Stevie reached out for her robe. As she opened the door, the belt got tangled around her waist. She stopped and fumbled with it. She was more out of it than she’d thought. And then she heard Jez’s voice. “Yes, Mum. Will you stop going on? I
know
that the money will come in handy. It’s only been a few weeks. Do you not think we’re
trying?”
Stevie stood still, her curiosity aroused.
“I tried to discourage your father,” said Rita. “What if you didn’t want children? I said to him. What if your wife, what if she couldn’t have them? I said to him. It puts a horrible pressure on a couple. But you know your father, bloody-minded to the end.”
What on earth were they talking about? She couldn’t connect the dots on this one.
“Yeah, bleeding bloody-minded,” agreed Jez quietly. “Sorry, ex- cuse my French.”
“Still, I can’t see a girl like Stevie complaining.” “She doesn’t know, Mum.”
“She
doesn’t
know? Goodness me, Jez, I think the girl has a right to know.”
It was at this point that Stevie, full of the rage of exclusion, stepped out of the shadows and into the halogen-lit kitchen like an understudy claiming the stage for the first time.
TWENTY-NINE
Æ
jez hauled stevie’s sole piece of luggage, a non-
descript black brick attached to two wobbly wheels, off the Heathrow Express rack onto the concourse. “Hey, come on, babe. Overreacting isn’t going to help, is it?”
Stevie pulled out the handle from her black wheelie suitcase. It clicked tartly. She started walking, the suitcase wheels rattling on the tiled floors and jamming in the ridiculously narrow metal gate- ways which some idiot had obviously designed with the sole inten- tion of pissing her off. Stevie walked just slightly too fast, so that Jez had to trot a little to keep up. He was out of his comfort zone, she thought. And so he damn well should be.
“Can we talk about it again? There’s time to kill.” Jez put his hand on hers, locked in a white-knuckle grip around the suitcase handle.
“Please.”
Stevie slowed down. Unlike Jez, she was not breathless. Rather, it was as if she’d been turbo-charged by quiet rage. “Okay, let’s grab a coffee.” Her voice was quick, restrained.
They sat on two high, uncomfortable bar stools around a small round table with a view of the concourse. The coffee was thin, the wrong shade of brown, and tasted of the Styrofoam cup that con- tained it. Stevie bit unenthusiastically into a stiff croissant. “You really want to go through it all again, Jez? Okay. Let’s do it.” She cleared her throat, paused. “You’ve kept secrets.”
“Secrets?” Jez raked his hair in a show of exasperation. “No, that’s not exactly fair. But I realize now that I
should
have told you. I’m sorry.”
“Your father’s will holds that you will inherit a decent trust fund on the birth of your first child,” she repeated, still disbelieving.
“That doesn’t mean
shit
.” Jez pressed his thumbs into his tem- ples, dragging his skin in small circular movements. “What the fuck are you suggesting?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?
Why
?”
Jez hung his head in his hands. “Here we go again. For the hun- dredth time, I didn’t tell you because I . . . I . . . I wanted it to be a surprise! I thought you’d be
thrilled
.”
A waitress scooped up the trash from their table with a claw-like apparatus and dumped it in a bin. Stevie wished she’d scoop up her husband, too. She shook her head. “I don’t buy it.”
Jez’s eyes began to water. “Oh, please, Stevie. Don’t go off like this. Let’s just plan what we’re going to spend the money on! Look on the bright side.”
“I don’t want to think about the money. There’s something ugly about it.”
Jez looked crestfallen, color draining beneath his fast-fading tan. “Don’t say that. That’s not fair.”
Stevie softened. Was she being too hard? No, damn it, she
218
P O L L Y W I L L I A M S
wasn’t. His secret inevitably cast a bad light on his subsequent en- thusing for a baby, over their whole marriage. “Listen, I’m going to check in now.”
Jez rubbed the small of her back, round and round, harder and harder, as if this might massage evidence of his devotion into her soft tissues. “I’m sorry. Really I am,” he said softly. “I feel so bad. You should be going off on a high, what with your new contract and everything.”
Stevie nodded. Yes, VIP Magazines had offered her a job. A six- month contract, despite the fact that her mind was whirring with the revelations about her personal life during the interview. Some- how she’d managed to string a sentence or two together, made a couple of wildcard suggestions. Luckily, the art director had loved her ideas. But celebrating? No, she didn’t feel like celebrating.
