Chapter 11
The executive car’s punnet of penny sweets lasted exactly five minutes before I caved.
Despite leaving with plenty of time, I was still wolfing down Flying Saucers and Fruit Salads in lieu of actual breakfast, determined to beat Eliza to the airport and avoid that look.
The one that made me feel I was already failing before I’d even started.
My phone chimed as I extracted half a Fruit Salad from my molars.
En route, hope you are too and not still sleeping.
The assumption stung.
Race you there. Loser buys coffee.
I was trying to sound breezy.
She replied with a runner emoji.
Typical Eliza: economical even with her emojis.
I grinned at the empty motorway flying past, feeling genuinely competitive for the first time in months. Maybe it was pathetic, but I wanted to prove something to her. That I wasn't the chaotic mess she still partly thought I was.
Five miles to the airport, confidence coursing through me, I made the mistake of scrolling through Eliza’s Instagram.
It was a sterile wasteland of professional shots that revealed absolutely nothing personal.
There was private, then there was this. Like she’d surgically removed any trace of humanity from her online presence.
I found a three-year-old post of her and Michelle at some Highgate gallery opening, both polished and radiating the kind of effortless sophistication I’d never master.
They looked perfect together. Michelle’s arm draped casually around Eliza’s waist, both of them smiling with practiced ease.
Eighteen months later they were divorced, so clearly that perfection was an illusion. Had Eliza been performing even then?
I zoomed in on their faces, searching for hairline cracks in their facade, when the car lurched with a violent bang.
“What was that?” Panic shot through me immediately.
“Not sure,” the driver replied, his tone tense. “But something is dragging.”
Not now.
I bet Michelle was always on time.
We limped onto the hard shoulder beside an SOS phone. Cars thundered past, making our Peugeot rock in their wake. If Eliza wanted evidence I was unreliable, here it was.
Half an hour later, still stranded, my competitive spirit had curdled into a custard of dread. I could already hear Eliza’s internal monologue: She says she’s serious, but is she really?
I texted my sister first.
Find my body in New York if Eliza kills me.
Then, swallowing what remained of my pride, I messaged her.
Car died. Going to be late. Please don’t murder me.
Her reply was swift.
It only happens to you, Poppy.
An hour later, rescued by a tow truck, I rushed through the terminal with my heart slamming into my sternum.
I found Eliza at Pret, and even scowling she was beautiful.
Her hair was perfectly styled despite the early hour, and her posture oozed controlled irritation.
The realisation hit me: I actually wanted her to like me.
Not just professionally, but as a person. I wanted her approval.
“I’m so sorry.” I hated how flustered I sounded. “The car literally broke down. I was stuck on the hard shoulder with lorries flying past at full speed. It was pretty hairy.”
“I know it wasn’t your fault.” However, her tone suggested she thought the universe conspired differently around me. “But shit happens in business. You have to be early, be prepared, have contingency plans.”
Heat flashed through me, born of embarrassment and frustration. “I don’t need a punctuality lecture like you’re head girl and I’m some hopeless first-year.”
“I was head girl.”
I rolled my eyes. “I know. I was there, remember?”
I recalled how she’d commanded respect even then, how she’d always been kind when she didn’t have to be. How she’d made everyone feel like they mattered.
Somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten all of that.
I’d fallen asleep on the flight as I always did, and woke with my head on Eliza’s shoulder.
I’d also dribbled on her jumper, much to my horror.
But when I lifted my face, bracing for the scowl I deserved, her mouth had a slight upturn and her eyes sparkled with actual humour.
Relief flooded through me like warm honey.
Our cab driver from LaGuardia was the essence of New York, grunting responses and scowling when we wanted to pay by card instead of cash.
At least our Tribeca hotel looked decent; my PA had done a bang-up job. The lobby was all exposed brick, slate and Edison bulbs, industrial chic to the max. After a shower and fresh clothes, it was almost as if my body clock hadn’t been brutally assaulted by a five-hour time difference.
The hotel bar was dimly lit with copper fixtures and too many succulents, buzzing amid a sea of designer trainers. I was simultaneously underdressed and overdressed, which seemed to be my default state around Eliza.
“I’m sorry about being shitty earlier,” Eliza said once we’d claimed two velvet bar stools that spun delightfully. “Punctuality is a bugbear of mine. But I know some things can’t be helped.”
I shook my head. “No problem. Shall we get a cocktail and drink to this trip’s success?”
Mine arrived first, a Pink Gin Spritz that looked like liquid confidence in a glass. Eliza’s Old Fashioned followed, amber and serious, which seemed fitting.
Eliza was twitchy, not her usual composed self. She kept scanning the room like she was expecting an ambush, her fingers drumming against her glass. I had a hunch I knew why.
“Does Michelle live anywhere near here?”
At her ex’s name, Eliza flinched, spine straightening like someone had yanked a cord. She glanced at me without quite meeting my eyes.
“Not directly, no. But she works in SoHo. There are some cool places around here. It’s not impossible she might turn up.”
“Here? In this overpriced hipster paradise?” My tone made it clear I thought that was bollocks.
She gave me a tight smile. “You’d be surprised.
Michelle always knew the right places.” There was something wistful in her voice that irritated me.
