Gray had laughed when she’d moved in, the week before Christmas. All her possessions fitted into one cab.
“You’re thirty-three, and you have three boxes, a little table, and one lamp. That’s all you’ve accumulated over the years?”
“Yes,” Elle had said. “There wasn’t room to swing a cat in Perry Street, and the flats I had in London weren’t worth buying trinkets for.”
She had a few books, a couple of posters, and the lamp, from a shop in Chelsea, a few pretty bowls from Anthropologie in which she kept her jewelry, and apart from her clothes that was it. Most of her books were in storage. But she still had with her, she didn’t know why, Felicity’s copy of
Venetia
. Perhaps she meant to give it back one day. Perhaps it was comforting to have it near.
“You haven’t put down roots anywhere,” Gray had observed, taking out the lamp and putting it carefully on the sideboard. “And now you are. Don’t you think that’s interesting?”
“No,” Elle had said, putting the few Christmas presents she’d wrapped already by the small tree. “Don’t get analytical on me.”
She hadn’t meant to fall in love with Gray; she had never set her cap at him. He was nearly fifty, for goodness’ sake. All his female friends let her know in different ways how lucky she was; that he was an enormous catch. But he wasn’t to her, he was way too old. That was why she didn’t realize it, for a long time, and it wasn’t till they were having dinner in the Village one evening—they lived close to each other, and had met up a couple of times—that he said something that she found funny and she looked at him and thought, Yes. I know you.
I know you.
He was brilliant, he was interesting and held in high regard, all of those things. But he was also funny. He made her laugh, and no one had done that for a long time. And she made him laugh, in a way no one had, he said, since his wife died. It was the friends and the wives who referred to Julia, his dead wife, constantly, asked her how Rachel, his daughter, was doing at Stanford, as if Elle was responsible for her happiness, or rather her unhappiness. Elle didn’t care. Gray had a good relationship with his daughter, they saw her all the time when she was back in New York. And Julia was part of his past, he’d loved her, if she were alive they’d still be together, but she wasn’t, so why shouldn’t he have someone else in his life, now? She hadn’t stolen him from anyone. But Gray’s friends seemed to think she had, from the arms of an older woman, someone who could complain about creaking knees with him, or talk about the good old days at Studio 54, Warhol and Basquiat and Bianca. After a while, she didn’t mind that he was older; in fact, she liked it. It gave him a past, one that he sometimes wanted to forget. They both wanted a new start.
When Gray returned, an hour later, from running his errands, he was clutching a Dean & Deluca cloth bag brimming with produce and a Starbucks iced coffee.
“I ran into Hana and Joel at the market,” he said, heaving the bag up onto the black marble breakfast bar. “They’re going to Joseph’s party next week. And they saw a preview of
All My Sons
last night. They said it was great.”
Elle looked up from the new manuscript she was now reading, which was yet another
Kite Runner
–esque story about a boy in a small village, this time in Turkey. “Oh, wow.” She shifted up on the sofa and stretched herself. “What was Katie Holmes like?”
Gray looked blankly at her. “Who?”
“Katie Holmes?” Elle said. “Come on. She’s married to Tom Cruise? He jumped on Oprah’s sofa about her? It’s her Broadway debut, it’s huge.”
“Of course.” Gray smiled. “All I know about it is it’s a wonderful play by Arthur Miller, and John Lithgow is one of our best actors. I’m a cultural desert, forgive me.”
Elle sank down into her blanket again, and turned another page of the manuscript. When Gray was like this she wanted to throttle him. He handed her the coffee.
“Did you think some more about the London trip?”
“Thanks,” said Elle. “Sure. Let’s go in the spring, next year, shall we? It’s best if I just fly in and out this time. Is that OK, honey?”
“Yes,” Gray said, dropping a kiss onto her forehead. “Of course it is.”
She watched him walk back across the huge room to the breakfast bar, and she wondered, once again, what she’d done to deserve him, and when he’d find out what she was really like.
