‘Tricky?’ she offered.
Edd smiled, ‘Tricky is an understatement. I’ve just been concentrating on my career; there hasn’t been room for anyone or anything else, not really. The only thing that’s distracted me has been the same thing that got me my less than impressive grades in Junior High and that is an unhealthy obsession with the Yankees.’
Meg smiled. ‘Are you sure? There’s got to be something dark about you. I think you must be a master criminal or gay or married!’
‘You’ve got me! I’m a gay master criminal, with a wife, in fact several wives, who all visit me during my regular incarcerations, but at the moment I am one step ahead of the law and out on bail, g-dang-g-dang!’ He snapped his fingers.
‘I knew it!’ She narrowed her gaze at him.
‘You’ve met my mother, for God’s sake!’ he countered, as though this were proof enough.
‘Well, she
said
she was your mother. For all I know, she was hired for the day as part of your elaborate plan.’
‘Trust me, if I was going to employ the services of a fake mother, I would have chosen one that didn’t drink so much tea at eight dollars a cup and didn’t give her medical details to my new girl at a volume slightly louder than the pianist could play.’
Meg smiled and wriggled back against his arm; she liked being his new girl. ‘Trust is the most important thing for me.’ Her mum’s words floated into her head.
‘It’ll only be for a night or two and then you can come home and maybe we can go to the pictures or out for the day. You like the seaside, don’t you? Maybe we could go there, have a paddle…’
‘I won’t let you down, Meg. You have to trust me, remember?’ Edd’s words returned her to the present.
She nodded. ‘I know, but I’ve been let down a lot…’ She bit her lip, thinking how to phrase all that she wanted to say. She looked out of the carriage; opening up like this did not come easily. She drew breath to continue. ‘I’ve told you how I grew up and I don’t know how many more times I can bounce back from having the rug pulled from under me, Edd.’
‘I know that, Meg, and you don’t have to worry. You are amazing. I don’t know how you’ve coped.’ Edd leant forward to kiss her.
Meg placed her hand on his shoulder, keeping him at bay. ‘I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I just want you to be honest with me.’ She thought of Bill’s promises, whispered against her naked shoulder and laced with deceit, his plans wrapped in dishonesty and his words unfaltering. ‘It’s the most important thing for me, to know where I stand.’
Edd nodded, this he understood.
The sound of Storm’s hooves clip-clopping along the path filled the air. They passed the zoo and then the pond, where people stopped to watch and wave. She felt quite regal and thought once again of Anna dancing in the arms of her Dimitri. The carriage veered left around a bend and there was an ice-skating rink. The people on it looked like little penguins as they waddled and spun, all going in the same direction around the ice, with the towering skyscrapers as their backdrop.
‘I’ll always try and be honest with you, Meg.’ His voice was steady.
‘That’s good, because I can cope with separation, I can cope with just about anything, but not dishonesty. Promise me that you will never, ever lie to me, Edd. Never.’
Meg was studiously looking away from him. Edd’s heart gave a little squeeze at the sight of her. He swallowed. ‘I promise.’
Meg tore her eyes from the rink and looked at him. ‘Okay then, be honest right now. Tell me exactly what you are thinking.’ She tilted her chin.
Edd took a deep breath. ‘Apart from thinking that my butt is a little numb and I can’t feel my toes, I was thinking that despite having known you for only approximately sixty hours, I love you. I love you, Meg.’ He looked up at her from beneath his fringe.
Meg smiled, forgetting that in a few hours she would be on a plane heading nearly three and a half thousand miles in the opposite direction. ‘Do you?’ She needed to hear it confirmed.
‘I do. Meg, I love you.’ Edd stood up in the back of the carriage, holding on to the side so he didn’t fall. He brought his right hand to his mouth and spoke as if through a megaphone. ‘I love Meg Hope! I love her!’
Meg slipped down the seat, giggling, and tried to hide under the blanket; she felt delighted and embarrassed in equal measure. She closed her eyes and couldn’t remember a time when she had felt happier.
*
The two collected Meg’s luggage from the Inn on 11th and walked around the block.
Edd checked his watch. ‘We have exactly an hour and a twenty-three minutes before we need to leave for the airport.’ He held her hand and quickened his pace.
Meg teetered behind him, wishing she hadn’t chosen her black heels. To hell with being sexy; trying to keep up with him on these icy pavements was proving challenging. She smiled when she saw where they were heading. The Greenwich Avenue Deli, of course.
