Dear John
The hotel restaurant is just as crowded at breakfast as it was the previous day. Once again, Anna looks for the beacon of James’s bright head. This time, though, she routes via the tea and coffee station before she approaches. She yawns widely. She has always been blessed as one of life’s easy sleepers, untroubled by insomnia, vivid dreams, or early hours waking. But last night she was troubled by all three. She would put it down to jet lag if she had not flown to America several times before and had no problem adjusting. She is even tempted to pour herself a dose of coffee, holding her nose and drinking it down as medicine. Then she decides she is not yet that desperate.
James looks up as she places her tea on the table. He beams. She blanches. There is no mistaking how James spent his night. He seems somehow fuller. As if his emotions are trying to escape the bounds of his skin. It is a lot to be confronted with when she is feeling less than fresh.
“No Bella?” she asks. James is so obviously not a dick-and-ditch guy. She has no doubt that not half an hour ago, he was still wrapped around her friend, the two of them probably lying together like spoons. She is surprised not to find them this morning sitting hand in hand, eyeball to eyeball.
“She’s having a lie-in. She’s not feeling too chipper this morning. I’m going to nip to the coffee shop around the corner later. Get her a cappuccino and a cake.”
Anna looks at the adoration in James’s eyes as he says these words. It is not hard to guess James’s love languages. Gifts and acts of service. And she feels a small pang of guilt. A sense of responsibility for having introduced them. She considers for a minute. Then she says, “Bella is easy to love but not so easy to know.”
He flushes. “Is that a warning?”
Anna shakes her head. Bella is her friend and James is her boss. She feels like a piggy in the middle. An incautious word about either could land her in trouble. “It’s more advice to slow down. Everyone needs to see the worst of someone before they commit. Take time to get to know each other before you fall in love.” But even as she says the words, she feels it is already too late.
James is silent for a minute and Anna worries she has overstepped. Then he says, “You don’t believe in love at first sight.” It isn’t a question, but a statement. As if James is judging her.
“I’ve heard of it, of course. Although we only talk about the ones that work out. We don’t catalogue the relationships that start that way but never survive. The hordes of broken hearts or never-meant-to-bes.” The image of Tolly grinning at her flashes into her head. That instant they first met, with the flicker of interest in his eyes and the surge of heat deep inside her before it was gone. If it hadn’t disappeared, that could have been an epic meet cute. She pushes the thought away and focuses on James. The Sexiest Man Alive has no place here.
“There’s nothing bad about Bella.” James frowns. “You’re her friend.”
Anna is not sure where to go from here. The Bella of old was certainly not evil, but she was careless and impulsive and fickle where men were concerned. Anna has seen her break men’s hearts without a care. But youngsters do silly things. Anna would hate to be judged by some of what she did as a teenager. They are older now. They’ve witnessed tragedies and dealt with crises that were unknown to their younger selves.
Anna speaks in generalities. “Everyone has bad points, James. You know this. There are no angels. You are a great boss, but I couldn’t live with you.”
James looks affronted, and Anna hastens to add, “I couldn’t live with anyone.” Maybe Eleanor, her older sister, but no one else. Anna stops. She has given a warning of sorts. James will ignore it. The future will play out how it will. She has done her part and her conscience is satisfied. She changes the subject.
“Are you both coming to the company presentation tonight?” she asks. One of the equipment manufacturers is giving a demonstration of their new machine. Her attendance was on the itinerary James had prepared for her.
“Ah!” he says, looking down. “Bella and I haven’t had a chance at a proper date. I was hoping you might go and report back while I take her out somewhere.”
Anna clamps her jaw shut. She nods, not trusting her annoyance to tinge her words if she speaks.
“Great!” James picks up his phone and stands. “Well, as that’s sorted, I’d better go and get Bella her breakfast.”
