomorrow.”

  “I have some crutches you can borrow,” says Seb, and I grin, then pick up the hairbrush.

  “I’ll go now. But thank you again. You have no idea how precious this is.”

  “What is it?” comes a familiar foghorn voice behind me, and I turn to see Briony approaching. She must have given up on the skating. She grabs the hairbrush out of my grasp and peers at it with a frown. “What’s this?”

  “It’s the present I told you about,” says Seb. “The thank-you for Fixie.”

  “When you said ‘hairbrush,’ I expected something nice,” says Briony, wrinkling her nose. “Not this. I mean, Seb, where did you get this from, Oxfam?”

  He didn’t tell her the whole story, I register. And I’m about to explain that it has sentimental value, when Seb exclaims, “Can’t you for once in your bloody life say something nice, Briony!”

  Immediately he looks a bit shocked at himself—as though he hadn’t been planning to say anything at all, and then that came out.

  “Nice?” Briony lashes back at him. “What nice thing am I supposed to say about this? It’s hideous!”

  “It’s not hideous!” I say furiously, before I can stop myself.

  “This is too much,” says Seb, his face white and taut. “Briony, I think you should apologize to Fixie.”

  “Apologize?” echoes Briony incredulously. “Apologize to her? Are you nuts?” She comes close and stares at him, breathing hard, her face flushed and actually quite beautiful-looking. “You know what, Seb? I don’t know who this girl is … or how she came into your life … but you’re welcome to her. Enjoy!” She makes an exaggerated, sarcastic gesture at the pair of us, then swivels on her heel.

  Shit. She’s going. She’s actually leaving.

  “I’m so sorry,” sa
ys Seb, as she stalks away. “That was—”

  “No, it’s fine,” I say quickly.

  “You saw the worst of her.” His brow wrinkles. “She has this temper … but she can be really fun, really entertaining. I mean, she’s very bright, and she does a lot of charity work through her job—”

  “It’s fine,” I say again, cutting him off. “Really.”

  I know what he’s doing: He’s justifying why he’s with her. Or was with her, I’m not sure which. But I don’t need to hear the list of “Briony’s hitherto-unsuspected good qualities.”

  “So,” I say after a long pause. “Is that … Are you two … ?” I can’t bring myself to say the word over, but it’s hanging there in the air.

  “I think that was me getting fired,” says Seb with a wry grin. “Don’t you?”

  “Yeah.” I bite my lip, then add, “Sorry. That was my fault.”

  “No. No, no.” He shakes his head adamantly. “I would have walked, anyway.”

  “Right,” I say, trying to sound neutral, because the biggest mistake I could make right now would be to criticize Briony.

  For a while we’re silent, watching the skaters whirling and floundering round the ice. Then Seb draws breath.

  “It’s funny,” he says, his eyes distant. “You get into a relationship. And you know that person has flaws, everyone does … but you can get so used to them that you … you forget. You forget that there’s another way. Sorry, I’m not making sense—”

  “You are,” I say fervently, because what he’s describing is exactly Ryan and me. “You forgive the person and you endlessly rationalize and you forget …”

  “That there are other people out there,” says Seb softly, and as he meets my eyes, I feel a sudden tightening in my stomach. Other people. What does he mean? Me?

  No, don’t be stupid, I scold myself at once. Of course he doesn’t mean me. He probably means, like, there are loads of people on Tinder.

  “On Tinder?” I hear myself saying idiotically, and a flicker of amusement passes over his face.

  “I wasn’t thinking of Tinder.”

  His warm green-brown eyes are traveling questioningly over my face and I gaze back helplessly, my throat too clenched up with nerves to speak, my thoughts a chaotic whirl: This is it, this is it.… Wait, is this it?

  A bleep suddenly sounds from Seb’s phone and we both glance down automatically. I see the name Briony flash onto the screen and feel a sudden qualm. Maybe this is her apologizing and wanting to make up.

  “You should probably …” I gesture awkwardly at the screen. “It might be … Don’t mind me.”

  Wordlessly, Seb opens the text and reads it. It’s quite long and I can see lots of capitals and exclamation marks.

  “Right,” he says at last, wryly. “Well, I have been fired. Quite conclusively.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say again. “Really.”

  I try to look as heartfelt and sorry as I can, but I’m not sure I’m doing a very good job, because there’s a twinkle in Seb’s gaze. He puts his phone away and there’s a breathless beat.

  “So, I was wondering,” he says at last. “Would you—maybe—like to have dinner sometime?”

  Nineteen

  Forty-eight hours later I’m sitting with Seb in an Italian restaurant, and I don’t quite know how I’ve got through the last two days. I’ve worked in the shop and started some Christmas shopping and mended the loo when it broke (Dad taught us all elementary plumbing when we were children). Outwardly I’ve appeared normal. Relaxed, even. But all the time I’ve been thinking, Dinner with Seb … oh my God … Dinner with Seb … oh my God …

  Then I went the other way and worried that I’d suddenly, inexplicably, find him unattractive. But here we are at last, sitting at a table in the golden glow of an overhead light, and I can’t take my gaze off him. Seb’s eyes are fixed on mine too. And it’s so obvious what both of us want, I don’t know how I ever doubted it for a moment. We’ve both ordered linguine with clams and discussed wine a bit and even the weather, but that’s felt like the subtext to a different, silent, much more charged communication.

