The Girl Next Door (16 page)

Emily left the subject alone once the main courses came, but her attitude towards him had changed. She seemed suddenly wary of him. And conversation grew stilted and awkward again. Trip realized that nearly everything he wanted to say revealed things about himself that he didn’t necessarily want her to know.

By contrast, everything she said made him more interested. When, at last, he steered her towards her career, she was animated, ambitious and determined. She relaxed a little again. She loved what she did, clearly. When she spoke about her mother, her voice was full of love and admiration. She didn’t say anything about her father, except that he had left when she was very young. That had to have been tough, although she didn’t say so. She was the complete opposite of him. Every word she spoke made that more obvious.

Trip wasn’t used to feeling this way at the end of a date. He might expect to be kissing in a cab, instead of sitting, as he was, looking at Emily as she looked out of the window. He might expect to feel good.

But he didn’t. He felt terrible.

A few yards from the awning of their building, aware that Jesus would be waiting, and listening to their every word, and sensing that the night had veered a long way from his plan, Jackson asked, ‘Can I take you out again?’

Emily looked at her shoes. ‘I don’t think so. Thank you for tonight, though.’

‘Why not?’

She sighed, shifting from foot to foot. ‘We’re too different, Trip. We have absolutely nothing in common except for this building. Nothing will come of it. So what’s the point?’

‘Does there have to be a point?’

‘Of course. And I just don’t think that there is.’

‘Ouch. You don’t pull any punches, do you?’

‘Don’t you want me to be honest?’

‘Of course. But how can you be so sure?’

‘I just am. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings. I just don’t want to waste your time, or mine.’

‘Right.’

She was looking at her shoes again. He wanted to see those blue eyes. He crouched down, made her look up.

When she did, she smiled. ‘So – goodnight?’

He had no choice. He stood to the side and they walked the last few steps to the front door. Jesus raised an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged ruefully. When the elevator stopped at Emily’s floor, she couldn’t get out fast enough.

‘Goodnight, Emily.’

‘Night. Thanks again.’

When he got into his own apartment, the answer machine was flashing red at him. His friend Josh was shouting down the phone – from a noisy bar, by the sound of it. ‘Hey, Grayling? Where the hell are you? Get your arse down here…’ He could just about hear an address. He checked his watch. The message had been left an hour ago. What the hell. He wasn’t going to sit around here feeling crap about himself. He grabbed the keys he’d just dropped on the table, and went back out, determined to drink away the unfamiliar feeling of inadequacy.

Apartment 3A

‘Charlotte?’

‘How was it?’

‘You still up? Want some tea?’

‘I’ll be right up.’

Charlotte pulled on her candlewick dressing gown and took the stairs up to Emily’s apartment. She’d been at a really good bit in
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin
– Corelli and Pelagia were just about to kiss. But this was real life…

‘So… tell me…’

Emily handed her a mug of tea. ‘Not much to tell. We’ve nothing in common.’

‘I’ve always thought that was a highly overrated ingredient for romance. Mr Darcy had nothing in common with Elizabeth Bennet.’

‘If you’re going to bombard me with Jane Austen you can go home again. She was a middle‐aged virgin.’

‘Nothing wrong with middle‐aged virgins. Heading that way myself, remember…’

‘Sorry.’

Charlotte waved it off with a grin. ‘He’s cute, though, right?’

‘He’s cute. But he’s shiftless and unsubstantial and, I suspect, unreliable. And not at all what I’m looking for.’

‘So! Are you going to see him again?’

Emily laughed, shaking her head. ‘You’re hopeless. Are you even listening to me? Why would I do that?’

‘I don’t know. I just… I had a feeling about you two…’

‘You, Charlotte Murphy, have a feeling about all sorts of things. Che, for one thing.’

Charlotte blushed. She almost wished she hadn’t said anything about Che. She’d confessed, one evening, over sushi and sake. She’d never have told Madison. But it had seemed okay to tell Emily.

‘Isn’t it time you did something about that situation?’

‘That’s completely different. And you know it.’

‘Yes. You actually like Che!’

‘You haven’t given Trip a chance.’

