A grand success. That’s what Cora’s been calling it, a grand success for Fenn. Fennella Carr had flown all the way from little Pitlochry to Los Angeles, and had been feted and pampered in the City of Angels as the star Cora always knew her daughter was destined to be. Fenn had accomplished most of the goals she had set for herself when Charles extended the invitation: to meet other artists, get representation, have her work included in an upcoming show. She’d also managed to escape from the airless confines of her house, where she lived as her mother’s companion, rival and doted-upon daughter. “Smotherlove” is what Fenn called it. Cora wanted her daughter to be dazzling at everything she turned her hand to, but not so dazzling that she outshone her own mother.
After her week as Charles’ pet project was up — he and his wife were due to fly to France on Saturday night — Fenn had more time for herself. She took to calling me instead of merely texting, and even made time on Saturday afternoon to speak with Alex. By his telling, she’d had a glorious week and was looking forward to doing very little for a few days. LACMA and the Broad and MOCA were on the menu for Monday and Tuesday, but she intended to hide in her hotel room and order room service on Sunday. And she promised her brother, hand on heart, that there had been nothing “funny” with Julian, just a couple of expensive dinners. “He’s really doing worse out of it than I am,” she promised Al. “I don’t exactly peck at my food.” No, Fenn has the appetite of a teenage rugby player after a particularly exhausting match. “Can’t even imagine what the bills must have been like, having seen the menu. He told me to order what I liked, so I did. That went for the wine, too. Rather unfortunate he got me as a dining partner instead of Mel, who would have been less unrestrained in ordering, he claimed. Not sure if that was a dig at me or her.” (It was both, I assure you.)
On Monday afternoon she opened the hatch and dropped the bomb I’d been hoping wouldn’t fall. I’d just finished a half day at the shop, and had decided to stop by Beta on to work on my writing — it had been taking forever to write about what was happening with Fenn on her visit. A post meant to cover the three days she was in town was taking me over a week to write, and I was getting increasingly frustrated with how I was only touching the surface of the tensions and anger and weirdness that overtook us during that time. So I settled in with a cheese plate, a glass of wine and the little ThinkPad Alex bought me (“Apple for phones and tablets only, ThinkPad for real work,” he’d said at the time) to figure out how to publish at least some of it.
The wine turned out to be an excellent idea, loosening me enough to break the post at a point before things got… emotional. And the second glass of wine blunted the pain of beginning to write and rewrite the volume and anger and despair of that Friday night in Alex’s apartment. I hadn’t managed to get much further in my drafting than the day of sightseeing when Fenn’s name popped up on my phone screen.
I hadn’t heard from her since the day before. She’d called while Alex was out in the garden talking politics with my landlord Steve, and I was grateful that he was unable to hear our conversation inside. Fenn had gone for a very early brunch with Julian at Bottega Louie that morning, filling up on Eggs Benedict, potato pancakes, three French 75s and four macarons. (Jesus, where does she pack it away on that lithe body?) Julian wanted to show Fenn the view from his apartment afterwards and she’d demurred, claiming to feel a little unsteady from the alcohol and in need of a nap.
“He was a gentleman,” she assured me. “Took me back to my room, called room service for a coffee and stayed with me while I sobered up a little, then tucked me in for a nap. I’m going over later this afternoon to see the flat and go for a swim in the pool. Sounds gorgeous.”
Klaxons started blaring in my head — Fenn, in a bikini, drying off in Julian’s apartment after drifting about dreamily on a pool float for an hour. Fenn quaffing Taittinger as Julian coolly appraised her body from a cabana on the deck. For all of Julian’s claims that she’s too feral and unpredictable to take as a long term investment, I didn’t doubt that he wanted her very, very badly. Miranda, my spy in the House of Julian’s Love through her friendship with Amanda, had told me that he hadn’t indulged himself since he left me — not once, according to Amanda. He’s had opportunities, sure. There was a woman at work who fancied herself wife material, and Julian had considered pursuing something more, but ultimately she proved herself too interested in her career and his money for his tastes.
