The Last Word, page 34
“The place looks great,” he comments.
“You messaged an hour ago,” I note, putting my phone on the table. “That still means you left me waiting all day to hear from you.”
“I’m sorry, Harper, I had so many meetings, and I was trying to figure out what to say to you on the phone and I knew I had to apologize properly, so I rambled on in a WhatsApp before realizing it would be better to come see you in person. But I should have worked that out sooner and messaged you earlier. It’s just—the office is pretty stressful at the moment, now that we’re three people down. I don’t know how we’re going to make it work.”
I cross my arms. “I’m not sure I have that much sympathy for you there.”
“Right.” He nods. “Anyway, about this morning.”
He puts the bag on the table and slides out the gift I gave him. It’s the Max Sjöberg article we wrote together, and it’s framed. I didn’t have time to get it done properly. I put it together in a rush last night after I got back from dinner with Mimi. I had to search around all my pictures in the flat to find a frame that would fit the article. I found a black one that used to house a very pretty print I bought from the Saturday market in Herne Hill and swapped the article into it.
“Thank you for this,” Ryan says, holding it out and gazing down at it. “Our second ever byline together. I’ll have to hang it next to our first. I would say that maybe there will be plenty more to come, but I’m not so sure of that, now that you’re a famous podcast host.”
I look down modestly. “I’ve only done one episode.”
“And it’s already top of the charts. I wouldn’t expect anything less,” he says, putting the frame down on the table. “I’m sorry that Cosmo interrupted us this morning and that I had to go to that meeting. I thought about quitting on the spot just so I’d have the chance to go after you.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “That would have been an extreme action.”
“Some moments deserve extreme action,” he states firmly.
“I wouldn’t have approved,” I say, unable to stop a smile. “If you were going to quit all along, then the least you could have done was accepted voluntary redundancy and let me keep my position there.”
A smile plays along his lips.
“And if that had happened, you would have been under Cosmo’s repressive rule for even longer, and you have suffered that long enough. Look what you can achieve when you do your own thing.”
I shrug. “Maybe it has worked out for the better.”
“Maybe?” He chuckles, his expression softening as he relaxes into the smile. “You’re on the edge of something big, Harper. That much is clear.”
“I hope so. I guess we’ll see.”
He stares at me intently. “Did you mean what you said this morning?”
“About you being a nightmare for someone like me to work with? Yes.”
“I already knew about that bit,” he says, rolling his eyes. “For the record, you’re a much worse colleague. Do you know how annoying it is to work with an editor who doesn’t keep a schedule of publication dates for their features?”
I tap the side of my head. “I don’t need a schedule. It’s all up here.”
“It’s not up there,” he says matter-of-factly. “You had no idea when any of your articles were coming out. And let’s not get started on those email chains I asked you to forward to me before you left.”
“As I told you, my inbox must have swallowed them. There must have been a technical glitch,” I proclaim innocently.
He gives me a knowing look. “You couldn’t find them because you never file any of your emails into folders and your inbox is flooded with thousands of unread messages.”
“My inbox is organized in the way that I prefer it, Ryan. I know who I’m talking to and where I need to be at all times.”
“You forgot about the dinner with your parents, didn’t you? The night you had that awards ceremony that you’d also obviously forgotten about.”
“Maybe.” I eye him suspiciously. “How did you know?”
“Because,” he begins, a smile creeping across his lips, “I know you.”
I swallow, melting under his doting gaze. “I guess you do.”
“I do. And I love everything about you.”
“You do?” I whisper, hardly daring to breathe.
“Yes,” he says softer, moving slowly toward me. “Everything. Even the things that drive me up the wall. Your messiness, your infuriating organizational style, your shocking timekeeping skills, your stubborn inability to back down whenever we argue.”
“You know me. I like to have the last word,” I say, as he stops right in front of me.
He pauses, waiting for me to lift my head and bring my eyes up to meet his. “Harper, I love you. And I’m never going to lose you again.”
Cupping my face in his soft, warm hands, he leans down and kisses me.
And as I kiss him back, pulling him closer toward me, I can’t help but smile against his mouth. Because at last we agree on something.
EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER
Ryan is getting impatient.
He’s trying not to, but I know that I’m wearing him down because the lines on his forehead are getting deeper, and every time I fly past him in a whirlwind of stress, he watches me with narrowing eyes.
“Harper,” he growls, his phone vibrating in his hand, “the driver is going to cancel the trip unless we leave the house now.”
“Just tell him we’ll be one more minute!”
“I already told him that three minutes ago.”
“Tell him again.”
He sighs, rubbing his forehead. “Is there anything I can do to help speed up this process?”
“Yes, you can leave me be and go tell the Uber driver we’ll be one more minute.”
Muttering something inaudible under his breath, he leaves the flat with his bag in tow and, while I locate my phone charger in a plug in the sitting room, I hear the muffled sound of their conversation through the windows. Darting into the bedroom, I throw my charger into the wheelie case that Ryan bought me a few months ago when the shoulder strap on my old weekend bag broke and he couldn’t handle the fact that I happily tied a knot in the strap and carried on using the bag.
