“But we haven’t even started yet!”
“So what? I’ve made my decision. I want this one.” She looks at her watch. “Besides, I’m in a bit of a hurry. Can you unzip me, please?”
“Amy . . .” I force a smile. “I really think you should try on some others before you make a decision.”
“I don’t need to try any others! You have a very good eye.”
“No, I don’t! It looks terrible!” I say without thinking, and she gives me a strange look. “I mean . . . there was a wonderful pink dress I wanted to see on you . . .” I grab for the hanger. “Just imagine that on you! Or . . . or this halter neck . . .”
Amy Forrester gives me an impatient look. “I’m taking this one. Please, will you help me out of it?”
What can I do? I can’t force her to stay.
I glance surreptitiously at my watch. Laurel’s office is only a block or two away. She should be here any minute.
“Please, will you help me out of it?” she repeats, her voice hardening.
“Yes!” I say flusteredly. “All right!”
I reach for the zip of the sequined red dress and start to pull it down. Then I have a sudden thought.
“Actually,” I say. “Actually, it’ll be easier to get it off if I pull it over your head—”
“OK,” says Amy Forrester impatiently. “Whatever.”
I undo the zip a tiny bit more, then tug the tight-fitting dress up over her hips and right over her head.
Ha! She’s trapped! The stiff red fabric covers her face completely, but the rest of her is clad only in underwear and high heels. She looks like a Barbie doll crossed with a Christmas cracker.
“Hey. It’s gotten stuck.” She waves one of her arms fruitlessly, but it’s pinned to her head by the dress.
“Really?” I exclaim innocently. “Oh dear. They do that sometimes.”
“Well, get me out!” She takes a couple of steps, and I back away nervously in case she grabs my arm. I feel like I’m six years old and playing blindman’s bluff at a birthday party.
“Where are you?” comes a furious muffled voice. “Get me out!”
“I’m just . . . trying to . . .” Gingerly I give a little tug at the dress. “It’s really stuck,” I say apologetically. “Maybe if you bent over and wriggled . . .”
Come on, Laurel. Where are you? I open my fitting room and have a quick glance out, but nothing.
“OK! I’m getting somewhere!”
I look up and feel a plunge of dismay. Amy’s hand has appeared out of nowhere and somehow she’s managed to grasp the zip with two manicured nails. “Can you help me pull the zipper down?”
“Erm . . . I can try . . .”
I take hold of the zip and start pulling it in the opposite direction from the way she’s tugging.
“It’s stuck!” she says in frustration.
“I know! I’m trying to get it undone . . .”
“Wait a minute.” Her voice is suddenly suspicious. “Which way are you pulling?”
“Er . . . the same way as you . . .”
“Hi, Laurel,” I suddenly hear Christina saying in surprise. “Are you all right? Did you have an appointment?”
“No. But I think Becky has something for me—”
“Here!” I say, hurrying to the door and looking out. And there’s Laurel, cheeks flushed with animation, wearing her new Michael Kors skirt with a navy blue blazer, which looks completely wrong.
How many times have I told her? Honestly, I should do more spot-checks on my clients. Who knows what they’re all wearing out there?
“Here she is,” I say, nodding toward the Barbie-doll-Christmas-cracker hybrid, who is still trying to unzip the dress.
“It’s OK,” says Laurel, coming into the fitting room. “You can leave her to me.”
“What? Who’s that?” Amy’s head jerks up disorientedly. “Oh Jesus. No. Is that—”
“Yes,” says Laurel, closing the door. “It’s me.”
I stand in front of the door, trying to ignore the raised voices coming from my room. After a few minutes, Christina comes out of her room and looks at me.
“Becky, what’s going on?”
“Um . . . Laurel bumped into an acquaintance. I thought I’d give them some privacy.” A thumping sound comes from the room and I cough loudly. “I think they’re . . . chatting.”
“Chatting.” Christina gives me a hard look.
“Yes! Chatting!”
The door suddenly opens, and Laurel emerges, a bunch of keys in her hand.
