Her face flickered onto the screen. She was dressed in white, her dark hair flowing over her shoulders, her lips glistening; she looked as gorgeous as a Vogue cover. He had to admit, he liked to be able to see her when they talked.
“How are you?” he asked. He could see the hotel room behind her and thought he could make out Gothenburg in the background, knew she was over on the west coast.
“Tired. We got here yesterday and had meetings with different collaborators all day.”
“We?” Mattias loosened his tie and leaned back in his chair. Jill was always surrounded by so many people. He didn’t know how she did it.
“My PR person, my assistant Ludvig, my manager, a rep from the record label, and someone else I already forgot. There are always tons of people with opinions on everything I do. They’re my team.”
“You’re probably the only person I know with their own team.”
She laughed. “What are you doing?”
“Thinking about you,” he replied truthfully.
She smiled, and Mattias felt himself smile back—a broad, unsophisticated wolf’s grin. He could make out her breasts at the top of her white blouse. His eyes lingered on her golden skin.
“I’ll be in Stockholm tomorrow. Are we going to see each other?” she asked.
“I was just going to ask. I’m invited to an opening—want to join me?”
She seemed to pause.
“We can do something else if you prefer.”
“No, no, an opening is good.”
* * *
The next evening, Mattias searched for a shirt he could wear on his date with Jill. Every time he closed his eyes, he could hear her husky laugh, smell her warm scent. Going by his time scheme, they had at least another month and a half to enjoy each other’s company.
Plenty of time, in other words.
He put a lot of thought into his choice of clothes, shaved carefully, and was looking forward to an interesting and pleasant evening in the company of a beautiful woman. But more than that, he was looking forward to seeing Jill. Hearing about her week, listening to her hilarious stories, being infected by her laugh, enjoying her uncomplicated company. Maybe even kissing her? The thought of seducing her, slowly and carefully, seeing her melt with pleasure, that filled him with expectation. That golden skin of hers, those soft curves, the voluptuous figure. He stopped himself with a hand in the air, saw a vision of himself in bed with Jill. Was she passionate? Or inhibited, perhaps? Some of the women who played so openly on their sexuality could be almost paradoxically prudish in private.
He cast one last glance in the mirror and left the apartment. If Jill wanted to, he would be more than happy to move their relationship on to the next phase.
* * *
Jill put in her lenses, blinked them into place, and finally she could see again. She brushed her newly short hair with firm strokes, twisted and turned her head. She’d had her extensions taken out today and agreed to let the hairdresser cut off a good length of her hair. Now she had a soft, wavy bob just above her shoulders. It was a cute, modern cut, but sadly it made her look a little older. She liked it, or she had for the first hour. But the people from the record label went crazy when they saw it. They demanded she go back to her old look.
She had given them a snide remark, refused to let herself be pushed around by her label, those damn parasites; but inside, the panic rose steadily. They were right. She looked older. Or rather: she looked her age.
Against her better judgment, she scrolled through her Instagram feed. She had uploaded a picture of her new hair. Many of her followers gave her compliments and encouragement, but it was the hateful comments that stuck in her mind, like tar on her soul.
You look old.
Show us your tits instead.
Stop being so pathetic.
And so on. She felt incredibly fragile, didn’t understand it; she could usually shake off this kind of thing. Was her period about to start, or what? She stared at her reflection in the mirror and forced her mouth into a smile. It was something she’d once read in Elle. If you smiled, it made you happy. If you thought positive thoughts, saw solutions rather than problems, visualized success, affirmed your circumstances and all that crap, it came true.
She continued to smile until her cheeks ached. But that wasn’t the problem, she realized.
She didn’t like how much she was thinking about Mattias.
Didn’t like that he had that kind of power over her. The way she found herself comparing him to other men, longing for his messages, looking forward to talking on Skype. She had to regain control of the situation, she thought as she started to apply her makeup. Her first impulse was to go for an understated look, because Mattias would prefer it. She stared at herself. Pull it together, Jill Lopez. She applied heavier makeup instead, with glitter on her eyelids, a thick layer of mascara, and plenty of blusher. She gave herself another stern look in the mirror. Don’t go falling for Mattias, now. But she still pulled on the same dress she had worn to their dinner in Kiruna, with Tom and Ambra; she could remember the way Mattias devoured her with his eyes. She grabbed her keys, turned on the alarm, and went out to the waiting cab.
* * *
When Jill stepped out of the cab at the Moderna Museet, the Swedish national museum of modern and contemporary art, her mood had picked up, and the smile she gave Mattias was genuine. He smiled, kissed her on the cheek; he smelled great and looked impeccable. She could control this. Mattias was only a man, and she knew how to handle men.
“It’s really elegant,” he commented, admiring her hair.
“Thanks. Do you come here often?” It was her first time; she had never understood the point of museums.
“I saw the Klee exhibition last week. Have you seen it? Otherwise I come from time to time. To keep up my general knowledge.”
