Sally turned to Ruth. ‘How did you get hold of Rowan? You have his number?’
‘Don’t you start.’ Ruth laughed. ‘No, I don’t have his number. But I had Jeannie’s, who had Jonathan’s, and they passed on the invite to him. This was a win for him too, right? I need to go thank him.’ Ruth turned to them and said in a low voice, ‘And if everyone wants something to gossip about, this will keep them busy.’ And then she cut through the crowd and threw her arms around Rowan. ‘My hero!’
Lila wasn’t ready for the punch to her gut that inflicted on her. It was a totally irrational feeling to have – she knew nothing was going on with Rowan and Ruth, and that even if it was, it was none of her business – but irrational feelings were her specialty at the end of the day. All the butterflies shrivelled up and died.
Rowan gently detached Ruth and looked down at her with a serious expression on his face as he spoke to her. Ruth’s buzzy, manic energy seemed to dim a little as she nodded, and Lila reminded herself that her roommate had been through a real roller coaster of a day.
‘Hero? That might be taking it a bit far,’ Jackie commented. ‘He just did the decent thing, right? Hardly makes him a hero. It just makes himnota cockroach.’ She sighed. ‘The bar is so low.’
Sally laughed. ‘I agree with you in principle but…’ Sally leaned in a little closer to Jackie and Lila. ‘He did refuse to work with Stan. That’s what caused such an issue today. Why it wasn’t such an easy decision for the producers. Wesley was more than happy to get rid of Stan, but ultimately, he had to convince the producers that it wouldn’t affect the profitability of the film – and Rowan’s ultimatum gave him the collateral for that.’
‘Really? Well. Good. But how annoying that you can’t expect people to do the right thing without someone influential throwing his weight around.’ Jackie took a big swallow of wine. ‘Is it wrong that it actually makes me angrier that it matters more about which man “won” in the stand-off? What Ruth went through was almost an afterthought. Don’t you think, Lila?’
Oh God, the horror. Someone was asking her opinion about a contentious subject. HowdidLila feel about it? She wished she could just press pause on the scene for a moment while she processed it all. Rowan stopping Stan and bringing it to Wesley’s attention had been the right thing to do. Leveraging his position against someone of Stan Gillian’s reputation was…something else.
‘Sorry?’ She leaned closer towards them as though she hadn’t caught all the conversation.
‘Just an opportunity for a pissing contest or is Rowan Walker the new champion of the feminist movement?’ Sally turned to her too, her head tilted in interest. It reminded Lila of when she’d arrived in Sicily, and she’d caught Sally looking at her that way at the bus. Like there was something specific she was looking for the answer to, but it wasn’t exactly in relation to the question being asked. It unsettled her even further.
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Lila shrugged, not committing to anything. But even as she did, something inside made her feel like she was betraying Rowan by not sticking up for him, same as she had done the wrong thing by not telling Ruth about Marcus.
Lila caught Jackie rolling her eyes slightly and her chest grew heavy. No doubt to a confident, forthright woman like Jackie she was just a pathetic, vacant little mouse. ‘Excuse me. Bathroom,’ she muttered and tried to escape and gather herself back together again.
Even as she stood at the sink, running cold water on the pulse points in her wrists, someone started knocking on the door. Why was this party like torture?
But it wasn’t going to last forever. Another couple of hours maybe and then people would start to go home surely?
When she went back out into the lounge she could hardly breathe though. Rowan was in the kitchenette, hemmed in at the counter by a bunch of people and she desperately wanted to go over and talk to him, but she knew they wouldn’t be able to speak the way she was used to doing with him. There was so much attention on him and being at the centre of all the excitement was the last thing she needed. She wanted privacy with him. He was the only one here who she could relax with. When had that happened?
Right from the start,a voice inside her whispered.
He looked over at that moment and she realised she’d been staring. She raised a half-smile at him and then turned away to find her perch at the window again, but there was a group of people blocking it. Everywhere she looked, all she could see was groups of people, backs turned, talking, and laughing loudly.
It was no good.
She had to get out.
She slipped out the door and hurried down the steps towards the road. Immediately, the lowered volume eased the pressure in her head and the fresh salty air filled her lungs and helped her to catch her breath. She carried on, straight across the road to the beach.
The sun was sinking, the sky a rainbow of purple, orange and pink, with the sea dark and waves gilded. So different to how it was earlier in the day, this island was constantly changing around her, showing her new sides of itself. She settled down on the sand near the water’s edge, watching the sea creep up and recede with a soft hush; the quiet somehow working to erase the buzzing in her brain. She breathed in time to it and tried to push down all the moments at the party that her neurosis thought were good candidates to obsess over.
The trash receptacle that was her mind was stuffed full and she wished she knew how to empty it. Probably not doing stupid, embarrassing things in the first place would help – but also she knew it was about what she chose to hold on to. She was a hoarder of awkward memories – she needed to start collecting good ones. Polishing them up and examining them instead of digging down into the slimy, mouldy ones.
Her cell phone beeped, and she pulled it out from the pocket of her jean skirt. Rowan had texted her.
Rowan had texted her.
Other than that quick reassurance she gave him that she was back home okay last weekend, they hadn’t messaged each other at all. With a shaky finger she tapped the message.
Rowan: Are you okay? Are you still at the party? I haven’t been able to find you.
Her heart swelled in her chest. He had been trying to find her?
Lila: Yeah, I’m okay. Just needed to step out for some fresh air.
Rowan: Do you fancy some company, or would you prefer to be on your own?
More big, chest-filling, heartbeats. He was offering to leave the party to join her? And he was sensitive enough to know that she might need space. She was doomed. He was too much. This wasn’t just a crush; she was being vanquished.
