Page 17 of Love ad Lib
‘Mom, I told you, it’s early days. I don’t want to scare her off.’
‘Honey, we can behave.’
Henry fixed her with a look, and she held up her little finger.
‘Pinkie promise?’
He shook his head. ‘Can we change the subject?’
She pouted. ‘Okay.’ She took a sip of champagne and eyed him over the top of her glass. ‘Simone spoke to me last week about her fall collection.’
Simone was Vivienne’s older sister and had left America to study fashion in Paris in her early twenties. Now a successful designer, she was married to a Frenchman who was also her business partner.
‘Hmm?’ He was dreading where this innocuous sentence might lead.
‘She wants the two of us to front the campaign. Estelle too, but, well…’
‘Mom!’
‘What?’
Growing up, their mother had wanted him and Estelle to model and act, as she’d done. Neither of them wanted to. Taking himself off to boarding school at thirteen had insulated Henry to a degree from his mother’s ambitions, but Estelle had borne the brunt of them, especially when it came to her size.
‘Estelle is a perfectly healthy weight. You promised you would drop this.’
‘I won’t say anything. It just pains me when you’re both so beautiful. It’s a waste.’
‘Neither of us wants to be on the cover of a magazine or in the cinema. You know this.’
His mother leaned forward, her voice lowering. ‘But the money? The freedom? The excitement? I don’t know what you see in all this—’ She waved at the sea of black and grey around them. ‘Monotony. It’s all so pedestrian.’
Henry sighed. ‘Without the financial sector, society as we know it wouldn’t exist. Simone wouldn’t have her fashion house, you wouldn’t have your career, and we wouldn’t be sitting here now. I happen to like structure, routine, and order, and I’d rather work fourteen-hour days at Conqueror than ponce about getting paid on the basis of what I was born looking like.’
He paused, realising in horror what he’d just said about his mother’s career choices.
Thankfully, she laughed. ‘Oh, Henry, honey. Poncing about isn’t as easy as it looks.’
‘I’m sorry, Mom. That came out the wrong way.’
‘No offence taken. We just want you to step out of your box a little. Take some risks. Live life to the full whilst you’re still young.’
‘I do—’
‘I bet you won’t try anything new between now and your birthday.’
‘I will. I’ll… I’ll take up golf.’
‘Puh-lease. Golf, schmolf. Something interesting. Something out of your comfort zone. Your father’s right. The vicar’s pigs are gonna fly before you take any risks with your life.’
Early the next morning,Henry was back at his desk. He stared at the photo on his phone of Elizabeth Lockwood, his date for next week, as he mulled over his mother’s words. Weren’t romantic entanglements a risk? He wanted a girlfriend in his life but in the same nebulous way one might think forward to a future containing a house in the country or a visit to Machu Picchu.
His dating history hadn’t been an abject disaster, but it wasn’t something to write home about either. His parents’ open attitude to sex had closed him off more. And spending his formative years at a boys’ boarding school had limited the opportunity to get to know girls his own age that he wasn’t related to. At university, when he did start dating, he was stilted and awkward. His confidence had grown over the years, but none of his relationships had ever felt right. They lacked the ease he saw between his father and his mothers.
Things would be different with Elizabeth. She ticked every box: a year older than him so their ages roughly matched, focused on her career as a lawyer, so she understood the hours he worked, pleasing appearance with a tidy blonde bob and smart dark suits. And, most importantly, her parents were landed gentry, so she was unfazed by Henry’s title. After meeting via a dating app for City professionals, they’d had one lunch date, though it was more like a job interview than a romantic encounter. But that had suited him just fine. He knew where he stood and everything was under control.
He glanced at the time, then around the empty office. It was six forty-five a.m., but Elizabeth would be at work. She was handling the legal paperwork for the merger of two companies and her team was working around the clock as the deadline approached. She’d been told to clear her diary and be in the office all weekend, so he’d arranged to meet her for their second date on Tuesday evening, once the final documents had been submitted. He could have texted the details, but a phone call was more personal.
She picked up after two rings. ‘Hello, Henry.’
