Page 76 of You Belong With Me

‘What’s that?’ She stamped her feet to stay warm: March was spring in name only.

‘It’s been what, a week since the house decision? If I was selling stories on someone, I’d pick and choose – I’d take rests. I’d try to evade detection. This is relentless. At first, it came off to me as sloppy amateur, but I’ve realised there’s a darker interpretation. What if this is someone who really dislikes me? Properly vindictive:fuck you, every time you cough, I’m going to the red tops?’

‘You don’t have any enemies, though?’

‘I didn’t think I did … maybe Heather, I suppose.’

‘That description definitely isn’t Molly, either,’ Edie said.

‘Honestly, even if she’s the leak, I’ve never thought she’s the saleswoman. She’s probably telling herself it’s an ongoing coincidence that what she’s gossiped about is getting out. How’re you anyway? Dinner going well?’

Edie cast a look at the low-lit conviviality. ‘It’s really lovely. Declan is getting on like a house on fire with my lot, and my previously rebellious sister is in her element.’

‘Do you know how much I wish I was there?’

‘Is it as much as I wish you were here?’ Edie said.

‘Is it like a whole-body longing that slides into a supercut of favourite memories? If so, yes.’

‘Yeah, very much that,’ she said.

Edie knew they were both simpering, cradling their phones like children with pet hamsters. Nauseating. She cleared her throat.

‘You know the part in this story about us discussing … a family, and so on? Did you tell anyone about that?’

‘God, no,’ Elliot said. ‘Not a soul. I didn’t think that was anyone’s business but ours.’

‘Me neither.’

‘They add those claims by rote, I think. Heather and I were constantly off to the Little Wedding Chapel with her Pomeranian dog Snowball as ring bearer or some shit. Safe to ignore it.’

‘Oh sure,’ Edie said, making sure that the fact she was crestfallen was absent from her tone of voice.We’re not a repeat of you and Heather, and I wanted it to be true.

Through the window, she saw Declan watching her. He raised his wine glass in acknowledgement at having been caught, and Edie waved back. She’d been unwittingly frowning.

‘Everything all right?’ Declan said, when Edie came back in. ‘That looked intense?’

‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘A knotty topic being discussed, that’s all.’

Declan said: ‘Ah.’ She could tell he thought he was being fobbed off and that he’d seen a row.

Later, as she banged plates haphazardly into the dishwasher and pressed theonbutton, Edie’s phone rang with an unknown London landline number.

Something about the unlikely late hour made Edie answer.

‘Hi – is that Edie Thompson?’

‘Yes?’

‘My name’s Simon Brggghhhm from the …’ Background noise from the appliance obscured the words.

Edie put a finger in her spare ear and said: ‘Sorry, what?’

‘We have a story running tomorrow.’

Ah, phishing about the Elliot house purchase.

‘No comment.’

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