Then
Think forty minutes of me laughing too late at every joke, failing to respond to my name and at one point (the horror) asking Michael, ‘What do you do again?’, like he didn’t deliver the monologue from his latest play over breakfast two days ago.
Trust me when I say I am doing you a favour not making you sit through it.
At some point, the others give up on me and I’m allowed to sit silently, physically present but absent in the ways that count. It’s a relief when someone (I couldn’t tell you who) suggests we go home.
Obviously, Patrick immediately corners me on the couch, where I’m stewing in my own thoughts.
‘What was going on with you and Lilia at the café?’ he asks.
‘Nothing.’
‘Is this still about Felix’s death?’
‘Why would you care?’ I say.
Patrick’s lovely face goes tight and he runs a hand through his hair, immediately entering Mad Scientist territory. (Hand on my heart: I don’t hate it.)
‘Heidi, are we friends?’ he asks.
‘Sure.’ My cheeks are hotter than a footpath in summer.
‘Then can you please trust me and drop this?’
Because I’m tired and confused and still trying to figure out Patrick’s role in this, I snap.
‘Trust you? All you do is lie to me. I hardly even know you.’ I stomp off towards my bedroom like every other teenage girl in the world has done at some point.
Just before I leave the room I turn back and yell, ‘And buy your own shampoo!’, then watch as Patrick’s hurt turns into confusion.
‘I like the way Autumn Mist smells!’ he shouts back just before the door bangs closed behind me.
From the safety of my bedroom, I call Lilia. ‘What the hell,’ I say.
‘I know.’
‘What do you think it all means?’ I ask.
‘Maybe Adam’s not so good at recognising people? Or maybe Adam’s not who he says he is? Maybe he didn’t meet Felix that night because he was never there?’
Lilia’s throwing out theories while my brain skitters off in a different direction.
‘Maybe,’ Lilia’s voice gets louder, ‘the body they found in the water wasn’t Felix at all. Maybe it was the real Adam who died and Felix has run off to … I don’t know, Bermuda or wherever people go when they want to start a second life drinking coconuts on the beach.’
I think maybe Lilia has had too much time alone to think about this. But all I say is, ‘I don’t know if Felix was the drinking-coconuts-on-the-beach type.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Aunty Sam identified Felix at the morgue,’ I say. ‘I know she’s half blind, but I don’t think she’d mistake some stranger for her nephew.’
‘Unless she was in on it,’ Lilia comes back with another theory.
There’s a horrible moment when I wrestle with the idea that I’m the victim of a vast conspiracy, perpetuated by the people in my life who are supposed to be the closest to me.
Then I remember. ‘But it was Adam who told us he saw Aunty Sam that night. Why would he do that if they’re in on this together?
And why have you got me talking like I’m in a spy movie? ’
Lilia laughs. ‘Which one of us is Donald Glover?’
‘You definitely. I don’t even own a turtleneck.’
Is Lilia, like me, remembering when the two of us binged the Mr & Mrs Smith series over a weekend and decided we’d buy a gorgeous house on Lake Como when we were older? Something pushes against my chest and I don’t think it’s my affection for Italian real estate.
‘What do you think we should do about it?’ I ask, mostly to stop myself from saying anything really silly like I miss you.
‘I’ve got no idea. What about Patrick?’ Lilia says.
‘What about him?’
‘What’s going on with you two?’
‘What do you mean?’ My skin prickles the way it does when I get into a bath that’s slightly too hot.
‘Are you still friends or whatever, or do you really think he might have had something to do with this?’
‘There’s no whatever.’
‘Sure, sure.’
‘Lilia,’ I say, ‘just because we can talk about the circumstances surrounding my brother’s suspicious death, it doesn’t mean I’m ready to talk to you about boys.’
The silence on the other end of the phone makes me feel so bad I almost tell Lilia what I really think her conversation with Adam means and what I’m going to do about it.
Then I hear Ben’s voice in the background asking, ‘Babe, who are you talking to?’ and the impulse shrivels up the same way my heart did when Ben sat me down and said we want to be honest with you (‘we’!).
I hang up. There’s a moment when I feel guilty for not telling Lilia how badly she’s misinterpreted the situation, but it doesn’t last long. I’ve got an aunt to talk to.