Chapter 8

A piece of bread hit me in the face.

Jo grinned, “Hey, Mak, stop daydreaming about your lady love and tell us about this big deal you guys just won at work.”

Only Annie knew about Jess’s temporary departure from radar contact, and the look on her face was enough to tell me that she was ready to broadcast Jess’s transgressions at the slightest provocation.

I shrugged, “We pitched a strategic re-org to this big corporate client in London — one spin-off, one sale, massive share repo for the parent-co. They picked us to execute, so we are going to be there to get it started. It’ll be at least six months, very likely more.”

“Wow, congrats, Alex. That’s a really great result. I know you were working crazy hours ahead of the pitch. Glad it worked out. Jess must be psyched, huh?” Michelle high-fived me.

I nodded, watching Annie’s eyebrows almost reach the top of her head.

“Can we come visit?” Jo asked, “wait, where will you live? With Jess?”

“Oh — my cousin Terry has a flat in London. I’m going to sublet it from him — it’s closer to work.” A clumsy dodge, but it worked, “And yes, you can come visit. The exchange rate sucks right now though, so get ready to exist on baked beans and toast.”

“Oh good! I can go stalk Prince Harry.” Ian wiggled his fingers together with glee.

I grunted derisively, “Ian, you are probably on James Bond’s kill-on-sight list from the last time you tried to scale the palace gates.”

As everyone clamoured for Ian to retell the story, I was grateful for the diversion away from talking about my move to the UK. I knew that there was a possibility that I could arrive in London without Jess being in my life, which would be gutting. I was already walking around, half-mad with longing. So I just couldn’t let her go. Not yet, anyway.

I knew I was screwing things up. Alex, true to her word, gave me my space. I wondered if I would have felt better if she kept hounding me.

Half term arrived and the girls poured out of the school gates for the week-long break. I was supposed to have flown to New York, but my inaction left me at my parent’s place for the break.

Nick had filled them in on the drama of my making. They were all surprisingly gentle when I arrived, which left me feeling even more stupid and panicked all at once.

Nobody broached the subject until the last night I stayed over.

“Jess dear, how did you leave it with Alex?” my mother asked.

Nick sighed dramatically and put his headphones on.

I was sprawled out on the couch in the living room. “I haven’t spoken to her… yet.”

My father lifted his eyes up from the book he was reading.

I blushed, “I know. It is not the best thing to do. But I panicked. I’m panicking. Now I can’t bear the thought of talking to her about this. Because I can’t really explain it. Well, I kind of can, but it doesn’t make it any better.”

My parents just looked at me, confused.

“It’s just all happened so fast it seems. And things that happen fast just don’t always work out. So when Alex said she was going moving over here, it just seemed like it was moving even faster and everyone would expect that we would be a thing. And that’s when things usually fall apart.” I was blabbering.

“Ok, so what if it falls apart with Alex? Is this current situation any better than that?” My dad put his book down and stretched out his legs, “because it seems to me that you are not spectacularly happy at the moment. And neither is Alex, probably.”

“Hitting pause is better than breaking up. Which is what we are doing right now,” I said, trying to sound convincing.

My mother arched her brows, “You hit pause, Jessica, not Alex. And you didn’t tell her you were doing so or why.”

I sat up, “Ok, so fine. But Alex knows. She understands why.”

“And doesn’t that count for something?” my father said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“That you know that she understands you — even when you’ve shut her out and she has every reason to write you off?”

“Wait, you think she should leave me?” I almost shrieked.

“Jess, listen to me. Look at me,” my father said.

I reluctantly looked him in the eye.

“I didn’t say that she should leave you. My point is you are operating on your belief that Alex understands you and is waiting for you to sort this out. But you haven’t actually told her what’s going on, have you? Have you thought about the possibility that she thinks you’ve left her?”

I was sweating I was so agitated. I hadn’t thought of that.

“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

My mother’s arms were around me as my sobs came out in ragged spurts. “Lovey, it does feel like an awful muddle, doesn’t it? So let’s keep it simple: are there any reasons why you don’t want to be with her?”