Then he’s gone. In fact, he seems to disappear off the face of Los Angeles for the next thirty hours. Anna doesn’t see either of them at the conference. She sees Bradley, who gives her a wide berth, although Rob and Seth wave wildly. Seth makes his fingers into a handset and places them beside his head. She laughs and Bradley glowers. She continues to mingle and chat, collecting cards and contact details. In the evening, she goes to the presentation and makes notes. She is impressed, but doesn’t know if she should be.
The following morning, neither Bella nor James is at breakfast. She eats alone, before making her way to the conference. She still has the itinerary James gave her, but she uses it more as guidance. If she sees something she is interested in, she attends that instead. She focuses on work and shuts out bosses and friends and sexy men. Which is just as well because none of them text. The day is a repeat of the previous one, except at lunch she gets a message from Bella asking her to meet later.
The designated meeting place is the hotel bar. A love story to walnut-effect laminate, it has the lighting of a back alley and the atmosphere of a morgue. Anna glances around the bar area. A man and a woman, dressed in finery, sit at a table, tall glasses of deep ruby wine before them. A group of four men nurse bottles of beer as they argue amicably. There are a couple of single men waiting at tables. But what is missing is a tawny mane of hair nestling against a shock of red.
With a sigh, Anna shifts onto one of the high stools at the bar. The bartender comes over, but she gives a slight shake of her head. “I’m waiting on others,” she says quietly. The barman nods and goes back to unloading glasses. Anna pulls out her phone. There is nothing unread. Nothing from her family and no reply from Serena, her cousin. More pertinent, there is nothing from Bella or James. She resigns herself to waiting and opens her email folder. If there is nothing to be dealt with, she can always spend some time deleting old messages and unsubscribing from lists she never applied to be on.
“Anyone ever tell you, you could be a model.” The words interrupt her focus.
Anna turns. Tall, tanned and soft-looking, the speaker leans against the bar. His blond hair is slightly long and curly, giving him the appearance of a Michelangelo’s David going slightly to seed even though he is still in his prime. What surprises her is his accent. It’s British. But then, this is a hotel with customers from all over the world. She looks at him for a moment, noting the confidence in his relaxed manner. She guesses he is not used to having to work for attention. He takes her gaze as invitation and sidles closer. It is a mistake.
Anna’s facial expression shifts. With a glare of purest ice and layering as much scorn into her words as she can, she replies, “Why on earth would you think that’s a compliment?”
The latter-day David stops. He blinks, but it is a long, slow blink. An affectation. Anna wants to roll her eyes, but she keeps her gaze steady.
He’s more hesitant as he replies, “Because it is.”
Maybe that line has worked before, but Anna doubts it. “You see a beautiful woman and you assume she has no other talents than her looks. Why would that be a compliment? Maybe I can act; maybe I can sing. Or get this, maybe, just maybe, I can hold a life in my hand, carefully balanced between survival and oblivion?”
Another of those slow blinks. Anna finds herself intensely irritated by them, as if she is being kept waiting without cause. It is not as if she expects wisdom or witticisms from this man. As her words about life and death register, she sees his complacency replaced with wariness.
“That’s crazy talk!”
“Perhaps I’m a psychopath?” She raises one eyebrow. His reaction is not quite a flinch. He gives a nervous laugh and backs away. Job done. As she turns away from him, she sees him retreat to his seat in a corner of the bar area.
Perhaps she was a little unfair. Sitting alone at a bar is generally regarded as an invitation to approach, but Anna is irritated by Bella’s absence. Besides, she has had enough of handsome men, especially those who know it. She abandons her perch at the bar before any other man looking for a night’s company misinterprets her presence. She takes a seat by the entrance. Ten minutes go by, and Anna is about to send a chasing message when she sees James and Bella appear.
“I’ll get some drinks,” Bella volunteers. As she makes her way to the bar, James slides onto the bench seat opposite Anna.
“Sorry we’re late,” he says, looking sincere enough to wind back some of Anna’s grouchiness.