I hear the front door open as Ryan returns, and I’m just about to zip up my bag when I remember I haven’t packed my wedges. I find one lurking at the bottom of my wardrobe, but the other one has somehow disappeared. Holding the one I have safely in my hand so I don’t lose that one, too, during the search—a pickle I’ve been known to get myself into before—I get on my knees and start tearing through the bottom of both sides of the wardrobe, sending shoes flying in all directions.
“Are you looking for this?” Ryan says behind me.
I turn round to see him standing by the bed, the missing shoe dangling from his forefinger by the ankle strap.
“You found it!” I exclaim brightly, jumping to my feet and taking it from him before squishing the pair of shoes into my case. “Where was it?”
“Under the bed, where all your missing shoes can be located. If you didn’t kick your shoes off and then leave them wherever they land, fewer might end up lost under there.”
“You have been extremely helpful, thank you,” I say, shutting my case and leaning forward on top of it to do up the zip. “I am officially ready to go.”
“Finally,” he says with a grin, lifting the case off the bed and making several unnecessary remarks about how heavy it is as he lugs it to the car waiting outside while I lock up.
A few months after we declared our love for each other, Ryan moved into my flat. It was quite fast, but we figured we’d known each other long enough, and the constant trekking between North and South London was getting tiresome. Although Ryan’s flat was much nicer than mine, I really didn’t want to live in North London again, so Ryan agreed that he’d relocate south of the river. It’s a bit of a squeeze with two of us, but Ryan’s so tidy, there’s not too much encroaching. We’re currently in the market for somewhere to buy—Ryan insists it has to be a two-bedroom, even if that means moving farther out, because he says that my mess is making him go gray early and he wants my wardrobe in a separate room to our bedroom.
I am much tidier now that I live with a cleanliness dictator. One pot out of place in the kitchen and I suffer lectures for a week. I’ve been banned altogether from attempting to load the dishwasher, which, I won’t lie, is fine by me.
On the way to the airport, I smile to myself at Ryan double-checking he’s got our passports, even though he’s checked several times since we set off.
“What?” he asks, when he catches me smirking.
“Nothing. I’m excited for Stockholm.”
“Me too,” he says happily, reaching over to squeeze my hand, his thumb brushing lightly over the top of the diamond ring sitting on my left hand.
Three weeks ago, Ryan suggested a picnic in Greenwich Park. I thought it was a random but lovely idea and didn’t think anything else about it. It seemed a bit strange that he wanted to go in the evening, but he said that way, it wouldn’t be too crowded.
Once we got there, I was happy to sit anywhere there was a space and dig into the food he’d placed very carefully in a hamper, something I gleefully took the piss out of him for (my picnic style is to buy food on the way and throw it haphazardly in a shopping bag). But Ryan insisted we keep walking to the very top of the hill, and it took me a while to realize that he was aiming for the exact spot we’d sat in many years ago, two interns at the start of their career, looking out at the view of the city.
When we’d sat down on the blanket he’d brought with him (adorable; I usually plonked myself on my jacket or put up with the grass), he pulled out a bottle of champagne and cracked it open, pouring us both a glass. It didn’t even click then. I just thought he was being a bit extra. But then he said that he’d chosen this spot specifically because it was, he considers, where we had our sort-of first date and the moment when, thanks to our almost first kiss, he was filled with hope that he might have a chance with me, the girl he knew with certainty he would always love.
He got a box out of his pocket, and it felt like the rest of the world disappeared as he swiftly maneuvered from sitting on the blanket to being on one knee in front of me.
It was the easiest answer I’ve ever had to give.
Mimi helped him pick the ring, he revealed, and she and Katya were the first people I called to tell the news the next day. They screamed with joy as though it was a huge surprise, and Mimi immediately set about planning a celebratory dinner for us. Being my best friend and Ryan’s colleague—not to mention, instrumental in getting us together in Florence—she is maid of honor and is not taking those duties lightly. We’re thinking of doing a small wedding abroad and she emails me at least three or four times a week with different location ideas and beautiful venues.
Florence is the leading contender.
After telling Mimi the news, next we video-called Ryan’s parents to let them know, and they started jumping up and down. Poor Sully had no idea what was going on and burst into celebratory zoomies, bounding across the sofas and knocking over a lamp.
The Stockholm trip was their idea, as Fredrik wanted to introduce me to his side of the family. Ryan and I are going for a full week where we’ll spend the first few days just us so we have some time alone and he can show me around the city—strictly no working allowed during this period (his rule)—and then the last few days, his parents are coming to join us and we’ll meet the family. I’m nervous because I want to impress them, but if they’re anything like Fredrik, I know I won’t have to worry. I’ve never felt so welcome anywhere as I do when we go to visit them in Manchester.
I’ve finally got the family I always wanted.
