CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
May
I hate having to be in any kind of contact with Chris now, but it is inevitable, seeing as we work together, even if we’re far apart in both time and distance. My work emails are clipped and short and, far from thinking I’d have nothing to do with him until the end of this project, it seems he’s currently a huge part of my working day.
At least it’s Friday, so this is the last bit of work I’m doing today after a full day of going back and forth with Max and Chris over the new set of layout plans. If it frustrates Max that I finish my working day five hours ahead of him, he doesn’t let on. I always log on the next day and discover a trove of emails piled up for me to get through, from those in the New York office who need on-the-ground London hotel intel. Max was right. My inbox filled up fast and it’s been non-stop since. It’s exhausting. I love it.
I email ever so professionally at the end of my day:
Hi Chris,
Hope you’re well. Just updating you on the change of layout for the kitchen, as discussed. Drawings attached.
All the best,
Lexie
I hit send. Max informed us all last week that a celebrity chef – who simply goes by the name of Javier – is going to be our chef patron and has decided he needs to do more than just cook. He feels he also needs to be in charge of the layout for the hotel’s kitchen. I think this is totally over the top, but apparently the New York team are used to this sort of thing, though the UK suppliers are flipping their lids.
Chef’s kitchen is his space, according to Max, and heaven forbid that our talented architects should be allowed to do their job in the process. All their hard work is being undone, as Chef Javier tries to move a sink five inches to the left for no reason at all, as far as I can see. The structural engineers are having kittens, and I’ve been with the site manager getting the lowdown and sitting in on Zoom calls between the London team and Max, while everyone tries to manage each other’s expectations.
Chris replies within two minutes:
Thanks, Lexie. I’ll take a look and come back to you on Monday if I need anything further.
Kind regards,
Chris
Kind regards. Honestly. Thank God it’s Friday. I close my laptop lid. It’s 6 p.m. I’m done and I don’t have any plans tonight. Josh is at some kind of farming event this weekend, so I’m staying put in London. I can’t wait to run a bath, put on a podcast and anticipate Scarlet getting home, so we can decide what delights to order from Deliveroo this evening.
I start running the bath and, while I wait for the tub to fill, scroll through my podcasts, wondering if I should listen to a true-crime series about a woman who got murdered in her first-floor flat in broad daylight in the centre of London. I poke my head out of the bathroom and glance at the front door, wondering if it’s locked. It isn’t, so I turn to lock it and decide just to put on some music instead of the podcast. That feels safer. But before I get the chance to select any bath music , my phone rings.
I stand still and stare at the screen as Chris’s name flashes back at me. I switch off the tap and swipe to answer. ‘Yes?’ I say with uncertainty.
‘I wanted to grab you quickly before you finished your day over there.’
‘Yes?’
‘You forgot to attach the drawings.’
‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t think I had,’ I say. ‘I’ll do that right now.’
‘Thanks,’ he replies.
‘OK, bye.’
‘Wait,’ he’s quick to add. But doesn’t say anything else.
‘What’s wrong?’
He doesn’t reply.
‘Hello?’ I ask.
‘I’m still here. Look, Lexie, this is silly,’ he goes on, with a hint of exasperation.
‘What is?’ I ask. ‘If you’re referring to the kitchen change, I think we can all do without—’
‘No,’ he says. ‘Well, yeah, that too. But that’s just people being people. But this: you and me . This is silly.’
‘Which bit?’ I question because he needs to say it, not me.
‘“Kind regards.” “All the best.” It’s stupid.’
‘It’s a polite way to end an email,’ I point out.
He tuts. ‘This isn’t what I had in mind. I don’t know what we’re trying to achieve, but we’re doing it all wrong.’
‘I don’t make the rules,’ I say, echoing his words at the Edinburgh wedding. ‘This is your game.’
He pauses, remembering. ‘That was bingo,’ he replies, cottoning on. ‘This is life.’
‘It’s not really, though, is it?’
