but this is only one-tenth of me,’ he replied. ‘Imagine how bad the other nine-tenths could be.’
I squeezed his leg and let my eyes rove around my shop, so still and quiet now the Closed sign was turned. Outside New York continued to pulse with life, the rush-hour traffic along Columbus Avenue crawling at a snail’s pace; a colourful procession of frustration past our window. ‘Glad I’m not stuck in that today.’
‘The subway is a great invention,’ Ed agreed. ‘So Nate, huh? Reckon we’ll be seeing a lot more of him, then?’
I took a breath and looked him straight in the eye. ‘You know, I think we might.’
So there we sat: my hand still on Ed’s knee and his hand stretched across the back of the sofa, his wrist making the lightest contact with my shoulder. He smiled but his eyes were strangely serious as they bored into mine. Taxi horns blared in the traffic jam along Columbus and the clock behind the counter marked the passing seconds with its long, measured ticks. Just when the scrutiny was beginning to feel uneasy, he spoke. And it wasn’t what I was expecting to hear.
‘I’ll make the delivery tonight, Rosie.’
‘Oh.’ Disorientated by this sudden mood-shift, I stuttered, ‘Y-yes, great—if you don’t mind?’ I tried to gauge the emotion in his eyes. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
‘No problem.’ He turned and walked briskly to the back room, then reappeared carrying the pair of bouquets.
‘You have the paperwork?’ he asked, looking straight at me. His smile was bright as ever but somehow the tone was wrong.
I reached behind the counter and handed him the order sheet. He thanked me and I followed him to the door, switching off the lights as we stepped outside into the noisy buzz of the city. As he went to leave, I grabbed his sleeve. ‘Ed, are you…is everything good here?’
Ed leaned forward and gently kissed my cheek. ‘We’re good, Rosie. Stop worrying. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ He smiled, turned and began to walk away quickly.
Remembering something, I called after him. ‘Ed!’
He spun round. ‘Yeah?’
‘Have a great time with Yelena tonight.’
Without answering he raised a hand, saluted briefly and resumed his journey.
I watched him until he disappeared round the corner of the next block. A ball of anxiety rolled to the bottom of my stomach. I pulled the shutter down, locked it and slowly set off on my journey home.
New York was as loud, hurried and colourful as usual, but as I passed familiar blocks and crossed familiar streets it seemed to fade into the background somehow. Questions flitted around my ears like the insistent butterflies inside me. Nate, Ed, Marnie’s love life, Mimi and Caitlin Sutton, and that thing about ‘certain journalists’ that Brent had mentioned—all appeared like jigsaw pieces before me that didn’t quite fit.
I was two blocks away from my street when I heard a familiar shout.
‘There you are, sis!’ James appeared at my side, face flushed and happy. ‘Mind if I walk back home with you?’ He held up a brown paper grocery bag. ‘I’ve stocked up from Dean & DeLuca.’
‘Then you’re more than welcome to come home with me,’ I laughed, suddenly glad of the company.
I remember watching the six o’clock news one time with Mum when I was about eight. When I was growing up there were several things we always did together: watching the news was one of them. Mum disliked the ‘game-show host’ journalists on ITV, preferring instead the serious-faced, crisply spoken newsreaders of ‘the good old BBC.’
But one occasion sticks in my memory because a very out-of-the-ordinary news event was headlining. Some British hostages were finally released from Beirut. I remember Mum telling me that the three bearded, excruciatingly thin and tiredlooking men had been missing for five years. We saw one of them speaking at a press conference. He was smiling—telling the world how he and his fellow hostages had thought this day would never arrive. I remember commenting on how happy he looked to be free.
‘His face may be happy, but his eyes aren’t,’ Mum had replied. ‘Always look at the eyes, Rosie. They’ll tell you the real story.’ Her own eyes were filled with tears—and I remember her going up to the screen and covering the bottom half of the ex-hostage’s face. Sure enough, his eyes showed pain, anguish and fear. When Mum removed her hands, the smile returned but the eyes remained dead.
I learned to look for those signs in people’s eyes and consequently witnessed awful truths in others as I grew up. I saw it in Mum’s eyes when she heard about Dad. I saw it in Ben’s eyes just before I left Boston. Worst of all, I saw it in my own eyes almost every day since New York adopted me. Sometimes I wish Mum hadn’t told me about the eyes thing. Sometimes the truth is better hidden away inside.
Ed’s eyes had scared me that day. There was a whole other story going on in those eyes. And I couldn’t read it completely. Their piercing blue was usually warm and mischievous, impatiently awaiting any chance to sparkle. But that afternoon his eyes had been cool, questioning—guarded, even. I hadn’t seen that before and it unnerved me. He had said things were OK. His smile and friendly kiss said things were OK. So I should have believed him—I did believe him—yet that stubborn question mark remained. He had said he was OK, but his eyes maintained their silence.
On the walk home, I noticed something odd in my brother’s eyes too. Though James chatted happily about his day and joked about the people he’d met, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something he wasn’t telling me. It had been steadily building since he’d arrived and he had done nothing to dispel my suspicions.
It was still on my mind two hours later, when James and I ventured out again to Blue: One, the current restaurant of choice in New York. I was stunned that James could even get a drink in this place, let alone reserve a table. Celia could normally get a reservation anywhere, but even she had to wait a month for one here. The restaurant sat beneath one of the top hotels just off Broadway and its clientele included theatre stars, television celebrities, directors and lawyers. It was said that Blue: One had a waiting list four pages long for bar and waiting staff, due mainly to the fact that jobbing actors regarded it as the place to be noticed by the People Who Mattered.
James and I were shown to a table towards the back of the restaurant. Blue was undisputedly the theme here. The walls were painted dark navy and illuminated by aquamarine uplights, whilst tiny blue lights dotted like cobalt stars around the main halogen spots in the turquoise ceiling, adding to the intimate ambience of the venue. Efficient waiters scurried about in white shirts and navy-blue trousers, carrying blue linen cloths over one arm. A large aquarium was set into two of its walls, filled with a plethora of tiny, multihued fish, which appeared to be moving with the same momentum as the staff.
The waiter brought us each a mojito and we ordered our meals. James took a sip of his drink and looked at me. ‘Right, Rosie, what’s up?’
‘Sorry?’
‘Don’t give me that. You’ve been quiet all evening.’
