Page 110 of We All Live Here
“I have to go back to Winchester. I’ve got another ten days’ work down there.”
“Thursday?”
“I’ve promised to see my parents.”
She cannot let him go. She cannot. She thinks. “Then…would you…like to come to a particularly chaotic primary-school production ofPeter Pan? Maybe we can grab a bite afterward? Bill can be your chaperone if you’re worried I’m going to jump your bones.”
“Can you make sure he sits between us at all times?”
“Penelope too. I’ll have a whole human wall to prevent unnecessary touching.”
“Then that sounds magical,” he says.
He does not kiss her when he leaves, even though every bit of herwants him to. She understands that too much has passed between them for all but the most careful of steps forward. But he touches her hand fleetingly, and tells her he’s glad they’ve spoken.
She stands on the front doorstep, her arms wrapped round her against the cold, trying not to beam as he climbs into his truck. He lifts his hand from the driver’s seat, a salute, and she raises hers back. She waits for him to start the ignition. And then, abruptly, he climbs out and half walks, half jogs up the path and sweeps her into a big bear hug. And he says into her ear, quietly so that his voice is barely a murmur, “I really bloody missed you too.”
Chapter Thirty-eight
Eleanor is packing in the swift, hyper-efficient way that she always packs: clothes rolled up in dry-cleaner’s plastic covers, still on their hangers, to be pulled out and hung straight up in whatever locations she moves to, two pairs of flat shoes in shoe bags, a small bag of toiletries, all placed in the small case with the precision of a Japanese puzzle, and two enormous wheeled cases full of makeup. It would take Lila four hours to pack what Eleanor packs in twenty minutes. Years of practice, Eleanor always says cheerfully. She is off to Paris at four thirty the following morning for a six-week film shoot, and is brisk, focused, and a tiny bit distant, as she always is when she’s about to head off on location.
“Well, I think it’s great,” she says, folding seven pairs of knickers and two bras into tissue paper.
“You do? Why tissue paper?”
“It’s expensive lingerie. I don’t want it touching anything else. Can you get me a toothpaste out of the bathroom cabinet?”
Lila goes to fetch it and hands her the tube. It’s the same brand that Gene advertised not so long ago. She finds this faintly irritating, as if Gene has somehow got his tendrils into Eleanor too. “I told Jensen I’d missed him. And I did give him a massive apology.”
Eleanor pulls a face. “I guess that’s a start. But you’ll have to do more than that. This is your time to have grown-up relationships, open communication.” She closes her suitcase with a grunt and straightens. “Seriously. He’s a good, straightforward man. Be good and straightforward back.”
“Should I tell him what happened with Gabriel Mallory? Maybe I should.”
Eleanor frowns, and lugs her suitcase toward the door. She stops and considers this for a minute. “I don’t know. One massive lapse in judgment could probably be put down to misfortune. Two looks like…carelessness.”
“In other words I’m the dickhead.”
“You could be. I think you’re going to have to judge that one for yourself. But, hey, it’s lovely news! The only decent man in the whole of London is back!”
“And you’re going to Paris!”
“To eat a ton of cheese and be flirted with inappropriately by French crew!”
“Living the dream, El.” Lila hugs her friend fiercely. “Don’t you dare decide to do anEat Pray Loveand not come back. You know I make terrible choices when you’re not around.” She’s joking, but there’s always an undercurrent of fear. Lila is not sure she would know who she was without Eleanor around. It’s a constant revelation to her, the way these friendships become more important the older they get.
“You’ll have to grow up one day, you know.”
“I will when you will.”
“When you put it like that…”
•••
Lila returns fromEleanor’s flat to find Jane waiting on her front step, her long gray hair floating around her face in the gusty wind. She meets Lila with a beatific smile. She has come, she says, for Gene’s things.
“Is he with you?” Lila opens the front door, shooing Truant inside.
“He has been. But Elijah—my partner—is growing a little weary of his energy, and I’ve told him he has to make alternative arrangements.”
