Chapter 7
Chapter seven
Lucy
After Juliet had left the kitchen, Lucy had sat at the table for a good fifteen minutes, staring into space, her mind spinning without snagging on any coherent thought.
Then she’d gotten up, tidied the remains of their meal, and tiptoed upstairs to her room, even though she’d known there was no one else in the house.
She’d heard Juliet calling to the dogs and then the slam of the door.
Alone in her bedroom, she decided to tidy up there too.
It wasn’t until she’d folded all her clothes away, had thrown out the crumpled receipts and gum from her trip, and was sitting on the edge of her bed that she realized what she’d done.
She’d just tried to erase all signs of her presence in Juliet’s house. Because Juliet didn’t want her here.
It hadn’t been her imagination; her half sister actually did resent her. She may have wanted you, but she never wanted me.
Was that true? It shamed her that she’d never really thought about her mother’s relationship, or lack of it, with Juliet.
And it made her feel like laughing or tearing her hair out or both, because Juliet might think Fiona had wanted her, but Lucy had never felt all that wanted.
Her whole childhood had felt like an apology for messing up her mother’s life.
And Juliet probably felt the same. Perhaps they had something in common, even if her half sister didn’t think they did.
But she could hardly go explaining that to Juliet now. She didn’t even want to face her, and the anger and contempt she’d seen so plainly on her face when Lucy had thought they’d been enjoying a pleasant dinner together.
With a sigh she reached for her laptop. She didn’t care anymore that her life here in Hartley-by-the-Sea wasn’t as promising as she’d hoped it would be. She needed to talk to a friend.
It took three attempts on Skype to reach Chloe, who was, Lucy realized belatedly, at work at two o’clock on a Thursday afternoon.
“Luce.” The Internet connection was so slow that while Lucy could hear Chloe’s voice, her friend’s face was frozen in a smiling rictus, her eyebrows drawn together in concern. “What’s up? You know I’m at work, right?”
“Sorry, I forgot the time difference.”
“It’s okay. I’m taking a late lunch. I’ve been thinking about you. How’s village life? As charming as you hoped?”
Briefly Lucy remembered talking with determined airiness about the appeal of English villages. She’d been picturing something vaguely Shakespearean in the Cotswolds, all thatched roofs and clotted cream.
“‘Charming’ isn’t exactly the word I’d use,” she said. Even though Chloe’s image was still frozen on the computer screen, Lucy heard a tiny sigh, and then Chloe shifting her chair.
“You need to give yourself some time to settle in, Luce. How’s the job?”
Lucy thought of Alex yelling at her about the stupid card stock.
“Not great. But that’s not really it. . .
.” She trailed off, realizing that she didn’t actually want to tell Chloe about Juliet, or what she’d said.
It felt disloyal, as if it wasn’t her secret to share.
“It’s just a bit more awkward than I expected. ”
“Well, it’s bound to be, isn’t it? You and Juliet barely know each other.
” Chloe spoke bracingly, the way she always did, but it irritated Lucy now.
She didn’t want a pep talk. She wanted sympathy.
She wanted to do the one thing she’d tried to keep herself from, which was to luxuriate in self-pity.
To stop looking for the bright side and wallow in the darkness instead.
“I’m not sure she wants to get to know me,” she said finally.
She pictured Juliet’s face right before she’d stalked out of the kitchen.
Lucy had never seen such an expression of resentment and loathing before.
Her mother might have used her as publicity fodder, and her boyfriend of three years might have broken up with her with no more than a shrug of apology, but neither of them had looked at her as Juliet had.
“She invited you,” Chloe protested reasonably. “So she must want you there.”
“That’s what I thought.” Lucy tried for a laugh and didn’t quite succeed. “But honestly? I have no idea why she invited me. She certainly isn’t acting like she wants me here. At all.”
“Then maybe you should ask her. Get to the bottom of this.”
Which would, of course, be Chloe’s advice.
Chloe was confrontational, even aggressive.
She’d faced down their smarmy landlord when the loft conversion they’d rented in South Boston during college hadn’t actually been all that converted.
Lucy had hidden behind a stack of old copper piping and watched a huge rat waddle across the floor of their stripped apartment.
“I can’t,” she said.
“Why not? What have you got to lose?”
“A place to live? Seriously, Chloe. I think Juliet is more than half-inclined to boot me out.”
“Why? What happened?”
“It’s . . . just a feeling,” Lucy said, knowing she was being lame.
