12. Little Elephant
Adam and Ryan’s apartment was only a few blocks away, on a street I’d never explored. “I haven’t been down here before.”
“Good,” replied Adam, tightening his grip on my hand. “It’s a very seedy part of town.”
It didn’t look seedy. The street was lined with trees that winter had stripped of leaves. The stately pre-war buildings were elegant and grand. The cold, crisp air smelled clean and traffic was at a minimum.
Adam was adaptable. I’d seen him spend hours scraping and sanding a grotty old boat, dressed in paint-spattered jeans with flecks of wood in his hair. The thought of Ryan residing in a less than prestigious area seemed impossible.
“You’re lying, aren’t you?” I accused.
He chuckled. “Yes, I’m lying.”
He was really lying. The inside of the apartment was every bit as modish as I anticipated. The front door opened on to an open plan living room. The floor was syrup coloured timber, and the walls were rustic, exposed red brick. It was masculine, industrial and stylish. The only seedy thing in the apartment was Aubrey, Ryan’s date from the fateful lunch at Nellie’s. She was sitting on the couch, touching up her makeup.
Ryan was there too, standing at the granite island bench, thumbing through a newspaper. “I was wondering how long it would be before you two surfaced,” he mocked.
“Hello to you too,” said Adam. He turned his attention to dodgy Barbie. “Good morning, Aubrey. I haven’t seen you here for a while.”
Aubrey snapped her compact shut and stood, smoothing her night-before dress and her bedroom hair. “Well, they do say absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
“You’re assuming Ryan has a heart. That’s charitable.”
Aubrey muttered an insult I didn’t quite catch and walked to Ryan. She whispered something in his ear that made him simper and breezed past us to the door.
Ryan was the second seediest thing in the room. I couldn’t help noticing his eyes following her the whole way. Once she was gone, he turned his attention to me, dropping the sordid stare and smiling sweetly. “How are you, Charlotte?”
“Fine, thank you.”
“Staying out of trouble?”
“Leave her alone,” warned Adam. “Pay no attention to him, Charli.”
“Have you found another job yet, Charli?” asked Ryan.
“Not yet.”
“You can come back to Nellie’s, you know.”
“You wouldn’t want her back,” said Adam, searching through the kitchen cupboards. “Where’s the tea?”
“We don’t have any tea,” claimed Ryan. “No one of sound mind drinks tea. Why don’t I want her back?”
“Charli drinks tea. You don’t want her back because she doesn’t have a green card.”
Ryan glared at me, appalled. “Oh, joy. Why am I not surprised?”
I didn’t answer him.
Adam gave up looking for tea and tried to tempt me with a mug of coffee, promising it was the best in New York.
“This is how it starts, Charli,” Ryan foreboded. “Before you know it, he’ll have you hooked on the harder stuff. Espressos, Turkish coffee….”
I walked in to the kitchen and took the mug from Adam, totally buckling under peer pressure.
“It’s Saturday. Why are you dressed like you’re going to a funeral?” asked Adam, absently stirring his coffee while he looked his brother up and down.
The Décarie boys were tragically good looking. Ryan’s biggest problem was that he was well aware of it. He straightened his grey silk tie and brushed the shoulder of his dark grey suit like he was dusting it off. “I’ve been summoned to breakfast with the queen,” he announced in a faultless British accent.
“Why?” asked Adam.
“Because you haven’t been taking her calls all week. I assume she wants the lowdown on dim Whit. She’s not happy with you. I thought I’d take her somewhere classy so she can’t raise hell in public.”
Instantly I knew that the queen was their mother. I began to feel incredibly nervous but had no clue why.
“Thanks,” Adam said, seemingly unconcerned by his mother’s fury. “I owe you one.”
Ryan fidgeted with his tie again. “You already owe me many. You shouldn’t have told her Charli was in town. She thinks you’ve dumped Whitney and run off with the little minx.” Ryan pointed at me and I scowled. “Her words, not mine, sorry,” he whispered, expressing badly acted pity.
“Ridiculous,” uttered Adam.
“How does she know about me?” I asked. More importantly, why had she formed such a low opinion so soon?
“We’ve always known about Adam’s little summer romance,” said Ryan. “He just wasn’t expected to bring her home.”
***
Adam’s bedroom was at the end of a short hallway. It shared the same rustic brick walls as the rest of the apartment but the large window on the far side of the room made the space bright.
I followed him in and sat on the edge of the bed, scanning the room without moving my head.
Adam slid open the wardrobe, dragged two suitcases from the top shelf and dropped them beside me.
Alex had often accused me of being a mini cyclone. Seeing the boy I love dragging clothes out of his wardrobe and dumping them into suitcases proved that I was. In a few short days, I’d completely upturned his life.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Adam?” I asked, giving him a chance to renege on our set-in-stone futures. “I can repaint the wall.”
He punched out a quick laugh. “I don’t want to spend another minute without you. The wall stays.”
“I’ve turned your life upside down,” I said gravely.