As a joke, Will had recommended hanging out at UCLA to pick up graduate students, since he’d found any number of intelligent, game PhD candidates to date over the years in London at UCL. “Not hard to get in their trousers or up their skirt after a long day in the library or the lab,” Will told me he’d mentioned to Jules. (I cringed; I love Will but he is a little unreconstructed at times.) “But he asked if it might be better to pursue undergraduates, girls with less experience in the world. Told him it was a little infra dig, if you know what I mean. Those girls are basically children. I remember you and Miranda and Amanda at 21, you were always pouting and snipping at each other and indulging in the most appalling drama. Don’t get me wrong. I like ’em on the younger-than-me side, and Miranda and Minty say I’m a terrible person for it. But I’m talking about 25 or 26, not 20 or 21 like Jules is.”
I cautioned Fenn once more about Julian’s intentions, that anything that might happen between them would be no more than a fling, since he was wife-hunting. Wrong thing to say — it brought on a stream of huffy protest. “Who’s to say I couldn’t be a wife to Julian? That’s not to say I want to be. I know him well enough, I suppose. But how do I know we’d even suit? I’d want him to love me, of course, and I don’t think he does. And I’d want to try out the goods again for size, as they say, before I buy.” (Oh Fennella, what an atrocious joke.)
“And anyway,” she continued, “maybe I want a holiday romance, and maybe I’ll be happy to leave it at that. Not everything has to end in marriage, as you and Alex and Mummy and everyone seems to think it must. Just look at your friends Miranda and Sasha and Will — doubt they have any interest in getting married, and they seem like they have a fairly good time. And maybe, Mel, maybe nothing will happen.”
We left it there, with Fenn promising to be careful of her heart, and to remember that Alex was likely to take any news that Julian had seduced his sister very poorly. “Well, you can’t seduce the willing,” she boasted, a little too cheerily for my taste.
I picked up this next call, even though the klaxons were blaring again, warning: Danger, Mel. No turning back. “Hi, sweetie. How’s LA treating you today?” I was aiming for breezy and sunny but I know I sounded like thunder instead.
Silence at first, then rustling and giggles. Certain it was a butt dial, I repeated her name a couple of times. Eventually: “Hmmmm. Not bad. Not bad at all. Stop it! Oh, that’s not for you. Julian is horrible, trying to distract me. I said, stop it!“
Never have I been quite so relieved to be taking a call in a location that had enough alcohol to fill up a small pool in which I might drown myself as a mercy killing. I took a massive swig of my wine, nearly choking on the tannins. Dutch courage couldn’t come fast enough.
“Fenn, you sound… distracted. Call me back another time.” I could hear Julian chortling in the background. He bleated out, “FENNELLA! That’s not fair, no kicking.”
“Aw, I’m sorry. I wanted to let you know I’m fine, and just in case you were going to call the hotel for anything, I checked out. I’m staying in Julian’s guest room now. Did you know this place has a yoga terrace?” (Yes, I know.) “Watched the sun rise over the mountains and I thought my heart might stop as I was moving from a downward dog into a lunge. This place is heaven.” (Yes, I thought so, too.)
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” I warned, then dropped my voice into a whisper. “Promise me that you’re being careful.”
Fenn snorted. “You’re so funny. Of course I’m being careful.” (Jesus, Fenn. Jules is right next to you.) “It’s not like I want a baby or anything right now.”
I’d been speaking of her heart. Now she’d forced me back into looking into that tiny room where she and Julian dwelt together, immobile, in a shivering tableau vivant. They’d moved from the chair to a bed I hadn’t seen before, tucked in a corner of the haunted room. In a chestnut sleigh bed, the seafoam green bedclothes cast in a swirl of disarray, the lovers sprawled in satisfaction — Fenn’s curls snarled on the pillow, a flush on her cheeks, Julian stretched on his side, grinning and cocking an eyebrow as he reached to place his hand on her —
I had to stop. It was enough that I knew without wallowing in the knowledge.
