She could smell Van’s cigarette, just outside on the back porch, so she pushed open the screen door and stepped into the clear cold.
“I know I should be back inside,” said Vanessa.
“It’s my party, I’ll be shy if I want to?”
“Okay, so I lack your strength, it would seem,” said Vanessa.
“I’m not judging you. I think I’d skip your party if I were you.”
“I know that by your standards a couple of academics and a doctor is pretty minor fare.”
“I was joking, I was joking!”
“Sorry—I’m bloody tense. Why am I so tense? Wish I had something stronger in this cigarette.” She flicked the butt into the dark garden. “Since we’re both skipping out on my party, one of us must be right.”
“Thanks for coming to the hotel this afternoon,” said Helen. “I do like Josh. He’s kind, he’s bright, he’s—”
“Devilishly handsome?”
“Angelically? Still too young to be devilishly—lucky chap.”
“He is my absolute love, Helen,” she said with simple pride. “I love him.”
“And I can see why.” For a second, she felt pettily envious, and almost added: the whole town can probably tell you’re in love.
“The only thing we ever argue about is my smoking … I think I want to go back to England with him.”
“I said to Dad this morning that you should be teaching at Oxford or London, or somewhere like that, not out here.”
“I want to show him off there!”
“Does he want to go? He strikes me as quite American.”
“Two months ago I would have said no. Now I think he does.”
Having some idea of what had happened in the last two months, Helen suddenly felt very sorry for her sister; it took her breath away.
“Have you and Dad made up?” asked Van. “I could see you in the kitchen—I looked through the window. It all looked terribly serious. You know he’ll come through in the end. He’s just treating your proposal like a deal. Dangling you, a bit.”
“I really don’t need him anyway.”
“It’s partly a matter of dragging him, kicking and screaming, into the future—away from his own projects. Josh and I were talking about it last night. You’re a utopian. Always on the move, restless … I feel very stuck here, by contrast. Old, snagged on my old books.”
“Oh, you love your books. They’re your best friends. You do have an awful lot, though … Three thousand?”
“Probably around that.”
“Dad and I agreed to differ. But I played a little joke on him, I couldn’t help it. I suggested to him that the good doctor is actually your therapist.”
“So that’s where you were heading…”
“He’s trying very hard to avoid him—as we speak.”
“Surprise, surprise—Dad knows as little about therapeutic protocol as you do. It would never happen.” But Vanessa was smiling, and her eyes were bright. She’d always been somewhat in awe of her sister’s boldness. “It would be like inviting to dinner the judge who is deciding on your very delicate court case.”
“Now don’t go and spoil it by whispering the truth in his ear,” said Helen.
“You are wicked, just as Josh said…”