“Becky, I’m going to need to pay a little visit to Amy’s apartment, and she’d like to stay here until I come back. Isn’t that right, Amy?”
I glance past Laurel into the fitting room. Amy is sitting in the corner in her underwear, minus the emerald pendant, looking completely shell-shocked. She nods silently.
As Laurel strides off, Christina gives me an incredulous look. “Becky—”
“So!” I say quickly to Amy, in my best Barneys employee manner. “While we’re waiting, would you care to try some more dresses?”
Forty minutes later, Laurel arrives back, her face alive with animation.
“Did you get the rest of it?” I say eagerly.
“I got it all.”
Christina, on the other side of the department, looks up, then looks away again. She’s said that the only way she can’t fire me for what just happened is not to know about it.
So we’re basically agreed, she doesn’t know about it.
“Here you are.” Laurel tosses the keys to Amy. “You can go now. Give my regards to Bill. He deserves you.”
As Amy totters, almost running, toward the escalator, Laurel puts an arm round me.
“Becky, you’re an angel,” she says warmly. “I can’t even begin to repay you. But whatever you want, it’s yours.”
“Don’t be silly!” I say at once. “I just wanted to help.”
“I’m serious!”
“Laurel—”
“I insist. Name it, and it’ll be there in time for your wedding.”
My wedding.
It’s as though someone’s opened a window and the cold air is rushing in.
In all the excitement and urgency, I’d managed briefly to forget about it. But now it all comes piling back into my head.
My two weddings. My two fiascos.
Like two trains traveling toward me. Quicker and quicker, getting nearer even when I’m not looking at them. Gathering momentum with every minute. If I manage to dodge one, I’ll only get hit by the other.
I stare at Laurel’s warm, open face, and all I want to do is bury my head in her shoulder and wail, “Sort out my life for me!”
“Whatever you want,” says Laurel again, and squeezes my shoulders.
As I walk slowly back to my fitting room, the adrenaline has gone. I can feel a familiar, wearying anxiety creeping over me. Another day has gone by, and I’m no nearer to a brilliant solution. I have no idea what I’m going to do. And I’m running out of time.
Maybe the truth is, I can’t solve this on my own, I think, sinking heavily down in my chair. Maybe I need help. Fire rescue trucks and SWAT teams.
Or maybe just Luke.
Sixteen
AS I ARRIVE home, I’m surprisingly calm. In fact, I almost feel a sense of relief. I’ve tried everything—and now I’m at the end of the line. There’s nothing else I can do but confess everything to Luke. He’ll be shocked. Angry too. But at least he’ll know.
I stopped in a café on the way, had a coffee, and thought very carefully about how I was going to tell him. Because everyone knows, it’s all in the presentation. When the president’s going to raise taxes, he doesn’t say, “I’m going to raise taxes.” He says, “Every American citizen knows the value of education.” So I’ve written out a speech, a bit like the State of the Union address, and I’ve memorized it word for word, with gaps for interjections from Luke. (Or applause. Though that’s a bit unlikely.) As long as I stick
to my text, and no one brings up the question of Ugandan policy, then we should be all right.
My legs are trembling slightly as I climb the stairs to our apartment, even though Luke won’t be back yet; I still have time to prepare. But as I open the door, to my shock, there he is, sitting at the table with a pile of papers and his back to me.
OK, Becky, come on. Ladies and gentlemen of Congress. Four score and thingummy. I let the door swing shut behind me, get out my notes, and take a deep breath.
“Luke,” I begin in a grave, grown-up voice. “I have something to tell you about the wedding. It’s quite a serious problem, with no easy solution. If there is a solution, it will be one that I can only achieve with your help. Which is why I’m telling you this now—and asking that you listen with an open mind.”
So far so good. I’m quite proud of that bit, actually. The “listen with an open mind” bit was especially inspired, because it means he can’t shout at me.
“In order to explain my current predicament,” I continue, “I must take you back in time. Back to the beginning. By which I mean not the creation of Earth. Nor even the big bang. But tea at Claridges.”
