The English American

by Alison Larkin

  “Yes.”

  And he does. And we lie next to each other in the dark of Jack’s tiny apartment, not moving for a few moments, my friend and I.

  We are both in love with other people. I’m safe. He’s safe. It’s not a betrayal of Nick. Not really. I mean, Nick and I haven’t slept together yet. Not yet.

  “I’m glad you’re not gay,” I say.

  Jack laughs quietly. And then, slowly, in unison, we turn toward each other in the dark, and we kiss. Jack’s lips are soft and full and he smells wonderful as always. Jack. Jack. My dear friend Jack.

  And then he’s not my friend anymore. He’s a sexy, irresistible, demanding man who is clearly capable of devouring me. And he does. And then I find myself burrowing under what the English would call a duvet and the Americans would call a comforter. And then I find him.

  “Pippa?”

  “Yes?”

  My voice sounds muffled from under the sheets.

  “Are you sure about this?”

  “Well you’ve had a shower, haven’t you?”

  He laughs, but only briefly, because then we’re somewhere else, Jack and I.

  Later, wrapped tightly in each other’s arms, we sleep deeply until the morning.

  I wake up to the first sense of peace I’ve had in years. It’s not just the fact that Jack is, without a doubt, far and away the most unselfish lover I have ever had. Or that I climaxed three times in a row.

  It’s also because the panicky feeling isn’t there. I know Jack’s not going anywhere. At last, at long, long last, I can lay down my guard and relax.

  And then my cell phone breaks into this perfect moment. Perhaps if I hadn’t picked it up, things would have turned out differently. But I have not yet learned that there are times in life when one should pick up one’s cell phone, and other times when it’s best to just let the damn thing ring.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  THE VOICE AT THE ENDof the phone belongs to the new receptionist at the Souk Gallery. She has exciting news. Nick Devang—theNick Devang—is in the gallery and looking for me.

  “He’sgorgeous ,” she says breathlessly. “He was wearing a gold silk suit! I think it was Armani!”

  Well done, Nick, I think. You’ve just turned the image of the starving artist on its head.

  The receptionist goes on. Nick wants to meet me at the entrance to Central Park at three.

  My soul mate—the man I am destined to love—is in New York. And I am in bed with my best friend.

  Heart beating, I turn off the phone and glance over at Jack, still naked, tousled, sexy, there.

  Nick’s finally come for me. What have I done?

  “What is it?” Jack says.

  “I have to go,” I say, avoiding Jack’s eyes. “Nick’s in town.”

  Jack doesn’t say a word.

  My overalls are still stuffed into the towel rack in Jack’s bathroom in a horribly crumpled state. If I hurry I’ll have time to go to Filene’s Basement to pick up something other than Jack’s Ray Davies shirt and sweats to wear to meet Nick. I scrabble about in my bag. I’ve got a stick of lipstick somewhere. That’ll have to do.

  I look over at Jack again. I want to get back into bed with Jack. But Nick’s words ring in my head:Avoid safe places. They are so very hard to escape from.

  “Last night was—well, amazing,” I say to Jack. “But…”

  Jack’s face is completely without expression.

  “I know you’re in love with someone too, Jack. Or I’d have never let last night happen. You are, aren’t you?”

  Please say yes. Please!

  “Yes,” Jack says, still not moving.

  Jack is lying on his bed, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

  “Thank God for that!” I say. “No one who ends up with me is going to get away without doing at least some Scottish dancing. Can you imagine how ridiculous you’d feel in a kilt?”

  I still can’t read the expression on Jack’s face.

  “Dear Jack,” I say, kissing him softly on the cheek. “Thank goodness we are in love with other people. You and I—we could never work.” And then, trying for a joke that comes out all wrong, I say, “You need to be with someone who’s prepared to clean the fridge. I need to be with someone who knows how to make a long-distance call to London.”

  I look at Jack’s face. It’s still without expression.

  And then, feeling like a heel, I leave Jack lying naked on his bed and head out of his apartment and up Seventh Avenue, calling the gallery on the run.

