Two weeks later the four of us got out of a cab at a posh hotel in Chelsea. Before heading out we’d shared a bottle of wine, out of which I had managed to squeeze three big glasses for myself, but it wasn’t nearly enough to still my nerves. Lucy squeezed my hand as we walked in, her posture rigid and her smile wide, as if nothing could touch her. We greeted Theresa and her husband Geoffrey with pecks on the cheeks and, in Geoffrey’s case, lingering fingers in inappropriate places. Impeccably dressed waiters handed us flutes of champagne, which I gulped down as if it was water after spending a fortnight in the driest desert. Alex went off to work the room, Ben by his side as the most elegant prop. Lucy recognised someone she used to work with and introduced me. I drained more champagne and cautiously looked around for a sign of Claire or Lou, but I didn’t see either of them.
“I’m going to find the washroom,” I whispered in Lucy’s ear. “I’ll be right back.” I meandered through the crowd, everyone dressed up as peacocks as if it were the event of the year. I was sure Theresa got quite the thrill out of that. Then, emerging from the door that led to the toilets, I finally saw Claire. I was startled at first, even though it was hardly a surprise, but the sheer shock of seeing her, of being in the same room with her, was enough to make my heart skip a beat.
“Hey baby,” she said. “How are ya?”
I could have cried. I felt the tears well up behind my eyes but I swallowed them away. It was nostalgia and the remnants of something, possibly the greatest love I’d ever had, and it cut through me without mercy.
“Hello Claire.” The curve of her mouth, that ever-mocking downward twinge, struck me again, and her eyes, in all their un-touched glory, seemed to know something. “I wish I could say I was happy to see you, but I’m still on the fence about it.”
“I know, baby, I know.” She curled her lips into a tight smile. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
My whole history with Claire flashed before me. Meeting her at Waterloo station, the first drunk night, moving to Paris, the pain and not wanting to give up despite knowing better. Is this it then, I thought? Was this the love of my life and will I never feel the same for anyone else again? It seemed like such a bad deal. We walked into the hallway and leaned against the wall, away from the party chatter.
“So you’re with Lucy now.” There was no sign of sarcasm in her voice, no superiority, just plain niceness and I didn’t really know how to handle it.
“Yes, it’s been a few months. It’s good.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“The way you were happy for Lou and me?” I couldn’t help myself. It wasn’t just the anger, it was the nerves and the anxiety that had been building. It was the image of her in Lou’s doorway that was etched in my memory and haunted me like a recurring nightmare.
“I’m sorry, Lee. Looking back, it’s one of my biggest regrets.” She bent her head towards me. “And I won’t ask for your forgiveness.” Her lips were almost at my ear now. “But I’m glad you came tonight.”
“There you are,” Lucy said. “I was wondering where you’d got to.”
Claire abruptly retracted her head and held out her hand. “You must be Lucy. Nice to meet you. I’m Claire.”

To be continued…

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“We miss Alex dearly,” Theresa said. “In the hilarity department, he’s as good as irreplaceable.”
“What about the morals department? From what I’ve heard, when you work at Sanders & Burns, it really doesn’t matter who you fuck and what the consequences are.”
“I accept that.” She blew into her cappuccino. “Just this once.”
I had always liked Theresa and I could hardly fault her. She was one of the most honest people I knew and no question fazed her. “Who is your business partner corrupting these days?”
“We try to stay out of each other’s personal lives lately. And sexually, all co-workers are strictly off-limits.”
“Good luck with that.” I couldn’t help laughing because I knew which effect the word off-limits had on Claire Burns.
“I made her sign a document.” She curled her lips into a sneer. “This is a serious business we’re running.”
“How’s Lou?” My heart hammered in my throat. One part of me wanted nothing more than to talk about her, but the other part, the more cautious one, still didn’t feel entirely comfortable.
“Professionally, which is as far as my wide knowledge stretches, she’s doing well. But that’s not really what you want to know, is it?” She slanted her head to the left a bit and pinned her blue eyes on me. “I know they hurt you, Lee. But you’re happy now, right?”
“I am,” I said with more force than necessary.
“Good.” She drained the last of her coffee. “So maybe you and Lucy can do me the honour of attending this fine event.” She handed me a white embossed envelop. “It’s my sixtieth birthday and I won’t take no for an answer.”
“You don’t look a day over fifty, boss.” I slipped the invitation out and studied the few lines of text for a long time. “I don’t think I can make it, though.”
“It’s time to put the past behind you, Lee. I’ve even invited Alex and if he can find it in his heart to celebrate with me, you really have no excuse.” She patted me on the thigh. “See you in two weeks.”

