Second Chance Romance

Chapter 1

ONE

I’ve never been a person who loves surprises. Probably because I’ve got a history of them being horrible ones. So, when I get my daughter’s cryptic little text this morning, Lunch in Venice? Something to tell you… my first thought is I’d probably look forward to meeting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse more than I’m looking forward to this.

Can’t wait! I respond. Exciting!

I spot her already seated on the patio, essentially a converted parking lot just a stone’s throw from the sand. Harriet is the only non-Instagramming nineteen-year-old I know who could waltz into a buzzy new bistro in Venice Beach, California, without a reservation and still manage to land the perfect table – in a shaded, semi-private corner against a backdrop of sand and palm trees. Close by on the boardwalk, an elderly black woman sits on a director’s chair under a rainbow-coloured umbrella, singing a charmingly coy rendition of ‘My Girl’ that she’s re-lyricised to ‘My Guy’, pausing to smile and thank the passers-by who throw a dollar into her canary-yellow hat.

‘So, Mum…’ Harriet tugs her ponytail over her shoulder, absently combing her fingers through its silky chestnut length. ‘I really don’t know how to say this, so I’m just going to come right out with it, if that’s okay…’ She draws a big breath in, then pushes it out. ‘I’ve met someone. A guy. And, well, I think he’s the one.’

‘Very funny.’ Harriet can have a quirky sense of humour at times. ‘Now what’s the real news?’

She gives me her steady, sanguine stare. The blue gaze of reason. The one that attracts a lot of truth-seekers and good friends. And then she says, ‘Er… Mum… That is the real news. I’ve met a guy. We’re in love. And it’s quite possible I’m going to marry him.’

I play this back. Clearly, there’s a blockage between my ears, and the information won’t properly penetrate. ‘Marry?’ I repeat it like it’s a death sentence. She didn’t really say ‘marry’? ‘But you don’t even have a boyfriend. You can’t have. How can you be in love when we’ve only been in America two minutes?’

‘I know!’ she almost sings. ‘I met him on my first day. Six weeks ago. I was at the campus taco truck. I’d just bought lunch, and then, oh my God, I dropped the thing! The whole taco just… splat on the ground.’ She throws up her hands with delight. ‘And there I am staring at it, and then I hear this voice. And this guy says, “You know, your face is priceless right about now.”’ She chuckles. ‘He said I looked like the kid who drops their ice cream and is about to bawl tears. And then he said he’d actually snapped a picture of me! He said he’d send it to me if I gave him my number.’

My jaw has dropped so far it has practically become unhinged. ‘Well,’ I say. ‘That’s rather calculating of him. A little bit unscrupulous. Is it even legal? I don’t think you can just go around snapping photos of people these days without their permission.’

He needs escorting off that campus in handcuffs.

‘Oh, Mum! He’s adorable.’ She flutter-taps her chest like she might be having a cardiac episode – though if anyone should be having one, it’s me. ‘His name is Aiden Lewis, and he’s the kindest, most mature, most insightful human being I’ve ever met, and I’m totally crazy about him.’ She cups her nose and mouth with her hands like she’s overcome by her own admission, her eyes tearing up on either side of her fingers.

I think I’m having a stroke. My face has gone numb and there’s definitely something off about the world around me. My gaze is pulled to the stretch of buttermilk sand. To waves swelling and breaking in the distance. To cyclists on the beach path. Tourists lingering in front of tacky T-shirt shops and tattoo parlours. A homeless man playing a baby grand piano. The drifter towing a boombox with a twenty-pound mutt on the back of his bike. A kid in a shiny purple suit singing Michael Jackson’s ‘I Want You Back’, complete with backslide, toe stand and robot. The sensory assault that is the Venice boardwalk. The frame freezes. My daughter’s announcement has stopped time, and my heart.