“Hand her over to me.” I heard Julian’s voice faintly, followed by more rustling.
“Darling.” Julian’s voice broke into my pathetic reverie. “I asked her to ring to let you know she’d moved. Never expected her to call right now. Bad form, I know.”
I tried to slake my thirst, born of anxiety, with the remainder of my second glass of Cabernet. I swirled the dregs and stared at the pattern they left, as if I might read them as one did tea leaves. Nothing. I saw no message there.
“I’m sorry.” He sounded sincere but I knew better. He’d probably waited to suggest Fenn call me until they were in a post-coital haze, discussing what Al and I would think when we found out. He’d have sounded concerned that I didn’t know where Fenn was, and suggested she call me soon. And wouldn’t it be funny if she called right now when they’d just had sex, the event I’d cautioned her against?
Julian cleared his throat. “I didn’t want you to find out this way. Fenn and I are just having a little fun, nothing more. Consenting adults are allowed such things.”
I nearly snapped the wineglass stem between my fingers. “Go to hell.”
“Jules? I’ll make some tea,” I heard Fenn say in the background. Like she lived there, I thought. I bet she already knows where the mugs and the tea caddy are. How petty, but jealousy often is.
“Sounds perfect, my lamb,” he replied. (My lamb? He already had a pet name for her?) “Mel, please be reasonable. Even you can be reasonable when you turn your mind to it. I have a proposition for you. You might even like this one.”
Proposition? “Never discuss propositions with me when you call me from your fucking bed.”
Julian laughed. “How droll. I have to hand it to Alex, you’re much funnier these days than you ever were with me. Now, listen to me. We can do each other a little favor. If you don’t mention this… liaison to Alex, I’ll not make an issue about him attending Jamie’s wedding. Consider that matter closed.”
Now he had my attention. “All I have to do is not tell Alex you and Fenn are… whatever you’re doing, and you’ll stop the 4 am calls? You’ll stop insisting he can’t come?”
“You can only prove one of those calls was me. But yes. What you have to do is very easy, far easier than what I’m forgoing. Just don’t say a word to him. Fenn wants it that way, but she doesn’t have anything to trade you for your discretion. I do. Do we have a deal?”
How curious. Either Julian really did want to protect Fenn, which I found possible but not a dead cert, or he was trying to protect himself from Alex’s fury. Fenn’s recollection of that Friday night in San Francisco might have spooked him into believing the heat needed to be turned down on the burner he currently had set to simmer under Alex. While I knew Alex would never lay a hand on his sister or me, I couldn’t say that was true about Julian. Given his recent uptick in training sessions at the Y, I’d hazard that Alex was in better shape than he’d been in in years. Julian was right to be worried.
If his proposition was founded in fear, I had Julian in a position I rarely found him in: the corner. “No deal,” I said in retort. “I want more.”
“Always so greedy,” he sneered. “Fennella’s far less grasping than you, which is remarkable considering the family she comes from. She only wanted the plane fare as a loan, did you know? I made it a gift, along with all the other treats I’ve given her so far. So tell me, what does the Princess Melissa demand as her second pound of flesh?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Alex and I are moving in together in October and we need a new apartment. I want more money to compensate me for having to pay rent on a bigger unit. You know Steve charges me next to nothing to live here.”
Julian made a low whistle. “Well, well, well. Playing house with Alexander at last. Suppose I knew it would come eventually, though having lived with the brute for more years than I care to remember, I can assure you it’s a terrifically bad idea. How much are you proposing as a bribe?”
I was shocked at how little resistance he’d put up — Julian didn’t like to spend money where there was unlikely to be a commensurate upside for himself. I thought I’d think big — I had more than enough already through alimony and my wages to pay for my portion of rent on a new place, so whatever he gave me would go towards the wedding. It was an irony I enjoyed so much I had an insight, briefly, into why Julian enjoys his power moves.
“$5,000 a month. Until Alex and I get married.” I shocked myself with the figure, but it was out there now.