Things with Juliet are going well, and she’s much more a part of my life now. It took us a while to get into a rhythm, starting with lunches and dinners here and there, getting to know each other once again. We had a lot of years to catch up on. She’s thrilled about our engagement and has met Ryan a few times, which means a lot to me. Having found a job in advertising, she’s much more at ease when we meet up. Her body language and facial expressions are noticeably warmer than ever before.
Mum and Dad are a work in progress for both of us. Juliet is intent on making it work with them, while I’m happier to let it go. But she keeps saying “family is family,” and at Christmas we all agreed to our first gathering since that summer dinner where everything fell apart. Not that it had ever really been together in the first place.
The dinner was stilted and forced and I was so grateful to have Ryan with me. Somehow it helped having someone from outside the family present, and, as I should have guessed, my parents took to him. They had obviously Googled him before the dinner, and some of his pieces had impressed them—they made a point of bringing up certain topics that he’d written about and asking him questions about them.
They even admitted that my podcast was a success, despite “not being into that sort of thing.” Ryan took great pains to tell them how the first series had topped the charts and been nominated for several awards at the time, two of which—“Best New Podcast” and “Best Arts and Culture Podcast”—I went on to win. My parents listened to Ryan’s raving about my achievements and politely wished me luck.
Their effort toward Ryan was, Juliet believes, their version of an olive branch. This was further confirmed in her mind when Dad emailed us both afterward to thank Juliet for organizing the “pleasant” evening and suggest scheduling the next date for dinner with us and Ryan. But we still haven’t spoken about what I said that night, and they still haven’t apologized for anything. I’ve accepted that they never will.
Juliet is hopeful, though, that things will improve, for herself as much as for me. They still haven’t shown much of an interest in her job and continue to make disparaging comments about her career pivot, which I know hurts her. I’m still not sure whether we’ll invite them to the wedding. But whatever happens with my parents, I’ll be okay. I have Mimi and I got my sister back. And now I have Ryan.
I have all I need.
Not to mention, work is going very well. The podcast continues to soar and I have incredible guests lined up for the third series, including Audrey Abbot, who will be speaking to me about her soon-to-be-released memoirs and promoting the new London show she’s directing—an all-female production of Much Ado About Nothing at the National Theatre. I’m still writing, too, on a freelance basis now. I’ve written a lot for Rakhee at Sleek and have formed some excellent relationships with the editors of other leading publications—my work has been published in Vogue, and I’ve just filed my first piece for TIME magazine. I have turned down any commissions from Cosmo Chambers-Smyth at Narrative, although word on the street is that he won’t be there much longer if the publishers have their way. I have a feeling I know who the next editor might be, although the candidate I have in mind will have to juggle his new responsibilities with meeting the demands of the book deal he recently clinched.
I have no doubt he can handle it.
The success of the podcast undoubtedly gave me a confidence boost, but I’ve also been working on another project that I’m pretty excited about. After leaving the constraints of the powers that be at Narrative and finally shrugging off the burdensome weight of my parents’ opinion, I realized that my work could help others aspiring to careers that might seem out of reach. So I set about planning and editing a book that will be a collection of stories from women in the arts—it’s a labor of love and will take a while to collate. I’m selecting and interviewing women from all walks of life working in varying cultural endeavors—film, TV, theater, music, publishing, galleries—and with all types of job titles, whether they’re stars of the show or unsung heroes behind the scenes. Once I interview them about how they got to where they are, what challenges they overcame, and what advice they’d give to others hoping to follow in their footsteps, I write up their chapter in the first-person narrative, doing my best to capture their voice. I’ve already tested the waters with publishers and several have come back to request a meeting to discuss its potential. A couple of them have already expressed their hopes that it could even be a series.
I hate for Ryan and Mimi to have been right all along, but it turns out that the redundancy was a shake-up that helped me after all—I’m proud of what I’m doing and I’m excited for whatever comes next.
When we arrive at the airport, Ryan screenshots my boarding pass and sends it to me so I have it on my phone to go through the barriers to join the security queue. Wheeling my case behind me, I get the pass up on my phone and then stop in my tracks.
“Hang on. The flight isn’t until midday.”
“Yes, that’s right,” he replies coolly, encouraging me to carry on walking.
“You said it was at eleven.”
He smiles smugly. “I did.”
“Why did you say that?”
“To get you out of the house on time.”
“Ryan!” I look at him incredulously. “You lied to me!”
“I told a little white lie to make sure we got to the airport early, which is what you’re supposed to do before an international flight,” he explains without a hint of remorse. “If the flight was really at eleven, then we’d only be here an hour and fifteen minutes before takeoff, which is much too late.”
“That is the perfect amount of time!” I argue.
“The airline recommends two hours.”
I throw my hands up in the air. “Who arrives at the airport two hours before their flight?”
“Smart, organized, happy people. We’ll have no stress or rushing getting to the gate. We can enjoy a drink beforehand. This is the way to do it, trust me,” he says cheerily, strolling toward security.
“I can’t believe this,” I grumble, stomping behind him and dragging my bag behind me. “You made me rush around getting ready this morning for no reason!”
“We both know you would have still been rushing around getting ready this morning, even if you’d had the extra hour. Nothing would have been different.”