“Of course,” she said, with no intention of revealing that she had no idea who Klee was. The lobby was full of people, the majority considerably older than she. Not exactly a gala feel to the evening. She straightened her scarf, the bracelets on her arms jingled, and someone turned around and gave her a puzzled look.
“Who are these people?” Jesus, some of the women weren’t even wearing makeup.
Mattias handed her a plastic glass of wine. “People in the arts, academics, critics, I guess. We can leave if you think it’s boring.”
“No, no, I love the cultural elite,” she mumbled, sipping her wine.
Mattias went over to a couple he knew. Sober, gray, older people who spoke in low, cultivated voices. They greeted Jill politely but didn’t seem to know who she was. Jill took another glass of wine and tried to follow their conversation. It seemed to be about a book. Or a play. Or two books written by famous people who hated each other.
She wasn’t quite sure. She emptied the plastic glass. Not a celebrity as far as she could see, no one under thirty-five either. She stood out like a damn peacock in her heels, jewelry, and red lips.
Mattias shook hands with yet another man and his wife, a woman with short nails and a badly fitting dress who actually pursed her lips when she was introduced to Jill. No one had done that to her in years.
“We were at Berwaldhallen yesterday. The violin concert.”
“I’ve sung at Berwaldhallen,” Jill said. She received a blank look in response before they continued to talk about Brahms and Dvoák as though she didn’t exist. Jill grabbed another glass.
“That’s your third glass,” Mattias pointed out quietly.
“And?”
“You aren’t going to eat first?”
“Why?”
Mattias excused himself, took her by the elbow, and led her over to a high cocktail table. “Is everything okay?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah.”
“We can go somewhere else.”
“No, no, it’s fine. I love talking about dead composers and incomprehensible art.”
“Is that Mattias Ceder? It’s been an eternity,” she heard a woman’s voi
ce chirp.
“If you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to powder my nose,” said Jill.
“We’ll talk more then,” Mattias replied.
“Sure.” She snuck off, found the ladies’ room, closed the door, and sat down on the lid. Dear God. She took a deep breath. Wished she had brought her wine with her. At least that way she could have stayed there, ignoring all these pretentious people. She didn’t understand why she cared so much, but she did. She heard the door to the ladies’ room open, heard the murmur before it closed again.
“Were you waiting for me?” a woman said. There were at least two of them then.
“I saw you talking to Mattias Ceder. Did you see the woman he had with him?”
“Wonder where on earth he found her.”
Jill held her breath while she eavesdropped.
“I would never have thought it of him.”
“Didn’t you two date?”
“Yes. He was the one who took me to that place in Östermalm, you know.”
“Esperanto?”
Jill bit her lip. They had been there recently, she and Mattias. He clearly had his regular haunts.
“You know about his two-month rule, don’t you?”
“That he always ends things after two months?”
“Yes, it’s some thing he has. The question is whether she will even last that long.”
“What did you think about those breasts—they can’t be real?”
“Maybe he felt like something exotic. I wonder if she even speaks Swedish.”
“Maybe they don’t do all that much talking.”
Their mean laughter echoed through the ladies’ room.
This was just too much. Jill got up, opened the stall door, and stared at the women.
Their eyes widened. Then they glanced at each other and burst into embarrassed laughter before they hurried away. Jill stared at the closed door. It was like being thirteen again. People had talked about her like that at school, whispered behind her back.
She washed her hands. Her chest felt completely hollow. What was she doing; why was she here?
When she came back out, Mattias was talking to a small group of people. There was no sign of the gossiping women. She hesitantly approached, heard them talking about some debate going on in some paper. She hadn’t even heard of it. All her life she had struggled with these feelings, with feeling stupid, ignorant, simple. How many times had her adoptive mother told her she was vulgar, that she must have been born in the gutter? How many social workers had looked at her with the exact same look Mattias’s friends were now giving her? As if she were worth nothing.
“What happened?” Mattias asked with concerned creases around his eyes. Coming here had been a mistake. In fact, ever flirting with him had been a mistake. They came from two different worlds.
“Is it true you date women for only two months?” she asked. She didn’t really know why that bothered her if it was true. She hadn’t even thought that far ahead herself.
He gave her a long look. “Do we have to talk about that now?” he eventually said.
“We don’t have to talk about it at all. This isn’t working anyway.”
He grabbed her arm. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
She pulled away from him. “Let go of me,” she said coolly, and he immediately did as she asked.
“I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Nothing is going on, but this was a mistake and I’m leaving now.”
“Should I go with you?”
She wanted him to. Wanted him to leave these snobby, lofty people behind. But she couldn’t bring herself to say it, she just couldn’t.
“No,” she said, turning on her heel and stalking out.
Mattias didn’t follow her. Most men didn’t.
Chapter 54
“Come in,” Ellinor said, opening the door for Tom. She looked pale but composed.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“If you like. Let’s sit.”
They each sat down in a chair.
“Why did you come to Stockholm?” he began.
“Don’t really know. I’ve really been thinking, up there in Kiruna. I panicked. You disappeared. I wanted to be here.”
