Page 70 of Is She Really Going Out with Him?
As the sun goes down, we set to work preparing dinner on the fire. Will pulls some baking potatoes from the food box, wraps them in foil, then places them into the firepit. I fill a pot with water and hang it on a pole, suspended across the flames. There’s a tub of freshly made soup in the cool box and steaks to fry on the griddle, a laminated menu and instruction sheet. The food smells incredible, there’s something so satisfying about cooking outdoors, and Will’s relaxed demeanor is contagious. We stick to safe topics of conversation: Jonathan’s eccentric wardrobe choices, writers we admire, and the appeal of rural living.
By the time we’ve eaten, we’re both so sated, we lay out rugs either side of the fire so we can stretch out. Lying down, he is all I can see beyond the flames, the trees now hidden by darkness. The firelight turns his skin a warm orange, his eyes flickering with a reflected gold flame. I reach for my phone to take a photo, then remember I don’t have it and will have to commit this scene to memory.
“You love all this camping stuff then,” I say, watching Will gaze at the fire. “Did you go camping as a child?”
“Yes. Dad hated it, but Mum would take the four of us down to Exmoor every summer when we were kids.”
“That must have been hard work for her. I’ve never taken my kids camping. I’ve always thought there’s so much packing and unpacking involved.”
“I’m sure it was hard,” he says. “Simon was scared of the darkand the rest of us were not nice brothers. George invented this tale about the Beast of Exmoor, the size of a panther, who dragged boys out of their tent at night. He had us all terrified. Simon ended up having to sleep in the day because he was so frightened of the night. Mum was not happy with us.”
“You’re making me glad I didn’t have brothers,” I say, leaning over to pass him another cold beer from the cooler.
“You and your sister didn’t wind each other up like that?” he asks.
“Oh, we did, but it was more subtle. I was the mean older sister. Sometimes I used to pretend she didn’t exist. She tried doing it back to me, but she’d last ten minutes, then get bored and want me to play with her.” I take a sip of my beer, and when I look back across the fire, I catch Will watching me and avert my gaze, suddenly self-conscious.
“She looks up to you?” Will asks.
“I guess so. She’s four years younger, so I did everything first. She thought I was the authority on everything.”
“You weren’t?” he asks, and I shake my head. “I read this article about how your birth order shapes your family experience,” he tells me. “How the oldest bears the weight of parental expectation, while the youngest is allowed to be a free spirit. Do you ever think you would have been a different person if you’d been born second?”
“Good question. I don’t know.” I pause, contemplating for a moment. “Maybe I’d be less afraid of failure. It’s a lot of pressure having a little sister who thinks you can do no wrong. How about you?”
“I’m your classic middle child—the diplomat, forever trying to keep everyone happy. Maybe I would have been more ambitious if I’d been the oldest.”
“You’re ambitious,” I tell him, surprised he doesn’t see himself that way.
Will blows air through his lips. “I’m hardly running the country or setting up my own hedge fund.”
“That’s not what ambition is. It’s having a clear vision of what you want to achieve and being determined to make it happen. Trust me, Will, you have it in spades.”
I shift my gaze back to him now; he smiles and shifts his weight, leaning his head on his hand. “Was that a compliment, Appleby?”
“Ambition isn’t always a good thing. Didn’t you seeThe Wolf of Wall Street?” I say, and he lets out a deep laugh that resonates around the quiet wood. “Sounds like your mum was ambitious, taking four boys camping solo,” I say, keen to hear more about his family.
“She was, she was brave too.” He says it so sincerely, my heart aches for the little boy he was when he lost her. “I’ll definitely take my own kids camping. I think it’s character building.” He lies back to look up at the sky.
“You want kids?” I ask, trying to sound casual, but my nose prickles and I feel my chest tighten as I wait for him to reply.
“Sure. Not any time soon, but I’ve got a lot of good dad jokes I wouldn’t want to waste. I love kids.” He turns to look at me and now it’s my turn to shift onto my back to avoid the intensity of all this eye contact. “Tell me about your parents. Are you close?” he asks.
“Not especially. They live in this old thatched cottage in Frome. When they retired, they worked out they could Airbnb their house and use the money to go on cruises. They’ve been cruising constantly for years now. I think my mum prefers my dad when there are other people around.” I shake my head, imagining my parents and their love of a ship buffet. “When things were at their worst with Dan, Lottie must have called them, told them I needed them to come home. They cut their Caribbean cruise short, and Mum moved in with me for a few weeks. Danhad just left, I wasn’t in a great place.” I pause. In a quiet wood with no distractions to hide behind, there is nothing to do but talk, and the veil of night is making me honest. “Mum lasted a week. She said it was ‘all too depressing’ and that she never knew what to do when we were upset, even when we were children. She offered to take the kids on a cruise, to ‘get them out of my hair.’ ”
“Wow. Did they go?” Will asks.
“No. It was term time, the last thing they wanted. ‘But the offer’s always there, darling,’ ” I say, doing an impression of my mother’s clipped tone. “ ‘I don’t want to witness your pain, but I will take your children on a tour of the Norwegian fjords for you.’ I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Sorry.”
“Rule of the campfire. The fire makes you bare your soul,” Will says, reaching a hand toward the flames. “Tell me more about your sister?”
“Why do you want to know about my sister?”
“Because I like hearing you talk,” he says, and I notice how kind his eyes are, how deep and complex their color. Never quite the same green from one moment to the next.
“I am basically Elinor, and Lottie is Marianne,” I say, Austen fresh in my mind.
“Sense and Sensibility?” Will asks, and I nod.