I pause—but Luke is still silent, listening. Maybe this is going to be OK.
“It was there, at Claridges, that my problem began. I was presented with an impossible task. I was, if you will, that Greek god having to choose between the three apples. Except there were only two—and they weren’t apples.” I pause significantly. “They were weddings.”
At last, Luke turns round in his chair. His eyes are bloodshot, and there’s a strange expression on his face. As he gazes at me, I feel a tremor of apprehension.
“Becky,” he says, as though with a huge effort.
“Yes?” I gulp.
“Do you think my mother loves me?”
“What?” I say, thrown.
“Tell me honestly. Do you think my mother loves me?”
Hang on. Has he been listening to a single word I’ve been saying?
“Er . . . of course I do!” I say. “And speaking of mothers, that is, in a sense, where my problem originally lay—”
“I’ve been a fool.” Luke picks up his glass and takes a swig of what looks like whiskey. “She’s just been using me, hasn’t she?”
I stare at him, discomfited—then notice the half-empty bottle on the table. How long has he been sitting here? I look at his face again, taut and vulnerable, and bite back some of the things I could say about Elinor.
“Of course she loves you!” I put down my speech and go over to him. “I’m sure she does. I mean, you can see it, in the way she . . . um . . .” I tail off feebly.
What am I supposed to say? In the way she uses your staff with no recompense or thanks? In the way she stabs you in the back, then disappears to Switzerland?
“What . . . why are you . . .” I say hesitantly. “Has something happened?”
“It’s so stupid.” He shakes his head. “I came across something earlier on.” He takes a deep breath. “I was at her apartment to pick up some papers for the foundation. And I don’t know why—maybe it was after seeing those photographs of Suze and Ernie this morning.” He looks up. “But I found myself searching in her study for old pictures. Of me as a child. Of us. I don’t really know what I was looking for. Anything, I guess.”
“Did you find anything?”
Luke gestures to the papers littering the table and I squint puzzledly at one. “What are they?”
“They’re letters. From my father. Letters he wrote to my mother after they split up, fifteen, twenty years ago. Pleading with her to see me.” His voice is deadpan and I look at him warily.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that he begged her to let me visit,” says Luke evenly. “He offered to pay hotel bills. He offered to accompany me. He asked again and again . . . and I never knew.” He reaches for a couple of sheets and hands them to me. “Look, read for yourself.”
Trying to hide my shock, I start to scan them, taking in phrases here and there.
Luke is so desperate to see his mother . . . cannot understand your attitude . . .
“These letters explain a lot of things. It turns out her new husband wasn’t against her taking me with them, after all. In fact, he sounds like a pretty decent guy. He agreed with my dad, I should come and visit. But she wasn’t interested.” He shrugs. “Why should she be, I suppose?”
. . . an intelligent loving boy . . . missing out on a wonderful opportunity . . .
“Luke, that’s . . . terrible,” I say inadequately.
“The worst thing is, I used to take it all out on my parents. When I was a teenager. I used to blame them.”
I have a sudden vision of Annabel, and her kind, warm face; of Luke’s dad, writing these letters in secret—and feel a pang of outrage toward Elinor. She doesn’t deserve Luke. She doesn’t deserve any family.
There’s silence except for the rain drumming outside. I reach out and squeeze Luke’s hand, trying to inject as much love and warmth as I can.
“Luke, I’m sure your parents understood. And . . .” I swallow all the things I really want to say about Elinor. “And I’m sure Elinor wanted you to be there really. I mean, maybe it was difficult for her at the time, or . . . or maybe she was away a lot—”
“There’s something I’ve never told you,” interrupts Luke. “Or anybody.” He raises his head. “I came to see my mother when I was fourteen.”
“What?” I stare at him in astonishment. “But I thought you said you never—”
“There was a school trip to New York. I fought tooth and nail to go on it. Mum and Dad were against it, of course, but in the end they gave in. They told me my mother was away, that, of course, otherwise, she would have loved to see me.”