“Are you seriously considering it?” I asked Alex. “You didn’t exactly leave on friendly terms.” We sat in Eleanor’s couch, sipping sherry.
“It’s business, Leesbian. I’m freelance now and every big player in the London advertising scene will be there. It’s an excellent opportunity for me.”
“You’re such a whore.”
“Don’t use that word in my house,” Eleanor, who was setting the table while Pat cooked dinner in the kitchen, said.
“How long has she been living here?” Alex turned towards Eleanor. “It’s been years and you still haven’t managed to instill some manners in this lesbian.”
“Maybe not manners, but she has been behaving rather good lately. I take full credit.” Eleanor walked over to the sofa. “Anyway, I don’t necessarily think it’s such a bad idea.”
“That’s what Lucy said.”
“It’s going to be a massive do. Not as if it’ll just be us awkwardly crammed together in a confined space,” Alex said. “We’ll make it a double date. Ben adores Lucy.”
“Who doesn’t?” Lucy walked into the room. “Where is your gorgeous piece of man flesh tonight?”
“He’s on his way. He should be just in time for dinner.”
Alex and Ben. Eleanor and Pat. Lucy and me. It seemed so perfect, so right. We had many evenings like that, just chatting and nibbling around Eleanor’s dinner table. It always made me feel extremely grown-up. I listened to Alex and Eleanor’s light banter, sprinkled with Lucy’s nasal voice and I wondered if it was the sound of happiness. It was, for a while.

To be continued…

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From then on, I started to see Lucy differently. Maybe because I was so desperate for something to hold on to, or just maybe because, in all her brave complexity, she was the right woman for me at that time.
“We both like it messy and that’s all right,” Lucy said one night after we’d decided we didn’t care what our co-workers thought anymore, and walked home together. “Before you know it, it all becomes too romantic and incredibly boring.”
“You really get me, Lucy. I wish I’d seen that when we first met.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Too romantic.”
“What about all those months of pining after me?” I joked. “You have to see the romance in that.”
“But that’s the right kind, the tragic, painful kind.” She turned her head towards me. “And trust me, being with Joan was plenty painful.” She rubbed her behind in memory of more smarting days.
I giggled stupidly. “It looks like we made it in the end.”
“Against all odds,” she said and drew me closer to her. “Let’s enjoy this moment, though.” I could feel her breath in my hair. “Because who knows what will happen next?”

Heartbreak and failure at love had driven me into Lucy’s arms, I never forgot that. Claire and especially Lou still occupied much more of my thoughts than what was strictly necessary. But once Alex had quit working for Sanders & Burns our lives had no reason for colliding anymore. And slowly, with every picture I crumpled and every formerly treasured text message I deleted, I took one more step away from them. Lucy and I carved out our own story, with our own little hang-ups and frustrations, but mostly with a good deal of unmistakably romantic happiness. I breezed into my thirties, leaving my romantically challenged twenties behind once and for all, and it felt like a new beginning. Blogging The Globe began setting up offices around the world and whenever possible, Lucy took me with her. Months went by without a hint of drama. We were simply too busy being content and, in ways, oddly satisfied with each other. I loved Lucy, that was clear, but it wasn’t the all-encompassing devouring I’ll-take-anything passion I’d had for Claire. It was a more stable kind of emotion, more human as well, with a much better chance at survival. Maybe this is it, I thought. Maybe it doesn’t have to be difficult. I’ll just grow old and dull with Lucy Rowe. If only I hadn’t let myself believe that. I should have known better, should have known myself better, but I was blinded by something. Love or foolishness or both, or maybe they were just the same. 

It started on a cold damp day in January, my last January in London for a while, but I didn’t know that yet. I’d finished an interview with an up-and-coming digital artist at a Costa Coffee in Covent Garden when Theresa, my former boss and the Sanders in Sanders & Burns, walked in.
“Oh Lee,” she said. “I thought the earth had swallowed you whole.” She hugged me with her typical zeal, nearly crushing my windpipe on her collarbone. “What did I tell you about keeping in touch?”
“It’s not that I didn’t want to. The circumstances haven’t been particularly inviting, that’s all.”
“Excuses, excuses. Come on, I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”
And so it all began to unravel, again.

To be continued…

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“Aspirin’s not going to help this time,” I said. “I just had an interesting meeting with Mrs Henderson.” I stopped at a bench, to catch my breath and steady my wobbly knees.
“I see.” Lucy’s voice cracked over the phone.
I fully understood why she had never told me — I was hardly the most reliable person in her life — but it still shook me, destabilised me in ways I’d never imagined anything Lucy-related would.
“Come back to the office. We’ll talk,” she said.
“With Annabelle lurking outside your door? I don’t think so.”
“Take the afternoon off. I’ll see you tonight.” She hesitated a few seconds, the silence more nerve-wracking than any words. “This has absolutely nothing to do with you, Lee. It happened a long time ago.”
“I know,” I said and hung up. I pictured Annabelle’s victorious smile, which, for once, wouldn’t have to be entirely fake. She had pulled the wool over my eyes so expertly the night before and I had just accepted it. It had indeed been a mistake to underestimate her. The thought of having to mingle with her at the office every day made my stomach clench. How did Lucy do it? Did they have some secret, twisted boss-secretary thing going on between them? Of all the things I’d envisioned being fatal to my affair with Lucy, I’d never have expected it to be Annabelle Brooks. What amazed me most of all though, was how the tables had turned so quickly between Lucy and me.

