‘Can’t you catch a later flight?’ Bel suggested. ‘Change it to next week?’
‘Doesn’t quite work like that in real life,’ I replied, putting on a brave face. Here was the heartache I was trying to avoid, right on time and ten times as awful as anticipated. ‘It’s a non-refundable ticket. No changes.’
‘Don’t be absurd,’ Myrna said to me before turning to Bel. ‘She’s not going anywhere so please try not to look quite so pathetic.’
‘I can’t just extend my holiday,’ I argued. ‘I’d need a visa and I have a job at home, I have obligations.’
‘Such as?’
I opened my mouth to reply but my mind was a blank.
‘She’s staying,’ Myrna declared when I didn’t answer fast enough. ‘We’ll say you work for me and my lawyers will get you a visa. Someone’s going to have to keep an eye on Joe’s boy and I can’t be expected to stay on top of him twenty-four hours a day, but I’m sure you wouldn’t find it too much of a hardship.’
Bel held her hand up for a high five and Myrna gladly obliged.
‘Actually, she doesn’t need you to get her a visa,’ Suzanne said, sounding almost surprised at herself. ‘Our dad is American. All she has to do is apply for dual citizenship, that’s what I did when I got this job. Mum should have done it when we were kids really, but who can blame her for wanting to pretend he didn’t exist? It’s a fair amount of paperwork but it’s fairly straightforward, I can help you.’
‘Is this true?’ Myrna asked. ‘Am I to understand the most British woman I ever met in my life is actually half-American?’
I was such an idiot. I’d spent so much time tryingnot to think about all the ways our dad had let us down, I’d never bothered to think about the ways he might be able to help us.
‘So you could stay?’ Bel yelled, jumping up and down in her seat and earning herself a literal slap on the wrists from Myrna. ‘You don’t have to go home?’
My palms were sweating against my cold glass. Could I?
‘It’s not that easy,’ I said, holding them off while I attempted to gather my thoughts, but my thoughts did not want to be gathered. They moved too fast, irrational and uncontrollable, like a flock of sheep that had been knocking back cans of Red Bull. ‘What would I do about a job? How would I live?Wherewould I live?’
‘You’re a copywriter, not the prime minister.’ My sister, as blunt as ever. ‘You already work from home – who’s to say you couldn’t work from here? You’re bloody good at your job, Phoebe, they’re not going to give you up without a fight. And you’ll stay with me; I won’t even charge you rent as long as you start bloody well cleaning up after yourself.’
‘So what you’re saying is I would have to pay rent,’ I replied, a hint of a glimmer of hope sparkling inside me. ‘I don’t know. There isn’t a lot of time to think this over, is there? And you can’t make major life-changing decisions on a whim.’
Beside me, Myrna let out a derisive scoff. ‘In all my years, I’ve never known anyone so committed to making their own life so difficult and I used to play bridge with Bette Davis.’
‘And what about Ren?’ Suzanne asked. ‘Don’t you want to stay for him?’
‘Suze, I thought better of you,’ I scolded. ‘I have to be logical about this. I can’t upend my entire life for a man.’
‘Forgive me, I didn’t realize I was speaking to one of the leading intellectuals of the day,’ Myrna said with a small bow in my direction. ‘I can’t think of anything more sensible. It’s called love. People have been doing it for centuries, darling, killed for it, fought wars over it. Allyouhave to do is not get on a plane.’
She tapped her empty glass once and Suzanne leapt out of her seat to bring over the pitcher of margaritas. ‘The glass is already broken, there’s no point trying to put it back together now, you’ll only cut yourself.’
‘You broke a glass?’ Bel said, glancing around the table. ‘No one move, I’ll go get a dustpan.’
‘I can’t decide if I love her or if she needs a muzzle,’ Myrna said as she stared at my friend. ‘Tell me she has good intentions and I’ll allow her to exist.’
‘The best,’ I confirmed. ‘You all have the best intentions, I know that, but moving halfway round the world seems like a very big thing to do without thinking it through properly. I don’t even know how he would feel about me staying.’
‘We all know how he feels about you,’ Suzanne said. ‘It’s disgustingly obvious, so you can pack that in.’
But did we know? Did we really? The last person who said he loved me had lied, and there was no way to know for sure whether or not Ren’s feelings were real.
‘My dad cried,’ Ren announced as he opened the sliding glass doors and strode over to the table, shoulders back, chest puffed out, his own eyes more than alittle red. ‘Michael Hector Efren Garcia cried. Myrna, I can’t thank you enough.’
‘Keep that in mind when you’re ready to kill me and bury my body under the new rose garden,’ she replied, settling into her second margarita. ‘By the way, I’d like to add another rose garden.’
‘Ren, you have to tell Phoebe,’ Bel yelled, unable to keep her mouth shut for one second.
‘Tell Phoebe what?’ he asked, looking as confused as I felt