“How adorable, you clearly watched me do deals all those years we were together. Go in big, show them you mean business. No. I’m thinking $500 a month, to end when you leave him because you’ve come to your senses about him at last. And when that happens, you can have $1,000 more a month, over and above what you get from me as your monthly payment.”
“So you’re giving me an incentive to leave Alex? And no. I won’t accept that.” I had to hand it to Julian, it was kind of brilliant.
“You call it an incentive, I call it a return on investment. What’s your counter-offer then, if my generosity isn’t enough for you?”
“$3,000 a month extra, until I marry Alex. If I leave him before then, I’ll ask nothing extra. That’s a gesture of my good faith.” Wow, I really had been paying attention to Julian.
Julian paused; I could hear him doing the math. It wasn’t a bad deal for him — if I moved out in a few months, he’d have spent less than $10,000. Even a year at $36,000 wouldn’t be too much of a blow, considering that the $1,000 extra would be a continuing obligation without end if I never married again.
“You drive a hard bargain, Liss. Glad I taught you one thing that stuck, not like those lessons on driving a manual car.” That had been a fool’s errand — four painful evenings in a Best Buy parking lot on the edge of Sierra Madre, grinding gears and stalling his Lotus Elan again and again and again until he finally ordered me out of the driver’s seat, accusing me of being too immature to handle a vehicle of that specification. We had a silent ride back to the house. “Make it $1,500 a month and we have a deal. I’ll have my attorney draw up an agreement tomorrow and send it to your attorney for review. We can even put it on record with the court it if you wish, but I highly doubt you’d want evidence of your bribery available for any member of the public to view.”
I heard Fenn ask Julian how he takes his tea (splash of milk only, a deep amber). “$2,000 and we have a deal,” I replied, and immediately felt disgusted with myself. The person who’d been backed into a corner was me after all. My silence had been purchased, and I only had myself to blame. Should the truth come out, I’d be left explaining to Alex why I sold his sister for $2,000 a month.
“Deal. See now? We’re both happy. Expect the first payment by the 15th, assuming the lawyers hammer out the details by then. Now, I really must tend to Fenn’s needs. She has rather a lot of them, but I seem to be on top of them all.” (Ew.) “Oh, thank you, lambkin. Exactly as I take my tea, you clever thing.” Julian’s voice was the same honeyed tone he had once used on me and I felt a flare of jealousy.
I hung up the phone; I’d heard enough. After all these years, I should have known that even when it’s Julian who stands the most to lose, he’ll come out the winner in the end.
***
Fenn called me once before her flight home. Julian had taken Tuesday off to take her to MOCA and the Broad, followed by a spot of shopping for Fenn at Barneys. “I’m sure you know what exquisite taste he has in women’s clothing.” She sent me pictures of the Givenchy and Ulla Johnson dresses he picked out for her; there had also been some Chloe blouses (one infuriatingly similar to the one in my closet), a couple of pairs of 7 For All Mankind jeans, a Dries Van Noten pea coat, and a ridiculous lambskin Narciso Rodriguez sheath dress.
“And my very own Louboutins!” She was cracking up by this point, ticking off her laundry list of acquisitions. “I told him it was too silly, where would I wear Louboutins in Pitlochry? So he bought me a couple of pairs of Hunter wellies, too, and said I could wear just the Louboutins when we talk on the phone.” (I did not need that visual.)
The new couple — for they certainly sounded like a couple now — were planning on dinner at Yamashiro later that evening. I was even more miffed, because I had wanted to go to Yamashiro with Julian for years, but he’d dismissed it as “too kitschy” and “too touristy. All those ridiculous pagodas and koi.”
Being the better woman, I wished Fenn well, and promised that I’d keep her confidences until she was ready to talk to Alex and her mother about her… relationship (how I hate typing that word) with Julian. Still, I worried about how Jules might handle her once she was home. I saw my own past in Fenn’s present — the gifts and the dinners and the winning little ways, until I was quite his. Then back in America, I was neglected — the promised calls never came through, the emails answered days later. I had suspected there was another girl in his life, but Alex told me it was pure conjecture with no evidence. I still don’t know if there was someone else, or I was supposed to believe there was someone else, as another way to keep me desperate for more.