  “Where’s Nick staying?” I say.

  “The Waldorf,” the receptionist tells me.

  The Waldorf. Of course. Nick’s chosen the hotel where my parents first met. Where else? Everything is coming full circle. I can’t wait until three o’clock to meet him in Central Park. I’ll surprise him at the hotel.

  Thank God he’s here. One more night like the one I’ve just spent with Jack and I’d never have escaped.

  Avoid safe places. They are so very hard to escape from.

  Nick’s arrived just in time. And he’s right. And the reason they’re so hard to escape from is because they make you feel at home.

  I’m destined for adventure. I mustn’t settle for anything less. Not after the journey I’ve been on. I’m ready for true love now. I’m holding Nick’s hand and I’m ready to jump, whatever that means. Nick’s at the Waldorf. I need to get to Nick.

  Bugger Filene’s Basement. I’ll go in Jack’s sweats. I doubt I’ll be keeping my clothes on for long. I’ve come a long long way. I’m ready for a man like Nick now, and he has finally come for me.

  The hotel’s huge marble pillars are holding up the famous golden ceiling high above exquisitely carpeted marble floors. I hope that my accent and my brightest smile will cause the man to overlook the way I’m dressed and give me Nick’s room number. As usual my accent does the trick.

  I ring the bell to room 1406. No one answers. There’s a painting on the wall, in the hall, of a hunting scene. I wonder if it was hanging there the night my parents met, in this same hotel, twenty-nine years before. If it was, I wonder if they noticed it. I wonder if Billie and Walt felt back then the way Nick and I feel today. Caught in the kind of love that’s verging on obsession.

  I ring the bell again and hear footsteps approaching the door. It opens.

  “Hallo?”

  The woman is Indian, like the woman in Nick’s paintings. She has the same delicate beauty and is dressed in a dark green and gold sari. She has flecks of red in her hair and a luminous stillness about her. In comparison I feel loud and big.

  “I’m looking for Nick Devang.”

  “Oh, yes, please. Please. Come in.” Everything about her is gentle. “My name’s Pippa Dunn,” I say, catching sight of my hair in the mirror. It’s sticking out. At a right angle. I look preposterous. “I’m Nick’s…agent.”

  “Pippa! Oh how wonderful to meet you! Nick has told me all about you. Come in. I’m Aradhana.”

  “Hallo,” I say.

  We sit on the sofa, embroidered in gold and black, and drink tea from a silver teapot, served in thin rimmed cups. The painting on the wall behind her is of another hunting scene. This time dozens of men in hunting hats and red coats are surrounded by beagles. It looks like an original, but it can’t be. Walt has the same painting on his wall in Washington.

  “We haven’t seen Nick in two weeks,” she’s saying. “We thought we’d join him here in lovely New York. The hotel said he’s expected back some time this afternoon,” she says. She’s handing me a sandwich with no crusts on a silver tray.

  “Nick is so thrilled about all the developments,” she says. “He was so excited when he heard from your mother!”

  “Really?”

  “To be working with the genius who once represented Marfil! It means so much to him. He speaks of nothing else.”

  “Mina! Nicholas!” Two tiny children aged about three and five come into the room, followed by another woman—cl
early their nanny—in a sari. The boy is dressed in a light blue suit and the girl is wearing a little gold dress. They have beautiful brown eyes and they are shy and achingly beautiful.

  “They look just like him, don’t you think?” she says.

  I do.

  “Hallo,” I say, rummaging in my handbag for some chocolate. Two pairs of tiny hands reach out and take my emergency Hershey bar and yellow box of peanut M&M’s.

  The nanny is smiling. Aradhana is smiling. She looks radiant and so proud of her Nick.

  I cannot destroy her happiness. I will not.

  “Aradhana, it is wonderful to meet you at last,” I say. The lie takes everything I have. Then I tell her I have an urgent appointment and need to go.

  “Nick will be so sorry to have missed you,” she says.

  I bet he will.

  She has such gentleness about her. Oh, oh, oh. He’s married. With children. Oh, what a fool am I.