“You did that the day I first met you, Coccinelle.”
“Even your mother hates me.”
“My mother hates the idea of you.”
I wanted to ask him what he meant, but Ryan’s appearance way halted the conversation. A confused frown swept his face. “Are you leaving?”
Adam answered his question by zipping one of the suitcases closed.
Ryan turned his attention to me, still frowning quizzically. “What is it about you?”
I had no idea how to answer him. His phone rang and I had an instant reprieve. He read the number on the screen and rolled his eyes. “It’s for you,” he said, holding the phone to Adam. “It’s your mother.”
“She’s your mother, too. And she’s calling your phone.”
“Answer it,” he demanded.
Adam shook his head.
“Fine, we’ll all answer it.” Ryan hit the speaker button and Fiona Décarie’s urgent voice filled the air.
The family was a hodgepodge of accents. Now a new one was thrown into the mix. Fiona Décarie was undoubtedly English, and spoke with a plum in her mouth to prove it.
“Hey, Ma,” Ryan drawled, holding the phone in the air. “Are we still on for breakfast?”
“Of course. Darling, have you heard from Adam? Is he home yet?”
Adam swiped his hand across his throat.
“No, he’s not here,” fibbed Ryan.
Something in his expression told me he was not to be trusted. I expected him to force the phone upon Adam at any second. But he didn’t, leaving their mother free to launch into a diatribe.
“Well, where is he? I know he’s with that dreadful girl but, where? He’s not answering his phone.”
Adam winced as she called me dreadful. I sat perfectly still, trying to appear unaffected.
“He’s moving in with her, Ma. I think it’s pretty serious.”
“What? Is he out of his mind? Poor Whitney will be devastated. Try talking some sense in to him, Ryan. I won’t have him throwing his whole life away on some two-bit trollop.”
“The trollop’s actually quite sweet.” He looked at me as he said it. Perhaps I was supposed to be flattered.
Adam walked back to the wardrobe, dragging clothes off hangers less carefully than before.
“She hails from a country of convicts!” she screeched.
Ryan laughed and I heard Adam groan. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
“As far as I know, Charlotte is a law-abiding citizen – for the most part.”
The evil Décarie brother was taking far too much pleasure in the exchange. I wanted to snatch the phone and hang up on her. Speaking up and defending myself didn’t enter my thoughts. Fiona Décarie was playing on a level far above anything I was capable of.
“I won’t stand for it,” she snarled.
“You might not have a choice.”
“No little vagrant pauper is going to ruin my son!”
At least she’d done her homework. Vagrant pauper I could deal with. It was a fair description. The sting of being referred to as a minx and a trollop was harder to deflect.
“Will you calm down, please?” asked Ryan. “You’re blowing things a little out of proportion.”
The wild woman let loose again, mainly about her irresponsible, reckless sons. Ryan found the humour, but Adam’s face reminded me of someone chewing tinfoil. Unable to listen any more, he lurched forward and snatched the phone before walking out of the room talking a mile a minute in French.
The second he was gone, the air felt calmer.
“Shall I translate?” teased Ryan.
“Is she always like this?”
“No. When she meets you, she’s going to be sweeter than candy. If she had any idea you were privy to that conversation, she’d never have said a word.”
“Why does your mother hate me so much?” I asked bleakly. “I haven’t even had a chance to upset her yet.”
I shouldn’t have looked at him. The wily grin on his face was less than supportive. “You’re always going to be the little elephant in the room, Charli.”
“Explain it to me,” I ordered.
Ryan sat on the bed beside me, heaving a loud sigh as if talking to me had suddenly become a chore. “It’s complicated.”
“Dumb it down then,” I said dryly.
“Fine, I’ll do my best. Because of Adam, you’ve just stumbled in to a most exclusive club.” He spoke using the same posh accent he’d adopted when referring to his mother as the queen.
“Cool. Who’s in it?”
Welcoming the sarcasm, he laughed. “Some of the most spoiled, entitled trust fund scions in the country.”
If that was Ryan’s idea of dumbing it down, he clearly thought I was smarter. Unashamedly, I took my phone out of my pocket and Googled the definition. “Scion. A descendant, heir or young member of a family. Couldn’t you have just said that?”
Ryan smirked. “I could have, but I love your naïvety.”
I wanted to grab him by his silk tie and throttle him. “I am not naïve,” I snapped.
“Thinking you can run with that crowd makes you naïve. Adam and Whitney have been together since prep school. A few days ago, he dumped her without warning or reason. All their friends have been rallying around, trying to console dim Whit. They’d probably be doing the same for Adam except he’s fallen off the radar.”
“None of that has anything to do with me!”
Perhaps sensing I was close to garrotting him, Ryan stood. “Don’t you see?” he asked gently. “You’re always going to be the girl who took him from her. That pack of lions are going to eat you alive.” He sounded like he truly felt sorry for me. “They’re a hundred percent Team Dim Whit.”
“Well, thank you for the vote of confidence,” I grumbled, folding my arms. “Don’t underestimate me.”
