Still Me Read online

  "You're frightened?"

  "Yeah. Me." He laughed drily, and shook his head. "They've offered me counseling. Oh, I know the drill from when I was in the army. Talk it through, understand it's your mind's way of processing what happened. I know it all. But it's disconcerting." He rolled onto his back. "To tell you the truth, I don't feel like myself."

  I waited.

  "That's why it hit so hard when Donna left because . . . because I knew she'd always look out for me."

  "But this new partner will look out for you, surely. What's her name?"

  "Katie."

  "Katie will look out for you. I mean, she's experienced, and you guys must be trained to take care of each other, right?"

  His gaze slid toward me.

  "You won't be shot again, Sam. I know you won't."

  Afterward I realized it was a stupid thing to say. I'd said it because I couldn't bear the idea of him being unhappy. I'd said it because I wanted it to be true.

  "I'll be fine," he said, quietly.

  I felt as if I'd failed him. I wondered how long he'd wanted to tell me that. We lay there for a while. I ran a finger lightly along his arm, trying to work out what to say.

  "You?" he murmured.

  "Me what?"

  "Tell me something I don't know. About you."

  I was going to tell him he knew all the important stuff. I was going to be my New York self, full of life, go-getting, impenetrable. I was going to say something to make him laugh. But he had told me his truth.

  I turned so that I was facing him. "There is one thing. But I don't want you to see me differently. If I tell you."

  He frowned.

  "It's something that happened a long time ago. But you told me a thing. So I'm going to do the same." I took a breath then and told him. I told him the story I had only ever told Will, a man who had listened and then released me from the hold it had had over me. I told Sam the story of a girl who, ten years previously, had drunk too much and smoked too much and found to her cost that just because a gang of boys came from good families it didn't make them good. I told it in a calm voice, a little detached. These days it didn't really feel like it had happened to me, after all. Sam listened in the near dark, his eyes on mine, saying nothing.

  "It's one of the reasons coming to New York and doing this was so important to me. I boxed myself in for years, Sam. I told myself that was what I needed to feel safe. And now . . . well, now I guess I need to push myself. I need to know what I'm capable of if I stop looking down."

  When I had finished he was silent for a long time, long enough that I had a momentary doubt as to whether I should have told him at all. But he reached out a hand and stroked my hair. "I'm sorry," he said. "I wish I'd been there to protect you. I wish--"

  "It's fine," I said. "It was a long time ago."

  "It's not fine." He pulled me to him. I rested my head against his chest, absorbing the steady beat of his heart.

  "Just, you know, don't look at me differently," I whispered.

  "I can't help looking at you differently."

  I tilted my head so that I could see him.

  "Only in that I think you're even more amazing," he said, and his arms closed around me. "On top of all the other reasons to love you, you're brave, and strong, and you just reminded me . . . we all have our hurdles. I'll get over mine. But I promise you, Louisa Clark." His voice, when it came, was low and tender. "Nobody is ever going to hurt you again."

  9

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Hey, Lily!

  In haste as I'm tapping this out on the subway (I'm always in haste these days) but lovely to hear from you. Glad school is going so well, though it sounds like you were quite lucky with the smoking thing. Mrs. Traynor is right--it would be a shame if you got expelled before you'd even taken your exams.

  But I'm not going to lecture you. New York is amazing. I'm enjoying every moment. And, yes, it would be lovely if you came out here but I think you'd have to stay in a hotel so you might want to speak to your parents first. Also, I'm quite busy as my hours with the Gopniks are long so I wouldn't have much time to hang out just now.

  Sam is fine, thanks. No, he hasn't dumped me yet. In fact he's here right now. He heads home later today. You can talk to him about borrowing his motorbike when he's back. I think that may be one for the two of you to sort out between you.

  Okay--my stop is coming up. Give Mrs. T my love. Tell her I've been doing the things your dad did in his letters (not all of them: I haven't been on any dates with leggy blond PR girls).