  I smile at her again because her peace of mind depends, entirely, on her not knowing why I am here.

  “I so hope we can see you again while we’re in town,” she says. “Perhaps we can do something together, with the whole family?” Her voice is soft and sweet.

  “That would be lovely,” I say.

  “Perhaps we could take one of those boat trips around Manhattan,” she says. “What do they call it?”

  “The Circle Line.”

  “Yes,” she says. “The Circle Line.”

  I walk away from the Waldorf realizing what a total fool I have been.

  The Nick I built up in my mind wasn’t any more real than my idealized birth parents were.

  But oh! The sense of betrayal! How it stings!

  With it comes the first sense of absolute clarity I’ve had since I landed in America, and I know what I must do.

  Still wearing Jack’s clothes, I find Earl Grey and drive straight to Billie’s house. Only this time I am not coming as Billie Parnell’s daughter. This time I am coming as Pippa Dunn.

  Chapter Fifty-five

  AT THE END OF THE DRIVE,Billie’s house looks dilapidated and dark. The smell of dirty carpet and general neglect hits me hard as I walk through the door.

  “Billie?”

  She’s wearing purple overalls and a red shirt. Her lipstick hasn’t quite reached the edge of her lips and she’s carrying a huge pile of papers. Heathcliffe rushes past her, tail stretched toward the ceiling. One of the tiles on her ceiling has come loose and fallen to the floor.

  Her earrings tinkle as she turns her head toward me.

  “Honey!”

  We stare at each other for a second, Billie Parnell and I. We’ve come a long way since our first meeting. We still look the same, pretty much, and yet we’re no longer looking at our selves reflected.

  “Well, hiiiii!” Billie says.

  I walk across to the couch and sit down on the edge. The light isn’t working and I can smell cat food as usual. No need for small talk. I’m an American now. I can come straight to the point.

  “Have you been in touch with Nick?”

  She’s standing by the door to the kitchen. Her laughter breaks through.

  “Oh honey, I have missed you so much.” She’s delighted I’m there. She moves toward me for a hug. I’m not giving in to it. Not this time.

  “Have you been in touch with Nick?” I say again.

  She stops and walks toward the window to put the papers down.

  “Have you told Nick you’re going to represent him?”

  I hope that I’ve misunderstood what Aradhana was saying. I want my suspicions to be a mistake. But as I watch her debate whether or not to tell me the truth, I know that I am right.

  She turns toward me, eyebrows raised. “Well, clearly you know I have, or you wouldn’t have come storming in here like Boadicea with PMS. I love watching you when you’re this angry! You remind me so much of Mother, who…”

  But this time I refuse to let her sweep me away on one of her tangents.

  “Without consulting me, Billie? Goddammit, will you just stay on the subject just this once?”

  Billie stops talking.

  “Why didn’t you tell me, Billie?” My voice is calm and clear.

  “Well, I tried!” she says, finally, in an utterly reasonable tone. “Really, I tried. But it’s real hard to consult someone who won’t pick up the phone.”

  “What did you say to him, Billie?”

  “I don’t remember exactly…”

  “Billie!”

  “Well, I might have said that you were a little disorganized. Well, you are, honey! I mean you could sell sand to the Arabs, but organized you are not. And…”

  “And…?”

  “And I might have said something about experience counting in these things.” Then she says, “It was Nick who asked me to represent him, honey, not the other way around. And I only agreed for you.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve done some good work here, honey, but I know how to take someone like Nick and turn him into a star. I did it with Marfil, and I can do it with Nick. I talked with him at length about it only this morning. Isn’t that what you want? For Nick to be a star?”

  She’s pacing now. Excited.

  “Of course, I still want you on the team, whatever Nick says. We’ll be a mother and daughter team. We’ll set up a new agency and call it Parnell and Dunn. We’ll split the commission. I don’t mind, honey, you have done a lot of the legwork.”

  I stop trying to get a word in and just watch her. She is telling me she’s taking half my commission and implying that she’s doing me a favor. She and Nick plan to tell James Souk they’ll take the next set of paintings elsewhere unless he doubles his price.

