Lessons in Laughing Out Loud (34 page)

“Holly and the twins were on the point of getting thrown out of Hamleys for teddy assault and I didn’t laugh, did I? I don’t think I laughed,” Willow said. “When did I stop laughing?”

James watched her, his breath crystallizing in the frozen air.

“You need to get some rest,” Sam said, nodding at his car.

“I’ll take her home,” Daniel offered.

“No, I don’t want to go home. I want to go for a walk.”

“Sweetheart, come on. Let’s get you home.” Holly put her arm through Willow’s.

Willow shook her head. “Here, take the key, go back with Chloe and Sam. I’m fine, I just need some time.”

Holly frowned, but she knew better than to press Willow any further.

“But how will you get back?” Sam asked.

“I’ll take her,” Daniel repeated himself.

“Yes, we will,” Kayla interjected. “Poor Willow, I don’t suppose you’re used to attention, are you?”

“I think you should go home, babe.” Daniel patted Kayla’s shoulder. “I’ll look after Will. She needs an old friend right now.”

“But I . . .” Seeing the look on Daniel’s face, Kayla stuttered into silence.

“James,” Willow said as everyone fussed around her, “will you come for a walk with me?”

James blinked. “Me? If you’re sure?”

“I am. Come on, let’s walk across the bridge.” She tried to leave, but Sam put his hand on her arm, stopping her. “Explain to me why I don’t just take Chloe home,” he said.

Willow paused. “Because I don’t think the three of us can be together at your place. And that’s what Chloe wants right now, the three of us together.”

“And what do you want?”

Willow eased her arm from under his hand. “Right now I want to go for a walk with James and talk about laughing. And the last time I checked, nobody here had the right to tell me to do any different.”

“I’m not actually sure there is anything else on the other side of the bridge much,” James said, struggling to keep up with Willow as she marched purposely toward Battersea Bridge, her heels clicking rhythmically on the pavement. “You know, apart from the power station and some houses and stuff. Oh, and South London, I’ve heard it exists . . . never been there myself. Not one for traveling.”

“I grew up by the sea,” Willow said. “I don’t think you realize how much a part of you it is, until you see some water
and suddenly you just want to go and stand next to it, feeling it moving inside you. We don’t have to go across the bridge. I just want to get to the middle.”

“Okay, these shoes weren’t really made for walking, but what the lady wants . . .”

“If I weren’t wearing vintage heels I’d almost feel sorry for you, in your . . . plimsolls.” Willow smiled at him, slowing her pace. “So all that stuff on the stage. The bit about being in love with me, wanting to marry me—all that was an act, right?”

“Yes, no, I don’t know—which would you prefer, I’m easy either way.” James attempted a winning smile, but Willow wasn’t looking at him.

She stopped as they neared the center of the bridge, leaning her face into the wind and peering down into the depths of the dark water of the Thames snaking silently by below them.

“Because you should know that now is precisely the worst moment of my life to be asking me out for a date. I have a pregnant ex-stepdaughter whose father is my ex-husband, a man I still really care about, and who I’m trying to work out some sort of postmarriage relationship with, a crazy boss who owns my soul, and things between Daniel and me have been a little weird since he saw me naked and thinks he might be in love with me.”

“He tried it on, didn’t he? I knew it!” James kicked the iron railing of the bridge, swearing loudly and wailing. “Why don’t I wear real shoes!”

“It’s because I’m wearing these magic shoes,” Willow said. “Ever since I got them I’ve been irresistible to men.”

James looked at her feet. “They are very sexy shoes, but it’s not because of that. I’ve known you since before the shoes and I’ve always found you irresistible. And Daniel has been talking about you that way since I’ve known him. He told me that you two had . . . unfinished business.” He held up his palms as
Willow’s eyes widened. “He didn’t give me any details, he just implied that once something happened between you. He talks a lot about whether the moment has passed, if it’s too late to go back. He seems to feel rather responsible for you, which for Daniel is quite possibly the nearest to making a commitment he will ever get.” James leaned his chin on the cold railing. “I obviously think it would be a terrible idea for you to get together with Daniel, but he is my friend and for what it’s worth I do think Daniel cares about you more than he’s ever cared about anyone. If you
really
want to know what I think . . .”

“Yes?” Willow looked at him.

“I think that’s what’s stopped him from trying to pick up wherever it was you two left off. He knows himself too well, and you are the one person he wouldn’t want to hurt.”

“What a terrible collection of fuckups we are,” Willow said, turning back to gaze at London, spread out before them, sparkling against the crystal clear night sky. “Do you think this city is full of people like us, holing ourselves up in our little bolt-holes, afraid of talking to anyone else, touching anyone else, in case it gets too messy?”

“I do, actually,” James said. “I used to be pissed off about always being the outsider, you know, the nice boy who kept to himself and then ended up blowing up the school. But then I realized everyone is the same, I’m just more obvious about it than most.”

“Is that why you wore eyeliner to school? To be more obvious?” Willow asked him.

“No, I wore eyeliner to school to look like Robert Smith of The Cure. It wasn’t my fault I was the only stammering goth in Bolton.” He bit his lip. “Funny, you know, I got the shit kicked out of me day after day for years, but I always got up every morning, I always backcombed my fringe and put my eyeliner on and I always went back. I used to think, one day they will
see the real me, and they’ll realize that I’m actually quite a nice bloke. They never did.”

“It sounds awful,” Willow said. “Being trapped in a situation you don’t know how to get out of. Knowing every day that something terrible will happen. That sounds bad.”

“Seems to me that perhaps you know exactly how that feels,” James said quietly. Willow looked away, over the dark waters of the river undulating under the bridge.

“I think everybody feels like that at some point in their lives,” she said.

