Page 7

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“I don’t believe you,” said Lilah. “You’re talking about my fiancé. Why are you doing this?”

Opal took her phone back, swiped and tapped, and pushed it over again. Lilah sat at the table and stared at a wedding photograph. Opal was younger and less muscular but wearing the same shade of red lipstick and a white satin dress. The man holding her hand and smiling under a shower of confetti had black hair rather than silver and didn’t wear glasses, but it was unmistakably Zachary.

“You...” Lilah swallowed. “This was taken ages ago.”

“Seven years and four months ago.”

Opal swiped to show her more wedding photos. Opal and Zachary cutting a cake. Dancing at a reception. Kissing under a tree full of blossom.

The last one made her throat ache.

“So...he never told me about his first marriage,” Lilah said. “That’s not such a big deal. He’s...he’s quite a private person.”

Opal seemed quite calm. She did not look like someone who Zachary would ever marry. He was shy and bookish, and Opal was glamorous and actually quite famous. She was also acting as if she were waiting for Lilah to do something or realize something.

“When did you get divorced?”

Opal didn’t reply.

Lilah felt sick.

Opal continued on not replying.

“You’re still married?” Lilah whispered.

“On our marriage certificate, the man you know as Zachary Dickens is known by the name of Alexander Bolt. I always called him Zander. He quite likes names beginning with Z, apparently.”

“I don’t believe you,” said Lilah.

But she was beginning to.

“Are you living together?” she asked. “Do you...have children?”

“No children. And no, we’re not living together anymore.”

“How long have you been separated?”

“I have literally heard nothing about him for three years now. He walked out the door and disappeared. Not a sausage. I thought he’d left the country. But then he turned up here like a bad apple.” Opal grimaced. “Sorry about the food metaphors. I’m hungry and I don’t eat fast food.”

“Why are we meeting here, then?” Lilah was aware that this was possibly least relevant question ever, but her brain could only take in so much at once.

“Zander can change his name, change his hair color, wear fake glasses, change his backstory...but I know him. He has not eaten carbohydrates since 2004. He’d never set foot in a McDonald’s unless you tied him up and dragged him in.”

This was true of Zachary, too. He believed junk food was poison. Lilah and her dad had quite liked having fish and chips on a Friday, and the one time that Zachary had joined them, he had scraped the batter off his portion of cod and hadn’t even touched his chips.

Somehow this convinced her more than the wedding photos had.

“Do you want him back?” Lilah asked.

“Ha!” The bark of laughter seemed involuntary, and Opal visibly collected herself. “Oh. You asked that seriously. I didn’t think anyone was that na?ve anymore.”

“I’m not na?ve, I’m...concerned.”

“No. I do not want him back. I haven’t asked you to meet so that I could fight you for him or plead for you to let him go, or anything like that. Quite the opposite.”

Lilah had unconsciously been twisting her diamond ring on her finger, but at this, she stopped.

“So your marriage was over. It is over,” she corrected herself. “I don’t know why Zachary changed his name, but the two of you separated, he built himself a new life and a new career, and he was planning to divorce you before he married me. He didn’t tell me about it because he didn’t want to worry me.”

Opal raised a groomed eyebrow. “It’s a big thing not to mention.”

“Well. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”

“Did you meet him in the library? Does he claim to be a big reader?”

“He particularly likes twentieth-century drama. He’s a big Pinter fan.”

“The Zander I knew wouldn’t know a Pinter from a pointer. The only book I’ve seen him with is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People . And I know for a fact that he never read any further than the first habit, because I had to summarize it for him so he could talk about it at parties.”

“People change.”

“People do change, yes. But they don’t change their fundamental personalities. They might change their clothes and their hair and their name, though. Usually because they’re trying to hide something.”

Lilah considered herself a rational person. But this was too much.

She stood up. “I’m going to talk to Zachary about this. I need to know his side of the story.”

“Don’t do that, Lilah. That’s absolutely the worst thing you can do.”

“Why?”

“Because Zander, Zachary, whatever you want to call him, is an accomplished manipulator. He can charm the birds out of the trees. He’ll feed you a story that’s plausible enough and which plays to all of your insecurities—because he knows them, believe me—and you’ll be taken in, because you love him, and you won’t find out the truth until it’s too late.”

“I do love him!” said Lilah. “And I believe that he loves me, and that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this. And even if there isn’t, I am the sort of person who trusts the person who they love, no matter what. And that is why I have to talk to him, instead of some stranger in a fast-food restaurant.”

She turned to go.

“Wait,” said Opal.

“What?” said Lilah, exasperated.

“You might not believe me, but I think you need to talk to this lady before you go.”

Opal pointed at a woman who was crossing the restaurant towards them. She was older than Lilah, curvy and pretty. She wore a plain T-shirt and jeans, but she had a bright scarf in her hair and big hoop earrings. The woman held a tray with some fries and a drink.

“Marina,” said Opal, standing and beckoning the woman over. “I’m Opal.”

Marina had her phone on the tray. Lilah knew, somehow, that she had a text message on it, written in all-capital letters.

“Hi Opal,” said Marina. “Sorry I’m late. Transport delays, and Ewan had the worst...well, never mind, that’s a long and gross story, anyway, I’m here. Why am I here, by the way? And do I know you?”

“I’ll explain in a minute,” said Opal. “But first, I wonder if you could do something for us, Marina? This is Lilah.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Lilah, because her father raised her to be polite.

“Nice to meet you too,” said Marina, setting down her tray and joining them. She looked happy, not as if she’d been dragged into something horrible at all. She had rosy cheeks and bright eyes and looked like the kind of person who might suggest they all go for a fun brunch out.

“Marina,” said Opal, “I’ve been looking at your Instagram grid, and I’ve noticed that you’ve started a new romance.”

“Oh. Um...yes. Actually, don’t tell anyone, but I’ve mostly been posting stuff on Insta to show my ex and the PTA ladies that I’m not dead. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind with Xavier, only a few weeks, but I’m not getting any younger. Oh wait, you’re the fitness lady, aren’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“Wow. My Nana used to love you! She said you made her fall in love with pilates.” She dipped a fry in ketchup and ate it. “Oh, that is good. Guilty pleasure. Why did you text me?”

“I need you to do a little favor.”

“Um, okay?”

“I wonder if you would mind showing Lilah here a photograph of your new boyfriend, Xavier.”

Marina squinted, but she shrugged and smiled. “All right,” she said. She unlocked her phone and held it out. “I don’t have many pictures of the two of us together, but this is one.”

It was a selfie of two people, their heads close together. One of them was Marina.

The other was Zachary.