Chapter 3 Freya
FREYA
I follow him out into the hallway.
“Oh my God, I just remembered,” says Charlie, coming back at me in a rush. “Come and look at this.…”
He takes my hand, crosses the landing, and leads me around an unseen corner. “You’re not going to believe this,” he says, opening a closed door.
As I look around the oak-paneled room, I feel as though I’m invading someone’s privacy. If we were meant to be in here, the door would have been left open. If we were meant to be in here, we would have been invited.
With its mid-century desk and high-backed Eames chair, it speaks of understated vintage. Framed silver discs adorn the walls and Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans hangs above the fireplace. But it’s the 1950s jukebox that can’t help but catch my attention.
“Oh my God, is that an original?” I half yelp.
“Not only is it an original,” says Charlie smugly, as if it were his own, “but it’s from the Frosty Palace diner in Grease.…”
My eyes widen as I walk toward it, unable to stop myself from touching the very same buttons that John Travolta himself had pressed. “That’s insane, what’s it doing in Frank’s office?”
“This is actually Coco’s,” says Charlie, before stuttering to a stop.
I try to unfurl the wrinkles of confusion that furrow my brow before he notices. I imagine he’s doing the same. “So how come she’s got it?” I ask, keeping my voice level, while a million more important questions are lining up to be heard.
“Her dad.” His words are clipped, as if he doesn’t trust himself.
I raise my eyebrows, waiting for him to elaborate.
“He was some producer,” he says. “A big deal in Hollywood, by all accounts.”
“So it seems,” I say, looking around, letting him think he’s got away with it. “But how did you know it was here?”
He looks away. “She told me about it.”
I nod, mulling over the information.
“And how did you know that her office was upstairs, around a blind corner, and behind that closed door?”
“Because,” he starts, unable to meet my eye, “I’ve been here once before … for a meeting, I think it was something to do with the Christmas menu last year … what we were doing … whether we should do the whole turkey roast or put a new spin on it and go with the goose.…”
Far too many words for what should have been a simple answer.
A part of me wants to scream at him and demand why he made out he’d never been here before, but the sadistic part of my psyche doesn’t want to put him out of his misery, knowing that it’s information better kept stored.
“We should go back downstairs,” I say as he stands there, waiting for the axe to fall.
We haven’t even had the main course yet, but I suddenly want to go home. This isn’t turning out to be the evening I’d envisaged. I want to scrub tonight’s events from my memory bank and start over again. What would I have done differently if I had the chance, I wonder? Everything, it now turns out.
“Ah, there you are!” exclaims Frank, as we head back into the dining room. “I was just about to send out a search party.”
Coco looks at us over the top of her wineglass, her curiosity piqued. Hers and mine.
“So what do you make of Charlie’s exciting new venture?” Frank asks as he replenishes my glass after I knock back two large gulps of wine before even sitting down.
“I think it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” I say with fake enthusiasm. “We can’t thank you enough”—I turn to Coco—“both of you, for what you’ve done for us. We are so humbly grateful.”
I can’t look at Charlie, not least because he’ll know I’m acting up.
Though the others won’t have a clue, so used to the sycophantic fawning that they wouldn’t know someone was taking the piss if it hit them between the eyes.
Like I say, killing with kindness is by far the most potent poison.
Their barriers fall, leaving them wide open and vulnerable to things they don’t see coming.
I struggle to eat my dinner, the disquieting thoughts circling in my head difficult to swallow.
Though Charlie, it seems, has no such concerns about his faux pas. “I hate to say it,” he says with a laugh, “as I may be putting myself out of a job. But that branzino was one of the best I’ve ever tasted. The black garlic, the shiitake mushrooms…”
Frank smiles. “It always tastes better when someone else cooks it.”
“Well, my compliments to the chef,” says Charlie, raising his glass.
I raise mine alongside him, not in toast, but in the hope of getting a refill.
Frank reaches across to pour a thimbleful into mine and his, swirling it around and inhaling its aroma with an exaggerated sniff. “This is a Chateau Ausone,” he declares. “A medium-bodied premier grand cru…”
I don’t care what it is, but I play along. “Mmm, it has a certain earthiness to it. Notes of tobacco and … is that”—I pull my nostrils in—“is that fruitiness from the red currant, by any chance?”
“You’re supposed to be driving,” Charlie says under his breath.
