Chapter 16
16
There had been much debating and amicable bickering about the best plan of action between Rosie and Anthony on the road trip back to the West Village that night. And now Anthony had taken matters into his own hands and decided to ask around among his restaurant industry contacts to see if anyone recognised the cartoon cow head logo.
‘Leave it with me, Dee, I got this!’ Anthony said out loud through the speaker of Deedee’s phone, which was on a cabinet in her bedroom. Gina was doing the zip up on the back of the silver jumpsuit that Deedee was wearing to dinner with Yiannis later on, and Rosie was lounging on the bed.
‘And I’m looking online!’ Rosie yelled out. ‘At all the restaurants and diners in Brooklyn. I’ve made a list from Tripadvisor and I’m now going to check all the websites until I find one with a cow’s head logo on it.’
‘Well, if you want to waste your time that’s up to you, doll, but I already have some leads.’
‘Actually, I do too,’ quipped Rosie with a smirk on her face.
‘I guarantee I will find Lara before you do.’
‘Actually, I’m already on that too and have a list of lots of Lara’s living in the Brooklyn area,’ Rosie retaliated.
‘OK you two, no need to argue about it,’ Gina jumped in. ‘We get it… you both want to be the one to solve the mystery of the unknown woman and help Deedee.’
‘And I do appreciate it, but as Gina said… there’s no need to fight,’ Deedee said, laughing after she thanked Gina and turned around. ‘Of course, I’m intrigued to know who the woman was, but we don’t actually know that she is even called Lara—’ Deedee stopped and looked at Rosie who was off the bed now and standing squarely in front of the phone trying to stare down Anthony on the screen.
‘Exactly,’ he said, doing his best to wind Rosie up by spreading a smarmy smile across his face and blowing her an air kiss.
‘Or that she even works in this place with a cow’s head logo!’ Deedee cut in, giving him an equally smarmy smile. ‘Come on, please play nicely… I thought you two were new BFFs.’
‘We are!’ They both chorused.
‘Right, in that case then, why don’t you team up and try to find the woman together? Or better still, the four of us could draw up a list and all go out to look around tomorrow?—’
‘No, no… you just enjoy your date with Yiannis!’ Anthony said quickly.
‘It’s not a date,’ Deedee corrected him, even more quickly. ‘And I know what you’re trying to do, Anthony!’
‘What do you mean?’ he feigned innocence, but she knew he was involved in the ridiculous scheme to ‘take care of lonely old Deedee’.
‘You know what I mean. You and Karl, colluding with your shenanigans. And Yiannis. And you’ve roped in Cleo and most likely Elena too…’ Deedee narrowed her eyes as she leaned into the phone to scrutinise him before turning away and walking over to the other side of the room where the mirror was to zhuzh her hair into place with her usual serum and sea salt spray routine.
Deedee had been thinking more about her feelings for Yiannis and knew she loved him deeply and that physically he was a very attractive man, but no matter which way she approached it she kept coming back to the same conclusions… she didn’t want to risk ruining their friendship and, anyway, she was still in love with Joe. She always would be. And there was just no way she could see herself betraying him. Not even if they did manage to track down the mystery woman and it turned out that she had been involved with Joe in some illicit affair or whatever, it would never stop her loving him. Yes, she might then be angry with Joe, but he was gone and so there was no point in harbouring hurtful feelings that she couldn’t talk to him about… it would just turn her into a bitter old woman, and she’d sooner grow old gracefully than live the rest of her life in a spiral of negativity that would tarnish all the wonderful memories she cherished with him. But it had also occurred to her that if the woman had been involved with Joe then surely she would have had his phone number, known he was a casting agent or as a minimum would have known his second name, surely. Every woman Deedee knew could find out absolutely everything about someone within seconds just from googling basic details or searching socials so why didn’t the woman already know that Joe had died? It was right there on the first page of a search result under his name in various movie industry updates. So it seemed to Deedee that whatever went on between the mystery woman and her late husband couldn’t have been anything serious surely – a one-night stand perhaps, and yes she had considered the possibility that Joe might have taken the woman to the beach house so that was her only connection to him. Or it could be that the whole thing was entirely innocent, and the woman was just looking for a man called Joe for some other reason. And that’s where Deedee got stuck! Because what other reason could there be to keep going to an empty beach house on the off-chance that Joe just might happen to be there? Hmm, there was definitely something odd about the whole encounter.