‘It is. Lexie, I didn’t envisage this. There doesn’t need to be any drama. We can chat. You’re over there, I’m over here. We need to be able to communicate over this kitchen nonsense, and all the other things that are going to start amassing soon. We can’t do it if we’re sending “Hope this email finds you well” to each other over and over again until one of us dies of politeness overload. It’s inane.’
I chuckle without meaning to, and then I’m annoyed at myself for relenting quite so quickly. ‘Yes, it is,’ I agree. ‘But you started it.’
‘You going down that road is even sillier,’ he dares.
‘Er, excuse me—’ I start, but Chris responds quickly.
‘I know. I know,’ he says. And then, more gently, ‘I hold my hands up. I’ve caved.’
‘You can’t,’ I tell him. ‘You’re not allowed to.’
‘No?’ he questions. ‘Why not?’
‘Because this was your idea, and you’ve only held out for three months.’
‘I didn’t think it through,’ he says.
‘Not my problem,’ I reply, digging in the knife.
‘You want to be rude to each other? You actually want that?’ he asks. ‘Because you know full well that’s not what I was suggesting, when we agreed to cool it all down.’
‘We’re not being rude to each other. We hope each other’s emails find the other well. We’re being really polite.’
‘We’re being rude now,’ he snaps. ‘Or, rather, you are. You’re being rude while we discuss the fact that we’re being over-polite.’
‘It’s quite the mind-fuck, isn’t it?’ I declare, proud of myself for having found a way to shoehorn this word into our conversation, because I’ve been thinking all of this is a mind-fuck for quite some time.
Chris sighs. I can picture him, his head thrown back in his chair at work, shirt sleeves rolled up as he stares at the ceiling in frustration.
‘Where are you?’ I ask.
‘I’m working from home today,’ he says.
‘Oh, I pictured you at work. I thought this is quite an interesting conversation to be having within earshot of everyone.’
‘You pictured me?’ he asks. And then, ‘Forget I said that. How’s your day been – kitchen nonsense aside?’ he asks.
‘Fine,’ I answer, a bit taken aback at this change in direction. And then I remember. ‘I’m not used to small talk from you. You’ve thrown me a bit.’
I hear him laugh softly. ‘I want to make sure everything’s OK.’
‘With me?’
‘With us,’ he says. ‘That we’re OK. That I can hang up and we can both go off and have our weekends and it’ll all be OK.’
‘Chris?’
‘Yeah?’
‘It’ll all be OK.’
‘Thanks,’ he says.
You put your head on mine and you kissed my hair . That’s what I really want to say. You leaned in to kiss me, changed your mind and told me we couldn’t be friends. I really liked you. But I don’t say any of that. Instead I ask, ‘What are you and your Tinder swipe up to this weekend?’
‘Pah,’ he laughs. ‘You just made me snort coffee. And it wasn’t bloody Tinder. But let’s change names to protect the innocent. Tinder Swipe and I are going to the Rockefeller Center because there’s an exhibition she wants to see.
‘That sounds lovely. Did you ever take her ice-skating there, like you did with me?’ I ask.
‘Er … no.’
I immediately pick up on his caginess. ‘Why not?’
‘I’d pre-booked those tickets.’
‘I don’t understand,’ I say.
‘I pre-booked those tickets for Tinder Swipe.’ He laughs briefly at how he’s started using that name.
My mouth drops open. ‘What?’
‘You were going home and I realised I’d been neglectful,’ Chris goes on. ‘So my grand plan to take her ice-skating got replaced by an emergency night out with you and, because I had the tickets already, ice-skating seemed like a good idea.’
‘You took me on a date that was meant for someone else ?’
‘It wasn’t a date. With you, I mean.’
‘You know what I mean,’ I tell him.
‘I felt guilty that we hadn’t spent much time together. I had ice-skating tickets. It wasn’t meant to be anything more than that. Please don’t read anything further into it.’
I inhale and exhale. ‘I think I preferred it when we were saying “kind regards” to each other. Can we go back to that?’
