I missed Johnny suddenly and painfully, wished that I was at home in our little apartment, in our little world, the way it was before I let Harry through the door. I looked around the room, felt the cold champagne soaking through the fabric into my skin, watched a drunk couple try to reenact the lift from Dirty Dancing in the middle of the floor. I didn’t belong here. We came to this wedding so I could meet Harry’s friends and see London and fall in love with it, but I didn’t belong here. I don’t know why I thought I did.
“I’m so sorry,” Rupert spluttered at me as I backed away to avoid the spray and keep myself from stumbling into Hannah and Harry’s affair. Or whatever it was that was sitting there between them. I said, “That’s OK, would you excuse me a sec…I’m just going to the ladies’.” I broke out of Harry’s grip and pushed my way through the crowd with him calling my name and me refusing to hear it.
I fixed my makeup in the bathroom because I didn’t know what else to do. I blotted at the dark patch of champagne on my dress to look busy. He didn’t pull his arm away as fast as he should have. He should have pulled his arm away when she ran her fingers down to his wrist. He should have lifted his hand to have a sip of champagne and shrugged her off. But he didn’t. He looked down at her fingertips on the fabric of his suit. He said…What did he say? I asked him, when I called him, before our first date, I asked him, was he…
Are you with her?
Who, Hannah? No, not at all.
Because I don’t want to get involved, you know, if you’re taken.
No, Hannah’s a friend, an old friend from university, that’s all.
Because if you’re with her, even a little bit, it’s kind of shady, to give me your number like that. How’d you know I didn’t have a boyfriend?
I didn’t. I looked for a ring, but didn’t see one. I thought that if you had a boyfriend then I would have to take the risk. You could explain me away. A friend from long ago.
Yeah, it was long ago.
Yes, and I’d waited for you for a long time.
Me too. I was waiting too.
Maybe he was waiting for me, but I could see by the way the air was knocked out of him when Rupert said “expecting” that while he was waiting for me he had been passing the time with her. The champagne buzz lifted from my head. The clarity was harsh, like summer sun through a window, showing up all the dirt.
“Oh, Gigi, thank goodness you’re in here, I thought I’d lost you. Thank you so much. That could have all been very ugly,” Hannah said from the bathroom door before opening her clutch to take out her lipstick. I glanced at it. Laura Mercier. The bag, YSL. I watched her for a minute, reapplying makeup, combing through her hair, spritzing perfume. Her eyes focused entirely on herself as she talked to me.
“You’re really a star, I’m sorry you had to be in the middle of that, I tried to keep Rupert away from you both, but you see what he’s like. He was drunk before we even got to the first course. I’d be so grateful to you if you just wouldn’t mention this to anyone else tonight and preferably wouldn’t speak to Rupert again, you understand, don’t you.”
“No, I don’t, not really,” I said to her reflection. She had everything: looks, money, friends, my boyfriend. She got away with things because she was pretty. She talked to people like they worked for her.
“You know, don’t you, Harry told you, of course, at least, I assumed he had. No? Well, alright, the short story is that Rupert and I got together after uni and we were on and off for six years. Things would be so good for a while and then they just, wouldn’t. He always managed to get me back. But we were off when I was seeing Harry, so it could hardly be described as cheating, not really. Rupert just never knew about us. When he decided to really be on and finally propose to me, well, everything moved very quickly. I think poor Harry was quite put out but he knew it could never work between us.”
“You were on a break when you were seeing Harry?” I said, just to say something, wondering if Monica, Phoebe and Chandler would be joining us in the bathroom too.
“Yes, and we agreed it would be better for Rupert to never know. Rupert loves Harry and always has, so it was easier all around for everyone, kinder really, even though we didn’t really do anything wrong, just easier never to tell him or anyone, don’t you think?”
She brushed her hair as she told me this, her eyes casting glances at me through the mirror, a very light smile at the corner of her lips because she was secretly pleased to know that I didn’t know, and that Harry loved her once, and maybe he still did.
“And when we saw you and your son that day, well, things were still…delicate. I thought it was just better not to mention it tonight. Better to stay on message.”
I watched her bend sideways so that the cascade of her shiny long hair was easier to comb through while she explained her plan for lying to her husband for the rest of her life. “Really, I really do appreciate your discretion.”
I looked at her reflection above the sinks. She was pretty, but in that light I could see the crow’s-feet, some dark spots from too much sun. I picked up my bag and said, “I didn’t do anything for you. And I think you sat on something. There’s a snag in the lace on your ass crack. Also, you’re a real bitch.” Then I walked out of the bathroom, past the bar, out of the lobby and into a cab.
Halfway to the airport I asked the driver to turn around. I came back to the hotel room, opened the door, got in the bath. I came back instead of leaving. But he’s not here.
And the fancy bubble bath in the claw-foot tub and the tiny little vodka bottles from the minibar don’t make him appear, and they don’t take away the sting of wanting to believe that whoever came before me didn’t matter. Because I know she still does.
I sink into the water and try to put it all together:
So what if he was sleeping with his friend’s girl? I mean, he shouldn’t have done that, but that shit happens. I can’t be mad about that, that’s got nothing to do with me.
