Page 21 of The Life She Could Have Lived

NO

‘Want another?’ Sarah asked, holding up her empty glass.

Anna nodded, and they both looked around for a waiter. At least every couple of weeks, they went out for cocktails straight from work. It was quieter than at the weekend, and it felt decadent. Sometimes they went for dinner afterwards, sometimes they saw a film, sometimes they just went home.

Sarah caught someone’s eye and asked for another round, and meanwhile Anna’s phone beeped, and she stole a quick look at the message before putting her phone back on the table.

‘Who’s that?’

‘My mum.’

Sarah tilted her head slightly to the side. ‘Do you need to call her?’

‘No, she’s just checking in. We’re not… close.’

‘How come?’

Anna loved that Sarah just asked the questions, never shying away from topics that were difficult or holding back with her thoughts or advice.

‘We just never were. It was just me and her, when I was growing up, and we just sort of lived together but separately, once I was old enough to have a bit of independence. We both like our own company, and we just didn’t do any of the typical mum and daughter things.

Shopping trips, going for lunch, any of that.

I don’t really know why. And then I moved out to go to university and now we just see each other a few times a year – less now I’m out here – and I think we’re both fine with that. ’

Sarah was twisting one of her curls around a finger. ‘That’s kind of sad.’

‘I know, it is. But it just doesn’t feel it, somehow. I guess because I don’t know any different.’

A few months before, on another night out like this one, Anna had leaned across a different sticky table and kissed Sarah, startling herself as much as anyone.

And since that night, they’d settled into something.

Not a relationship, not a partnership. Sometimes they kissed, sometimes they slept together.

Sometimes they didn’t. It was easy, fun.

They’d never put a label on it, never talked about it being exclusive.

Anna hadn’t been on other dates because she hadn’t really wanted to, but she knew that Sarah did sometimes.

It was kind of confusing, Anna was finding, when you were friends first. When you asked the kind of questions that friends asked, did the kind of things friends did.

When you were never sure whether Tuesday evening cocktails were going to lead to something or nothing.

Sarah was quiet.

‘What?’ Anna asked.

‘Nothing. I just like trying to figure you out.’

Anna took a long sip of her drink, felt the sharpness of the cranberry mixed with the sweetness of the orange and the kick of the alcohol. Vodka? Gin? This was only their second and yet Anna already felt looser, warmer.

‘So,’ Sarah said, ‘barely any family. Although Nia’s sort of like family to you, isn’t she?’

Anna nodded.

‘And an ex-husband who wanted children. You didn’t.’

Anna nodded again.

‘Are you dating anyone?’ Sarah asked. ‘I mean, other than me? I can’t work out what you want.’

There was no trace of jealousy in her voice. Anna believed that she was genuinely just curious. It was one of the things she liked about Sarah, how interested she was in people and what drove them.

‘I’m looking for something,’ she said after a pause.

‘I used to talk to Nia about it, when we were younger, about how I didn’t know what it was or what it looked like.

I know I haven’t found it yet. It’s not about marriage or kids, I don’t think.

It’s a feeling. I didn’t have it with Edward.

I haven’t had it with anyone I’ve dated over here. ’

Sarah looked thoughtful. ‘Have you ever had it with anyone?’

Anna thought about James. Jamie. Could she tell Sarah? It would feel like a betrayal of Nia, in two senses. Because Nia was the one she usually told everything to, and because Jamie was her boyfriend.

‘It’s going to sound weird, but I had this date once, years ago. And I thought I felt it then. But I never saw him again.’

Sarah’s eyes widened. ‘What do you mean you never saw him again? Why not?’

Anna shrugged. ‘He didn’t call. I didn’t have his number.’

‘We should track him down!’

‘Please don’t tell me you’re one of those Americans who think we all know each other in tiny old England. ’

Sarah threw back her head and laughed, and Anna had a sudden urge to kiss her throat.

She could put a stop to all this, suggest they go back to her place.

She had to put a stop to it, because she wasn’t planning to tell Sarah the bit about running into him again, in her best friend’s flat.

And if she wasn’t careful, Sarah would be going online to try to find him.

‘It’s stupid,’ Anna said. ‘It just felt different to anything else. But I’m not about to go looking for him. It was about fifteen years ago. He could be living any kind of life.’

‘Any kind of unfulfilled life! Not realising you’re the one he needs to feel complete!’

‘Sarah, leave it,’ Anna said, a little sharply.

Sarah shrugged. She was good like that. When she was asked to leave something, she left it.

‘What are your plans for the rest of the evening?’ she asked.

Anna didn’t have any. ‘Do you fancy dinner?’