Wednesday morning Fenn sent me a text from the lounge at LAX, thanking me for my discretion, concern and hospitality, for loving her brother, and for trusting her to make her own choices, even if I didn’t agree with them. Her sweetness was a cloying counterpoint to my own sour hope that her love affair would fail, and quickly.
I punished myself immediately for thinking badly of Fenn by looking again at the photo she’d sent me late last night. Fenn and Julian, both angular and cool and aristocratic in mien, effortlessly chic in the gardens at Yamashiro. Fenn, in that lambskin dress and her new Louboutins, tipped her head on Jules’ shoulder and cast a coy smile at the camera. Her black curls were draped over her shoulder, glossy and untamed. Julian’s expression wasn’t smug as I’d expected. Rather, he gazed at Fenn with that same look of satisfaction and almost disbelief that he had in the pictures I had of the two of us when we first started dating. Like, I know I’m worthless but look at this amazing woman who likes me anyway. His left arm hooked Fenn close, as if he feared she might bolt if startled and he had no intention of letting that happen. I hated them both intensely for being, or at least looking, so happy.
That Julian might actually care for Fenn simply hadn’t occurred to me. She was only a pawn, like I was a pawn, or that was what I assured myself. Real affection wasn’t in any portion of the calculus I’d drawn up of his pursuit of Alex’s sister. And as wary as I remain of anything he may say about his feelings, I allowed myself to remember a Julian capable of loving another, not himself.
Julian had loved me. It is not a delusion I maintain to comfort myself; it is true. There had been love without conditions and strings and bribes and snares once, though these came later, increasing in frequency as we grew older together. He had been that man — a boy back then, really — who felt unsure that he deserved the love I brought him. My feelings for him made him nervous sometimes. There were more of them than he was used to receiving from anyone, really, even though I’d hesitate to describe them as ardent, at least not at first.
Julian and Amanda had been fairly serious at one point, serious enough that he had brought her home to Suffolk several times, where she’d passed muster with Jocasta for having suitable deference as a potential daughter-in-law, and for her lack of professional ambition. Amanda claimed to be besotted with Julian, and made it clear to the Cranfords that she was the luckier of the couple. Her manners were smooth and she had no objection to Ed Cranford’s working class background and Mersey vowels (at least she said so at the time).
Soon after I’d agreed to date him exclusively, I’d asked him to explain why things went wrong with Amanda; I was trying to figure him out as a boyfriend a little better so I wouldn’t make similar missteps. We were lying in his bed in the flat he shared with Alex in the Royal Parade. I remember the sheets were crisp and clean and white and starched, unlike any I’d seen on a young man’s bed outside of a hospital. I’m pretty sure it was mid-November, right after the second time we’d had slept together — it wasn’t even evening yet and the sun had set while we had been entwined. I was trying to get a sense of his own dating history, which seemed scarcely more expansive than my own. There had been Louisa at school, followed by a few others in his final year of sixth form. I asked for their names, to make them more real to me: Claire, Susannah, Myfanwy.
He’d only really cared for Susannah, he told me. “She had a way of making me believe I was a piece of shit for even thinking about her, which only made me want her more. She took the piss out of me for having a father who was common as muck and said I had an absurd first name and an even worse middle name.” (They are kind of absurd — imagine having to say “I take thee, Julian Charles Crispian” at the altar, because I eventually did.) “I took it all, because I wanted her so badly, and when no one was looking, she let me touch her. But only when no one was looking.”
