Jonathan said nothing for several blocks. And that was worse than being yelled at by the police officer.
Eventually, I could bear the silence no longer. “Jonathan,” I burst out, “please believe me, I honestly didn’t know that…”
He ran a finger around his collar and loosened his tie. “What?”
“Godric,” I said. “I really did just bump into him. I wasn’t, you know, improving him or anything…”
Jonathan looked at me strangely. “Did I even suggest that you were? Interesting that you’re more concerned about that than about being arrested. Or stalked! Look, I can see there was…an element of confusion about the whole incident, but as long as you’re all right, that’s all I care about. Melissa, honey,” he said more quietly, putting his finger on my chin to turn my face gently to his, “I was really worried about you. Paige called me herself. She said you were with this Ric idiot and you were in a police station, that you were being stalked. What was I meant to think?”
I caught my breath. It hadn’t properly occurred to me how serious it must have looked from the outside.
“Honestly, Jonathan, Godric borrowed the car for a test drive, he did what you can sometimes do in England and drove around on his own for a bit, and the dealer called the police.”
Jonathan drew in a deep breath. “Whatever. Tell me about this stalker.”
I hesitated. Why had it been so much easier to lie to the police than it was to tell Jonathan the truth? “I tried to explain that there’d been a misunderstanding. They wouldn’t listen. And Godric got…aggressive, and they must have got the wrong idea. So I…I tried to use my initiative.”
His face clouded. “Don’t tell me. You invented the stalker?”
“Yes,” I said quickly, to get it over with. “But I didn’t invent Prince William. Granny did that, to make it look like the man following me was a press photographer,” I paused. “I suppose at least she didn’t say I was dating Kate Moss.”
Jonathan blew out the breath in his cheeks and sank back into his seat.
There was a short pause in which he seemed to be considering his response. “I’m not mad at you,” he said carefully. “I could never be mad at you. Not even for…lying to a policeman.”
Was I imagining a hint of a laugh there? Surely not.
“But…” He exhaled again. “This stepping in to fix Ric’s little theft problem—it’s working, Melissa. You made up the story to get this guy off the hook! Why couldn’t you just have said he’d picked you’d up in the car, you’d had no idea it wasn’t his, and let him talk his way out of it?”
“I couldn’t! I couldn’t just stand by and let him—”
“Deal with it himself?”
That was a good point.
Jonathan pressed on. “Or let his agent deal with it? The agent who gets paid to look after him? Who is more than equipped to—”
“All right!” I flustered. “You’ve made your point. But I owed him a favor! He got me out of trouble in the park when Braveheart attacked that other dog and that ghastly man went ballistic with me.”
“And I guess he’s a friend,” said Jonathan obliquely.
What was that supposed to mean? “Yes. He’s a friend.”
There was an awkward pause, where I wasn’t sure what to say.
“Melissa, you have a big heart and it’s one of the things I love about you,” sighed Jonathan. “But…” He raised his eyebrows, then dropped them. “Enough with the fixing, already. Leave it. Please. I’m really not going to tell you again. Just concentrate on relaxing. Enjoying New York. Being with me.” He gave me his serious look, the one that seemed to see straight through to my lingerie. “Next time I catch you Honey-ing, you’re on the first plane back. I mean it, Miss Romney-Jones.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” he said and made a “drawing a line” gesture with his hands. “End of afternoon. Let’s start again with this evening.”
Jonathan and I arrived at Gramercy Tavern at seven fifteen on the dot. He was looking dashing in a cream linen suit, and I was wearing one of my slinky Honey silk dresses.
He caught me drawing a deep breath as we got out of the cab and almost laughed.
“Hey! Relax!” he said, slipping his arm round my waist. “It’s just dinner with a few friends.”
The maitre d’ greeted us warmly, and as we made our way toward the bar, a man called out, “Jonathan! Hey, man!”
Another man in a suit, sitting next to another man in a suit, sitting next to two women, also in suits, sitting next to Kurt and Bonnie Hegel, waved at us, and Jonathan steered me toward them with a discreet hand on the back.
They all looked like they’d come straight from work, and suddenly I felt overdressed, not underdressed. God. Was I ever going to get this right?
I smiled and got ready to concentrate on remembering their names. When I got closer, I realized to my horror that one of the women in suits was Jennifer with the Flapping Tongue from Bonnie’s party.
Okay. Rise above it, rise above it, I told myself frantically. She’s more embarrassed than you.
“Melissa! Hi!” gushed Bonnie, engulfing me in her usual embrace of bones. “You look absolutely stunning! You look like Catherine Zeta Jones!”
“Hello, Bonnie,” I said when she released me. “What a gorgeous jacket.”