Sarah shook her head, her curls flying. ‘Sorry, can’t tonight. I’ve signed up for this yoga class at six in the morning and I know if we have dinner I’ll have a late one and skip it.’

‘Okay. Do you know any good Greek places? I used to go to one back in London and I’ve been having cravings for this spinach chicken thing I used to eat there.’

‘Cravings for baklava, more like. Let me think. Greek. There’s a good one in Tribeca, on Washington. And one on East Twelfth Street that I’ve heard is good, but I haven’t been there. Are you going to go alone?’

‘Yes.’

In London, Anna would never have gone out to eat alone, but in New York, she did it often.

It came from necessity, she supposed. When she’d first moved here, she hadn’t known anyone, and she’d wanted to try out some of the amazing restaurants more than she’d cared about being seen eating alone.

And now it had become a habit. She wondered whether she’d do it in London when she moved back, now it didn’t faze her.

They got up, walked to the door. The street was busy and Sarah pulled Anna around a corner onto a quieter road. She kissed her, the kind of kiss that made Anna want to beg her to change her mind about spending the evening together.

‘I hope you find your spinach chicken dream,’ she whispered in Anna’s ear, and Anna laughed. ‘See you tomorrow,’ Sarah said, and walked away.

Anna was close enough to Tribeca to walk there, so she did, dodging the people walking towards her in big groups.

She loved walking in New York, loved the way the tall buildings made it feel enclosed somehow, loved the way there were always people around, no matter what time of day or night it was.

She didn’t know exactly where in Tribeca Washington Street was, so she just wandered around, adding the street names she passed to her internal map.

Manhattan was small enough to be manageable, to know.

She was determined to know as much of it as possible in her time here.

She imagined coming back, years in the future, possibly with a friend or lover, and being able to take them by the hand and say ‘I know this great place to eat around this corner’ or ‘you have to see the view from over here.’

Anna found the restaurant before she saw that she was on the right street, and soon she was inside at a small, round table, drinking water.

She glanced through the menu and saw that there was something very similar to the dish she’d been thinking about, and she was so excited to eat it after so long that she starting scanning for a waiter, trying to make eye contact so she could place her order.

She’d been thinking a lot about London recently, which was probably what had brought on this yearning for a particular Greek dish she’d often eaten.

The job in New York seemed to be open-ended.

There’d been no talk of it ending, but something in her was starting to miss home.

She’d only ever intended for this to be an adventure, not her life.

There was no rush, and she could easily imagine herself staying for another few years, but she felt quite sure that she would settle back in London eventually.

And it was nice, that knowing. It was comforting.

Like being out at night, having fun, but knowing you have a home to go back to.

‘Can I get you anything else?’ the waiter asked, reaching for her plate.

‘Do you have baklava?’ she asked.

‘Of course.’

‘I’ll have that, please. Could I take it with me?’

‘I’ll put it in a box for you.’

‘Great, thanks. The bill too then, please.’

Ten minutes later, just as the sun was starting to go down, Anna was out on the street, a box of sticky dessert in her hand, heading for home.

She passed a film crew, a cordoned off street, and scanned the faces for anyone she recognised.

The first time this had happened, she’d stopped and watched for an hour or more, fascinated.

But she’d soon learned it was something you got used to in this city.

Waiting in the subway station, she saw a rat darting across the platform and shuddered, picturing the tiny mice she’d sometimes glimpsed on the tracks of the Underground in London.

And then she spotted her boss, David. He was alone, hands clasped behind his back, one foot tapping the floor.

He must have felt her eyes on him because he looked up then, and put up a hand in a small wave.

Anna wasn’t sure what to do. Should she go over?

Would he come to her? Would they both stay where they were and carry on as if they hadn’t seen one another?

Before she could make a decision, it was taken out of her hands. He was walking over.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Having a good evening?’

It was awkward, almost embarrassing, a little like seeing a teacher out of school as a child.

She wasn’t really sure why. Perhaps because she had never seen him out of the context of the office, had never socialised with him or run into him in a park or in a shop.

She realised that he hadn’t really existed, for her, outside that space they both worked in.

He was a caricature, almost. The absurdly handsome manager. God, those lips.

Anna said something about drinks and dinner, wondered briefly whether he knew that she and Sarah were… whatever they were.

‘You?’ she asked.

‘Nothing special,’ he said.

She realised that he was drunk and wasn’t sure why she hadn’t noticed it before. Was it just because she’d been so thrown by seeing him at all? He was unsteady on his feet, rocking back and forth.

‘Listen, Anna, do you want to get a drink?’