The Friends We Keep(72)

Now that Evvie was no longer comfortable in her skin, money was tight, and shopping wasn’t nearly as enjoyable, Evvie brought everything she might possibly need, including much she probably wouldn’t. Three pairs of (very stretchy) jeans, two pairs of high-heeled boots (one black, one tan), sandals, silk T-shirts, wraps, sweaters in case it got cold in the evening, makeup, toiletries, and hair products. So many hair products! In the old days, the modeling days, she straightened it, but more recently she couldn’t afford those keratin treatments and Brazilian blowouts, and her natural curl had come through. Who knew curls would require even more products than having straightened hair?

She carried all that up those steep stairs in what looked like an unassuming house off the main drag in Shepherd’s Bush, up the rather dismally lit hallway, along the stained carpet, putting her key in the lock and turning it to find herself in a beautiful flat that belied its somewhat insalubrious entry.

The floors were a sanded oak, very pale, in a herringbone, and the apartment had minimal furnishings. It was very white, very open thanks to almost every wall being knocked down, with high ceilings that had been vaulted into the roof, and limewashed beams above her head.

There were white, furry flokati rugs strewn about, and the odd midcentury-modern pieces Evvie recognized—the Eames chair, the Saarinen tulip table. The only spot of color was from the books that lined one wall, stretching from floor to ceiling, with a ladder on a rail that moved from side to side.

On the floor was a piece of paper with an arrow: Your room is that way.

Evvie hadn’t seen Sophie in years. They’d lived together in New York, when they were both in their early twenties, modeling, partying, borrowing each other’s clothes, and coming home to stay up all night chatting.

Now Sophie had married, divorced, and had a daughter, Helena, who was the same age as Jack. When the kids were very young, Sophie came to Connecticut to stay with Evvie, but they hadn’t seen each other since. But, as with most true friends, Evvie knew that despite the distance, the friendship would be the same as it ever was. She also knew that Sophie was at work. After all these years, she had gone back to the career she had when she finished modeling—a booker in an agency. She specialized in older women, “women like you, Evvie, if you ever found yourself in the UK more frequently and decided to go back into business.” Evvie had laughed, not wanting to tell her about the extra forty pounds she now carried, the weight she was convinced would leave as soon as her divorce was finalized, and quite possibly it would have left her, had menopause and hormones not conspired to devastating effect.

Evvie unpacked, put her clothes away, sat on the bed, and texted Topher, but there was no response. She hovered over Maggie’s name, instantly guilty, ashamed of the secret she had kept, further ashamed at not being here for Ben’s funeral. She wanted to come, she planned to come, but her own devastation was too overwhelming. She wanted the closure but suspected her grief would reveal everything she had worked so hard to keep secret, and so she stayed away.

She sent her condolences in a handwritten card that might have been from anyone. She wasn’t surprised when she heard nothing back. They had been friends a long time ago, so long ago that Evvie wasn’t sure they would have anything in common anymore, other than Jack, who Maggie must never know about. Every time she thought about it, she felt a wave of nausea, but it mingled with excitement at seeing Maggie again, and more, at the three of them being together again. There was no reason for Maggie to suspect anything, she kept telling herself, pushing the thought out of her mind.

She phoned Jack, but he couldn’t talk; he was in a meeting about a new app his company was developing. So Evvie pulled on her boots and a jacket, wincing at how tight the jacket was, the sleeves now covering her arms like sausage casings, before taking the spare key, going downstairs, and slipping it back under the flowerpot.

It was only as she left the flat that she realized how unsettled she felt. She loved flying into Heathrow, felt instantly at home, but Shepherd’s Bush wasn’t her neighborhood, the buildings weren’t familiar to her, and suddenly she felt that she had been wrong about England being a new home; maybe she wasn’t at home anywhere. Maybe, when you leave the country in which you were born and raised and try to make a home somewhere else, you can never go back. And if that new place wasn’t home . . . maybe the rest of her life would be spent drifting, trying to find a place that was her own; maybe she would never find a place to call home again. She shook her head to dislodge the thought, and walked up the street to find a decent cup of coffee.





thirty-two


- 2019 -



Maggie felt a burst of what might be excitement, what might be nerves, as she drove up to the hotel in Kensington. Parking the car in the underground lot, she made her way up to the banquet hall.

There were people everywhere, milling around the lobby, striding purposefully toward the lifts, and she searched their faces in the hopes of seeing someone familiar, but none of them looked like people she once knew.

She hadn’t been out in months, and she was astonished at the noise, the people, the energy, and more, astonished that rather than scaring her, it was exhilarating. This was the first time since Ben died that she had felt alive.

Signs were dotted around pointing the way to various events held in various conference rooms and ballrooms—clearly their reunion was not the only thing happening here tonight. She hesitated, suddenly wanting to turn around and run back to the door, drive home, and crawl into the safety of her bed, wondering why she was braving a reunion that suddenly seemed overwhelming to her.