Chapter 12
Georgie can see the aftershocks as soon as I walk in the door. She was in her pyjamas and waiting in the lounge for me to get home. No one else would notice, but she does. "It's not what you think, G." I knew she assumed the worst. "I found her, we talked, she forgave me, we're going to see where this goes." She squeals and tackles me, pulling me on to the lounge with her. "I hoped it was good news, and that's why you were so late – but you look wrung out, Wells and you're still shaking a little?"
"She let me hold her, Georgie and I didn't realise how much I've needed, how much I've shut myself away from simple human contact." She looks quizzically at me, wordlessly pointing out the fact that we are currently entwined together, ostensibly giving the lie to my words. "You do know that I have two women in my life who I tolerate affection from, right? One is my baby sister, and the other is my aunt. Bing and Rich are my closest friends, and we barely shake hands most of the time. I don't really know what happened, but I just froze, and I couldn't let her go and I ended up having one of those panic attacks, but it wasn't because I wanted to get away. I just couldn't let her go. If it was anyone else they would have screamed and called the cops. She just calmly talked me off the ledge, got me breathing again and then I broke down, and she just stayed with me."
"She's a really good therapist, huh?"
"She is. But I don't want to be her client. I don't want her to have to fix me! I hope she doesn't decide I'm too much like work for her."
"Do you think she will be able to see me as a client anymore? Maybe this is what she was afraid of – that it'll be all tangled up."
"I'm not sure, G. I didn't really think about that, though I bet Elizabeth has. To be honest I'm not really sure how that works, with patient confidentiality and ethical considerations. It'll be up to Elizabeth and whether she thinks our relationship will interfere or affect her ability to help you. I don't know where it's going to go G, but I think she'll be able to be a friend to you, whatever happens between her and me, and maybe that will be enough? How are you feeling about it all? You said she's really helped you – maybe you need her more as a friend now, than as a therapist?" I sound hopeful because I am.
G waves her hand to dismiss that part of the conversation and grabs both my hands, looking for all the world like the bestie she is to me. "So, when are you going to see her again?" I can't smile any wider. "Later today. She's normally pretty busy on the weekends with family stuff and you know my schedule. So, we'll see each other when we can during the week and on weekends, but Sunday mornings will be our regular thing. We'll just take it one Sunday at a time."
I drag her closer to me and envelop her. "Thanks for waiting up, and thanks for pushing me, G." I can't find the words to express how important this step is for me, so I just squeeze her harder. "I'm sorry I'm dating your therapist, G, but I guess it's better than sleeping with your nanny?" That was part of Dad's slippery slide into oblivion. "Is it any wonder I needed a therapist?" She scoffs and rubs her face into my chest like she used to do when she'd been crying. "Are you ok, G?" I lift a tear-streaked face to mine and feel like an asshole. She does that crying-laughing thing and says, "I'm just so happy for you. I hate that nobody knows how wonderful you are, and that you had to become this horrible person just to get through life. She's the perfect person for you, Wells. She sees you, doesn't she? The person you really are. She saw me. I think that's why she's so good at her job."
Again, I have no words for all of the feelings that are welling up and threatening to come out in all the worst ways, so I just pick her up and carry her to her bedroom like I used to do when she was a child. She's not too old for me to tuck her into bed so I do that, and as she curls around her rainbow unicorn pillow, I sing her the Georgie Girl song I used to until she covers my mouth and pushes me away, rolling her eyes. I know she secretly loves it still.
An hour later, I'm almost falling asleep, when Georgie creeps into my bedroom. She has her pillow and comes close enough to see if I'm awake. I open up my arms and she falls into them, snuggling in with Pinky the unicorn. Elizabeth has found my Georgie girl, and she found me too. I feel an overwhelming urge to thank someone for that.
When I wake up, with a dead arm from the dead weight of my 16-year-old baby sister lying on me, it is to the insistent chime of the phone on the bedside table. It is 8:30am and I see Richard's name on the screen.
"This better be good."
Richard cackles and says, "Read your text messages and check the gossip blog of the Sunday Times, cuz." He hangs up before I have fully registered what he's saying. Georgie lifts her drooling face off my arm and rolls over grumbling incoherently in her sleep, while I try to get my bearings and feel the prickling tingles as the blood seeps slowly back into my fingers.
I scroll through his text messages and scan the links and clips from this morning's social diaries blog of the Sunday Times. Photos of me and Elizabeth on the dance floor are front and centre with the tagline, "Formerly untouchable DG CEO, Fitzwilliam Darcy has finally found someone tolerable enough to tempt him on to the dance floor! The Frost King seems to be thawing… poor CB! Years of effort wasted, and by a mystery woman no less! Watch this space!"
I groan and throw my phone across the room. I shouldn't be surprised. It was a gala event, of course she was going to be pictured. Georgie had kept her name off the event list, she was her "plus one" not mine, but even so. Her career choice really doesn't lend itself to publicity and I have just dropped her in it. Perth is a small town, and the circles I travel in are even smaller and more incestuous than the great royal lineages of old. It's not that big a deal but I have no idea how she is going to react and at the moment it seems like I need her way more than she needs me.
There's no point going back to sleep, so I push Georgie over, who sleeps like the dead and simply curls into a ball wrapping my blankets around her. Getting up slowly, as befits a man my age, I gather some running gear, swipe my phone off the floor where it landed, undamaged (hello, military grade phone case), and check my phone again as I head to the bathroom.
