Page 69 of The Grosvenor's Ghost
”Oh!” Zara laughs loudly despite our prestigious setting of Hide in Piccadilly (but then again, we all know she isn’t one for social graces). “I used to be a whore—not a paid one, although I had this crazy experience once in New York but I’ll tell you another time—but not anymore. I think I’ve gone celibate.”
My eyes widen. “Celibate?! You do know that means not having sex, right?”
She rolls her eyes to the heavens. “I’m not thick. I know what it means.”
“I could never,” Athena sighs. “I think because I was shamed so much growing up that now—well,” she blows out a breath. “It’s just insane. I don’t even go to Pilates anymore!”
“Nice,” I mutter, a bit impressed.
I mean, we all knew that George had it in him but to hear it coming from Athena? She never talks openly about this kind of stuff so for it to be that good…
“Anyway,” Athena smiles, resting her chin in her hands and staring at me in a way I don’t particularly like. “What’s with all the Bliss pavlova?”
“It’s palava, Athena!” Zara and I shout at the same time.
She waves her hand through the air. “Who actually cares? I want to know what’s going on. You hardly bring her name up.”
“Why would I?”
I sink back into my seat a little bit because I think I’m maybe a bit ashamed about it still. It happened almost two years ago, me and her falling out. I know the adult thing to do would be to clear the air, talk with her—whatever. But I’m not an adult in that way. I don’t see why I should? She was in the wrong, what she said to me upset me—not the other way around.
“I don’t know why you ever bothered with her,” Zara shrugs. “All she does now is spend her weekends at Estelle Manor because she thinks it’s the pinnacle of luxury when in actuality, we all just think she’s getting pimped out.”
“They make a delicious vegetable tempura, though,” Athena pouts.
“Shut up, you can get that at Bassett’s,” I snap, flustered.
“Has she reached out to you?” Zara asks.
I swallow. “Not really.”
“What does ‘not really’ mean?”
“Like,” I sip my wine to stall. “She texted me a few months ago, when Arthur came back. Didn’t open it, though. I didn’t know what I was going to say to her so I just left it.”
Athena tuts. “You two were such good friends.”
Zara sits there in her vintage fur, a sorry look on her face which you don’t get much from her. She’s very hard—facial wise. Not from Botox, either—which, can you believe, she’s had none of. We clicked right away, kind of. But I’ve seen her when she’s been nothing but a solid granite box. There’s no chipping away, no openings, no windows. We’re polar opposites. She doesn’t apologise or look sorry or cry or moan or complain.
“But what she said…”
“Yes,” my eyes snap up to glare at her. “I know.”
I get my bag and head for the bathrooms.
They don’t even know the full extent of what Bliss said to me that night and they still think it’s bad and unforgivable. They don’t know all of it because I haven’t told them and if I was to tell them, I’d have to tell them about The Nightmare and I’ve yet to even tell Digby about that and Jesus Christ, I don’t think I can breathe.
I remind myself of how I was inhaling deep breaths just a moment ago but it seems lost and now I wonder if I’m going to die and if I do, right here, in the loo, will I see Arthur?
Moments like these are when I wished my sister was here but it’s old news now, she lives in L.A, I live in London—it’s just what happens. I mean, it’s not what ‘just happens’ because she’s my sister and all she left me with was a fleeting goodbye and a promise to see me on my birthday which she didn’t upkeep. I might be twenty-one but I still need my sister. There isn’t an age limit to which you stop needing someone or something (despite what the world will have you hear).
I’m happy for her, though. She finally got what she wanted after watching Arthur and I all these years. Now, I know we weren’t the picture for a healthy relationship but when you see people together who you know would die for the other, you get jealous. I’m not saying my own sister was jealous of me because that’s far from the truth but maybe just longed for the kind of love I had—have—for Arthur?
I manage to calm myself down a bit—which is always hard when every single thought inside your head hits you like a tidal wave and completely washes you out to sea—reapply my lipgloss and go back out to finish my rather liquid-y lunch.
“Is that just not the peak of embarrassment?” Zara whispers across the table, nods behind me.
I turn around, see a couple waiters bringing over a house desert with a little candle on it to another table.