Luke reaches for the whiskey bottle and pours himself another drink. “I couldn’t help it, I had to try and see her. Just in case they were wrong.” He stares ahead, running his finger round the rim of his glass. “So . . . toward the end of the trip, we had a free day. Everyone else went up the Empire State Building. But I sneaked off. I had her address, and I just came and sat outside her building. It wasn’t the building she’s in now, it was another one, farther up Park Avenue. I sat on a step, and people kept staring at me as they went by, but I didn’t care.”
He takes a gulp of his drink and I gaze back at him, rigid. I don’t dare make a sound. I hardly dare breathe.
“Then, at about twelve o’clock, a woman came out. She had dark hair, and a beautiful coat. I knew her face from the photograph. It was my mother.” He’s silent for a few seconds. “I . . . I stood up. She looked up and saw me. She stared at me for less than five seconds. Then she turned away. It was as though she hadn’t seen me. She got into a taxi and went off, and that was it.” He closes his eyes briefly. “I didn’t even have a chance to take a step forward.”
“What . . . what did you do?” I say tentatively.
“I left. And I walked around the city. I persuaded myself that she hadn’t recognized me. That’s what I told myself. That she had no idea what I looked like; that she couldn’t possibly have known it was me.”
“Well, maybe that’s true!” I say eagerly. “How on earth would she have—”
I fall silent as he reaches for a faded blue airmail letter with something paper-clipped to it at the top.
“This is the letter my father wrote her to tell her I was coming,” he says. He lifts up the paper and I feel a small jolt. “And this is me.”
I’m looking into the eyes of a teenaged boy. A fourteen-year-old Luke. He’s wearing a school uniform and he has a terrible haircut; in fact he’s barely recognizable. But those are his dark eyes, gazing out at the world with a mixture of determination and hope.
There’s nothing I can say. As I stare at his gawky, awkward face, I want to cry.
“You were right all along, Becky. I came to New York to impress my mother. I wanted her to stop dead in the street and turn round and . . . and stare .
. . and be proud . . .”
“She is proud of you!”
“She isn’t.” He gives me a tiny half-smile. “I should just give up.”
“No!” I say, a little too late. I reach out and take Luke’s arm, feeling completely helpless. Completely sheltered and pampered in comparison. I grew up knowing that Mum and Dad thought I was the best thing in the whole wide world; knowing that they loved me, and always would, whatever I did.
“I’m sorry,” says Luke at last. “I’ve gone on too much about this. Let’s forget it. What did you want to talk about?”
“Nothing,” I say at once. “It . . . doesn’t matter. It can wait.”
The wedding seems a million miles away, suddenly. I screw up my notes into a tight ball and throw them in the bin. Then I look around the cluttered room. Letters spread out on the table, wedding presents stacked up in the corner, paraphernalia everywhere. It’s impossible to escape your own life when you live in a Manhattan apartment.
“Let’s go out and eat,” I say, standing up abruptly. “And see a movie or something.”
“I’m not hungry,” says Luke.
“That’s not the point. This is place is just too . . . crowded.” I take Luke’s hand and tug at it. “Come on, let’s get out of here. And just forget about everything. All of it.”
We go out and walk, arm in arm, down to the cinema and lose ourselves in a movie about the Mafia. Then when it’s over we walk a couple of blocks to a small, warm restaurant we know, and order red wine and risotto.
We don’t mention Elinor once. Instead, we talk about Luke’s childhood in Devon. He tells me about picnics on the beach, and a tree house his father built for him in the garden, and how his little half-sister Zoe always used to tag along with all her friends and drive him mad. Then he tells me about Annabel. About how fantastic she’s always been to him, and how kind she is to everyone; and how he never ever felt she loved him any less than Zoe, who was truly hers.
We talk tentatively about things we’ve never even touched on. Like having children ourselves. Luke wants to have three. I want . . . well after having watched Suze go through labor, I don’t think I want any, but I don’t tell him that. I nod when he says “or perhaps even four” and wonder whether maybe I could pretend to be pregnant and secretly adopt them.
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