  Lou xxx

  My alarm went off at six thirty a.m., a brittle micro-siren breaking the silence. I had to be back at the Gopniks' for seven thirty. I let out a soft groan as I reached across to the bedside table and fumbled to turn it off. I had figured it would take me fifteen minutes to walk back to Central Park. I mentally ran through a rapid to-do list, wondering if there was any shampoo left in the bathroom and whether I would need to iron my top.

  Sam's arm reached across and pulled me toward him. "Don't go," he said sleepily.

  "I have to." His arm was pinning me.

  "Be late." He opened one eye. He smelled warm and sweet and he kept his gaze on mine as he slowly slid a heavy, muscular leg over me.

  It was impossible to refuse him. Sam was feeling better. Quite a lot better, apparently.

  "I need to get dressed."

  He was kissing my collarbone, feathery kisses that made me shiver. His mouth, light and focused, began to trace a pattern downwards. He looked up at me from under the cover, one eyebrow raised. "I'd forgotten these scars. I really love these scars here." He lowered his head and kissed the silvery ridges on my hip that marked my surgery, making me squirm, then disappeared.

  "Sam, I need to go. Really." My fingers closed around the bedspread. "Sam . . . Sam . . . I really . . . oh."

  Some time later, my skin prickling with drying sweat, breathing hard, I lay on my stomach wearing a stupid smile, my muscles aching in unexpected places. My hair was over my face but I couldn't summon the energy to push it away. A strand rose and fell with my breath. Sam lay beside me. His hand felt its way across the sheet to mine. "I missed you," he said. He shifted and rolled over so that he was on top of me, holding me in place. "Louisa Clark," he murmured, and his voice, impossibly deep, resonated somewhere inside me. "You do something to me."

  "I think it was you who did something to me, if we're going to get technical about it."

  His face was filled with tenderness. I lifted my own so that I could kiss him. It was as if the last forty-eight hours had fallen away. I was in the right place, with the right man, and his arms were around me and his body was beautiful and familiar. I ran a finger down his cheek, then leaned in and kissed him slowly.

  "Don't do that again," he said, his eyes on mine.

  "Why?"

  "Because then I won't be able to help myself and you're already late and I don't want to be responsible for you losing your job."

  I turned my head to see the alarm. I blinked. "Quarter to eight? Are you kidding? How the hell is it a quarter to eight?" I wriggled out from under him, my arms flapping, and hopped to the bathroom. "Oh, my God. I am so late. Oh, no--oh, no no no no no."

  I threw myself under a shower so rapid it's possible the droplets didn't make contact with my body, and when I emerged he stood and held out items of clothing for me so that I could slide into them.

  "Shoes. Where are my shoes?"

  He held them up. "Hair," he said, gesturing. "You need to comb your hair. It's all . . . well . . ."

  "What?"

  "Matted. Sexy. Just-had-sex hair. I'll pack your things," he said. As I ran for the door he caught me by the arm and pulled me to him. "Or you could, you know, just be a tiny bit later."

  "I am later. So later."

  "It's just once. She's your new best mate. They're hardly going to fire you." He put his arms around me and kissed me and ran his lips down the
side of my neck so that I shivered. "And this is my last morning here . . ."

  "Sam . . ."

  "Five minutes."

  "It's never five minutes. Oh, man--I can't believe I'm saying that like it's a bad thing."

  He growled with frustration. "Dammit. I feel okay today. Like really okay."

  "Believe me, I can tell."

  "Sorry," he said. And then: "No, I'm not. Not remotely."

  I grinned at him, closed my eyes and kissed him back, feeling even then how easy it would be just to topple back onto the Burgundy Bedspread of Doom and lose myself again. "Me either. I'll see you later, though." I wriggled out of his arms and ran out of the room and along the corridor, listening to his yelled "I love you!" And thinking that despite potential bedbugs, unsanitary bedspreads, and inadequate bathroom soundproofing, actually, this was a very nice hotel indeed.

  --

  Mr. Gopnik was suffering acute pain in his legs and had been awake half the night, which had left Agnes anxious and fractious. She had had a bad weekend at the country club, the other women freezing her out of conversation and gossiping about her in the spa. From the way Nathan whispered this as I passed him in the lobby, it sounded like thirteen-year-old girls on a toxic sleepover.