GRAY’S SECOND ATTEMPT
came a few days later. They had arranged to meet at the Regal off Union Square, to watch
The Duchess
. Gray taught classes on Revolutionary American Politics and the American Revolution and its Legacy at Columbia, and he had been impatient to see it, though Elle couldn’t stand Keira Knightley and would have preferred almost anything to it, even
Transformers
.
It was extremely hot outside, the kind of heat you never got in London in September, and the traffic coming off Broadway was bumper to bumper, hazy fumes rising into the empty lavender-blue sky. Elle was waiting for Gray in the air-conditioned foyer, already shivering under the intense, icy blast from the unit above her. It occurred to her suddenly that that was the only thing she missed about London. Windows you could open that let fresh air in, air that wasn’t either 10 or 90 degrees Fahrenheit—last summer on 4th July, the tarmac at JFK Airport had actually melted, when the thermometer hit 100 degrees. There were definitely several days of the New York year when Elle wished—not that she was back in London, of course not, but for a mild, foggy, temperate day, the kind of weather that London enjoyed for half the year.
As she stared at the picture of Keira Knightley in a wide-brimmed hat, her mind wandered back to Libby and Rory’s wedding, she didn’t know why. Perhaps it was because she’d spoken to Annabel that morning, on a video conference call; Annabel had waved to her and shouted, “Hiya, Elle! Long time no see!” Elle, nonplussed, had raised a hand in silent greeting, and then turned to Celine. “So, Celine. Where are we with the pitch for Zara Goodman?”
She knew she was being a bitch. Had Annabel kept that bridesmaid dress with the shepherdess hat? Did she still see
Libby and Rory? Last time Elle had heard from Libby, she was pregnant with baby number two and they were living just outside Tunbridge Wells.
It’s a really lovely village, proper countryside, a real community,
she’d emailed—of what, Elle had wanted to ask. Bankers and accountants commuting in to Charing Cross every morning? She’d promised to go and see Libby when she was over next.
If I have time,
she’d written, just what she’d said to Gray.
You know what these conferences are like, you don’t have a spare minute to yourself.
Sure, sure!
Libby had emailed.
Any time! I’ve got my hands full here with Scarlett! Life as a mum is way busier than my job as an editor, I hadn’t realized!
Elle hadn’t replied.
Rory was still at Bookprint, by the skin of his teeth; Elle had found herself defending him, of all unlikely things, to her US colleagues. “Who is that guy?” Stuart had once asked her. “He’s no good.”
“Him? I had an affair with him for over a year, actually. He was my boss.”
She hadn’t said that. She’d said, “They got him when they bought Bluebird, as part of the deal.”
“Bluebird?” Stuart had said, wrinkling his forehead.
“The Sassoons’ company,” Elle had told him. “Last of the old independents.”
“Oh,” said Stuart vaguely; he dealt in big-picture stuff, not nuance. Why would he have heard of it? It was very nearly eight years ago now, the sale. “I remember. Kinda.”
She hadn’t said she worked there. She didn’t really know why.
She was lost in thought in the lobby, drifting aimlessly from one memory to another, delicately prodding, like a tongue on an aching tooth in case too hard a touch was painful, when Gray appeared.
“Honey, I’m so sorry,” he said, slightly out of breath. “I had to see Morgan, he was late, we had a great meeting, but it overran—I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, squeezing his arm.
He kissed her. “Did you get popcorn?”
“Not yet,” Elle said. Gray loved popcorn. She leaned against him, inhaling the smell of him she loved so much: spicy aftershave, the faint buttery scent of his skin. “Mm,” she said softly. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, feeling the stress of the day flow out of her. “I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you too,” Gray said, squeezing her to him. He kissed her ear. “Honey, are you OK?”
“Fine, I’m fine,” Elle muttered, straightening up. “Let’s get in line, then.”
