Page 35 of Just for December

‘I’m notinterested…’ he tells her. ‘I was just curious.’

‘Curiosity killed the cat.’

‘Okay,’ he says, shifting so he can look at her. ‘Sorry to ask. My bad.’

She shrugs. No way is she going to tell him about the flow of money through her bank account. That the more she earns, the more she spends, mostly on stuff she doesn’t even need. Scented candles at a hundred dollars a pop. Handbags, even though she doesn’t go anywhere. New coats, jackets, trousers, cashmere jumpers every season, which get worn to the coffee shop or Magda’s house, maybe even a restaurant or bar during the daytime, and that’s it. The stuff with tags still on that hangs in her closets because there aren’t enough outfit changes in the day, or the car she has in the drive with less than ten thousand miles racked up in two years. Not to mention the soft furnishings, the smoothie machines and coffee makers in the kitchen. She knows it’s a problem and has been for years: she doesn’t feel worthy of the money, so she spends it on physical manifestations ofstuff.Stuff she can look at, a physical thing that acts as an object to represent that she’s doing well. She doesn’tfeellike she’s doing well at anything. So she’s sold a few hundred thousand books – so what? What does that mean when she goes to bed alone, when she’s spineless in the face of life because she’s tired? Evie is so, so tired. Yeah, fine, she cashes the cheques, she pays the care home monthly – most of the time – and then she gets rid of the money as fast as she can. It’s a compulsion. A stupid, embarrassing compulsion, and he’s just not going to understand, ishe? Absolutely no way. And she’s promised herself that the next big cheque won’t go to her mom’s nursing home to cover a month, or the next six months. Her spending is getting so bad that since May she’s not been able to pay them at all. She’s going to pay them for the next ten years when the movie money comes in, to avoid any problems. She’s getting more and more reckless, and nobody has any idea because she has a Canada Goose jacket and a fancy watch and nice nails.

‘Anyway,’ she says. ‘The book?’

‘Right, yes. Hold on.’

Duke busies himself finding the novel he wanted to lend her, and Evie idly takes in the rest of the room. And then she sees it, poking out of the pile of papers. It’s an information sheet. And it’s about her.

She moves two paces to the left to angle her body away from Duke and tugs the paper out the tiniest amount more. It’s her name, a general bio, and what looks like facts and figures for her books. It takes a breath, but then the penny drops: she had it right all along. None of this is real.

Duke doesn’t care about her at all – her brain or thoughts or even her books. He’s got a crib sheet on her, exactly as she suspected when she met him. And she nearly fell for it! All that talk about what her work means to him, and she’d started to believe it. He must think she’s so stupid, just another groupie desperate to be wanted by him. Urgh.

When he comes back into the room, she silently takes the book from him and leaves.

‘See you later?’ he asks to her back.

Suddenly, she hopes not.

19

Evie

They’re in the Schaezlerpalais later that afternoon, filming a dramatic and beautiful ballroom scene that serves as a climax for Hermione and George, who’ve attended after meeting a countess by accident, when they saved her and her dog from a wayward bicycle that had gotten out of control. It’s deceptive outside – Evie counted seven windows across, and three floors up, but that was only the front façade. The Baroque palace extends far back from the street, with dozens of rooms, courtyards, and gardens. She takes a leaflet about the place and reads that the gilded mirror ballroom was built in the late 1700s and survives mostly intact. When she was researching the book, that was the thing that struck her imagination the most: that it could still exist. What dances must have been held there over the years, what secrets exchanged. It’s like a set fromBridgerton. She spots Duke, incostume as George. He’s in a tailored navy suit with a pressed white shirt, and it all looks like it’s made to measure, which, thinking about it, it probably is. Daphne is in a long teal-coloured tulle gown, her feet in Uggs to keep warm. Her hair is piled in dramatic curls on the top of her head, her neck bare and perfect.

‘My money is on them getting back together,’ Katerina says, appearing out of nowhere. ‘Look how they gaze at one another like that. There’s a lot of love there if you ask me.’

‘Oh … Katerina, hey,’ Evie says, doing her best to look absolutely not bothered at all by the suggestion. ‘Everything going okay today? I can’t wait to see the ballroom.’

