Page 10 of Still Me
“Let’s go through,” said Mr. Gopnik, after a minute. “Louisa, perhaps you’d like a drink.”
—
Dinner was a hushed, painful affair. I was overawed by the grand mahogany table, the heavy silver cutlery and the crystal glasses, out of place in my uniform. Mr. Gopnik was largely silent and disappeared twice to take calls from his office. Tabitha flicked through her iPhone, studiously declining to engage with anybody, and Ilaria delivered chicken in a red wine sauce with all the trimmings and removed serving dishes afterward with a face, as my mother would put it, like a smacked arse. Perhaps only I noticed the hard clunk with which my own plate was placed in front of me, the audible sniff that came every time she passed my chair.
Agnes barely picked at hers. She sat opposite me and chatted gamely as if I were her new best friend, her gaze periodically sliding toward her husband.
“So this is your first time in New York,” she said. “Where else have you been?”
“Um... not very many places. I’m sort of late to traveling. I backpacked around Europe a couple of years ago, and before that... Mauritius. And Switzerland.”
“America is very different. Each state has a unique feel, I think, to we Europeans. I have only been to a few places with Leonard, but it was like going to different countries entirely. Are you excited to be here?”
“Very much so,” I said. “I’m determined to take advantage of everything New York has to offer.”
“Sounds like you, Agnes,” said Tabitha sweetly.
Agnes ignored her, keeping her eyes on me. They were hypnotically beautiful, tapering to fine, upward-tilted points at the corners. Twice I had to remind myself to close my mouth while staring at her.
“And tell me about your family. You have brothers? Sisters?”
I explained my family as best I could, making them sound a little more Waltons than Addams.
“And your sister now lives in your apartment in London? With her son? Will she come visit you? And your parents? They will miss you?”
I thought of Dad’s parting shot: “Don’t hurry back, Lou! We’re turning your old bedroom into a Jacuzzi!”
“Oh, yes. Very much.”
“My mother cried for two weeks when I left Kraków. And you have a boyfriend?”
“Yes. His name’s Sam. He’s a paramedic.”
“A paramedic! Like a doctor? How lovely. Please show me picture. I love to see pictures.”
I pulled my phone from my pocket and flicked through until I found my favorite picture of Sam, sitting on my roof terrace in his dark green uniform. He had just finished work, and was drinking a mug of tea, beaming at me. The sun was low behind him and I could remember, looking at it, exactly how it had felt up there, my tea cooling on the ledge behind me, Sam waiting patiently as I took picture after picture.
“So handsome! And he is coming to New York too?”
“Um, no. He’s building a house so it’s a bit complicated just now. And he has a job.”
Agnes’s eyes widened. “But he must come! You cannot live in different countries! How you can love your man if he is not here with you? I could not be away from Leonard. I don’t even like it when he goes on two-day business trip.”
“Yes, I suppose youwouldwant to make sure you’re never too far away,” said Tabitha. Mr. Gopnik glanced up from his dinner, his gaze flickering between his wife and daughter, but said nothing.
“Still,” Agnes said, arranging her napkin on her lap, “London is not so far away. And love is love. Isn’t that right, Leonard?”
“It certainly is,” he said, and his face briefly softened at her smile. Agnes reached out a hand and stroked his, and I looked quickly at my plate.
The room fell silent for a moment.
“Actually I think I might head home. I seem to be feeling slightly nauseous.” With a loud scrape, Tabitha pushed her chair back and dropped her napkin on her plate, where the white linen immediately began to soak up the red wine sauce. I had to fight the urge to rescue it. She stood and kissed her father’s cheek. He reached up a free hand and touched her arm fondly.
“I’ll speak to you during the week, Daddy.” She turned. “Louisa... Agnes.” She nodded curtly, and left the room.
Agnes watched her go. It’s possible she muttered something under her breath, but Ilaria was gathering up my plate and cutlery with such a savage clatter that it was hard to tell.
—
