The Launch Date

Chapter 15

15

It’s been four days, ninety-six excruciating hours of waiting for a message, a taunt, a plane leaving writing in the sweltering sky above my flat acknowledging that Bancroft and I swiped right on each other. Well, technically Alice swiped right on him but I seriously doubt he also has a lesbian flatmate slash dating surrogate looking for potential matches on his behalf.

In his defence, Bancroft’s communication with everyone has been limited since he said he was going away. I heard that he hasn’t been in the office for a couple of days. Apart from the Google Calendar confirmation of another trial date tonight he’s been completely MIA. And after that weird moment in the merchandise cupboard followed by an Ignite match I certainly was not going to be the first one to reach out. I just hope he doesn’t stand me up on a date he planned.

Twiddling my thumbs across my phone screen, I wait for him next to a lush green public park and listen to the birds singing at the oncoming orange sunset. After enjoying nature for about thirty seconds, I flick to my notes app and run through my “long-term tasks” to-do list:

- Ditto outreach.

I have a couple more ideas to make my presentation shine.

- Refine Ever After concept.

Despite Susie rejecting my idea I just can’t stop thinking about it.

- Find a therapist.

Once I deal with the whole can-barely-make-rent-on-current-salary thing.

When Bancroft finally arrives, he looks preoccupied. The evening sun bounces off his light stubble, which looks a couple of days old. Not that I’m keeping track of his facial hair, or his face in general.

“Everything OK?” I ask as our shoes crunch against beige gravel.

We pace slowly outside a huge white building with columns and arches making up the facade. A world away from the last two places we visited. This place looks gladiatorial, but we’re walking into battle together while being on completely opposite pages.

“Yeah, yeah...” He trails off, scratching the back of his wavy hair. I squint, trying to see the truth in his face but he averts his gaze. “Let’s go in.”

He walks up the stone stairs to the entrance of a stark white room flooded with fake natural lighting. He takes in another deep breath and rolls his shoulders back. I watch as the shiny veneer he wears at work washes over him, and just like that any hint of vulnerability is gone. Pushed back down into the depths where he keeps it, a sunken treasure chest crushed down by the pressure of a vast ocean.

“Mr. Bancroft?” asks a tall, thin woman with square glasses and a slicked-back dark ponytail that makes her look like an expensive sparrow. “And this is your girlfriend?”

“Colleague!” he almost shouts. He clears his throat and shakes her hand, transforming into his usual suave self. “This is my colleague, Grace Hastings.”

The woman turns her attention to me and holds out her jewel-adorned hand. “I’m Valentina. Welcome to Calico Gallery. So nice to meet you.”

“Thank you. Nice to meet you too.” I smile graciously and take her hand. I’m sure I’ve seen an influencer wear that gold bracelet before, and I’m also sure it costs around ￡15,000.

My unmanicured, un-bejewelled hands feel naked in comparison. This is Bancroft’s world, not mine. His pristine navy-blue suit, caramel-brown silk tie and perfectly tousled hair give him the air of effortless belonging that I could never even dream of.

“Thank you for taking the time to meet with us after hours, I know how busy you are.” Bancroft shoots her a dulled version of his schmoozing megawatt smile.

“Oh, it’s no trouble.” Valentina waves away the notion with her fifteen-grand hand, not noticing the lack of feeling behind his words. “Your mother is a generous patron; we always have time for the Bancrofts.”

I cut a sideways glance at him, catching his jaw tighten and release.

“We appreciate it,” he says, quickly changing the subject. “The gallery space is amazing. You have multiple shows running at the moment?”

“Yes, isn’t it fabulous?” she gushes. “Your users are going to adore our latest exhibition.”

She places her hand on his forearm and laughs. I’m oddly satisfied when he doesn’t respond to the touch, instead giving her a tight, closed-mouth smile.

“I’m sure they will.”