It pings with a message from Bing. I haven't spoken to him in months and all it says is, "I don't even know you anymore!" with a close-up screenshot from the Times blog of me and Elizabeth dancing. The bubbles indicate he's still typing. "I'm at Hamptons. Coffee?" I was going for a run anyway, and I usually run towards City Beach, so I tell him I'll be there in 45 minutes for a takeaway on the sand.
I take a quick dip in the water to cool off and when I walk out he's waiting for me, two coffees in hand, on the steps in front of the surf club. Bing is neither a runner nor a swimmer, he prefers golf and racquet sports, but this used to be a favourite weekend pastime for us. He's the only morning person in his family, so he'd meet me for coffee after I ran, and I would sometimes join him in a squash game afterwards.
"So… Lizzy?"
"Yep. Elizabeth."
"So, all those warnings you gave me about Jane, and her cultish obsessions and whatever else you objected to – they don't apply to Elizabeth?" I take a slow swig of my coffee and stare at my feet.
"They all apply. They weren't warnings, they were just things you needed to consider. Are you still seeing her? Cos if you aren't, you can't pin that on me." It's the guilt talking, but it's mostly true.
He sighed heavily. "I'm not still seeing her. The quiz night from hell that you conveniently disappeared from was pretty much the high point. Caroline wouldn't quit complaining – oh and you can thank her for me even seeing that blog. She called me at 7am because that site is the first thing she checks every morning. I can barely hear out of my right ear because of how loud the screeching was."
I couldn't help laughing at the thought. At least Rich waited until 8:30 before he called me. "Don't laugh, buddy. She is coming for you at some point."
"She can't be serious, Bing. I've never given her so much as the slightest hint that I might ever be interested in anything remotely related to her!"
"Well, the heart wants what the heart wants, Darce." He chuckles, but then adds seriously, "I think she's just pissed it was Lizzy. She really got stuck into both the Bennet girls, and I can't figure out why."
A flash of insight strikes me. "It's because they're happy and self-contained and completely unaffected by any of the things that matter to Caroline. They totally don't care about wealth, or status or anything like that. They care about people, and most people are drawn to that in a way people aren't drawn to Caz. You said it yourself, you had real conversations with Jane from the moment you met her. She's stunning, and so is Elizabeth, but it's like they don't care or even know… Please, do not start singing 1Direction."
"How did you know that was on the tip of my tongue?!"
"Because you are the brother of my heart, Bing." I roll my eyes, but he knows I kind of mean it. "So, have you moved on? Found another angel?"
His smile disappears. "Not really. You disappeared into work or whatever and I just kicked Caroline out and spent a few months in Sydney sorting out the issues we were having with staffing at the plant. It was good timing, my uncle has finally decided to retire, Aunt Jo was right, you don't look a successful triple bypass in the mouth. They don't come along every day. Anyway, we did a good handover, and his VP turns out to have been the right guy for the top job after all. I know, I know, you and Rich were right."
"Well, the numbers didn't lie, and Rich never makes mistakes about people. So, both of those things were on his side. I'm glad Jason worked out, he's a good operator. I hope Steve and Jo are able to enjoy retirement."
Conversation falters while we both think about the future and not having anyone to share it with. "I haven't talked to her in almost a year, Darcy. I think about her all the time."
"How'd you leave it with her?"
"I didn't really. I kind of just faded away. She threw a party after Lizzy graduated, at the Gardiner's place. But Caroline found out about it and turned up drunk. I just got her out of there and then I had to go put out fires in Sydney, and I just talked myself into thinking she didn't really care about me, so it didn't matter that I just stopped calling. She texted a few times to ask how I was, but she's not pushy, she's not the type to make the first moves, you know? It is what it is, I guess." He falls silent, staring at the sand like it might hold the answers. Eventually he shrugs. "Tell me about you and Lizzy."
"Well, after last summer, I tried to forget her, but she popped into my head for one reason or another, pretty much every day, and yeah, as lame as it sounds, I was dreaming about her too. It took me six months to come clean with Richard, and he just called me a f***ing coward. I don't know if I would've tried to find her on my own, but trying to forget her wasn't working. Anyway, it turns out she found her way to me. Not on purpose, but she was interning at the clinic where Georgie was doing some therapy after the Summer School from Hell. They really hit it off, so Georgie begged her to take her on as a private client. She followed her to the Gardiner's practice and despite trying to back off after she finally found out she was my sister, she ends up seeing her and then Georgie somehow manages to convince her to come with her, as a friend, to her first official public event. Which was last night. That was the first time I've seen her in a year."
"Woah. First time, really? You both looked like you were pretty up close and personal, Darce."
"I can't explain it, she's like magnetic. She makes me want to break all of my rules, and when I had a panic attack-"
"You had a panic attack on the dancefloor?!"
"No, thank god, it was later, but when I had it, it wasn't because I didn't want to be touched, it was because I couldn't bear to let her go. It was the same, shit-scary, unable to breathe kind of thing and I ended up gasping at her feet next to her car while she just talked me through it. It was both the most humiliating and yet liberating experience I've ever had. She never let me go, and I'm pretty sure I gave her bruises I was holding her so tight. She never freaked out."
"She's perfect for you."
"Yeah, nah. That's what Georgie said too, but I don't want-I, just, I hope she doesn't see me that way. There's more to me than my neuroses, right?"
"You're good, Darce. Fundamentally, you're a good guy."
