“Well, I couldn’t live that way,” Fiona says emphatically. “The thought of some voyeur watching me from outside.” She shudders. “No, thank you.”
“Yeah, I understand why you feel that way,” I add, making a mental note to look up Eric’s work. “But living so openly, and unafraid…I don’t know, something about it sounds kind of freeing.”
Dinner arrives and so does another bottle of wine. Daniel and Eric rehash stories from their university days, and Fiona fills us in on her interior design work—apparently Kate Middleton inquired recently （albeit via a palace assistant）。
At nine-thirty, Daniel takes care of the bill, refusing Eric’s offer to pay, before we head downstairs to retrieve our coats.
“Should we get a nightcap?” Daniel asks tentatively.
Eric opens his mouth, but Fiona beats him to the punch. “We’d love to, but I have an early conference call in the morning and I’m impossibly underprepared. Raincheck?”
“Of course,” Daniel says.
“We’ve had so much fun tonight,” she continues. “Daniel, I just adore Valentina.” Fiona flashes me a quick smile. “Promise me we’ll get together again soon.”
“Of course,” Daniel says on my behalf as they depart.
“She makes me nervous,” I whisper when they’re out of earshot.
“She’d make a lion nervous.”
“But Eric is…great.”
“Wait till you read his columns,” he says, nodding in agreement. “He has an incredible voice.”
I stare ahead curiously, watching their two figures disappear into the night. “Who does she remind me of?” I say, trying to place her face. It had been gnawing at me all evening. “An actress maybe?”
“Yeah,” Daniel says, wracking his brain. “Maybe the girl from Mad Men? Draper’s wife?”
“Yes, exactly! January Jones!”
“It’s funny,” he says. “I’ve known Eric since our first year of university, and I never pictured him with someone like her.”
I nod, but privately consider the fact that when you look like January Jones, men might find a way to make an exception. “Have you two been close all these years?”
“We actually didn’t reconnect until a few years ago. My ex worked at Fiona’s design firm.”
It’s the first mention of his ex, so I pay close attention. “The one who used to go on the double dates with you all?”
He nods, and I wait for him to reveal more. “Fiona takes some getting used to,” he adds. “But she’s a good person, and she really does love Eric. They balance each other out.”
To me, it seemed more like Fiona drowns him out, but I decide to keep that sentiment to myself, wondering instead if Daniel’s ex balanced him out. Was she once the yin to his yang? At one point, Nick had been mine, or at least, I thought he was.
“At the end of the day, I guess it just boils down to happiness,” he continues as we round the next block—a walk with no destination, my favorite kind.
“Right,” I say, catching his eye. “And what makes you happy?”
“Ah, I see you’ve put on the interviewer’s hat.”
“My turn now,” I say with a smile.
“All right then, I’ll tell you. What makes me happy…well, lazy Sunday mornings, for starters, preferably spent in bed.” He grins. “Laughing with someone you’re not afraid to share your dreams with.” He stops in the middle of the sidewalk and wraps his arms around my waist, gently pulling me toward him. “And something just like this.”
London, England
I called Millie from the airport in Los Angeles, crying so hard she could barely make out my words. Somehow, she managed to calm me down.
“Just get on the plane,” she said. “We’ll figure everything out together.”
The first time I flew across the Atlantic I was a young bride-to-be. But this time, I was returning a wife whose marriage was crumbling—without her beloved daughter. Nothing made sense, and I’d not only given in to my hysteria, I was drowning in it.
Like Cezanne in The Last Winter, I’d gone out into the snow alone. We were both weary, with unbelievably heavy hearts, but unlike her, I couldn’t dance. I could only weep.
And oh, I wept—through most of the flight. My eyes were bloodshot when I spotted Millie, poking her head out of the crowd at Heathrow. I felt as if I’d been crawling through a desert for an endless stretch of days, parched and delirious; the sight of my best friend in the distance was like a mirage.
She waved at me as if nothing at all had changed in the twenty-plus years since I’d left for California, though we both knew that everything had.
I ran to Millie, letting my bag slide off my shoulder and fall to the ground as I threw my arms around her. Aside from a touch of gray at her temples, she looked exactly the same. “I can’t believe I’m finally here with you,” I cried, burying my head into her shoulder.
“Now, now,” she said, taking a long look at me. “No more tears.”
“Oh, Millie, I don’t even know where to begin.”
She nodded like a wise mother hen. “We’ll get it all sorted, don’t you worry. But let’s get your bags first.”
As we walked together to baggage claim, Millie glanced over at me curiously.
“What is it?” I asked, patting a tissue along the corners of my eyes.
“You look…different,” she replied, studying my highlighted hair, the geometric Trifari bracelets on my wrist. Her statement was neither a critique nor a compliment, merely an observation. “California’s had its way with you.”
“Maybe,” I said, my eyes meeting hers again. “But I’m still the same girl from the East End. I’ll always be.”
She helped me lug my suitcases off the conveyor belt. “These can’t be filled with clothes,” she said. “They’re too heavy.”
“Mill,” I said, “I can’t wait to show you what I found.”
* * *
—
From the back of the taxi, I peered up at Millie’s block of flats as we approached, immediately taken with its pastel blue color. She’d long since moved from the East End to a quiet street in the Primrose Hill neighborhood.
“My flat’s on the first floor,” she said proudly. “It’s not much—just two bedrooms—but it’s all mine.”
“It’s charming,” I told her. I couldn’t help but envy Millie’s autonomy and immediately began thinking about what my life might look like had I not followed Frank to California all those years ago.
We climbed the stairs to her door. The flat might have been small, but its high ceilings and freshly painted plaster made it feel far larger.
“Just leave your suitcases over there, by the window,” she said. “Let me make you some tea.”
On the drive from the airport, I’d managed to bring Millie up to speed on my situation: namely, Frank’s accusations and his insistence that I leave.
She’d listened calmly, eyes growing big now and again. “I’ll help you find a lawyer,” she said. “I worry that Frank may have something up his sleeve.”