‘Deedee, please will you stop spritzing your hair and tell Rosie that I have no idea what you’re talking about – I haven’t been “colluding”! I’m your best friend,’ Anthony said, bringing Deedee’s thoughts back to the moment. Putting the bottle of sea salt spray down, she turned and walked back across the room to the phone screen.
‘Hmm, I’m going to be seventy, not senile, darling, and I don’t need my friends feeling sorry for me and setting me up on pity dates!’
‘Oh, Dee, Yiannis isn’t taking you on a pity date! He’s always carried a torch for you,’ Anthony started, echoing Cleo’s words in the restaurant yesterday. ‘But you were with Luca until recently soooo…’ He shrugged. ‘Well, Yiannis wasn’t going to tread on his toes, bro code and all that.’
‘Darling, what are you going on about? Bro code? You sound as silly as Karl did with his “situationship” nonsense.’ She rolled her eyes and shook her head as she saw Gina and Rosie looking back and forth at her and Anthony on the screen like they were watching a tennis match and following the ball. ‘And what’s Luca got to do with it? You all know that was just a casual thing. It’s not like I was in a serious relationship with him, so what’s your point?’
‘The point is that Yiannis would never do that, purposefully disrupt any of your relationships… friends with benefits things, or whatever it was you had going on with Luca,’ Anthony replied. ‘Because those were your choices and he’s always respected them. Just like he was totally respectful of your marriage to Joe, he knew it was solid, you were happy and 100 per cent in love and he was never going to jeopardise any of that for you. He loves you and has always wanted the best for you. We all do.’
‘Hmm, well, I’ll decide what’s best for me, thank you,’ Deedee quipped.
‘Of course, absolutely you should, and sorry if I made it sound all about Yiannis, that’s not my intention. It’s more that we think you have always loved him a bit too!’
Silence followed.
Deedee lifted the red Chanel out of the dust bag and proceeded to transfer her wallet, make-up and other essentials from her usual day bag into it before slipping it over her shoulder, remembering Karl’s words to ‘keep an open heart’ and ‘see where the night takes you’, which she had every intention of doing, by looking Yiannis directly in the eye and asking him exactly what was going on.
‘Dee, angel…’ Anthony said in a gentler voice, ‘please don’t ignore me.’
She faced the phone screen square on. ‘I have to go now. Yiannis, aka my dear purely platonic friend will be here soon.’ Deedee blew Anthony a kiss goodbye before ending the call. Turning to her two friends, she asked, ‘Did you know what they were up to? Are you both in on it too?’
‘No, absolutely not,’ Gina said immediately, while Rosie looked shifty before admitting, ‘Well, yes, Anthony did mention something yesterday when we were at Athena, but it was discreet, just a comment, something like you and Yiannis having the longest love story ever, I can’t remember exactly…’
‘I knew they were up to something!’ Deedee huffed and went to leave the room. Rosie ran after her and touched her arm.
‘Deedee, they just mean well, Karl and Anthony, there was no mention of a “pity date”, I promise you. It seemed to me that Anthony was genuinely pleased when he heard you and Yiannis were going on a date at all.’ Deedee didn’t bother to correct her friend this time. What was the point when they had all made up their minds that’s what tonight was.
‘A woman can be happy on her own. I’m very independent and don’t need a man to make me happy,’ Deedee said.
‘Of course she can, but romance is nice too… Don’t we all want love? I see it every day in my work as a wedding planner and can I be absolutely truthful with you?’ Rosie asked.
‘Please do,’ Deedee said curtly, tightly clasping the chain strap of the handbag hanging from her shoulder.
‘The first time I saw you and Yiannis together on his boat in Greece last summer I truly thought you were already romantically involved. That you were lovers. Just the way you were together, the spark between you both, the charisma and chemistry, it’s pretty tangible… at times I almost felt like I was intruding, that it was a private affair, a bubble of oblivion that you were both content to be in,’ she sighed, before falling silent with a worried look on her face.
