4
The next evening, at dinner, Sara and I have an argument. We’re in the flat she now shares with James: a glossy two-bedroom in Tribeca with a lift and windows so large they look like glass walls. From the table where we’re sitting, I can see the High Line. I still can’t get used to it, though I’m now a regular guest here. It feels too clean, too flashy – distinctly un-Sara. But maybe I just feel that way because I miss her.
‘Hear me out,’ she says, in a tone so reasonable it makes me momentarily want to stick my tongue out at her.
‘No. You weren’t there. It was awful. Terrible. A hundred times worse than I thought it would be. The worst—’
‘I think you’ve established that it wasn’t a roaring success.’
‘I hate him, Sara.’
‘I know.’
‘He makes me furious.’
‘I know.’
‘He—’
‘Trust me, I know. I was at Edinburgh too, in case you’ve forgotten. Will you just listen for a second?’
I stop talking but arrange my face into the expression of a grumpy two-year-old so she knows I’m not happy about it.
‘It’s a free trip. To Europe. Come on, Andie. Doesn’t the prospect of Berlin, Paris and Dublin excite you even a little? And you could see your mum while you’re in London—’ I knew she’d play that card, and I hate how well it works. I flinch at the reminder of the miles between us that seem to increase with every year I live here. I applied for my first publishing job in New York a few months before my dad died, a graduate scheme at a big five publisher. It was a long shot, so I was barely checking my emails, sure I’d been turned down. Then one came through, telling me I’d got a place, in the week of his funeral.
My plan was to turn it down; to stay with my mum and get a job in London. But when I told her, she pushed me to ask if they’d allow me to defer entry for a few months. ‘It’s what your dad would have wanted, love,’ she said. ‘You have to go and live your life.’ They agreed to defer my place, and so – after six months with my mum, helping her get my father’s affairs in order and trying not to fall apart at the seams – I went. I figured it would help, to be away from the pain for a while. And at first, although in some ways I was lonelier than ever, it did. The vibrancy of the city was a constant distraction from the grief which in London felt like it was always pressing down from above, threatening to crush me. I could breathe a little easier. No one here looked at me with an expression of pity that reminded me of everything I’d lost, that defined me, stamping a label on my head as the girl who’d just lost her father.
I had always planned to go home when I was feeling better. Once I’d got some CV points and a foot on the corporate ladder. But then my career advanced, and Sara moved out here, too, and what started out as a holiday from my grief started to feel more and more like a life. Things felt lighter, like I’d left behind everything that was weighing me down. And the more I stay here, the more that rings true: the prospect of returning home is like a force of gravity back to a heavier, sadder version of myself. I’m determined to resist its pull. But I can’t help but feel guilty for being so far from my mum, for so long. Bi-yearly visits to the UK and fortnightly calls have been nowhere near enough to stem the steady feeling that I’m letting her down.
‘It’s a month, Sara,’ I continue. ‘A month with him. I’ll kill him, or I’ll lose my mind. I can’t do it.’
She raises her eyebrows at my dramatics but reaches for my hand across the table.
‘A, I think this could be good for you.’ She stares me down, her gaze kind, her grip on my hand firm now.
I don’t respond, stunned into silence by her words, so she continues. ‘Ignoring what happened hasn’t made it disappear. Maybe…’ she pauses, gathering herself. I hold my breath. ‘Maybe this will be a chance to realise that he is just a human being, that he doesn’t have as much power over you as you thought. Maybe – and I know you’ll hate me for saying this, but I’m going to say it anyway – maybe this is what you need, to finally move on.’
I close my eyes – I can’t deny that I expected this, from the moment I brought this to Sara. She’s always so logical. And, usually, I trust her logic. But this time, the hundred-pound lead weight in my stomach would seem to disagree.
‘I just…’ I hesitate, trying to find the right words. ‘I don’t know if personal growth is enough of a motivation for me to spend a month with Jack Carlson. My career, maybe. But I’m not interested in giving him a free pass for what he did. He doesn’t deserve it. Besides, I’m here, in New York, with you. Isn’t that moved on enough?’ She raises her eyebrows and opens her mouth to speak again, but I interrupt her before she can. ‘And don’t you dare start talking about forgiveness.’
