‘Good.’
‘How are things in the office there?’
It was the closest she could get to asking about David. Sarah would know, she thought, that that was what she meant.
‘Busy. The person David hired to replace you ended up being hopeless, so she’s gone and we’re a woman down.’
Anna was quiet. She didn’t know what to say.
‘Are you over him? David?’
‘No.’
‘You will be. Give it time. What are you working on?’
‘This book we’re calling themodern-dayPride and Prejudice. I don’t think it’s sold over there yet but it will. I’m not a massive fan because the hero is this whiny guy she meets on the Tube and it’s hardly Darcy in the lake, but it’s going to be huge.’
‘Huh. Remember when you made me watch the whole BBC adaptation ofPride and Prejudicein a single day?’
‘I do.’
While Anna was so happy to be back living close to Nia, she missed Sarah acutely. Nia was a mum now, so she didn’t have time at weekends to lounge around talking about Colin Firth coming out of the lake.
‘I miss you,’ Sarah said.
‘I miss you, too.’
And then Anna stopped walking, because she felt like she’d seen a ghost.
‘Sorry, Sarah, I have to go.’
‘Me too, actually. Alex just got here.’
‘Have a good morning.’
‘Have a good afternoon.’
Anna put the phone in her pocket and took a sip of her coffee. It was definitely him. Edward. He was looking in the other direction, entirely oblivious to his past life standing metres away from him. He was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt she had never particularly liked but had probably washed and folded fifty times. And he was pushing a buggy.
Before she could change her mind, she walked over to him, said his name out loud. Edward turned, took her in. His eyes widened. They’d exchanged emails for a while, while everything was sorted out. But then she’d moved away and there had been nothing left to tie them, and the emails had dried up. And this was the first time they’d run into one another in the street. It had been years, Anna thought. About six years.
‘Anna,’ he said.
She wanted to save him. It was clear that he didn’t know what to say to her, and she thought for a moment that she hadn’t done the right thing after all, but then he spoke again.
‘Anna, God, it’s so nice to see you!’
Anna’s face relaxed into a smile. ‘You too,’ she said.
She looked at his face and tried to be objective. He was handsome. He’d always been handsome. If she met him now, for the first time, she would be attracted to him. She wondered whether he was making the same kind of assessment of her.
‘How are you? How was your time in the States?’
Anna thought. How did you sum up an experience like that? She’d gone for a year and ended up staying for seven. Living in Brooklyn, working in Manhattan, walking past those buildings that were so iconic you felt like you were on a film set. All the adventures she’d had, and all the days she’d sat in her apartment alone, missing London.
‘It was incredible,’ she said. ‘It was wonderful.’
He smiled, and she saw that he was genuinely pleased for her, that there were no hard feelings. Or that if there were hard feelings, they were pushed down, far below the surface, and they wouldn’t come out during this chance meeting. It was time to address the elephant in the room, Anna thought. There was no reason not to do it.