“It’s a bit late for that, don’t you think?” I snap, vaguely aware that my volume control is slipping away from me. Though not enough for those around the table to notice, it seems.
He gives me a look, a discreet reminder for me to behave myself.
He can sense when my patience is wearing thin, when I get bored of other people’s behavior.
I’ve usually got quite a high threshold, but I’m getting restless, and he knows it.
But who is he to put me in my place when he’s the one who clearly needs to be watched more carefully?
Coco is fawning over him like a lovesick puppy, desperately trying to convince herself, and us, that they share something that we can’t possibly hope to be a part of.
It’s in the way that she looks at him, the light touch of her hand on his arm as she throws her head back, laughing at whatever he says.
“Do you remember that time at Gio’s?” she half whispers to him, alluding to a private joke to exclude me even further.
“That was so funny. When you stood up and said, ‘Over my dead body.’”
I force a laugh even louder than hers, reminding her that I’m here, but inside I can’t help but ask, What exactly is going on? I’m not going to be put in a corner while everyone around me pretends to be more important, thinking they’re something they’re not.
“That’s such a beautiful watch,” I gush, leaning over to Coco and taking hold of her wrist.
“It’s a Patek Philippe,” she says matter-of-factly, as if I needed it quantified in single syllables.
“Yes. I know,” I state, in similar fashion.
“My friend got the exact same one in Dubai.” I look around the table, wide-eyed.
“It’s incredible. You’re snatched off the streets, taken down this maze of alleys, into the back corner of a fish market, through somebody’s living room, into a rickety old lift, and then emerge into a store that would give Harrods’ jewelry hall a run for its money. ”
Coco’s mouth turns up in distaste.
“Is that where you got yours from?” I can’t help but ask.
“This is not a fake,” she says, horrified by the suggestion that it might be.
“Oh, sorry,” I trill. “You really can’t tell the difference these days, can you?”
“Right, it’s time we made a move,” says Charlie.
“You can’t leave just yet,” declares Coco, jumping up from her seat, looking a little more disheveled with each glass of wine. “I have a surprise for you!”
I doubt I could look any more dejected if I tried.
“Well, it’s going to have to wait for a few minutes,” says Charlie, his vowels sliding into one another, “as I need to visit the little boy’s room.”
He wobbles momentarily as he stands up, holding on to the table to steady himself.
“Here, let me show you where it is,” says Coco, coming to his side and taking hold of his arm.
I grit my teeth, offended by her attempt to insult my intelligence. He’s been to the toilet at least four times already. He knows where it is. He’s even had sex in it, I want to tell her.
Despite not wanting to go there, it occurs to me in my alcohol-fueled meanderings that Coco’s “surprise” is going to be Luciana.
And as much as I’d love to bear witness to the little girl’s talent, I don’t want her hauled down from her room, at midnight, and made to play the piano like a performing monkey—not least for guests who won’t appreciate it.
I want to tell Coco that we don’t need to wake her, that we should save her daughter’s brilliance for another time, but as I make my way up the stairs, I’m treated to a surprise all of my own.
“How are you feeling?” It’s Coco’s voice from behind her office door.
“Good,” says Charlie, jolting my senses.
I creep up closer, driving my heels purposefully into the bitch’s carpet.
“I told you I’d make it happen, didn’t I?” she purrs.
There’s a silence and I imagine her claws pulling him into her.
It takes all my resolve not to burst in and throw myself at them to stop them from destroying what I thought Charlie and I had.
Because I’d done that once before and look how that turned out.
I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
I wasn’t going to show my hand of faded hearts, only for one of them to be broken in two.
I have to hold back—be sure of what I’m doing.
“I stupidly showed Freya your jukebox,” says Charlie, after what feels like an eternity.
“O-kay,” says Coco. “Is that a problem?”
“It is, seeing as I made out it was my first time being here.”
“Ah, I see. Did she pick up on it?”
“Freya always picks up on it.” He laughs and I hate him for it. “But she didn’t dig. She’ll save it for later.”
I can’t help but smart, furious with myself for being so transparent.
“You need to be more careful,” says Coco. “If she finds out, it could ruin everything.…”
Charlie lets out a frustrated sigh. “I know, and tonight’s my worst nightmare—I feel like a cat on a hot tin roof, waiting to be caught out by something I say or do. This isn’t me. I’m finding this really hard.…”
My heart bleeds for his fractured conscience.
“Just a few more weeks, and it’ll all be over,” says Coco.