Mr. Notting Hill, page 21
Did it mean I couldn’t trust him?
Thirty-Four
Parker
I’d spent last night on speakerphone to Sutton while I sat in my cow-print pajamas and a face mask, snacking on chocolate-covered raisins just like I’d done on Friday nights for years. Sutton was definitely of the view I needed to give Tristan a second chance. If we’d just been facing the issue of him not telling me what my father knew about us, I might be able to get past it. I understood he was in a difficult position and was being loyal to my father. Monitoring my emails without me knowing was proving more difficult for me to get over. I didn’t know how to reconcile what he’d done with the trust I thought we’d built. Now, I was facing Saturday night at my parents’ place, just like so many lonely weekends in my past. In many ways life had gone back to what it was before Tristan. Except it hadn’t. Because I couldn’t stop thinking about him and wondering if things would have been different if we’d have met under easier circumstances.
I padded downstairs as the clock struck quarter past seven.
My mother glanced at me. I’d reached for the mascara before I’d come down, wanting to distract from my blotchy face. She grinned. “Are you expecting anyone?” she asked. My mother was firmly on Team Tristan. She’d tried to send me back to his place the day I arrived.
“Nope. I’m wearing mascara for me. I told you, Tristan and I agreed on ninety days.” It’s not that we weren’t ever together. We had been. At some point what was pretend had become real and then had faded to nothing.
Mum made a tutting sound and told me I was ridiculous. “He was a lovely boy. I hoped things would last between the two of you.”
“He was a thirty-four-year-old man, Mum.”
“Men are always boys at heart. You’d do well to remember that.”
I did my best not to roll my eyes. Luckily, Dad came out in a butcher’s apron and interrupted our to-and-fro. “Can you help us into the dining room with some of these plates?” If only the thousands of people who worked for my dad could see him now, in an apron, being told by my mum he was still a boy at heart.
I took the stack of plates Dad pointed out with his spatula and ferried them into the dining room. “Mum,” I called as I followed her back into the kitchen.
She turned. “Yes, my love.”
“I just wanted to tell you how much I love you.”
She gave me a look that I hadn’t seen since I was a teenager—a mixture of worry and suspicion.
I scooped my arm around her waist. “I’m not on drugs, Mum. Don’t worry. I just don’t tell you enough.”
“I love you too, Parker.”
Dad came through carrying a board with a half leg of lamb. “Mind out, you two. Come on, sit down or everything’s going to get cold.”
We took our usual seats around the dining room table and Dad carved up the lamb joint.
“Is there any reason we’re having roast dinner on Saturday night?” I asked.
My father shot me a look. “It’s your favorite, isn’t it?”
I was so lucky to have him as my dad.
“Arthur, I’m going to be making lamb pasanda from now until Christmas. Can you shop for three rather than thirty-three next time?”
My heart shifted slightly, as if it didn’t quite fit correctly. I’d felt the same twinges ever since Tristan had left.
“I wasn’t sure how many people were coming,” Dad said. “I thought Parker and Tristan might have made up now all this Mike thing is sorted out.”
“Sorted out?” I asked.
“Didn’t Tristan tell you?” Dad asked. “He was arrested and charged with attempted kidnapping. He’s been denied bail and is on remand pending trial.”
A mixture of relief and horror coursed through me. “Charged already?”
“I guess they had a lot of evidence,” Dad said. “No doubt thanks to Tristan.”
“Wow, that’s a relief, right?” I glanced at Mum.
“Absolutely. We can all sleep a little easier.” She patted my hand and poured me a glass of wine.
“You think Tristan helped the police?” He said he was going to speak to them but after the divorce papers he’d sent me, I had no reason to assume he was still helping.
Dad shot me a familiar look that said you know the answer to that question.
Of course Tristan had helped the police. That was the kind of man he was.
“Did I ever tell you that when I first started working at the bank, they put me in a role where I had no clue what I was meant to be doing?” Dad said. “I was straight out of university—a graduate trainee. All of a sudden I had a responsibility that, deep down inside, I knew was beyond me. I was completely out of my depth.”
My father rarely talked about work at home—he seemed completely content to leave his work life in the office while my mother and he planned trips, argued about politics, and tried to decide what to do with the abandoned vegetable patch in the garden.
“No one would believe that now you’re responsible for everyone’s paychecks.”
“Quite,” he said, passing me a bowl of broccoli and carrots. “I was dropped in at the deep end and at the time I wasn’t quite sure if I was going to sink or swim, but I ended up catching my breath and making it to shore.”
My mother patted my father on the arm. “Like an Olympic gold medalist.”
“The first day I came home from work, I remember thinking I wasn’t going to go back. I couldn’t even find my way to the loo. There was no hope I was going to manage all the spreadsheets I’d been given, let alone make sense of the meetings that had been put in my diary. I came home, poured myself a glass of whisky, and wrote out my resignation letter.”
My mother laughed. “You silly goose.”