It had something to do with you tonight.
OK, but she said she was on a break with Rupert, so maybe it’s not that bad.
Oh, well, if she said it then it must be true.
Alright, OK. He said he wasn’t with her. They were friends. People are friends with their exes, right?
Yeah, of course. That always works.
Shit, OK. Why did he lie about her? There was more to it, is that why?
Yes. He has a penis.
I slide my head under the water. Feel the hot silence.
You love him. You have to take all of him.
But what about Johnny? What about Johnny?
That’s your fault. You let him get too close. But that’s because you love him. Both of them.
Shit. I know.
When I come up for air I hear the key in the lock. Harry opens the door to the room, sees the bathroom door ajar and, surprised, he says, “Gigi, your dress is on the floor. I mean—you’re here.” He’s somber and sober.
“It’s your lucky day,” I answer from the bath.
“I thought you’d left. Hannah said…she saw you…It doesn’t matter. I came up here to look for you before but…”
I put my arms up on either side of the tub, stare straight ahead. I hope my wet hair is doing something sexy even though I’m furious. “Well, I didn’t and I’m not. Where’ve you been so late?”
He puts his hand on the bathroom doorknob, unsure where to stand. He says, “I was just down in the bar, after the reception finished. I didn’t want to be alone.”
I wave him into the bathroom. “You’re not alone now. Pull up a seat.”
He goes to sit on the edge of the bath but I point him to the toilet. I turn on the tap to heat up the water. He starts talking. I can’t hear him while the water’s running but I look at him, his elbows on his knees, head
in hands, talking to the floor. I’m mad at him, I feel bad for him, I’m nervous, I hate him and I love him and I can’t deal with his face, the big brown eyes and the stubble. I look at my watch on the chair by the bath: 2 a.m. I want to punch him. I want to hug him. I want this part to be over. I want to know what happens to us next.
“There’d better be more to it than just fucking around,” I say, turning off the tap.
“Gigi, please. Don’t make it sound like that. I loved her.” He looks at me like I’ve wronged him.
“Yeah, I can see that, she’s really lovable. What did you love about her the most? Was it her great personality or just the regular blow jobs from a supermodel?”
“Why did you come back here? Just to eviscerate me?” Harry asks, defensive.
I say, through my teeth, “That’s a big word for this time of night.”
He takes his jacket off. He must have changed after the wedding. I recognize that T-shirt. The one he wore when we took Johnny to the Bronx Zoo and Harry carried him on his back half the day. When we were happy. Before the past woke up and met us in this bathroom.
I say, “I came back because it’s fucking stupid to sit in an airport all night, no matter how mad I am at you. And I’m here now so you might as well explain yourself.” Harry gets up and starts pacing the bathroom. The space shrinks around his height.
He rubs his forehead, raises his face to the ceiling hoping I won’t notice that his eyes have gotten glassy, like he might cry. I saw him do that once before. We were watching School of Rock with Johnny and it was the part when Tomika, the little Black girl, takes Jack Black aside and says she’s afraid to sing. But then she sings “Chain of Fools” with a hundred-year-old soul like a baby Aretha. I looked over and I said, “Are you crying?” and he rubbed his forehead and smiled and said, “Don’t be ridiculous,” which meant yes, so Johnny went over and patted his face.
Fuck. That’s why I love him. That’s why I’ll love him even if he did something wrong and stupid. I’ll love him even if he lied to me. And even if he lies to me again.
Harry puts his forehead on the towel rail. Talks to the floor. “We were a circle of friends in uni, me, Hannah, a few others, Rupert was my housemate. When we graduated they stayed in London, I left for New York and they kept breaking up and getting back together. I never went near her, never, when they were together, or at least when I knew they were together, in all these years.”
He paces the bathroom floor, looking at the tiles, the bathmat, the door, anything but me. “Rupert went to work in Hong Kong and they broke up. Hannah got promoted and it meant business trips to New York. We’ve known each other since we were eighteen. It would have been strange for her not to call when she was in town.”
He stops pacing, leans against the vanity, half-sitting on the edge of the sink. “I was lonely. I worked eighteen-hour days. I started work at 5 most mornings on the European desk. I went to work in a box in a building and went to bed at night in a box in a building. It was all very empty. I made money. Bantered at the office. Talked to girls in bars who just wanted me to say inane things with a British accent. It was awful. But then Hannah would appear and I didn’t have to explain anything. She was lonely too. She’d given up on Rupert. She was lost and so was I and”—he looks away from me—“we fell in love. I knew at some point we’d have to tell him, I broke the code, I should never have touched her, but I thought we could all be adults about it. Maybe it should have been me and her all along.”
I try not to flinch at that last sentence. I say, “Why didn’t you tell me, when I asked you about her? Why did I have to stand there tonight and look at you looking at her?”
“I feel awful, I…” he mumbles. I wish I was dressed. I keep hold of my knees to cover myself, goose bumps rising on my arms. My skin is tight, itchy. I stare at the taps and he slides down the vanity to the floor, hands to his face. We’re silent for a while until he finally says, “Gigi, she was pregnant. I was going to marry her.”
