You Can’t Fall in Love With Your Ex (Can You?) (29 page)

“God,
Laura, you’re so unreasonable,” he said, but he was smiling as we parted, and I
saw him hurry off down the road and duck into a sleazy-looking hot-dog joint
where I wouldn’t have eaten even if I’d been on the verge of slipping into a
hypoglycaemic coma.

I
went and found a raw food café and happily ordered seaweed and cashew salad and
carrot juice, which I knew Jonathan would rather have gouged his own eyes out
with a spoon than eaten.

Once
I was alone, I felt my good mood evaporating. Jonathan and I were getting on,
now, in this brief interlude, but that didn’t change anything, really. It
didn’t change how frustrated I was by our marriage, how I felt he never
listened to me any more, how trapped and stifled I felt in the unending
sameness of my days at home. It didn’t change my restless, relentless thoughts
of Felix. And it didn’t change the fact that he was here, in New York, now.

“
Dream
doesn’t open until the weekend,” he’d texted the previous day. “And I’ve got
two days off rehearsals. So I’m all yours if you can get away.”

All
mine. He might be, for a few snatched hours or one night – but I knew I could
never be all his again. In my mind, I’d turned over possibility after
possibility. I could – I knew I should – walk away. But the idea of never seeing
Felix again made me feel like Darcey would feel if I told her there’d never be
another Christmas.

I
could have sex with him, get him out of my system and return to my marriage
with a spring in my step – and with a horrible, guilty secret I could never,
ever let Jonathan discover. I could – I flinched at the phrase – have an
affair, let it run its course, let the inevitable discovery happen. And then
what? Divorce, or patching things up and enduring a lifetime of bitterness and
resentment. Staying together for the sake of the children, or shattering our
little family to smithereens like the Christmas bauble Owen had crushed in his
chubby hand last year.

Remembering
that, remembering how he’d howled with shock at what he’d done, and how
tenderly Jonathan had comforted him, I felt tears fill my eyes. I was trapped,
caught between what I knew was right and the prospect of something more – excitement,
passion, happiness. There was only one name I could put to what I longed for,
and it was Felix’s.

I
paid for my lunch and left the restaurant. I’d said I’d go shopping, so that’s
what I would do. I needed something – anything – to distract me from the
turmoil of contradicting thoughts in my head.  I spent the afternoon wandering
from one air-conditioned haven to the next, minimising the time I spent on the
scorching, humid streets. It had been ages since I shopped just for me, instead
of panic-buying jumpers in colours that didn’t suit me in between school shoes
for Darcey and a new winter coat for Owen.

Now,
I could try things on at my leisure, and I made the most of it, sending the
helpful shop assistants back for different sizes, spending ages scrutinising my
body from all angles, asking for high-heeled shoes to get the full effect, and
then finally failing to make a decision and moving on to the next shop.

By
the time I got back to our hotel, I’d bought just one thing: a gorgeous, drapey
silk dress in an unlikely shade of tangerine, which a sales assistant had made
me try on, insisting that the colour was “just, like, totally you”. Amazingly,
it was. I’d wear it out tonight, I decided – make an effort for my dinner with
Jonathan, wherever we ended up going.

I
glanced at my watch – it was half past six, so I had masses of time to have a
leisurely bath, paint my nails, straighten my hair, and generally make myself
look as groomed and glossy as all the women I’d seen in the shops and on the
street.

And
so I did. I titivated as thoroughly as for a first date, then helped myself to
a miniature bottle of champagne from the mini-bar, and texted Jonathan.

“Hey
– where are you? What time do you want to meet?”

His
reply didn’t come instantly, and I felt myself getting faintly annoyed as I
sipped my champagne. He’d said cocktails then dinner – he’d said he’d book
somewhere. It was getting late – this might be the city that never slept, but
he’d mentioned a seven o’clock meeting the next morning, and we wouldn’t be
able to have much of a night out at this rate.

I’d
sipped my way through almost all the tiny bottle of fizz by the time my phone
rang. It was Jonathan, and he had his ‘people are listening’ voice on.