And in his fourth week at Bristol, he met Amanda and Miranda, a pair of former roommates from school, just as he and Alex were. “I wanted Miranda at first, of course. Who wouldn’t? She’s gorgeous and dirty and funny as hell.” (I agreed with all of this, even though Miranda terrified me utterly.) “But when I dragged Alex out of his room to come have a pint with the girls that night, game over with Miranda.” Miranda was determined to get Alex, Julian told me, even if Al wasn’t sure he wanted anything with any woman, let alone one who could match him swear for swear, drank her vodka neat, and thought getting high and listening to Einstürzende Neubauten was a great idea for an evening’s entertainment.
“Amanda is… normal. Or normal enough. She’s catty and shallow and can be quite cruel. But she’s also presentable and comes from a good family. Dad’s quite high up at the BBC. She was used to being second place to Miranda, and it wasn’t hard to get her to go out with me. She’d be beating Ran at getting a boyfriend, at a time when Miranda was trying desperately to get Al to fuck her, but failing. I suppose Man and I just fell into a routine of a relationship, because it was stable, even if it was a bit boring. Actually, very boring. But she was always there when I wanted her.”
Did you love her? I asked, not really wanting to know, but thinking it was the question a woman might ask of her new boyfriend. “I never told her that, because it wasn’t true. I haven’t ever been in love, but I think I’d know when I felt it. I never did with her. I just felt like…” He nuzzled my bare shoulder. “Like it made sense to be with Amanda. Inevitable, really. And then tedious. Being with her was another chore to tend to, and I wasn’t even sure she liked me. I want something more for myself. I think I deserve something more.”
I was to be that something more, cheerful and naive and open and empathetic, unlike Julian’s set in general. Minty was a notable exception, used to feeling like the little dun bird flitting about more exotic specimens like Miranda and Sasha, who’d appeared in a number of Town & Country spreads by that point. While she never quite understood why anyone thought she fit in, I got it right away. Minty baked biscuits, brought a bottle of “decent plonk” to every party and remembered everyone’s birthday. She kept our cupboards and fridge stocked, hoovered every Tuesday and always had a handkerchief. She and I got along tremendously (until we didn’t).
Minty would have made Julian an excellent partner, but she barely registered on his radar. His something “more” also had to be, well, attractive enough to brag about. Minty is quite pretty, and even more so now than in her early 20s, when she suffered from terrible acne. But I know what I look like, especially to men. And to Julian, I was the loveliest petal that ever dropped in his lap.
Like Julian, I wanted more, too. I wanted more than sitting around in their flat, watching Al play video games and drinking Strongbow out of his favorite Mr. Toad mug. I’d been that girl before, loitering on the edge of a boy’s activity just to be nearby should his concentration break. I wanted a grand success of my own, a romance at last after too many adolescent failures. And though I was more attracted to Alex, I dismissed it as purely physical and embraced the good cheer and gentle nudgings towards intimacy that Julian was directing towards me. If my hand accidentally touched Alex’s, or he mussed my hair, or his eyes sought and found mine at a party, that electricity I’d always felt around him still passed between us. I could not deny it existed, but I could deny it power over me so I could stay faithful to Julian. In short, I was learning a very English skill: how to tamp down messy emotions and keep soldiering on.
Julian told me he loved me a month later, on the way to catch the train from Bristol Temple Meads to Paddington. We’d both be heading home from there for Christmas — I’d be getting on a Heathrow Express to fly to LA, and Julian would be taking the Circle Line around to Liverpool Street to catch a couple of trains to Halesworth. We were riding together in a taxi, holding hands, passing the white strands of Christmas lights strung in the trees as we made our way south to the station.
Julian squeezed my hand; I’d been feeling it grow clammier as we hit a clot of traffic. “I’ve been thinking about something for a while. Two weeks, I think.”
I didn’t look at him — I was preoccupied with thoughts of the party I’d been to the night before. Sasha had told me Alex was sleeping with Miranda again, and though I shouldn’t have cared, I hated them both for it. I had tried so hard with Alex for two months before giving up and choosing Julian. Two months of dragging him into the Robin Hood for pints when I’d catch him coming out of class, two months of pulling him out of his bedroom to come with Jules and me to a party, two months of giving him back massages which got only, “Oooooh, that’s lovely, Mel, get my neck, too” while he ground out missions on GTA San Andreas. I’d tried to snog him once, but he pushed me away lightly. “You don’t want this. Trust me.”
