Persuading Annie (37 page)

‘He was the “money-grabbing student” I was going to leave with.’

Susannah went pale with shock. Words failed her.
Jake?
She realised that if Jake had been in the family all these years they might not be in this dire predicament. She’d certainly never envisaged the student to be anything like Jake. If she’d known … her mind was almost bursting with too many thoughts at this new piece of information.

Annie was satisfied. She’d certainly never seen Susannah look so discomposed. She continued.

‘You terrified me into taking the safe option. You actually convinced me that he was only with me for the money and that I was trapping him for all the wrong reasons. How could you do that? When I trusted you so much! You used your knowledge
of me against me – against my own happiness. And you’re still doing it. You confuse me all the time. How can you?’

Her breath may have run out, but her words hadn’t. They were tumbling out, together with the tears, with a force that almost scared her. She couldn’t look up at Susannah; she just had to keep going.

‘When I told him that I wasn’t leaving with him, he left me. Went out of my life. Just like that.’

Annie caught her breath. ‘And I’ve never been happy since.’

There was silence. Annie’s voice dipped with pain.

‘I’ve been
grieving
for seven years. Everything I’ve done since has been a coping mechanism. And you – who profess to know me and love me so well – you haven’t even noticed—’

Susannah didn’t respond.

Annie sank back down into the sofa and buried her head in her hands.

Finally she looked up at her godmother. Susannah was looking in shock at her.

‘I did notice,’ Susannah eventually whispered. ‘I just didn’t know what to do about it.’

They stared at each other in silence for a while.

The phone’s sudden ring made them jump. They both stared at it. Susannah picked it up.

Annie watched her on the phone, her mind full of discordant, soured thoughts.

Susannahput the phone down, her hand shaking. She turned to Annie.

‘It’s Cass,’ she said. ‘She wants us both. It’s urgent.’

‘Oh my God.’

‘Coming?’

‘Of course.’

When they reached the hall, Annie was almost as shocked as Susannah by the sight of Jake standing there. She had completely forgotten he was in the apartment.

And from the look of him, he looked just as shocked to see them there. They all jumped at the sight of each other and then stared dumbly for a while, their mouths opening and shutting like goldfish.

‘Jake was just doing some e-mails from here,’ Annie finally explained to Susannah, resenting her need to explain. But Susannah was uninterested in anything but Cass.

‘We’re just going to the hospital,’ Annie told Jake. ‘Cass has—’

‘Yes I know,’ said Jake.

‘Oh.’

‘I overheard. Um. From the hall.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’ve just got one more e-mail to do. Could I—’

‘Just shut the door behind you,’ finished Annie and they left Jake standing in the silent apartment lobby. He stood quite still after they’d gone, his chest heaving, his eyes damp. But one part of him was the most relaxed it had been for years. He stretched his neck out and put his hand to it. Not a single twitch. In the silence he closed his eyes and grinned so wide it almost hurt.

Behind him in the drawing room everything was still. Except for the tiny red light flickering in the growing dark, on the inconspicuous grey intercom.

29

BY THE TIME
Susannah and Annie had reached the hospital, Cass was feeling much better. She’d had a nasty fright and had thought she was losing her last baby. But she wasn’t.

The doctor was the most positive she’d ever been.

‘Every day longer that the baby stays inside her is good news, and it’s beginning to look like a survivor.’

Annie insisted – for the first time – that she go in to see Cass first. She took Susannah’s quiet approval as a sign that her words hadn’t soured their relationship for good.

Once with Cass, Annie made her promise not to tell her mother the truth about Edward. Cass agreed immediately and Annie knew then that the tables were finally turning.

‘You do love me, don’t you Annie?’ asked Cass quickly.

‘Of course,’ answered Annie, stunned. ‘We all do.’

It had been the most she’d been able to say. Too many new thoughts had surfaced about Cass. They’d looked at each other for a moment, before Annie had said she had to go. Now was not the time. She returned to the apartment exhausted with only five hours to go until the worn-out year was dead and gone.

