R Is for Rebel (19 page)

“I don't know, Mari—”

“Let me finish while I have the momentum.” She smiled that small hopeful smile again. “But if it's not with me, then I will”—she paused in an unfamiliar, emotional way—“then I will accept reality. I deal in reality. You know that. Listen. It's only February. The wedding is not until June. It's going to be small. We will tell, or you will tell, your Danieli-Fauchard PR wolves to drop it. We've always wanted it to be an intimate, private ceremony. Let's keep it that way. No more press.”

Eliot took another sip of champagne and contemplated his options. If he told her it was over, permanently and finally over, he might be throwing away a wonderful, companionable life with a beautiful, intelligent woman. A smart, accomplished woman who could actually
express
herself. He had done his part in confessing his immature worries. She had responded.

She continued, back in charge. Sure. “Think of it as a deadline of sorts. Now that I know this other…
situation
… exists for you, you can do what you need to do, meet up with her, talk to her, whatever you need to do”—Mari looked at him with a meaningful stare—“to be done with it. Once and for all.”

“I've never been unfaithful to you, Mari. I am not going to start now.”

“You're not betraying my trust if I'm asking you to go figure this out and deal with it. It would be one thing if you were skulking around behind my back, but now that you've been your honest, true self, how can I possibly cry foul? I'll be in Tanzania for the next three weeks. Do what you need to do, Eliot.”

She moved over to the couch and sat next to him, more as a sister or a friend, sitting cross-legged on the cushion next to his. “Now let's watch a movie and just relax. I'm exhausted.” She reached for the remote control and Eliot felt the anxiety of confronting Mari begin to drain away, only to be replaced by a whole new battalion of worry about confronting Abigail Heyworth.

It was only later, as he was falling asleep next to Marisa—a platonic sleep—that Eliot realized she had never once used the word
love
when describing what they had with each other. She had used all the right words:
good, true, honest, caring, meaningful
… but never the one simple word
love
. His mind was awash in what, if anything, that might portend. When he had been with Abigail, he had felt the burning, bubbling need to express that word, and look how poorly that had turned out. Maybe Marisa was right to use it sparingly, if at all. Maybe the word
love
was a simple trap, a shiny lure that made fools of everyone who misapprehended its nature.

Sarah's Range Rover looked like a Depression-era transport vehicle, piled high with the sum of its owner's worldly possessions. Only this was no hegira.

Or, then again, maybe Fashion Week in Paris was a pilgrimage of sorts. Vintage Louis Vuitton steamer trunks, hat boxes, and valises were stuffed into every possible square inch of the huge navy-blue SUV. The backseats had been folded down to accommodate all of the items, and Sarah and Abigail sat in the two front seats, looking like a couple of lorry drivers or transcontinental adventurers.

Devon, arms crossed in front of his chest, stood on the sidewalk in front of their building looking askance at the unlikely pair. “Are you two sure you are going to be okay?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Sarah asked.

“Nothing. Off you go, then. I can see the headlines now: ‘Freya Stark and Beryl Markham hit the road. With enough supplies to last a year.'”

“Very funny. It's Fashion Week, for goodness' sake! I need to bring
fashion
. Get it?”

“The fact that your insane attachment to luxury goods is co-opted by other insane people for a week or two, several times a year, does not make it any more logical to the rest of us. Go have your fun with all your cronies in Paris. I'll stay here and remain rational.”

Abigail, unable to let that one pass, leaned across the center console toward the driver-side window and said, “Yes, you go be rational in that new Aston Martin you just bought. Sarah, ignore that man and let's get to France!”

“That car is a piece of art, a handmade—”

Sarah held up her hand to stop him. “Enough! My shoes are pieces of art. But we shall not embark on this tedious argument. Kiss me passionately and wish me well.”

Devon smiled and leaned in to kiss his wife with fresh joy. Abigail looked away from the two lovers and out her window, ignoring the slight mewl of pleasure that might have been Sarah or Devon or both. She was less embarrassed than she would have ever imagined possible, since their public displays of affection were both perpetual and legendary within the family circle. Everyone had become necessarily immune.

Devon gave the roof a firm pat to send them on their way and pulled away from the car. Sarah rolled up the electric window and continued to smile her stupid postkiss smile, then turned to Abigail and her face turned serious with comedic haste.

“So.”

Abigail laughed and looked back out her window as they pulled away and headed toward Berkeley Square. “So.”

“Shall we dive right into the Eliot discussion or would you rather talk about a bunch of other stuff and then pretend to happen upon it in a falsely organic fashion?”

Abigail stared at her sister-in-law, who, in turn, continued to face straight forward, navigating a snarl of roundabout traffic, then quickly looking in the side and rearview mirrors to check her position.