“Well,” she sighs out contentedly, clapping her hands together. “You’re right on time for this evening’s showing! If you’d like to join the group, our tour guide will take you through the exhibition, finishing in our bar with curated cocktails inspired by the works.”

I smile enthusiastically at her, feeling kind of bad she isn’t receiving the famous Bancroft charm.

“Thank you.” With a polite nod and smile he strides toward the group of a dozen art enthusiasts.

Trailing a few paces behind, I debate whether to start a conversation with him. He seems to be more interested in headbutting the wall than talking about whatever’s going on with him. Before I’m able to get a word out, we are stopped in our tracks by the huge sign with the words The Art of Self Love embossed in neon lights. My fingers shoot accusatorially out toward the sign as if it says ENTER WITH EXTREME CAUTION IF YOUR NAME IS GRACE HASTINGS .

“Is... this... what we’re seeing?”

He doesn’t meet my panicky eyes. “Yep, it’s their sold-out exhibition,” he says in a stony voice while reaching for a glass of wine left out for guests. “Ditto users will have exclusive access to the most sought-after ticket of the year.”

The chasm inside my stomach is briefly filled by warm, gooey admiration.

“That’s an amazing perk for the users... And your mum got you in?” His brief, proud smile is quickly covered by the sullen look from earlier. I hold both my hands up to the optical firing squad aiming right for me. “Hey, I would use those kinds of contacts if I had them.”

“Yeah... well, her social prowess is about the only benefit to having her as a mother, so...”

My eyebrows meet in the middle as I open my mouth in question but am immediately distracted as we turn the corner into the exhibition. Heat rises up my neck straight to my cheeks as I stand frozen at the entrance. Confidently striding forward to meet the rest of the group, Bancroft looks to his side, stops and turns around to find me standing still, taking it all in. The white room is filled to the brim with wall installations, statues on plinths and sculptures winding their way around the room. My eyes flit from a black and white photograph of a naked woman looking at her genitals in a handheld mirror, to a giant inflatable penis hanging from the ceiling with words like “inadequate” and “be a man” graffitied on it in black Sharpie, to a marble sculpture of a woman in a floral dress hugging a young girl in the same dress.

His hard face softens at the sight of me, his lips twisting into his infamous smirk. “You OK there, Hastings?”

“Fine!” Straightening my shoulders, I stomp into the room, trying to avert my gaze from the wall of clay vagina molds.

I grab a glass of wine from a marble plinth by the entrance and down it. We join the dozen people gathering around the tour guide who introduces us to the exhibition.

“Self-love is the first step in giving love out into the world. To love oneself is to see our true selves and not shy away or criticize. To look into the void through the lens of acceptance. We asked some of our favorite artists-in-residence and a few up-and-coming creatives to show us their version of self-love and self-expression. Some physical, some psychological and some metaphorical: we hope each piece brings you closer to their vision of vulnerability and internal acceptance.”

We split up, wandering the exhibition on separate sides of the room. I can’t help being aware of where Bancroft is at all times. It felt as if after that moment in the merchandise cupboard something had shifted between us, but now I’m second-guessing myself. A series of twelve self-portraits catches my eye. They span an entire wall, a spectrum of black and white flowing into bright bursts of color. The title card says the artist painted one every month after getting out of a toxic relationship. I stare at the first one, seeing something of myself in those eyes, wondering if this is what I looked like? It’s certainly how I felt: a numbness and heaviness that felt almost ironic considering I’d had something ripped from me so harshly. The text messages I sent William after he dumped me ring in my mind like a sad, desperate song. Acutely aware of Bancroft’s presence pacing closer, I blink the glaze from my eyes and cross my arms.

“I like this one.” I nod my chin to the seventh painting in the series. Colors bursting out of the bleak contrast in wide brush strokes like flowers blooming in fast motion.

“Hmmm,” he replies emptily, his mind clearly back to whatever has been bothering him.

I want to stomp my feet and smash through the awkwardness like an angry kid bashing through a Jenga tower, but settle for a softer approach. “Is your sister doing OK?”

