Chapter 42
Sarah
London
Sarah had changed three times before settling on a black dress that she knew Amy liked, the one that hugged her figure and showed just enough.
She’d put on her best lingerie underneath…
she knew that the night ending that way was only a strong likelihood, not a certainty, but best to be prepared.
Her hair was down, makeup present, not overdone.
She wanted to look like herself, just the best version.
The wine bar she’d chosen was one she knew well, a place a few minutes’ walk from her flat with dim lighting and small tables. The sort of place that made the kind of private conversation that they needed to have possible, always busy but never overcrowded.
And, uncharacteristically for Sarah, she’d arrived early, conscious that she wanted to be settled and composed when Amy walked in rather than arriving flustered. This, she realised, was far from the usual power games she played with colleagues.
A month. It had been a month since another wine bar, that Monday evening in Borough Market when Amy had asked the question that had taken Sarah’s world apart and rebuilt it into something unfamiliar but, she hoped, better, kinder, more sustainable.
A month since she’d stood in the rain watching Amy walk away, since she’d sat on Amy’s sofa two nights later and confessed everything, since Amy had said “ok, that’s enough, for now” and Sarah had spent the time in between earning the right to be sat here tonight.
She ordered a glass of wine and checked her phone. A message from Amy, sent fifteen minutes ago:
On my way soon, see you soon x
Sarah smiled. The old Sarah would have still been at home, taking her time, making Amy wait for her. The new Sarah, well, no power games. She typed back:
Already here. Hurry up. I’ve missed you x
Sarah put her phone face down on the table. She needed to be composed for the first part of this evening, the talking part.
She saw Amy before Amy saw her. She came through the door in her work clothes, elegant blue trousers and a white blouse and blazer, hair tied back, and Sarah’s breath caught the way it always did when she saw Amy.
There was a confidence to Amy now that hadn’t been there a month ago, something in the way she carried herself…
a month since she’d come out to her friends and clearly it was suiting her.
Amy spotted her and smiled, so warm, so genuinely pleased to see Sarah that for just a moment the rest of the world fell away.
“Hey,” Amy said, sliding into the seat opposite.
“Hey.” Sarah wanted to lean across and kiss her but held back. There was a conversation they needed to have first, and she owed Amy that before anything else.
“You look incredible,” Amy said, her eyes looking Sarah up and down.
“So do you. The tan really suits you.”
“Everyone keeps saying that. I’m going to be devastated when it fades.” Amy ordered a glass of wine and settled back in her chair, looking at Sarah with an expression that was open but cautious. “So. We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
“We do.” Sarah took a breath. “Where do you want me to start?”
“The other mentees. Tell me everything.”
***
Sarah didn’t tell Amy the sanitised version, the one she’d have given a month ago that spun the truth and conveniently ignored anything that would make her look bad or could jeopardise what she had with Amy.
She was honest, and gave her the ugly truth of four conversations that had fundamentally changed how she saw herself.
She told Amy about Rebecca first, the easy one, how she’d laughed and said she wanted to keep sleeping with Sarah regardless.
“She’s the one where it genuinely was mutual,” Sarah said.
“She told me straight out that she enjoys it for its own sake and always has. The mentoring is separate now, completely. We’re colleagues who also happen to sleep together. ”
Amy nodded. “I believe that. I could see it on Monday, actually. She seemed relaxed with you, but she always did.”
“She was. Is.” Sarah paused. “The others weren’t like that.”
She told Amy about Klara next, how she’d been angry in a cold, restrained way that was actually harder to deal with than shouting.
And then about Alice, her more volatile, furious reaction that caught Sarah off guard after Klara.
Both had been clear that the physical side, while enjoyable at times, had been something they endured, the price they paid for what Sarah had done for their careers.
“I’d assumed,” Sarah said, hearing the shame in her own voice, “that they were into it.” She shrugged.
“I wanted to believe the attraction was mutual. I’d built this whole framework in my head where everyone was consenting and everyone was having a good time and the mentoring was a bonus.
A win-win for everyone.” She looked at Amy.
