Chapter 22
22
I should have been working on my dissertation, but I was on the Savoy’s website, examining photos of well-dressed diners, trying to figure out what to wear. The site text promised I’d be sitting in an Art Deco dining room that had welcomed Winston Churchill, Oscar Wilde, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Queen Elizabeth—though, one assumed, not all at one time. What a table that would be! Mine would be tamer: the Wilders were back in their old suite at the hotel for Pippa’s Easter break, and they’d invited me to dinner.
Mrs. Wilder had called to arrange it: second week of April, a late dinner so we’d miss the theater crowd. Then she’d passed the phone to Faye, who I hadn’t spoken to in months, though I thought of her every time I went to her closet. Faye, who would also be joining for dinner. “Bring Theo, won’t you,” she said, not really a question.
Dressing from her closet was obviously out of the question. I reasoned that spending ￡150 on an outfit was okay—only two hours’ work with my cash-in-hand North London students. I ended up with a knee-length sweater dress from Marks I could only imagine what it would be like in summer: sun and sandals every day, the pool open, the harbor full of sailboats. Pocket money, no bills, no students but Pippa. No falsehoods—I wouldn’t have to be like the pianist there, both hands working, the balancing act of pretense and practicality.
“I’d love to help with those,” I said. “Kramer has workbooks for each subject test, we can buy them online.”
“Six weeks maybe?” Mrs. Wilder said, beaming.
We were interrupted by the food; each dish was like art, thin lines of bright-colored sauces striped and swirled on the white plates. When the waiter put down my beef Wellington—a rosy red cut of beef encircled with pastry—he took pains to orient the plate just so in front of me, assuring me as he did that it was Aberdeen Angus. “That’s perfect, thanks,” I said, nodding like Scottish cows were the only ones I ever ate. Pippa grinned at me while the waiter shaved truffle over her wild mushroom linguine. She always saw right through me. Like Callum—but in her case, it only made me love her more.
I didn’t try to talk and eat, my focus locked on each perfect bite: buttery pastry, savory beef, garlicky pomme purée , with herby green accents of chimichurri. Theo, on the other hand, hardly ate. He was running the table, whipping up conversation whenever it lagged, like a half second of silence would kill him. He was always talkative, always performing his good manners, but this felt different. He got Mrs. Wilder going about the controversial Damien Hirst retrospective at the Tate Modern, and then Mr. Wilder about some iffy stock market indicators, and then Pippa about some celebrity gossip. Faye interrupted him often, adding her own thoughts, and Theo deferred to her each time, without resentment, even when they disagreed.
When the plates were cleared, Pippa voted to see the dessert menu, but Faye said it was time to go. Mrs. Wilder dismissed the three of us to our plans in Highgate. Imagining it—all of us at the Gatehouse, Faye talking about me with my new friends—my stomach began to twist. I hugged Pippa, long and sincere, and felt how much I wanted to stay here, with her. Have dessert.
But I went. And as we crossed back through the glass-domed tearoom, Faye let out a little cry of surprise. A young woman stopped short at the sound, and Faye all but leapt into her arms. “Eugenie!” she said. “Is Marta here, too?”
By the time Faye turned back to us, she was taking off her coat, leaning in for goodbye kisses. “You don’t mind, do you?” she said, not waiting for an answer. “Some old mates, from Central Saint Martins, going to the Beaufort Bar. I really should stay. Give everyone up in N6 a kiss from me.” And then she was gone.
The doorman hailed Theo and me a black cab, his umbrella enormous, enough to shelter all three of us from the drenching rain. The car nosed out onto the Strand, and I put my head against the cold window and let myself feel the relief. It went to my head, like the moment you first stand up after a strong drink. But it wasn’t giddiness—it was a clear, unequivocal answer: I couldn’t keep doing this.
I looked over at Theo, but he was texting intently, face washed blue with phone light. Inexplicably, I thought of Callum. What would he tell me to do, if I asked him? What had he called it on the Heath— unsustainable ? He was right. I’d lucked out in that case—a dry cleaner in the village had, miraculously, managed to save the linen trousers John Major muddied—but I was tempting fate every time I went to Faye’s closet. My income had increased considerably. I could afford to buy better-looking clothes, if that was important to me. Not designer, like Faye’s, but nice enough to fit in.
If I could find a quiet moment alone with Tess, if I told her the truth, what would happen? She’d be shocked, of course, but she might understand. She’d told me how hard university had been, trying to fit in when she didn’t. She might know what it feels like: to try too hard, to overstep.
Theo put his phone in his pocket and smiled up at me. “All right?” he asked, and I nodded and leaned into him. I had to solve this, but it didn’t have to be tonight.
The cab was crawling up Charing Cross Road now, through the crowds pouring from every West End theater. Theo was tracing his fingertips over the diamond pattern of my dress, stretched over my thigh, climbing ever upward. The warmth and pressure and promise of his fingers were their own sort of strong drink, their own relief.
In terms of privacy, it wasn’t as dark as I would’ve liked, every streetlamp and neon sign lighting us inside the cab. But the river of rain on the windows kaleidoscoped the light, and the drumming on the cab roof was hypnotic. I let Theo pull me into his lap, put his hands in my hair, hold my face to his, and kiss me until I forgot how strange he had been at dinner. Forgot the cab entirely, the crowds, the rain, the city humming with too much life.