The Lie(35)

I shake my head. “I’m at Wembley and there’s shit all.”

“Then my neighborhood,” he says. “I’m in Marylebone. There’s a pub you’d like called The Volunteer. Say, eight o’clock?”

“Okay,” I say quietly, stunned at where this meeting progressed. “You sure you won’t get in trouble?”

“We’re friends, Natasha,” Brigs says. “And we were friends before I started here. It’s not a problem. It will never be a problem. Friends have drinks together all the time.”

Friends.

I’m not sure if that’s what we are, but I’ll take it. It’s better than strangers.

“See you at eight, then,” I tell him, turning around and heading for the door so I can go freak out about it in private.

Brigs says goodbye and I’m gone.

***

“Now where are you going all dolled up?” Melissa asks while I stand in front of the bathroom mirror, carefully applying magenta lipstick that I know is going to smear all over my face and clothes in a matter of minutes. I’m so not used to wearing it, and I have a bad habit of getting it everywhere.

I knew I should have closed the bathroom door. I avoid her eyes and concentrate on myself. With some eyeshadow and bronzer, I’m hardly what you would call dolled up, though I have managed to put my hair half back into a Bridget Bardot type look. Hmmm, maybe I do need more mascara to complete the look.

“Just trying new makeup,” I tell her. Then I quickly drop a lie to get her off my back. “I’m meeting one of the other TAs for a drink.”

She frowns. “Which one?”

Ah shit. I hope to god she doesn’t follow up with him about it. She probably would, as nosy as she is.

“Um, he’s not in film,” I say quickly. “You wouldn’t know him. His name is Bradley.”

“When did you meet this Bradley?”

“In the library. He’s in art history. We got to talking and he asked me out. I’m not really into it, but then I remembered you’d be proud of me if I went. Fingers crossed I get laid.”

Wow, I really am a good actress.

“I am proud of you,” she says. “I just wish you could have told me sooner. I would have put you in a better outfit than that.”

I look down at my black knee-high boots, jeans, black long-sleeved shirt. I think I look pretty good. Added bonus—all my clothes are clean.

“What’s wrong with my outfit?”

She sighs. “Nothing, if you’re going to class or grocery shopping. You’re going on a date. Show some skin. A mini-skirt would work.”

“Not with these thighs,” I interject, piling on more mascara.

“Push-up bra.”

“Not into false advertising,” I tell her. “Besides, he can get a pretty good idea of my body just by looking at me in this.”

She looks me over, pursing her lips. Then she says, “What about your bra and underwear, are they matching?”

“Yes,” I tell her, even though that’s a big fat lie. I’ve adopted the Bridget Jones way of guaranteeing nothing funny will happen tonight. I’m not wearing granny panties or Spanx, but my underwear have Sponge Bob Square Pants on them. It’s insurance for my well-being, not that I think anything like that would happen between Brigs and I, not now, not after so much time.

Then again, if he gets me drunk I can’t promise anything. Hopefully Sponge Bob will come to the rescue.

But Melissa needs to think I’m out to get laid and so that’s what I let her think. Besides, all this pretending is actually good for me. It’s taking my mind off of what’s really going on, and I’m afraid that if I think about tonight too much, I might chicken out and not go at all.

I can’t hide in my flat forever though. When it’s time to go, I say goodbye to Melissa, promising to text her any details, and then I head to the tube. I’m pretty much just as nervous as I was that morning but in a different way, and the only silver lining is that there is a drink at the end of this journey to quench my nerves.

I’m walking down Baker Street, about a block away from the pub, when I really start to flip out. Even the silver lining can’t save me. I don’t even know why I’m this nervous, it’s not like I don’t know Brigs at all, and it’s not like we’re together as anything other than friends. But my heart wants to take flight and my limbs feel like jelly, and the world is taking on this hazy glow, like I’m losing oxygen.

I have to take a moment outside the Sherlock Holmes Museum—closed for the day—and stare at my shadowed reflection in a mirror, trying to get my breathing under control. I keep telling myself there’s no reason to feel like this, but my body doesn’t care in the slightest.

Eventually I have to pry myself away from the wall of the building and head into the pub next door, otherwise he’ll start to think I’m standing him up. I already ran away from him once, I can’t let him think I’m doing it again.

The pub isn’t all that busy, and I spot him sitting at the bar, laughing with the bartender. His smile is dashing and genuine as always, flooding me with warm memories. He’s dressed down, wearing dark jeans, a t-shirt, and his leather moto jacket he always used to wear. I stop and watch him for a few seconds, unobserved, wishing in some ways that this was another instance of watching him from afar. I just want to take in every single detail and hold them in my mind, examine them like precious stones and see just how they make me feel.