“Well?” Sarah prodded.

“Well, I suppose we might as well dive right in. There's nothing to discuss. Honestly, Sarah, he is engaged to be married. It is so over. Whatever
it
was to begin with,” she added.

“First of all, it's never over. Even if he is engaged; even if he were married, for that matter. I am not one to build upon false hopes.” With that, she turned and looked at Abigail for a brief direct moment. “I've seen him over the past year, and he is
not
happy. It's obvious.”

The familiar emotions battled: I hate that he is unhappy, I hate that I am unhappy, I am the cause of his unhappiness, he deserves to be happy, I think I made him happy for a bit, but then I made him so unhappy.

“Quit ruminating!” Sarah snapped.

“Okay, okay. It's hard not to, well, go over things a bit in my mind. I haven't really had anyone to bounce ideas off, as it were.”

“Why not?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, why haven't you bounced any of these so-called ideas off of Bronte or me? You have certainly bounced off every idea imaginable when it came to starting your foundation or buying your house or even how to improve your wardrobe—I know that last cost you a treasure in pride—so why stop at Eliot?”

“You know why. Let's start with the fact that you dated him. It's simply awkward.”

“Let's dispel that myth once and for all. He kissed me a couple of times on the cheek, maybe the neck, but it was gross, like a brother. Nothing. I just wasn't attracted to him like that. I had just met Devon. I couldn't think about anyone else.” Sarah checked the side mirrors again in what Abigail suspected was a gesture more intended to end that line of thought than to verify any approaching vehicles.

“I'm not sure I totally buy that, but for the sake of argument, I'll move on,” Abigail said. “Eliot and I were never really a couple. I mean, he came to visit Dunlear a lot when you and Devon were engaged and he was in town, and all the house parties and riding and dinners and whatever—”

“Then what?”

“Well, then after your wedding, we had a little rendezvous on the beach at Moonhole. It was not a big deal. We didn't even kiss.”

“Uh-huh… and then?”

“You are a pain in the ass.”

“I know! And you are my hostage in this car for at least four hours. So sit back, relax, and spill the beans. What happened after Bequia? I was totally incommunicado on my honeymoon, and this is where everything went pear-shaped, right? Go on.”

“Sort of. I went to Iowa with Eliot… for his grandmother's birthday. I told you about it. Totally sweet. Sexy. Promising.” She looked out the window and sighed.

“Yes. I remember. Then what?”

“Then I went to Paris with Mother.”

“Of course! The famous Jack Parnell weekend. You completely wrote Eliot out of that whole story, you rat. Was he there?”

“I can't believe I'm such a liar. Yes, he was there and I begged Mother not to tell anyone after the fact. I only saw him that Friday night, and then Mother and I spent the rest of the weekend shopping and going to museums, and she was on such a girlish high from meeting Jack that I didn't see the point in spoiling her fun with my tales of woe.”

“Okay. Back up. How did we get from assignation-on-the-beach and kisses-in-Iowa to tales-of-woe?”

Abigail realized she was finally and completely sick of picking and choosing what to tell, what not to tell, what was private, what was relevant. She unburdened herself completely, telling Sarah every glorious and gory detail, down to the last shard of crystal smashed against the back of Eliot's hotel room door and her cowardly scurrying back to her own suite.

Sarah whistled in a low, almost admiring tone. “Wow, I didn't know he had it in him.”

“Oh, believe me, he's got it in him.”

Sarah looked across the front of the car and noticed Abigail rubbing the charms together at the end of the black string around her neck. “And that's the necklace he gave you? I can't believe you've been wearing that this whole time. I must have asked you a dozen times where you got it and you were all, ‘Some secondhand shop.'”

“Well, that's not a total lie. He found the charms at an estate jeweler's in Milan, so they're technically secondhand—”

“Cut it out, Abigail!” Sarah's voice tore at her. “This whole unhealthy, secretive shitty mess is over. You can either call him yourself or I will call him. But either way, you're going to sit down in a room together and figure out what the hell happened. If not for your sake, then for his, since you seem to be bent on martyrdom.”

“I know you won't call him if I ask you not to. That's just too immature and stupid. I will call him. Just give me a day or two in Paris to adjust to the idea. He's obviously going to be there for work the whole time, so I don't need to call him right away.”

They fell silent for a little while as they continued south toward Folkestone and the Channel Crossing car trains.

Sarah reverted to different topics of conversation when she resumed talking: plans to spend time with her aging grandmother, plans to see Jack and Sylvia, how much fun they were going to have in the big suite at the Ritz.

“It'll be like a weeklong slumber party. We can go to the shows all day then come back to the room and chill for a few hours, then go out all night!”

