“Well, isn’t that natural? I think he just misses you.”
“He’s so judgmental,” she continues as though she didn’t hear me. “He was like, ‘We’re married, Nicole.’ And ‘You promised to come out.’ I was like, ‘Stop criticizing me, Drew. You’re so negative.’ ”
I look at her beautiful brow, all creased up with distress. I’ve wondered about a million times in my life what it’s like to be Nicole—and now I’m getting a bit of an inkling. When you’ve been adored and admired and praised your whole life, maybe any tiny altercation feels like criticism.
“I’m sure he doesn’t mean to criticize you,” I say. “I’m sure he just wants to see you. I think you should go!” I add encouragingly. “I bet it’s amazing out there. And warm. Go for a week. Or two weeks!”
“But what about my yoga?” says Nicole. “What about my business?”
Immediately my empathy turns to frustration. For God’s sake. Her business? Five women lying on mats? “What about your husband?” I want to retort. “What about your relationship? Don’t you value those things?”
I draw breath to say all this—then suddenly lose my nerve. That’s never been how we talk to each other. Nicole might bite my head off. And, anyway, is this the right place? Greg’s just opened the doors and three customers have come in.
“I’m sure you’ll work it out,” I say vaguely, then blink in surprise, because Jake is coming through the doors too, dressed in a sharp suit and eyeing the customers with his usual supercilious displeasure.
“Is Bob here?” he demands as he approaches, and I catch a heavy waft of aftershave.
“Bob? No. Don’t think so. He’ll be here tomorrow. Why?”
“I was trying to get through to him yesterday.” Jake frowns. “I thought I’d swing by on the off chance.”
“Why do you need to speak to Bob?” I say in surprise.
“Oh, something I noticed in the accounts.”
“What did you notice in the accounts?” I ask at once.
“Shit, Fixie!” he says impatiently. “Does it matter? Whatever!”
“Right,” I say warily, because I sense he’s not in the mood for conversation. He looks fairly shocking this morning. His face is pale, with purple shadows under his eyes. And he seems more lined, somehow.
“Heavy night last night?” I try teasing him. Usually Jake would grin and tell me how many bottles of champagne he got through and what they cost, but today he glowers at me.
“Just lay off, OK?”
“Oh, excuse me,” says a pleasant-looking woman, approaching us. “Do you have baskets? To put things in?” she adds. “Shopping baskets,” she clarifies, as though the phrase has just occurred to her. “You know what I mean?”
Jake eyes her silently for a moment. Then he goes over to the stack of red plastic baskets, picks one up, and proffers it to the woman with elaborate care.
“Here,” he says. “They were in that pile. That pile there, by the door where you walk in? Right where you can see them? That one?”
I stare at him in utter horror. You can’t speak to customers like that. Dad would kill him.
It’s only because of his affected drawl that he gets away with it. The woman stares at him uncertainly, clearly not sure whether he’s being sarcastic or not, then gives him the benefit of the doubt and says brightly, “Thank you!”
“Jake, you can’t—” I begin, as soon as she’s walked off. “That wasn’t— You could have offended her—”
Oh God, I’m stuttering again. Why can’t I sound as confident in actual speech as I do inside my head?
“Well, for fuck’s sake,” says Jake defensively. “What kind of moron can’t see the baskets?”
He heads off to the back room and I count to ten, telling myself that this time I have to confront him. He can’t jeopardize our relationship with customers, even if he has got a sore head.
I make my way to the back room and push open the door, expecting to see Jake on his phone, or striding around, or being Jake-ish—but to my astonishment he’s sitting on one of the foam chairs, his head back, his eyes closed. Is he asleep? Whether or not he is, he looks exhausted. Backing away, I close the door quietly and return to the shop floor. “Now, young lady,” comes a stern voice, and I glance up to see a gray-haired woman in a tweed coat approaching me. “Where’s all your plastic storage gone?”
“Oh, right,” I say. “We do stock storage containers, actually. That aisle.” I gesture helpfully, but the woman doesn’t seem impressed.