“Because I’m bad at this. I mean, look what I did! I should be in New York right now.”

“So you are making a mess of things because you think you’ll make a mess of things anyway. Well, that’s a self-fulfilling prophecy if I ever saw one.”

“Look, I thought it was all going great with James. He — obviously — disagreed. Maybe he never liked me in the first place and was just going along with it all until he couldn’t any more. Alex is moving to the UK. It won’t take her long to figure out being with me is not what she thought it was going to be and then it’s just going to crash and burn.”

My father shook his head, “Jess, first you say it’s moving too fast, then you say it’s about Alex not really loving you. That’s the biggest load of tosh I have ever heard, and you know it. Just pull your head out of the sand, call her, and make it right.”

He took a deep breath, “Jess, she loves you. Anyone can see that.”

My mother gave me a squeeze, “Poppet, does Alex make you happy?”

I nodded, smiling in spite of myself.

“So why are you here with us, instead of there with her?”

I shrugged, “Because she probably already hates me. All her friends do.”

“Well then, I guess you’ll just have to find a convent and plant tomatoes by yourself for the rest of your life.” My father had a hint of a smile on his face.

“Do you want to fix this?” My mother asked.

“Yes,” I said as quietly as possible. I am a fucking idiot.

“Well,” said mum, “the obvious next step is to extend some sort of apology to Alex, accompanied by severe grovelling. But if I’ve read Alex right, you won’t have to do a lot of that.”

“I thought ‘love means never having to say you’re sorry.'” I pouted.

“Who came up with that pile of shite?” Nick grumbled.

“I thought you had your headphones on, you philistine!” I shouted as Nick shuffled out of the room.

Mum gave me a kiss on my forehead, “Jess, call her. Make it right.”

“Annie, can you stop reading Harry Potter and please focus on packing this shelf up?”

Annie was sitting next to my bookshelves, engrossed in the first book of the series.

“Oh my god, I didn’t know these were this good. Did you have four-poster beds at Halsey?”

I rolled my eyes, “Yes. We had four-poster beds and we flew to classes on brooms, we had food served to us by fricking elves and Maggie Smith was our headmistress. Jesus. No, Annabelle. We had beds that were barely flat on a good day, food that was boiled to death by someone who thought cooking didn’t need any skill, and the only “magical” ability our headmistress had was showing up in our common room at the precise moment one of us started talking smack about her.”

“Okay, okay. Sensitive, much? Can I borrow the whole series though? You were going to pack these anyway.”

“Fine. I’ve done all the rest of the packing. Can you PLEASE help me finish packing the bloody books? I promised I would clear one set of shelves for Lucy.”

I rented out my apartment to Lucy, a family friend. She’d been living with her parents in Queens and I cut her a deal. Terry was letting me stay in his place in London for a song, and I was more than happy to pay it forward. Lucy hated her commute to Tribeca. This would eliminate an hour of travel time for her each way.

Annie commandeered a box and started packing at a funereal pace. “I forgot you had this many books when I volunteered. I should have offered to pack your shoes.”

“I’m bringing all four pairs with me,” I said. I looked at her face and realised she was teasing me.

I made a face at her, “I’m going to put these other boxes in the basement. Back in a tick.”

When I came back up, Annie had cleared out the shelf and four boxes stood neatly by the door.

“Do you want to bring this… or…?” Annie paused, holding up a framed photograph of me and Jess.

I took the frame from her and stared at the photo. Deep, painful longing welled up.

“… or maybe smash it into a million pieces?” Annie finished hopefully.

I glared at her. “Annie, she’ll come back.”

Annie crossed her arms, “You don’t know that. Does she even know you are flying out tonight?”

She threw her hands up, “Get over it, Alex! If someone walked out on me and didn’t call for weeks afterwards, you’d tell me to get over it.”

“She didn’t walk out on me. And she did call — you picked up, remember? And told her not to call back!”

“If I fucked up with you, I’d chase you around the world to make it ok again.” Annie said, “You deserve so much more. Jess isn’t even trying.”

“How do you know?” I snapped, feeling defensive for Jess.