He studies the matte white heart pattern painted across the shiny parquet wood floor.

“She was kinda shook up by the whole thing.” He pauses for a moment. “And very hungover... but I’d choose her vomiting into my ficus plant over her being sat in a jail cell.”

We both let out shaky laughter. His shoulders release some of their tension like a geyser letting off steam, instantly relaxing me by osmosis. I briefly hate myself for letting his mood affect mine so easily, resenting how connected I feel to his well-being. He turns to face me, meeting my eyes fully for the first time this evening. “Thank you again, by the way. For your help. It was... nice not to do that alone.”

“No problem,” I mumble as we move to the next painting, inching closer together, adding a cushion to this lumpy sofa of a conversation. My body braces as I ask, “Do you think your mother will change her mind about cutting Iris off?”

He downs the remaining wine and places the empty glass on the tray of a passing waiter with a nod; then he puts his hands in his navy cotton pockets and studies the floor once again.

“Hopefully, it’s been dealt with.”

He’s tensing more with each question but I push on. “Is that where you’ve been the past few days?”

He sighs a reluctant surrender as if he knows that now I’ve made a dent in him I won’t stop until I’ve hit gold.

“Yes. My mother has been in the country for the week and I had to go and convince her to restore Iris’s bank account, so she doesn’t end up moving in with her shitty friends.”

I resist expressing an opinion on what kind of mother would put their children through that, instead settling on a more tame question: “Why does she do it?”

“I think it’s her latest husband; he’s a banker in Dubai and has been talking to her about cutting Iris off for good. Our mother is more concerned about the headlines involving us than what’s actually going on in our lives.”

It’s hard to feel pity for someone with a trust fund, but I can’t help but feel sorry for them both after seeing how bad Iris’s situation was the other night. It’s as if she never had a chance to become a fully functioning adult, since she is always surrounded by people who take advantage of her.

“Could Iris live with you?” I tilt my chin up toward him.

“She’s staying with me for a few weeks but she doesn’t want to be ‘babied.’ She’s trying really hard to work things out on her own, to not have to rely on our mother anymore. But it’s hard not to still see her as a kid that needs looking after, especially with friends like that .”

After some late-night googling I already know the answer to the question I’m about to ask. Iris’s father is Lars Fender, a famous rockstar and lead singer of The Shags. A band that was huge in the nineties but has since been better known for their wild antics than their music.

“Is her dad around much?”

“Iris’s dad is always on tour. He’s fine but not exactly the strong, stable parental figure she needed growing up, or now. When she was younger our mum didn’t like her going out on the road with him, but she also didn’t pay any attention to Iris when she was at home. So, it was mostly me and a series of nameless nannies looking after her.”

I don’t know what to say so I choose silence. That’s a lie—I know what I want to say. The question that’s been eating at me since the night of the pottery class.

“How come you don’t mention her often?”

Why did you never tell me anything about her? About your family?

A muscle in his cheek twitches as he gives a light shrug. He runs a hand over his face before answering, “I love Rissy, but I don’t like to shout she’s my sister from the rooftops. She already has her own shit to deal with. She doesn’t need mine as well. Most of the time I don’t feel like explaining all the family drama. A few people know but it’s not common knowledge. It’s almost the only part of my life I’ve been able to keep private.”

The thought that he didn’t feel close enough to me to mention Iris leaves a crater-size hole in my gut.

He shifts under my gaze and I realize I’m not hiding my thoughts well.

Bancroft continues, “Our mother and Lars were a whirlwind relationship while my parents were still married. So when my mother found out she was pregnant she disappeared for a while to have Iris. Thankfully the press never really caught on.” He lets out a dead laugh. “I guess that’s a silver lining of never being actively involved in our childhoods.”

We move so that we are standing in front of a minuscule phallic statue draped in clear cellophane with a placard about size not mattering.

“And your dad?” I ask, wide-eyed.