“I’ve checked! There’s nothing there! I want the jumbo size for my mince pies.” She eyes me with a gimlet gaze. “Where are they?”
“Oh, right,” I say again, playing for time.
I had a row with Jake over the jumbo containers. He said they were bulky and tragic-looking and cluttered the place up. So we returned some and the rest are in our storage facility in Willesden.
“I can get you some in,” I say. “I can have them by this afternoon—”
“That’s no good! I want them now!” the woman huffs angrily. “I’ll go to Robert Dyas. But it’s out of my way.”
She walks off before I can say anything more, and I feel a wave of frustration. I knew we shouldn’t cut the stock so drastically; I knew we should play to our strengths—
“Bye, then, Fixie,” says Nicole, who’s been drifting around, fiddling with the displays, noticing nothing.
“Wait,” I say. “Jake’s asleep in the back room. He looks really rough. Not just night-out rough. Worse than that.”
“He’s probably burned out,” says Nicole sagely. “He needs to learn to self-care. He should come to my yoga class.”
“Right,” I say doubtfully. “I can’t really see Jake doing yoga.”
“Exactly! And that’s the problem,” says Nicole, as though she’s solved everything. “See you.”
She wafts out before I can respond, and I stare after her. Maybe she’s right; maybe Jake is burned out. He’s always been about more, Jake, his whole life. More money, more status, more stuff for him, more stuff for Leila … But how’s he paying for it all? With his health?
Maybe I should talk to him. I wanted to have it out with him about the food storage department—but this is more important.
I leave it for an hour, telling all the staff to stay away from the back room. Then I cautiously push open the door and survey Jake. He opens his eyes a chink and peers back at me blearily.
“Hi,” I say. “You fell asleep. You must have been tired.”
Jake rubs his face, checks his watch, and says irritably, “Jesus.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts scrolling down his messages, wincing as he does so.
A few ravens begin to flap around my head, because Jake sometimes bites your head off if you ask him personal questions. But I can’t just let this go by. I have to say something.
“Jake,” I venture, “you look exhausted. Are you working too hard? Are you burned out?”
“Burned out!” Jake echoes with a short laugh, looking up from his phone for a nanosecond. He turns his eyes back to his screen and I watch as tension creeps up on his face. I’ve never thought of Jake as vulnerable before. But right now he looks anxious and beleaguered and weary, even though he’s just had a nap.
“Are you doing too many deals?” I try again. “Are you overwhelmed?”
“You know what’s overwhelming?” says Jake, and there’s a sudden edge to his voice which makes me wince. “Life. Just life.”
“Well, why don’t you slow down a bit? Why don’t you have a break?”
Jake puts down his phone and stares at me silently for a moment. His face is strained but his eyes are unreadable. Yet again, I realize I don’t know my brother very well.
“You’ve got a good heart,” he says. “Dad used to say that about you. D’you remember?”
“Dad?” I stare at him. “No.”
“When you were little. Nicole and I used to push you around in the wheelbarrow. And you fell out the whole time, but you always laughed. You never whinged.”
“The wheelbarrow!” A memory comes to me—an old wheelbarrow with red handles on our scrubby lawn—and I almost laugh in delight. “Yes!”
“You were cute.” A smile passes across Jake’s face and I think I can see genuine affection there, a nostalgia for the past. I smile timidly back, hoping we might talk like this for a while longer.
But already Jake is preoccupied by his phone again. “I’ve got to go,” he says, standing up.
“Wait,” I say eagerly. “Could we just have a word about storage containers?”
“Storage containers? Jesus, Fixie.”
All the softness disappears from his face. He’s back to impatient, scornful Jake again.
“What’s wrong with storage containers?” I retort before I can stop myself, but Jake just rolls his eyes.
“I do not have time for this,” he says, and strides out of the room.
I stare after him, prickling with stress, thinking, How did that go so wrong? when a text bleeps from my phone. I haul it out of my pocket, half-thinking it might be from Jake—but as I see the name, my stomach flips over. It’s from Seb.