Mum once told me after a few drinks that Uncle Ned took after my granddad, who could be a “difficult man.” But then she wouldn’t reveal any more. And I never really got to know my granddad before he died. So as far as I’m concerned, Uncle Ned is just one of those unsolvable family mysteries like, “Whatever happened to the key to the shed?”

“You’ll find someone,” says Mum peaceably. “And how’s the fishing going?”

Nooo! Not fishing. When Uncle Ned gets going on fishing, he can last for hours.

“Well,” says Uncle Ned. “I was down at the river the other day— Ah, Jake!” He breaks off as Jake joins the group. “How’s business, m’boy?”

Thank God. Saved from a six-hour anecdote about a trout.

“Pretty good, Uncle Ned.” Jake gives Uncle Ned his flashy smile. “Got a few interesting deals coming my way, as it happens. I’ve been at the Global Finance Conference at Olympia this week; have you ever been to it?”

Of course Uncle Ned hasn’t been to it. He used to work for an insurance company, but he was an office administrator in the Woking branch. I’m not sure he ever made it to head office, let alone any global finance conference. But he’d never admit that.

“Those were the days, m’boy,” he says, as though he were there every year. “Dealmaking and drinking and all the rest of it.” He gives a throaty laugh. “What happens at conference stays at conference, eh, Jake?”

“Amen to that!” says Jake, lifting his glass.

They’re such a couple of phonies. I know Jake only went to that conference because a friend of his had an extra pass.

“We had some times, back at the firm,” says Uncle Ned, blowing out smoke. “The stories I could tell you …” He makes an expansive gesture with his cigarette and knocks a glass off the sideboard, where it was resting. It crashes to the floor, breaking into bits, and he frowns in annoyance. “Damn it,” he adds. “One of you girls had better clear that up.”

One of you girls? I instantly prickle again, but Mum steps in, putting a hand on Nicole’s arm. “Love,” she says. “Would you mind?”

“And the MBA?” says Uncle Ned to Jake. “Going well?”

“Excellent,” says Jake emphatically. “It’ll open so many doors.”

“Nothing like letters after your name,” affirms Uncle Ned.

They carry on talking about qualifications and opportunities, but I’m not listening. I’m watching Nicole clear up the glass. She’s hopeless. She’s got a broom but she’s pushing it aimlessly at the bits of glass, spreading them around the floor, staring at her phone. Can’t she look at what she’s doing? She’s sweeping shards all over the place. This is glass. Someone could get hurt.

My fingers are drumming in that way they do. My feet have started pacing: forward-across-back, forward-across-back. I can’t stand it any longer.

“I’ll do it,” I say in a sudden gasp, and grab the broom from her. “We’ll need to wrap this glass up in paper.” I reach for an empty breadbasket and start picking up fragments with my fingertips.

“Oh, Fixie, you are brilliant,” says Nicole vaguely. “You always know how to do things.”

I was going to ask her to find some old newspaper, but she’s already started tapping at her phone, so I carry on with my task. I’m craning my head to spot the shards of glinting glass on the wood-effect floor and wrapping them in an old Radio Times, when I hear Tim’s voice booming above me, “Ryan’s back?”

I hadn’t realized Tim had arrived at the party, so I stand up and say, “Hi, Tim!” But Tim doesn’t seem to hear. He stares at me with his bullet eyes, his dark hair plastered across his forehead, then says, “So are you two an item again? You and Ryan?”

Trust bloody Tim to put me on the spot in front of everyone.

“No!” I say brightly. “I mean, not no, like, it’s totally unthinkable, but …”

“So you’re thinking about it?” supplies Tim.

“No!” I almost squeak.

“Yes, you are,” contradicts Nicole, looking up from her phone. “You were talking about it with Mum.”

Thanks a lot, Nicole, I think viciously. What I could really do with is for the conversation to move on, but Tim persists:

“How long were you two together for?”

“No time.” I try to laugh it off. “Ten days. Nothing. And I mean, he lives in L.A., so …”

“Yeah.” Tim nods slowly. “I mean, L.A. It’s a different standard, isn’t it? The women, I mean. They do things. To their lips, their boobs … plus they don’t age,” he adds, warming to his topic. “You’re a whole year older than when you last saw Ryan. In L.A. years, that’s what? A decade?”

“So I’m an old crone now?” I say. I’m trying to find this funny, but Tim has this way of pursuing a subject relentlessly, like a terrier, not noticing that you’re bleeding from the neck. Normally Hannah steps in tactfully, but I can’t see her. Where is she?