“It felt overwhelming,” my father continued. “I was supposed to have all these answers, to know what I was doing. I didn’t see any alternative other than to quit. Otherwise, I risked everyone finding out I was incapable.”
I couldn’t imagine my father ever feeling like he wasn’t the king of everything he did. He even made a pretty mean roast dinner. “You didn’t hand the letter in though, did you?”
He shook his head. “Nope. I drank my whisky and decided that the next day, I was going to see how it went when I pretended to know what I was doing. I went in there with the confidence of an employee who’d been working there five years. If I didn’t know something, I asked. If I needed help, I said so—because if I’d been there five years and didn’t know something, I’d ask. Basically, I faked it. I faked experience and confidence. It worked. It didn’t take long until one night I got home, I poured out my whisky, and I realized I had a really good day. I wasn’t pretending anymore. I actually knew what I was doing.”
My stomach flipped over. He’d faked it until he made it.
“And now of course I realize that every graduate trainee who ever starts a job feels overwhelmed. They don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t even know where to pee. So each year, with each new intake, I tell them the story of what I did on my second day on the job.” He took a sip of his wine. “Just because something feels overwhelming doesn’t mean you should just resign and walk away. Sometimes it’s worth sticking around, asking for help. You never know, sooner than you think, the whole thing turns real.”
My mother dropped her knife and fork and it clattered onto her plate. “Like you and Tristan! It started off as a fake marriage but it seems to me like it turned real.”
I gave my mother a half-hearted laugh.
“Your father’s head of the bank now,” my mother said, “because he stuck around and faked it until he made it. You need to stick with it with Tristan. Look where you could end up.”
My father winked at me. “Just in case you didn’t figure out my point.”
I had hoped something real had come out of what had started off fake between Tristan and me. But if it had been real, he wouldn’t have given up at the first hurdle. We’d have gotten through the obstacles. If we were down and out after just a few months of marriage, then we couldn’t have a future.
“Relationships aren’t like work,” I said. I wished it was as easy as they were both making out. “And when you’ve lost trust in someone, what’s left?”
“You mean relationships are work,” my mother corrected me. “I get it, you’re annoyed at Tristan. I understand he breached your trust, but you’re a smart woman, Parker. Tristan isn’t Mike.”
“How do I know? I didn’t think Mike would turn out to be a criminal.”
“You know because you’re different. You’ve met Tristan’s friends and family. You know who he is through the eyes of the people who love him as well as your own. How often did you meet Mike’s family?” She knew the answer to that was never. He’d always said his parents lived in Hong Kong, and although he’d been to visit them a couple of times while we were together, I could never join him because of my work. “But it’s not even that. You know because you’re not a twenty-two-year-old who doesn’t know any better. What Mike did was awful. He’s a terrible person. But being with him gave you life experience—valuable life experience. It honed your gut instinct. You’ve seen what’s bad so you can now recognize what’s good.”
I shrugged. It wasn’t like this was all my decision. “He’s hardly breaking down the door, trying to win me back.”
“Have you reached out to him?” she asked.
“No, but . . .”
“So you read a book that told you that he should be the one to reach out?” she asked. “Or maybe there’s a law somewhere I don’t know about.” She raised her eyebrows in that you-know-I’m-right way. “Don’t let your pride get in the way of your happiness. Your father and I decided when we first got married that however successful he got, however many people bowed and scraped to him at the bank, as soon as he walked through the front door, he wasn’t a CEO, he was a husband and father. We knew we wanted to stay married. You need to figure out if you do too, Parker.”
That’s why my father had just always been “dad” to me. It was why I found it so difficult that people always treated me differently because of who my father was. But that had been a conscious decision by both of them. And I was thankful for it.
Mum was right. Only pride had stopped me from picking up the phone to Tristan. I could invite him over to talk rationally about how I felt, and he could explain to me what was going through his head and why he hadn’t been in contact. We could pretend we were functioning adults and have a conversation. What we had was worth that at least, wasn’t it?
“You’re the best mum and dad I could ever wish for,” I said. “And Dad, you make fantastic roast lamb.”
“I did the mint sauce,” my mum added. “Which I think makes the whole dish.”
“Wouldn’t be roast lamb without mint sauce,” my dad said and leaned over to give my mum a kiss.
I might be an adult, but my parents still had a lot to teach me.
Thirty-Five
Parker
Despite being resolved to call Tristan, it took me twenty-four hours before I summoned the courage to send him a message asking him if he wanted to go to lunch. I hit send and threw my phone on the sofa like it was on fire. Immediately it started to ring. I grabbed it and Tristan’s name was flashing on the screen.
My heart squeezed in excitement but I wasn’t prepared to speak to him. Maybe he was calling to tell me no—to say he wanted to break all ties forever.
If I didn’t answer, I’d never know. I swiped up.
“Hello,” I answered.
“Hey,” he said. “I thought I’d call.”
“I see that.”
