Page 86 of You Belong With Me

Edie put her hand over her mouth as she laughed, and Elliot shook his head. Thank God for the glue of a shared sense of humour.

As they left, hand in hand, not only was she glad they hadn’t fallen out but she registered that he’d casually and possibly intentionally implied that what he’d have bought her was an engagement ring. Another zero on the great cheque of expectations that existed only in Edie’s head.

It’s not any promise that you’ll feel the same in a year’s time.

45

‘The place we’re going in the West Village tonight, I think you’ll really like it,’ Elliot said. ‘It’s a bar with food and pretty much functions like a restaurant, except you keep your table all night and the meal never really ends. They keep bringing small plates. Someone famous usually ends up playing the piano. No photos get taken. A friend calls it the “anecdote generator machine”.’

Edie hoped ‘friend’ wasn’t generic cover for ‘Ines’.

‘Is it members only?’ Edie said.

‘Kind of. You couldn’t call up and book a table if they didn’t know you.’

There was a question about how they could get to know customers if they didn’t recognise cold-calling new ones, and Edie decided to leave it be. Let it dwell in the heavy mists of being an illustrious personage, like disappearing through a doorway full of dry ice.

Elliot was right; she did like the venue: the wood panelling, round leather banquettes, gilt mirrors, red-fabric dining lamps on every table: a very mid-centuryinfidelity and Martinisaesthetic.

The Fraser group was there on their arrival. He’d WhatsApped Edie fifteen minutes before with:

v glad you’re here to cheer the bastard up FYI!He was glum as hell on the stag. Could only get him to have two lap dances. (Joke)xxx

Edie was troubled that the brothers were on a collision course, if Fraser couldn’t anticipate the way Elliot was thinking. She said nothing to Elliot.

Iggy up close was a striking looking individual: red hair like copper wire in curls, a chilli-powder colour Edie had never seen other than in youthful experiments with box dyes. He had a half dozen freckles that looked pencilled on, like aBash Streetkid, and a laugh like that wheezing cartoon dog in flying goggles. It was like Roald Dahl had thought him up and Quentin Blake had drawn him.

(‘Is his name really Iggy?’ Edie had asked Elliot in the cab on the way there.

‘Oh, no. He’s called Eric, after his dad. Iggy was some school nickname that stuck. “Iggy Stardust” as I first remember it – dunno why, though. Don’t ask. With Fraz and Iggy, it’s always better to leave a mystery unsolved.’)

Miniscule Molly’s conker-brown hair had been ironed into a geometrically perfect, poker-straight parting, a coral manicure on show as she clasped a jewelled clutch bag.

‘Can I sit next to you, given we’ve had no time to talk before?’ Edie said, choosing Molly’s end of the upholstered seating horseshoe.

‘Oh yes! That’d be so nice, thank you,’ Molly said, bumping her backside along several inches, as Fraser beamed.

The waitress sold them on a ‘chilled red wine’, which sounded like a descent into the inferno and tasted like heaven.

Molly was fluttery with her, and Edie very quickly ascertained, to her surprise, that she wasn’t the most nervous about making a good impression. All Edie had to do was demonstrate she wasn’t either stuck up or pulling rank in any way, and Molly was enchanted.

Edie told her about her flight, and Molly gurgle-laughed. Elliot shot Edie a very pure adoring look for her effort and its evident reward. Edie liked it, while thinking she didn’t really deserve it; Molly wasn’t difficult.

Edie saw the problem with Elliot’s perception of Fraser’s fiancée within half an hour: they had a personality clash. Molly was extremely apprehensive around her brother-in-law-to-be – Edie guessed it wasn’t so much his fame as his sharply confident Elliot manner. She might well have been intimidated by him without his IMDb credits.

The more edgy Molly got, the quieter she got, punctuated by bouts of skittish giggling – which in turn made Elliot surer she was a bit of an airhead.

Whenever Edie gently sent Elliot up or disagreed with him, Molly looked at her in astonishment, like she’d snout-slapped a crocodile.

Food kept arriving – Elliot had ordered the whole menu, it seemed. Edie would try an arancini ball or a tiny crostini, and it was somehow the best example of the genre she’d ever had.

‘I have a call I need to take …’ Elliot said, when things had degenerated to a liveliness where no one was going to notice much.

Edie was surprised to see a message arrive from Elliot, seconds later.

I don’t have a call – Lillian sent me this, and I have reached my hard limit and had to walk out. Literally, only you and Fraz knew about it. Fuck this, I have to talk to him. I’m absolutely fucking incandescent now.

Edie opened the link he’d added.

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