‘Seriously Mum, he’s so bright – like, razor-sharp funny – but quietly funny, you know; he doesn’t need to be the centre of attention. In fact, he hates that. But he’s not shy either. You can take him anywhere. He’s just so confident and classy, and proud.’ She studies me with an overload of tenderness. But it’s not really for me; it’s just the ripple effect of her thoughts. ‘It was insane. From the instant we met there was just this connection.’ She presses an index finger to her lips, as though there’s an acupuncture point there that can stem the tide of emotion. ‘I looked at him, and he looked at me, and it was like we’d somehow always known one another. There was no surprise to it, no awkwardness, no sense of having to make a good impression or say the right thing. It was as though we’d said it all before.’ She gazes off wistfully, into the sunset of her memory. ‘It was amazing. Like a gift. Definitely the most incredible, most intense thing that’s happened to me in my entire life.’

‘Harriet…’ I say, as delicately as I can. I barely recognise this twitterpated stranger sitting in front of me. ‘I hate to point out the obvious, but you haven’t had an entire life. You’ve had nineteen years of a life. You’ve been an actual, legal adult for only one of those years. I mean, you’ve barely even dated.’ Harriet was always into more intellectual or artsy pursuits and hanging out with her mates. Boys didn’t seem to really make it onto her radar. Very few got past a couple of dates.

‘Do you remember what you once told me?’ she asks, and I find myself wanting to repeal it before I even hear it. ‘You said that when you meet “the one” there’ll be so much right with him that even what you don’t like about him will seem charming.’

Huh? I can’t seriously see me telling her to aspire to liking someone so much that all the crap about them will come across as a bonus. She’s making this up as she goes along.

The waiter freewheels over to us, bearing tap water that’s been decanted to a glass bottle, and I quickly tell him I’ll have a double gin and tonic with extra gin. So he says, ‘A triple then?’ And I tell him, no, I mean a double gin with an extra shot on the side, and he raises an eyebrow like I’m a suitcase short of a trip to the Betty Ford Center. Harriet says she’ll stick with water.

‘Harriet, darling…’ I wait until he’s gone. ‘I think who you might have met is the first one. And that’s lovely. But no one hooks up for a lifetime with their first boyfriend.’

She frowns. ‘But Dad was pretty much your first, if you don’t count that loser who never showed up for any of your dates. And you weren’t much older than I am.’

At the very mention of Rupert, that bilious sensation is back in my stomach. ‘And look how that turned out,’ I say. I still can’t think about what my husband did without floundering around in a giant wake of disbelief.

‘Aiden is not Dad,’ she says, tartly.

I don’t want to tell her that I don’t think her dad was even her dad when I met him. Nor do I want to get us back on that topic; not here, not now. So I say, ‘But your dad and I were together for over a year before we even mentioned having a future together. You’ve known this… this person for six weeks. I’ve had bouts of constipation that have lasted longer than that.’ I can’t even bring myself to call him a boy because giving him a sex or a name just makes him too real to contend with.

Her face has steeled, and she’s refusing to look at me. I suddenly feel bad for not being able to sound more excited for her. I fully remember what it was like to be nineteen. Your emotions are always up there on the surface; you can never fully absorb them. You’re ready to erupt the second anyone puts doubt and negativity in the path of your ideas and dreams.

‘I’m very happy you’ve met a great guy,’ I say, ‘but, well, this is not your home, is it? Our home is England. You’re only here at UCLA for one semester.’ Three short months.

‘I know.’ She nods, vigorously. ‘You’re right. But none of that changes the fact that we’re in love.’

I gaze at the back of her pale, freckled hand, the white crescents of her short, bare fingernails; these graceful, expressive little hands that have fascinated me since the day she was born – which feels like three minutes ago. And I don’t know whether I’m suddenly tongue-tied because I feel so cut out of the loop, or because I actually believe she’s serious.

But then something occurs to me. Hang on. Didn’t she call him mature ? ‘How old is he?’ I ask. Surely he’s not one of her professors? I can just see Harriet falling for a pontificating old paedophile in an acrylic sweater, with a thatch of messy hair. Jeff Bridges in The Mirror Has Two Faces . My dread surges. I’m already mentally lining up my legal team. I can practically taste the satisfaction of seeing him rot in prison for the remainder of his miserable little pervert life.

‘He’s twenty-two,’ she chirps. ‘You’d never think it, though. He’s so wise and interesting for his years.’