Anna shrugs. “I should have expected it. By Bella’s standards, this is nothing. She was once two hours late to her own party.” She glances towards her friend. The same guy who hit on Anna now seems to be chancing his luck with Bella. But instead of shooting him down, Bella, her hands full of drinks, seems to press-gang him into being her waiter. He trails behind her, holding Anna’s soda. She watches his hands carefully to make sure nothing is added to any drink.
Bella sets her cocktail on the table and places a beer in front of James. Then she wraps her arm around the guy holding Anna’s drink and gives him a side hug. Anna’s eyebrows hit her hairline.
“This is my brother, John,” Bella exclaims, the delight in her voice unmistakable. With her free hand, she gestures vaguely at an appalled Anna. “Anna, James.”
John mutters something in his sister’s ear.
Bella’s reaction is a guffaw. “Her bark is worse than her bite.” She gives three little claps of her hands. “I thought John could join us tonight. Like a double date!” Her hands fan out, her fingers flickering like she is singing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”. “We are going to have such fun together.”
Bella slides in beside James. John takes a look at the chair beside Anna and reluctantly sits, with as much enthusiasm as a man approaching a rabid dog.
“John’s been travelling around the US,” Bella tells the table.
“That’s wonderful! I’d love to do something like that one day.” James sounds wistful.
“Oh, babe,” Bella huffs out an excited breath, “we could do that together! Wouldn’t that be just perfect?” She wraps her arm around his and snuggles her face against his shoulder. Anna is taken aback. These are long-term plans for a romance of a very short duration.
James looks overjoyed, although the only outlet for the strength of his feelings is a light kiss to the top of Bella’s head. The recipient doesn’t appear to notice as she leans forwards, eyes fixed on her brother.
“Anna was at medical school with me. She works for James.”
If Anna had had any choice, there would be no double date. She has never understood the purpose of them at all. If for her benefit, then she is perfectly capable of finding her own dates, and when on them, perfectly capable of holding a conversation. And if she has to endure a double date for someone else’s sake, the last person she would choose to join her in the evening's torture would be John. But short of getting up from the table feigning a sudden migraine – difficult to be convincing when two of the three are doctors – Anna cannot see another way out of the evening.
She turns a neutral smile on John. “So, what is the best thing you have seen so far?”
John’s smile in return is superior. “Oh, I’m not travelling to visit attractions, like some stamp-collecting tourist. I’m travelling to experience the real America.”
Not travelling then, more like bumming around. Anna nods pleasantly.
“John’s thinking of writing a book about it,” Bella interjects.
“A contemporary Jack Kerouac?” Anna asks John, one eyebrow raised.
“What?”
“ On the Road ?” Anna helpfully supplies the name of Kerouac’s seminal novel.
“What’s on the road?” John’s frown deepens, as if he suspects Anna is mocking him.
She gives up. “How are you enjoying being on the road?”
A loud ringing interrupts his reply. Almost everyone in the bar checks their phone but it is John who answers, “’Right, mate?”
If Anna expects him to rise and leave the bar to take his call, she is disappointed. He sits at the table, supplying desultory comments to his caller and to the rest of the bar. John is clearly one of those people whose voice, already loud, increases in volume when on the phone. It makes it impossible for anyone around him to continue a conversation until he has finished. Neither is his call of such great interest that all others are keen to eavesdrop. When he ends it, he looks around and explains. “My mate, Timmo. We’re trying to arrange a meetup while he’s over here.” It’s a needless explanation. The entire bar has long worked out the purpose of the call. Then he adds the irrelevant detail, “Timmo’s dad is a Sir.”
“Anna’s dad is a baron,” Bella drops the bomb.
“I didn’t know that!” James exclaims.
And John turns to look at her with new appreciation in his eyes.