“I have never underestimated you, but feeding you to the lions would be an act of cruelty. How are you planning to deal with that?”
I didn’t hesitate. “I’m going to learn to speak lion.”
Ryan shook his head. “It’s not possible, Charli – which brings me back to your original question. You wanted to know why my mother dislikes you so much.”
“Yes.”
He leaned forward, speaking in a slow whisper. “Even if it offends you?”
“You’ve done nothing to preserve my feelings so far.”
He smiled as if I’d given him permission to let loose on me. “Your pedigree doesn’t cut it. Whitney Vaughn, however, comes from good stock. Her family are hoteliers. There’s no way Fiona Décarie is going to sit back and watch the wheels fall off. She’s Team Dim Whit all the way too.”
It was impossible to feel ill will toward Ryan for spelling it out so harshly. I just didn’t want to be affected by anything he’d told me. None of it seemed fair. Every new place I travelled to, I arrived with a clean slate. My New York slate was supposed to be sparkling.
“All I care about is being with him, Ryan.”
“Then I suggest you carve your own path while you’re here. Make your own friends, because there’s going to be no warm welcome from Adam’s camp.”
It pained me to admit it, but he was right. I couldn’t put myself in the position of relying on Adam to do anything other than love me. Meshing our lives together could go no further than him and me. I didn’t need the complication of trying to seek his family’s approval, or convincing his friends that I wasn’t the crux of the Adam and Whitney breakup.
“I want my job back,” I blurted.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, starting Monday.”
***
Adam reappeared soon after, not looking near as traumatised as I expected him to. The way he thrust Ryan’s phone at him, thumping him in the chest with it as he passed, was his only hint of anger. Leaning hard on the second suitcase, Adam zipped it closed.
“That’s it?” I asked. “Two suitcases?”
He nodded. “I’ll call someone to pick them up.”
“You can call someone to do that?”
“So naïve,” muttered Ryan.
Adam’s scalding glance was wasted on Ryan; he was already on his way out the door. I appreciated the privacy.
Reaching for my hands, Adam pulled me to my feet and into a strong hug. I wanted to know what had transpired with his mother, but bit hard on my bottom lip to stop myself from asking. There was only so much torment I could take in one day. He leaned back to look at me, sweeping my hair from my face and tucking it behind my ear. “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered.
I followed him out, loosely holding his hand. The evil brother was standing in the kitchen, using the reflection of the glass in the oven door to check himself out.
“We should try and sort some furniture out this afternoon,” suggested Adam.
“Or we could do it tomorrow.” Nothing about shopping for furniture appealed to me.
He leaned down close. “We’ve got to do it today.”
Ryan chimed in from the kitchen. “Call a decorator.”
“We don’t need to,” said Adam, still looking at me. “We just need to go shopping.”
“The only hope for that place is professional intervention,” insisted Ryan. “You definitely need a decorator.”
Mitchell and I had resided in some downright fleapits during our travels. Considering Gabrielle’s apartment anything short of luxurious was laughable.
“Spoiled scion of the rich,” I muttered, loud enough for him to hear.
Adam stared. “What did you call him?”
I knew he’d heard me perfectly well the first time. “Nothing.” An innocent smile had never been an easy look for me to pull off, but I tried anyway.
“Well played, Charlotte,” praised Ryan. “But no amount of wit will make up for your lack of style.”
“I have plenty of style.”
“I’m sure you do,” he agreed. “And when you’ve furnished the apartment, I’ll be glad to come over and admire the striped banana lounges and beaded curtains.”
I tried to catch Adam’s eyes but he was grinning at the floor. Clearly his memories of La La land still burned brightly. I’d shown him enough crazy to make him believe that banana lounges weren’t out of the realm of possibility.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I asked.
Ryan checked his watch. “Yes, I do.” He picked his keys off the counter. “See you Monday, Charli. Don’t be late.” The door slammed and the evil brother was gone – but his last comment lingered, just as he’d planned.
“What was that about?” Adam asked, hooking his finger through the belt loop on my jeans and pulling me in close.
I slipped my arms around his neck, trying to predict how he’d take the news that I was once again, his newest employee. “I’m working at Nellie’s.”
“You don’t have to do that.” His low tone and the way he murmured the words against my mouth stole my ability to argue the point. “In fact, you really shouldn’t do that. Wait until we get your visa sorted and you can work legally, if you want to.” He lifted me off my feet and lowered me on to the couch, blanketing my body with his.
“Can we talk about something else, please?”
His voice dropped a tone lower. “I don’t want to talk at all.”
“We shouldn’t get banana lounges, Adam. I don’t think they’re practical.” I ran my free hand down the black suede cushion beneath me. “We should get something like this.”
“Easy,” he murmured. “We’ll just take this one. Ryan will go berserk. That might be fun.”
I couldn’t help laughing. Nor could I help exacerbating the situation. “I like the coffee table too.”
“Consider it done,” he breathed. “We’ll take that too.”