  "You're late," Agnes growled, as she returned from her run with George, mopping her face with a towel. In the next room I could hear Mr. Gopnik's uncharacteristically raised voice on the telephone. She didn't look at me as she spoke.

  "I'm sorry. It's because my . . ." I began, but she had already walked past.

  "She's freaking out about the charity reception this evening," murmured Michael, heading past me with an armful of dry-cleaning and a clipboard.

  I racked my mental Rolodex. "Children's Cancer Hospital?"

  "The very one," he said. "She's meant to bring a doodle."

  "A doodle?"

  "A little picture. On a special card. They auction them off at the dinner."

  "So how hard is that? She can do a smiley face or a flower or something. I'll do it if she likes. I can do a mean smiling horse. I can put a hat on it too, with the ears sticking out." I was still full of Sam and found it hard to see the problem in anything.

  He looked at me. "Sweetheart. You think 'doodle' means actual doodle? Oh, no. It has to be real art."

  "I got a B in GCSE art."

  "You're so sweet. No, Louisa, they don't do it themselves. Every artist between here and Brooklyn Bridge has apparently spent the weekend creating some delicious little pen-and-ink study for cold, hard cash. She only found out last night. Overheard two of the Witches talking about it before she left the club and when she asked them they told her the truth. So guess what you're doing today? Have a great morning!"

  He blew me a kiss and hurried out of the door.

  --

  While Agnes showered and had breakfast I did an online search of "artists in New York." It was about as much use as searching "dogs with tails." The few who had websites and bothered to pick up the phone answered my request like I'd suggested they waltz naked around the nearest shopping mall. "You want Mr. Fischl to do a . . . doodle? For a charity lunch?" Two put the phone down on me. Artists, it turned out, took themselves very seriously.

  I called everyone I could find. I called gallerists in Chelsea. I called the New York Academy of Art. All the while I tried not to think about what Sam was doing. He would be having a nice brunch in that diner we'd talked about. He would be walking the High Line, like we were meant to. I needed to be back in time to take that ferry ride with him before he left for England. To do it at dusk would be romantic. I pictured us, his arm around me, gazing up at the Statue of Liberty, dropping a kiss on my hair. I dragged my thoughts back and racked my brains. And then I thought about the only other person I knew in New York who might be able to help.

  --

  "Josh?"

  "Speaking?" The sound of a million male voices behind him.

  "It's--it's Louisa Clark. We met at the Yellow Ball?"

  "Louisa! Great to hear from you! How are you doing?" He sounded so relaxed, as if strange women called him every day of the week. They probably did. "Hold on. Let me take this outside . . . So what's up?"

  He had this way of making you feel instantly at ease. I wondered if Americans were born with it.

  "Actually, I'm in a bit of a bind and I don't know many people in New York so I wondered if you might be able to help."

  "Try me."

  I explained the situation, leaving out Agnes's mood, her paranoia, my utter stammering terror faced with the New York art scene.

  "Shouldn't be too hard. When do you need this thing by?"

  "That's the tricky bit. Tonight."

  A sharp intake of breath. "Oooh-kay. Yeah. That's a little tougher."

  I ran a hand through my hair. "I know. It's nuts. If I'd known about it sooner I might have been able to do something. I'm really sorry to have bothered you."

  "No, no. We'll fix this. Can I call you back?"

  Agnes was out on the balcony, smoking. Turns out I wasn't the only person who used the space after all. It was cold and she was swaddled in a huge cashmere wrap, her fingers faintly pink where her hand emerged from the soft wool.

  "I've put out a number of calls. I'm just waiting for someone to get back to me."

  "You know what they will say, Louisa? If I bring them stupid doodle?"

  I waited.

  "They will say I have no culture. What can you expect from stupid Polish masseuse? Or they will say that nobody wanted to do it for me."

  "It's only twelve twenty. We've still got time."

  "I don't know why I bother," she said softly.

  Strictly speaking, I wanted to say, it wasn't her doing the bothering. Her chief concern right now seemed to be Smoking and Looking Moody. But I knew my place. Just then my phone rang.

  "Louisa?"

