the kerb, put two fingers into my mouth and whistled, not flinching as the yellow cab screeched to a halt in front of me. I turned to motion Sam in, but he was staring at me.
‘Oh. Yeah. Ashok taught me. You have to kind of put your fingers underneath your tongue. Look – like this.’
I beamed at him, but something about his expression troubled me. I thought he’d enjoy my little taxi-summoning flourish, but instead it was as if he suddenly didn’t recognize me.
We arrived back to a silent building. The Lavery stood hushed and majestic overlooking the park, rising out of the noise and chaos of the city as if it were somehow above that kind of thing. Sam stopped as we reached the covered walkway that extended from the front door and gazed up at the structure towering above him, at its monumental brick façade, its Palladian-style windows. He shook his head, almost to himself, and we walked in. The marble lobby was hushed, the night man dozing in Ashok’s office. We ignored the service lift and walked up the staircase, our feet muffled on the huge sweep of royal blue carpet, our hands sliding along the polished brass balustrade, then walked up another flight until we were on the Gopniks’ corridor. In the distance Dean Martin started to bark. I let us in and closed the huge door softly behind us.
Nathan’s light was off, and along the corridor Ilaria’s TV burbled distantly. Sam and I tiptoed through the large hall, past the kitchen and down to my room. I changed into a T-shirt, wishing, suddenly, that I slept in something a little more sophisticated, then went into the bathroom and started to clean my teeth. I wandered out, still brushing, to find Sam sitting on the bed, staring at the wall. I looked at him as quizzically as you can, when you have a mouthful of peppermint-flavoured foam.
‘What?’
‘It’s … strange,’ he said.
‘My T-shirt?’
‘No. Being here. In this place.’
I turned back to the bathroom, spat and rinsed my mouth.
‘It’s fine,’ I began, turning off the tap. ‘Ilaria is cool and Mr Gopnik won’t be back until Sunday evening. If you’re really uncomfortable tomorrow I’ll book us a room in this little hotel Nathan knows two blocks down and we can –’
He shook his head. ‘Not this. You. Here. When we were at the hotel it was just like you and me as normal. We were just in a different location. Here, I can finally see how everything has changed for you. You live on Fifth Avenue, for crying out loud. One of the most expensive addresses in the world. You work in this crazy building. Everywhere smells of money. And it’s totally normal to you.’
I felt oddly defensive. ‘I’m still me.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘But you’re in a different place now. Literally.’
He said it evenly, but there was something in the conversation that made me feel uneasy. I padded up to him in my bare feet, put my hands on his shoulders and said, with a little more urgency than I had intended, ‘I’m still just Louisa Clark, your slightly wonky girl from Stortfold.’ When he didn’t speak, I added, ‘I’m just the hired help here, Sam.’
He looked into my eyes, then reached a hand up and stroked my cheek. ‘You don’t get it. You can’t see how you’ve changed. You’re different, Lou. You walk around these city streets like you own them. You hail taxis with a whistle and they come. Even your stride is different. It’s like … I don’t know. You’ve grown into yourself. Or maybe you’ve grown into someone else.’
‘See, now you’re saying a nice thing and yet somehow it sounds like a bad thing.’
‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Just … different.’
I moved then so that I was astride him, my bare legs pressed against his jeans. I put my face up close to his, my nose against his, my mouth inches from his own. I looped my arms around his neck, so that I could feel the softness of his short dark hair against my skin, his warm breath on my chest. It was dark, and a cold neon light beamed a narrow ray across my bed. I kissed him, and with that kiss I tried to convey something of what he meant to me, the fact that I could hail a million taxis with a whistle and still know that he was the only person I would want to climb into one with. I