“Didn’t I say going freelance was the best thing you could have done?” said Jez, happy to change the subject.
No, actually, Stevie thought. If anything, you seem slightly peeved that I am doing well.
“You’ll soon be working with all those style-obsessed wankers.” Jez gazed up to the cathedral-height ceiling, the intersection of metal rafters, plastics, and glass. “This will all seem very hum- drum, I’m sure.” He pressed his fingers to his temples and balled his face into a frown. “And where’s that period, eh?”
Stevie shrugged, the same mix of excitement and fear curdling in her stomach when she thought about how the absence of her pe- riod could mean the presence of something else. She should have done another test. It made sense. She just couldn’t face it. She would wait until she got back from New York, by which time her period would almost certainly have come and if it hadn’t, then she’d do another test.
“Bang bang.” Jez cocked his fingers in the air. “Super sperm!” Stevie glowered. There was a time and a place. But this wasn’t ei-
ther. She looked up at the board. She really had to go. “Will you call Poppy for me? Just check in with her, won’t you?” Stevie hadn’t been to Oxford for a week. Perhaps she shouldn’t be going to New York at all. But there was something pulling her, tugging her across the Atlantic and now an even stronger force pushing her away.
“I’ll visit them in Oxford, if that would make you happy.” “I’d like that. Thanks.”
“I’ll take Mum.”
Stevie frowned. That’s all Poppy needs. Stevie stood up, brushed croissant crumbs off her jeans, delaying saying goodbye to Jez. A few months ago she’d have kissed him softly on the lips. Today, she could hardly bear to skim his cheek.
“Take care, pumpkin.”
Stevie pulled up her bag handle and wheeled it sharply toward the check-in signs, a lump rising in her throat as she walked away, her shadow a smudge on the glossy linoleum floor. They were di- verging. She was off on a journey without him. The opposite of a honeymoon.
“Stevie!” Jez bellowed. “Wait up! Stevie!”
She twisted around, stopped, and stared at her husband, God, her
husband
.
“We could use the money for a new flat or something,” he shouted. “We could have some fun with it, couldn’t we?”
A group of travelers, all sucking coffee through lidded cups like infants, swiveled on their high stools and stared expectantly, wait- ing for a marriage proposal or tears, as if this was the last scene of a soap opera.
“Bye, Jez,” said Stevie.
THIRTY
Æ
on the bumpy taxi ride from jfk, stevie gazed out
of the dirty window, absorbing the huge green road signs and their sans serif fonts, the super-sized vehicles, the bridge, and then, she gasped, New York! Heart drumming, she leaned back into the vinyl seat to get a better view as the driver rattled an Arabic- sounding language into his mobile phone. As they drove through Queens and into Manhattan, its streets heating up with the after- noon sun, the air surged gritty and warm through a dollar-wide gap in the window. Jez began to almost drop away from her, like recollection of an inconsequential actor a few hours after the film has finished. The persistent feelings of exhaustion and queasiness that had been nagging at her for the last two days also seemed to dissipate.
“This good?” The cabbie grunted, half an hour later, when they reached her destination.
Stevie flicked open her small red address book and squinted at the sign. This must be it. “Great, thanks.”
The cabbie flung her suitcase onto the pavement. It wobbled on its two wheels, then, penguin-like, tipped over. She pressed a bunch of dollars into the driver’s hand and stared up at the build- ing, eyes wide as eggs, mouth agape. Trying and failing to curb her provincial awe, she sucked up the New York details: the air conditioners sticking out of the brickwork like old cardboard boxes, the helter-skelter fire escapes, the model type walking past with her two black poodles, cell phone glued somewhere beneath a sheaf of gleaming copper-red hair. With a physical jolt, she real- ized for the first time that Lara really was living an entirely differ- ent life. She hadn’t just transplanted herself to new geographical coordinates with a better wardrobe. It wasn’t just a new job. It was a new life.
She rang apartment five. “It’s me,” she shouted into the grates of the intercom.
“
Stevie!
Ohmygod! Come up.”
The door clunked open. Stairs. Lots of dark wooden stairs. Stevie hauled her bag up, listening to a clatter of footsteps coming down- ward, matching hers going up. Their footsteps met. Lara threw her arms around Stevie. She smelled of rose perfume and hot toast. Wearing black wide-legged trousers and a white vest, her feet bare, she looked slimmer, blonder, more glossy than she did in London. Lara took her bag and, careless in her excitement, lumped it up the stairs—
bang, bang, bang.
