Chapter Twenty-Nine
Shay's flat smelled like incense. Elliott hated it.
She'd been camped on Shay's sofa for three days now, surrounded by throw cushions in aggressive shades of coral and teal, trying to work on her cookbook and failing spectacularly.
Every time she opened her laptop, she saw Julia's face.
Julia laughing at one of Elliott's grumpy observations.
Julia covered in flour after another baking disaster.
Julia looking at her like she was something worth believing in.
Pathetic. She was pathetic.
"You need to eat something." Shay appeared from the kitchen holding a bowl of what looked like cereal but probably had chia seeds in it. Elliott hated chia seeds. "You've been staring at that screen for two hours, and I haven't seen you type a single word."
"I typed three words."
"Which were?"
Elliott didn’t have an answer to that. She couldn’t remember, to be honest. Whatever the words were, she’d deleted them immediately. They’d been unnecessary.
Shay settled onto the arm of the sofa, looking concerned and amused at the same time. It was a talent. "The cookbook is finished, El. You told me it was finished days ago. What are you even trying to do?"
"Make it better." Elliott pulled her knees up to her chest, feeling approximately twelve years old and hating that too. "The photography isn't right. The recipes need more testing. The whole thing is probably rubbish anyway."
"The whole thing is brilliant, and you know it." Shay poked her with a socked foot. "You're just looking for excuses not to send it anywhere because then you'd have to actually deal with what comes next."
"Thank you for that psychological insight. Have you considered a career in therapy?"
"I've considered a career in everything. Currently, I'm considering a career in professional polyamory, which is apparently a thing now." Shay grinned. "Speaking of which, update on the love triangle situation."
Elliott groaned. "I really don't need to hear about your romantic chaos right now."
"Yes, you do. It'll make you feel better about your own mess." Shay tucked her legs underneath her, settling in for what was clearly going to be a lengthy story. "So, remember how I had dinner with Sam and then accidentally with Jo as well?"
"I remember something of the sort." She didn’t need this, didn’t need Shay’s optimism.
"Well, they found out." Shay paused dramatically. "And they're both fine with it."
Elliott blinked. "What?"
"Apparently Sam has been seeing someone else too, and Jo said they’d been meaning to bring up the whole non-monogamy conversation anyway, so really I just… accelerated the timeline." Shay beamed like she'd solved world hunger. "We're all having dinner on Saturday. Like, together."
"That sounds… exhausting." Trust Shay to have everything work out in the end.
"It sounds like an adventure." Shay tilted her head, studying Elliott. "Not everyone is out to hurt you, you know. Sometimes people surprise you in good ways."
Elliott looked away. "And sometimes they send your manuscript to their famous mother without asking and treat you like a charity case."
"Mmm." Shay's voice softened. "Did she, though? Treat you like a charity case?"
"She went behind my back."
"Because she knew you'd say no."
"Exactly! It was my choice to make!"
"Was it?" Shay asked quietly. "Or were you just going to say no to everything forever because it's easier than admitting you need people?
Were you really just going to take hundreds of photos of the same recipe, even though the first one you took was perfect, just to put off the moment when you actually had to risk something? "
Elliott didn't have an answer for that. She pulled a cushion into her lap and started picking at its fringe, the textile equivalent of biting your nails, but she didn't care. "How do you do it?" she asked finally, soft and small.
"Do what? The polyamory thing? Well, step one is communication, which ironically I'm quite bad at in the beginning, but—"
"No," Elliott interrupted. "How do you just… let people in? All the time, knowing they could destroy you?" She picked harder at the fringe. "Sam could break your heart. Jo could decide you're too much work. This whole dinner could blow up in your face. How do you keep doing it anyway?"
Shay was quiet for a long moment. When Elliott looked up, her friend's expression had gone serious, which happened so rarely it was almost alarming. "I don’t know," she said finally, honestly. "All I can tell you is that there’s no reward without risk. And that life without any reward is… boring."
"It’s safe."
"But boring," Shay said again. She put a hand on Elliott’s shoulder. "Now get off my couch and go outside. Take a walk or something. You’re beginning to turn transparent it’s been so long since you’ve seen the sun."
So, much against her will, Elliott left the flat.
SHE HADN’T PLANNED on it, but when she got to the retirement home, she realized that probably she’d intended to go there all along. Intended to see Milly, to look for some kind of solace. The place smelled like industrial cleaner and slightly burned toast.
She found Milly in the common room, holding court from her armchair like a tiny, white-haired queen. Two other residents were listening raptly as she described something that involved a lot of hand gestures.
"—and then the vicar said, 'Madam, that's not a christening gown, that's a tablecloth,' and I said, 'Well, Father, if it was good enough for my great-aunt Edith, it's good enough for baby Geoffrey.