A regular Socrates whose voice has barely cracked. Great. But he’s not a paedo, so there’s that.

The waiter returns with my drinks. He gives me the ‘It’s me again; your favourite person’ thumbs-up. Harriet orders Hamachi crudo and some sort of high-protein salad with a side of truffle fries for us. I down the shot of gin a little too keenly. Harriet reaches for the water and pours some into her glass.

Wait…

I stare at her board-flat stomach in her black Lululemon top. Oh, heaven help me! I’m convinced something in there just moved. ‘You’re pregnant.’ I can barely choke the words out. I wag a finger at her belly, inwardly wailing. ‘I get it now.’ My beautiful, intelligent girl who had the world as her oyster until we came to America, is going to be a teen mum?

At first, she seems bemused. And then she slaps a hand to her mouth. ‘Is that what you think? That I’m going to have a baby?’

My eyes must be bobbing around on stalks. ‘You’re not?’

‘Of course I’m not!’ She chuckles, then lunges for her phone. ‘Oh, Aiden’s going to get a kick out of this.’

I watch as her thumbs fly out a message.

‘Er… Harriet, please don’t do that.’

But it’s too late. It’s gone. Moments later: Ping! He must have just been sitting there waiting for her to throw him a nugget of attention. She beams at me. ‘He said that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.’

Well, maybe he needs to get out more. I cross my hands at my chest. ‘Personally, I’m not finding this amusing,’ I tell her. ‘But I’m glad you are.’

‘Mum…’ She finally stops the frantic texting, complete with little private smirks, and puts her phone back down on the table. She gazes at me like I’m impossibly endearing. ‘You don’t need to worry. We’re not having a baby. We want to focus on our careers, travel… But even if I were pregnant, guys don’t have to marry girls for that reason nowadays, you know. It’s not the year 2000.’

I can’t keep the eye roll back. ‘Sweetie, I hate to disillusion you, but even in the noughties you didn’t have to marry a man if he got you up the duff.’

‘But Dad got you pregnant. That’s why you two married.’

I blink. ‘Whoever told you that?’

‘You did.’

‘When?’

There’s a loaded pause, and then she says a doleful, ‘That day.’

Ugh! With the mention of that day , my world is upended again and my stomach lists.

‘My whole life I thought you two were a match made in heaven, and then you told me you’d never have married him if you hadn’t been knocked up .’

‘I truly do not remember ever saying that or using that vile expression.’

‘Your exact words.’ She looks at me as though to say, My family. The place where romantics go to die .

‘I was obviously very angry. Under the circumstances. But anyway, I believe you’ve taken us off the topic.’

The good thing is, she clearly doesn’t want to talk about her dad right now either. She’s back to looking dreamy again. ‘You know, he’s got the world’s longest eyelashes. They’re like… unfair.’ She shakes her head at the mere marvel of him having hair in a place where pretty much every human being has hair. I mean, even our cat has eyelashes. It’s like she’s joined a cult. Someone has hijacked her brain. ‘And he’s got this ability to just see the world through a truly unique lens. Which is fitting because he wants to be a film director. And he’s going to be so fantastic at it.’

Realistic career aspirations, then. Steady job. Always going to be able to pay the bills. ‘That’s wonderful.’ I try to smile. ‘How lovely for him. But I’m sure a lot of people have those dreams, but very few get to make them a reality.’

Her eyes suddenly blaze with hurt feelings. ‘You know what? All those directors who are household names today started with those same aspirations. And if I’d been telling you I wanted to be a film director you’d have done nothing but encourage me. So why do you have to put down someone you don’t even know?’