Stevie held the handrail, wobbly and unfa- miliar in her grip, aware of each massive step.
“Great for the butt.” Lara laughed. “This is it. This is home.”
The apartment’s forest-green door was ajar, teasing the dark stairwell with a segment of sunlight. The toast smell increased in intensity. Lara dropped the bag and it landed with a thud straight
into a living room. Stevie stepped through into an airy pale room with large windows that faced the street. It was sparsely decorated with a few worn but chic pieces of furniture: a white linen sofa, a battered leather chair, an old utilitarian 1930s angle-poise lamp, lots of books.
“It’s like a sitcom set,” Stevie said.
“Yeah, we get all the best lines here.” Lara peered around a door. “Guys, the lady has arrived.”
Oh, they had company? A good-looking, pencil-slender woman in her thirties appeared, dark brown hair cut in a short boyish crop, framing sooty eyes and the kind of flawless complexion that either sported a brilliant foundation or didn’t need makeup. “Hi,” she said, American accent. “Casey.” She had a strong handshake.
“Nice to meet you, Casey.” Stevie grinned. Then she looked up.
Someone else. Tall, dark, feet big as loaves. She knew those feet.
Sam and Stevie hugged, giving Stevie pause for thought. His presence was a clear indicator that he and Lara were together, wasn’t it? He’d probably spent the night. Head nestled on Sam’s shoulder, she was able to lock looks with Lara. Lara acknowledged her friend’s quizzical appeal for romantic information with a shy smile and dug her eyes into the floor. It’s confirmed.
Sam held her arms tight, just below the shoulders and stepped back, as if to get a good look at her. “Managed to rip yourself away from wedded bliss?”
Stevie laughed tightly. “Just.”
“Tea?” asked Casey, sauntering nonchalantly into the kitchen, as if she were used to British guests descending upon her apartment on a regular basis and had learned not to spend too much time fuss- ing over each one.
“I’d kill for one, thanks.”
“Grab a pew,” said Lara, pointing at the sofa.
Stevie hesitated, quickly checked out the seating arrangements. One sofa. One chair. Was she imagining it or was there a second of awkwardness, an indecisive hovering, as she, Lara, and Sam re- arranged themselves in this new alignment of relationships? She sat down on the leather armchair, leaving the sofa to the lovers.
“How’s my man Tommy?” asked Sam, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. His brown skin gleamed, burnished with the first rays of the American summer sun. He was wearing cords, not his usual dark jeans; a white shirt, artfully untucked, one that she’d never seen him wear before; chunky boho-scuffed brown brogues—an older, sharper, hipper look. Of course, he was a different person in this new context, not a neighbor or an old friend. He was an En- glish guy living in New York with a life she knew little about. It was a reminder, she thought sadly, that familiarity is not the same as knowing someone.
“Breathing is a bit better.” She gulped. Talking about Tommy steamed her up. “But he’s not out of the woods yet.”
Lara put her hand to her mouth. “Poor mite. I’m so sorry.”
“Is your apartment near, Sam?” asked Stevie, switching subjects, not wanting to be the needy visitor who arrived on the doorstep leaking problems. She wanted to forget all the bad stuff, just for a weekend.
“No, I’m in Brooklyn. Ben, my cousin . . . Did you ever meet Ben? No? Well he’s in LA for a year. It’s a sweet deal.” He smiled, rubbed his cheek lazily. “I’m looking after his rent-controlled apartment.”
“And cat,” added Lara. “A neurotic, homosexual cat.”
So she’s been there, thought Stevie. Okay. She wished Lara had forewarned her about how close she and Sam had become. It affected
the group’s dynamic. There was a pause. Stevie wished she could think of something interesting to say.
Sam broke the silence. “I’m flying out Monday night, too.” “Not the nine-twenty, perchance?”
He nodded.
“I thought New Yorkers weren’t allowed holidays.”
Sam shrugged. “The boss has given me the week off while he’s vacating in his pleasure palace in New Mexico . . .”
Casey came back into the room carrying a pot of tea and a plate of pastries on a Chinese lacquer tray. “Fresh from Claude’s. Dig in.” She kneeled down, curling her pink, painted toenails beneath her and poured tea, glancing up at Stevie. “Fleeing London?”