'" Milly spotted Elliott and waved her over.
"Elliott, darling! Come, come. I was just telling Margaret and Bernard about that business with the christening. "
"I heard." Elliott bent to kiss Milly's papery cheek. "I’m glad to see you."
"Come on, let’s find ourselves a pot of tea and a table somewhere out of the way."
Ten minutes later, they were sitting by a window, cups in front of them. Milly sighed in contentment. "Now, tell me everything. How's the cookbook? How's Julia?"
Elliott's stomach clenched. "I don’t know."
Milly's sharp eyes didn't miss a thing. They never had. "Oh dear. Drink up. Tell me what happened."
"Nothing happened."
"Elliott Sinclair, I have known you since you weren’t even old enough to order a decent drink at the pub. You cannot lie to me. Something happened with Julia, and you've run away from it. I want to know what and why."
Put like that, it sounded so simple. Actually, it sounded cowardly.
"She betrayed me," Elliott said, and the words tasting sour in her mouth.
"She went to her mother behind my back. Sent her my manuscript without asking.
Tried to get Gabby Richardson to write a foreword for my cookbook, like I was some…
some orphan or something, someone who couldn't succeed on her own merits. "
Milly reached over and took Elliott’s hand, holding it gently between her own. "And what did Julia say when you asked her why she did it?"
"I didn't…" Elliott stopped. "I didn't ask. I didn't need to ask. It was obvious."
"Was it?"
"She thinks I can't do anything without her family's help. She thinks I need rescuing. She doesn't understand that I've spent my whole life proving I don't need anyone, and I…"
"You've spent your whole life pretending that you don’t need anyone," Milly said quietly. "That's not the same thing."
Elliott pulled her hand back. "That's not fair."
"I'm eighty-three years old, darling. I've earned the right to be unfair." Milly's expression was gentle. "Why do you think Julia went to her mother?"
"It doesn’t matter, she had no right to," Elliott said, the anger building now that she'd started. "That cookbook is mine. Years of my life. And she just handed it over to Gabby Richardson like it was nothing. Like I needed saving. Like I couldn't possibly succeed without her family's connections."
Milly watched her with those sharp old eyes.
"I was going to ask Gabby myself. I was working up to it.
But Julia didn't even give me the chance.
She just decided she knew better. Decided I needed fixing.
" Elliott's voice went up a notch. "I'm not a project.
I'm not something to be fixed. I don’t need her throwing money and connections at problems."
A silence stretched between them. Elliott waited for Milly to say something. To tell her she was right to be angry. To validate all the hurt that had been festering in her chest for days.
Instead, Milly reached over and patted her hand. Once. Twice. Her expression was sad. Disappointed.
"Say something," Elliott said eventually.
"Do I need to?" asked Milly. "You seem to have everything all worked out in your head."
"I… I do," Elliott said. She drank her tea down and stood up. "I shouldn’t have come, shouldn’t have burdened you with my problems. You’ve got enough of your own to deal with."
Milly chuckled. "What’s life without a little excitement?"
"Excitement?"
Milly shook her head. "I’ve been around the block a few times, my dear.
And I’ll tell you something. Life can be a long succession of dull, boring days if you let it.
It’s easy to be boring. It’s a lot harder to make things interesting.
Some people will tell you that life passes quickly.
But it doesn’t, not really. Not if you’re doing it right, not if you’re treasuring every moment and grasping every opportunity with both hands.
Not if you’re surrounded by the right people. "
Elliott wasn’t entirely sure what Milly was talking about, why what she was saying was relevant.
But then, Milly always had liked to drift off into her own musings.
Perhaps that was all this was. "Right," she said. "I’ll… um… remember that. And I’d better let you go. I’m sure it’s going to be dinnertime soon. "
Elliott walked out of the retirement home feeling worse than when she'd arrived, which was quite an achievement given that she'd started the day at rock bottom. Turned out that rock bottom had a cellar.
Shay had told her to take risks. Milly had looked at her like she'd failed some fundamental test of being human.
Maybe they were both wrong. Maybe the problem wasn't that Elliott pushed people away, maybe the problem was that she'd let Julia in at all.
She'd let herself hope. Let herself believe that someone could actually understand her, accept her, love her without trying to change her.
And look where that had gotten her. Sleeping on Shay's sofa, surrounded by coral cushions, unable to work, unable to eat, unable to do anything except replay that fight in her head and wonder if she'd made a terrible mistake.
No. Not a mistake. A necessary decision. Self-preservation.
She'd been right to leave. Right to protect herself. Right to…
All that right. And yet she felt so wrong.
That didn’t add up.
So what now? Shay was right about the cookbook being finished. But everything else was finished too, and Elliott didn’t know how to move on, didn’t know how to get out of the hole she’d fallen into. Or even if she wanted to get out at all.