“You see!” she stage-whispered to the two women next to her, directing a huge smile my way. “You see? Isn’t she a darling?”
“Hey, Melissa!”
I was delighted to see Wentworth’s friendly face. “Hello!” I said, greeting him with a kiss.” I was so sorry to miss your Labor Day weekend party!”
“Not as sorry as I was,” he said, kissing my cheek. “It wasn’t the same without you and Jon.”
Kurt appeared at my elbow. “Now, do you know everyone else here? Have you met Steve? He was at Princeton with Jonathan.”
“And this is my wife, Diana,” Steve added. “We’re all set to give birth in eleven and a half weeks!”
“Hello, Melissa,” cooed Diana, flicking back her coppery fringe to see me better. She had one of those precision-cut messy bobs that fell back into place perfectly every time she moved her head.
I gulped. I’d barely even noticed she was pregnant. Everyone here was so fit.
“So you’re back in New York!” observed Steve.
“Seems so,” said Jonathan.
“Oh, you are so London these days!” shrieked Bonnie. “‘Seems so,’ ” she repeated in deadpan tones. “Come on!”
“Jonathan, I need to drag you aside for a moment,” said Steve. “Yeah, yeah, okay, I know!” He raised his hands against the barrage of Friends-style bantering that ensued. “But I’m looking at this apartment, and I need the inside line from the man here about the board.”
“Melissa, I refuse to have you listen to that awful property talk,” said Bonnie, taking me by the arm and patting the spare seat next to her. “Let’s get you a drink. Champagne, isn’t it?”
She signalled to the waiter, then turned back to me.
“So, tell me, how are you finding everything?”
Everyone asked me that, all the time, as if I were the first English person to set foot in Manhattan since the Mayflower landed, and I was never sure what to say: “It’s all so big!” was clichéd but true. And they were being nice, and I wanted to be nice back, so I could hardly say, Why are you all so obsessed with dental products? or What’s with the sales tax on coffee?
Bonnie and Diana were looking at me eagerly.
“It’s all so big!” I caroled. “And the subway map makes no sense whatsoever.”
“Oh, you are funny. Let me come with you one morning,” said Bonnie indulgently. “I’ll show you how it works.”
“Thank you,” I said as my flute of champagne arrived with about seven different dishes of nuts and nibbles. About two seconds later, the black-clad form of Jennifer materialized and placed itself on the seat next to mine. The breasts did not move during this maneuver.
Bonnie and Diana exchanged glances.
“Hello, Jennifer,” I said, to show there were no hard feelings.
“I’m so sorry,” said Jennifer in a big rush. “I have to apologize. I’ve been carrying around this…this awful tumor of guilt.” And she scrunched her hands up to demonstrate the tumor-ness of her guilt. “My thoughtlessness must have made you feel insecure and humiliated, and you must believe me when I assure you that no one was in any way discussing you, or you and Jonathan, or you, Jonathan, and Cindy…”
“Or Jonathan, Cindy, and Brendan,” put in Diana.
“Or any combination of the above,” said Bonnie firmly.
“I am so mortified.” Jennifer put a hand to her string-of-pearls area. “Can you forgive me? I so want us to be friends. Jonathan is a wonderful, dear old friend of mine, and any woman he chooses to spend his life with is a woman I really want to get to know.”
“Well…,” started Diana, but Bonnie shut her down with a look.
Good going, Bonnie, I thought approvingly.
Jennifer now had a Hand of Appeal on my knee, which was taking it a little far. Call me old-fashioned, but there’s a time and a place for a hand on the knee, and this wasn’t it. But she looked genuinely mortified, and something about her reminded me of Gabi. The Botkier handbag, maybe.
“Really, there’s no need,” I said. “Please let’s just wipe it from our minds. I’m always putting my foot in it. And now you’ve met me you know I’m not blond—and not even that young!”
“Really? How old are you?” she asked rather directly.
“Oh, er, twenty-eight?” I stammered.
Jennifer cocked her head. “Really?”
“So, let me just get this straight, was that someone else?” Diana butted in. “I definitely heard Jonathan dated a blond girl.”
“I think wires were crossed,” I said firmly, before Bonnie could start complicating matters.
“Well, I appreciate your graciousness,” said Jennifer. “I don’t think I could be so kind.” She sighed. “The British have beautiful manners. It’s like…they’re just born with a natural grasp of etiquette.”
I thought of Godric. And Roger. And Gabi. And Prince Philip.
Though he was, of course, technically Greek.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” I demurred. “The accent covers a multitude of sins. And it doesn’t wash at home, sadly.”
“But you do have great manners,” said Bonnie. “I noticed that when we were over there. All the little kids say please and thank you. It’s adorable.”