The place was busy as usual. Edd opened the door and stood back to allow her in first. She was immediately engulfed in the smell of food, spice and coffee.
‘What’ll it be, buddy?’ The sandwich guy tapped the sharp knife on the counter, marking time, impatiently.
‘I’ll take a hoagie with pastrami, pickle and sauerkraut, coupla slices of Swiss and tomato, lots of black pepper, hold the mayo.’
The guy nodded as he slit the bread, reached for the meat, pulled spoons from tubs, separated thin slices of cheese, sprinkled pepper and with nimble fingers reached for the waxed paper. ‘And for the lady?’
‘Who? Mary here? She’ll have the same.’ Edd smiled at her.
Meg settled back, glad of the window seat. She pressed her nose to the pane and watched the city getting smaller and smaller as the plane climbed higher and higher. The powdery snow made the Big Apple look like it was dusted with icing sugar. She swallowed the sadness that sat in her throat, unable to fully reconcile what had happened within such a short space of time with how she felt. Her stomach muscles clenched with excitement at the memory of their carriage ride around Central Park just a few hours earlier.
He loves me. Edward Odhran Kelly, he bloody loves me!
She had to stop herself squealing with happiness. This was almost instantly superseded by a wave of longing. They had agreed to meet in the New Year – he would come to London – but that was weeks away. Meg giggled into her palm.
Blimey, girl, you’ve got it bad. You have been on the planet for nearly three decades without knowing he existed and you managed just fine, so what’s a few weeks in the grand scheme of things?
Edd’s words of reassurance filled her head.
‘This is the beginning of our adventure. Trust me…’
Meg smiled as she closed her eyes and lay back in the chair, touching her fingers to her cheek where his palm had rested in goodbye. She did trust him. She sniffed the edge of her scarf, which held the faintest trace of his scent, and felt herself drift into the dark abandonment of sleep. When she woke, the bright sky of a British dawn beckoned her home.
Meg sighed as she stared from the window of the taxi. London looked grey, the cabs bland and sombre compared to their bright yellow New York counterparts and the drizzle no match for the fluffy white snow. It was 8 a.m. and Curzon Street was slowly coming to life; shutters were being raised and curtains drawn, and office workers strode along purposefully, clutching their free copies of
Metro
and cups of takeaway coffee.
Meg paid the cabbie with a flutter of anticipation in her stomach at the prospect of seeing her little boy. She smiled as she stood in front of the Plum Patisserie display window. Her thoughts flew to her wobbly performance at the Rockefeller Center ice rink and the solid feel of Edd’s arms on her waist, keeping her steady. She studied Anna and Dimitri, who continued to loop, twirl and smile on the ice, just as they had before she’d left them. ‘I take my hat off to you, Anna, that skating lark is much harder than it looks.’ She winked at the duo as she ferreted through her handbag for her key.
‘Mummy!’ Lucas, still in his pyjamas, charged down the hallway of Milly’s flat and collided with Meg’s legs. He wrapped his arms around her knees.
She bent down and gathered him up into her arms, kissing his face and hair, inhaling the scent of him as she hugged him tightly into her chest, feeling his hot cheek against her own. Her tears gathered in sweet relief at the joy of reunion.
I’m sorry I was happy without you, Lucas; you know I love you the most, don’t you? Always.
‘I missed you. I missed you so much!’ Meg leant back to study her little boy who she hadn’t seen for four whole days. ‘Goodness me, did you get bigger? You look like you have grown!’
‘Did you get me a present?’ he asked, hopefully.
‘I did. I got you some pirate Lego to add to your collection!’
‘Yaaaaaaaaaay!’ Lucas punched the air, signalling his approval, before wriggling free and plopping down with a thud, eager to be free of his mum’s grip. ‘I made you a present!’ He scampered off to the sitting room as Milly popped out from the kitchen.
‘Here she is!’ Milly wrapped Meg in a hug and kissed the top of her head. ‘Welcome home, love. Tired?’
‘No. Actually, I feel great.’ This was true. Seeing Lucas had boosted her flagging energy, but also the thought of Edd kept her adrenalin pumping and her brain wired.
Milly stepped back and admired her from the kitchen door. ‘You’re right. You don’t look tired. In fact you look great! Glowing!’
Meg nodded as she grinned.
‘Anything you want to share?’ Milly smirked, her hand on her hip.
