The Interview

We get back to City Airport, where George is waiting to take us home. Though it’s been barely twenty-four hours since we left, it feels like a lifetime has passed. But in a really good way.

We stop for sushi before dropping Mimi back to the apartment. I have to meet Beckett for an hour at Motcombs because he’s off to New York next week.

“I won’t be long,” I tell her, pulling her body flush with mine outside of my building. “Don’t eat it all.” I tap the lid of the sushi box.

“I won’t.”

Pressing my forefinger under her chin, I lift her gaze to mine. “You okay?”

“Just tired.” She gives a tiny shrug. “All that walking yesterday, I guess.”

I also kept her up last night, not that either of us would complain about that.

I watch her walk into the building and don’t get back into the Bentley until she crosses the foyer, disappearing around a corner. As I pull the door closed, I suffer what I can only describe as a contraction deep in my chest. It’s a physical sensation with an emotional cause: the sense that something isn’t right.

“Belgravia, wasn’t it, guvnor?” My eyes meet George’s in the rear view mirror and I nod.

“Yeah, Motcombs. I’ll only be an hour.”

“Right you are,’ he says, pulling out into the traffic.

I find myself rubbing my chest with my knuckles. She’s just tired, I repeat to myself.

“Honey, I’m home!” I drop my jacket to the console table, stepping into a quiet apartment, which is odd. When Mimi’s home, there’s usually an audible trail. Music playing, a TV left on playing mindless soaps with a variety of British accents. The whirr of a dishwasher that previously went unused; this place hasn’t been silent since Mimi arrived. The sound of her humming, the shuffle of her bare feet. The drip of a shower she’s forgotten to turn off properly.

“Mimi?” I call, making my way to the kitchen. It’s usually a good bet. Not because she’s a fan of cooking but she is a fan of eating. I try the bedroom next. She’s not there either, though from farther along the hallway I hear a thump and a muffled curse.

She’s in one of the spare bedrooms.

“What are doing in here?” I ask, pushing the door wide. The bed is covered with hangers and the walk-in closet is full. “Why are all your clothes in here?” My words sound dumb, my mind on delay. Two questions and she hasn’t even looked at me yet. By this point of our greeting, usually we haven’t come up for breath.

“I’m just making sure everything is tidy,” she says, stepping back as she slides her hand down an evening dress I know she hasn’t yet worn. “You can give these to Primrose maybe? They’re brand new and she’d look so pretty in them. Or maybe she’d like to sell them.”

Before I can ask her what the fuck she’s talking about, she turns and my stomach drops. At least one part of me instinctively understands.

“Sweetheart, you’ve been crying.”

She nods and gives a brave yet wobbly looking smile. “I can’t help but feel sad. I guess that it’s inevitable when things come to an end.”

“What are you talking about? What things?”

“Whit, I know you know this isn’t real. I can’t pretend anymore.”

“You can’t… what?” I shake my head as though I’m hearing things—as though my ears are waterlogged and need a good clean. “What are you talking about?”

“I made a mistake.” Her eyes are suddenly rain-filled clouds. “I can’t do this. I shouldn’t have gotten caught up in the moment. I shouldn’t have stayed here with you because I’ve ruined everything.”

She begins to cry, and my instinct is to go to her, but she holds out her hand and rushes past me into the hallway.

It takes me a beat to process, but I’m quick on her heels.

“What the fuck, Mimi,” I call after her. She doesn’t turn back as she ducks right into the bedroom. Our bedroom. “What the hell is going on? I’ve only been gone an hour.”

“I told you. I can’t do this, not with you. It’s not right,” she says adamantly, pulling on a drawer and scooping out an armful of her underwear. She turns to the bed and I notice her open suitcase, clothes hanging half in and half out, not sure if they’re coming or going.

My fingers fasten around her arm as she moves to the chest again. “You can’t love me, or you don’t?”

“What difference does it make?” she says, wrestling her arm away. Her eyes are red and angry, her face the color of spoiled milk.

“It makes all the difference,” I retort, getting between her and the drawers. “You can’t say one thing and mean another. Something has happened, and I want to know what it is.”

“I can’t stay here,” she says, her voice low and adamant. “I can’t be with you, not without being someone else.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“This has all been an act,” she shouts, throwing up her arms. “I’m not the woman you think I am. I’m not happy and carefree. It’s all been a fucking lie.”

“No.” I stop and blow out the breath crowding my chest. “You can’t fake it that well, darling.”

She slides me a look full of spite and malice. “What would you know? How would you even tell?”

I bark out a laugh, but I’m not feeling very amused. “That’s fucking classic,” I grate out, catching her arm again. “You think my ego is that fragile? That you’ll insult my prowess and I’ll tuck tail and run? I’ve been making women come since you were wearing pigtails.”

“I’m sure you’re very proud,” she retorts haughtily. “Release my arm. I’m going to leave, and nothing you can say will stop me.”

Her expression. The malice in her voice. I want to throw her on the bed and kiss some sense into her—kiss her to compliance. But I’m not that man. I’m not a bully. So I release my fingers before I do something we might both regret.