“Sure.” Gray pulled a roll of bills out of his trousers. “Oh, by the way, you booked your tickets for London, didn’t you?”
“Well, not personally,” Elle said. “The office did it, ages ago.”
“Hm, hm.” Gray made a great show of putting his cell phone away in the pocket of his battered old blazer. “I do think I’m going to come to London, in fact. Morgan and I were discussing it today. There’s some research I can only do in the London Library. They have a fantastic collection of topography, and there’s a diary written by a housemaid in Benjamin Franklin’s house in 1774. Would you mind, honey? I might as well come at the same time as you—although I could always go the week after if you don’t want me there.” She stared at him. He leaned forward, squinting at the menu above them. “Large tub of salted, please, and two Cokes. Honey, you want a Coke? Elle?”
She hesitated. She knew Gray’s methods of old. Once again, she had to bow to his superior handling of the situation. What could she do but say yes? Elle bit down on the inside of her cheek, red mist hazing in front of her.
“Actually, I wish you weren’t coming, I said so already,” she said. “You know I’m going to be busy.”
“I know,” Gray said. “I know you are. And—” He took a deep breath. “I know you hate going back to London. I know you hate seeing your brother. But it’s four years since it happened.”
“Sshh,” Elle said. She wanted to put her hands over her ears.
Gray said softly, “It’s four years since your mom died, Elle.”
She nodded, her lips clamped tightly together.
“We’ve been together for two years, we’re getting married soon, and I’ve never met your family, I don’t know anything about your life there.” He took her hands and looked into her face, his kind hazel eyes gazing at her. “It’s six years since I lost Julia, and when it happened I thought I’d never get through it, but I did. You’ve got the rest of your life ahead of you, Elle, honey. It might be time to start moving on.”
She hated the implication of what he was saying, the way he said it.
You should be over it by now.
He’d never understand. Julia died from a brain aneurysm, there was nothing he could have done. Elle pulled her hands away from his, grabbed her Coke, and stalked away, towards the escalator. She said, “I wish you weren’t coming. But fine.”
“I’m coming anyway,” Gray said, behind her. “And I don’t understand why you’re being like this, Elle.”
She hated when he spoke to her like a naughty child. “You don’t get it, do you.” She stopped and turned around, and gave a short laugh, the incongruity of the red-and-yellow lobby, the Muzak in the background, the sound of explosions coming from the screen next to them.
“No, I fucking don’t,” Gray said. “You won’t talk about her, you won’t mention it, you say it’s not my business, you don’t ever—”
Elle interrupted. She said robotically, “I killed her, Gray.”
“That’s ridiculous.” He stopped her with his arm. “No, you didn’t, Elle.”
“I did.” Elle pulled furiously away from his grip.
“May I have your tickets,” said the laconic woman by the screen door, chewing gum and staring over them into space.
“Let’s go in and talk about this later,” Gray said, his jaw tight, and Elle saw she had pushed him too far. She loathed how she could do that, push him so far till he snapped, and Gray snapping meant he was cold and moody for the rest of the evening. He hadn’t been like that when she’d first met him. She sometimes wondered if it was the only way he’d found to get through to her: just withdraw communication till she cooled down and begged him to forgive her for behaving like a silly child. It was so clichéd, that: as though he were a father figure to her, just because he happened to be sixteen years older than her.
She followed him into the movie theater, feeling her way in the sudden darkness.
THAT NIGHT, ELLE
woke up at three, wide awake. As if a light had been switched on. She turned onto her back and stared at the window. There was a gap at the edge of the blind; she could see the fire escape of the building opposite. The sound of someone kicking something—a can?—floated up from the silent street.
The image was back again. It was all she could see.
She crept out of bed, pulling on a robe, and tiptoed into the huge main room. It was cold, spooky, unfriendly in the dark. She opened the fridge door, quietly, and took out some milk. Tears were running down her cheeks. She batted them furiously away, as though insects were flying at her face.