Page 55 of Breathe
Chapter 20
“Ellen, dear, it’s your mother,” said the voicemail message when she got home on Sunday night. As had the three other messages she’d left that day, while Ellen was at Kane’s. “Goodness, where could you be all day? Did you know your mobile voicemail is full? Do call as soon as you can, dear.”
Hearing Charlotte’s voice was jarring, after the days Ellen had spent enmeshed in Kane’s world, the clipped English tones unfamiliar after all the broad Boston vowels. Ellen should have called her. She always called on Sunday. But she’d allowed herself to forget, because for the first time, she really had something happening in her life, and it was not something she wanted to share with her mother. Each of the last three Sundays had been studies in avoiding the subject.
She was glad to have the excuse that it was two o’clock in the morning in England not to have to call back right away, but she was up early on Monday morning. She couldn’t avoid her mother any longer.
“Hold on,” said Charlotte. “I’ll call your father.”
Andrew was at work. “Let’s just you and me talk.” She winced at the bad grammar, knowing Charlotte would pick up on it. “I have to get ready for work soon anyway.”
“All right. Well.” Charlotte seemed to be gathering herself. “Well, Eleanor, I’m afraid your father and I have heard some ridiculous rumors, and I just wanted to make sure everything was all right over there.”
Ellen closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against the kitchen cabinet. “Rumors?” she stalled.
“Yes, well, you remember my friend Barbara Welsh, from church? Her daughter Saskia emigrated about the same time you went away”—they never said that Ellen had emigrated, just that she’d “gone away,” as if she was in a mental institution or prison or something—“and she told me that... well, it’s ridiculous of course, but that you’ve been photographed in...” Charlotte’s voice lowered. “In a compromisingsituation.”
Ellen laughed silently, but it turned into a sigh. Only her mother would use the phrase “compromising situation,” as if Ellen were a politician caught with a prostitute. Oh, Mum, if you only knew what kind of positions I’ve been dreaming about being in with Kane...
“All right, here it is,” Ellen said with a deep breath. “Actually, can you get Daddy on the phone too? I’d rather tell both of you at once.”
Charlotte put her on hold so fast Ellen almost couldn’t finish her sentence. “He’ll be here directly,” she said after a short pause.
You’re not a receptionist, Mum, Ellen thought dismally. She sat down at the kitchen table, extra-large cup of tea at the ready.
Her father’s voice came on. “Darling!”
“Hi, Dad,” she said, finding it easier to smile. Her dad would back her up on this one. Not that she had to defend herself for anything. But she was beginning to feel a pinch between her shoulder blades.
“So all it is,” she began, “is that I’ve starting dating”—a word her mother wouldn’t approve of; Americanisms seemed to be popping out of her mouth unchecked these days—“a man who’s a minor... celebrity around here. So the press have been taking pictures of us when we go out. That’s it.”
“Dating?” her mother said, predictably, scorn dripping from the word. “He’s American, then, I assume.”
Her father said over Charlotte, “Wasn’t there something about you being in a fire?”
“No, no, Dad. His company makes paper, and some of their mills and warehouses have been set on fire.”
“Oh, well, thank goodness for that,” said Andrew, which made Ellen smile a little.
“Yes, yes, I saw that,” Charlotte said impatiently, which meant she’d deigned to go online and look Kane up. “But who is he? Why didn’t you tell us about him?”
“He’s...” How could she sum up Kane, who had become so much to her in so few weeks? She struggled to find terms her mother would accept. “His family has been here for generations. Old Boston stock.” As for the other question, Ellen decided to pretend she hadn’t heard.
“And he... makes paper,” said Charlotte. Why did she make it sound like he cleaned toilets?
“You want to see his balance sheet?” Ellen said impatiently. “He makes millions of tons of paper. Recycled, most of it.” Not that that would impress Charlotte. Recycled smacked of hippies to her.
“Of course I don’t want to see his balance sheet,” Charlotte scoffed, but again her father’s louder voice talked over her. “Nice people, darling?” and Ellen was able to fervently reply, “Very nice people, Daddy.”
“Treat you well, does he?”
“Very well.” She allowed herself to drift for a moment, remembering their kiss goodbye the night before.
“Thanks for taking such good care of me,” Kane had said.
“You’re welcome,” she’d said—Americanism, again—and kissed him delicately. “But you’d better look a lot better next time we meet, or I don’t know if I’ll be able to be seen with you.”
“Yeah, jeez.” He’d put his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “I was such a super-stud before you came along. Never a hair out of place. Well, you know what I mean.”
