Chapter 16
Sixteen
Asher
Ipacked a small overnight bag, watered the plants, locked up, and banged on Doreen’s door to let her know I was out of town for the weekend and that I’d be back Sunday.
She has Amata’s number, who has a key to my place in case of emergencies.
This was after a leak in the kitchen had sprung when I’d been out in LA for a week and completely destroyed the apartment downstairs.
After this, I drove to Christian’s. I’d expected him to give me a meeting place, but he’d just sent the address and said he’d be ready by ten.
It’s one surprise after another with him; first, he agreed to come to a shoot with me, to watch, then he invited me to his house.
I’m trying not to read anything into this distinct shift in his behaviour, but it’s hard.
I pull up to the property, which is fucking gated because of course it is, he’s a diplomat for the UK government.
I’m not sure whether to ring the thing, which would then lead whoever answers it to start asking questions he might not want me to answer, so I call his cell instead.
“You’re running late?” he answers.
“Uh, no. I’m never late. I’m outside your palace; it has a gate.”
“Ah, yes. It does indeed. You have to press the little button on it, someone will answer it and unlock it.”
“I know how gates work, I just wasn’t sure if you’d want me to.”
He sighs, then says a little firmly, “Press it, Asher.”
“Um. Yes, daddy.” I hear him chuckle before the line cuts.
I have to unbuckle and lean out of the car to do it, but it opens a second later, swinging inward to reveal a short gravel driveway, which circles up to the huge fucking building that resembles a small palace.
I pull up by the pillared entrance, turn off the engine, and wait.
There are no other cars parked here, and I feel like some sniper might be about to take me out, so I slouch down in the driver’s seat.
It’s a few minutes later when my phone buzzes.
Are you coming in?
The entrance is a set of wide stone steps up to an enormous door, intricate floral work around the frame, and set inside a double-height arched entryway.
It’s a rich, polished mahogany that gleams in the early-morning sun and must be about twelve feet tall.
A brushed-gold knocker shaped like a lion’s head sits at eye level.
I feel very small standing here, insignificant, like a trespasser.
What the fuck is Thomas Lisowski doing here exactly?
I’m about to knock when the door is pulled open and Christian, looking relaxed and hot in a pair of gold-rimmed glasses, beams at me.
“Is the king home?” I ask.
He laughs. “It’s quite ridiculous, isn’t it?
It comes with the job. Impossible to feel at home in a museum.
” He pulls open the door and gestures for me to come in.
The inside is even more insane. Marble floors, triple-height ceilings, two great winding staircases on either side of the foyer, and chandeliers that I doubt would look out of place in the Palace of Versailles.
“It’s insane. How come I’m even allowed inside without going through security?”
“There is security everywhere.” He looks up and around, but when I follow his eyes, I don’t see any cameras. “But the house staff have the weekend off for the holiday. My housekeeper, Grace, insisted on making us some lunch for the road. Why don’t you come through. We’ll get going shortly.”
I follow him through the house towards the back. “Has your son gone back to the UK?”
“He’s gone to visit a friend in South Carolina this weekend. He’s on a tennis programme in Virginia.”
“Is that why you’re allowed to have friends over, then?” He gives me an amused look over his shoulder. “I never thought I’d get to see the inside of your house, like ever.”
“I had no idea you were so keen to see it.”
I answer that with a shrug because we both know it’s not that, but what it signifies. Not that it signifies anything serious, anything that edges us toward a relationship, but it still means something that he’s invited me here. It means he trusts me.
The place is littered with antiques, enough to make my head spin: original paintings that have to be over 200 years old, Georgian furniture that was probably shipped over before the Civil War, polished weaponry shimmering with age.
I’ve always had a kind of affinity for old things, things that have lived a hundred lives before I’ve set eyes on them.
They fascinate and inspire me in ways I can’t really explain.
History always seems so vast and unending and sort of impossible in a way.
It’s why I want to visit Paris and London one day, those old, ancient streets of Europe where people have walked for thousands of years.
It’s hard to wrap my head around the passage of time, but looking at things that were made so many years ago helps.
