Page 67 of We All Live Here
“Oh, God,” says Celie. “Yuk.” She trudges upstairs to her room, clearly exhausted by having to spend so much unscheduled time with her family.
“Does Bill have false teeth? Will he have to take them out first?” Violet presses her nose against the window as they pass. “Will they put their tongues in each other’s mouths?”
“No, Bill does not have false teeth, and I have no idea how or even whether he is going to kiss Penelope. That’s their private business,” Lila says, peeling her away and pushing her toward the hallway. “Now upstairs and brush your teeth. And don’t tell Bill you drank two glasses of cola. He’ll never forgive me.”
Gene reappears from the garden just as Bill walks back in, all of two minutes later. Truant is at Gene’s heels, looking expectant. She suspects he’s been feeding him cheese-flavored crisps again.
“Pal! What are you doing?”
Bill closes the front door. “What do you mean what am I doing?”
“You said you were walking her home!”
“That’s exactly what I just did.”
Gene throws up his hands in horror. “No no no no no! You don’t literally just walk the lady to her front door and walk away again. That’s the best bit of the evening! That’s the bit she’s been waiting for! What did you do?”
Bill seems a little discomfited. He glances at Lila then back at Gene. “I—I walked her to her front door, told her I’d had a lovely time, and made sure she was in safely.”
Gene smacks his hand against his head. “Bill! Get back there! With luck she’s not even sat down yet.”
“You really think I disappointed her?” He looks crestfallen. “I mean, I didn’t want to make any assumptions.”
“Bill, that little lady likes you. She really likes you. She’s brought you a hundred and sixty-nine tuna-pasta bakes. She wears little glittery clips in her hair hoping you’re going to notice. She listens to you play the same damn piano piece day after damn day. Her whole face lights up at your every word. Get back there, knock on the door, tell her you forgot something, sweep her into your arms and kiss her properly. C’mon. Don’t let the side down here.”
“You really think—”
“Stop talking, man! Go get her!”
Bill looks briefly uncertain, but Gene is already propelling him toward the door, and opening it. “Don’t come back in less than twenty minutes!” he yells, shoving him out onto the step.
With a slightly anguished look, Bill disappears from view.
“What if she doesn’t want to be kissed?” Lila says, as Gene closes the door again.
He grins at her, his smile wide and his unnaturally white teethglowing. “Lila. I may be a fuck-up on many things, but on women I am an expert. You watch, in twenty minutes, old Bill there is going to walk back in here looking probably a little dazed, standing two inches taller, and insanely pleased with himself. I could set a kitchen timer to it.”
Annoyingly, he turns out to be absolutelycorrect.
Chapter Twenty-three
Dan calls when she is three-quarters of the way through chapter five. The writing has come remarkably easily since she got the deal. She is back into what Instagram calls her “healing” journey. She has been looking online at the experiences of other newly divorced women for inspiration and her literary vocabulary is thick with words and phrases like “boundaries,” “red flags,” and “emotional self-awareness.” With luck, by the time she gets to the end of this more feelings-based chapter, she will have some other bedroom escapade to write about. Or, as the Instagrammers put it, she will be embracing her full womanhood and owning her sexuality.
Gabriel has been texting again, usually in the evenings. He is affectionate in tone, complimentary, a little vague on actual plans, but right now she will settle for him just showing up on her phone. He calls her “Bella” as if it is a nickname. At first she had sent him question marks, wondering if he had actually meant to text someone else. He had lived in Italy in his twenties. Of course he had. “Hi, Bella,” “Night, Bellissima.”She finds herself glancing surreptitiously into mirrors as she passes, wondering what he can see.
Dan, on the other hand, always greets her as if he is putting down a marker. “Lila.”
“I’m in the middle of writing,” she says coolly, dredging up the research she has done on boundaries. “I’d appreciate if we could talk afterward.”
“It won’t take a minute. I wanted to see if we could switch weekends. My parents would really like to see the kids and they can’t do my weekend. Can I take them this week?”
“Why can’t they do your weekend? They’ll have had enough notice.” Their calendar is a constant rebuke, a shared digital document that makes Lila’s skin prickle every time she has to consult it.
The sound of rustling in the background. Dan’s voice is distracted, as if he is doing fifteen things and she is the least important. It used to irritate her when they were married, his inability to make her feel she was the sole focus of his attention. “Dad has a golf thing and Mum wants to get her hair done.”
“So you want me to change all my plans because your mum may or may not get her hair done?” Lila does not have any plans but that is not the point.
“Marja can only do this weekend. Next weekend Hugo has some kind of trip planned with her ex. He’s coming over from Holland.”