Annie’s family had already returned and after making the right noises, she had locked herself away in her bedroom. Tonight was to be the biggest performance of her life.

She studied herself in her bedroom mirror, about to dab on some make-up, and tidy up her hair but, to her surprise, she had a Fonzie moment. Perhaps it was a trick of the light, perhaps it was the way the glass caught her at that second, perhaps it was because she had just got so much off her chest – whatever it was, she looked beautiful.

If only her insides were as balanced as her features.

When she finally wandered into the lounge, ready to go back to the hospital, the sight that hit her eyes was quite mesmerising. Everyone was dressed in such finery that she felt like Cinderella and almost wished she was going to the ball instead.

When the buzzer announced the arrival of Edward, she acknowledged all the knowing smiles of her family, didn’t look at Davina and went to answer the door.

Edward was standing at the door in a tux, holding a single red rose. He looked deeply gorgeous and he knew it.

He bowed and handed her the rose.

Unable to do anything else, she took it.

‘OW!’ she yelled.

She’d caught her thumb on a thorn.

‘Oh, Annie!’ exclaimed Edward, taking her thumb in his hand and kissing it, closing his eyes in apparent bliss.

Annie thought she was going to retch.

When he went to kiss her, she closed her eyes and saw Jake. No change there then, she thought bitterly.

Back in the drawing room, Annie sat down quietly on the sofa and decided to take some crisps. She realised she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. As she dug her hand deep
in the bowl, she spotted a piece of paper lodged underneath it.

ANNIE

It was Jake’s handwriting – she’d know it anywhere.

He’d left her a note there. She wiped salty hands on her leg, desperate to open the note.

‘Are you all right?’

It was Davina.

Annie almost jumped out of her skin. Davina mustn’t know that Jake had been here earlier.

‘You look rather pale,’ she said, an attempt at affection in her voice.

‘She looks absolutely perfect,’ said Edward, sitting down beside her. ‘Pale is beautiful.’

Davina managed a micro-smile before turning her golden brown shoulders away from them both.

Edward wasn’t going to move away, so Annie held his gaze while moving the crisp bowl on top of the letter. She glanced down at it briefly when she took another few crisps. It was completely hidden. She must pick it up after they’d all gone to the party.

They were waiting for David and Sophie and Tony and Fi, before leaving and of course, they were late. Annie couldn’t possibly leave before the others – she had to get hold of that letter without Edward and Davina seeing – but it was getting later and later and she knew Cass would be getting worried.

After what seemed like an eternity, the door eventually buzzed.

‘Sorry we’re late, everyone,’ David explained amid the throng. ‘We couldn’t find it. We thought it was actually
on
Fifth Avenue.’

After loud greetings followed by even louder farewell noises, Annie finally closed the door on the last of them and raced to the lounge, her heart pounding in her chest.

ANNIE

She could hardly open it fast enough, her hands were shaking so much.

The phone made her jump and she stuffed the letter in her coat pocket and answered the phone. She wouldn’t have been able to read the note with any distractions.

The voice on the other end was hardly recognisable.

‘Annie, it’s Susannah. Please come to the hospital now. Cass needs you.’

‘What’s happened? Has she lost the baby?’

Susannah’s voice was breaking. ‘She says she needs you.’

* * * * *

Brutus’s eyes were dark and hooded. But when he saw Annie, he managed a smile.

Cass’s room was dark when Brutus finally opened the door for Annie.

‘She’s fine,’ he whispered. ‘But she seems to think she has to talk to you.’

Cass looked up immediately and tried to get out of bed.

Brutus rushed forward. ‘Get back into bed, darling. Annie’s not going anywhere.’

He gave Annie a brief smile before leaving them in the darkness.

Cass forced herself to sit up and, staring determinedly at Annie, patted the bed.

Annie sat down facing her friend. Cass was much calmer than she had expected.

‘It’s about the baby,’ she started.

‘It’s all right isn’t it?’