“Can I come in?” Lucy asked. She held the door to my room open just wide enough for half of her face to peek through.
“Yes.” I swivelled my desk chair in her direction, my face drawn into a sulk. “But beware, I may be filming this.”
She headed over to where I was sitting and crouched down beside me. “That’s not even remotely funny,” she said, and smiled anyway.
“Now I understand why you wanted me to stay out of it and leave Annabelle alone.”
“I’m sorry you had to find out that way. In fact, I’m sorry you had to find out at all.”
“I shouldn’t have pried. It’s my own fault.”
“Are we all right?” Lucy stretched out her legs and towered over me, ruffling her hands through my hair.
“I’m not the one who slept with he blond bitch from hell. How did you ever recover from that?” I looked up at her and held her gaze. “And why did you lie?”
“I didn’t want to lay this on you, darling. Not at this stage.” She spread her legs and straddled me on the chair. “And as far as that night is concerned, I classified it as a necessary business decision.”
“Waw, you really remind me of someone right now.” I shot her a mocking smile.
“Don’t you dare say it, Lee.” She brought her lips to my ear. “You can accuse me of a lot, but I’m nothing like Claire Burns.”
“How do you face Annabelle’s plastic grin every morning?” I leaned back a bit to see her face. “It must annoy the hell out of you.”
Lucy pushed herself up and sat down on the bed. “I run BTG exactly the way I want to. Lynette and Annabelle may think they have some power, and they do have a little bit, but they’re stuck in their own little sick world of manipulation and games. They pose no real threat. As soon as I figured that out, I knew that if I just played along, everything would be fine.”
“Until I came along.”
“Well.” She held out both her hands, palms upwards, inviting me for a hug. “You are a bit of a loose canon.”
I grabbed hold of her fingers and let her pull me in. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

To be continued…

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“I’ve got a feeling you’ll tell me either way.” If this was game time, I was ready. I felt strangely protective of Lucy and I vowed that whatever big — or sleazy — revelation Mrs Henderson would make, it wouldn’t matter.
“You lived in France, right?” She leaned back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other. Annabelle really had done her homework. “So you must be familiar with the term promotion canapé.”
“I see it in action every single day at work.”
A fake giggle bubbled in her throat. “Of course.” Her tone was so calm and her voice so steady. The whole scene seemed so premeditated. “You think Annabelle is the big expert.” She slanted her body forward so her face was inches away from mine. “But maybe it’s the other way around,” she whispered.
I had no idea what she was trying to say. Adrenalin coursed through my veins and erased all traces of a hangover. All I knew was that Annabelle was a pretty nobody who had to shag board members to get a job as Lucy’s PA. “What do you mean?” I asked while pushing my chair away from her.
“Don’t worry, Lee.” Her tiny blue-green eyes rested on me, refusing to give me a break. “I’m not the one Lucy slept with to get the job.” Without taking her eyes off me, she grabbed a cigarette case from the cupboard behind her. “But I was there.” Finally, she blinked once. “Do you mind if I smoke?” She didn’t wait for my reply to light up. “You see.” She exhaled a first blueish puff. “I really like to watch. It’s sort of…my thing.”
The penny started dropping, slowly but inevitably. I focused on the orange glow at the tip of her fag. Had I somehow landed in a parallel universe where everybody was the biggest slag they could possibly be? Was this an alcohol-induced fever dream? A nightmare I couldn’t wake up from?
“And trust me,” she continued. “It was quite a show.”
Annabelle didn’t sleep with Mrs Henderson. She let her watch. It made perfect sense. Then the images exploded in my brain. Annabelle and Lucy, in this apartment, Lynette Henderson peering at them the way she did at me now.
“If you have any trouble picturing it, let me help you.” She stood up and walked to the television set in the lounge area. She grabbed a remote and pressed a button — ‘play’ I presumed. It was nothing compared to the images crowding my mind a moment earlier. There was nothing reluctant about it. It was full-on action, Lucy on top and Annabelle panting below her.
“Turn it off, please,” I said. “I think I’d better go.”
“Thanks for stopping by, Lee.” Lynette paced towards me and, before I had a chance to pull away, took my hands in hers. “And remember who’s really in charge at BTG.” I tried to break free, but she tugged at my fingers. “I do hope Annabelle brings you back here some time.”
What a world, I thought when I stormed down the stairs. What a dirty bloody mess of a world. Then I saw Annabelle’s face in the video again, all twisted and red with desire, and I knew it would haunt me for a long time. I searched for my phone in my pocket and tried calling Lucy again, this time she picked up.
“What’s the great emergency, Lee? Can’t find the aspirin?”

To be continued…

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