This slap hits hard. The roles have reversed; she’s the forty-two-year-old, and I’m the kid with no filter. Not only has she hooked up with some ‘gone Hollywood’ accidentally hilarious genius with eyelashes like Clarabelle the Cow, but now she’s making me feel awful. But she’s right. I’m a jaded, old, criticising harridan; I should be ashamed of myself. And I am. I truly am. I hate the sound of my cynicism right now. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I really am. I didn’t need to pass judgement on his career ambitions. He sounds like a fine guy. He really does…’

The waiter almost frisbees the plate of crudo onto our table, like he must have practised that for days. Then comes the salad and the fries, each making their own fuck-you entrance. I stare out across the sand to a group of surfers in their wetsuits walking towards the shoreline. But the view doesn’t look so idyllic any more. I suddenly notice a homeless encampment on the beach, a bin spilling litter, with bags of rubbish piled up around it, graffiti all over the path. Even Ella Fitzgerald has moved on to some soulless number that can’t do justice to her wonderful voice. I suddenly regret that we came to LA. Why couldn’t Harriet have chosen an exchange programme in Europe instead? It’s only in LA where people fall in love and talk about marriage in under six weeks. Only here where they make you feel like an alcoholic just because you want to order a drink for each hand. Only here where the waiters get to be cocky asses and still expect a twenty-per-cent tip.

When I glance at Harriet, she’s back to looking at me fondly again – like I’m incorrigible, but she wouldn’t have me any other way. ‘Look, Mum, I’m sorry I never told you about him. I know that must feel a bit hurtful. It’s just that, I was just so horrified of jinxing it until he told me he felt the same. Until… we knew.’

We knew.

I’m aware of this cataclysmic grief, this profound inability to accept. My daughter. My little girl. She’s barely out of braces and now she’s talking about being someone’s wife? I watch as she tucks in to the food, spearing lettuce and fries; she always did have a hearty appetite. I, on the other hand, have lost mine, after she just dropped the atom bomb on my life.

‘Look, Harriet…’ I try not to focus on how she actually does look different – less weighted down by the extraordinary pressure she puts on herself to be sensible and make smart decisions, like she’s got some self-imposed accountability to an imaginary life auditor. Harriet has always been a bit too serious, a bit too old for her years. A bit too like me in that regard. I think I saw it the minute I walked in. I think I knew . I try to inject a note of lightness and positivity into my tone. ‘Even if you do think you might want to marry him, it’s obviously not going to happen any time soon, is it? Certainly not until you finish your education. You’ve got your summer placement to look forward to at Heatherwick. You were so excited about it, and you’ve worked so hard for it.’ She’d been elated when a top London architecture firm offered her an internship after she’d honed her portfolio, networked and hustled for almost a year. She’d gone out there and done the very thing I’ve never been able to do – asked for exactly what she wanted, because she knew exactly what she wanted.

‘I never said we’re doing it tomorrow,’ she says, much to my spectacular relief. ‘And of course I realise I’ve got my placement, and I’m not about to throw that away…’ I can tell by the way her voice tapers off that reality is gaining a little access. ‘Anyway,’ she says, a mite more subdued. ‘You’re meeting Aiden next Sunday. And his dad.’

I almost cough up my sip of water. ‘His dad? Why do I have to meet his old man?’ The waiter hasn’t yet cleared our plates, but he appears with the bill and the credit card machine. I slug back my last drop of gin.

‘Because this is important to us,’ she says. ‘Because Aiden’s only got his dad, and, well, I’ve really only got you.’ She lowers her eyes, perhaps in recognition of the way she’s just wiped her father clean out of the picture. I know she’s taken what Rupert did hard, that she’s chosen sides without my even asking, or wanting, her to. But I also know she’s suffering because of it. More than she will say. ‘His dad’s some sort of writer,’ she adds. ‘He lives in Malibu.’

I don’t care if he wrote The Da Vinci Code and lives on the moon; I can’t muster a single word that won’t sound like I’m asphyxiating on my own loss. I can’t have come to America with a husband and a daughter and end up going home to a life by myself.

She slides the chair back, stands. I watch her slip the strap of her black leather tote across her tiny body. ‘We have to be there by ten for brunch.’

I want to scream, No way! I ’ m not doing it! But I can’t bear to rain on her parade again. She is looking at me as though our bond is being tested, and her faith in me hanging by a thread. So I find myself mumbling, ‘Well, okay then. I’m sure it’s going to be a bust.’

She cocks her head. ‘Huh?’

I smile. ‘I said, if I must.’