Then, as though in answer to my question, the doorbell rings and Hannah’s voice comes from the hall: “I’ll get it!” There’s a pause, then her voice comes again, like a clarion: “Oh wow, Ryan! Welcome back!”

I can feel eyes all around the room bouncing toward me with curiosity. In horror, I suddenly realize how I look, standing here with a broom in my hand and no chance to refresh my lip gloss even, and oh my God, here he is.

He’s in the doorway. His tan, sun-bleached wavy hair, and cool frayed T-shirt are like nothing else in this room. As he walks up to me, a hush falls over the party. As for me, I can’t even breathe. I’m desperately thinking: Stay cool, Fixie; do NOT get any hopes up.…

But, God, he’s beautiful. He glows.

“Hi, Fixie,” he says, his California blues locking on to mine, a lazy smile slowly spreading. “I’ve missed you.”

As everyone watches in silence, he unclips my hair with a sexy gesture, letting it fall around my shoulders.

“No, don’t!” I want to cry out, but it’s too late. As my hair drops down, half curled, half straight, Ryan blinks at it, startled—and no wonder. I can see my reflection in the mirror, and I look totally weird.

My face flames, and behind me someone stifles a snort of laughter. Great. I’ve been waiting a whole year to see Ryan and this is how I greet him. With freaky hair.

But before I can even draw breath to explain, Ryan lifts both hands to cup my face. He looks at me for a few silent seconds, then kisses me, hard. As though he doesn’t care about the hair; as though he isn’t interested in anyone else. Through a kind of humming in my ears, I hear Nicole exclaim, “Oh!” and Tim saying, “Bloody hell!”

At last we draw apart. I’m aware that the whole room is watching us, and I muster every fiber in my body to address him nonchalantly.

“Welcome back, Ryan. So how long is it for this time? A day?”

Ryan surveys me silently for a moment, his mouth twitching as though with some little joke. Then he says, “Actually, I’m back.”

“I can see that.” I match his light, bantering tone.

“No, I’m back.” His eyes flick around the room again, aware of our audience. “I’m done with L.A. Finished with it. Back for good.”

He’s—what?

I stare at him, blood thundering through my head. My brain can’t quite process his words. Or believe them. For good? He’s back here for good? Desperately I try to find a cool, witty reply, but my mouth won’t work properly.

“I’d better get you a drink, then,” I manage at last, and Ryan’s eyes crinkle as though he knows exactly how stunned I am.

“Yeah,” he says, and kisses my hand. “You better had.”

I head to the drinks table, trying to gather myself. I never dreamed he’d come back to the UK for good. I never even contemplated it.

And as I grab a beer out of the ice bucket, a giddy joy starts to infuse me. Miracles don’t come true; I know they don’t. But just this once—this magical one-off time—one did.


Six

The party goes on, as it does every year. I know I should be helping Mum with the profiteroles. I know I should be clearing plates. But for once in my life I’m thinking: Let Nicole do it. Let Jake do it. Let anyone else do it. Because Ryan wants to talk to me, and that sweeps everything else away.

We’re alone in the tiny back room overlooking the garden. It’s stuffed with furniture that we moved out of the sitting room for the party—we’re sitting on the floor awkwardly between two sofas—but I don’t think either of us cares. We’re transfixed, in our own private bubble. Ryan has been talking for about an hour and I’ve been listening in a state of shock, because he’s not saying anything I expected.

Every other time Ryan has come home, all we’ve heard about L.A. is the glamour. The excitement. The celebrities. But now he’s telling me real stuff. Painful stuff. He doesn’t look like old Ryan; he looks battered. World-weary. Kind of like he’s had it.

And the more he talks, the more I realize what he’s telling me is: He has had it. He’s done with L.A. I have no idea how he can have sunk so quickly from “My best friend is Tom Cruise” to this place, but the way he’s talking now, he never wants to see L.A. again.

“Everyone there is two-faced,” he keeps saying. “Every single bastard.”

I haven’t quite followed his tale of woe—there are two people in it called Aaron, which doesn’t help—but what I’ve picked up is that he went into business with a couple of guys, but nobody did what they’d promised to, and now he’s out of money.

“You burn through the stuff,” he says bleakly. “Everyone wants to discuss work over Japanese food or on a boat. The one-upmanship. It’s insane.”

“But when you say, ‘out of money,’ ” I venture, tentatively, “you don’t mean …”