He laughs but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “What about him?”

I’m a lion tamer creeping around the ring, waiting for the clawed swipe. “What’s... he like?”

He cuts me a sideways, narrow-eyed glance. “If you’ve read a magazine in the last twenty years you know what he’s like.”

“I’ve read some stuff .” I draw the words out; the headlines were always something along the lines of: “Architectural Tycoon Malon Bancroft breaks ground on new skyscrapers and a new wife.” “But what is he really like , you know, as a dad?”

He cringes. “Imagine Lex Luther as a father and go from there.”

I don’t laugh at the image, just expressionlessly hold his gaze until the Fabergé egg cracks open.

“I’m not a reporter. You can trust me,” I say, less confirming and more reminding him of the obvious. “You can pat me down for a wire if you want,” I offer with dead seriousness, trying to lighten his mood the only way I know how.

Bancroft smirks, amusement finally reaching his eyes. “Hastings, we’re in public.”

He eventually relents with a sigh. “As you probably already know, my dad has a reputation for getting around. When I was growing up my parents tried so hard to put on this facade of a perfect, family-run business, but they were barely living in the same house. My mother was my dad’s secretary, their relationship started as an affair, so I don’t know why, even after fifteen years together, she expected it to end any differently.”

I start to ask another question but he turns the spotlight onto me. “What about your parents—what are they like?”

I push my hair back and prepare to tell my rehearsed story. “They met in a pub on Christmas Eve. They were both from out of town but happened to be in the same place at the same time. They saw each other from across the room and it was instant, love at first sight.” I shrug my shoulders and look up to the ceiling as though Cupid is sitting there on a little cloud, ready to corroborate my story.

He tilts his head to me with a smirk. “This is very on brand for you.”

I respond with a sarcastic smile, choosing to ignore his completely correct comment and continue. Since I could comprehend full sentences, the story of how my parents met and fell in love has been told to me at least three times a year. When I moved away for university and then for work, if I ever wanted to put people in a feel-good mood I told my parents’ story. It’s my go-to real-life fairy tale, drilled into my head as the standard I should hold any relationship to. It might be cliché, but sharing the story makes me feel as if I’m slipping into fresh bedsheets. Familiar but somehow indulgent.

“They shared a kiss, but my mum’s friends dragged her out of the pub soon after—they didn’t even know each other’s names! The next year, he returned to the same pub with a secret hope of seeing her again. She was there, but she told him she now had a boyfriend. They talked all night, and danced, but nothing happened. Then the same thing the next year. That time, she was single, and he wasn’t. This happened again and again, over the course of five years . Each time something was in the way. Dad says he started imagining he’d seen her on the street, at the supermarket, at work; like he was going insane, but he knew it meant she was The One. By the sixth year, he’d decided enough was enough. He had a lot of liquid courage and confessed that one night a year with her felt better than three hundred and sixty-four days with anyone else. From that day, they never spent more than a week apart.” I take a breath, preparing for the big finish. “The pub where they kept meeting was known locally as the Grace.”

I wait for the usual reaction of swooning over my story. Instead, Bancroft scans me up and down, a robot analyzing how and why humans feel emotion.

“Cute,” he says simply.

I purse my lips, feeling my cheeks prickle. “I wouldn’t call destiny ‘cute.’”

“That’s not destiny.” He turns nonchalantly to inspect the next piece of art.

“Then what is it?” I demand, glare fixed on the light bouncing off his cheekbone.

“Two people who decided to leave it up to ‘the universe’ and be apart for five years instead of just admitting their feelings to begin with.” His gaze remains fixed on the oil painting in front of him.

“There were, like, hardly any phones back then. It’s epic and romantic!” I exclaim with a scoff.

“It’s naive,” he concludes, moving to the next piece.

I follow him, mouth open in disbelief. “You’re saying you wouldn’t wait five years for the love of your life?”