“So.” Julian interrupted what was a perfectly good masochistic funk I was wallowing in. “It’s like this. It’s just… it’s just… I have something to tell you and I don’t know how to say it. It’s not bad. I think it might be good. I suppose that’s down to you, really.”
We’d been drinking champagne with Will before the taxi came; we were both a little tipsy. I broke my concentration to look at Jules, who was a little flush from the drink and the heat in the car. “You’re a bit drunk. Are you sure you want to tell me?” I could sense what was coming, and I didn’t want it before an 11 hour flight, and I didn’t want it before a two and a half hour train journey with Julian. It would be too much to think on when I just wanted to sleep.
“I think I have to. I think I need to… clear the air before you leave. It’s that, um, well, I think, I mean, I’m in love with you.” Julian squeezed my hand and flashed me a tight smile. “Happy Christmas.”
A champagne-fueled snicker slipped from me before I could catch it. “Happy Christmas?” This was the weirdest coda to a declaration of love — was this meant to be a present? Could I refuse it? Could I exchange it?
“Shit. I was hoping to sound debonair and I sound like a prat. ‘Happy Christmas’? Jesus, Julian. Fucking moron.” He dragged his blue knit cap off his blond hair to cool down a little, leaving him with appalling hat head.
I couldn’t control myself — between the champagne and the “Happy Christmas” and the hat head and thought of this beautiful boy in love with me — I started laughing. Hard. Like, tears shooting out of my eyes horizontally hard.
Julian groaned. “Really? I tell you I love you and… I should have expected this. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What did I expect — someone who looks like you, someone who’s so bloody clever and never worries about whether she’s good enough for just about anything she tries to do. I try for you? I’m an idiot.” He clenched and twisted the cap in his hand. “If you don’t want to ride back to London together, I understand. I’ve overstepped. I apologize.”
“Oh, Jules.” I was still laughing. “I’m so sorry. It’s… it’s your hair. It’s –” I reached over and smoothed it down a little, and he bent his head into my touch like a kitten. “It’s kind of messy.” Composing myself a little, I patted his cheek. “You’re not an idiot. You’re wonderful.”
“So I haven’t cocked this up?” Julian couldn’t quite bring himself to look at me yet. He was still such a boy, still so round and soft and eager. And despite the harsh lessons Ed Cranford was teaching his son at home, Julian was tender and idealistic yet. Had I known how badly he needed to feel his love returned, I wouldn’t have laughed so hard.
I wasn’t sure what to do, so I kissed him. I wasn’t in love with Julian (yet), but I was very fond of him. I might be in love with him, for all I knew. He probably deserves to have someone to love him — I tumbled this thought in my head like a pebble in my hand. Would it hurt him if I lied and said I did, too?
“No, you haven’t.” I kissed him again, a little deeper this time. The tang of the champagne remained on his lips. “Do you want to know a secret, Jules?” I whispered in his ear, hoping to feel the same jittery flurries I felt when I was very close to Alex. I felt something — a flutter, but more a comfort, a protective embrace, swaddled and pampered and flattered. I still wanted more, but it was enough for now. Julian offered the promise of more. “I think I love you, too.”
This was the first of so many lies I have told him to protect him. In time they would become bigger (“The doctor said it’s my fault we can’t have children”) and darker (“Of course I love only you, silly”). That early afternoon as we edged our way onto the forecourt of the station, this lie was small and warm and lovely, like a field mouse in one’s hand, its little heart flickering with nerves. It didn’t seem like it could do any harm. I could grow to love him, I told myself, and then it would be true. Time would suck the venom from its falsity and it wouldn’t be a lie anymore.
But lies have a way of exposing the truth, and compounding the hurt they may seek to prevent. Even if I never say a word about Julian and Fenn, Alex will learn. The truth, as the saying goes, will out.
meandering again 