Chapter 26
26
We all sat by the window, talking and watching the planes taxi and take off outside our gate. An hour till our flight, half an hour till boarding. Callum sat a few seats down, silent, his long, slender fingers curved around a coffee, eyes on the departures screen or on the window. Anywhere but on me.
The golden Portuguese light stretched over the runway, reaching for us. It already seemed unlikely that Callum and I had ever sat side by side, legs touching, on his aunt and uncle’s couch. That we had kissed, intensely, for just a moment, seemed impossible. Callum had erased it. Pressed himself against the door in the silent cab that took us back to the hotel, as if he couldn’t be far enough away from me.
In my hotel room, I’d plugged in my phone and called Theo. He apologized that his old junk phone had stranded me, promised a brand-new one would be waiting for me in Highgate. “I don’t need a new phone,” I told him, feeling the shame of the whole night crowding around me in the stuffy, overdecorated room. “I need you.”
He promised he’d be in London by the end of the week and try to take a few days off—I’d have his undivided attention. I promised myself that it was the truth, that Theo really was all I needed. He’d been so good to me, for months, and surprised me on my birthday, and I never felt easier, safer, or more relaxed than when I was with him. He took care of me, took care of everything. That was what I wanted. Once Theo was back, I’d be able to shake off Callum for good. Shake off the soft, enticing, questioning feel of his lips, brushing over mine.
Tess returned to her seat beside me, unwrapping a croissant from wax paper. Before she could slip back into the conversation around us, I leaned toward her.
“I don’t know how to thank you for this, Tess. Really. Being here was an absolute dream,” I said.
“We’ll do it again!” Tess said. “Have you been to Ibiza yet? Those are the best parties. But Barcelona has the best food, I think.”
But it was only my birthday, the fact that she’d surprised me and treated me, that had made this trip possible. “It’ll be all dissertation for me, all summer,” I said. That was true, not just an excuse. The semester ended next week (with two more course essays due two weeks following), and then the third term started—no classes, just time to write and research, with a few advisor meetings. Dissertations were due by the end of August. And I’d be tutoring Pippa, too, in Saint-Tropez.
“Well, let’s plan a celebratory trip,” Tess said. “When you’ve finished.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and when I took it out, Andre’s name was on the screen. I held up my phone to show everyone I was going off to answer it and walked twenty feet away.
“Hi,” I said. “What’s up?”
Andre’s voice was lower than I’d heard it before, missing all his usual inflection and humor. “Well,” he said, “the bailiffs have just been here. So that’s fun.”
“Bailiffs?”
“Normal bailiff stuff, you know. A courtesy call—they wanted to tell us the date they’d be back, to take our stuff. Evict us.”
That was when I realized that Andre was angry, and for some reason, it was me that he was angry at. My chest tightened, like a huge hand was squeezing my ribs. I looked back to my friends, to see if they’d noticed anything, and turned my back to them.
“Andre, please,” I said. “Go back, explain. You’ve been paying rent, right? The subletter, he’s been paying rent?”
“It’s not the landlord we owe, Anna. It’s the council tax. Every month. They came with a court order. Your last payment was November. ”
I closed my eyes and swallowed, trying to force down the panic throbbing in my throat. When I lived there, I had paid the council tax for our flat. We’d arranged it—Tom and Andre paid more of the rent, and in exchange I covered the council tax, paid every month to the Borough of Camden.
“Wait,” I said. “What are you saying? Has the subletter not been paying it?”
“Why would he? You never said a word to him about it. He’s just been covering your rent.”
As Andre said it, I knew that it was true. I’d left in such a hurry, gathering all my things for Highgate. The renter was an acquaintance of Liv’s, definitely trustworthy, not someone I needed to check out, so I hadn’t spent more than a few minutes talking to him in the changeover. I’d forgotten to mention the council tax. And I certainly hadn’t paid it myself from Highgate. Had I forgotten December, too, when I was in Saint-Tropez? I put my hand out, steadying myself on the glass windowpane.
“Oh my god, Andre, I’m so sorry. You’re right, I didn’t tell him.” I could hear how breathless my voice was. “I’ll take care of everything. When’s the court date?” Councils were notoriously strict about collecting and enforcing council tax. No grace periods, no deferments, no delays. On the website where I paid, it was very explicit what would happen: they’d send you one past-due notice, and the next would be a court date, and then, if you didn’t pay, you went in front of a judge. They’d always get their money.
“March,” Andre said, almost a whisper.
Stupidly, I said, “But it’s April.”
“Almost May, some might say. You never came by for your mail. It’s a pile now. Do you think maybe our court date’s in that pile?”
I’d never heard Andre so furious. “I’ll pay it right away. Send me a photo of the bill, right now. I’ll do it right now.”
“There’s late fees,” he said, his voice softening a fraction. “And court fees now, too. I’m not sure you have it. It’s a lot, Anna.”
There was something in his tone that I feared much more than anger. The panic dropped into my stomach, becoming a hot, violent wave of nausea. I put my forehead against the cool glass and breathed slowly through my nose. “How much is a lot?”
When I hung up the call, I remembered that my friends could still see me. I straightened up, brushed back my hair, and leaned against the window, looking down at my phone as anyone might. I opened the browser, waited for my bank’s website to load. The airport Wi-Fi was miserably slow.
I logged in; a spinning wheel promised my account view in a moment, but it just kept spinning.
“Everything okay?”
Callum was standing in front of me, his eyebrows knit together.
The first words he’d said to me all day. The first time he’d even looked at me. My face felt stiff. “Yes, all okay,” I said icily. “Nothing for you to worry about.”
“Was it from home?” He gestured to the phone in my hand. I thought about every vulnerable thing I’d told him last night: about my mother, my father, my life. Before he’d completely shut me down. We’d had no wine with dinner, but I felt like I had—like something had loosened in me that I usually kept tightly bound. I wanted to close it. To seal it shut forever.
“It wasn’t,” I said, hearing my voice sharp and cold. “You don’t have to pretend you understand all my problems.”
I looked down at my phone. My account had loaded, the balance in bold at the top. Andre was right; I didn’t have it. I wasn’t even close. At the top of the recent transactions was the large payment at the seafood restaurant, for all the oysters. I’d been so glad, even proud, that I could cover it. That I could take care of the mistake. It felt laughable now.
With my head already tipped down, I had no hope of hiding the tears. They were fast, and I couldn’t even wipe them, because our friends might see. This would only confirm the worst Callum thought of me—silly, unserious social climber. Scammer, fake, liar, mess. He put a hand on my arm, and I jerked away, turning as I did so no one watching would see the movement. He backed away, hands up to show he was done trying.
I fled to the bathroom, where I breathed and looked again at the account balance. I’d been working so hard with the new study groups and classes, on top of my current Kramer students; it was a good balance on any other day. A great balance, compared to my first months here. But it wouldn’t save me. I couldn’t ask my father to save me. More tears ran down my cheeks. There was no one to help me, not here, not at home.
Clumsily, eyes blurry, I tried to log out of the website. Instead, it took me to a new page. The header said Pending Transactions. There was only one listed there, and it was a large deposit. Coming in on the first of the month: my last student loan installment, from my lender. The lump sum I needed to pay for my last term of grad school.