Meg rolled her eyes and indicated Lucas, who had just reappeared. Her news would have to wait. Lucas was holding a robot made of empty cereal boxes, loo-roll tubes and a couple of coat hangers.
‘Wow! Look at that! It’s amazing and huge!’ Meg bent down to receive the rather unwieldy sculpture.
‘It’s a robot,’ Lucas confirmed.
‘I can see that. Did you make it by yourself?’
‘No.’ Lucas shook his head. ‘Mills helped me.’
Meg glanced at her friend, employer and mentor, who chuckled into her fist. The robot was vast, at least two feet high. ‘I think as Mills helped you, this robot should probably live in her flat, where she can see it every single day! I’d feel mean taking it upstairs.’
‘No!’ Lucas was adamant. ‘I made it for your bedroom.’
‘Nice try,’ Milly mumbled as she went off to put the kettle on.
Despite the tiredness that pawed at her late in the afternoon, Meg was determined to observe Christopher’s rule and go to bed when everyone else did. Adrenalin, excitement and the first flush of romance were her fuel for the day. That evening as she watched her son’s tummy rise and fall in sleep she smiled at his chubby baby cheeks and his little fists, closed now on the edge of his blanket and with dimples of fat above each knuckle, yet to flatten and stretch into the hands of a boy. Meg smoothed his hair and blew a final kiss as she closed Lucas’s bedroom door and retreated into the hallway. Then she slumped down on the sofa next to Milly, who looked marvellous in her ageing tiger onesie.
‘So come on, let’s have it! And I don’t mean the whole dead-body saga – I don’t want to hear any of those details again.’ Milly grimaced. ‘I mean, what’s really going on? I know you, Meg Hope, and you are up to something.’ She folded her arms across her orange-striped chest.
Meg sighed, wondering how to begin without the whole thing sounding corny.
‘It’s unbelievable, but I met someone.’ She bit her bottom lip.
‘I bloody knew it!’ Mills thumped the cushion beside her. ‘You’ve got that vacant, dewy-eyed stare going on. So come on, who and where?’ She twisted herself round so the two of them were facing each other on the wide squidgy sofa.
Meg lifted her hair and bunched it on top of her head with a covered elastic band. ‘His name is Edd, Edward Kelly. He’s an Irish New Yorker and works for the architects that are overseeing the new shop.’ She closed her eyes and pictured his smile, his face.
‘What’s he like?’ Milly leant forward.
‘He’s lovely. Funny, spontaneous, thoughtful, kind.’ Meg nodded at the truth of this. ‘He took me to the aquarium and showed me seahorses!’ This, she felt, illustrated exactly what sort of man he was.
‘
Real
seahorses?’ Milly winked.
‘Yes,
real
seahorses! And he knows my seahorse shame.’
‘Well if that didn’t put him off, love, you might be on to a winner!’
‘He’s really looked after me – even though I don’t need looking after.’
‘No, of course not.’ Milly smiled and patted the leg of the girl she would always feel responsible for. ‘What does he look like?’ She was curious, having never seen Meg in this much of a spin over a man, certainly not the lovely but dull Piers Parkinson-Boater who had kept her occupied for the last couple of years.
Meg looked past her to a space beyond the window. ‘He’s got red hair, auburn.’
‘He’s a fellow ginge!’ Milly laughed, tossing her head so her own natural auburn streaks glinted in the lamplight.
‘He is. I’ll show you photos tomorrow.’ Meg giggled. ‘Oh God, Mills, he’s lovely, gorgeous!’ She paused, trying to find the right words. ‘We met and it was just like…’ She exhaled, blowing a slight raspberry. ‘He’s…’
Milly sat up straight, her expression now serious. ‘Bloody hell, girl, look at you, all in a tizz. Do you
like him
like him?’
‘I don’t know.’ Meg felt her eyes mist over.
‘You
don’t know
?’
‘I mean I do know. Yes, I
like him
like him. I just don’t know how to say exactly how much I like him without it sounding cheesy or fake.’ She swallowed the lump in her throat. How could she explain the longing she felt for this man whom she had only known for a matter of hours, or the way her mind raced ahead into the future. It sounded ridiculous and rushed, even in her head. ‘He is magic, he’s everything!’
Milly needed to pursue this further. ‘Did you spend a lot of time with him?’
Meg nodded. ‘Yes. We did a lot of things – I even met his mum!’ She smiled at the memory of afternoon tea at the Plaza.