Chapter 31
“Can I come in?” Liz asked through the intercom.
Casey and Margo watched her on the camera monitors. Liz was alone. She wore a long dark coat over a hoodie and jeans, the hood pulled back for the benefit of the camera above the door, which she looked directly into as she asked, “Please, Casey. I just want to talk. Sam doesn’t know I’m here.”
Casey puffed out a breath and looked at Margo. “Should I let her in?”
“Of course you should!” Margo blustered. “If for no other reason than so that you can have the pleasure of throwing her out again if she pisses you off. Surely, you’re curious—I know I am!”
“I thought curiosity killed the cat?”
“It had to die sometime! Better to do it being curious than bored.”
Casey pressed her lips together as she deliberated.
It took courage to turn up here, and she did want to hear what Liz had to say.
She leaned across and pressed the Talk button on the intercom.
“Stay there, I’ll come down.” Then she turned to Margo.
“I don’t mind you using your wizardry to eavesdrop on our conversation, but do you mind staying out of the way? I think I need to speak to her alone.”
“You had me at ‘eavesdrop,’ ” Margo replied, kicking her feet up on the desk and reaching for the sharing box of popcorn that had appeared there. “Bonne chance, sweet cheeks.”
—
With her heart in her mouth, she unlocked the door and stood aside for Liz to enter.
She didn’t particularly want to invite her in, but it was too cold to stand out in the goods yard at one o’clock in the morning, so she led the way to a kitchenette area inside the loading bay, where the delivery drivers could grab a mug of tea before they hit the road again.
Casey flicked the kettle on and motioned for Liz to take one of the two plastic chairs pushed against a small table.
The mindless action of making tea gave her a few precious moments to mentally prepare, to get her racing thoughts in order.
What was Liz doing here? What did she want?
Had Sam sent her here with a message? A threat?
Liz had said Sam didn’t know she was here, but Liz was a proven liar, so…
Casey’s body was simultaneously flaring with anger at Liz’s betrayal, spiking with jealousy at her success, and sinking with the humiliation of being so easily duped.
They didn’t speak until Casey had placed two mugs of tea and a tin of digestive biscuits between them on the table. “I made it how you used to like it,” she said, trying to keep the shake out of her voice. “Your preference might have changed.”
Liz took a tentative sip. “Gnat’s piss and two sugars, perfect. Thank you.” She smiled weakly.
“Okay, then,” said Casey, giving her the floor. She wasn’t going to ease the tension with small talk.
Liz splayed her fingers out, looking at them rather than at Casey, and then wrapped them around her mug without picking it up. She was nervous, well…good.
“I first got here at about half past ten, but I chickened out and ended up in an all-night greasy spoon café up the road. Then I came back here and lost my bottle again. The people in the café must think I’m a lunatic with all my comings and goings.
” She gave a timid little laugh but still didn’t meet Casey’s eyes and Casey didn’t force the chuckle that might have broken the ice.
Though it went against every fiber of her Britishness, she didn’t fill the awkward silence that sat between them, and eventually Liz spoke again.
“Back then, god, I felt so guilty about what I’d done. You were my friend and I’d treated you appallingly. Sam and I, it was never intentional. I was flattered and lonely. I should have stopped it.”
“Mm-hmm,” said Casey.
Liz bit her lip. “I wanted to contact you, but I wasn’t brave enough. And then you disappeared and I felt relieved that I didn’t have to face you. I guess I took it as my chance to let myself off the hook. I swear to God I didn’t know that he was harassing you.”
Casey closed her eyes, recalling how exhausting it was to be the obsession of Sam Moon.
“If it’s any consolation,” Liz went on, “I believe you. I could believe almost anything of him,” she said quietly.
Casey frowned. “But you’re together.”
Liz shook her head. “Not anymore.” Her glance flicked to Casey and then back to her hands around her mug.
“I hadn’t seen or heard from him for months until my book deal was announced.
We have the same publisher.” She gave a huff of a half laugh.
“What are the chances? Sam had this idea that since our publication dates were around the same time we could do a joint book tour and pretend to be together to drum up some added excitement around it. A star-crossed-lovers-type thing. I guess we each played our parts too well, because we ended up back together for real. In a weird way, I kind of thought that if Sam and I were together that it would somehow justify what we did to you, like it was destiny or something and we were powerless to argue.”
“How romantic,” Casey deadpanned. Liz winced, wounded, and Casey didn’t feel the satisfaction she’d hoped. “So, when did you split up?” she asked, to move things along. She wasn’t sure why she was being treated to this sudden confessional, but despite her chagrin her curiosity was piqued.
“After the event here. When you were saying how nothing you did was ever good enough for him, it struck a chord. I know that feeling. It’s how I’ve felt since the day we got back together, like he could do so much better and it was all I could do just to try and hold his attention.
” Her words were tumbling out fast. “I can’t explain how it felt when you started shouting at him.
I was so relieved to know that it wasn’t just me and so annoyed at myself for putting up with it all.
I wanted to stand up and shout with you, but I just sat there.
I didn’t want to rock the boat, not when my career’s only just getting started—something else for me to feel ashamed about.
” She looked up at Casey, her expression guilty.
“But I knew I had to end things with him. You gave me the shove I needed.”
“You broke up with him?” Casey cut in. She couldn’t help herself.
“Yeah. In the car on the way back to London.”
“Wow. How did he take it?”
“As you’d expect. Self-pity. Threats to hurt himself.
Recriminations. Thankfully by the time we reached London, he’d reached the damage limitation phase.
The next morning, I dropped out of the book tour.
He asked if we could pretend to be together until Christmas, but pretending is how we ended up together in the first place.
I’m sure you remember how persuasive he can be? I couldn’t risk it.”