  As the wine arrives, though, Seb clearly decides to become more talkative.

  “Tell me about yourself,” he says, as the waiter disappears. “Tell me about Fixie.” He toasts me and I clink back and sip. The wine is crisp and delicious and I feel like having quite a lot of it.

  “What do you want to know?” I laugh, mentally putting together my brief, official “Fixie Farr’s life so far” paragraph.

  “Everything,” says Seb emphatically. “Everything. Clearly you’re an Olympic skating champion, for a start. Your family must be really proud of you.”

  And I know he didn’t mean to, but he’s already skewered me. He’s hit my sore spot. Skating isn’t in my official paragraph—usually I edit it right out.

  “Kind of,” I say, and I shoot him a bright smile, but I know it’s not convincing.

  “Kind of,” echoes Seb slowly.

  “Let’s talk about you,” I parry, and I see him digest the fact that I’m batting him away. He takes a few gulps of wine, his eyes flickering with thought.

  “I have an idea,” he says at last. “Shall we be honest with each other? Shall we tell each other the Stuff?”

  “The Stuff?” I echo blankly.

  “You know what I mean.” He looks directly at me. “The Stuff. The stuff inside your heart that’s made you who you are, that you think about at night. Good and bad. Between ourselves.”

  “Oh, that stuff,” I say with a light laugh, because I’m suddenly afraid of baring my soul. What if he doesn’t like my soul? What if he thinks, Sheesh! Never expected her soul to be like that!

  “Yes, that stuff.” He plants his elbows on the table, his face lit up with that eager, interested expression I’ve come to know. “Who is Fixie Farr? Tell me.”

  So I take a deep breath—and I tell him. In between mouthfuls of linguine, I tell him about Dad. And Farrs. And Mum. I tell him about my catering company collapsing; how I’ve never paid Mum back; what a failure I’ve felt ever since. I tell him a little bit about how Jake makes me feel. (Not everything. Not about my skating fall, because I don’t want to cast a shadow over this evening. And definitely not about the ravens. There’s “honest” and then there’s “too much information.”)

  Then I tell him all about Ryan, and he listens nicely and doesn’t say a single scathing thing about him, even though I can see the antagonism mounting in his eyes.

  “I was in love with a girl called Astrid at school,” he says, when I’ve finished. “If she’d come breezing back into my life, I think I would have lost all sense. So I get it.”

  I even tell him how I got the nickname “Fixie”: that when I was three, I used to walk around determinedly, saying, “Got to fix it. Got to fix it.” (Although I could never explain exactly what I had to fix.)

  “So what’s your real name?” Seb asks, and I hesitate, then lower my voice and practically whisper, “Fawn.” I know it’s my name, but Fawn doesn’t sound like me. It sounds like an animal.

  “Fawn?” Seb regards me critically. “No. I prefer Fixie.”

  “Pretend I never told you,” I beg him.

  “It’s forgotten.”

  The lights in the restaurant have been dimmed by now, and candlelight is flickering on our faces. The waiter clears our plates and we read the dessert menus, like you do, but only order coffee. And then I lean forward.

  “Now. Your turn.”

  He starts with his work. He tells me about how he set up his company and what a struggle it was but fun too—and how it’s all about finding the right people. As he describes his colleagues, his enthusiasm pours out, and his eyes shine with what I can only call love. He tells me how he can’t stand injustice and arrogance and that’s what drove him into ethical investment. He gives m
e a small lecture on which are the worst executive practices, in his opinion, and how companies should be run, before breaking off and saying, “Sorry. Boring. Boring.” (It wasn’t.)

  Then, when our coffee cups are both drained, he tells me about his family’s deaths, in more measured tones. He tells me how they all survived his dad’s death pretty well and thought, We’ve had our bad luck, and got on with life, but then his mum died while he was at uni and then his brother was killed.… Then he notices my eyes swimming with tears and breaks off.

  “Fixie, it happened,” he says, grabbing my hand and squeezing it. “It happened. That’s all you can say about it.”

  “I suppose,” I say after a pause. “But, oh, Seb …”

  “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’ve moved on, I’m at peace with it, I appreciate what I have.… Sorry,” he adds, as though noticing for the first time where his hand is.

  “No, that’s OK,” I say, my voice a little husky. I blink away my tears, determined to get a grip. If Seb can be so positive about it, then I should be too.

  I squeeze his hand back, and he looks at me with a kind of cryptic, quizzical expression, and with a sudden lurch I realize where we are in the evening. We’ve talked. We’ve shared a bottle of wine. We’re holding hands.

  “So, I was thinking,” I say, my gaze fixed on a distant point. “Shall I … uh … see you back home? You know, with your ankle and everything. You might need a hand up the … uh … steps. If you have steps. Do you have steps?”

  My nervous gabble comes to an end and I wait breathlessly for his reply.

  “I do have steps,” says Seb. “And that would be very kind of you.” His eyes meet mine, and something about his expression starts a pulse inside me.

  “Right.” I try to sound casual. “Well.”

  Seb gestures for the bill, then gives me another look, which makes my insides melt. “Shall we get out of here?”

  We find a cab and Seb gives the address, and as the cab travels through the lit-up Christmassy London streets, neither of us says much. My breathing is shallow; my whole body feels taut. I’m super-aware of every move Seb makes but grateful he’s not one of those guys who lunges at you in the taxi. I want it to be private. I don’t want the driver watching in the mirror.