“You were right. The power imbalance meant that I never had to question it, because none of them felt they could tell me the truth.”
Amy reached across and touched Sarah’s hand. “I know that was hard. I can hear that it was.”
“It gets worse.” Sarah took a sip of her wine. “Joanna. Last week.”
She told Amy about Joanna’s revelation that she was straight, had always been straight, and about the two relationships she’d lost. About “you never asked” and the exhaustion in Joanna’s voice.
“She told me she’d let me do what I wanted because she thought it was what was expected,” Sarah said. “She endured that, Amy. For too long. Because I made her think it was part of the deal.”
Amy was quiet for a long moment, and Sarah could see her processing it, sympathy mixed with something more complicated. “How do you feel about that now? Honestly.”
Sarah thought about her answer. “Ashamed. Genuinely ashamed. Not the kind where you say you’re sorry because you know you should be.
Actually ashamed, in a way that I’m going to carry for a long time.
” Sarah paused. “But also grateful to you, for making me see it. Because I’d have carried on otherwise.
I’d have kept building the system and convincing myself it was fine and everyone was winning. ”
Amy squeezed her hand. “I appreciate you telling me all of this. You didn’t have to be this honest.”
“I owed you this. After that Monday, when you showed me what it looked like… I owed you the full picture.”
Amy held her gaze for a few moments, then nodded slowly, as if she’d come to a decision.
“Ok. Then I’m drawing a line under it. You did what you said you would, and you did it properly.
I believe you, and we don’t need to talk about it again.
” She paused. “The mentoring continues on professional terms?”
“Completely. All four of them if they want it. No conditions, no expectations.”
“Good.” Amy took a sip of her wine. She smiled. “That’s enough about them then.”
The relief that flooded through Sarah was a physical thing… a tension she’d been carrying for weeks releasing. Amy was satisfied. Amy believed her. The line was drawn.
“There’s something else we need to talk about too,” Sarah said. “The other thing you asked me to consider.”
Amy’s expression shifted to something a little more cautious. “Ok,” she said simply, watching Sarah over the rim of her glass as she took another drink.
“You asked me, before you went to LA, to think about what my life could look like. What a future could look like, not just with you but generally, if I was honest about who I am.”
“I remember.”
“I’ve thought about it. A lot.” Sarah turned her wine glass by the stem.
“I took the twins and Hugo to Dubai for a long weekend while you were away. Last minute thing, his idea. And there was a moment…” She paused, searching for the right words.
“I realised two things. That my children are more important than anything, and that Hugo and I have been performing a marriage for their benefit for longer than I would like to admit.”
Amy listened without interrupting, giving Sarah the space.
“If I leave… I mean, when I leave him, at some point, because I think it’s a when now…
I’d need to spend more time out west. Hugo would keep the house, I’d need to get somewhere nearby.
I’d still do this job, still be in London mid weeks, but I’d be there more rather than here.
And, look, I’m fine with that. Really. I’d be much more present in their lives and I’d hope that it would be amicable with Hugo, that we could co-parent.
I know it could well be hard, but… worth it. ”
She looked at Amy who was nodding her understanding.
“But here’s the thing. You… anyone… would have to accept that you could have some of me, maybe even most of me, but not all of me. And for a lot of the week my geography would be determined by my children.” Sarah smiled. “You, or whoever, would have to either like the countryside or pretend to.”
“That’s a lot to change.”
“It’s a lot to gain.” Sarah smiled again.
“I’d actually be there. School runs, bedtime stories, weekends that aren’t just me arriving exhausted on a Friday night and leaving again on Sunday.
” She paused. “The thing is, I’m going to do it regardless of Hugo or anyone else.
I did wonder whether it would work for me to do the part with being there more without saying anything to Hugo, but I realised that part of what I’m doing at the moment is hiding…
spending my weeks in London so that the time where I have to pretend being the straight, loving wife is kept to weekends and holidays.
If I’m going to be there more it has to be the real me, otherwise it’s not fair to me or him. ”
Sarah paused to give Amy the opportunity to say anything, but she sat there in sympathetic silence.
“I’m not asking you to sign up for anything, Amy.