I stalk from the bedroom, but I don’t leave. Instead, I pull a bottle of whisky from the cabinet and treat myself to a generous pour.

What’s going through her head?

What happened in the past hour that made her so vehement?

She loves me. I know she does. I’ve seen it on her face, and I’ve felt it in her fingertips.

Bringing my glass to my mouth, I throw half of the contents back, relishing the burn. This is ridiculous. I’m not going to allow her to fuck things up for such flimsy reasoning—for a non-reasoning. She can barely look me in the face.

Maybe it was the diamond. She wasn’t even wearing it. She must’ve taken it off. Maybe I should tell her I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s not a sneaky attempt at an engagement. What does she take me for?

The thoughts begin to churn and turn in my head.

Everything was okay until I mentioned children. I want kids, but it’s a distant, vague sort of thing. I might change my mind—better the right person than the wrong one with ovaries.

Maybe that’s what this is. Maybe she can’t have kids, and it hurts too much to tell me.

Fuck it. I throw the rest of my whisky down my throat before the glass connects with the tabletop. If it’s kids, we can talk about it. It’s not a dealbreaker.

I take a step away from the table only to double back again. How do you ask that? How do I tell her it doesn’t matter when it obviously does to her?

I know she can love me. I know it.

Something’s going on. Maybe it’s the same thing that brought her here—something other than her frank demands and her clumsy seduction. What was the root cause of this? I know what the outcome is. The tattered remains beating in my chest cavity.

I slosh more whisky into the glass, willing her to appear from the room. She’s got to come out sometime, right? I dump the whisky down the back of my throat, hoping to wash away this disdain I have for myself.

She doesn’t fucking love you.

She doesn’t have to.

And you can’t make her.

The fuck I can’t.

My footsteps are loud and purposeful as I stalk down the hallway, ignoring the canvas that cost me a quarter of a million from Sotheby’s. Money fixes so many things, but it can’t fix a broken heart. Not that I intend on settling for one of those.

My feelings are hurt, that’s all. My fucking pride. All that shit is fixable. I know there’s more to this that meets the eye.

“You’re not going anywhere,” I grate out, pushing on the door. “Not until you give me a fucking reason. Half a reason—a drop. Don’t think you can feed me bullshit.”

The room seems empty, the afternoon outside blue and green and yellow, a day full of life. But inside this room, everything feels wrong. A minute ago, it was filled with angry energy. Right now, it entirely lacks energy. Her energy. Her perpetual sunshine and flowers. Her fucking… something is missing and it’s freaking me the fuck out.

“Amelia?” Her name comes out rough. She can’t have gone far, I think as something swells inside me. Disquiet is such a strange word because this sudden worried buzz in my head is anything but.

She isn’t in the closet, the hangers half empty. The clothes we’d shopped together for, the Paris dress, they’re all in the other room and her own clothes are in her case on the bed.

“For fuck’s sake, Mimi.” I push on the open bathroom door, but she’s not there, either. Cosmetics litter the countertop and damp towels are scattered across the floor. How can one person make so much mess?

I storm from the bathroom as the fist squeezes tighter and tighter when something I can’t define compels me to the other side of the bed.

“Jesus Christ!” I drop to my knees next to the sprawled form of the woman I love. She’s on her front, her position awkward, her hair like a veil across her face. Has she passed out? I roll her over, and my heart rolls up my throat. “Mimi!” If I thought she was pale before, now she looks like—

I can’t say it. I can’t think it as I begin to shake her by the shoulders.

There’s no reaction at all.

“Fuck, oh fuck.” I press my finger to the pulse in her neck, then her wrist because my shaking fingers can’t find one. My phone—where the fuck is my phone? I pat my pockets frantically, the same time as I arrange her flat on her back. It’s in my jacket pocket. I almost go and get it as my hands hover over her chest, thoughts shooting lightning quick through my head.

Wasn’t there something about apartment’s smart system being able to dial for the emergency services? Voice activated?

I don’t remember—I can’t fucking concentrate as I reach over her prone figure and knock the landline phone from the nightstand and input the digits. On my knees still, I press my left hand to the center of her chest, interlocking my right fingers over it.

“Nine, nine, nine,” says a voice from the phone. “Which service do you require?”

“Paramedics. Quickly. My girlfriend isn’t breathing.” With straight arms, I use the heel of my palm to push on her breastbone as I play that stupid Bee Gee’s song over and over again in my head.

Staying-alive-staying-alive-ah-ha… again and again.

Tension lives between my shoulder blades, sweat standing on my brow, running own my face and mingling with my tears. Abject fear fills my heart, the motions of my chest compressions happening without real cognizance. As the eldest of seven children, I relish peace. I enjoy periods of solitude. But I never want to feel this alone ever again.

I hear voices in the apartment. The concierge from downstairs and a woman’s voice. “In here,” I shout. “Fucking hurry!”

A woman in a noisy green and yellow jacket appears by my side.

“Mush up, my love. I’ll take it from here.”

“She’s not breathing,” I move to the floor by her head. I’m not going far. “Please, for the love of God, just fucking do something.”

“What’s her name, my love?” The woman, the paramedic, is about my age. Jesus, shouldn’t she have a doctor?