I wondered where in London Kurt and Bonnie had been staying. “Well, I suppose we do get it drilled into us,” I said. “Thank you for saying so.”
“Oh. My. God!” exclaimed Jennifer, as if she’d just had a marvelous idea. “You could run classes in it here! I’ve seen things like that on the internet. You get to spend a week in a stately home in the UK, and learn all about flower arranging, and the aristocracy, and how to curtsey properly.”
“Really?” I hoped my father never stumbled on that website. She nodded. “Oh, yah. The HR department at the agency I work for? The head of PR went on a course so she’d know how to deal with some of our British clients. She can make scones now.” Her brow furrowed. “Scoones? Scones? Scornes?”
“Whichever you like. Lovely!” I said, because I honestly couldn’t think of anything else to add, apart from Did Jonathan tell you to tell me this?
After we chatted a bit about New York shopping techniques, the various boarding schools I’d attended, and Prince Charles, who had visited Kurt’s firm and charmed everyone by eating a digestive biscuit right there in front of them, Diana said, “Oh, Melissa, you know what would be so cool?” She shot a quick look across at Bonnie.
“What?” I played along, emboldened by the second glass of champagne and the warm girls-together atmosphere.
“If you could organize my baby shower!”
Now I knew Jonathan must have put them up to it.
“Oh, I don’t think I could, sorry. I mean, I don’t know what they are,” I said apologetically. “We don’t have them in England. A pipe of port for a boy, and a charm bracelet for a girl, and that’s about it, really.”
Diana wrinkled her brow as far as it would wrinkle, which wasn’t far. “A pipe? Of port? But, no, the shower—that’s just a lovely, lovely afternoon where the mom-to-be gets together with her closest friends and spends some quality time with them, and receives beautiful gifts for the baby.”
Bonnie nodded. “It’s a very special event. The grandmothers-to-be attend too, and it’s a lovely bonding time for everyone, in the dizzy whirlwind of the whole birth experience!” She waved her hands around to demonstrate the whirlwind effect.
“And it would be so fabulous if you could do it like a traditional British tea party!” added Diana. “You know, like one of those nursery teas you read about in books!”
“Well, yes, that would be lovely,” I said, feeling hemmed in. “But I’m sure there’s a tradition about who arranges it? Isn’t it meant to be your best friend, or your chief bridesmaid or something?”
Jennifer, Diana, and Bonnie all drew in a sharp breath and cast their eyes down at the cocktail nibbles.
“Oh, I’m terribly sorry,” I said quickly. “Have I?…”
Bonnie glanced quickly at the others, and assumed the mantle of responsibility. “Diana’s matron of honor was Cindy,” she said.
“Don’t get me wrong, I love Cindy,” Diana added, a little too quickly. “But—ha, ha!—I don’t want her round my baby!”
“Not without close supervision!” Jennifer chimed in.
“And of course she’s run off her feet with Parker, so I doubt if she could anyway,” Bonnie explained. A nanosecond too late.
“Oh,” I said.
All four of us looked at our empty glasses.
The abrupt silence allowed the conversation from the other end of the table to cut in.
“So what are the home-owning differences over there, Jonathan?” Kurt had his earnest interviewing voice on. “Would you say that the UK property market would be affected by the introduction of a co-op board arrangement in state-owned apartment buildings?”
Jonathan’s eyes were glazed like a week-old cod, but he was still making polite nodding gestures. When he caught me looking in his direction, Jonathan moved his eyebrow in his familiar, near-imperceptible “it’s just you and me in this room and no one else” way, and my heart melted.
I knew nothing about baby showers. I didn’t even like babies all that much. But if it would get me some brownie points with Jonathan, when he was making such an effort for me, then, fine, I’d do it. I really wanted this to work. I really, really did.
And if it would show up Cindy in the process, well…that was just a bonus.
“Oh, I’m honored that you’ve asked me!” I said brightly. “What a lovely way to get to know New York better. I’d love to help out. Let’s get together over coffee this week and I can give you some ideas, Diana.”
“Oh, my God! Oh, my God!” she said, clapping her hands together so hard that her bob bounced. And then fell back into perfect place.
“Really, it’s a pleasure,” I said as Jennifer and Bonnie joined in the raptures so genuinely that I did start to feel that maybe I could turn things around. Maybe, if I just tried really hard, I could fit in with Jonathan’s friends. Maybe…
“Melissa?” said Diana, suddenly very serious.
“Yes?”
She smiled angelically. “Baby says thank you.”
If I hadn’t grabbed my wineglass, I honestly think she would have placed my hand on her tiny pregnant stomach for confirmation.
I smiled, nervously.