Sara throws up her hands in surrender on the other side of the table. ‘This is an F-word-free zone. Except fuck, of course. Just think about it, Andie. That’s all I’m saying.’
I must still seem unconvinced, because she gets that look on her face that tells me she’s about to pull out the big guns. ‘Remember what your dad used to say?’
Yep, she went there. I level a furious glare at her, but she ignores me and ploughs on, saying the only words she knows will absolutely guilt me into agreeing with her. ‘The only way out is through.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Well done for making use of the F-word-free-zone addendum.’
I continue to glare at her, and she waits, arms crossed, in the smug silence of someone who knows that she has won.
‘Fine.’ I say, finally, and a slow smile of victory spreads across her face. ‘I will think about it.’
And I do think about it. Every day when I’m at work and an email lands in my inbox from [email protected], in the excessively formal tone he has adopted since the event at The Lost Bookshop. When I’m out for lunch, when I’m at the shops, when I’m walking the fifty million stairs up to my front door. Every minute of every day, Jack Carlson is on my mind, and I wrestle with the idea of spending a month with him. Eventually, in a bid to get him out of my head, I decide to defer the decision until the day before the trip. That way, I can have a few more practice runs in New York to see whether I can be around Jack without throwing things before I decide whether I’m capable of sitting on a plane with him for seven hours.
The next event is a book signing on the Upper West Side, a few blocks from my apartment. I work from home and walk straight there when I finish, making use of the journey to get my head straight. Thankfully, this particular bookshop – Albertine – is not one I have ever entered before, and, judging by the furious French man behind the counter, not one I will be in a hurry to visit again. Which is a shame, because it’s really beautiful – all oak shelves and leather armchairs and a celestial painted ceiling, gold stars scattered into constellations across a deep, vivid blue.
This time, I feel more resolved – committed to the experiment of spending time with Jack, again. There are fewer attendees: Jack’s editor, Daniel, is here, but unfortunately we don’t have much in common – his conversational topics of choice are restricted to grammar and obscure architecture, neither of which I can claim to be an expert on. Oh well, I think, as he lists off his favourite uses of the Oxford comma, at least I won’t have to worry about the evening descending into dramatics: this man’s energy is so gently soporific it could neutralise a tense situation in ten seconds flat.
Mostly, I am right not to be concerned. To my immense relief, Jack is distant and polite and professional, hardly speaking to me beyond greeting me and asking whether I had a pleasant journey. As the huge queue of customers waits patiently, I flip the book they’ve purchased each time to the right page for Jack to sign it, then pass it to him. About half way through the pile, our thumbs accidentally brush as I’m handing one to him, and I jerk my hand away, an electric shock running up my spine. But apart from that minor incident, and the occasional urge to throw whichever book I’m holding across the room when he addresses me to ask for a new pen, we put on a decent performance of a recently acquainted author and publicist for the signing audience and a mostly oblivious Daniel. It is only at the end of the evening, when I have wrapped up thanking the shop manager and have somehow managed to charm him out of his French ennui into discussing some further potential events, that things almost come apart.
‘I gather you were both at Edinburgh.’ Daniel says, gesturing to Jack and me as we’re standing by the door about to say our goodbyes. For a second, my heart drops to the floor, and I flash Jack a glare which makes him look like he wants to step away in case it burns a hole in him. His eyes, though, betray his confusion – he’s blindsided by this comment, too. I search my brain for the conversations I’ve had with Daniel so far this evening and dredge up a memory of him talking about the stonework in Edinburgh, and me mentioning that I went to university there. It seems reasonable that Jack would have told his editor that he was there, too. We’re about the same age; he probably put two and two together.
‘Not together.’ I say, quickly. ‘Just at the same time.’
Daniel looks at me, bemused. ‘That’s what I meant, yes.’
‘But we never met.’
‘Understandably, in a university so large.’ Jack chips in, slightly recovered from my glare but still looking pretty apprehensive. Thankfully, the conversation ends there and Daniel, still oblivious, starts discussing his favourite typefaces with Jack. I take my leave, and I can see Jack trying to catch my eye as I go, but I ignore him.