“If you'd told me, even a few months ago, that I'd be on my way to Paris for Fashion Week, I'd have laid odds on your sanity. I don't know what I was thinking to let you talk me into this.”

“You weren't thinking—for once!—you were just going along for the ride for the hell of it. Remember? You used to live your entire life like that. When did you become such a square? Just enjoy yourself, Abs. Stop overthinking everything.”

Abigail looked at her with widened eyes.

“Yes, even Eliot. Especially Eliot!” Sarah laughed. “Stop overthinking Eliot. He's just some guy, already. I know he's all that American brawn and debonair blah-blah-blah, but, well, just let's see what transpires, shall we?”

Watching things transpire without overanalyzing was not Abigail's forte. Overthinking had become her default setting. She found herself endlessly decoding everything from the latest Hollywood take on same-sex marriage to why dry cleaners were still able to charge women more for “blouses” than they charged men for “shirts.” And then she overthought how those two were quite obviously threads that wove through the same bolt of cloth—gender bias—that curtained not only her internal landscape but the entire world around her.

Abigail had been back in touch with her old girlfriend, Tully, soon after the debacle in Paris. They'd never really lost touch, but their communication had taken on a much lighter tone after they broke up. After Eliot, Abigail wanted—needed—to talk to Tully, to help analyze (Sarah would say
overthink
) the nature of what the two of them had had for all their years together. She hoped that knowledge might help her better understand what had gone so terribly wrong with Eliot.

It did.

Tully was patient and loving, and particularly kind given the fact that Abigail had been the one to cut off their relationship. Shortly after Abigail broke up with her, Tully had fallen in love with an energetic, adoring Scottish woman named Christine Cunningham, and they'd been together ever since. They frequently stayed with Abby in London, and Christine had a lovely, open way about her that let them all speak candidly about, well, everything.

The week before Abigail went to Paris with Sarah, Tully and Christine had been staying at Abigail's house and were planning on continuing on at her place while Abigail was away for the next ten days.

Christine and Tully were sitting close to one another on one sofa; Abigail had her legs crossed under her on the other. They had been trying to parse out the idea of long-term love over too many glasses of wine.

“The thing is,” Abigail asked through a philosophical wine buzz, “if all of that is true, then why do people fall
out
of love?”

Tully looked at Christine, then back to Abigail. “I honestly don't think I will ever fall out of love with Christine.”

Christine smiled and grabbed her hand. “I know!” Then she turned back to Abigail. “I mean, Abby, I know you've always loved Tully, but were you ever truly
in
love
with her?”

Abigail nodded then shook her head, not in dismissal, but in utter cluelessness. “Yes! God, when we were first together… for years, you know that, Tul.”

Tully nodded. “I do. But Abs, you don't like…” She looked away, her pale blue eyes dreamy with wine and remembering. “You don't really do
deep
… or you didn't then. Obviously Eliot wanted to go too deep… or too soon. But you can't fault him for that.”

“Is that what I did to you?” Abby was almost crying.

“No, sweetie. Stop. We've been over this a million times. We were heading in different directions for ages. You did the right thing to break it off.” Tully turned to Christine and smiled, then looked back at Abby. “But you want Eliot… it's so obvious. Why are you so afraid of that? Why are you afraid to admit you're in love with him?”

“Other than the fact that it's fruitless since he's about to marry someone else?” She tried to laugh it off.

Tully kept staring at her. “You're right. I'm sure he's madly in love with that lovely Marisa. I've heard through the grapevine she's been incredibly successful with those microfinance projects in Tanzania. A real go-getter.”

“I hate you.”

Tully raised her glass in a small toast. “That's a start.”

“I don't even know what
in
love
means.” Abigail said on a frustrated sigh. Ever since Eliot had said it, blurted it like a fait accompli after he'd brought her to that impossible pleasure, she had felt it like a strangely painful, but not unwelcome, knife. She wanted to feel it.

She looked up at the two people seated across from her who were so patently emblematic of what she thought she couldn't understand. “I mean, I look at you two and I
see
it. But for myself, I don't know if my monkey mind will ever let me
have
it. I am in such a state of thinking and parsing and deciphering. It seems so implausible.”

“Did you parse and think when Eliot made love to you? When he touched you?” Tully asked quietly.

Abigail felt the pressure behind her eyes and shook her head no.

Then Christine and Tully both smiled, and Christine said, “Well, there you have it! Problem solved.”

“That's all?”

“Of course that's all, Abs,” Tully said. “At some point, you just want to give yourself over to it. And not in an unthinking way, but in that blissful surrender way, like tipping backward into a pool. Free falling. Some things are
beyond
thinking.”