“But Eliot. You let him take the blame for that. Why?”
“I didn’t want to lose you. It was a stupid, drunken mistake, and I have regretted it every single day.”
The night rushes through my head now, and I want to remember everything about it. How did I miss it? And why didn’t Eliot tell me? Why would he let me walk this earth for so many years believing it was him that threw me off track, when it was Lucas. When it was the only person I had relied on for practically my whole life.
“A prick tease.” I remember her smirking mouth as she said those words. “Never have I ever been a prick tease and fucked a teacher’s life up.”
Those words hurt just as much now as they echo through my brain, as they did that evening, in the new dress I’d saved up for, excited for another year of college, sitting among a group of people who saw me for me. Emmie Blue. One of them.
“Emmie.” Lucas reaches for my hands now and takes them, his gray eyes desperately pleading. “You are everything to me. Please don’t let this ruin us.”
He holds my cheek, face inches from mine. “Me and you. You and me. It’s all that matters to me.” I look up at him, and I am winded by how much I longed for this moment, him looking into my eyes, beautiful pink lips inches from mine, strong hand holding my face as if it’s the most precious thing in the world. And he leans in. I freeze, feel his breath on my mouth. He kisses me. Lucas pushes his lips to mine. I reach up, a hand around his neck, and when his lips part, that is when I fall away from him—a huge lunge backward, freeing myself from his arms.
“Oh my God.”
We stare at each other.
“What are you—what are we doing?”
He looks shocked. “I don’t—I don’t know—”
“You’re getting married, Lucas,” I say. “To Marie. To beautiful, kind Marie. I don’t want this. I don’t.”
And he says nothing. He just stares at me. He doesn’t say he isn’t; he doesn’t say he’s made a mistake and that it’s me. And when I say, “I need to go home,” all he does is nod, and I watch the Adam’s apple contract in his neck.
“Okay. Okay, Emmie,” he says.
On the way down the stairs, neither of us speaks. “The car,” he says. “I don’t recognize that car,” he says, motioning to the empty, white, parked Corsa on the drive. I say nothing. “Probably a neighbor,” he says. “Was it here when we pulled up?” But again, I say nothing.
By four o’clock I’m on the ferry home, on that same ocean I had stared out at beside Lucas mere hours before.
I watch France disappear into the horizon.
Me: I know it wasn’t you. I wish you’d have told me sooner.
Eliot Barnes: What good would it have done?
* * *
I am carrying a tray of empty breakfast plates when Rosie bursts into the kitchen, breathless, cheeks flushed, eyes wide.
“Emmie!”
I freeze, tray to my chest. “What? What’s wrong?”
“You need to come into reception,” she says. “Right now.”
“What?”
“Now. Immediately.”
I look over my shoulder at the busy, bustling kitchen, at the chefs, shouting to one another over the sizzle of pans, over the whoosh of open ovens, the scooting of waitstaff in and out of the kitchen door.
“Rosie, we’re so busy—”
“Emmie. Seriously. Dump that and come. Now.” Rosie turns and dashes out again, and by the time I get to the reception area, I’m not sure what I’m expecting. Mum glimmers into my mind for a second, for some reason. Lucas, fleetingly. And then of course Eliot, whom I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.
But there is only one person in reception apart from Rosie, and it’s a woman. Short, with bobbed blond hair, in a black furry coat, a black leather handbag on her shoulder, and she’s looking around the room as if she’s never stepped foot into the hotel before. I don’t recognize her. I wait for her face to register—a disgruntled customer, perhaps, from this morning, but I recognize nothing. I have never seen her before.
“Excuse me.” Rosie leans forward. “This is Emmie.” And as the woman turns to me, Rosie sits down at her desk and busies herself, typing.
I look at the woman. “Hi?” I say.
“Gosh,” she says, laughing, eyes shining. “You’re Emmie.”
“I am.”
“Of course you are.” She smiles nervously. “It—it’s unmistakable.”
I look at Rosie, but she’s staring at her screen, purposefully avoiding my gaze.
“Sorry, I—who are you?”
She steps forward then, and I see that her green eyes are watery and her hands are shaky as she holds one of them out. I take it.
“Carol,” she says, voice wobbling. “Marv’s wife. Your… your dad’s wife.”
* * *
“He told me last week,” Carol tells me, the both of us sitting on a small two-seater in the quiet reception. “It was a shock. Ever such a shock. And of course my first reaction was a negative one. Shamefully.”
I shake my head. “I understand.”
“But then I thought of you, and our Cadie, and… I thought there is no way you should be punished for something you had no part in.” Carol swallows, a tissue balled in her hand.
“And I went up the next day; visited Cadie. Who…” She laughs to herself, eyes skyward, shoulders rising and falling. “Well, it was like she’d had a win on the pools.”
I smile, warmth spreading through me. “Really?”
“She’s wanted a brother or a sister her whole life.” She stops, looks at me. “But that was never to be. But. Well. Half is just as good as, isn’t it?”
I nod, warmth spreading through my bloodstream like wine. “I—I think so.”
“So, I told Marv he was to ring you. Invite you round. That we could work through it as a family, and if we could just meet you—” She stops, shaking her head and bringing her hand to her mouth. “Gosh, you do look like Cadie. When you do that. See, that.” She laughs. “Those eyebrows going up. That’s her, that is.”
I laugh, tears caught in my throat. “I love that you say that,” I tell her, my words barely there. Carol has a warm face. Glowy and welcoming and like every smiley, motherly dinner lady I’d chat with, sometimes, in the lunch queue.
“Did you block his telephone?” she asks.
I nod, look down at my lap. “I did. The waiting and checking my messages—I couldn’t do it. I’ve waited my whole life, and waiting any longer, having it so close… it was just too tough.”
Carol nods slowly, golden teardrop earrings swinging. “Of course,” she says. “But anyway, that’s why I’m here. He’s at home. I didn’t know if you wanted to see him.”
“I do,” I say.
Carol smiles, a gap in her front teeth, like Brigitte Bardot. “I wondered if you had plans for Easter. We’re going up to see friends on Good Friday, but on Easter Sunday, I’d like to do a dinner. A nice lunch. Just us. Cadie. You. Me and… your dad.”