Annie was right, there was nothing to indicate that Jess would come back. All I had was hope, and a gut feeling that she was struggling with this; I just had to wait.

“I don’t,” Annie allowed, “but I don’t want you to end up alone and bitter. I mean, Sienna was ready to pledge her love in marriage to you last night, Alex.”

My stomach tightened. My friends threw me a farewell party last night; I got a little drunk, Sienna got a little drunk. She proposed a no-strings-attached “private send-off” as the party wound down. I declined. I guess Annie must have witnessed all or part of that exchange.

“I don’t love Sienna, Annie, I love Jess.”

Annie shrugged, “Sienna was right in front of you. Jess was nowhere to be found.”

“A., she was tipsy. B., I don’t do one-night stands. C., I love Jess! I don’t want to be with anyone else! Get it?”

Annie looked at the photo of Jess and me, “I get it, Alex. Promise me one thing?”

I raised my eyebrows, “Depends on what it is…”

“Don’t go running into the hills of England looking for Jess in the driving rain only to fall ill with consumption. I’m not coming to attach leeches to your body while you cling to life in a feverish haze.”

Annie giggled. “Oh my god. You, as Marianne Dashwood, with golden ringlets, prancing through the hills and vales of… wherever they were… in a dress…”

Annie handed me the photo, “I just don’t like seeing you hurt.”

“I know,” I gave her a hug, “I love you too. Let’s get the rest of this stuff down to the basement before Lucy gets here. Still want to have dinner before I leave for JFK?”

Annie nodded and waved her arms hopefully at the boxes, “Wingardium leviosa!”

“As Sam Seaborn said on ‘The West Wing,’ we’ll ‘overlook the fact that you’re coming late to the party and embrace the fact that you showed up at all.’ You’re going to love the rest of that series.”

–Chapter 7: London–

“It’s Friday!!!!” Cathy sang as she walked into my office.

“Grunt once if you are choking, grunt twice if it’s something else.” Cathy scowled at me.

“I think Alex has a new girlfriend.” Tears started springing from my eyes.

“WHAT? WAIT. Hold on!” Cathy said, shutting the door, “start from the beginning.”

“Alex told me she will be moving to the UK later this month. I freaked out.” I sobbed.

Cathy spun her forearm in circles. “Yes, yes, yes, we know all that. What happened today?”

“I just tried to call her mobile… you know, to apologise and patch things up… It went to voicemail. I called her at work. It went to voicemail. And…”

I burst out crying again. Cathy exhaled impatiently.

“And… when I called her flat, a woman picked up. I didn’t recognise her voice. I think I woke her up. I panicked and hung up.”

I looked up at Cathy.

She took a deep breath, “Ok. I don’t think that necessarily means that Alex has a new girlfriend.”

“Cathy, it’s 7 in the morning in New York. Why would a WOMAN PICK UP ALEX’S PHONE AT SEVEN IN THE MORNING???” I wailed.

Visions of Alex sharing a bed with this person flooded my imagination.

“First, stop shouting. You are going to scare the children. Second, call her back,” Cathy said bluntly, “bite the bullet. Better to find out sooner rather than later.”

“She probably snuggled back into Alex’s arms after I dropped the call. They’re probably having sex right now.” I couldn’t breathe. This was all my fault.

“Oh for the love of all that’s good and holy. Get a grip! Just call her.” Cathy was firm.

“NO.” I shook my head. I could feel sweat breaking out everywhere. The office felt too bright. I just wanted to die.

“Maybe Alex has a friend who’s staying over?” Cathy suggested.

“Then why didn’t that… that woman say so?”

“Um, you hung up before she could?”

That made sense. I felt slightly better. I put my hand on my phone. Cathy nodded her encouragement.

“Hello?” It was the same sleepy voice that answered before.

“Uh, hi, sorry to wake you, but may I please speak to Alex?” I eked out, my heart in my mouth. Please don’t say she’s asleep next to you… please don’t —

“She moved out,” the woman replied.

OH SWEET BLESSED RELIEF! Thank you to any and all deities who had a hand in this…

“Oh, ok. Do you know how I can reach her?”