‘I have, Charlotte. I gave him a whole evening. There was
nothing
there…’

Even as she said it, Emily knew that wasn’t entirely true. There’d been something. A glimmer. She’d been attracted to him – she couldn’t deny it to herself, even if she did to Charlotte. But there was too much else besides. Too much that warned her off.

Eve

Ed had promised he’d come with her to the doctor. And he had. She’d given him the address. Twice, actually. She’d written it down for him once, but on the morning of the appointment, he’d called and said he’d lost it, and would she email it to him. ‘But we’re talking right now. I can give it to you, if you give me a minute.’

‘Don’t you know it off by heart?’

‘No. I don’t. Sorry. Wait a second.’

‘I haven’t got a second – I’ve got a meeting, right now… Can’t you just email it to me?’

How bloody ridiculous. She had done, a one‐liner, with no salutation or sign‐off.

When they’d met, outside the doctor’s offices, she was still angry. Ed shrugged. ‘What’s the big deal?’

‘I don’t want to “email you” about stuff like this. I’m not your damn assistant. I’m your wife.’

‘You’re being ridiculous, Eve. It doesn’t matter. I’m here, aren’t I? You wanted me to be here, and I’m here. I made the time to be here.’

‘Well, bully for you. I’m so grateful for your sacrifice.’ Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

His was high‐pitched with exasperation. ‘I didn’t mean it that way. Jesus, you’re touchy. Is this how it’s going to be?’

‘Oh, shut up. Don’t you dare blame this on my hormones.’

‘Well, I’m buggered if I’ll blame it on myself. I haven’t done a damn thing wrong, so far as I can see.’

‘You made me feel like I’m not important.’

‘I don’t see how.’

‘And that’s the problem.’ Sure enough, the anger had quickly turned to emotion. Eve thought she might cry. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. This wasn’t what she had wanted.

Ed watched her bottom lip tremble. He was genuinely confused as to why this was a problem. He’d been rushing. He’d lost the information. He’d called. He was here, for Chrissake. In the middle of the day.

‘Can we just go in? We’re going to be late.’

‘Fine. Let’s go in.’

In the office, they sat side by side. There were three or four other women waiting, all further along than Eve was, but no men. Ed felt instantly vindicated – see, the other fathers weren’t here.

Eve flicked through a magazine distractedly. She didn’t want to fight him for every commitment over the next eight months. She wanted him to be as excited as she was. She wanted this to be as important to him as it was to her. She wanted him to be as emotionally invested at home with her as he seemed to be at work. She felt exhausted, and she hadn’t even begun.

He wasn’t all wrong about the hormones. She knew her fuse had shortened. She knew she was being a bit irrational. But he thought this row was about the email request. (Men – the men she knew, at least – had short memories. They carried no lessons forward. That’s why you had the same rows with them over and over again. They could only think about one thing at a time). He didn’t see, or chose not to, that it was cumulative. That it was about the late evenings, and the early starts and the conference calls to London at the weekends, and the jealousy she felt about the life he was building. He didn’t apply any of that to this row, this moment.

She put a hand on his knee. He put his hand on top of it. He was like a naughty child, now. Desperate for forgiveness (even if he still didn’t entirely know what he was being forgiven for). By the time the receptionist had called their names, she had granted it.

She wouldn’t let it spoil this moment. This, too, would pass.

Kim

North Fork, the Hamptons

It was Friday afternoon, and Avery was asleep. She’d be asleep for roughly another hour, and Kim was busy. Most days, while Avery slept, she lay, reading or dozing herself, on the swing seat on the verandah, in the shade, enjoying the silence and the solitude. But not on Fridays. On Friday mornings, she braved the Super Stop and Shop, which took twice as long as it should, since Avery insisted on putting every item in the cart herself. At least it tired her out, so she slept soundly in the afternoon while Kim tidied up. For Jason’s arrival. Kim dreaded summer weekends. Summer weeks were blissful, but as Fridays drew closer, she felt herself growing more and more tense. Saturdays and Sundays were awkward and uptight and uncomfortable, and by Sunday night it was all over, and she could exhale again. Mondays were her favourite days, because they were the furthest from the weekend.

It was amazing how much mess one small girl could make. Kim stood in the doorway of the sitting room, and sighed, then grabbed one of the large plastic boxes in which they kept toys, sat down cross‐legged on the floor, and began sorting plastic alphabet bricks from oversize Lego pieces and tiny people.