  "Josh?"

  "I think I have someone who can help. Can you get over to East Williamsburg?"

  --

  Twenty minutes later we were in the car headed toward the Midtown Tunnel.

  As we sat in the traffic, Garry impassive and silent in the front, Agnes called Mr. Gopnik, anxious about his health, his pain. "Is Nathan coming to the office? Did you have painkillers? . . . Are you sure you're okay, darling? You don't want me to come bring you anything? . . . No . . . I'm in the car. I have to sort something for this evening. Yes, I'm still going. It's all fine."

  I could just make out his voice at the other end. Low, reassuring.

  She hung up and gazed out of the window, heaving a long sigh. I waited a moment, then started running through my notes.

  "So, apparently this Steven Lipkott is up-and-coming in the fine-art world. He's had shows in some very important places. And he's"--I scanned my notes--"figurative. Not abstract. So you just need to tell him what you want him to draw and he'll do it. I'm not sure how much it will cost, though."

  "It doesn't matter," said Agnes. "Is going to be disaster."

  I turned back to the iPad and did an online search on the artist's name. With relief, I noted that the drawings were indeed beautiful: sinuous depictions of the body. I handed the iPad to Agnes so that she could see and in a moment her mood lifted. "This is good." She sounded almost surprised.

  "Yup. If you can think of what you want, we can get him to draw it and be back for . . . four maybe?" And then I can leave, I added silently. While she scrolled through the other images, I texted Sam.

  --How you doing?

  --Not bad. Went for a nice walk. Bought souvenir beer hat for Jake. Don't laugh.

  --Wish I was with you.

  A pause.

  --So what time do you think you'll get off? I worked out I should leave for the airport by seven.

  --Hoping for four. Will stay in touch xxxxx

  New York traffic meant it took us an hour to get to the address Josh had given me: a scruffy, featureless former office building at the back of an industrial block. Garry pulled up with a skeptical snif
f. "You sure this is the place?" he said, turning with effort in his seat.

  I checked the address. "That's what it says."

  "I will stay in car, Louisa. I am going to call Leonard again."

  The upper corridor was lined with doors, a couple of which were open, music blaring. I walked along slowly, checking the numbers. Some had tins of white emulsion paint outside, and I walked past an open door revealing a woman in baggy jeans stretching a canvas over a huge wood frame.

  "Hi! Do you know where Steven is?"

  She fired a battery of staples from a huge metal gun into a frame. "Fourteen. But I think he just went out for food."

  Fourteen was at the far end. I knocked, then pushed the door tentatively and walked in. The studio was lined with canvases, two huge tables covered with sloppy trays of oil paints and battered pastel crayons. The walls were hung with beautiful oversized pictures of women in various states of undress, some unfinished. The air smelled of paint, turpentine, and stale cigarette smoke.

  "Hello."

  I turned to see a man holding a white plastic bag. He was around thirty, his features regular but his gaze intense, his chin unshaven, his clothes crumpled and utilitarian, as if he had barely noticed what he'd put on. He looked like a male model in a particularly esoteric fashion magazine.

  "Hi. Louisa Clark. We spoke on the phone earlier? Well, we didn't--your friend Josh told me to come."

  "Oh, yeah. You want to buy a drawing."

  "Not as such. We need you to do a drawing. Just a small one."

  He sat down on a small stool, opened his carton of noodles, and started to eat, hoicking them into his mouth with rapid strokes of his chopsticks.

  "It's for a charity thing. People do these doo-- Small drawings," I corrected myself. "And apparently a lot of the top artists in New York are doing them for other people so--"

  "'Top artists,'" he repeated.

  "Well. Yes. Apparently it's not the done thing to do your own and Agnes--my employer--really needs someone brilliant to do one for her." My voice sounded high and anxious. "I mean, it shouldn't take you long. We--we don't want anything fancy . . ."

  He was staring at me and I heard my voice trail off, thin and uncertain.

  "We--we can pay. Quite well," I added. "And it's for charity."

  He took another mouthful, peering intently into his carton. I stood by the window and waited.

  "Yeah," he said when he had finished chewing. "I'm not your man."