The Book Club Hotel(115)
Hannah was a champion of the underdog. She had a fierce urge to protect anything threatened. She wanted to save the whales, and Sumatran tigers, and Antarctica. Lily was added to the list, and they’d become best friends from that moment. Hannah had said Lily was the sister she’d never had. Hannah hadn’t cared about the differences between their household incomes. Hannah hadn’t cared that Lily didn’t have her own bathroom, or a housekeeper to keep her room tidy, or tutors to make sure her grades were the best they could possibly be. Hannah had found Lily interesting. They’d been inseparable and they had stayed that way. Protected by Hannah, the bullying had stopped and Lily had flourished. With Hannah as her friend, her confidence had grown. She no longer felt like a misfit.
They’d gone to the same college, where they’d both studied biological sciences, and then they’d applied to the same medical school. When her acceptance letter arrived, Lily’s parents had cried. They’d been so proud and thrilled. It was the happiest day of their lives. Lily was happy and relieved that she was everything her parents wanted her to be.
When the pressure started to crush her brain again, she tried to ignore it. She was going to be fine. There were so many different branches of medicine. She’d find one that suited her.
Hannah had known from the start that she wanted to be a surgeon like her father, Theo. Hannah wanted to save lives. She wanted to make a difference.
On the few occasions she’d met him, Lily had found Theo to be terrifying, or maybe it was more accurate to say that she found his reputation terrifying.
Hannah’s mother, Kristen, was equally intimidating. She was an art expert, a whirlwind of brisk efficiency.
And then there was Hannah’s older brother Todd, who was smart, handsome and kind, and the object of lust among all Hannah’s friends. Lily was no exception. Teenage Lily had fantasized about Todd. Twenty-year-old Lily had kissed Todd in a dark corner during an out of control student party.
Lily was in love with Todd.
Todd was the reason that Lily and Hannah were no longer speaking.
Lily had trained herself not to think about Todd.
“I just mean that Kristen is very important, Lily, that’s all,” her mother said. “But she always takes the time to talk to me when I see her.”
“She’s just a person, Mom. A person like the rest of us.”
“Well not really like the rest of us,” her mother said. “Her father was Cameron Lapthorne. I don’t pretend to know anything about art, but even I know his name.”
Hannah had taken her to the Lapthorne estate once and Lily had gazed at the paintings hungrily, studying every brushstroke, envious of the skill and envious of anyone who could build a life as an artist. Hannah had given her a catalog of her grandfather’s work from an exhibition that was running, and it had become Lily’s most treasured possession. She thumbed the pages, studied the pictures and slept with it under her pillow.
Ever since she was old enough to hold a paintbrush, Lily had loved painting. She’d painted everything in sight. When she’d run out of paper, she’d painted on the walls. She’d painted her school bag and her running shoes. She’d said to her parents I want to be an artist, and for a while they’d looked worried. They’d told her no one made money that way and that she was smart enough to be a doctor or a lawyer. Lily knew how much they wanted that for her, and she knew how much they’d sacrificed. She owed them. So she dutifully took up her place at medical school and maybe she might even have stuck it out if it hadn’t been for what happened on that one particular night.
“Lily? Are you still there?”
Lily tugged herself back into the present. “Yes. So how was Kristen?”
“Busy as ever. She was in the middle of organizing a big event at the Lapthorne estate. Celebrating her father, the artist. It’s happening today, I think. Todd will be there with his fiancée—I forget her name. And Hannah will be there of course. Kristen invited us, and you, which was so generous of her.”
Todd would be there with his fiancée.
Lily imagined Todd in the rose garden with a glass of champagne in his hand and Amelie gazing up at him with that self-satisfied look, a large diamond glinting on her finger.
Amelie.
Amelie was the girl who had tried to cut off Lily’s ponytail with a pair of scissors. And now she was marrying Todd.
Todd had broken Lily’s heart.
Her palms felt sweaty. “Are you going to the party?”
“No, of course not. Your father wouldn’t know what to say and I wouldn’t know what to wear. They’re your friends really, not ours. Kristen mentioned that Hannah is about to start her clinical rotation, but you probably know that as she’s your best friend.”
Lily didn’t know that. Lily and Hannah hadn’t spoken since that terrible fight on the night Lily had packed her bags and left medical school for good.
Every time Lily thought of Hannah she wanted to cry. When they were young they’d sworn that nothing, and no one, would ever come between them and they’d truly believed that.
They’d been wrong.
“I have to go, Mom. I’ll be late for work and I don’t want to let people down.” She winced as she said it, because she was all too aware that she’d let her parents down. “I’m sorry you’re worried but you don’t need to be. I’m happy. I like my life.”