Page 50 of You Belong With Me

‘Yeah, it’s a thing with the brothers. Fraser’s a pretty strict gatekeeper …’

He cast a glance at him that Edie followed. Fraser was doing Bez-style monkey dancing to Happy Mondays’ ‘Hallelujah’and seemed highly unlikely to be a strict anything.

‘Fraseris?’

‘Yeah. Fraser is of Elliot. Elliot is of his friends and his girlfriends. There’s layers of security to get past.’

His girlfriends.Edie hoped the lightning bolt of jealousy that hit her out of the blue wasn’t evident. She never wanted to think of herself on a roster.

‘Hang on, are you here with Elliot, or are youwithElliot?’

Edie’s stomach tensed. ‘With-with.’

‘He’s not still seeing the Swedish girl from the end of last year?’

What?‘Uhm, I hope not.’

‘Thank God for that – she was a law unto herself. Ungovernable. Always dragging him away by the scruff at intervals to broom cupboards. Seemed exhausting and eventful. Did you come far today?’

‘From Nottingham,’ said Edie, clenched in misery, despising a faceless, nameless, libidinous Nordic rival.

Also, Elliot had been seeing someone while they were apart? He had no case to answer if so; Edie had openly saidthey were single and free. Yet it hurt. Badly. So much forI’ve thought about nothing else but you.

‘Oh, my brother went to uni there! I used to visit him,’ Anto said.

There followed a discussion of which bars and clubs were still standing, during which Edie pictured a blonde kneeling in front of her boyfriend.

‘I saw you earlier, actually, if I’m honest,’ Anto said. ‘I thought, who’s that girl? Why is someone who looks like a Blythe doll not at the centre of things? Makes more sense now I know you’re with the Owen mafia. An Owen goomah.’

‘I don’t know what a Blythe doll is but thanks, I think.’

Anto swiped his phone open and showed her. Edie read:Blythe is a fashion doll with an oversized head and large eyes that change colour with the pull of a string.

Edie paused. ‘Aren’t Mafia goomahs mistresses?’

‘Hahaha, oh sorry, yeah. Not implying anything – I just like the word. I’m aSopranosultra.’

Edie fretted on the fact Elliot had lied to her regarding the Swedish girl. Unforced untruths were lies.

‘Me too,’ Edie said, absently. ‘I rewatch “Pine Barrens” at least once a year. It had me calling people at work “rat cocksuckahs” way too much though.’

‘Oh, I like you,’ Anto said. ‘I really like you.’

Edie decided he went to an expensive school, as he had exactly that kind of edges-sanded-off patrician sexism.I like you, you crazy little potty-mouthed thing.Acceptance was his to bestow upon her.

‘Want to meet some more people?’ Anto asked, as if she’d passed a test.

Edie acquiesced with a smile and, his hand lightly on her lower back, Anto did the rounds.

‘This is Edie, she’s from Nottingham,’ Anto said, to bland indifference and flickering assessment. He weighted the pause with the skill of a practised showman, adding: ‘… She’s Elliot’s girlfriend.’

The air pressure changed, and suddenly everyone was aflutter, full attention,hiiiiii nice to meet you what did you say your name was.

Edie hated it. Not because she didn’t get a small thrill at being his or being envied or admired for it – she had to admit that she did. But because it was so wholly conditional. If Elliot finished with her, he might as well have pushed her off the rooftop in terms of their correspondingly plummeting levels of interest. It wasn’t possible to feel good about that. Edie knew exactly how empty those calories were.

She answered questions politely and asked questions politely, planning her escape throughout. Eventually, Edie thought:hang on, where IS Elliot and my ill-advised cocktail?

She excused herself and found him, besieged, because alcohol levels were high and inhibitions were lower. Even at London rooftop parties full of wannabe Gatsbys and Daisys, celebrity was celebrity.

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