  On top of that, if I want to be paid half the money I’m owed for almost a year’s work, I’ll have to work with her. And she’s packaging all of this as something good. Fascinated, I watch her convincing herself that it’s all in everyone’s best interests. She really seems to believe what she’s saying. Actually I don’t care about the money side of it. I’m making all the money I need from performing now. And I’m strangely relieved about Nick. But I do care about James Souk.

  And the fact that I’ve allowed myself to be so blatantly used is killing me.

  “Did you know Nick was married?” I ask Billie.

  Billie’s quiet.

  “Did you?”

  Billie’s sitting down now. “No, honey. I didn’t.” I look at her face. I believe her. All that time and energy spent dreaming about Nick, thinking he wanted me, when all he wanted was a break.

  “His wife’s beautiful. And Indian. And…and…and delicate!”

  “Oh no. Not delicate.”

  “Yes,” I say. “Delicate.”

  “Oh, honey.”

  She takes me in her arms. And for a second I am still.

  “Oh, baby, you’re so hurt.” She’s right. I am hurt. And I’m humiliated. Above all, I’m furious with myself for being such an idiot.

  “Nick Devang has played you beautifully,” Billie says finally. “But if he were a nice guy, well, he wouldn’t be able to paint like that, now would he? The biggest mistake you could make now would be to drop him. That is exactly what he wants. He could have any agent he wants now he’s got the exhibition, believe me, honey. At least you’ve learned one of life’s most important lessons. Never mix business with pleasure.”

  Has it been pleasure? Or obsession? I’m not sure. It certainly doesn’t feel like pleasure now. The betrayal stings me again, like a hard, unexpected slap.

  “Oh, honey! That face! That dear little face!” Billie’s sitting next to me now, holding me like a child. “You’ll move on. I did. It happens.” She’s soothing me with her movements, rocking me back and forth. Then she wraps me in the throw from her couch and I sit, clutching my knees to my chest, staring out at Billie’s sitting room, broken.

  “Now you stay here,” she says, “and I’ll go make us something to eat. God, it’s just so wonderful to see you.�
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  “I feel like such a pillock,” I say, as Billie comes back into the room.

  “A what?”

  “Never mind.” It is time to stop trying to explain British expressions to the Americans. Particularly ones I’ve never understood myself.

  Wrapped in the blanket, I sink into the couch that hasn’t been cleaned in twenty years. Billie suddenly seems so reasonable. So certain that this is a good way forward. If we set up Parnell and Dunn, I won’t have to do it all on my own anymore. Perhaps we could figure out a way to represent Nick together. And eventually there’d be other clients too.

  Billie has dimmed the lights, and the sitting room doesn’t look as depressing as it did earlier. Billie is singing “Someone to Watch Over Me” in the kitchen. She may not be the mother I wanted her to be, but she is my mother. It’s time for me to grow up. It’s time to accept her the way she is.

  And thus I might have stayed, had Heathcliffe not decided to jump on Billie’s desk and knock over a pile of papers.

  Listening to Billie’s voice, I get up off the couch and pick up the papers that have fallen on the floor. That’s when, between two pages from an Ethan Allen catalog, I see a return airplane ticket to London, dated a month before.

  “What’s this?” I say.

  Billie has stopped singing and is balancing two mugs of tea on the baking tin she is using for a tray.

  “It’s a plane ticket,” she says. “You can see that.”

  Billie puts the tea down on the table.

  “To London?”

  “Yes.” She sounds much too casual.

  “What were you doing in London, Billie?”

  “Honey, you know London is one of my favorite cities to walk around.”

  “Billie.”

  There’s a pause. And then, in the patient tone of an adult talking to an unreasonable child, Billie says, “I went to see your parents.”

  “You did what?”

  “Well, you weren’t returning my calls. You even blocked my e-mail. I was worried about you.”

  “So you went to see my parents?”

  “I can’t lose you again, honey. Don’t you understand?” She looks like a perplexed angel.