Part 10 (1/2)

Chapter Thirteen.

*Darling? Your car's here,' Gabby calls up the stairs before opening the front door and gesturing to the driver, holding her fingers up to let him know Elliott will be down in five minutes.

*I wish you were coming,' Elliott says as he comes down the stairs, carry-on bag in hand. *I know we wouldn't have seen each other much, but we could have had dinner together at night. Now I'll have to go out with a bunch of boring old doctors.'

*Yeah, right.' Gabby snorts. *The last conference you went to you ended up drinking and dancing all night. If I recall correctly you came home saying something like you hadn't had so much fun in years.'

Elliott laughs, dropping his bag on the floor to encircle his wife's waist with his arms. *Have I told you lately how beautiful you are?'

*Yes. You told me yesterday.' Gabby smiles, still delighted.

*It's true. The older you get the more beautiful you become.' Gabby declines to point out that this is, in fact, largely due to the Botox, Perlane and Sculptra; but she is grateful that it worked, and that he hasn't realized.

*Have a safe flight,' she says, then kisses him deeply. *I love you. And behave yourself.'

*I will,' he says with a grin, picking up his bag and taking it to the car, blowing her a kiss as he is driven out of the driveway, leaving Gabby, finally, entirely alone.

I want to see where you live.

Gabby has already planned dinner when the text arrives, coming up with a small hole-in-the-wall place in Bridgeport, a place where they are unlikely to run into anyone they know. But Matt is saying he wants to see her home. Where she lives with her husband and daughters. That doesn't feel right. That feels ... wrong, too intimate.

Why would you want to see where I live? I've already described it to you.

Why wouldn't you want me to see where you live? I want to see the books you read, the paintings on your wall, the food in your fridge.

Gabby smiles when she reads that. She'd love to see his home, for exactly those reasons. She wants to see who he is when he isn't out in the world, composing himself, carefully contorting himself into the man he wants others to think he is.

And who is she? She asks herself this as she walks around her house trying to look at it through his eyes, wondering what a newcomer might infer from what he sees.

The paintings in the house are, indeed, almost unanimously reflective of her. Elliott, never particularly interested in art, has indulged her love of drawings. Sketches of people, delicate line drawings of cities she has been to, life studies in pen and ink fill every available wall s.p.a.ce, apart from one wall in the dining room. This is where they hung the huge oil cityscape that Elliott fell in love with. He insisted on having it, despite having to pay a small fortune, and Gabby has never grown to like it.

Books line the bookshelves, along with various objets they have collected over the years. Ammonite fossils, small pots, porcelain sculptures of chickens that make her laugh. A bronze hand, fingers outstretched, filled with yearning. A bottom shelf crammed with old paperbacks she used to read as light relief from the heavier, hardback literary tomes that are required reading for local dinner parties. These days her lighter reading is all done on the Kindle but she has never got round to giving these paperbacks away. She takes them now and stuffs them under the sofa. No one needs to see those a they make her look flighty and insubstantial.

Why do you even care what he thinks? You are, after all, ten years older than he is, which automatically makes you substantial. Less substantial, she smiles to herself, than she was three weeks ago. She hasn't weighed herself, but her jeans are loose, and her cheekbones more p.r.o.nounced than ever; surely they would not be that p.r.o.nounced from Perlane alone. Getting down on her knees, Gabby pulls the paperbacks from beneath the sofa and puts them back.

I'm not doing anything, she thinks. We'll have a quick drink here, then go out. No romantic fires, no candles. This is not a seduction. I'm not even that comfortable having him here, she realizes, as the day progresses and her b.u.t.terflies start to multiply. I can't wait to see him, but in my own home? Not so much.

Gabby is ready by six forty-five. Tonight she is dressing down. Tonight she can dress down because her weight loss has given her a confidence she was missing before. In jeans and a T-s.h.i.+rt, she accessorizes with a long thin strand of tiny labradorite and seed pearls looped around her neck.

She looks at herself in the mirror, and even she is impressed. But the shoes have to go. Barefoot is better, at least when he gets here. That way she will look as if she's made no effort at all.

Her heart almost bursts out of her chest as she hears a taxi pull up and a door slam, then her own doorbell is ringing, and she is suddenly so nervous she feels as if she might throw up.

She doesn't. She walks downstairs, forcing herself to take deep breaths, and opens the door to find Matt grinning at her. And then she is grinning back, and she isn't scared, or nervous, just truly, deeply happy to see him, and they step towards each other and hug, and it doesn't feel inappropriate, or wrong. It feels lovely, and very, very right.

*You look amazing!' Matt steps back and looks at her. *Did you change your hair? Something's different. You look so beautiful.'

*I lost some weight,' Gabby says. *And a good hair day. That's it.'

*I love that I'm here! Your home! I can't wait to get the full tour.'

*Do you want some wine first?'

*Sure,' he says, following her into the kitchen, admiring the Aga stove she insisted on having to remind her of her childhood home, even though it was the most expensive thing in the kitchen.

*I'm sure I have a bottle in here,' Gabby says, rooting around in the fridge, but knowing full well there is a bottle in there, exactly where she placed it this morning. She turns and reaches for the corkscrew, stepping back as Matt steps in to take both corkscrew and bottle from her hand. He smiles down at her as he uncorks.

When she goes to get gla.s.ses from the other side of the kitchen, Gabby is aware Matt is watching her walk. It makes her feel s.e.xy, and young, and more alive than ever before. There is a charge in the room that touches everything; a charge that has given both Gabby and Matt permanent smiles, smiles that occasionally dissolve into embarra.s.sed laughter as they catch each other's eyes. They are both relieved, excited, drunk on the chemistry. Gabby is busy pretending to be someone she may not be, and Matt is too caught up in the thrill of the chase, the lure of the un.o.btainable being not quite as un.o.btainable as he once thought.

*Do you want nuts?' Gabby pulls out a packet, but Matt shakes his head.

*I'm good. Here,' he says, handing her a gla.s.s of wine. *Cheers.'

*Cheers,' she replies, and holds eye contact with him as they both sip, then she is the first to look away. *Do you want to see the house?'

*You know what I really want to see?'

Please don't say the bedroom, she thinks. That would be so predictable, and so sleazy. And I would have no idea what to say.

*What?'

*The barn. I want to see your work.'

Gabby's shoulders instantly relax.

They put down their gla.s.ses and she leads the way outside and across the garden to the barn, wrapping her arms around herself against the evening chill.

*Are you sure you're ready for this?' she teases, pausing by the door.

*This is your s.p.a.ce, right? This is the place where I'm really going to be able to tell who you are.'

*Oh G.o.d,' she groans as she pushes the door open. *You're going to think I'm a disorganized, crazy mess.'

She stands there, Matt next to her, as he slowly looks around, impressed. He takes in the old beams, the workbenches, the furniture. He asks her questions about the furniture, exclaiming with delight over her work, the painting techniques; he is drawn to the noticeboard on which she has pinned photos of her befores and afters.

*What's up there?' He points to the staircase.

*Bedroom and bathroom,' she says. *Supposed to be for guests but they always end up staying in the house. It's too far away for most people. I love it, though a I sneak in a nap from time to time.'