It is not something Anna advertises. At school, she was not alone in having a noble parent. It never occurred to her it was remarkable. But not long into university, she began to understand other people’s reactions. Some were impressed, some envious. But almost all immediately assumed she was at a top London medical school because of who her father was, not who she was. It was not long into her first term before she began actively obscuring her background. Unfortunately, her acquaintance with Bella pre-dates that point. Bella is one of the few who knows of her family and has indeed met her mother and father. When they took Anna to move into her university accommodation, they happily introduced themselves to any available roommates in their usual genial fashion, “Baron Larkford”, accompanied by a firm handshake, and “Lady Larkford”, with the barest touch of flesh.
Anna shrugs. “Why would you?”
“Do you live in a castle?” John asks.
“No,” says Anna. “I live in a garret in London.”
But Bella answers for her. “It’s not a castle but it’s massive. I’ve seen pictures.” On the internet maybe, because Anna hasn’t shown Bella any. Like most students, Anna had had family photos scattered around but they tended to be from holidays abroad and ski trips.
“I don’t live there,” Anna says, desperate to head off speculation about her family home. “I live in London.”
“In her family’s London house,” Bella elucidates. Anna regrets how unguarded her tongue was in her younger days. Bella knows far too much about her family.
“Does that mean you are a ‘Lady’?” James asks, obviously trying to work out the ramifications of this news.
“No, I’m a ‘doctor’,” Anna replies at the same time as Bella says, “No, she’s an ‘honourable’. The Honourable Anna Mortimer.”
Something strange is happening to John’s face. The look of sneering civility he used towards Anna when he was talking about his friend Timmo is being replaced. He almost looks genial.
He turns to her. “Maybe we know some of the same people?” he says.
“I doubt it,” Anna mutters. “Bella and I only have mutual friends from uni. We don’t have any of the same school friends.”
“Oh!” John ejaculates. “Bella and I didn’t go to the same school.” He names his alma mater with quite evident pride, but it is a school Anna has never heard of. She is familiar with most of the leading private schools and even some of the lower ranked through sports fixtures or extracurricular clubs. She nods pleasantly to John and holds her tongue. Help comes unexpectedly from James, who to Anna’s certain knowledge is one hundred per cent state school educated. He obviously has zero interest in any conversation beginning, Do you know … ?
“You were about to tell us of your travels before you were interrupted,” James brings the conversation back on track.
John leans back in his chair, seemingly spreading himself wider. “Well,” he starts. “I’ll tell you about what happened to me in New York.” He embarks on an immensely detailed and long-winded anecdote in which he single-handedly saved a handful of celebrities from some or other ignominious fate. Anna is unclear about the details as she drifts off a couple of minutes in, her eye caught by the bartender mixing cocktails. James and Bella appear to have maintained focus, full of compliments for John’s quick thinking. As John finally reaches the end of his story, Anna adds her own, “Amazing,” trusting that John isn’t clever enough to distinguish the ambiguity of the word.
John disappears to the restroom as James goes to the bar for more drinks. Bella leans towards Anna. “When I arranged for John to come here, I didn’t realise I was going to meet James. I love my brother, but he keeps trying to butt into our time together. He even crashed last night’s date. James and I have so little time before we have to go back to different ends of the country. Do me a favour and keep him occupied tonight?” She opens her big amber eyes wide. “Please?”
Although the eyes don’t work as well on Anna as they do on men, she does find herself sighing in agreement. She had been considering ducking out of the evening and going to bed early in order to avoid any more of John. But Bella is a friend and so is James. They deserve their shot at love, unexpected though the affair is. She can endure John for one night. How bad can it get?
When John returns and sits next to her, somehow his chair moves so his leg is rubbing against hers. Trapped in a corner, she has nowhere to go. Normally, she would simply knock his knee out of the way, but mindful of her recent promise to his sister, she merely tries to shrink a little. Never has a round of drinks dragged so. Anna is soon regretting her promise, particularly when Bella focuses her attention on James and John turns his to Anna. She can anticipate it’s going to be a long night.