Running my hands over them and seeing how they were made, uncovering the history in their layers, has always inspired my imagination.
I want to run my hands over everything in Christian’s house, but I don’t; I keep my hands in my pockets and follow him into a kitchen three times the size of my entire apartment.
“Can I get you a drink?” he asks as he opens the fridge.
“I’m good, thanks.”
He pulls out a blue lunch bag from the fridge and sets it on the counter to unzip.
“I’m not sure what she put in here, but it looks like enough for a small military operation.
” There’s a fond look on his face as he rifles through it, pulling out a few bananas, a few pots of yoghurt, and a stack of sandwiches.
“She takes good care of you, I see.” I come around the counter to stand next to him.
“She does. It’s almost like having my mother living with me, which isn’t quite as fun as one might imagine.”
“Do you not get on with your mother?” I ask.
“No, no, I do. She’s lovely, she’s very… British. Very, Women’s Institute, you know? Loves a trip to town and a Bakewell tart with her tea, reads the Sunday papers in the conservatory. My father watches Beechgrove Garden religiously. They’re both lovely.”
“Lovely,” I repeat. I like that word, it’s not one Americans really say a lot. It reminds me just how British he is. “I’m not gonna pretend I know what all that meant, what’s a Bakewell tart exactly?”
His eyes go wide. “You’ve never had a Bakewell?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know if it’s because of the cult thing or not, but no, I’ve never even heard of one.”
“Christ, Asher, there’s so much of the world I’d love to show you.”
I’m not sure how he means it to hit, but the words and the soft way he says them make my chest feel tight. I have to stop myself from whispering back: then do it, show me everything. I want to see everything with you.
Instead, with a small smile, I say: “Yeah? That good, are they?”
??
He talks more about his parents as I drive us out of DC.
His mother was a science teacher, chemistry and biology, and his father, an aerospace engineer.
His father had wanted to be a pilot, but a heart condition diagnosed in his teens meant that he couldn’t, so he made sure planes didn’t fall out of the sky instead.
Christian himself had wanted to be a lawyer since he was very young, though he said he couldn’t remember why.
His wife was also a human rights lawyer, but also ran a women’s charity for ten years before she died.
He was an only child, the apple of his parents’ eyes, and though he feels guilty about not seeing them enough, he loves them both dearly.
It sounds like everything he’s done since he was old enough to think was to make them proud; his law degree, his choice of university (Cambridge), his decision to specialise in human rights over what he called the ‘grittier and far less morally bankrupt’ criminal law.
He also tells me that a Bakewell tart is a British institution, and that Beechgrove Garden isn’t a type of garden but a TV show, also a British institution.
By the time we reach Baltimore, I’m sure I know everything about his parents and childhood.
I want to ask more about his wife. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the woman whose death ruined him for the rest of us, but I don’t want to upset him.
So instead, I ask about his son in the hope that the conversation travels to his wife organically.
“He wanted to play tennis,” Christian says.
“Since he was five, he wanted to be the next Nadal. And we put everything into making that happen for him. Early-morning practices, the best coaches, the best equipment, flying him to junior tournaments across the world, summer camps in Spain, and in the end, it was bad luck that stole his dream from him.”
“Injury?”
“Car accident,” he says heavily. “His leg was almost completely crushed.”
“Oh, shit.”
“He was just days away from his eighteenth birthday. We were just happy he survived, but he wished he was dead. He thought his life was over without tennis. It was devastating to watch… he just crumbled. Then a year later, he lost his mother.”
“Shit. That’s so… fucked.”
“It was hard, yes.”
“Wait, you said he’s visiting a friend who plays tennis?”
“His friend Callan, they’ve been inseparable since they were children. Callan was in the car, too, but he escaped with a few scratches and a broken jaw.”
“Must be hard for him to watch his friend live out his dream.”
Christian says nothing for a long time, looking out of the passenger window, deep in thought. “I think it must kill him a little every time he looks at him, yes.” It could be my imagination, but Christian sounds almost guilty about it.