Still Me

‘Tabitha came out specially from the city, like so many of us today, because I know that she thinks of you not just as staff at this club, but as part of the family. And we all know there’s no substitute for family!’

I dared not look at Agnes now, as the applause broke out again.

‘Mary,’ Kathryn Gopnik said, when it had died down, ‘you have helped perpetuate the true values of this place – values that some may find old fashioned but which we feel make this country club what it is: consistency, excellence and loyalty. You have been its smiling face, its beating heart. I know I speak for everyone when I say it simply won’t be the same without you.’ The older woman was now beaming, her eyes glittering with tears. ‘Everyone, charge your glasses and raise them to our wonderful Mary.’

The room erupted. Those who were able to stand stood. As Emmett clambered unsteadily to his feet, I glanced around, and then, feeling somehow treacherous, I did too. Agnes was the last to rise from her chair, still clapping, her smile a glossy rictus on her face.

There was something comforting about a truly heaving bar, one where you had to thrust your arm through a queue three deep to get the attention of a bar-tender, and where you’d be lucky if two-thirds of your drink remained in the glass by the time you’d fought your way back to your table. Balthazar, Nathan told me, was something of a SoHo institution: always jammed, always fun, a staple of the New York bar scene. And tonight, even on a Sunday, it was packed, busy enough for the noise, the ever-moving barmen, the lights and the clatter to drive the day’s events from my head.

We sank a couple of beers each, standing at the bar, and Nathan introduced me to the guys he knew from his gym, whose names I forgot almost immediately but who were funny and nice and just needed one woman as an excuse to bounce cheerful insults off each other. Eventually we fought our way to a table where I drank some more and ate a cheeseburger and felt a bit better. At around ten o’clock, when the boys were busy doing grunting impressions of other gym-goers, complete with facial expressions and bulging veins, I got up to go to the bathroom. I stayed there for ten minutes, relishing the relative silence as I touched up my make-up and ruffled my hair. I tried not to think about what Sam was doing. It had stopped being a comfort to me, and had instead started to give me a knot in my stomach. Then I headed back out.

‘Are you stalking me?’

I spun round in the corridor. There stood Joshua Ryan in a shirt and jeans, his eyebrows raised.

‘What? Oh. Hi!’ My hand went instinctively to my hair. ‘No – no, I’m just here with some friends.’

‘I’m kidding you. How are you, Louisa Clark? Long way from Central Park.’ He stooped to kiss my cheek. He smelt delicious, of limes and something soft and musky. ‘Wow. That was almost poetic.’

‘Just working my way through all the bars in Manhattan. You know how it is.’

‘Oh, yeah. The “try something new” thing. You look cute. I like the whole …’ he gestured towards my shift dress and short-sleeved cardigan ‘… preppy vibe.’

‘I had to go to a country club today.’

‘It’s a good look on you. Want to grab a beer?’

‘I – I can’t really leave my friends.’ He looked momentarily disappointed. ‘But, hey,’ I added, ‘come and join us!’

‘Great! Let me just tell the people I’m with. I’m tagging along on a date – they’ll be glad to shake me. Where are you?’

I fought my way back to Nathan, my face suddenly flushed and a faint buzzing in my ears. It didn’t matter how wrong his accent, how different his eyebrows, the slant at the edge of his eyes that went the wrong way, it was impossible to look at Josh and not see Will there. I wondered if it would ever stop jolting me. I wondered at my unconscious internal use of the word ‘ever’.

‘I bumped into a friend!’ I said, just as Josh appeared.

‘A friend,’ said Nathan.

‘Nathan, Dean, Arun, this is Josh Ryan.’

‘You forgot “the Third”.’ He grinned at me, like we’d exchanged a private joke. ‘Hey.’ Josh held out a hand, leant forward and shook Nathan’s. I saw Nathan’s eyes travel over him and flicker towards me. I raised a bright, neutral smile, as if I had loads of good-looking male friends dotted all over Manhattan who might just want to come and join us in bars.

‘Can I buy anyone a beer?’ said Josh. ‘They do great food here too if anyone’s interested.’

‘A “friend”?’ murmured Nathan, as Josh stepped up to the bar.

‘Yes. A friend. I met him at the Yellow Ball. With Agnes.’

‘He looks like –’

‘I know.’

Nathan considered this. He looked at me, then at Josh. ‘That whole “saying yes” thing of yours. You haven’t …’

‘I love Sam, Nathan.’

‘Sure you do, mate. I’m just saying.’

I felt Nathan’s scrutiny during the rest of the evening. Josh and I somehow ended up on the edge of the table away from everyone else, where he talked about his job and the insane mixture of opiates and anti-depressants his work colleagues shovelled into themselves every day just to cope with the demands of the office, and how hard he was trying not to offend his easily offended boss, and how he kept failing, and the apartment he never had time to decorate and what had happened when his clean-freak mother visited from Boston. I nodded and smiled and listened and tried to make sure that when I found myself watching his face it was in an appropriate, interested way rather than a slightly obsessive, wistful oh-but-you’re-so-like-him way.

‘And how about you, Louisa Clark? You’ve said almost nothing about yourself all evening. How’s the holiday going? When do you have to head back?’

The job. I realized, with a lurch, that the last time we had met I had lied about who I was. And also that I was too drunk to maintain any kind of lie, or to feel as ashamed as I probably should about confessing. ‘Josh. I have to tell you something.’

He leant forward. ‘Ah. You’re married.’

‘Nope.’

‘Well, that’s something. You have an incurable disease? Weeks left to live?’

I shook my head.

‘You’re bored? You’re bored. You’d really rather talk to someone else now? I get it. I’ve barely drawn breath.’

I started to laugh. ‘No. Not that. You’re great company.’ I looked down at my feet. ‘I’m … not who I told you I was. I’m not Agnes’s friend from England. I just said that because she needed an ally at the Yellow Ball. I’m, well, I’m her assistant. I’m just an assistant.’

When I looked up he was gazing at me.

‘And?’

I stared at him. His eyes had tiny flecks of gold in them.

‘Louisa. This is New York. Everyone talks themselves up. Every bank teller is a junior vice president. Every bar-tender has a production company. I guessed you had to work for Agnes because of the way you were running around after her. No friend would do that. Unless they were, like, really stupid. Which you plainly are not.’

‘And you don’t mind?’

‘Hey. I’m just glad you’re not married. Unless you are married. That bit wasn’t a lie too, was it?’

He had taken hold of one of my hands. I felt my breath give slightly in my chest, and I had to swallow before I spoke. ‘No. But I do have a boyfriend.’