I know that’s a lot, and I know you’re twenty-eight and building your career.
This might not be what you want at all. Put it this way…
you’d have to be comfortable with weekends hanging out with me and the twins.
But you asked me to think about it, so I have.
It’s how it would be for anyone, not just you. ”
Amy was quiet for a while. “It’s not for me to offer you advice on your marriage or your family.
Those are your decisions and I’d never presume to tell you what to do.
” She paused, and Sarah could see something genuine in her expression, a respect that went beyond their usual dynamic.
“But I really appreciate that you’ve thought it through properly.
That you’re not just reacting, that you’ve actually sat with it and worked out what it would look like. That matters to me.”
“It matters to me too.”
“And the answer to the question you didn’t quite ask is: I don’t know.
But the good thing is, we don’t need to decide that yet or any time soon.
I’d like to think that tonight is the end of what we had, and the start of whatever you and I might be.
You said I need to accept that I can’t have all of you.
” Amy shrugged. “Both of our situations are complex.”
“See how we go?”
“See how we go. But Sarah… I like the picture of a future that you just painted. Many women would. Just don’t do anything with your family, Hugo or the twins, because of me. Do it because of you. Ok? Because…”
Amy trailed off but Sarah knew exactly what she meant… because nobody ever fell for someone and thought this might not last, but more often than not it didn’t. Because this mustn’t be a romantic gesture towards Amy, rather it had to be a serious commitment to herself.
Sarah simply nodded. “I will.”
***
They ordered more wine, and the conversation loosened.
Amy talked about LA, carefully skirting around the topic of Luisa but talking openly about the experiences…
hikes and restaurants and a particularly fun night out at a club.
For her part Sarah talked about a particularly complicated matter she was working on at work, and then about how the twins had decided that elaborate den building was the greatest thing in the world.
It was easy and natural, just like it had been before that fateful Saturday, two women who genuinely enjoyed each other’s company and whose minds worked in ways that complemented each other.
Then, tongue loosened by her third glass of wine, Amy said, casually, “So Monday night. You and Rebecca.”
Sarah looked at her. “What about it?”
“What did you do? After you left the restaurant.”
There was something in Amy’s tone that was a little tighter than casual curiosity, there was an edge that she was trying to hide and at that moment Sarah realised something: everything she’d been thinking about Amy and Luisa on Monday, Amy had been thinking about Sarah and Rebecca. It went both ways.
“I’ll tell you,” Sarah said carefully, “if you tell me what you and Luisa did when you got home from dinner.”
Amy’s mouth opened, then closed. Sarah watched her realise she’d gone a step too far in real time, the desire to know fighting with the knowledge that that went both ways.
“Maybe,” Amy said eventually, with a wry smile, “there are some things it’s better we don’t tell each other. Sorry, I crossed a line there.”
“I think that’s wise.” Sarah clinked her glass against Amy’s. “Boundaries.”
“Boundaries,” Amy agreed. She held Sarah’s gaze for a moment, and there was a mutual acknowledgment there, that they were both picking their way through a bit of a minefield without a map, and the only way to really do it was by being completely honest with each other about what they should and shouldn’t share.
They sat in comfortable silence for a minute, and then Amy finished her wine.
"I should get going," she said, and Sarah just about managed to hide her surprise… is this Amy just playing hard to get, or is she genuinely just going to leave?
There was a pause. Amy was watching Sarah.
Here goes nothing.
"Come back to my place."
She saw Amy go still, thinking.
"We shouldn't…" Amy started to say, but Sarah interrupted her without even realising she was going to.
"Please."
One word, and it stopped Amy in her tracks.
"Please?"
"Please." Then, uncharacteristically for Sarah, the words came out in a rush. "I… tonight I need you… I need to be your… I guess I need you to… a month." She shook her head, realising she was making no sense. "There's something only you can give me. Only you. I… I need that tonight."
God, I'm practically begging, where has this come from?
She watched Amy turn it over in her mind for a long, long time, her gaze locked on Sarah.
Then, she nodded slowly.
“Get the bill. I’ll be waiting outside.”