Deedee stared open-mouthed, trying to process what Rosie was saying, her observation. Perception. Was that how they all saw her and Yiannis? And more worryingly, had Joe seen it like that too? He had never said anything. Not ever, but still… Her thoughts cycled back to the mystery woman, immediately wondering if Joe had turned to her because he’d had doubts about his wife’s friendship with her ‘old flame’! Tangible chemistry. A private affair. Oh God! A cold shiver ran a path down the length of her spine.
A knock on the door made Deedee jump. Yiannis was here. And for the first time in decades, she suddenly became acutely aware of feeling nervous to see him, her stomach doing flips as somehow things seemed a bit different now. She still felt muddled and knew she needed to have a proper conversation with him, and it was going to be difficult. She didn’t want to hurt him. But it wasn’t fair to let him carry on keeping that torch alight, not when her heart was still with Joe. No matter how she might really feel about Yiannis. And to her surprise, her eyes became scratchy in the corners with the threat of tears in an unexpected swell of bittersweet emotion because she knew that what Anthony had said was true… she had always been a bit in love with Yiannis. But it wasn’t right to be… her loyalty was to Joe.
Fortunately, the tears didn’t splash onto her face and she was able to turn away from Rosie and dab a finger at the corners of her eyes to discreetly stem them. She needed to pull herself together. He was here. There was no time to think right now and so she would do what she always did and put on a brave face, until she was alone with Yiannis and could ask him outright. She left the room and walked into the hallway. Rosie followed.
‘Deedee, I’m sorry… I feel like I’ve said something wrong, and I don’t want you to go out for dinner on a down note.’ Rosie gently touched Deedee’s arm. ‘Is it the grief… that you talked about the other day? Are you feeling Joe’s loss more acutely while you’re here in New York? I remember you saying in one of our WhatsApp chats that this is where you feel closest to him. And I wondered if this is why you were short with Anthony just now when he talked about you and Yiannis.’
Deedee stopped moving. Took a beat and then turned around to face her friend.
‘Yes. I—’ she paused, trying to pick the right words.
‘It’s OK,’ Rosie said. ‘I get it.’
‘You do?’ Deedee asked, the note of hope clear in her voice. Rosie nodded, smiling kindly.
‘It’s just… taken me by surprise, I guess. Joe died four years ago. You’d think I would have moved on by now,’ Deedee added flippantly, shaking her head and momentarily closing her eyes.
‘Deedee, when my dad died, I went to a grief counsellor. School arranged it for me as I wasn’t coping very well, and this was a good few years after he died. Teenage hormones had kicked in and my mind was all over the place. The counsellor told me something that has always stuck with me…’ she paused.
‘Go on,’ Deedee said, her voice softer now.
‘We don’t move on, we move forward!’ Rosie fell silent momentarily as if to let the meaning of the words sink in. ‘There’s a difference. So please go easy on yourself. We are the sum of all our experiences. You don’t ever have to leave Joe behind; you just take him forward with you…’
Deedee nodded slowly, reaching a hand out to touch her friend’s arm. But Rosie moved closer and pulled Deedee into a hug.
‘When did you get so wise?’ Deedee smiled, letting Rosie go and gently squeezing her hand. The two women stood together in silence for a second. ‘Let’s talk later, I should go.’ Deedee gestured over her shoulder to the door knowing Yiannis was waiting.
‘Um, shall I let Yiannis in?’ Gina suddenly called out from the lounge. ‘Only he’s standing back in the road looking up at the house with a posy of flowers in one hand from what I can see. And he looks incredibly hot and extra McDreamy, and also a bit like Richard Gere in that balcony scene at the end of Pretty Woman when he arrives wearing the gorgeous suit with a bunch of flowers.’ Both women dashed into the lounge and ran over to where Gina was at the window to see for themselves.
‘Oh, wow,’ Rosie gasped as Yiannis saw them all looking out and lifted his arms up wide, grinning from ear to ear. ‘Now this is a magical movie moment, although technically Pretty Woman is set in Hollywood so not New York, but still, it’s pretty special.’ Rosie turned to Deedee, ‘Now go… and remember we move forward . And you’re allowed to enjoy a date, it doesn’t mean you’re betraying Joe, or that you have to forget him!’ Deedee opened her mouth to protest but hesitated and decided to let it be… keep an open heart, she remembered, running a finger over the soft leather of the Chanel bag that her dear friends had gifted to her with love.