‘Not that baby.’

Oh. Annie shifted on the bed. She spoke quietly and with a voice full of affection.

‘That baby didn’t exist, honey.’

Cass shook her head.

‘It did to you.’

‘You were –
we
were so young. It was so long ago.’

Cass sighed.

‘I don’t know where to start—’ she whispered.

‘You don’t need to—’

Cass put her hand up.

‘I never thought about how you were feeling. Not once. Now I know how you felt.’

‘Don’t be silly – this is different … we were children—’

‘I never told Mother about the elopement. You do know that, don’t you?’

Annie was stumped. Her voice lowered.

‘It doesn’t … matter any more.’

‘It
does
matter. I never told her. She was listening in on our phone call. I had no idea she was going up to college to get you until you came back home with her. By then I thought you’d just changed your mind. But it was all my fault for forcing you to tell me your secret. If I’d been a real friend I’d have trusted you.’

Annie didn’t know what to say.

‘You must forgive me.’

‘Of course I forgive you.’

‘No,
really
. Now. It’s so important to me. Will you ever forgive me?’ Cass’s voice was barely audible.

Annie moved forward on the bed and hugged Cass. She wanted to say that there was nothing to forgive. She wanted
to say that it was too long ago to remember. She wanted to say yes.

But all she could do was cry.

* * * * *

An hour later, Annie left a sleeping Cass in her room. Susannah went in to sit by her daughter for a while, and Annie sat with Brutus.

An hour and a half later, Susannah wandered out of Cass’s room. Susannah was going home to bed and insisted that Brutus come home too. He needed rest. They all did.

She looked at Annie. There was less affection in her eyes, but a new hint of respect, and Annie was surprised to find that after all the years of fearing the worst, she had survived her godmother’s disapproval.

‘Do you want to pop in and say goodnight to Cass?’ asked Susannah, and Annie popped her head round the corner of the door.

Cass was lying down again, and when she saw Annie, she smiled.

‘Aren’t you going to the party?’ asked Cass. ‘With your family … and … with Jake?’

Annie gasped. Jake’s letter! She’d completely forgotten!

Cass’s smile widened.

What time was it? Annie checked her watch. Twenty to twelve – less than half an hour before the cops go for Edward and Davina.

With rather unbecoming haste, Annie waved Susannah and Brutus into a cab and tore Jake’s letter out of her pocket. She started pacing the sidewalk back home. She knew she could get a taxi at any time, but for now, she needed the air.

ANNIE

She opened the typed note quickly. And stopped walking.

I can’t bear it any longer. I can hear everything your’e saying through the intercom – and it’s like a dagger in my soul.

have I ballsed it all up?

Oh god the years I’ve wafted. And then when I see you again – I act pathetic and proud, resentful and angry. But Annie you must know, I’ve never loved anyone except you. Just becuase I don’t know how to deal with my feelings doesn’t mean they weren’t there. Overpowering me all the time.

I;ve been such an ifiot.

And then in the alleyway I realised my feelings for you hadn’t changed a bit – why do you think I came to New York?

Come to The Plaza tonight! Meet me at the clock tower in the ballroom at midnight.

If you’re not there I’ll understand that you can’t forgive me and I’ll get on the first flight back to London tomorrow morning. This is the last time I’ll bother you.

Oh god but if you’re ther.e …

I love you

Jake

Sorry aobut the fyping; I’m a tad tense.

Annie gasped, cried and laughed all at the same time, before realising that she only had fifteen minutes to get to Jake and then she started running too. She frantically scanned the street for a cab. There were loads, but none of them would stop.
Of course! What idiot would try and get a cab at quarter to midnight on New Year’s Eve? Anyway, the chances were that if she managed to hail a cab, she’d only end up in a traffic jam. It wasn’t worth the risk. She could run it in just about fifteen minutes if she kept up a good pace.

She had to go down Columbus, cut across Columbus Circle and then go all along Central Park South, alongside the Park. Easy.

She picked up her pace, her heart flying.