“Thanks for the message,” he said.
“Thanks for calling,” I replied. This was awkward and weird and I wanted to race back to sitting opposite him at his dining room table, sharing a bottle of wine.
He took in a breath and all I could imagine was him saying no to me.
“Look,” I blurted out. “You don’t have to say yes if you don’t want to. I just thought—”
“I can’t do lunch,” he said, cutting me off.
I knew it. He was calling to try to let me down gently.
“But I could bring a takeaway over to your place if that works for you. Your dad said you’d moved back there now Wilson has been arrested. Tonight even.”
“Tonight?” Even though it was only six, I was already in my jammies.
“You probably have plans tonight already. We could do—”
“Tonight is good.”
He sighed with what sounded like relief. “Good.”
“Good,” I replied.
“An hour?”
“Perfect.”
We hung up and I clutched the phone to my chest. An hour wasn’t long. The sooner the better. The only problem was, I hadn’t quite figured out one last piece of the puzzle. But I had to carpe the diem. I wasn’t going to turn down a date with my husband.
Thirty-Six
Tristan
Dates never made me sweaty. I’d never had even the slightest hint of nerves when I’d taken a woman out before, but walking up to Parker’s building, takeaway in one hand and everything else I needed in the other, the beads of sweat gathered at my hairline like they were teenage girls waiting for a Justin Bieber concert.
I let myself in using my Amazon key fob and took the stairs up to Parker’s flat two at a time. I’d had my phone in my hand when I’d received her message earlier. I’d been trying to work out whether I should message her, call her, or just drop by. When my phone buzzed with her message, I took it as a sign and dialed her number. No time like the present. I’d been without her for far too long. It was time to make this right. I had no idea why she’d invited me to lunch or what she’d planned to say to me, but it was a chink of daylight in the dark, and I wasn’t willing to waste it.
When she opened the door, I swept my gaze down her body. It was so good to see her. Being this close to her felt like home, like the last thirty-four years had lasted just a flash and the few months with Parker had taken up most of my life. She was home. She was where I belonged. “No cow pajamas?”
She grinned up at me. “I changed.”
“You look beautiful.” She wore the red blouse from our first date and matching lipstick. She was perfect. Just like she always was. It didn’t matter what she wore.
“So do you,” she replied.
I glanced down at myself. I just had on jeans and a t-shirt. Just like I almost always did.
“Come in,” she said, holding the door open. “What kind of food did you bring?”
“Mexican. Is that okay?”
“More than. I have some wine—”
“You do the wine and I’ll set out the food and bring it through.” I didn’t want her to see me prepare what I had planned.
She shrugged, took a bottle of wine from the fridge, together with two wine glasses, and headed back into the living room. There was a small dining table pushed up against the far wall.
I set all the Mexican food out on a tray with some dishes and even remembered the serving spoons. Then I pulled out a bowl, tore open the packet of chocolate-covered raisins, and poured them in.
I grabbed the tray and met Parker at the table.
“I chose red. I hope that’s okay,” she said. Normally she wouldn’t ask, because she didn’t need to. I didn’t care about the color wine we drank. I just cared that I was here. With her.
“Great.”
We took our seats and began sharing out the food between us. Food was really the last thing on my mind. We were here together. That’s all that mattered.
“Thanks for coming,” she said.
“I’m glad to be here. I was about to call you when you messaged.”
“You were?” She seemed genuinely surprised, as if she couldn’t fathom what I might have to say to her. I hoped that wasn’t a bad sign. I didn’t care. I was here, determined to allay any concerns or fears she might have about taking me back.
“I was. I miss you.” My heart began to thunder in my chest. I put down my cutlery and just looked at her. “I missed you a lot.”
She nodded and put her cutlery down too. The food had just been a device to get us to this moment. What mattered were our words. Our feelings.
“I know I hurt you,” I said. “I know you don’t like that I kept things from you. And I know you’re upset because I said I wouldn’t do anything differently in respect of your dad. And I know I should have told you about monitoring your emails.” I wanted her to understand that I had been listening, even though we didn’t agree on what I’d done. “I just went into automatic mode and did whatever I needed to do to catch that little fucker, but I’m sorry.”
She nodded.
“It won’t happen again. I didn’t deliberately not tell you that I was monitoring your emails. I just got caught up and it’s so second nature to me that—it didn’t occur to me that you wouldn’t know I was monitoring your emails.”
“I accept your apology.”
My heart inched higher in my chest.
She kept nodding. “And I understand you were doing the right thing by my dad when you kept his secret. You owed no loyalty to me but yes, I wish you’d have told me sooner.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“I accept your apology. And I’m sorry I just left and didn’t stay to have a conversation like the one we’re having right now.”
“Maybe we both needed a little time to come to our senses.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I need you to know that I’m in this. I’m not going to jump ship at the first opportunity or even the last. I need you to know that I’m here. Committed to you. I’m not going to walk away.” She took a breath. “I love you.”
