A Bad Bride's Tale (33 page)

“It wasn’t like that, Stevie.”

Stevie sucked her cheeks in. They’d never spoken about the inci- dent at that party in the field outside of Woodstock before. She’d never flattered herself that their near miss was part of Sam’s roman- tic narrative, however large it loomed in hers.

“There hasn’t been one day . . .” Sam stared at the river, at the fat speckled fish rolling beneath the green churned water. His words started to choke. “That I haven’t wondered . . .”

A mobile rang. Damn it. Stevie and Sam glared at her hand- bag. The phone stopped after five rings. They continued to stare at the bag, its focus offering momentary respite from the conver- sation.

Sam coughed, looked up. “I was really into you, you know.” “You were?” Stevie smiled, tears pricking the backs of her eyes,

the rejection wound fresh again. “But you went off with Katy. We were sitting on that log, remember, and Katy kind of attacked, but you didn’t brush her off. Then you went out with Katy.” No miti- gating excuse there.

“It happened so quickly, Stev. I know that sounds weak. But it did. Suddenly this hot, blond girl was on my knee and you’d disap- peared and I succumbed. I was a stupid idiot.”

Sam picked up a round pebble and tossed it from palm to palm. “After that? It was just sex, really. Casual. Nothing.”

Stevie was silent. It hurt to think of them having sex. She felt like jealousy was forking off her body in jagged bolts of green lightning.

“Did you like me?”

“What?”
She couldn’t possibly answer that!

“Did you like me?” He bent his head to one side flirtatiously. “Come on, I have an ego to massage here.”

Stevie paused, took a deep breath. Dare she be honest? What was there to lose, really? She stared out ahead, daring not to look in his eye. “I did.”

Sam sighed, tossed the stone into the water. “I really fucked up, didn’t I?”

“Yup.”

He stared at her for what felt like an eternity, then leaned his face closer to hers. She felt like she was shaking. As if equally

disturbed, the ducks on the river started quacking and paddling in a sudden flurry of movement. Sam’s long lashes gave his eyes the unflinching stare of a child. He moved closer. Oh, God. Oh, God. If he touches me I will surely explode, she thought, unsure whether the river was rushing faster now or if the sound came from somewhere inside her head. The breeze strengthened, changed direction, and sucked up Sam’s scent, a light spicy musk. She wondered what Sam would taste like and her mouth salivated; her breath came short and shallow. Then she thought of Lara. No, nothing could happen.
Nothing
. Sam was Lara’s first decent boyfriend. What kind of friend would that make Stevie?

Sam reached his hand out to her face, pausing a torturous few millimeters above the surface of her skin. She thought she might just faint there and then. His palm—dry and electric hot—closed in, cupping her cheek. She leaned into it.

“Why didn’t we get together, then?” he said.

“I never thought . . . I just never thought you’d be into me.” Something compelled her to be honest. “I settled for Jez. I thought I had to settle.”

“Idiot.” Sam draped his arms around her. They sat like that for what felt like an eternity. “You know what? I was scared of you.”

She laughed and fell into his chest, which seemed to catch her and envelop her body perfectly. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I was. I was scared of . . . well, I knew if we got together, it would be full-on. I didn’t have the guts.” He winced. “Or does that sound like bollocks?”

She smiled at him gratefully, enjoying the warm bulk of his body next to hers. “It sounds like a good excuse.”

“When I finally realized that I had to act, that I couldn’t live my life running, well, it was too late.”

A smile played at the edge of her mouth. She couldn’t quash it, this rebellious uprising of joy. “Why didn’t . . . Why didn’t you ever
say
anything?”

“You were with Jez.” Sam sniffed her neck, she could feel him nuzzling around the back of her ear. “Besides, I couldn’t offer any- one much. No steady job . . . hardly a catch. I thought that’s what women like you want. Something stable.”

“Now
you
sound like an idiot.”

“I know. And I still could have given you lots of cute babies,” he whispered against her neck.

Stevie squeezed her eyes shut. Oh, God, I can’t listen to this. “Your wedding was the worst day of my life, Stevie.”

That was enough. A huge welling of emotion bubbled up and over her. Her throat closed. Tears dropped. How could something so horribly wrong feel so delicious?

“Don’t cry.” He wiped away a tear from her face with the pad of this thumb. “Please don’t cry.”