“It was quite bad, I won’t lie. But look at me now, I’m a kick-ass accountant, they can’t take that away from me.” James waited, perhaps for Willow to laugh, but she didn’t.

“So can I ask about the car crash, it must have been awful. Did . . . did someone die?”

Willow watched him in the light of the bridge lamps for a second, his earnest green eyes filled with genuine concern. She could tell him the truth about her past, but experience had taught her that if she did, he would never be the same way with her again. There were few people besides her mother and her sister who knew. A week or so before she married Sam, she had decided she had to tell him. Willow felt that it was only fair; after all, he was the man she was going to marry, to share her life with. He deserved to know everything about her, and that wouldn’t be possible if she kept a secret of such magnitude from him. Holly had tried to talk her out of it, telling her she should just enjoy her happiness, not taint it with the past, but she had been adamant, determined. Certain that telling him would wipe a slate clean, prepare her for a fresh, new, clean life.

She had cooked his favorite meal, Yorkshire hot pot, and opened a bottle of really good wine. She’d lit candles and put on a nice dress. In retrospect, perhaps creating the air of
romance hadn’t been her best decision, but even then Willow was trying to soften the blow she was about to deal.

Willow didn’t know what she had expected, but she had been stunned by Sam’s reaction, stunned and frightened. He had been angry, no, furious, filled with impotent rage, turning over the table, sending the hot pots sliding over the polished boards. That night he wasn’t able to look at her or touch her, and worst of all, when Chloe came in rubbing her eyes to see what the fuss was about, he’d stepped in front of Willow, barred her way to his child, saying he’d put her back to bed himself. It was as if he thought she might still be tainted.

The next morning things were awkward and distant between them and Willow was fraught with the old certainty that all of this was her fault, that she had brought it on herself. Of course she didn’t deserve to be happy or loved; she was unlovable. On the second night she had cried alone in bed while Sam sat up, staring into the fire and polishing off a bottle of whiskey. It seemed to Willow that in seeking to break down the very last shade of separation between them she had crowbarred them apart, ruining her happiness with Sam before it had even begun. Then on the next day, five days before the wedding, Sam had come and sat on the edge of the bed and told her he was sorry, and Willow felt utterly bereft as he laid his head on her shoulder and wept. Willow remembered wishing that she could cry with him, but no tears would come.

Perhaps if she’d never told him, their marriage wouldn’t have always been polluted with the truth, tainting everything. Perhaps Sam wouldn’t have struggled so much with loving her, perhaps she wouldn’t have let herself fall into a spiral of mistrust and self-loathing until that rainy afternoon when Willow, numbing herself against any emotion, had let Daniel take off her clothes.

James was awkward and uncertain, a bit of an oddball and
a geek, but she liked the way he was with her and the way she was with him. The last thing she wanted was for that to change.

“Yes, someone died,” she said, telling him a half truth, unwilling to reveal that the casualty had been her.

“Is that why you don’t laugh?” James asked her. “Because you are still so sad?”

Willow was caught off guard by his questions, tears welling in her eyes before she could do anything to stop them. She turned away from him, sweeping them from her cheeks with a hurried brush of her fingers. Her initial reaction was to tense as James put his arms around her from behind, and then push him off.

“Its okay,” James said quietly. “It’s okay to be sad.”

Willow bowed her head, letting the tears fall freely and silently as James held her, his chin resting on her shoulder, looking out over the river. Several minutes passed before Willow took a deep breath and patted him on the hand as a signal to release her.

Turning to face him, she conjured up something of a smile.

“I’m so sorry, you must think I’m crazy. I suppose there’s been a lot going on recently. Sometimes all it takes is one person to be kind to you and then you just dissolve. I feel like such an idiot.”

James shook his head. “It’s hard being human,” he said. “But one of the good things about it is that we can cry when we feel sad and laugh when we’re happy.”

“I didn’t know I didn’t laugh,” Willow said. “I mean, I knew I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t know, until you pointed it out, that I was actually unhappy. I thought I was doing quite well, getting by.”

“Oh dear, I’m not at all sure how revealing your misery to you is going to help me in Operation Getting You to Go Out with Me.”

“Actually it’s sort of refreshing,” Willow said, meeting his eyes. “Doesn’t all this sadness scare you off?”

Tentatively James leaned close to her until their cheeks were almost touching. “Perhaps it should, but there is something about you that makes me feel terribly brave. I would love to see you laugh, Willow,” he whispered softly in her ear, his hot breath warm against her skin.

Smiling awkwardly, Willow took a sort of sideways step back, turning her head away from him, but James didn’t seem too offended. Shrugging, he bounced on his toes. “You know what, I think I’ve actually got frostbite. These fucking shoes, I only wore them to impress you. Seriously, what grown man wears plimsolls?”

“Where do you live?” Willow asked him, nodding at the constellation of lights on the north side of the river.

“Off the King’s Road,” James said, rather proudly. “In a mews cottage.”

“Impressive.” Willow whistled.

“I know, but it’s not mine, I’m house-sitting for this bloke I know who’s currently avoiding the tax man in the Cayman Islands. He does something very mysterious with gold.”

“A lot of men would have lied about that,” Willow observed. “A lot of men would have pretended it was their place, to try and seduce a girl.”

“I know, and I would have, but I’m distracted by the near certainty that when I take these plimsolls off, my little toe is going to come with it and you don’t strike me as the sort of woman to go for a nine-toed man no matter how loaded he is.”

“Take me back to your house for a drink,” Willow instructed him.

“Really? Back to my house? For a drink? Me and you?” James’s incredulity was almost as endearing as his candor was disarming.

“Yes, it’s . . . what, a twenty minute walk? Didn’t you tell about fifty people that all you wanted was to be alone with me? Here’s your chance.”