His jaw flexes as he goes to say something but stops himself, considers, and then says, “I would wait as long as it takes, but I’d still be a fool for putting myself through that kind of torture. I don’t enjoy waiting for something I want.”

“So, you’re just impatient,” I surmise flippantly, overtaking him across the floor.

“It’s not impatience. It’s practicality. If the opportunity arrives and you don’t take it, you could lose it. Gambling with that is risky.” He meets my eye. “Waiting for the stars to align perfectly could leave you with nothing.”

Leaning closer to him until our shoulders brush, I ask, “So you’ve experienced this sort of thing before?” I cock an eyebrow.

“Something like it.” He licks his bottom lip, eyes fixed on an iron statue of two naked bodies entwined. “It didn’t work out.”

Before I can ask a follow-up question the tour guide encourages us toward the next section of the gallery, which is filled with dramatic sculptures. We rejoin the group and collectively shuffle with them. I pretend to look enthusiastically at the pieces of stone, glass and metal.

“Is that what you had with your ex? A ‘grand love story?’” he asks, interrupting my processing of the weird, twisted shapes in front of us.

“I thought so, but then I was unceremoniously, post-ceremoniously dumped.” He crinkles his brow in question, so I translate, “He broke up with me at my parents’ thirtieth anniversary party.”

“Yeah, I heard... It was just before Christmas, right?”

The night at the Christmas party and the days that followed fill the space between us.

He clears his throat. “You never actually told me what happened.”

It’s not quite a question, more of a lingering statement of unfinished business between us. We’re playing conversational chicken, daring each other to pull back, to be the first to shy away from the oncoming trucks carrying our emotional loads. I take in his expression, the sharp curve of his tense jaw as he waits to see how much of myself I’m willing to reveal. I take a deep breath, and start speaking.

“He proposed in the middle of my parents’ party, in front of a hundred guests, got on the microphone and everything.”

The air around us shifts as Bancroft’s gaze grows more intense, as though he’s trying to make out the blurry memories as they replay in my mind.

“I had just finished the speech I’d been nervous about for days. About my parents, their love for each other and how true love is never really knocked off course.” I sigh. “I made people laugh in the right places, tear up a little bit, and I even had a whole slideshow packed with pictures of them from over the years. I was done and everyone was clapping. I felt like I could finally relax and enjoy the party. Only, William caught my hand, taking the mic from me—”

The gallery falls away, and I’m back on the raised platform with everyone staring up at me, smiling, sobbing, clapping. My parents were in the center of the room, wrapped around each other with such happy grins. My dad’s expression was filled with pride; my mum was dabbing at her eyes.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, guys,” William said with a wide, cheesy grin. “I’m just so happy to be here with you all and celebrating this inspiring occasion. Diane and Emmett, you have what any person wants: a teammate, reliability, someone to come home to after long, hard days at work. I only hope in thirty years’ time that I have that with your daughter.”

A chorus of empathetic noises echoed around the room as he continues, “Which is why I can’t wait any longer.”

He sank to one knee and looked up at me with hope shining in his eyes.

“Gracie, will you marry me?”

Every eye in the place was on me, but now waiting with bated breath; the warm atmosphere dissipates. I stood completely still, beetroot-red and wide-eyed. A nervous laugh from somewhere in my throat escaped me, and I pressed a hand to my chest where my heart was thudding so hard it threatened to burst through my rib cage. Before I could even register it happening, William hugged me and turned my face away from the crowd as the clapping and whoops began, shouting that I said yes.

“Did you?” Bancroft’s voice beside me makes me jump; I’d almost forgotten he was there.

“Did I what?”

“Say yes?”

“No!” I say firmly. “There was no ring, no discussion, no planning. He made this huge decision for the both of us in the moment, then held a gun loaded with societal expectation to my head, ensuring I said yes.”

