Page 193 of The Long Way Home

Forty-Seven

BJ

Bridge and I are back on for our weekly lunches. Have been for the last few weeks. I think she thinks I’m good enough. If Bridget thinks it, it makes me think maybe I am. Or at least I could be.

Happy to see her again too, happy to have her grumpy, imposing commentary on our lives. Missed her — not just because of the Parks connection, but because I’ve known her since she was two and she’s like my sister too.

We’ve been doing some variant of this since high school. Bridge started at Varley when I was sixteen, and me and Parks were pretty much already together by then. Once a week we’d eat lunch just us in the cafeteria. Magnolia said she hated it but she definitely loved it. She loves her sister more than anyone. Anyone who’s good to Bridge is in her good books.

That’s not why I do it, but it’s a merry side effect for sure.

Bit of a straight shooter, our Bridge. Zero time for your shit or mine, and no matter what, even when I was a kid, after every conversation I had with her, I’d leave smarter or wiser or at least less dumb.

I take her to 45 Jermyn in St James.

She sips her gin and tonic, squints over at me. “You would have been a good dad.”

This is the topic lately. The baby. She’s obviously processing it. Scared to bring it up with her sister. I like talking to her about it. Makes me feel good. Makes me feel close to her sister. Makes me think all might not be lost.

“Yeah?” I sit back, chuffed.

“Well,” she considers, “you have a good dad, so.”

“I do,” I concede.

“Can you even imagine what a little kid version of Magnolia would have been like?”

“I can, yeah.” I nod. “I mean, we survived the original.”

Bridge shrugs. “She was less ridiculous back then.”

“Who was?” Magnolia asks, suddenly at our table with her hands on her hips, frowning down at us. Black sweater, black skirt, tall black boots and a Chanel bag from the ‘90s that I bought her one Christmas when we were together.

Behind her is my brother carrying about twenty-five bags from all over New Bond Street.

I glance up at her, my eyes more lit than I want them to be.

But I know all her looks. She’s happy to see me too.

Me, no Jordan.

Her, no Jules.

Just how it should be.

“So,” she gives me the tall eyebrows, sits down next to me without an invitation. Turns my backwards hat back round the right way. “I see your little Wednesday lunch club is back on.”

I flip my hat back the way I want it just because I hope she’ll touch me again.

“Clearly.” Bridget gives her a bored look as she smiles up at Henry.

He kisses her cheek. “Bridge.”

“Hen.”

Magnolia sighs loudly to bring the attention back on her.

“My sister and my…” she trails. Our eyes catch and I give her an amused look as I wait for her to try and label me. She bites away a smile. I don’t know what she’s smiling at, just glad she is.