“In Stockholm? Or with me?”
“Both. I missed our life, and I thought you did too.”
He’d thought the same. Had been convinced that he knew what love felt like and that Ellinor was the one he wanted.
“I got the impression you were happy with Nilas,” he said.
“And I was. But then you were gone and I suddenly felt completely suffocated up there. All I could think about was you and the life we used to have. It felt as if I’d thrown away all our years together.”
You did, he came close to saying, but it made no difference now, not to him.
She’d been in such a state in the car on the way back from the party—tired, sad, and drunker than he’d ever seen her. It was only once he was halfway home that he realized it wouldn’t work, that he couldn’t take Ellinor back to his place.
He had turned around and checked her into a suite at the Clarion Sign instead. Which was where she had been ever since. Alone. They talked and talked. Ellinor spoke as if it was obvious they would get back together and as though he should be ecstatic. But he wasn’t.
“We . . .” he began, but he trailed off, unsure of how to continue. It was so difficult; there were so many invisible threads that bound them together.
Though not anymore, he realized. Those threads had been cut, one by one.
“It was good for me to come here. I saw some friends, did a little shopping, sorted out a few things. I really regret cheating on you. You deserve better. I wanted to say that. I’m so sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said, and he meant it.
“It was all about me, never you. I want you to know that. And I got my punishment,” she said, giving him a lopsided smile.
“What do you mean?”
“You forgave me so easily,” she said with a hint of something he had never heard from her before: bitterness. “All my friends said I should be grateful, but I just felt unimportant.”
“I can understand that.” Maybe it was a sign that he hadn’t felt all that much after all?
“I guess this is because of Ambra.”
Tom shook his head. It was important to him that no matter what happened in the future, he and Ellinor were a closed chapter. They didn’t belong together.
“I don’t even know if she wants me anymore. I haven’t been so good to her.”
“But do you want her?”
“Yes,” he said simply.
“She’s tough. Good, too.” Her eyes focused somewhere in the air. She was beautiful. And he didn’t feel a thing.
“Things were bad between us even before Nilas, weren’t they?”
“Yeah.”
It was the first time he had ever admitted it. But things had been bad between them. They hadn’t been able to talk, the mood was tense. On one level he’d probably known it was over even then. It was just that Ellinor had realized it a lot sooner. “That’s why I went to Chad. Not only that, of course, because it was an important job. But it felt good to get away.”
“We’ve been a big part of each other’s lives.”
“Yeah. And it was thoughts of you that kept me alive when I was being held prisoner. I created a dream image of you and our relationship. When I came home, I didn’t want to give that up, even though you had moved on.”
“I can understand that,” said Ellinor. “I’m sorry. That I acted like this. Maybe I can blame it on an early midlife crisis?”
“I want to apologize too. For acting so strange, for following you up there. That wasn’t cool. Thanks for your patience. And thanks for Freja. I hope I can keep her?”
“Of course. Having a dog suits you.”
“Are you going to tell Nilas why you were here?” he asked.
“Guess I may as well be honest. I’m
flying home tonight, on the last plane.”
“Good luck,” he said, but he didn’t offer to give her a ride. “You deserve to be with someone who can love you with a full heart.”
“You too.”
Tom left the hotel room. It was over. Completely.
Chapter 55
Ambra was mad at Tom. It took her three days, but the anger had finally appeared. It was incredibly refreshing not to feel like a dumped victim anymore but a justifiably angry and proactive woman, she thought as she furiously typed.
Tom had chased her, sent flowers and bought gifts. They’d had an insane amount of sex. In her world, that meant something. And then he went and chose Ellinor over her.
She hammered away at the keys. Tom was an asshole, and she was entitled to her feelings. She had tried to protect him and still got shit from every direction. Idiot. She hit Enter, sent the piece, and immediately began the next one. Her rage tinged her articles, but no one complained, and it felt good to let out a little anger when she wrote about abused women, murdered women, and inadequate rape sentences. She hated all men today, she decided, glancing at the time. Almost lunch, she thought just as she received a message.
From Tom. What did the idiot want now? Her pulse picked up, but it was just anger. Nothing else. That was it.
I’m in reception. Can we talk? Could you come down?
Her jaw dropped. How arrogant could he be? She was at work and didn’t have time for him. He couldn’t just turn up and assume she would drop everything for his sake. Angrily, she wrote: Go to hell.
But then she hesitated, deleted it, and wrote: Coming.
Because, she realized, she needed to talk too. She actually had quite a lot to say.
* * *
Tom was still absorbed by everything he’d done yesterday. He had, face-to-face, drawn a clear line under everything he’d once had with Ellinor. He felt strong, and he wanted Ambra. Was finally ready to stop dithering, to choose her. Imagine that it could be so simple. He was looking forward to seeing her face when he told her. He impatiently waited for her to come down, ignoring the security guards manning reception who kept glancing over to him. Suddenly there she was, bouncing down the stairs, those unruly locks of hers dancing.
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