The French Girl(35)
“Here, Tom got you a drink.” Lara passes over a vodka tonic.
“Thanks. Love your dress.” It occurs to me that I’m overcompensating, though she does look fabulous. She’s wearing a stunning bodycon dress the color of autumn leaves, with heels at least an inch higher than her usual choice for work. Most of the bar watches as she settles herself in a chair and crosses her endless legs.
“Well, I thought I’d make an effort,” she says casually, but there are spots of color in her cheeks. The effort is not for me or Tom, or even Caro or Seb, I’m sure. I’d lay odds she has post-dinner plans with the indefatigable Monsieur Modan.
“What about me? How do I look?” Tom asks, mock-preening. He’s compensating too.
Lara bats her eyelashes at him. “Devastatingly handsome as ever.”
“Very metrosexual,” I add slyly; he turns to me, appreciative laughter glinting in those blue gray eyes. They are resolutely Tom’s eyes now. I wonder if this evening will shake that.
We drink and we talk and it’s excruciating. Lara is too bright, too excitable, drinking too quickly. It’s impossible to fathom what’s going on under the surface, and given the secrets each of us are keeping, there’s no way for me to ask. Subterfuge doesn’t sit well with her, though. She ricochets through topics, always realizing each pitfall too late; she can’t talk about her love life, she can’t talk about the case, she can’t talk about how she’s spending her free time—almost nothing is safe for her. I’m so awkwardly aware this is not the private chat Tom and I had planned that I’m working too hard to keep the conversation Lara-friendly and save her from verbal suicide. On the surface Tom is his usual relaxed self, complete with mildly flirtatious banter with Lara, but I can see he’s uncharacteristically tense, and oddly fatalistic, as if waiting for an ax to drop rather than killing time before a homecoming dinner for his cousin and closest friend. Perhaps he, too, can see that the light within Lara is shining for someone other than her current audience. I wonder how much that pierces him.
It’s hard enough to battle on with this charade whilst sober; I shouldn’t have another vodka tonic. But I do. And another.
Finally, Lara glances at her watch. “Shouldn’t we make tracks before we incur the wrath of Caro?”
I nod and reach for my handbag, partly relieved to be released, but I expect what’s coming will be worse. Tom knocks back the remainder of his pint and deposits the glass on the table with an audible thump. “Out of the frying pan into the fire,” he murmurs darkly. I look across at him in surprise—what does he have to be worried about now?—but he’s looking toward the exit. The skin round his eyes is tight with anxiety.
The restaurant is a short walk away. Lara walks in the middle and links an arm through one of Tom’s arms and one of mine, as if to prevent us from escaping. There’s no time for even a deep breath before she has hustled me through the door into what seems more akin to a theater dressing room than a restaurant. I busy myself leaving my coat and bag with the cloakroom attendant, both reluctant to look round and reluctant to be seen looking round. Tom hovers near me as I pass my things over, tension visible in his jaw.
“Are you okay?” I ask him quietly, bemused.
“What? Me? Of course.” He brushes it off. “I’m just worried about you.”
I shake my head minutely as I take the ticket from the attendant. “No need.”
“If only,” I think I hear him say; I look at him sharply, but I can’t follow up because Caro is descending upon us. I have to manufacture a smile to endure whatever thorny welcome she will greet me with, but she’s too caught up in her favorite role of hostess to deliver anything of consequence. Then there’s no longer an excuse, I’m being swept inexorably toward a long table that can only be our reservation; and there is Seb.
He’s standing by the table, his hand on the back of a chair that’s occupied by a slender blond woman sitting sideways. He looks up on hearing the bustle of our approach, a grin spreading across his face. He is Seb. It’s a shock, somehow. He is still so very much Seb.
Lara—bless her, a thousand times bless her—steams in ahead of me, an unstoppable force of bosom and smile and hair, all outstretched arms and double-kisses. “Seb!” she says in a suitably delighted tone. “So good to see you! And this must be Alina . . .” Alina stands to greet Lara. She’s tall—taller than I—with the fine-boned features that somehow speak of years of Pony Club and expensive schooling; her accent when she replies to Lara only confirms that. She is everything I expected she would be. Tom is following in Lara’s wake: he and Seb are grinning above a manly handshake that becomes a one-armed hug, then almost descends into a boyish rough-and-tumble in their pleasure at seeing each other. But now Tom is switching his attention to Alina: it’s my turn.
Seb is waiting, smiling at me, an arm ready to steady me for the double-kiss treatment. “Kate,” he says quietly, warmly, as I draw close. “It’s been too long.”
It hits me that there’s a familiarity in the feel of that cheek, of the arm I lay my hand on as we kiss. I don’t know if I expected that, after all these years. “How are you?” I ask as I draw back. It’s the polite thing to say under the circumstances. It’s possible I’m interested in the answer, but I’ve resolved not to dissolve into self-analysis this evening. Tonight I have to simply make it through.