Seb lives in Battersea, so we expense a cab together. He gets straight on the phone to his girlfriend to discuss some plumbing emergency at home, which leaves me time to think about something other than work for the first time in hours, or maybe even days. As the cab heads across the river, the lights of the city sliding like rain over the rear window, my thoughts turn to Max.
Working all these crazy hours has had an almost tranquilizing effect on me: filling my brain with Supernova, fighting to prove myself, has stemmed the constant flow of doubt and questions and longing. It’s stopped me from dwelling very long on how I feel, or wondering what Max is doing right now—whether he’s also working himself into the ground, because stopping to think for even a second just hurts too much.
—
I manage to achieve a lie-in the next day, before letting Jools drag me to the market, where we slide into our favorite café for a brunch of coffee and toasted sandwiches. The air balloons with the scents and sounds of the market late morning on a Saturday—flowers and fish and fruit, the clamor of voices and crates and roller doors shuttering.
“Sorry if we made a bit of noise last night,” Jools says as we sit down, a mischievous glint in her eye.
For a moment, I can’t think what she means, before I remember she had a date after work yesterday. Another nurse, who’s recently moved to London from Edinburgh. I must have already been asleep by the time they got in.
She tells me they went to see a Tom Stoppard play, followed by cocktails at one of those bars that used to be a public toilet. “The urinals were built into the tables. Which was a bit weird, considering we both spend all day at work obsessing about hygiene.” She brightens. “But other than that, it was great. He’s funny, quite old-school chivalrous. Holds doors open, that kind of thing.”
Max holds doors open, I think automatically, before the alarming thought occurs to me that perhaps now he’s started holding them open for other people. It has been two months since I broke it off, after all, and Max never did go short of female attention.
“Do you think you’re going to see him again?” I ask Jools, through a mouthful of mushroom and Emmental.
“Maybe. Yeah. I think I will.”
I lean forward, trying to dislodge Max from my mind. “Sorry, what did you say his name was again? Victor?”
Jools laughs and sips her coffee. “Vince.” She peers at me. “Are you okay, Luce? Sure you’re not working too hard? If you don’t mind me saying, you look a bit... you know. Under the weather.”
It’s a fair observation: I seem to spend most of my life looking and feeling under the weather, these days. To try to take my mind off Max and my sister, my days have melted together in a series of skipped breakfasts and lunches, dinners snatched from boxes, too much coffee, late nights, zero sleep...
I check the time on my phone. “Actually, I’d better not be too long. I’m meeting Seb at one.”
“Can I say something?” Jools says.
“ ’Course,” I mumble into my coffee, the steam dampening my lips.
“I know what happened with Max was awful and horrible... but you can choose how you deal with it. You know?”
“I am dealing with it.”
Finishing her sandwich, Jools brushes crumbs from her fingertips. “No, you’re denying it. Massive difference.”
“I’m just focusing on work. And it’s going really well,” I say, remembering the high of our creative session last night, and the compliments Seb paid me.
A couple of teenagers push past our table, almost sending our coffees flying. We snatch up our cups with the dart-fast reflexes of the caffeine-dependent, then smile at each other.
“And that’s brilliant,” Jools says, “but you haven’t resolved things with your sister, and working like a maniac won’t do that. You’re going to have to face up to what happened sooner or later.”
I nod slowly, because I know she’s right: Tash has been drifting intomy head more and more lately, and the harder I try to push her away, the more persistent she becomes. “My mum wants me to go to Dylan’s birthday party next month,” I say.
“Well, that could be a start.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say, nibbling my bottom lip.
“I’ll come with you, if you need the moral support. I’m an expert in family crises, remember?”
“Thanks, but I wouldn’t subject you to mine on top of yours.”
I finish my sandwich, and then we order two more flat whites to take out.
“Have you heard anything else from Max?” Jools asks, as we head back out into the market, dodging a group of men carrying babies in slings. For some reason, the sight of them makes my blood pulse with sadness.
I shake my head. “Just that last message a couple of weeks ago. Think he’s given up.”
