Chapter Thirty-Five
Forgiveness is living proof of true love.
Matilda Beam’s Good Woman Guide, 1959
I stay on Jamie’s couch for the next couple of weeks because the mere thought of even seeing, let alone talking to Grandma makes me feel irate and sad all at the same time. Peach drops my stuff off in Bayswater and calls me with regular updates about Mr Belding (as happy as ever) and Grandma, who’s apparently pretending to be all right in the day, showing round potential buyers for her house, but then spends the nights crying. Which makes me feel kind of terrible.
I meet Kiko once or twice when she comes to see Jamie. At first she’s a little wary of my friendship with him and the fact that I’m sleeping on his sofa, but I soon warm her up with my sunny disposition, and I really think there’s a chance that, at some point, we’ll become actual mates. Kiko even helps me to pick out an age-appropriate present (a bubble-making machine) for the first birthday party of Betty’s son Henry, which I travel down to Manchester for. Don’t get me wrong – the whole thing was super boring − but the fact that I turned up and endured two hours of screaming kids made Betty so surprised and pleased that it was totally worth the pain, and she’s since sent me a Facebook invite for a house party she’s planning on having in September.
Speaking of Facebook, Summer is on there more than she’s ever been. Now that she’s back with Anderson, she’s forever posting selfies and statuses about their ‘amazing love’ and how she’s #superblessed to #haveitall. I try to be Zen about the whole thing, but the truth is that what she did at the ball was so needlessly mean that seeing her smug face all over the Internet just winds me up. So I unfriend her. And then, on the day she’s set to announce the cast of her new TV show (which, annoyingly,Stylistmagazine are calling the most hotly anticipated show for 2015) exclusively onSummer in the City, I log into the site using my password and send every page link on the site to a YouTube video of Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ in a sort of mass Rick Roll. I do it every day for a week until she finally pegs on that it’s me and changes the passwords. But by that time her reputation as a tastemaker has already been sufficiently dented and there’s a headline in BuzzFeed that says ‘Summer Spencer’s Bizarre New Obsession with Rick Astley’, which makes me howl with laughter.
I attempt, a lot, to get in touch with Leo so that I can apologize properly. I ring him a gazillion times, but it goes straight to voicemail. I email him, but apart from my regular newsletters and one lovely offer of ‘great and joyous wealth’ from a Nigerian prince, my inbox remains woefully empty. I even turn up at Leo’s apartment one night, hold my iPhone above my head (I couldn’t locate a boom box) and blast out Peter Gabriel’s ‘In Your Eyes’ like John Cusack does in one of Leo’s favourite 80s films. But Leo doesn’t appear to be at home, and an exhausted-looking woman on the next floor up leans out of her window and tells me to stop being so selfish and shut the fuck up, else she’ll call the police. To which I profusely apologize and shuffle away sadly.
I try to accept being frozen out by Leo. He’s well within his rights to never want to speak to me again − after all, I massively lied to him. I even pretend to myself that I don’t care that much, that it doesn’treallymatter, that I’ll get over it soon enough. But I’m not sure that’s true. I think constantly about his usually dancing green eyes full of betrayal, his gorgeous confident mouth downturned. Then I think about what he’s doing right at that moment, if he’s thinking of me, who he’s hanging out with, and if they’re laughing together. These inconvenient thoughts keep me awake almost every night. Eventually, when I can no longer bear the notion that he might never really know how sorry I am, I wake up one Friday morning and catch the tube to the Strand. I blast open the doors to Woolf Frost and march determinedly up to the receptionist.
‘I need to see Leo Frost immediately,’ I say firmly.
The receptionist glances up from her computer, a bored expression on her young face. We met last time I was here, but she doesn’t recognize me in my normal clothes and glasses, my hair scraped back into a messy bun.
‘He’s not here.’
‘Where is he? I need to see him. It’s urgent,’ I say, urgently.
She shrugs idly, grabs a packet of Maltesers from under her desk and opens them really slowly.
‘Hello?’ I prompt.
She tuts. ‘He left the company. Resigned a week ago now.’ She munches delicately on a little sphere of chocolate.
‘What? Heresigned? Why?’
Her eyes scan the reception area and she lowers her voice. ‘Are you a client?’
‘No. I just need to talk to him. Where is he?’
‘OK, well, you didn’t hear it from me, but there’s this rumour that Leo Frost left the company to become an artist. Silly sod. Old Rufus is fuming! I hear Leo’s gone to France for a couple of weeks. Wants to paint the sea there, or something.’ She giggles to herself and rolls her eyes as if she thinks the whole thing is clearly the action of a wuss. And a month ago I might have thought exactly the same thing. But I think about the paintbrush I gave to Leo at the ball, and though my heart aches at the fact that he’s not even in the country, a warm, light feeling sparkles in my chest and I can’t help but smile to myself.
Leo Frost: Artist.
* * *
Leaving Woolf Frost, I wander down to Little Joe’s Java. The place is much less busy than when I was here for the poetry night, and a lively samba-style music plays over the low din of late-morning customers. I order a cappuccino with extra whipped cream and ask the barista if he can lend me some paper and a pen. He cheerfully hands over a letter-headed notepad and a blue bic, and I take a seat on one of the squishy sofas. I start to write.
Dear Leo,
So I’ve been trying to get in touch via all the usual ways, but obviously you haven’t wanted to hear from me – totally understandable, but I hope that when you get back from France you’ll read this and know how truly sorry I am.
I was in a bit of a weird place when I agreed to take part in this project – I’d just lost my job and my home and was in search of a fast buck, plus my Grandma really, really needed my help. I was under the impression that you were some kind of sexist, womanizing shithead, and although that’s not exactly an excuse for fooling you, it made the decision to do it so much easier. To be honest, our altercation atThe Beekeeperlaunch didn’t help; I genuinely thought you were a massive prick.
And then we spent this amazing time together. And I saw that behind that cocky, arrogant exterior was you. You. This kind, open, creative, gorgeous, sensitive man who wasn’t at all what I thought he would be. And I was so afraid of how that made me feel. Like you, I have a bit of an issue with commitment, and I didn’t want to admit that I might be falling for you because it’s never happened to me before, and I really never planned on it happening at all.
A lot of what you saw (and liked about me, I hope) was really me. Jess Beam. Everything I said about your artistic talent was me. Loving 80s teen movies – me. Dodgem-driving like a maniac – me, telling that poem on the stage– me. Those kisses. Those kisses that I know you know were the best kisses either of us have ever had, ever. That was me.
The thing is, Leo, while so much in my grandma’s Good Woman guides is rubbish anti-feminist crap that instructs women to be passive, subservient sidekicks to men, they do have a few good points. They taught me to be more patient, to really listen, to be more enthusiastic about new things and to, well, open myself up to a person for more than something uber casual. You were that something more. You are that something more.
I’m so sorry I hurt you. You didn’t deserve it and I’m gutted about the way things have turned out.
Anyway, I’m rambling now probably, but I just wanted to explain things and to tell you how shitty I feel and how sorry I am about lying to you.
