You Belong With Me

chapter024

Elliot smiled a small smile, but the resentment wasn’t feigned. Edie had still not grasped the extent of the hurt she’d caused him. She asked herself: if he’d said the same when detaching from her, would she have tried again? Hard no. But he was who he was. He was the chooser.

‘Wow,’ Edie said. ‘Fake hope. Yeah, no hope at all, none.’ She gestured at herself, the surroundings. ‘Welcome to Dumpsville. Population, not you.’

‘Only because I begged you. Twice,’ Elliot said.

‘Is it possible you’re not used to doing the running?’

‘Ah, there it is. If in doubt, call Elliot a conceited, prima donna wankboy.’

He grinned as his eyes slid towards her, and Edie tried to get a measure of this. It was definitely flirty play-fighting, but that didn’t mean he was using dummy bullets as ammunition.

‘No, a compliment. When so many people want you, rejection must hit all the harder as unusual.’

‘Hmm. You know, when you were asking me things for the book, and I said fame was, to my surprise, not a fix for a lot of things you subconsciously assume it will be? That’s one of them.’

‘What is?’

‘Lots of people wanting you isn’t a cure for the one person you want not wanting you.’

‘If you mean me, luckily, I did, and I do. To a quite debilitating extent.’ Edie checked they were still speaking in relative isolation. ‘You can’t accept it was terror of failure, not not wanting this enough, can you?’

‘I’m trying, but if I’m honest, not really.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I was worried we’d crash and burn, too, but it wasn’t nearly enough to outweigh the wanting.’

He shrugged his shoulders, smiled apologetically, and drank his drink.

Edie sensed this had gone slightly further than Elliot intended. Also, it was grossly unfair that he looked sensational when sulking.

His expression reminded her of his turn in a soft rock music video where he drove around the Mojave Desert being sexily furious a model had cheated on him, during which she implausibly needed to hitch a ride from him at an isolated gas station. Edie very much felt like the treacherous skank in denim hot pants having to plead for his passenger seat.

‘Maybe the ratio of wanting isn’t the differential. Maybe it’s the relative levels of worry. As in, you’re braver than me,’ Edie offered. She leaned over and kissed him on his silly mouth.

‘Do not exploit my attraction to you as a conflict resolution tool, please. It will work pathetically well,’ Elliot said, and Edie recognised it as return peacemaking.

‘The Void? Jesus? Tea leaves?’ Edie prompted. ‘Bashing fainthearted Edie was a detour?’

‘Oh yeah. Lillian’s decided someone’s leaking. I don’t know if you’ve seen any stories, but the unnamed source quotes have said I’m “disenchanted” with the role, and that I “didn’t get into this job to act to tennis balls dangling in front of green screens”.’

‘Isn’t that accurate?’

‘It’s entirely accurate – that’s the problem. The screen thing I don’t recall saying word for word, but it’s “disenchanted”. Lillian said, “That’s a you word.” Something I would say. Something I have said. Lillian said: “You have a distinctive way of phrasing things, and it leaped out at me.” Ergo, Lillian thinks whoever briefed the Hollywood Reporter has spoken directly with me. There have been a few similar things, and now she’s gone full Miss Marple.’

‘Shit.’

‘The only people I’m that candid with are you, my parents, Fraser, my two best mates back home, Al and Dan, and my musician friend, Cameron, who’s in L.A. and got his own concerns and no love of the muck rakers. If Al and Dan are talking to the Hollywood Reporter after the school run in West Bridgford, I’m Shirley Bassey. It’s genuinely comical to imagine it.’

Edie frowned. ‘Not a long list then? Could it be a third-party person, trusted by one of us?’

Elliot inclined his head towards the people nearby. ‘Who’s the new factor?’ he said very quietly.

‘Molly?’ Edie said in a hoarse whisper.

‘It’s crossed my mind. No way am I blowing up my relationship with my brother, or his girlfriend, by insinuating it. That’s a pickle, huh.’

‘Is Lillian pushing you to speak to Fraser?’

‘Uhm …’ Elliot looked uncomfortable, and Edie couldn’t figure out why. ‘Lillian said it didn’t start on the Molly timeline. It began around the time we began seeing each other again. I responded with considerable vigour to that suggestion, obviously.’

‘Fucking hell, what? You don’t think …?’

‘Woah woah, I don’t think it, nor did I tolerate it being speculated.’ Elliot grabbed for her free hand across the table. ‘There’s no world, no alt verse, in which you’d sell stories on me. I said to Lillian: “I don’t think Edie is incapable of this because I’m in love with her; I’m in love with her because of who she is – which is a person who isn’t capable of such a thing. End of discussion.”’