“It’s just . . . Oh, God, I’m sorry.” She peeled herself from his chest, fanned her face with her hand. “What a mess.”

“It’s not a mess.” He looked joyful. “It’s beautiful. It feels beau- tiful to me.” Then he came close again, his breath hot and sweet against her cheek, his hand in her hair, cradling the back of her skull. As he bent to kiss her, she pulled away, flinching at the hurt on his face as she did so.

“I can’t do this.”

Sam’s face froze. “Jez?”

“No. Lara.” A horrible feeling of disloyalty was already gnawing in the pit of her stomach.

“But I can’t come back from this . . . from you now,” pleaded Sam. “Can’t you see that? Me and Lara, we’re nothing.”

She shook her head, tears rolling down her cheeks, trying to stop them with sharp intakes of breath that shook her shoulders.

“Don’t shake your head.” He grabbed her hand. “
Please,
don’t. I’ve waited so long. I never thought. Fuck, Stevie . . .” He was shouting now. “I’m so in love with you. Can’t you tell?” He sat back, subdued, astonished at his candor. “There, I’ve said it.”

Stevie wouldn’t, couldn’t say it back. She had no idea how to rec- oncile how she felt about Sam with Lara and all the futures that would unravel. It was too much to take in. Her phone rang. And rang.

“You want to get it this time?”

Thinking it might be Poppy, Stevie nodded, wiped her face, and dug into her handbag with trembling hands. By the time she’d ad- ventured past a disintegrating Tampax, some receipts and Tube tickets, and located the phone, it had stopped ringing. She held it in her hand, switched on voicemail, and pushed the speaker against her ear, grateful for this pause in which to pull herself together.

“It’s Lara. Where the hell are you? I’m trying to track you down. Stevie, you’re not going to believe this . . .
I
don’t believe this . . . and don’t tell anyone, I need to explain . . . Ohmygod, I’m preg- nant! Call me. Call me.
Call
me.”

Stevie felt faint. This could not be. It just couldn’t. She flipped the phone shut and held it tight.

“Stevie, are you okay? You’ve gone pale.” Sam bent his head down and looked up at her face through a nest of lashes. “Is it Tommy?”

She shook her head, trying to take it in. Of course, Lara hadn’t had a chance to tell Sam yet—he was here. With
her
hateful, dis- loyal friend. Irrespective of what had just happened, Sam would do the right thing by Lara, she knew that. It was all over before it had

begun. She stood up stiffly. “No, it’s something else. I’m going to take off, Sam.”

Sam jumped up. “What’s happened?”

“It’s nothing. Look, I need to go, okay?” She turned her face away from his, refusing to connect. “This . . . it isn’t going to work. Re- ally it’s not. Never.”

“We can sort this out with Lara, I’m sure. We’re all adults.” “No, it’s not going to happen. Let’s forget we had this conversa-

tion.”

Sam grabbed her hand. “How the fuck do you expect me to do that? No. No way, man. What the hell’s going on? Who was that?” Stevie started walking away, feeling dreamlike, unsure what was powering her feet because it felt like they were walking away in the

wrong direction.

“Stevie?” He stopped her, held her wrists. His grip hurt. “Please don’t walk away like this.”

“Just let me go,” she said, with as much conviction as she could muster. She needed to be cruel to be kind and cut it all dead now. “I’m not into you. I won’t ever be.” She continued treading up the stony path for five minutes and only looked back once. Sam had gone.

THIRTY-EIGHT
Æ

katy tipped the taxi driver three dollars and got
out on Canal Street because the traffic was not moving and the longer she sat in the cab, the twitchier she got. New York stressed her out. Part of this stress was due to her
trying
to like the city—it was one of the hippest in the world, what was wrong with her?— and failing. The tall buildings all seemed to be closing in on her, their long shadows claustrophobic. The people made her feel provincial, and Lower Manhattan spooked her. It wasn’t like Katy to be affected by world events—she avoided listening to the news, as she found it too depressing—but not even
she
had been able to ignore 9/11. While the London bomb carnage had happened mostly underground and thus created little memorable iconogra- phy, when she closed her eyes, she could still see that photo of the man falling from the tower. And today the sky was the same blue of that very day. It made her uneasy. She folded out the stiff Manhat- tan map she’d bought at JFK. Finding the grid system baffling in its simplicity, she walked the few blocks to the offices, double- checking she was walking south, not north. Her acid-green Miu

Miu heels bit into her big toes, which were swollen in the heat, but her buffed legs were shiny and skinny as knives. Her hair was big. She had demons to slay and had groomed accordingly.