“I’m here first, so I’ll have to do,” she says without rancor as a companion arrives to continue the same pattern of compressions, and she gets fuck knows what out of her huge bag. “Name?” she repeats.

“Mimi. Amelia. Amelia Valente.”

“Mimi, my darling, can you hear me?”

I drop my head to my hands because I don’t think she can.

I hate hospitals, but who doesn’t? Maybe people who love their jobs, I think, watching women in scrubs and porters in navy uniforms pass along the corridors. Some smile, some laughing. They’re entitled to what fun they can glean because I wouldn’t do their jobs for all the money in the world. Deal with death and heartache on a daily basis? I find myself shaking my head in denial, catching my reflection in the window. I look like a case of care in the community. My hair is a mess, and I’m muttering to myself.

Please, God, let her be okay. Casting my eyes to the ceiling, I bargain with the big fella, not for the first time today.

It felt like we’d been alone on that floor for hours, when it could only have been minutes before the critical care paramedics turned up with their portable defibrillator. They shocked Mimi—twice—before she regained a pulse.

She was dead. She was the lack of energy I felt, and I never want to experience that again.

Dead and they brought her back. How fucking amazing is that? And now she’s in a coma; an induced coma is still a coma, whichever way you look at it. She’s lying in a hospital bed, just feet from me, on a respirator.

A door opens, and my head jerks up. I wish it hadn’t when I spot a distraught family being led out. A husband and a wife, maybe, clinging to each other. Other people follow, grief etched into their faces.

How can anyone do this job? Numbers makes sense. Death does not. Not for someone as vibrant as Mimi. Elbows on my knees, I drop my head between my shoulder blades because I feel so fucking helpless.

No. I’m not doing this, I think, sitting upright again.

She’s not dying. I won’t let her. Except…

If they lead me to that room, I’m not going in, I decide. Fuck that and fuck this, she is not dying.

The plastic chair squeaks a protest as I control the things I can, pulling my jacket from where it’s draped over the back of it. I fish out Mimi’s phone from the pocket—I’d grabbed it from the bed next to her case as she was stretchered out to the waiting ambulance. I input her code, not sure how I know it.

It’s not the first time I’ve called Mimi’s mother since we arrived at St. Barts, but she’s yet to pick up. But this time, I won’t use Mimi’s phone, just the number from her address book.

The call buzzes, then clicks. Then it rings. And it rings. And then my heart stops as the sounds of a woman’s voice.

“Hello?”

Keep it together. Come on. You’ve done this before, broken bad news. You did this when Dad passed because Mum wasn’t in any fit state to. “Is this Mrs. Valente?”

“This is she,” a wary voice replies. I suppose my accent is a dead giveaway for something out of the ordinary.

“This is Whit, Mrs. Valente. Connor’s friend?” Not so good friend, as it turns out. Jesus Christ, how am I going to tell her this?

“Oh, yes, Whit,” she says with a burst of audible relief. “How are you?”

“Mrs. Valente, I don’t know if Mimi told you but she’s working for my company.”

“No, she never mentioned it. She called earlier but I missed her call. I was at the dentist.” I close my eyes. She didn’t call. She can’t because she’s in a coma. I should’ve used my phone the first time. “Mimi told me she was working at a bank in the city.”

“Yes.” I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my noise. “The bank.” VirTu, my bank, I suppose. Springing up from the chair, I walk to the darkened window and press my forehead against the cool glass. Get. The. Fucking. Words. Out. “I don’t know how to tell you this, except to say first and foremost that she’s stable, she’s okay.” Sort of. “But she’s in hospital.”

I hear the terrified intake of her breath, her words then falling in a rush, tumbling over each other like water over rocks. “Oh my God. It’s happened, hasn’t it? Her heart?”

“Yeah. Yes, they said it’s her heart.” There go the hairs on the back of my neck again. “She had a, a cardiac arrest.”

“But she’s okay?” she demands frantically.

“She stable,” I answer gravely. Stable is better than the alternative, right? Which would be unstable. Or worse still, completely fucking rigid, stretched out on a slab.

Stop. The glass rattles as I whack my head against it as though I can afford to waste brain cells. How on earth does a twenty-four-year-old suffer a cardiac arrest?

“I need to go—I need to book flights. No,” she adds under her breath. “Tell me where, Whit? Which hospital?”

“Saint Barts—Saint Bartholomew’s. It has a…” Does she need to hear this? Yes, I decide, there might be comfort in the knowledge. “It has a heart center. It’s a teaching hospital, too. One of the best in London.”

“Thank you, Whit,” she breathes out. “But do they know?”

“Know what?”

“About her condition? About Brugada?”

“I don’t know what that is,” I answer confused and sorry and so fucking scared.

“Oh, Whit. Please go and find a doctor. Tell them, please. Let them know she has Brugada Syndrome—it’s what killed Connor.” Her mother bursts into sobs.

“I’ll go and find someone,” I promise. “Let me…”

“Yes, yes, you do that. Call me right back?”

I promise I will.

And I do, several more times between finding a doctor and explaining what her mother told me. Between googling what the hell Brugada Syndrome is and finally cursing Mimi Valente for her recklessness.