Casey remembered how intoxicating the Sam Moon charm offensive could be.
He had a way of making his brokenness seem so appealing that a person became desperate to fix him.
She leaned back in her chair and let out a deep breath.
She didn’t know what she’d expected Liz to say, but it wasn’t this.
“Well, that explains why I’m back in the frame,” she said, thinking of his interview on breakfast TV.
She’d been aiming for flippant, but she heard it come out flat.
“I’m sorry,” said Liz. “I’m sorry for all of it, what we did to you back then. I didn’t just break the girl code, I set it on fire.”
Casey rubbed her eyes. They felt scratchy.
She was tired but not in any way that sleep could help with.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said, not wanting to deal with all the feelings of betrayal that remembering her friendship with Liz brought up, not on top of everything else that was happening right now. “Water under the bridge.”
“It isn’t, though, is it?” Liz was staring intently at her.
Casey couldn’t hold her gaze. “No. But maybe someday it will be.”
“Then I’ll wait for that day,” said Liz earnestly. “In the meantime, there’s something else, something I need to ask you.”
“Okay.”
“There’s one last tour event with Sam that I need to honor. It was set up by my cousin, and I don’t want to let her down. It’s an interview and phone-in at a local radio station.”
“Local radio,” said Casey dryly. “I’ll bet Sam wasn’t too chuffed about that.”
Liz grimaced. “No, not terribly; he rather fancies himself as an A-lister-in-waiting.”
Casey snorted.
“The thing is,” Liz continued, “I wanted to ask if you’d like to join me.”
Casey laughed humorlessly. “You want me to go on a radio show with you and Sam?”
“As my surprise guest. Sam doesn’t know I’m asking you.
” Liz clearly saw Casey’s perplexity, because she went on quickly.
“I saw the expression on your face at the book event, Casey, you weren’t done by half.
I don’t think you got the closure with Sam that you wanted.
I’m offering you the chance to have your say; it feels like the least I can do.
People don’t know what he’s like, how he lies and manipulates to get what he wants. ”
Casey could feel her eyes bugging out in her bafflement. “You want us to give him what for like a couple of vengeful sister-wives?” This was a terrible idea. She was already being hassled by reporters, she didn’t need to draw even more attention.
“I want us to set the record straight,” said Liz, sitting up in her chair and holding Casey’s gaze. Her eyes were steely. “I want our voices to be heard. It’s hard to speak out alone, even harder to get it to resonate, but together we’re stronger; people will have to listen.”
It was a rousing speech, and she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t tempted, but…“How can I trust you? How do I know that you won’t throw me under the bus?”
“I suppose you’ll just have to take a leap of faith. I give you my word that I won’t let you down. If anyone’s going under the bus, it’s Sam. But the ball is entirely in your court.”
This was a lot. Casey’s mind raced. She saw all the ways that things could get so much worse for her, but also how she could lay at least some of her ghosts to rest. The ball is in my court. She heard Margo’s voice in her head teasing her about how she had no balls.
“I’ll do it,” she said finally.
Liz grinned and for a moment they could have been back in their writing group, throwing ideas around, high on the thrill of collaborative inspiration.
“When?”
“A week from Wednesday,” Liz replied. “Eleven a.m. I’ll meet you there at half ten and we’ll keep out of the way so that Sam doesn’t know until it’s too late to back out.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it all worked out.”
“Only as far as getting there. Once we’re on air…” She held her palms up in the universal sign of “who the fuck knows,” and Casey nodded in response.
—
“Well huzzah for you and your massive bollocks!” Margo cheered when Casey had waved Liz off in a taxi. “Although I’m sure I don’t know why we must always equate bravery with testicles, especially given how yielding they are. Huzzah for your splendiferous ovaries!”
“Thanks,” said Casey. “I think.”
“You faced one of your many demons head-on and were flinty but fair. How do you feel?”
“I don’t know. In all my fantasies about confronting Liz, I’d imagined making her rue the day she’d ever crossed me, give her a righteous rollicking that she’d never forget.
But when it came to it, when she was sat there waiting for me to lambast her, I simply didn’t feel like it.
It’s not even as if I was taking the moral high ground; I just couldn’t see the point in making her more miserable.
It wouldn’t have made me feel any better. ”
“Instead, you agreed to go on the radio with her. Nice to know humans can still surprise me.”
“You and me both. Do you think it’s the right thing to do? Or am I just inviting more trouble?”
“I think that you ought to practice trusting yourself.”
Casey narrowed her eyes. “Thank you, that’s no help at all.”
Margo smiled. “Who ever said I was here to help? I’m on holiday, darling.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Casey said, affection for the spirit filling her chest.
“Me too.” Margo’s expression softened. “If this should be my last Christmas, I’ll be glad to have spent it with you.”
Casey’s heart squeezed. “I know that I’m being selfish, but I hope that you have lots more Christmases.”
“Oh, you’ll have forgotten all about me once I’ve erased your meme,” Margo quipped cheerily, but Casey caught a melancholy tone beneath her blitheness.
“I can’t imagine ever forgetting you, Margo,” she retorted, grasping at levity in the face of something that made her feel unbearably sad.
Margo smiled wistfully. “And yet you will,” she replied quietly.
—
Casey dearly wished that there was a way for her to have her cake and eat it too, but the world simply didn’t work that way.
On Christmas night, Margo would leave, and Casey had two choices: She could have the meme erased and begin her new life but with no memory of Margo, or she could keep the meme and her memories.
In either scenario, it was unlikely that she would ever see the spirit again after Christmas night.
Was it worth forging on with a life mired in regret for the sake of a few weeks’ worth of remembrances?
Her affection for Margo was growing exponentially, but in this decision, she must put her head before her heart.
She’d be a fool to pass up this opportunity.