Page 43 of Good at Being Alive
He weaves through the traffic on Regent Street, barely missing buses and pedestrians. It’s evening, but the sidewalks are as packed as New York City at rush hour, the crowd surging from Tube stations, flowing around all the twentysomethings outside pubs with pints in hand.
Those pubs look fun, the kind of thing I’d have dragged Bronwyn to. We’d have too much to drink and when Bronwyn asked for aspirin in the morning, Jessie’s gaze would narrow on me, the culprit. I’d have resented it, though she’d be right.
The driver veers off Regent and comes to a stop at a busy corner in Soho. Inside, the hostess frowns at her screen before leading me to a booth big enough to seat four people and removing the other place settings.
There is, indeed, a button on the wall with an old-timey sign that says “Press for champagne.” I imagine socialites in here after World War II, slim and elegant, ordering Dom by the bottle.
If we’d made dinner that night, the way we were supposed to, Jessie would have insisted that Bronwyn or I push the button. My dad would have given a beleaguered sigh and asked that we order the least-expensive champagne and Bronwyn would have known enough about champagne to explain to him why that was a bad idea.
I can see it, and I can see all the nights and years that would have followed: my dad and Jessie retiring to Florida, buying a boat, and acquiring year-round sunburns. Bronwyn coming to London for work or because she’d married Theo and laughing about the night we ate here, making us all sound every bit as unsophisticated as we are.Were.
I guess I should push the button, but there’s suddenly a lump in my throat.
Almost five months have passed, and it still makes no sense. I don’t see how they can be gone. I don’t see how three lives can just have been wiped away without warning. It wasn’t the end of their story. Bronwyn’s life was only beginning. She was perhaps five chapters in, merelyapproachingthe best part, and there’s this hollow thing inside me, still waiting for her to come back, like an orphaned toddler who can’t understand that her mother isn’t going to return.
A waiter is at the foot of the table, asking something. God, I don’t know why I’m here. I thought it would be like poking my head in a closet, assuring myself nothing dangerous awaits, but it’s not a closet—it’s an abyss. I glance at the champagne button and the menu and suddenly that lump in my throat becomes something else, something I won’t be able to form words around without bursting into tears.
I need to get out. I need to get the fuck out of here.
“She’ll have a Hendrick’s and tonic,” says a voice. “As will I. And another place setting when you have a moment.”
Theo slides into the seat across from mine, his tie slightly askew, a millimeter of scruff shading his jaw.
He’s so handsome I feel sick fromit.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper as the waiter walks away.
He gives me the smallest smile. “You didn’t think I’d allow my wife to eat at Bob Bob Ricard alone, did you?”
I blink back tears. He reaches under the table and squeezes my knee. “Deep breath, Bex. You’ll get through it.”
I do as I’m told, my throat aching as I inhale. By the time I exhale, I can speak without bursting into tears. “Thank you. I wasn’t thinking.”
“If you die first, I’m putting ‘I wasn’t thinking’ on yourheadstone. Anyone but you would have realized eating here alone would be brutal.”
I laugh shakily, grateful he’s making jokes rather than turning this into a Very Serious Moment. “If you die first, I’m putting ‘It turns out you CAN die from masturbating too much’ on yours.”
He sighs. “The past few months have certainly put that to the test.”
I’m still trying not to cry, and I’m also incredibly turned on by the idea of him feverishly jerking off. It’s an odd combination.
“Look at you, joking about both death and masturbation five minutes into a meal,” I say, my voice almost itself again.
“It would appear you’re rubbing off on me.” He nods at the button. “Go ahead. Press it. I’ll film you and post it online as if I’m your besotted husband.”
My smile fades. “Is that why you’re actually here? For the publicity? I won’t hold it against you.”
Which is true—I wouldn’t hold it against him, but I suspect it would hurt for reasons I’m not clearon.
He laughs. “Rebecca, you know how cheap I am, as well as how much I hate social media. Do you really think I’d come here on one of my few nights in London and spend a bloody fortune on dinner solely to acquire and post a ten-second video?”
I smile. No, I suppose I don’t.
So I press the button, and he orders two glasses of champagne, but not the cheap stuff, and it’s almost as if, in this moment, he’s all the best parts of the people I’ve lost.
I get the steak for dinner and he gets thesalmon en croûte.He talks about his brother a little without being forced, telling me how Kieran once hopped on a plane to camp in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains having never camped before.
“He sounds really interesting,” I say. “And passionate about things.”