Katy looked up. Seb’s building, its exterior constructed almost entirely from glass, reflected a relentlessly moving city in its panes. The doors whooshed open automatically. Men and women in dark suits, mobile phones glued to their ears, neat shiny briefcases swinging purposefully, strode through the foyer, heels clicking on the marble floor. The reception desk was large, black, and intimi- dating in scale, but the man sitting behind it, in contrast, was small, in his fifties, jowly, and humorless. The sun bounced off the gleaming windows, creating a patch of light on his bald forehead.

“He’s in a meeting,” said the man at reception, after she’d asked to see Sebastian Compton-Pickett.

Katy batted her new eyelash extensions. “May I wait in his of- fice?”

“Not possible, ma’am.”

The tears came to order easily enough. “Sir, please have pity. I’ve flown all the way from London—London, England—to surprise my fiancé.” She slid a photo from her purse showing a picture of her and Seb on vacation, arm in arm in Thailand. “Recognize him? It’s his birthday. He doesn’t know I’m here . . .”

“Sorry.”

“It would make one man very happy.” She kept on staring at him, knowing eye contact was the way in, catching the quick flicker of the man’s eyes, as he took in her cleavage, then a lightning-quick lick up her legs.
“Please?”

“I’m obviously as stupid as I look,” he said wearily. “Name?” “Katy Norris.”

The man wrote out her name card and inserted it into a pinned

plastic badge that read
visitor
in red. “Take one of the elevators on the left. Fourteenth floor.”

She walked quickly, in case the man changed his mind, catching the double takes from the men in suits as she moved. She wished her skirt wasn’t quite so short.

There were ten rows of gleaming polished-chrome lifts. She stood by the third one on her left. Three was her lucky number.

At the second interrogative base, she smiled at the receptionist—another older man, thankfully—and flashed her pass. “Third door on your left,” he said, staring at her legs.

It took her about five seconds to get to Seb’s office, the longest five seconds ever. She paused at the name on the door. It looked like a stranger’s name. Not for the first time on this impetuous fury- fueled trip across the Atlantic, she wished Jez was with her to offer some kind of support. Then she reminded herself that Jez wasn’t hers. Jez was on loan only. Right now, she had two choices: snivel at home or confront and get some closure. She knocked. No reply.

She turned the brushed-chrome doorknob, edged the door open, and stepped in.
Whoa!
Directly in front of her, behind a large dark desk, was a vast window, a seamless sheet of glass framing Lower Manhattan. She walked to it and lay her palm across its cool, smooth surface, not wanting to lean too much of her weight against the glass in case it suddenly gave way. One hand still on the win- dow, reassuringly connected in some way to the world outside, she studied the office. It was smart, obviously, but impersonal, with few signs of Seb or indeed any other human being within its pol- ished planes of stainless steel and dark wood. Only Seb’s light tai- lored coat, slung on a peg on the back of the door, provided any clue he inhabited the space. She picked up the coat. It was black, with a fuchsia satin lining, quite unlike the conservative coats he

normally wore. She sniffed it. A soapy smell mixed with the cologne she bought him every Christmas. That was Seb’s, all right. It didn’t make her miss him, though. She put the jacket back on the peg and scanned his desk. No photo of her. Well, she supposed there wouldn’t be. Not now. She sat down in the large chair and swiveled around once, heels up, like a child. Unable to resist, she opened the top drawer of his desk. It rolled out soundlessly. But she didn’t have a chance to rummage. The door opened.

“Crikey!” Seb stood in the doorway, pulling at his tie, mouth gaping open: frozen at the point of impact. “You made me jump out of my skin!”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

Seb rubbed his draining face. “Mission accomplished.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. The sweep-up into his arms wasn’t going to happen, that was clear. Instead, Seb’s arms hung awkwardly at his sides, his feet shuffled, as if itching to walk back from wherever he’d come.

“Do sit down,” she said, mock-officiously, gesturing to a smaller chair at the other side of his desk.