“Laura?
It’s me. Sorry about the delay.”

Automatically,
I found myself responding with equal formality. “Hi. That’s okay. I’m sorry to
have texted, I know you’ll have been busy.”

“Yes.
As a matter of fact, it looks like this meeting’s going to go on for a while,
and then we’re heading out for some food. I don’t anticipate getting back much
before midnight, if then. You’ll be okay, won’t you?”

My
‘you’re in a meeting’ voice deserted me as quickly as it had arrived. “Okay?
Yes, of course I’ll be okay. I’ll sit here in our room on my own in the dress I
bought especially for tonight and order room service and watch
Sex and the
City
reruns on TV. It’ll be amazing fun.”

“Give
me a moment, would you, Peter?” Jonathan said. I heard his hurrying footsteps,
then a door slamming. “Laura?”

“What?”
I said sulkily.

“I
cannot have this, okay? I’m working. Get it – working. I’ve been having really
intense, really unpleasant conversations with my colleagues all afternoon and
they’re going to carry on all night, most probably. So I’d prefer not to have
another unpleasant conversation with you. You’re an adult, Laura, you’re
perfectly capable of looking after yourself. Go for dinner, go to the theatre,
do whatever you want, but don’t give me a hard time when all I’m doing is my
job, which if you remember is what I came here to do, not act as a tour guide
for you. And before you ask, yes, this is what it’s going to be like every
night. You wanted to come – you’re here. Deal with it.”

And
before I could formulate a reply, he’d ended the call.

I
stared at my phone, waves of shock and hurt crashing over me. Jonathan never
lost his temper like that. He’d never shouted at me or at the children, even
when they were being their most insufferable. And back then, he’d been properly
shouting. At least he’d done me the courtesy of leaving the room first, and not
telling me off like a naughty schoolgirl while Peter, whoever he was, and the
rest of his colleagues listened in, approvingly, while the little woman was put
in her place.

Thinking
of this, my hurt turned to anger. I imagined Jonathan walking back into the
meeting room, placing his phone face down on the table and saying, “Right,
where were we?” as if I were a temporary inconvenience, one that had now been
dealt with, so the proper business of the day could resume. I could cope with
him working late at home – I didn’t bloody like it, mind, but I was willing to
put up and shut up, but here? On holiday? And then I remembered that it wasn’t
a holiday, for him, it was a work trip I’d muscled in on. And then I thought,
but I wouldn’t mind him doing this on a work trip I’d muscled in on if he didn’t
do it all the time at home, too. And so my thoughts went, round and round,
making me more and more annoyed.

And
anyway, what the hell was I meant to do now? I could ring Sadie and try and
talk to the children again – check that Owen was all right and had settled
down. But when I worked out the time difference, I realised it would still be
night-time there – too early even for Sadie and Gareth’s countryside hours. A
man might have been able to stroll out alone into the streets and pick a bar or
a restaurant and eat and drink alone, but I couldn’t – not dressed like this,
anyway. Maybe if I changed back into jeans and took my Lonely Planet guide, or
at least my tablet, as defensive camouflage.

I
unzipped the dress and was about to tug it off over my head when my phone
buzzed. If that was Jonathan texting me to tell me he’d changed his mind and
could come out after all he could piss right off, I thought angrily. But it
wasn’t – it was Felix.

“Any
chance you’re free for a drink?”

Well,
I was, wasn’t I? “Where are you?” I texted back.

“Chelsea.”
He gave me the name of a bar I’d never heard of, and its address, and within
two minutes I was in a taxi on my way there. It was as simple as that.

The
bar was hidden away on a quiet side street, so unassuming I thought the cab
driver had brought me to the wrong place. I paid the fare and walked anxiously
up and down, past a launderette, a school and what looked like a backpackers’
hostel. Just as I was beginning to wonder if Felix was playing one of his
practical jokes on me, making me come all the way downtown only to send me off
again somewhere else, he texted again.