By the third event, I’m feeling more confident. I’m starting to find my feet at work: I called in a favour with a friend at the New York Times and managed to get Jack’s book into a ‘Top 5 Reads This Summer’ round-up, as well as pitching him for a few last-minute interviews. A particular win was discovering that a presenter on a New York radio show that’s notoriously hard to book was born in the exact part of Ireland where Jack’s book is set. He was so thrilled about the home connection that he’s doing a special ten-minute segment on it. Jessica was delighted, and Jack’s email was restrained but grateful.
If I still wasn’t 100% sure whether Jack would play along before, the Edinburgh slip-up at the last event has gone some way towards reassuring me that he’s not going to dredge up the past. It’s the closest we’ve been to discussing it in public, and he seemed as keen to avoid it as I was. And with each event I feel a little calmer, a little less on the edge of losing my cool. If I can keep my interactions with him minimal and professional, then the tour might not be impossible. But I’m certainly not telling Sara that until I’m sure.
I arrive at a bookshop in the East Village which also appears to be a wine bar. Excellent, I think – I can avoid the warm cheap wine which is usually offered at these events and get myself a glass of something good. When I get there, I realise I must have arrived a little early: the shop is mostly empty, and its owner greets me enthusiastically. Once he realises I’m here for Jack, not as a customer, he launches into an effusive speech about how excited he is to have the Jack Carlson in his shop, and tells me the event sold out within hours. I manage to nod along for a few minutes, then take the excuse of a customer arriving to politely excuse myself and head straight for the bar. Nice, Andie. Really professional.
As I’m browsing the wine menu with my back to the door, I hear the bell of the shop trill to announce someone’s arrival, and the scuttle of the owner’s excited footsteps behind me lets me know that it’s Jack. I continue browsing the menu, hoping to enjoy a moment’s more peace, until I hear someone approaching. Praying it’s the owner but knowing from the cadence of the steps that it’s not, I wait until Jack is leaning on the bar next to me before I turn to look at him.
‘What can I get you?’ he asks, as if we’re back in Edinburgh, in a pub, and this is a normal interaction. Despite my best intentions, this immediately sends irritation surging through me.
‘Nothing.’ I try to restrain myself but fail to keep all the vitriol out of my tone. There’s something about him arriving so suddenly and acting so casual that’s setting off every nerve ending in my body right now. I feel like a grenade with the pin yanked out. So much for my earlier calm, my hope that things between us were beginning to feel almost normal. He blanches slightly.
‘Come on, Andie – at least let me buy you a drink.’ I take a deep breath, but it’s not enough to stem the rage now surfacing at him acting like he can just buy me a glass of wine, like it’s nothing. Like it would make up for anything. Maybe if I threw it over him , I think, imagining red wine splashing down the front of his crisp white shirt. I struggle to keep my voice at a normal volume, aware of the bookshop owner hovering behind us.
‘I said no. This is on the company, anyway. It should be me buying you a drink, not the other way around.’ My voice is shaking, despite my last-ditch attempt to remain professional. ‘Besides,’ I continue in a lower tone, the words flowing out of me before I can stop them. ‘You don’t have anything to prove to me. I know who you are, Jack. A glass of wine isn’t going to change that.’
I can see the damage, each word a wound I’m inflicting, and I can’t deny that a large part of me enjoys it. He looks crushed, but only for a moment. Then the bookshop owner flutters over and asks Jack if he wants to go through to the back room which he’s set up as a green room of sorts. Relieved to have the interruption, I tell them to go ahead, that I need to make a quick phone call – really, I just need a moment to compose myself, to reset my professionalism. As he’s ushered away, I can feel his gaze burning into me, but I turn to the bar, determined to tune it out.
