“You absolutely can. That is the only way to spell it,” I said to the TV. “That joke literally only works out loud.”
“Darling, switch to CNN or something,” Mom said, patiently brushing crimson polish onto her pointer fingernail and then holding it up to inspect her work. “It’s midnight somewhere.”
“It is about to be midnight in my Champagne glass.” I grabbed the bottle I’d brought and slowly turned the cork and held the bottle still. Or was I supposed to hold the cork and turn the bottle? One of them stopped the cork from—
Thunk. The cork shot out of the bottle and bounced off the monitor next to Eleanor’s bed before settling on the floor. The machine beeped an admonishment at me. Marta, asleep in a chair on the other side of Eleanor, woke with a start.
“What in the bloody hell,” she said.
“Sorry,” I said guiltily.
“Is that Marta? Are you having a nice night, Your Majesty?” Mom called out.
“Yes, it was a fright, and no, it wasn’t particularly nice,” Marta said hotly. She waved her cane toward Eleanor’s TV, which had been placed at the foot of her bed so that she and the nurses could entertain themselves. “Graham Norton, please,” she said. “He’s cheeky.”
“I texted Nick to tell him to have fun tonight, and he sent back clinking Champagne glasses and then googly eyes and the flexing arm.” I frowned, toying with the stem of my glass. “Does that mean anything or do we think he butt-emoji’d me?”
“You are asking the wrong person,” Mom said.
“It means he’s planning to drink his weight in bubbly,” Marta said at the same time. I hadn’t realized she was listening. She hadn’t even turned toward me when she spoke.
“I don’t know how we got to a place where I have to speak fluent emoji,” I grumbled.
“You were right to make him and Freddie talk it out,” Mom said. “None of those feelings were going to disappear on their own.”
“I guess so,” I said. “Not that it did any good. And now I feel like I went through an emotional wood chipper.”
“I should’ve flown over.”
“No, this is not how you want to ring in 2016,” I said. “I’m just wallowing.”
“Amen,” Marta said, still looking at the TV. “Oh, that Mark Wahlburger is hunky.”
Mom leaned in. “Did she say Mark Wahlberg looks funky?” she asked.
“He certainly does not look chunky,” Marta replied, offended.
“Can you guys both stay all night?” I asked. “This is better than any party.”
Well, other than the party Nick was at, which was apparently a soiree for the ages. Annabelle Farthing had told Country Life magazine that she was renowned for her New Year’s Eve bashes when they lived in Dubai and that she was looking forward to “taking the posh set by storm.” I was looking forward to Annabelle Farthing contracting norovirus and sending all her guests home. Not that Nick would necessarily choose to come back to ours.
“Why aren’t you celebrating with Cilla?” Mom wondered.
“She and Gaz got roped into attending her cousin’s silent retreat in Yorkshire.”
I must have looked sad, because Mom suddenly tsked at herself. “You are only pretending not to need me. I am your mother. I ought to have seen that.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
But I wasn’t. I’d insisted to everyone that a low-key New Year’s Eve at the Queen’s bedside was just what I needed. I’d ignored Cilla’s entreaties to join her in the countryside, and muted Bea’s phone calls; aside from one deranged moment in which I considered popping on Margot’s hair and escaping to the tropics, my sole plan was to numb myself until 2015 was in the rearview mirror. In that sense, I’d been telling the truth: The Queen’s chambers were exactly what I wanted. I could crawl deep into my bottle without being forced into fake-cheerful conversation, and yet I also didn’t feel alone.
“Mom, please go have fun and we’ll talk tomorrow, okay?” I said. “Marta and I are going to have a great time watching…” I checked the TV listing on the bedside table. “Bryan Adams’s hit parade.”
“I am going to hang up, but only because I have a bridge game at Hardware Pete’s house,” Mom said. “I think he and his wife are trying to set me up with Contractor John from John’s Contractors and I am not interested, but I’ll never turn down a chance to eat Pete’s onion dip.”
“Happy New Year, Mom. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” she said. She leaned up to the mic. “HAPPY NEW YEAR, MARTA.”
Marta looked startled. “I’m not deaf,” she spat.
* * *
After the state dinner, Nick had kept slipping away. Anytime I nudged the conversation in the direction of his feelings, he deflected, changed the subject, or didn’t respond to me at all. More often, I caught him simply staring out the window, which I knew from past experience meant he was adrift in whatever choppy inner seas he was hiding from me. And I got the distinct impression he was circumventing going to sleep until I was already conked out, or sneaking up to bed early so he’d be snoring by the time I noticed. Sometimes I’d wake up in the night to find him wrapped around me the way he used to, and I’d breathe deeply, inhaling him, enjoying it until he stirred enough to catch himself and roll away. Other times, he didn’t come up to bed at all. It wasn’t healthy, and I’m sure he knew it, but he seemed to believe avoidance would keep the cracks from getting any deeper.
No such luck.
New Mentality was a subsidized in-patient facility in Dalston that served at-risk teens struggling with anxiety and depression. The organization had been making a strong play for a patronage ever since Nick had told the nation the truth about his mother’s own condition a few years back, and the brothers had made mental and emotional health one of their primary causes. Freddie and Nick and I were coming by to admire New Mentality’s athletic field, and then
