“And you’re sure he feels the same?” Ginny asks.
I think about the wedding. Then, I think about his erection in the bathroom.
“I’m pretty sure,” I say, clearing my throat. “And I’m pretty sure he’s as concerned as I am about acting on it.”
I groan into my hands. “I want someone to tell me what to do.
I can’t talk to my mum about any of this.You’refar too reckless...” “Hey!”
“You’re like the romantic equivalent of a bungee jump,” I say. “And Kate is too sensible. She has checklists.”
“What’s stopping you from making big decisions in your life?” Ginny asks, her voice soft and gentle.
“Fear of getting it wrong.”
“And if you got it wrong...”
“Catastrophe. Loneliness. Mess. Horror. Cataclysmic-end-of-the-world-type feelings.”
“Well, that’s just ridiculous,” she says. “The worst-case scenario is that you... um, I dunno...”
“Fuck Leo and keep the restaurant. The restaurant fails, I lose loads of money, and Leo takes me to an employment tribunal because I shagged an employee.”
“Or,” Ginny says brightly, “you end up with an amazing business, with a partner you love, who is also your business partner.”
“The first feels more likely,” I say.
“Why don’t you want to speak to your mum?”
“She has a negative opinion of hospitality, and a negative opinion of Nicky’s,” I say, sighing, gazing down again at Leo, who is unhelpfully applying suntan oil across his muscular golden arms in broad, slick strokes.
“She might surprise you,” she says.
“Maybe,” I say, walking into the shared bathroom, checking to make sure Leo’s door is secure.
“Take the leap,” Ginny says. “If you want to be with Leo, you should be with Leo.If you want to keep the restaurant, you should keep the restaurant.”
“When did I become such a wimp?” I say, looking hard at myself in the mirror.
“When there were real stakes,” she says.
AFTER PACING MYroom for a while, I can no longer resist the urge to call my mother. She has been my counsel my whole life, and I need her.
She is folding towels when I call, a practice that felt like a dark art when I was growing up.“No, that’s a bath towel, Olive. Nope. That’s downstairs toilet. Face, not the hands. Those are the guest towels. No one should be using those.”
I would learn later that guest towels had a hierarchy too. There were guests worthy of the guest towels, but notallguests. I reflect on my mum’s incredible organizational skills and wonder how the hell she ever put up with Dad.
“Olive,” she says brightly. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, yes.” I take in a big breath.
“Yes,” she says, before covering the phone with her hand to speak to George, even though we’re on a video call.“You need to wash those bike shorts, George, you can’t just keep wearing them. No. They’re full of bacteria in the crotch area. Do they help with the chafing or not? Put some of that cream on.”
“I can call back?” I say, recoiling from my phone.
“No, darling,” she says to me, and then, off the receiver again, she says,“Earl Grey. But just a dash of nonfat milk this time. Stop trying to push the oat milk on me!”I hear the throaty chortle of a man off-screen and then the sound of a door pushing shut.
It is weirdly reassuring to hear Mum asserting herself in her relationship with George. I’d worried, at times, that Dad was too big for her, and she’d shrunk too much.
