I laugh. “I didn’t mean that.” And I didn’t, really—my confusion was far more about the poise, the gravitas, that never really existed in the Dean I knew back then.
I ask what he’s up to these days. He tells me he’s living in Chiswick with his wife and young daughter, that he’s a criminal barrister at a chambers on Chancery Lane. “Unlike your man here—the ultimate sellout.” He shakes his head, eyes alive with mischief. “All that potential, wasted behind a desk.”
“Couldn’t do what you do, mate,” Max fires back, tongue-in-cheek. “Too many five a.m. starts and nightmare clients and trains to the arse end of nowhere.”
Smiling, Dean swigs back some champagne, then turns to meagain. “And what are you doing these days, Lucy? Don’t tell me,” he cuts in, before I can reply. “You’re a best-selling novelist.”
I smile. “Not exactly.”
Dean affects mock shock. “What?You mean the rumors weren’t true?”
“What rumors?” But I know, of course, because I’d been the one to spread them.
“That you’d quit uni to go and write a novel on a beach in Thailand or somewhere.”
My only option is to style this out. “Actually, I’m starting a new job on Monday. In advertising.”
“Ah,”Dean says knowingly. “Well then. Welcome to the club.”
“Sorry?”
“Of professions people love to hate. Estate agents, lawyers, ad men. Or women.”
“Ignore him,” Max says. “He’s only trying to justify his nonexistent social life.”
But the barrister in Dean starts to dig deeper. “So, come on, Lucy. What’s your story? One minute you’re at uni with the rest of us, the next...” He makes a motion with his fist, which I assume is supposed to represent a puff of smoke.
I smile, even as I feel my body grow warm with discomfort. “Am I being cross-examined?”
He smiles too, though not unkindly. “Sorry. Force of habit.”
Back then, I told everyone I was off traveling, that I planned to write a novel. I cringe when I think about it now—how confidently I informed them I’d be writing in hotels, on beaches, from hammocks, and in bars.
But the truth was, Max ending it at the start of that final autumn term had floored me—to the point where I hadn’t been sleeping; had missed deadlines, seminars, and tutorials; had handed in coursework that was sloppy and badly thought through. After a week back inShoreley trying to pull myself together, I’d attempted to struggle on through to the end of term, avoiding Max completely, who’d moved out of our flat and into a temporary room in town.
But the downturn in my performance had been severe enough that my seminar leader had asked to meet with me just before the Christmas break, whereupon she suggested I might want to consider repeating my final year. Twenty minutes later, on the way out of the faculty building, I’d seen a flyer tacked to a noticeboard, calling for volunteers to work on a community program in Thailand. And that was it. I’d seen enough signs by then: my mind was made up.
After I dropped out, the texts and calls checking on me persisted for a time. But pretty soon after Boxing Day, when I boarded my flight to Paris—my first stop—they began to dry up, before more or less stopping completely as everyone returned to uni in the new year. I got a new phone, replying from then on only to the odd e-mail, assuring whoever had sent it that everything was fine. That I was reveling in my freedom, traveling and writing, having the time of my life.
Max contacted me too, but my response to him was much less cheery: just a couple of cool sentences—perhaps to punish him—to say I wasn’t coming back. My friends ended up filling in the rest, and after that, I didn’t hear from him again.
The music switches now to something cheesy, and a smatter of cheers goes up, a few hands lifting skyward.
“I mean, I did go traveling,” I tell Dean.
He nods, thoughtfully. “Well, good for you. I only seem to make it as far as ski resorts these days. And I absolutelyloatheskiing.” He exhales, scans the room. “Right—better mingle. I know every single person here bar two, apparently.”
He and Max shake hands. “Love to Chrissy,” Max says.
“Don’t cock it up this time,” is Dean’s parting shot, though I’m not sure which of us it’s aimed at.
By now we’re at the back of the living room, in a quiet corner next to an oversized standard lamp with a spotless glass shade like an overturned goldfish bowl.
Max turns to me, lifts an eyebrow. “So. I’m not to cock it up, apparently.”
“I wasn’t sure who he meant.”
“I’m going to hazard a guess and say me.” He reaches for my free hand, his thumb skimming the inside of my wrist. “Sorry about all that.”
