well. ‘But does he need to? You don’t need to marry him, you know. You could still go on a date with the guy, just have a few drinks.’
‘I have a five-year-old. I don’t have time for dating. I barely have time to sleep,’ she muttered.
‘Lunch then. You’ve gotta eat.’
She peered over her glasses as him. ‘Bart, it’s sweet of you to worry about the abysmal state of my love life but I’m honestly more concerned about who’s going to win The X Factor.’
‘You don’t watch The X Factor.’
‘Precisely. You know, sometimes I think you forget Happily Ever After only exists in fairy tales.’ She flashed him a sarcastic smile.
‘So cynical. So sad,’ he tutted dramatically, just as the phone rang. ‘Oh, and before I forget, Dita called. She’s getting on a plane now,’ he said as he picked it up, ‘but-says-she’s-going-to-be-in-town-next-week, most-likely-Wednesday-but-could-be-sooner, and-are-you-free-for-brunch? Hello, Fitch Studios,’ he said all in one breath.
Dita?
Lee felt her laissez-faire mood seep away like water into sand, the past dragging down her spine like a sharp red fingernail. Her former boss was a hard woman to pin down these days and hearing from her was like getting a call from the White House. She’d been like Lee and Cunningham and Schneider and all the others once too. It had taken being ambushed by Tamil Tigers to make her step back from working in the field; her daughter had been three at the time. But unlike Lee, she hadn’t turned her back on that world altogether and, as the Reuters bureau chief in London, her voice down the line – too often heard when Lee had been dialling in from some godforsaken, drought-addled war zone – had represented safety. Civilization. The land of bubble baths and coffee machines. More than once she had talked Lee down from rising panic as mortars had been shelled over her head. More than once she’d arranged a pickup to get Lee out of a ‘sticky situation’, as she’d called extracting her from Tahrir Square in 2011 when the protests quickly became riots and no woman was safe; and rescuing her when Lee found herself in the maze of Gaza tunnels as Israel began its aerial bombardment of the West Bank in the summer of 2014. Dita had a reputation amongst the men they worked with for being an uncompromising and unscrupulous hard-ass, but to Lee, she was a gravel-voiced, dirty-laughing surrogate mother.
Lee dialled her number but it went to voicemail. ‘Dita, I got your message. Text me where you’re staying when you get here. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure I see you.’
They never bothered with pleasantries. Their phone calls had always had to be punchy and to the point when a line could be cut at any moment. Still, Lee wondered what she was doing over here. Dita usually transferred flights through Paris. Why was she going to be in Amsterdam?
‘That was Julia from the gallery,’ Bart said, intruding on her thoughts. ‘The painting is all done. They’re ready when you are.’
‘Great. Did you collect the prints?’
‘Of course,’ Bart said, leading her over to the workbench and whisking away a long sheet that had been draped over the top. ‘Ta-da!’
‘Oooh!’ She stepped back, taking in the large five-foot images that were now mounted and framed to her exact specifications. He had set them out along the table in a double line and she looked at them in pairs, front and then back, working her way along the row as Bart watched on, nervously biting his nails. ‘Yes,’ she hissed under her breath with a feeling of satisfaction – and relief. ‘They look great, better than I’d even hoped,’ she murmured, peering at one of the images more closely – a thin, dark-haired woman with her hair twisted up in a chignon, pearls at her throat. She had her back to the camera and was wearing a pale-grey taffeta Dior evening gown, her face turned in profile. ‘God, you really wouldn’t know, would you?’
‘I know,’ Bart agreed, standing beside her, his arms hugging his torso as they both stared at the images of soignée perfection. ‘It’s really powerful, Lee. You’ve done it.’
She turned to face him. ‘Do you honestly think so?’
‘I know so. You’re amazing.’
She raised an eyebrow and jogged him with her elbow. ‘Even without celebs at the party?’
‘Fuck ’em!’
She chuckled, but her smile quickly faded. ‘I just hope the colour turns out the way I wanted,’ she said nervously.
‘They sent over a couple of snapshots last night, if