Page 23 of You Belong With Me

Edie had never pondered the range of Ben Affleck’s creative opportunities. ‘At least it worked out for them as a couple in the end.’

‘There are missing years on his resume he’ll never get back. Do you have any bitter exes likely to do stories?’

This was like a smear test for your lifestyle.

Lillian squinted at a note out of shot. ‘This Jack Marshall guy going to be a problem?’

Edie flinched at the thoroughness of her research and at that name. ‘Not an ex, and no.’

‘Are there any nudes or explicit videos of you? Anything where you’re doing drugs?’

‘Haha, what?’ said Edie, guffawing, then remembering Lillian wasn’t up for jokes. ‘Er, no, none. I’m old. And shy. And too skint for cocaine.’

‘None? At all?’ Lillian said, in the same tone a GP disbelieved your alcohol units per week. ‘On your camera roll, even unsent?’

‘Why would that matter?!’

‘Because in an iCloud hack, they can get hold of those, too.’

In that moment, Edie broke into a light sweat. She’d exited the world where images of her had little more currency than any other woman’s. She had a bounty on her head and would be shot by hunters with Canon DSLRs.

Edie remembered the second time she’d met Elliot, an interview in a suburban pub, and in the few minutes where ripples of recognition erupted around them, it was like zombies sniffing a human in their midst.

Now her flesh was tasty, too. Fuck.

‘No face recognition for unlocking your phone, or someone can wave it in front of you and open it. Passcode security only. I think that’s everything for now,’ Lillian said, having destroyed Edie’s peace of mind and struck fear into her very core.

‘Thank God for that,’ Edie said, curt, smiling tightly.

‘Listen,’ Lillian said, ‘take this thought away with you. I’m not your parent. I’m not interviewing you for a position. I’m not the neighbourhood women you have wine with. Youdon’t need to worry about being judged by me. I don’t officially care what you’ve done unless it’s illegal, and unofficially, I still won’t care if it is. Disclosure is all I care about. If there’s something you need to warn me about, the earlier you tell me, the better I can help you. Wait for me to find out on DeuxMoi along with everyone else, and we’re playing catch up.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Edie said, now disturbed that she had no idea what a DeuxMoi was.

‘Nice to have met you, Edie,’ Lillian said, before pressingLeave Meetingby way of farewell, and Edie thought:was it, though?

Edie flopped down on her bed and stared at the ceiling, as the enormity of what she had agreed to by kissing Elliot Owen on Christmas Day a few short days ago finally sank in. Faustian pacts had never looked fitter.

She had acquired huge bragging rights and lost her ones to privacy.

12

Edie was letting herself into the new office on the first floor of a converted lace factory. Its huge industrial metal pillars were painted a jaunty matte lilac, and the cavernous space was dotted with leggy, air-purifying plants left behind by the last inhabitants.

Two desks and a neon Ad Hoc wall logo had arrived, and some sweet-talking of the delivery men saw the latter hung on the far wall.

Edie had firmly instructed herself to learn from the dramatic turnaround in her circumstances.

Not so long ago, every aspect of her existence had, not to overstate matters, sucked golf balls through a hosepipe.

Wrecked social life, knackered reputation, professional life in turmoil, tossed aside by a worthless man, reviled by many, loved by few, and exiled to the one place she didn’t want to be, with a family she didn’t know how to relate to.

Now look.Just look.She wasn’t smug – it wasn’t in her nature, and she was, as Elliot said, too much of a catastrophist.

But Edie knew to properly value this remarkable recovery, to back pocket the lesson for the future. Even when everythingseems several hundred shades of shat-upon, you can come back from it. You might even benefit.

If Jack hadn’t kissed her at that wedding, Richard might not have given her the project with Elliot, and they’d never have met. Unthinkable.

She daydreamed constantly since she last saw him.They’d not been able to put each other down when her cab arrived, and she’d shed a few tears at parting. Seeing her distress, Elliot had said: ‘Sod it, I’ll come with you and leave from yours at half five instead.’ En route, Meg had texted that she was going to kip at their dad’s. Inevitably, when Elliot’s airport ride pulled up, tailgate lights cutting through the fog like evil red eyes at that horrific hour, they’d not been to sleep.

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