‘It’s … going,’ sighs Katerina. ‘Brad is inthe worstmood. It’s affecting the whole set. Well, almost the whole set. The lovebirds don’t seem to be minding.’

Evie follows Katerina’s gaze again. The pairdolook cosy. They’re just chatting, but there’s an obvious familiarity between them, with the way Duke laughs and Daphne reaches out to hold his wrist as he does so.

‘Am I allowed to go through to the ballroom before you shoot?’ Evie asks, suddenly aware that the words feel foreign in her mouth, like she’s trying too hard to act as though she’s on film sets all the time. ‘Or however you say it. Before you start filming,’ she self-corrects.

‘Yes, sure,’ Katerina says. ‘Just through there. It’s stunning. It’s going to look like a scene fromBridgertonwhen we’re done, I swear.’

‘I was just thinking that!’ Evie exclaims. ‘It does already.’

Evie walks through several doorways with rooms displaying art in ornate gold frames, and then she’s there.It’s magnificent. The floor is a golden beehive formation in shades of golden syrup, dark in the middle and lighter around the edges, over and over again and polished so well it could practically be a mirror. It’s a double-height room, with one set of sweeping windows down one side, and a second level of windows above to let in twice the light. The duck-egg blue panels that make up the walls are slim, and each is set with complex gold carvings, meaning that at first glance she almost thinks one side of the room is windows and the other simply dripping in gold.

As she gets closer, she can see the level of detail everything has. It’s extraordinary. Several crystal chandeliers hang on long glass chains and, as she follows the lines upwards, Evie gasps, actually, truly gasps. The ceiling is painted with a series of elaborate murals in shades of lavender and mauve and lilac, depicting sunset and faith. There are some powder pink chairs with more gold around the edges, and a piano in sublime walnut wood in the corner, where Evie didn’t at first see that a man in full morning suit is sat. He starts to tinkle on the keys, warming up. The sound reverberates around the room theatrically, and tears involuntarily prick at Evie’s eyes. She’s here. She can’t believe she’s here. She wishes she could call her mom. Magda won’t be awake yet, but Evie will have to try her later. Somebody needs to know she’s experienced this. They’re going to have to remind her if ever she forgets.

Although … she’s not mad at Magda, but she is a bit miffed: it’s unlike her not to reply to a text, especially when Evie says she wants to catch up, but the last three messages yesterday went unanswered and it’s made Evie feel a bit needy.

This feeling is evidence of why it’s so horrific to reach outand say you need help, she thinks to herself. If she’d never asked, she’d never have to feel resentful at the radio silence.

Watching them film in the ballroom is amazing. The outdoor stuff has felt so … big? Like, outside, in the elements, within the context of the wider world, she has felt so far away from it, couldn’t imagine how it will translate on screen. But here, everyone working within the same room and the lights and boom mics and all those extras, dancing, dressed in finery that Evie imagines could out-fancy even the poshest dress on the red carpet … She’s truly in awe.

It’s hard, though, knowing Duke really did have that crib sheet on her. She’d looked at it when she was in her room, a list of her books and accolades, a photo of her from her website and information her agent had obviously sent through (‘Sarcastic but kind, media shy, bit of a lone wolf’). He’d said he was a genuine fan – and he’d lied. Evie is pretty sure she can trust the connection they’ve been building, but it’s a red flag to her. She reminds herself that he might be an amazing actor doing a great job, but all this off-set stuff is still work to him.Just for December.That was the agreement, wasn’t it?

‘I’m still in negotiations with Scott Free and Columbia Pictures,’ her agent Sabrina tells her on the phone later. ‘And you’re still storming the charts. The photos of you with Duke at the Christmas market, and that midnight walk? Perfection. I know you don’t follow the tabloids, but the long and short of it is that it’s playing out great – people love a rom-com within a rom-com, so get out with him again if you can, or maybe send your social girl a photo for her to upload toInstagram. Doesn’t even have to be to the grid – even just to stories is great, so it disappears within a day.’

‘Wow,’ Evie says. She’s stepped outside for some air. It’s baffling that everything outside on the street is so normal. She’s become used to crowds waiting outside, but the world has kept turning today, like nobody is any the wiser they’re about. ‘Okay. God.’

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