“I guess I’m just nervous. This is the first time I’ve been here without telling her or arranging to meet.
Is it weird I feel like I’m somehow betraying her? ”
“A little, when you’ve been divorced as long as you have. Plus, unless she’s stalking hotel bars, you’re probably safe.”
“This place is full of New Yorkers, believe me.” She gestured at a table of impossibly cool women in vintage leather jackets who looked like they’d stepped out of a magazine.
“The more important thing is why you’re feeling like this. Why you never made a clean break. Why you’re sleeping together. Are you still in love with her?”
Eliza frowned, then shook her head. “Definitely not. But she was my person for a good few years, you know? I guess I miss that.” She took a slug of her drink. “Plus, you know what lesbians are like. We all stay friends with our exes.”
I smiled. “I don’t.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. You don’t even stay friends with your friends.”
I widened my eyes. Eliza was hurt by the time we’d spent apart, too? It was good to know it wasn’t just me. She was opening up to me, being vulnerable. Perhaps I could do it with her, too.
Maybe.
Sometime in the future.
“You’re not still pining for your ex?” I had to be sure.
She shook her head again. “I’m not that pathetic.”
“Is sleeping with her every time you’re here doing you any good?” I already knew the answer, but I wanted her to realise it.
“Of course not.” She took a large gulp of her drink, wincing slightly.
“But we were still attracted to each other even after everything fell apart. We kept hooking up because it was easier than actually dealing with the mess we’d made.
And yes, I know how pathetic that sounds.
But we still worked in bed. It seemed a shame to let that go just because everything else had dwindled. ”
“Did you cheat on her?”
“Not with a person. With my work. I was never there. I prioritised every client meeting, every late night at the office, every family crisis over her. She used to joke she was married to a ghost.”
The pain in her voice was raw, unguarded. I felt an unexpected urge to reach across and cover her hand with mine.
“Did she cheat on you?”
She shook her head, but there was hesitation. “Not really. I mean, I think she slept with other people towards the end, but I’d already emotionally abandoned ship by then.”
“You were still married, though.” She was being a little too forgiving for my liking.
“In name. Nothing else. We were like polite strangers sharing a mortgage. And now, we’re not.”
The rawness in her voice made me want to know everything. How they’d met, when it had started going wrong, whether she’d fought for it or just let it slip away.
“How long were you together in total?”
“Five years. Two years of happiness, one year planning a wedding that felt sort of forced, then nearly two years of stubborn denial we could fix it.”
“Was it just work that killed it?”
Eliza twisted her mouth like she was tasting something bitter.
“Work was the symptom, not the disease. It was family values. Michelle thought getting married meant creating this insular little bubble, just the two of us against the world. She couldn’t understand that my family was part of the package. ”
“That must have been lonely.”
“Incredibly. I mean, my dad winds me up at times, but I still want to see him. I felt like I was constantly choosing between the people I loved, and my mum got upset by it. Michelle always made it feel like choosing her meant abandoning everyone else.”
“But you still miss her?”
“I miss the idea of her. The version of us that existed before we became so bloody toxic.” She stared into her drink like it might hold answers. “But coming here without telling her feels like cutting the last thread, and that’s terrifying and liberating in equal measure.”
Something in her vulnerability made me brave. “What’s the lesbian equivalent of cock-blocking? Because I’ll be that for you.”
She laughed for the first time all day. The sound was a relief.
“Clam-jamming?” she offered.
I made the face that deserved. “Whatever it is, I’m on it.”
She stared at me for longer than was strictly allowed, and the corners of her mouth turned upwards. “Thanks. I appreciate that. But enough of my romantic disasters. How are you feeling about meeting Roka tomorrow?”
“I’m bricking it,” I admitted, grateful for the subject change.
“It’s mad we’re doing this at all. Three months ago, I was still working in my old job.
Now, I’m meeting a pop star in Central Park like I’m in an episode of Friends.
Hopefully not the one where everything goes wrong.
I keep running through my pitch, but I think it all comes down to chemistry. Whether she actually likes us.”
“We’re all queer. That’s got to count for something.”
“True, though she’s fresh off a very public breakup with that supermodel. I can’t imagine having your heart splattered across every gossip site in the world.”
Eliza winced. “Just don’t mention the ex. Or any exes, including mine. Let’s keep it professional.”
“Obviously.”
I thought about my chat with Margot before I flew. Her patronising looks and pats on my arm.
“Margot thinks I’m completely delusional, you know. She hasn’t said it outright, but I can tell. She thinks this is some elaborate fangirl moment disguised as a business strategy.”
Eliza rolled her eyes. “Dad’s the same, and I’m not used to that.
He normally trusts me, but I can tell he thinks this whole project is ridiculous.
He gets this look: like he’s watching me play with toy cars while the house burns down.
He thinks we’re idiots for flying across the Atlantic on what he calls ‘a whim’. ”
“Maybe we are idiots.” I raised my glass, feeling reckless. “But we’re idiots with a plan. And sometimes the biggest risks pay off the most spectacularly.”
“Or they go down in flames.”
“Either way, it’ll make a good story.” The alcohol was making me philosophical. “Here’s to tomorrow, and to proving everyone wrong.”