As the bookshop fills up, I do my best to breathe through the adrenaline coursing through me – Jesus Christ, why can’t I keep myself together around him? – and instead focus on the people arriving. For the first time, I notice that there are a lot of women here. That makes sense, I suppose – despite being a backstabbing arsehole, Jack is an attractive man who, thanks to a few viral social media threads, has become something of a heartthrob in the historical documentary community (not much competition there, I’d wager). He was on the swim team at Edinburgh, so was pretty much de facto considered hot, and was also actually hot. High cheekbones, messy dark hair. The kind of boy-pretty that makes you angry – why does he get to have such long eyelashes when I have to wear mascara all the time? I’ve spent the years since hoping he’d get ugly. Unfortunately, the universe has let me down in that respect. The bastard is just as handsome, just as charming. Edinburgh Andie would fall for it all over again. My wine glass trembles in my hand and I drag my thoughts away from that extremely dangerous avenue. We do not need to think about Edinburgh Andie this evening. New York Andie has enough to worry about as it is.
I make it through the talk, his voice washing over me as I focus on the books on the shelf to the right of my seat, playing my favourite game of ‘spot the publisher’ by examining the logos on their spines. I’ve scanned the room three times for other colleagues who might have unexpectedly shown up, but I can’t see anyone here. I’m on my own.
Once Jack has offered many smiles to many adoring fans and signed their books, no doubt about to become treasured possessions, the queue eventually dissipates and we’re alone in the shop with the owner. I keep a pleasant expression plastered on my face while Jack tries to extricate himself from possibly the most grateful man in the world. Eventually, I interrupt and tell him that it’s us who are grateful to him for so kindly hosting Jack at his bookshop. This almost makes him cry, and I usher Jack away before he starts.
‘Thanks,’ he says, retrieving his jacket from the coat rack by the door. I open the door and step outside, and he follows.
‘I didn’t do it for your benefit. I want to go home.’ I’m tired of the wounded puppy expression my dismissal of him causes, so I avoid looking at his face, instead busying myself searching for my MetroCard in my handbag.
‘Look, Andie, if you don’t want to come on the tour—’
I look up, sharply. ‘What are you talking about?’
He gestures between us. ‘This clearly isn’t working for you. I’m grateful for everything you’ve done so far, but it’s obvious you’d rather peel off your own skin than spend a month with me. If you don’t want to come, I can handle it.’
Furious that he’s read me so easily, but intrigued by his proposition, I frown. ‘What do you mean, handle it?’
‘I mean, I know a freelance publicist who I’ve worked with in the past. I can make up some high-maintenance author excuse that I want to work with someone I already know, then you won’t have to go.’
The rage which has so far been simmering inside me comes to a boil. I’ve never understood the meaning of the expression seeing red before, but I do now.
‘So you’re going to kick me off your campaign?’
He baulks at my tone and takes a step backwards. ‘I didn’t mean it like that—’
‘Really?’ I seethe, eyebrows raised sarcastically. ‘Because that’s exactly what it sounds like. You know how it looks when an author hires a freelancer to replace someone. I’d be totally screwed.’ I ball my hands into fists at my side, digging my nails into my palms and desperately taking a breath before I say something I regret. But, even as my heartbeat slows slightly, a realisation dawns which sends my rage levels right back up. ‘But this isn’t about me, is it?’ I say, each word laced with venom. He looks confused, but I press on, sure that I’m right. ‘I bet it would be convenient for you not to have me hanging around all the time, reminding you of what you did. So convenient you’d be happy to tank my career to get rid of me. Fuck you.’ Though I’m still furious, I can feel each word expunging some more of the anger I’ve kept balled up inside me for so long, and it feels great. It courses through me, an electric current finally released.
He runs a hand through his hair. His posture is deflated, a hint of exasperation passing across his features. I clench my fists again. What the fuck does he have to be exasperated about? ‘I thought it was what you wanted,’ he says, still looking wounded. ‘I’m only trying to help.’
This triggers another surge of rage so strong I struggle to remember to breathe. Is he an idiot? How can he have misread this so horribly? It was what I wanted, of course it was, but not like this. A broken leg, maybe, or a family emergency – not a high-profile author kicking me off my first big campaign, risking my chance of ever getting another job like this one. And – I realise, anger suddenly sharpening into clarity – it’s not what I want anymore. If before I was hoping not to let him ruin this job for me, now I’m determined. If Jack Carlson doesn’t want me on his tour, if he’s willing to risk my professional reputation to get me off his campaign, then I’m fucking going.