‘Well. Thank you,’ Edie said, grateful for his loyalty but also stung and recalculating regards Lillian. She knew she’d not won her respect or affection by proxy, but treating Edie as a potential threat was something else.

In fact, now she thought about that Zoom meeting, it occurred to her that this was the underlying theme throughout: how might she do damage to Elliot, and how it might be mitigated.

‘Musician Cameron in L.A. …’ Edie said. ‘Not … Cameron McAllister?’

Edie felt foolish saying it, even though it wasn’t, in this context, foolish. He’d had about six number one hits and currently had a Vegas residency. His Radio Two friendly balladeering wasn’t to Edie’s taste, but his success was phenomenal: no aisle walk, signing of the register, or wedding reception was safe from him. The press loved the story: from Kilmarnock barman to the Scottish Sinatra, residing in Beverly Hills.

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh my God, Cameron McAllister is one of your best mates! That’s insane. Isn’t he … a bit of a twat?’

Edie was being mildly provocative because she felt a minor quease, strangely akin to when a woman tried it on with Elliot. There was so much she didn’t know about him. He wasn’t only hers; he was many other things to many other people.

‘A twat how?’

‘An arrogant womaniser who leaves a trail of female devastation in his wake.’

‘He has a lot of casual flings, yeah, but no shortage of offers, so I’m not sure it’s a vice, per se, just a lifestyle. He won’t play the PR game when something has run its course, so the press always brands him a cad. The truth is he got dumped by his first big forever love at twenty and it destroyed him, and every woman since is him trying to find her tribute act. Or hoping his ex will notice.’

‘Ahhh, the old sad shagger alibi. I’m only doing it because of the hole in my soul, honey. Now pop your thong off. Hahaha.’

‘You slag my friend off for things you’ve seen in gossip magazines, and I give you necessary, painful personal context, and you have even more of a go at him?’

‘Kidding.’

‘Didn’t you say I was a total loser who looked like a “trainee barista” before you knew me?’

‘Hahaha. I changed my mind. You can draw all the hearts in my lattes.’

‘Yeah, eaten and drunk your words there, eh? Now pleading with me for an extra shot in your macchiato.’

Elliot gave her a knowing look at his emphasis on pleading, and Edie flushed: he was breaking the things that never get discussed after the fact rule.

‘Stop there, please.’

‘Hmm, as I recall at the time it was please don’t stop, Elliot …’ He smiled at her scowl. ‘Anyway … Cam’s one of those hardcore heartbreak cases where he says he wishes she’d hurry up and get married and have kids so his hope could be definitively snuffed out, not wafting around still single but not choosing him. Every song is about her.’

‘Even the one about the girl who sleeps with his best friend and he forgives her, and she leaves him for the friend in the end anyway?’

The women at Ad Hoc had been known to well up over it on the radio. Call her a cynic, but Edie thought treating shagging your best mate as a verbal warning not an instant dismissal was destined for doom. DFD, as Elliot had once called it.

‘Especially that one.’

‘Oof.’

‘He’s written a song about us actually, you know. It’s probably going to be a single.’

Edie felt faint. ‘No way! You’re winding me up … Oh my God, really?’

‘We were having a heart to heart, and I said I had to go and see you, because I didn’t know if every day that passed was the one where you’d meet the next person and I’d lose you. I didn’t know which day was the last time I had any chance. He goes, “Oh hell that’s a song,” and next thing I know, he’s playing me “Last Time”.’ Elliot put his head on one side. ‘Not all of his stuff is my thing, but it is quite good, to be fair.’

‘Speechless,’ Edie said. ‘Can’t wait for the women at Ad Hoc who hate me to wave lighters to it at the O2.’

‘They still hate you for the wedding thing?’

‘The wedding thing and, I’m told by my colleague Declan, the Elliot Owen thing.’

‘Ack. Sorry.’

‘Not your fault.’

‘I have a lot to thank Cam for. He made me realise that the gruelling prospect of standing on your doorstep and telling you I’d do anything to make this work wasn’t hard, compared to not doing it.’

‘Elliot,’ Edie began, not sure what she was going to say but absolutely sure it needed saying.

‘Oh, holy fucking fuck,’ Elliot hissed, looking into the distance, and Edie followed his line of sight.

A banner, along with the couple of the moment, had appeared behind the meleé.

Congratulations, Fraser Molly!