“It’s
the black door by the hotel. You can’t miss it. Actually, I did – about six
times! So far, so speakeasy. I’m at a table in the garden.”

Black
door – I was right there. I pushed it open and a very thin blonde girl in a
black dress looked me up and down, gave a false smile, then glanced at her
clipboard.

“Good
evening, Ma’am. Do you have a reservation?”

Feeling
foolish, foreign and overdressed, I said, “No. No, I don’t, but I think my
friend’s here, in the garden. This is Raynes Law Room, right?” Even the name of
the place made me feel like I was the victim of some elaborate hoax. But her
smile warmed a degree or two.

“Come
right this way.”

I
followed her through the subterranean gloom and out through a door. The light
dazzled me briefly, then I saw Felix, sitting at a wrought-iron table in the
corner under a shady pergola festooned with fairy lights. Even though the
evening was still hot, out here it felt pleasantly cool.

I
thanked the hostess, wondering whether I ought to tip her for her thirty
seconds of service, but she vanished back inside before I had a chance to
decide.

Felix
stood up and we kissed each other shyly on both cheeks, then he pulled me
towards him for a hug. His body felt lean and taut under his dark green shirt.
He smelled like he’d just had a shower. In my high heels, I was almost the same
height as him, and our eyes were level as we looked at each other, smiling.

“It’s
good to see you,” he said. “I’m glad you came.”

“Me
too,” I said, feeling a surge of pure happiness as we smiled at each other.

We
sat down and he handed me a cocktail menu, which was full of unfamiliar drinks.

“They
specialise in prohibition era recipes,” Felix said. “God only knows what that
means. I thought everyone sent themselves blind drinking dodgy moonshine brewed
in car radiators. But apparently not – this is actually rather good.”

He
passed me his glass for a taste – it was.

“I’ll
have whatever that is,” I said to the waitress, who was hovering by our table.

“Sure,”
she said. Then she hovered a bit more, and said, “Excuse me, but aren’t you
Felix Lawson?”

“That’s
right,” Felix said.

“Oh
my God, I’m so excited to see you! I’m a drama student. Me and my friends have
already booked, like, eight shows of Flight of Fancy’s
Dream
. Would you
mind… Would it be okay if I took a selfie of us to put on my blog?”

“Not
at all,” Felix said, and the waitress whipped out her phone, put her arm around
him and snapped away for a few seconds, while I watched awkwardly.

“Thank
you so much! Now, what can I get you guys to drink?”

She
took our order and went away, saying, “My name’s Nancy, just let me know if
there’s anything at all you need.”

“God,
Laura,” Felix said. “Sorry about that.”

“It
isn’t your fault,” I said. “Does it happen a lot?”

“Never,”
Felix said, and I could tell he was pleased, although he’d never admit it.
“First time in my life. I’m a nobody, remember?”

“Looks
like you aren’t one any more.”

“I
don’t know,” he said. “The last five years – there were times when I thought I
should chuck it all in.”

“What,
acting?”

He
nodded. “There was one stretch where I didn’t work for six months. After that
you start to wonder whether you’ve lost the right to call yourself a performer.
Whether you aren’t really a barman who does a bit of acting on the side.”

The
waitress brought our drinks, gave Felix a megawatt smile, and went away again.

“Anyway,”
he said. “Sorry. I’m boring you.”

“Of
course you’re not. It’s just – it’s hard, isn’t it? It wasn’t when we were
twenty, but it must be different now.”

Felix
laughed. “Everything’s different now from when we were twenty.”

Our
eyes met and I felt a rush of sadness – a deep regret for what I’d had and lost.
Everything was different – except one thing. I still loved Felix. I’d never
stopped loving him. The realisation hit me like a bullet – I could almost feel
the rhythm of my heartbeat changing, quickening, as if I’d been running up a
hill. I felt as if I’d spent the past fourteen years asleep, and now I’d woken
up again. My senses were suddenly on high alert – I was conscious of every drop
of condensation beading my glass, the distant roar of traffic on Sixth Avenue,
the smell of Felix’s skin.