Page 104 of The Long Way Home

Twenty-Six

Magnolia

Moving day arrives and not one person has said a thing about the cropped cotton-jersey T-shirt from the Balmain x Barbie collaboration that I’m wearing which is, admittedly, very casual but obviously very cute. I think they’re all angry at me, but it’s mostly not my fault.

Christian’s standing in our new living room, arms folded across his big chest, frowning. “You’re telling me I gave up my whole Saturday to move you into your new apartment, but you hired packers, removalists and,” he squints for dramatic effect, “unpackers?”

I let out a frustrated growl.

“I’ve only moved once before and it was without warning and in the dead of night, because your best friend couldn’t keep it in his trousers.” I give him a sharp look. “I walked into Sotheby’s on York Avenue and said, ‘I need an apartment that looks like England, is completely furnished, full of clothes because I have nothing with me, and ideally available this morning’ and they said that those probably weren’t very realistic expectations but they’d do their best, and I said, fine I’ll go shopping, call me when you find me a house.”

“What — for fuck’s sake — is your point?” blinks Christian.

“I don’t know!” I shrug. “I guess that I don’t know how to move house?”

He sniffs a laugh and shoves me.

BJ didn’t come. Not that he needed to in the end, I suppose. And I thought that he probably wouldn’t, but I hoped still that he might... just waltz on in here, grab my face and press me up against these new walls, into all these new corners, kissing me too much until Henry tells him to stop, that it’s disgusting, that we’re disgusting. I so badly miss being disgusting with him.

I’m sure it’s no good that that’s what I think of when I’m somewhere for the first time, that he seeps in through the cracks of my every single thing. He’s never been here, he’s never even seen a picture of it, and still my mind plays out how it would feel to have him standing over in that kitchen making me a cup of tea and my heart flip flops into a panic because I wonder how we’ll ever get there?

Be the kind of couple who makes each other tea and not the kind of couple who fights in the street and Star spreads shit about that’s both true and untrue all at once.

And then, I don’t know why, but Bushka walks in. What’s more, she walks in wearing a pink, cream and floral silk-twill scarf from Gucci on her head, the fringed striped cashmere-blend turtleneck poncho from Chloé and the oversized bedazzled sunglasses from Dolce & Gabbana.

“Oh, no.” I pout, tugging on a fringe. “This won’t do, you scarcely match one bit. What happened?”

Bushka looks down at herself. “I like. Is all in colour house.”

She is correct, I suppose. It is all in the same colour wheelhouse.

“It’s very busy,” I tell her, plucking the glasses off her face and inspecting them. “Are these mine?”

She shrugs. “You never wore so I took.”

I roll my eyes. “What are you even doing here? You have literally no upper body strength. Or lower body strength. Or strength of character.”

“Magnolia,” Bridget growls.

I shrug defensively. “She was a military defector.”

“She defected from the Soviets.”

“Yes.” Bushka nods conclusively. “Bad kisser. Not good to stay.”

Henry starts laughing.

“Who—” Bridget blinks. “Are — are you talking about Joseph Stalin?”

Bushka pulls back, offended. “How old you think I am?”

“Very,” I tell her emphatically.

My sister’s eyes pinch. “Yes or no on Stalin?”

Bushka nods.

“Would you have stayed if he was a good kisser, then?” Jonah asks, leaning in.