“But the problem,”Jillianreminds Clemence now in the treehouse flat with all that golden light, “is that you never followed your instincts in the first place. Instead, you ignored the red flags and your feelings, trying to convince yourself that the story you were living was true.”
They are sitting among the boxes they’d just hauled up the stairs, and they’re both sweating. Clemence knows she owes Jillian big time because the stairs are steep, and the boxes heavy and awkward—bits and pieces of crockery, piles of shoes, sheets and towels salvaged from her parents’ place. The basics, she’d thought, having left almost everything with Toad, but this isn’t minimalism because the apartment is cluttered already, and Clemence hasn’t started unpacking.
“What Iwant,” she tells Jillian, not for the first time, “is a reset.” She gets up for another glass of water, letting the tap run so the water gets cold. There is a partially filled ice cube tray in the freezer compartment of her mini fridge, but the idea of somebody else’s ice is disgusting. The apartment is clean enough at first glance, but the fridge needs to be wiped down. “Atabula rasa,” she says, refilling her glass and then Jillian’s. They are parched. She’d offered to take Jillian out for a drink, but Jillian has no time for that. She’s helped Clemence move, and now she needs to get back to work, and then go home to her family.
“Kind of makes me feel young again, though,” says Jillian, holding the glass against her sweaty forehead. “Ican’t remember the last time Ihelped somebody move.”Everybody else their age has the capacity to hire movers, and even packers.
“Too bad we’ll feel ninety-seven tomorrow,” says Clemence.
“So many stairs,” Jillian admits.
Clemence says, “Iowe you.”
“You really do.” Jillian puts down her glass and looks around. “Itisa cozy flat, you know. Abit like Bridget Jones’s. The kind of place where you’d end up running outside to kiss Mark Darcy in your underwear. You better watch out for that.”
And Clemence says, “God forbid.” No, there would be no such humiliations here in her new life, no snogging in the street. Her intention is to begin a very different kind of story, one that doesn’t end with a wedding. She desires to become one of those excellent women that Barbara Pym wrote about in her mid-century novels, helping out at church bazaars, fortified with a nice mug of Ovaltine. Awoman of substance, of character, who isn’t defined by her relationship to a man. Because Clemence is finished with recklessness, and impulsiveness.Clemence Lathbury, she longs to have people start thinking.She’s such a stalwart.An actual noun. And she’s going to start with her new landlady, Mrs. Yeung, and become the kind of woman that people can count on. “My Bridget Jones years,” she tells Jillian, “are behind me.”
“But isn’t that what you said when you got married?” The closest Jillian will come to saying Itold you so. Such disloyalty is cancelled out by the boxes she carried up the stairs, so Clemence lets her have it.
She walks Jillian downstairs and they linger on the porch.
Jillian says, “You’re really okay?” Everybody is worried about Clemence. Nobody has been convinced by Clemence’s act of keeping it together, if all this is just an act. Is it? Clemence can’t even convince herself.
But she promises her friend, “I’ve never been better.” And this she means. For the first time in her life, Clemence is free to chart her own course, and she still doesn’t know where she’s going, but she doesn’t have to have it all figured out just yet.
She’s about to offer Jillian one more metaphorical bouquet of gratitude for her help this afternoon, with a promise to pay her back with babysitting, or she’ll bake her a cake … until Clemence remembers she no longer has an oven. And then the front door opens behind them, and Clemence and Jillian turn around, taking in an impressive pair of biceps attached to a beautiful dark-haired man who looks surprised to find them there. Until he figures it out. “You’re the woman in the attic,” he says.
“Um, themadwoman,” says Clemence, unable to resist, and Jillian punches her in the arm.
“Well, I’m Edward Rochester,” says the guy.
Clemence says “Really?”
He looks disappointed. He’d thought they had a rapport. He says, “No. I’m Charles. This is my mom’s place, and she’s not happy with you.”
“There’s been a misunderstanding,” Clemence tells him.
“And it’s too late to do anything about it now,” Jillian has her lawyer’s voice on. “The lease is signed. She can’tdiscriminate. If your mother was looking for a male tenant, she should have specified.”
“She usually doesn’t have to,” says Charles. “One look at the place, and that’s enough. Most women tend toward, um, a different aesthetic.”
“Well, Iguess I’m not most women, then,” says Clemence, determined to stand her ground, to not be dazzled by this Charles just because he happens to be handsome, but Jillian is punching her again—what? “And Isigned the lease sight unseen. Iwas out of town and needed something fast.”
“So you’re desperate,” says Charles.
“No, I’m just not choosy,” Clemence corrects him. “When it comes to an apartment, Imean,” she adds, speaking too fast, once she realizes how bad this sounds. “Your mother let me use an online signature. She didn’t even ask.”
“Well, Ihope you know what you’re getting into,” says Charles, pulling the door shut behind him. “This house isn’t very fancy.” Ascreen falls off the window behind him, as if for emphasis.
“That part,” says Jillian, “is obvious.”
“And I’m not looking for fancy, anyway,” adds Clemence.
Jillian says, “She really isn’t. She’s devoting herself to living austerely, to writing her own story. Becoming like a character out of a book.”
“But notJane Eyre,” says Charles, who is proving more literate than his biceps suggested at first sight.
“More likeEat, Pray, Love,” says Jillian.
