And Josh’s apartment was not quite the rabbit hutch he’d described, unless your rabbit had decided to move into a renovated loft in an area that had apparently once housed artists’ studios but now formed a base for four different versions of Marc Jacobs, punctuated by artisan jewellers, specialist coffee shops and boutiques that employed men with earpieces on the doorstep. It was all whitewashed walls and oak floors, with a modernistic marble table and a distressed leather sofa. The smattering of a few carefully chosen ornaments and pieces of furniture suggested everything had been carefully considered, sourced and earned, perhaps through the services of an interior designer.
He had brought me flowers, a delicious mix of hyacinths and freesias. ‘What are these for?’ I said.
He shrugged as he shepherded me in. ‘I just saw them on the way home from work and thought you might like them.’
‘Wow. Thank you.’ I inhaled deeply. ‘This is the nicest thing that’s happened to me in ages.’
‘The flowers? Or me?’ He raised an eyebrow.
‘Well, I suppose you are quite nice.’
His face fell.
‘You’re amazing. And I love them.’
He smiled broadly then and kissed me. ‘Well, you’re the nicest thing that’s happened to me in ages,’ he said, softly, when he pulled back. ‘Feels like I waited a long time for you, Louisa.’
‘We only met in October.’
‘Ah. But we live in an age of instant gratification. And we’re in the city where anything you want you get yesterday.’
There was a strange potency to being wanted as much as Josh seemed to want me. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d done to deserve it. I wanted to ask him what he saw in me but I suspected it would sound oddly needy to say it aloud so I tried to work it out in other ways.
‘Tell me about the other women you’ve dated,’ I said, from the sofa, as he moved around the little kitchenette, pulling out plates and cutlery and glasses. ‘What were they like?’
‘Aside from Tinder hook-ups? Smart, pretty, usually successful …’ He stooped to pull a bottle of fish sauce from the back of a cupboard. ‘But honestly? Like self-obsessed,’ he said. ‘Like they couldn’t be seen without perfect make-up, or they would have a full-on meltdown if their hair wasn’t right, and everything had to be Instagrammed or photographed or reported on social media and presented in the best light. Including dates with me. Like they could never drop their guard.’
He straightened up, holding bottles. ‘You want chilli sauce? Or soy? I dated one girl who used to check what time I was getting up each day and set her alarm for half an hour before just so she could fix her hair and make-up. Just so I would never see her not looking perfect. Even if it meant getting up at, like, four thirty.’
‘Okay. I’m going to warn you now, I’m not that girl.’
‘I know that, Louisa. I’ve put you to bed.’
I kicked off my shoes and folded my legs under me. ‘I suppose it’s kind of impressive that they put in so much effort.’
‘Yeah. But it can be a little exhausting. And you never feel quite like … like you know what’s really underneath. With you, I have to say, it’s all pretty much out there. You are who you are.’
‘Should I take that as a compliment?’
‘Sure. You’re like the girls I grew up with. You’re honest.’
‘The Gopniks don’t think so.’
‘Fuck them.’ His voice was uncharacteristically harsh. ‘You know, I’ve been thinking about it. You can prove you didn’t do what they said you did – right? So you should sue them for unfair dismissal and loss of reputation and hurt feelings and –’
I shook my head.
‘Seriously. Gopnik trades on this reputation of being a decent, old-fashioned good guy in business and he’s always doing stuff for charity, but he fired you for nothing, Louisa. You lost your job and your home with no warning and no compensation.’
‘He thought I was stealing.’
‘Yeah, but he must know there was something not quite right about what he was doing or he would have called the cops. Given who he is, I’d bet there’s some lawyer who would take this on a no-win-no-fee basis.’
‘Really. I’m fine. Lawsuits aren’t my style.’
‘Yeah, well. You’re too nice. You’re being English about it.’
The doorbell rang. Josh held up a finger, as if to say we would continue this conversation. He disappeared into the narrow hallway and I heard him paying the delivery boy while I finished laying the little table.
‘And you know what?’ he said, bringing the bag into the kitchen. ‘Even if you didn’t have evidence I’d bet Gopnik would pay a lump sum just to stop the whole thing getting into the papers. Think what that could do for you. I mean, a couple of weeks ago you were sleeping on someone’s floor.’ (I hadn’t told him about sharing Nathan’s bed.)
‘This could get you a decent deposit on a rental. Hell, you get a good enough lawyer, this could buy you an apartment. You know how much money Gopnik has? Like, he is famously rich. In a city of seriously rich people.’
‘Josh, I know you mean well but I just want to forget it.’
‘Louisa, you –’
‘No.’ I put my hands down on the table. ‘I’m not suing anybody.’
He waited for a minute, perhaps frustrated by his inability to push me further, and then he shrugged and smiled. ‘Okay – well, dinner time! You don’t have any allergies, right? Have some chicken. Here – you like eggplant? They do this eggplant chilli dish that’s just the greatest.’
I slept with Josh that night. I wasn’t drunk and I wasn’t vulnerable and I wasn’t breathless with need for him. I think I just wanted my life to feel normal again. We had eaten and drunk and talked and laughed until late into the night, and he had pulled the drapes and turned down the lights and it seemed like a natural progression, or at least I could think of no reason not to. He was so beautiful. He had skin without a blemish and cheekbones you could actually see, and his hair was soft and chestnut-coloured and tinged with tiny flecks of gold, even after the long winter. We kissed on his sofa, first sweetly and then with increasing fervour, and he lost his shirt and then I lost mine and I made myself focus on this gorgeous, attentive man, this prince of New York, and not on all the rambling things my imagination tended to focus on, and I felt need grow in me, like a distant, reassuring friend, until I was able to block out everything but the sensations of him against me, and then, some time later, inside me.
Afterwards he kissed me tenderly and asked me if I was happy, then murmured that he had to get some sleep and I lay there and tried to ignore the tears that inexplicably trickled from the corners of my eyes into my ears.
What was it Will had told me? You had to seize the day. You had to embrace opportunities as they came. You had to be the kind of person who said yes. If I had turned Josh away, wouldn’t I have regretted it for ever?
I turned silently in the unfamiliar bed and studied his profile as he slept, the perfect straight nose and the mouth that looked like Will’s. I thought of all the ways Will would have approved of him. I could even picture them together, laughing with each other, a competitive edge to their jokes. They might have been friends. Or enemies. They were almost too similar.
Perhaps I was meant to be with this man, I thought, albeit via a strange, unsettling route. Perhaps this was Will, come back to me. And with this thought I wiped my eyes and fell into a brief, disjointed sleep.
24
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Dear Treen,
I know you think it’s too soon. But what did Will teach me? You only get one life, right? And you’re happy with Eddie? So why can’t I be happy? You’ll get it when you meet him, I promise.