Still Me (Me Before You #3) - Jojo Moyes Page 0,121

with tangerine-coloured hair holding the coffee jug. She eyed my belongings like she had seen this scenario a million times before. ‘Just got here?’

‘Not exactly.’ I tried to smile but it came out as a kind of grimace.

She poured the coffee, and stooped, lowering her voice. ‘My cousin runs a hostel in Bensonhurst if you’re stuck for somewhere to stay. There are cards over by the till. It ain’t pretty, but it’s cheap and it’s clean. Call sooner rather than later, you know what I’m saying? Places fill up.’ She put a hand briefly on my shoulder and walked on to the next customer.

That small act of kindness almost did for my composure. For the first time I felt overwhelmed, crushed by the knowledge that I was alone in a city that no longer welcomed me. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do now that my bridges were apparently pushing out thick black smoke on two continents. I tried to picture myself explaining to my parents what had happened, but found myself once again butting up against the vast wall of Agnes’s secret. Could you tell even one person without the truth slowly creeping out? My parents would be so outraged on my behalf that I couldn’t put it past Dad not to ring Mr Gopnik just to set him straight about his deceitful wife. And what if Agnes denied everything? I thought about Nathan’s words – ultimately we were staff, not friends. What if she lied and said I had stolen the money? Wouldn’t that make things worse?

For perhaps the first time since I had arrived in New York I wished I hadn’t come. I was still in last night’s clothes, stale and crumpled, which made me feel even worse. I sniffed quietly and wiped my nose with a paper napkin while staring at the mug in front of me. Outside, life in Manhattan continued, oblivious, fast-moving, ignoring the detritus that piled up in the gutter. What do I do now, Will? I thought, a huge lump rising in my throat.

As if on cue my phone pinged.

What the bloody hell is going on? wrote Nathan. Call me, Clark.

And, despite myself, I smiled.

Nathan said there was no bloody way I was going to stay in a bloody hostel in bloody God knew where, with the rapists and the drug-dealers and God knew what. I was to wait until seven thirty when the bloody Gopniks had left for bloody dinner and I was to meet him at the service entrance and we would work out what the hell to do next. There was quite a lot of swearing for three text messages.

When I arrived his anger was uncharacteristically undimmed.

‘I don’t get it. It’s like they just ghosted you. Like a ruddy Mafiosi code of silence. Michael wouldn’t tell me anything other than it was a “matter of dishonesty”. I told him I’d never met a more honest person in my bloody life and they all needed their heads looking at. What the hell happened?’

He had shepherded me into his room off the service corridor and closed the door behind us. It was such a relief to see him it was all I could do not to hug him. I didn’t, though. I thought I’d probably clutched enough men in the last twenty-four hours.

‘For Chrissakes. People. You want a beer?’

‘Sure.’

He cracked open two cans and handed one to me, sitting down on his easy chair. I perched on the bed and took a sip.

‘So … well?’

I pulled a face. ‘I can’t tell you, Nathan.’

His eyebrows shot somewhere towards the ceiling. ‘You too? Oh, mate. Don’t tell me you –’

‘Of course not. I wouldn’t steal a teabag from the Gopniks. But if I told you what really happened it would … it would be disastrous. For other people in the house … It’s complicated.’

He frowned. ‘What? Are you saying you took the blame for something you didn’t do?’

‘Sort of.’

Nathan rested his elbows on his knees, shaking his head. ‘This isn’t right.’

‘I know.’

‘Someone’s got to say something. You know he was thinking about calling the cops?’

My jaw might have dropped.

‘Yeah. She persuaded him not to, but Michael said he was mad enough to do it. Something about an ATM?’

‘I didn’t do it, Nathan.’

‘I know that, Clark. You’d make a crap criminal. Worst poker face I ever saw.’ He took a swig of his beer. ‘Dammit. You know, I love my job. I like working for these families. I like Old Man Gopnik.