She’d started decamping out here from June to September the year Avery had been born. The cottage had belonged to Jason’s parents. It was small, and a bit ramshackle, and not in the fashionable Hamptons, but up on the North Fork, where it was quieter and more rural. You could still drive for miles through fields. You could go and buy milk in town without a full face of make‐up on, and you probably wouldn’t run into anyone you knew. She loved it. The house was built in a traditional shingle style; there were three bedrooms, only one truly big enough to be a double, a communal bathroom with slightly suspect plumbing, and a tiny kitchen lean‐to, but there was nearly a full acre of pretty garden, and it was a ten‐minute drive to the beach. Jason had talked about a pool, over the years, but now that Avery was here, Kim knew she’d have been terrified of what might happen if they’d put one in, and he didn’t talk about it any more.

Out here, she could feel herself being calmer. From Monday to Friday. She began to straighten the picture books on the shelves under the window. It was Avery’s habit to pull out all of them before choosing a favourite. This week it had been
The Tale of Despereaux
. She must have read it to her five times a day, every day. Avery was obsessive that way. But still, the books all had to be looked at, before she chose.

Jason had first brought her out here the summer they’d met. His parents had been here for the summer then, and they’d come on the Friday afternoon Jitney together after work. She’d never met them before, and she’d been nervous, but they’d put her at her ease quickly enough. His dad had grilled steaks on the old Weber grill on the deck. Jason was twenty‐four then, she just a year younger, and his mum told Kim, in the kitchen, while she dried Boston lettuce leaves for a salad, that Kim was the first girl he’d brought out to the country to meet them, and that that was how she knew he was serious about her. He hadn’t told her that himself.

Order restored in the sitting room, Kim grabbed the laundry basket of clean sheets she’d taken off the line and headed up the narrow staircase to their bedroom. His parents took the master bedroom in those days, of course, and Jason and Kim had narrow single beds in the small rooms flanking the big bedroom. He’d crept in, and climbed in beside her, very late, his hands roaming over her naked skin, and they’d tried to be as quiet as they could, although his dad had winked at her over a stack of pancakes at breakfast the next morning. There’d been a full moon, and she still remembered his face over her, in the moonlight, and his mother’s kitchen confession burning in her ears as he kissed them.

It was their house now – Jason’s parents had both died within a year of each other, before Avery was born. His mother succumbed to ovarian cancer, and his father had a massive stroke ten months later on the platform of the subway at 42nd Street. A lay preacher on his way to scream salvation at the hordes in Times Square had taken off his sandwich board and given CPR, but he was too late. They hadn’t left much – they died too young, and Jason’s mother’s medical bills had been big – but they left him this house, and all the memories of them it held. Now the big bed in the big bedroom was theirs. She shook the clean sheet out and arranged it across the mattress, thinking that the chaste single beds would suit them well these days.

From down the hall, she heard Avery groan, and then settle again. She crept quietly down to check on her – the door was ajar. Avery had the room she’d first slept in now. Kim had painted it yellow, and stencilled daisies around the walls. Avery was spreadeagled, with her thumb in. One cheek was red and lined from where she had been lying on it, and her hair was damp in the heat.

Kim pulled the door to a little, and went back to her task. Pillowcases, and the counterpane, an old New England quilt Jason’s parents had been given as a wedding present. It suited the room. She smoothed it down neatly, reverently, almost. Jason’s mother had loved that quilt. She used to say that as long as they slept under it, nothing bad could happen between them. Kim sniffed. If only.

It wasn’t keeping her and Jason safe. Or together. Kim came out here now, around the third week in June, in the station wagon, loaded up with clothes and Zabar’s bags and toys. Esme came in on the Jitney from Brooklyn Heights, from Tuesdays to Thursdays, to help her with Avery, and the laundry. And Jason came on Friday afternoons, lining up with the masses at 44th and 3rd, tuned in to his iPod and BlackBerry, and clutching a Starbucks cup. They drove to Cutchogue after Avery’s early supper to pick him up. Avery always demanded a milkshake from the deli opposite the stop, and drank it through a straw, sitting on the hood of the car. Mostly, she was more excited about the milkshake than she was about seeing her dad after five days apart.