Bancroft cocks his head, narrowing his eyes in disbelief. “Don’t give me that bullshit. You overthink enough to know you have plenty of shaggable qualities.”
His phone vibrates on the wooden surface between us. The wordRissyis emblazoned on the screen. He ignores it, choosing instead to take my face in his wet hands, smearing cold clay on my cheeks. “You, Hastings, are a catch.”
“Oh my God!” A teenage giggle-scream forces out of me, turning the heads of the others in the class. I grab his wrists, attempting to pull his hands away.
His hands hold strong as he pierces me with that icy gaze. “Do we have a deal?”
With the first genuine smile I’ve let slip in days: “OK, OK, OK! I’ll do it!”
“Good.” His hands slide from my face as he briefly glances at my lips. I wipe the splattered clay from them with the back of my hand, grabbing paper towels from the pile between us with the other. His phone beginsto vibrate again, and he wipes his hands off. “I should probably take this.” He gets up, shoulders tense.
“Yeah, sure,” I say quietly, pretending to be so engrossed with wiping the clay water off my cheeks that I haven’t noticed his sudden change in demeanor.
He slips out of the door onto the busy street outside. I watch as he paces in the early-evening glow through the glass facade of the pottery shop. His face is solemnly laced with a flash of frustration, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand. I make out the words “stay there,” followed by a concerned look as he hangs up and clutches the phone in his fist.
A few moments later he stalks back through the room looking like the slightly disheveled evil twin of the man who was trying to lighten my mood just a few moments ago. “I have to leave.”
His gaze drags between his phone and me as though looking at both simultaneously will teleport him into two places at once. His half-formed vase slumps over on the wheel from lack of physical attention.
I look up at him from the pottery wheel; from this angle I can see how tense his jaw is so I try and sound nonchalant: “Everything OK?”
He nods his head. “Yeah. Well... no, it’s fine. It’s my sister,” he says, knuckles white around his phone. He’s pretending to sound annoyed but there is a clear edge of urgency to his voice that makes the hairs on my arms stand at attention.
“Is she all right?”
He runs a hand through his thick, sandy hair. “I think so. She and her friends have racked up a huge bill at Matilda’s Bar. The manager isn’t letting her leave until she pays and her card isn’t working. She sounds kind of... out of it.”
He looks embarrassed, as if it’s not the first time something like this has happened. Matilda’s Bar is one of the more expensive of the trendy London drinking holes. I’ve never been there but have heard they’re more likely to check your follower count than your age upon entry.
Bancroft sighs and pops the buttons on his overalls, revealing a pristinely uncreased white shirt and tightly pleated suit trousers underneath like a stressed-out reverse Superman.
“I’ll come with you,” I say, yanking off my overalls too; my T-shirt and jeans are a stark contrast to his outfit. We look like a farmer and the guy who wanted to pave paradise to put up a parking lot.
“No.” His voice is harsh but has a quality that makes me realize this is actually serious. Previously, if anything was causing him stress at work he would go into charm-bot mode and the Permasmirk would soon follow. Turning his work persona up to eleven to compensate for the panic going on behind the scenes in his brain. It dawns on me that this is the rare version of Bancroft I got a glimpse of after I fell on the hiking trail. Pure panic.
He’s saying he doesn’t need help but instead of leaving immediately he slides his hands into his pockets andwaits for my response. I cross my arms and match his tense expression. “Do you really think you’ll be able to deal with the bar manager, your sisterandher drunk friends on your own?”
One side of his mouth twitches up in faux-nonchalance as he shrugs. “I’ve done it before.”
The overwhelming urge to put my hand on his arm swells inside me but I hesitate, and instead put on my best resolute voice and state, “Well, you shouldn’t have to. I’m coming.” Not waiting for his reply, I pick up my jacket, fold it over my crossed arms and nod toward the door. “Shall we?”
He says nothing but doesn’t protest as I give an apologetic “family emergency” explanation to Mellie with promises to talk further details via phone. She waves me off insistently as I follow him out of the building, into the back of a black cab.
12
Sometimes in life, the universe comes along and metaphorically knocks you in the head so hard you see colors for the first time. This is what happened when I saw Iris Fender, dressed in a sparkling black halterneck dress, sitting in a dark pink velvet booth slumped over a green marble table surrounded by empty bottles of champagne and cocktail glasses. Finally, it clicks that this is who he was photographed with weeks ago. I knew he had a sister, but he’d never mentioned her by name. Of course, discovering information like this is the exact point in time I also notice their similarities: their tall frames, the shape of their mouths and their icy blue eyes. Like cleaning an old, smeared mirror until you can finally see a reflection. As Bancroft sits down next to his sister and gently lifts her floppy body off the sticky table I try to figure out why he seems to be keeping his younger sibling’s similar socialite status hidden.
The dimly lit bar glows a deep orange, with gold pleated fabric drapes over the ceiling as though this is some sort of royal circus tent. It’s Saturday night and the place is heaving. The scent of sickly-sweet cocktailsand salty dark liqueur fills the space. I can’t help but also notice the grandeur seeping from everyone’s pores, smelling it in the air like a perfume that costs way too much to smell this bad. I physically shrink, attempting to take up less space as tall men and women in perfectly tailored suits and dresses glide by without a second glance; if they could walk straight through me they absolutely would. Bancroft seems annoyed at everyone, glaring at anyone whose eyes shift in his sister’s direction. Anybody in the sea of faces could have seen she needed help, but instead, they scrunched their perfectly plucked eyebrows and snarled their silicone-filled lips at the inconvenient mess in the corner booth, and continued to sip on their espresso martinis.
Despite insisting on attending this rescue mission, now that I’m here, I have no idea what I should be doing to help. I feel like an umbrella you bring on a cloudy day “just in case” but end up having to carry all day for no reason. On the way here Bancroft hinted at having been in this situation before, so I stand a few meters away letting him handle things and giving them some privacy. Well, as much as they can get in a bar full of people who all likely know who he is, if not her too. My gaze moves to a group of tall, slim, good-looking people who look like children. One girl (who if I was ten years younger I would be utterly terrified of) sniggers while taking a video of Iris, her head lolling back as Eric encourages her to drink a glass of water. A man in a sharp navy suit with a slicked-back dark brown haircutI can only describe as “Lego hair” strides toward them. He swiftly hands over a small brass tray with a piece of folded paper on it; Bancroft sucks his teeth resignedly and pulls out his wallet. Iris’s head rolls onto his chest with a thump like a bowling ball hitting the gutter.
The girl taking the video is several inches taller than me so I lift my chin to her to meet her eyes. “Hey, are you one of Iris’s friends?”
The girl’s hazel eyes travel lazily from her phone screen to look at me. Not at my face; instead, she starts at my shoes and scans my entire body as though she has an outfit price-checker in her brain, deciding whether I am figuratively and literally worth a response.
“We’re not friends. We’re mutuals on Instagram.” She turns back to her phone.
“Right. But you’re herewithher? How long has she been like this?” She ignores me, the light from her phone reflecting glassy spots in her eyes. “Jesus, can you stop filming her?” I put my hand in front of the camera lens. “How long has she been like this?” I repeat.