‘Yeah,’ he sighs. ‘If you want to.’
‘I don’t want to really,’ I say.
‘I’m sorry I suggested we go radio-silent on each other. It was a rash decision. We need to be able to communicate.’
‘It was done with good intentions,’ I spring to his defence, although why, I’m not sure.
‘My gran says the path to hell is lined with good intentions,’ Chris muses.
‘Your gran is a wise woman.’
I can hear the smile in his voice. ‘She is,’ he says, then tells me how she used to love photography when she was young and how she met his grandad, who was a picture-framer. I’m grateful Chris is switching up the conversation, that we’re continuing on so naturally. I don’t think I realised how much I missed him until now. He asks about my grandparents, and I tell him how they grew up in the same town in Hertfordshire and met each other at a bus stop. I tell him about where I was raised, and he does the same, until we’ve been talking about anything and everything for hours. The bath I had planned to run never gets run, Scarlet comes home, clanging the stiff door lock and waves at me, before disappearing into her room to FaceTime the gardener from Leith. When I next look at my watch I see it’s 9 p.m. and I tell Chris as much. I’m starving.
‘We’ve been talking for three hours,’ he exclaims. ‘I need to get back on with some work. What are you doing with the rest of your Friday night?’
‘That was pretty much it,’ I say. ‘It’s a rare weekend off from Josh, so I’m in my flat.’
‘A weekend off?’ he queries. ‘Like day-release?’
‘No,’ I reply. ‘He’s at a farming event. I have no idea what it entails.’
‘Are you at his every weekend?’ Chris asks.
‘Mostly, yeah, or else we wouldn’t see each other.’
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Which do you prefer now? Country or city?’
‘Both equally now.’
‘You’ve changed your tune,’ he comments.
‘Yes, I have. I love the freedom of both. In London I love coming and going from a pub or a bar, to the cinema or theatre; a gallery at the weekend with Scarlet, although we don’t do too much of that any more. And I love how easy it is in the country. I don’t feel any pressure to do too much. I can just be, relax, spend time with Josh, cook a bit, help him feed the animals or whatever. I understand why city types have weekend homes now.’
He chuckles. ‘Idyllic.’
‘Yeah, I suppose it is. Like a dream. A good dream. I feel as if I’m leading two lives.’ I’m not sure why I’ve told Chris this.
‘Sounds like you are,’ he says without judgement. But what would he judge? ‘So you’re happy,’ he continues, and I can’t tell if he’s stating it or asking it.
‘I am. Are you?’
‘Yeah,’ he says, but there was a split-second pause before he replied.
We have to be able to talk. I have to be able to hear about his life. I have to get over my regrets, move on.
‘So tell me about Tinder Swipe,’ I ask, and I’ll bet he’s rolling his eyes.
‘I can’t believe you’re making this stick,’ he says before continuing, ‘It’s good. Yeah. I like her, Kayla. No thoughts of moving in together, though, I hasten to add. It’s all very easy and it’s only been a few months, so we’re enjoying each other’s company. Getting to know each other.’
‘Ah, I’m really pleased,’ I reply, and I mean it. I do. ‘And I’m pleased we’re friends again.’
‘Me too. Sorry for being such an idiot in Edinburgh.’
‘You weren’t,’ I say, though I want to respond with, You were. You really, really were.
‘Let’s forget that ever happened,’ he says.
‘Deal. It was nice,’ I say, ‘chatting like this.’ It was. It wasn’t emotionally fuelled or dramatic. It was easy. I’m sure we can keep this up. If we both put our minds to it and try really hard.
‘It was nice,’ Chris agrees. ‘I’ve had a nice afternoon, even though I should have been working.’
‘I’ve had a nice evening,’ I reply and then tell him I’ll send those drawings over in a few minutes.
‘Speak to you soon,’ Chris says. ‘Have a good weekend.’
‘You too. Kind regards,’ I trill.
He chuckles and then deadpans back, ‘All the best.’