Fury wells inside me as I remember how I wanted to leave, to have time to process, to think about my answer. Instead, I got bombarded with more questions. When would we be getting married? Where? What kind of wedding did we want? Could they come to the wedding? I hadn’t had time to even think about planning a wedding and all of a sudden I was discussing which of my cousin’s children would be my flower girl and what our firstborn son’s middle name would be. I couldn’t wrap my head around why he had done it there without discussing it with me first, or warning me. He knew I hated surprises, let alone a surprise life-altering decision made in front of my friends and family. A decision that would’ve ruined my parents’ thirtieth anniversary party they’d spent ages planning and spent so much money throwing had I not agreed to it.

“When we got back to my parents’ house after the party I confronted him about why he’d done it in such a public way, especially when we’d barely discussed the idea of getting married.” I chew my bottom lip. “He got annoyed, completely disregarded my questions and said I’d have time to figure out the wedding and plans for our future myself because now we were engaged I could quit my job and we could start a family.”

Bancroft’s brow scrunches in disbelief as his head whips to me. “What?”

“That’s what I said! He suddenly declared that me ‘running around the city playing career woman’ was a deal-breaker for him. I don’t know how he did it, but he turned the whole thing around on me. When I refused to bend he dumped me and told me to move out of his apartment.”

It was a flat he’d purchased when we moved to London together but he had always claimed it was mine too. His first job in the city earned him triple my intern salary, but I spent time, energy and the little money I had making it into our home. Then he kicked me out the moment I didn’t fit into his plans.

Bancroft’s jaw tightens as we drift with the group to the next painting. “How come you didn’t tell anyone when you got back to London?”

“Because even just my family knowing what happened was so humiliating. My parents have a beautiful love story and I literally went from engaged one day to single and homeless the next. The break-up was tough enough and I couldn’t hide it from people in the office. We work at a company that preaches soulmates and true love; I didn’t want people pitying me even more... so I just left out the actual reason we broke up. I couldn’t talk about it. It was too much.”

As the truth flies out of my mouth I can’t help but feel a burning sensation in my pocket where my phone is sitting. Where William’s texts are waiting.

I see the question trying not to leave Bancroft’s lips; it’s one I’ve asked myself too many times: If he’d asked you in private, would you have said yes?

“I get why you didn’t want to tell anyone...” Bancroft says instead, stepping in closer and touching my forearm, forcing my eyes up to meet his. “... but I need you to know I would never have pitied you. I just... didn’t realize it was that bad.”

He briefly glances back to the art and we move in unison to the next sculpture: a hammered metal sheet turning our reflections into shadowy figures. I shrug, staying put as the rest of the group moves to the next piece of art.

“It’s not like you and I were on speaking terms at that point.”

Hastings is a clingy psycho... not worth going there.

“No, we weren’t,” he confirms.

I hold my breath, waiting for the air to leave my brain so I’m dumb enough to ask, “What would you have done if we were?”

He huffs an empty laugh and stares at us both reflected in the carved, distorted surface. “Made sure it didn’t destroy you the way it did. Protected you from it. Tried my hardest to make sure you didn’t fall apart, and if I failed... kept the pieces safe until you were strong enough to put yourself back together.”

My entire body covers itself with goose bumps like a chameleon trying to blend in with the pointillist painting next to me. Eyes stinging, I turn to face the wall.

A hand lands on my shoulder as he takes a deep breath, the heat from his body radiating through my thin cotton shirt as he comes in closer to whisper, “Grace, I—”

“Everything OK in the back there, folks? You’re lagging behind!” The tour guide laughs as the entire group turns around to inspect and glare at the stragglers.

“Uh-huh!” I reply immediately, wiping the moisture from underneath my eyes.

Bancroft’s hands slide into his pockets and he takes a half step backward, his head down. “Just so moved... by the work!”

I laugh nervously and nod, confirming Bancroft’s cover story.

“Oh!” The guide waves a hand and laughs gutturally. “Not the first time—take as long as you need.”

“It’s fine. I think we’ve recovered now.” Bancroft gives me a tight smile as we follow the group to the next painting.