On the screen Chloe’s image had unfrozen and then frozen again, so she was stuck in mid–eye roll.
She should have known better than to expect unquestioning sympathy from Chloe.
“It’ll get better, I suppose,” she said with absolutely no conviction.
“It will if you try,” Chloe said. “Maybe this is a chance for you to get to know your sister properly.”
“I thought that when I came, but honestly, Chloe, she’s not—”
“Get to the bottom of what happened between you two—”
“Nothing happened. Before I came here, we had maybe five conversations total.”
“And why was that?” Chloe pressed, and Lucy slumped back against the bed, a pillow clutched to her chest.
“Because I don’t think Juliet was ever interested in knowing me.”
“But she invited you, so something must have changed. Maybe there’s some tension, but there’s also opportunity.”
Chloe always saw opportunity. They’d been friends since they were eighteen and as the years had gone on, Lucy had fallen further and further behind in the opportunity stakes.
Chloe had graduated from Boston University summa cum laude; Lucy had barely scraped a 3.
0. Chloe had gone to grad school; Lucy had started as a barista.
And now Chloe had some high-flying job in marketing and her own office, and Lucy had . . .
A temporary job and a sister who hated her.
“All I’m saying,” Chloe persevered, “is try to see the bright side—”
“I’ve been seeing the bright side my whole life,” Lucy cut across her. “You know that. But maybe there isn’t one here. Maybe I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere, England, with a sister and a boss who hate me. And it’s freezing here, by the way. And it rains. Constantly.”
Chloe cocked her head. “Finished?”
“No, I haven’t mentioned the wind. It is so windy I am doomed to have a bad hair day for the next four months.”
“Now, that sucks.”
Lucy let out a little laugh. She couldn’t hold on to her self-pity for long. “Yes, it does suck. Majorly.”
Chloe was silent for a moment, and Lucy wasn’t sure it was due to the lag in the Internet connection. “You don’t think things could get better with Juliet?” she finally asked.
“I don’t know if I want to try.” Chloe’s image had unfrozen again and she saw her glance at her watch. Lucy straightened and tossed the pillow she’d been clutching back on the bed. “I know you have to go. Thanks for listening.”
“Okay. Hang in there. Skype me on Saturday. I’ll only be at the office until lunchtime.”
“Right.” When the call had ended and Chloe’s image faded to black, Lucy felt the silent emptiness of the house around her once more. She hugged her knees to her chest as she considered, reluctantly, what Chloe had suggested.
Could she talk to Juliet about what had happened with their mother? Should she apologize?
For what? Being born?
She felt a surge of anger, a sudden white-hot flare of feeling, because it wasn’t her fault that Fiona had decided to go the sperm donor route and have another baby.
Juliet shouldn’t blame her for their mother’s choices, but she had no idea how to make her feel otherwise.
How did you reconcile with someone who resented your very existence?
Lucy fell asleep some time towards ten; she’d heard Juliet come in and the sound of her bedroom door closing, but she didn’t move from her bed. She just wriggled out of her bra, peeled back the duvet, and snuggled down, content to let the world slip away.
She woke up to the shocking reality of bright sunshine pouring through the window, her cheek stuck to her pillow by drool, and the clock on the bedside table glaring at her accusingly. It was four minutes past eight.
She bolted upright as if she’d been electrocuted, then scrabbled for some clothes. There was a terrible taste in her mouth and she could feel her hair sticking up in about eight different directions. Talk about a bad hair day.
A bad everything day, she decided when she clattered downstairs and grabbed a banana from the bowl on the kitchen table.
Both Juliet and the dogs were gone. Lucy grimaced at her reflection in the hall mirror; she’d pulled her hair into a messy bun and grabbed the first clothes she’d found, which had been her lemon skirt, an aqua top, and the purple tights that had seemed to offend Juliet.
Not the most coordinated of outfits, and Alex Kincaid would probably have something to say about it, but for once in her life she was past caring.
She was late enough that pupils and their parents were already heading up to the school in a steady stream, so Lucy joined the harried mothers pushing strollers or checking their phones or both.
A few gave her distracted smiles, and as she turned up the little lane, someone waist-high reached for her hand.
“Morning, Miss Bagshaw.”
Lucy blinked down at Eva, the little girl who had scraped her knee the day before.
“Hello, Eva,” she said, and squeezed her hand lightly. “How’s the knee?”