I’m overcome with jealousy. It didn’t happen but I’m jealous that it could have. I’m trying to remember that I’m angry. I’m angry and jealous and in love all at once. I make him turn around so I can climb out of the bath. I put on the fluffy hotel robe, devastated and furious. And afraid.
He leans his head against the cupboard under the sink. He tells me about the future he didn’t have as I sit on the edge of the tub. “She told me about the baby and we decided that I would move back to London and we’d get married. She flew home and I sublet my apartment, got a job transfer, sold my furniture on Craigslist. Made enquiries about houses in Clapham. Found out about registry weddings in Chelsea. I was going to push the pram on the common. I was going to get one of those carriers so that on Sunday mornings I could strap the baby on and get coffees and the paper for us while she slept in.”
I can see him doing it, flashes of him as a father and husband. I dig my feet into the bathmat. I look at my toes, candy-apple-red polish like drops of blood. A cheap-looking red against the Egyptian cotton or whatever fancy stuff this mat is made of. I want it to be me, me in the picture of that life he wanted.
He keeps going: “I wanted her and school plays and rugby matches and Christmas morning.” His eyes are shining. “It was stupid of me, turning my whole life upside down like that. I just wanted it. She said she had to tell Rupert, alone, in person. We owed him that much. But then one week became two and all my calls went to voicemail. I had to move into a hotel until she got round to telling me what was happening to my life.”
From his spot on the bathroom floor Harry tells me about how she emailed him a month later from Thailand. She never told Rupert about Harry or the baby. She just made a discreet visit to a clinic and a few weeks later accepted Rupert’s proposal on a moonlit beach.
These are his secrets, the pieces of his life that broke. But there’s more, there always is, so I say, “But when I saw you in the park, it was over between you?”
He sighs. “She made me promise not to tell him. She thought it would ruin their engagement, destroy our whole circle. But I was going to tell him anyway, except that then he asked me to be in the wedding. We were at a bar, we’d had a few drinks, there was no way to say no. I was about to tell him but then he said he wanted to be with her so much, he loved her, had loved her for years. I wasn’t brave enough to do it. And she had already ruined my life, I didn’t see why she should ruin his as well. God, I sound like such an arse.” Harry shakes his head, looks ahead at the bathroom radiator, embarrassed and ashamed.
This is all of him. He betrayed his friend, had his heart broken, thought he was a dad and then he wasn’t. He didn’t tell the truth when he should have. He’s still entwined with her lies. But he also swept the glass off the floor when my brother died. He reads stories to Johnny. He’s taken away my loneliness. He’s flawed. He’s made mistakes. I soften, the anger dissipates…
Um, Gigi, you’re getting carried away here, I know you love him but he lied to you, can you get to that part please—
Shit, right, OK. “OK, so, why didn’t you tell me any of this before? It was so obvious when you saw her tonight.”
“You’re right. But you and I had just started dating, it felt like such a lot to explain and I’m not a hero in this story. That day, when you saw us, I was taking her to a surprise brunch with all their New York friends, her first-anniversary present, and Rupert wanted as many people from the wedding there as possible. He asked me to take her. It was humiliating, but we were in too deep by then. When you saw us we had just met up to go. I should have refused; I was so spineless. And what would you have thought of me? I thought I’d lost you forever and suddenly there you were, and I just didn’t want…I thought you’d leave.”
“Come here,” I say, and put my arms out for him to join me at the edge of the tub. I close my eyes for a minute and ask myself if this is OK. I put my han
d on his knee, he puts his hand over mine. I ask myself if this will be good for my boy. If I’m doing the right thing.
He interrupts the silence: “I’m sorry, I’m…It was a mistake. What a cock. But if it cost me you too—”
I stop him. “You loved her. Love’s fucked-up sometimes.” He looks at our hands, fingers interlaced. I don’t say that men are fucked-up sometimes too. How they would do anything—anything—for a beautiful woman. How a man will reach for that beauty and tell lies for her even when a real woman—the right woman, not beautiful but loyal and full of heart—is standing right next to him. I know Harry doesn’t love her, but he will always know he had her; he will always secretly hang on to that fact, that he had a beautiful woman once. He doesn’t love her but all it took was her hand running down his sleeve to put her between us tonight. And she did it because she’s beautiful and she knew that she could.
I tighten my grip on his hand. “Don’t lie to me again.”
“I won’t,” he says, clutching me to him, wanting me to feel how much he means it.
“You’re asking me and Johnny to move our whole lives here. You have to give us your whole life too. Even this stuff, this shitty stuff.”
“I promise,” he says.
“OK,” I say, pulling away from him up to standing.
“OK?” he asks, unsure.
“OK already, you’re right, it’s a really nice tub.” And as I push him into the bath he pulls me in with him, and we’re a tangle of clothes and robes and bubbles and water. We sit there for a while like that in the tub, laughing, water flowing over the sides, sloshing through the leftover bubbles.
He picks up my left hand and says, “I was going to prop—”
“No. Don’t say it.”
“But, this weekend, it’s all been ruined now, but I brought you here to—”
When I Ran Away Page 8