“Do I not have actual friends?”
“You and Oliver entertained a lot. Mainly his business associates and their partners. You’d go to the gym and to champagne brunches …”
I stare at her. “Who with? Chloe?” That’s one of the few names I remember from my phone.
Gwendolyn checks her watch and picks up her handbag. “No, not with Chloe.”
As she moves to stand, I grab her arm. “Did I keep in touch with Bree? Breanna Parkinson?”
She gives a sympathetic grimace. “I’m sorry. I don’t know that name.”
Surely Bree would have been at our wedding? She would have been my bridesmaid!
“You didn’t really want lots of people around you, Evelyn. You had Oliver.” She pats my arm as she stands up, conversation over.
“Gwendolyn, I do have one more question—”
“You were so lucky,” she says, stepping toward the front door, putting space between herself and the question I’m sure she knows I’m going to ask about my parents. “He adored you enough for everyone.”
4
Four days later
This is my chance.While everyone’s weaving their way to communion at the funeral Mass, I make my break. Peeling off down the side aisle, I gather speed as I hurry between the pillars, hoping that if anyone notices me, they’ll assume a sudden need for the bathroom—perfectly understandable, in the circumstances—before I burst out the back doors into the brilliant sunshine and face a horde of cameras. It’s reminiscent of that scene inNotting Hillwhen Julia Roberts is unexpectedly exposed to the British tabloid media.
But it’s just me: Evie Hudson. Fish out of water in a dimension where I’ve signed up for everything in life that I categorically oppose and totally lost track of my own narrative. Hot tears sting my eyes and there’s not enough oxygen, no matter how much air I try to gorge into lungs that won’t expand nearly enough, breaths coming fast and shallow.
The Uber driver, leaning against a big black car, arms crossed defensively, seems to brace against my approach as I push through the cameras and storm toward him. He looks like one of those humorless undercover cops in a gritty British crime show, all brooding hotness, three-day stubble, and dark, troubled eyes. At first sight, I decide he’s the kind of guy youwarn your best friend about, but she goes and casts herself as the heroine in his redemption arc anyway, locking you into months of pointless debriefing while she tries to work out what’s wrong with her.
Bree would love him, if she were here. It’s just not like her to fail to show up to one of my crises, or vice versa, and I’d hoped the well-publicized funeral might smoke her out of whichever hole she’s been hiding in. Surely the death of a husband qualifies as a full-scale emotional emergency?
“Hey, can we get out of here fast?” I ask the driver as I brush past him. His arms fall to his sides.
I throw open the back door and tumble in, pushing aside an expensive-looking leather bag and tripod. He’s still standing there in his crisp white T-shirt and faded brown leather jacket, raking a hand through dark hair now as he stares at the church, and then at his car, giving me a view through the side window of his denim-clad rear. I’m more into Darcy and Knightley, myself, and while this getup is not breeches and a ruffled shirt, it’s also somehow not entirely disappointing. Though, as a newly minted widow literally fleeing my husband’s funeral, I am in no place to notice. Whatisdisappointing is that the man is demonstrating a complete lack of urgency.
I pound on the glass. “Come on!” I shout. “Drive!”
It’s only the movement of the media pack toward his car that motivates him, at last, to climb in, glare at me in the rearview mirror, and shift gears. Of course I’ve ended up with the rebel of Uberville and not some patient retiree who’d assure me everything is all right and my life hasn’t, in fact, been catastrophically derailed.
“Hello to you too,” the driver says, occupied with not hitting the camera crews that are swarming around the car, firingflashes through the windows. He performs some precision driving and we exit the driveway, pull into Victoria Street, and head for Centennial Park.
“Sorry! I’m not thinking straight.”Where are my manners?
“Where are we going?” he asks, frowning at me in the mirror before he overtakes an enormous caravan.
“Airport?” I hear myself confirm. It was the first destination in the saved addresses. I didn’t have time to construct a fancy itinerary in the church.
I pull out my phone and search for plane tickets. The nurse had advised me to stick to a normal routine in the hope it will stimulate my memory. According to the very enlightening funeral slideshow I’ve just witnessed, my normal routine involved a lot of jet-setting. Maybe being in the air will spark something. Medically, I’m sure it’s fine. I might have lost a few chapters of my memory, but it’s not like I’ll be flying the plane.
I let my phone automatically fill out the fields to book a flight home to Newcastle, progress to the payment gateway, and watch the wheel spin until it times out.Payment failed.
I try again.Failed.
“Everything okay?” the driver asks, after I swear under my breath.
His hands clench over the steering wheel before I catch his eye again in the mirror and shoot him a look that says,I just absconded from my own husband’s funeral. How okay can everything be?
He returns his focus to the traffic. How am I going to pay him without a credit card? The nurse had said Uber was like a taxi service. I’ve been in a cab only a couple of times and Bree and I paid with cash. Is this the same? And how is my card not working when I can apparently afford this outfit?
