His T-shirt bears a single white star on the front. It’s years old, I think, an ancient band T-shirt, and it’s hard to know if he’s sticking to the theme or just fancied wearing it.
“Sorry,” he says, slightly gruffly, “that I’ve been a bit AWOL these last few weeks.”
I swallow. “That’s okay.” I have a horrible feeling it’s because he overheard the conversation between Jools and me in the kitchen when we were in London. I didn’t want to bring it up that night, for fear of us falling out while we were staying with Jools. But ever since, he claims to have been busy, either out with friends or swamped with work, splitting his time between corporate jobs in London, a wedding in Whitstable, and a midweek job for one of his stepbrothers in Devon.
“Have you seen Dylan yet?”
“Er, no.” He lifts up a gift-wrapped parcel. “Where should this go?”
“Oh, you didn’t have to—”
“Got him the Harry Potter Lego in the end,” he says brusquely, almost cutting me off, and then we both just stand looking at each other for a moment or two. I feel something resembling dismay creep through me, and almost have to blink back tears.
“Caleb, are we—”
“I’ll just go and find Dylan,” he says. “Catch up with you in a bit.”
Catch up with you in a bit.Like we’re office nemeses bumping into each other at a networking do, and he’d been secretly hoping to avoid me.
—
Twenty minutes or so later I manage to track him down, once I’ve handed round more drinks and helped to herd the kids into the dining room, where their communal hyperactivity is currently being contained by a man with a beard pulling stuff out of hats.
I watch Caleb for a few minutes before I approach him. He seems familiar with a fair amount of the people here. I know he’s taken pictures for Dylan’s school before, and I guess he’s done work for quite a lot of the parents, too. He moves smoothly between groups, chatting easily, cracking jokes, laughing at all the right moments. Perhaps it would be a cliché to say he lights up the room, but I can’t deny it seems a whole lot brighter for having him in it.
Eventually I see him extricate himself from a particularly involved conversation with two of the mums, one of whom kept touching him on the arm and laughing uproariously whenever he opened his mouth. It was at this point that his eyes found mine, the smile he shot me seeming to say,Could do with some help here.
“Do you need rescuing?” I whisper, my hand finding his next to thePin the Scar on Harry Potterposter, willing him to say yes.
A flurry of delighted screams erupts from the dining room, and he smiles. “Well, if I didn’t before, I do now. Shall we go somewhere quiet?”
“Yes please,” I say, immediately, but as we’re turning to go, a woman I half recognize but can’t quite place taps me on the shoulder. “Lucy! God it’s beenyears.”
She obviously decided to ignore the memo about the touch-of-magic dress code, being perfectly groomed in the manner of Gwyneth Paltrow—tall and slim with long sandy hair, in skinny white jeans and a silk teal-colored T-shirt, her skin beach-holiday brown.
“Briony,” she prompts me quickly, saving me the embarrassment of having to confess I can’t remember her name. “I was at school with Tash.”
“Of course.” I give her a hug, trying not to cough as I breathe in a powerful punch of perfume.
“Listen, hate to pry, but is your sister okay?”
I frown. “Yes, she... Yes, I think so. Why?”
“I saw hercryingjust now,” Briony says, in an exaggerated whisper, tipping her head toward the hallway.
“Sure it was Tash?” Maybe they were happy tears, like the ones she shed this morning at Dylan’s present-opening session.
“Yes—blond bob, silver playsuit?”
Feeling my smile fade, I decide to try to find her and check, but then Briony turns to Caleb. “Max, is it?”
“No,” I say quickly, heat rushing to my face. “This is Caleb.”
“Oh, sorry. I thought... I thought your boyfriend was called Max, for some reason.” She lets out a shrill sliver of laughter. “God, sorry! I must be thinking of someone else.”
“No, Max lives in London,” I say, completely without thinking, before instantly wishing the man with the beard would come and magic me—or preferably Briony—away from Caleb and this excruciating conversation.
We chat for a couple more painful minutes about Briony’s children, and Caleb’s photography—her curiosity piqued by the camera hanging around his neck—and then she asks what I do.
