FIC: "MODE: Final Issue!" (Ugly Betty, B/D and lots more pairings besides, PG13), part 1 of 4
OK, so, if you found my Doctor Who/Sense & Sensibility crossover too harsh and unsentimental, this is the fic for you! But "Ugly Betty" was always a very joyous show for me to watch, and Betty/Daniel has been my id ship for about four years, so I make no excuses: This fic is all about the happy happy joy joy. Plus the death of print media.
Thanks are greatly due to betas rheanna27 and her_lovelyheart. One of Willie's jabs at Claire (the best one, you'll know it) is paraphrased from Joan Rivers, and a UB-related joke by sheldrake also made its way into Willie's dialogue. Expect spoilers, and characters, from the entire run of the show. Hope you enjoy!
**
MODE: FInal Issue!
by Yahtzee
1. mid-April 2010
“That guy who plays the evil doctor and the really evil doctor?” Betty’s eyes go so wide Daniel has to laugh. “Oh, my God. That’s amazing. She must be so thrilled. Why didn’t she tell me at the farewell party?”
“Apparently Amanda and her father ran out of the party so she could get a matching tattoo that very night,” Daniel says. “But it turns out choosing a tattoo artist at the last minute on impulse isn’t necessarily the way to go.” When Betty raises an eyebrow, he elaborates: “Remember the time Tweety took those pills that turned him into giant evil Tweety? Marc says it looks more like that.”
“Oh, no,” Betty says, but she’s laughing too. “Wow. I just remembered that clip that went viral a couple years ago - you know, the one where the really evil doctor pushes his twin off a cliff before setting the reception tent on fire? It’s so … Amanda.”
“I know. Looking back, I can’t believe we didn’t figure it out just from that.” He’s only half-joking.
They’re at a Moroccan restaurant near Covent Garden, sitting on cushions, scooping up lamb and rice with torn bits of bread. Betty’s as smooth at it as Daniel, if not more so. For a moment he remembers the Betty of four years ago, who hid her mussels in a napkin rather than try to eat them. He took her out for pizza after, and they drank cheap red wine and sang karaoke. They ended up on the Queensborough Bridge in the wee hours of the morning, looking out on the quiet city and promising to meet each other one day at dawn - something that never happened. Why didn’t he make that happen? In retrospect, he can’t believe he didn’t know even then.
But that Betty is gone. If that’s the person he’s come across the Atlantic to find, Daniel reminds himself - he’s out of luck. He has to find out how he and this Betty fit together, if they still fit at all.
He hopes they do.
“You know, I mentioned to Lindsey Dunne that you were in town for a while.” The expression on her face is so familiar that he takes heart - her hopeful good-sense look. “He says the two of you should have lunch. Talk some things over.”
“Is he personally interviewing candidates to be your assistant?”
“Ha ha. Seriously, Daniel, he owns as many publications as Meade does. Maybe more. Meade Publications doesn’t compete with his stuff in Great Britain. If you’re still interested in editing--”
“I’m not.” He glances upward at the multicolored lanterns overhead, trying to find the right words. “I don’t know what I am interested in, exactly. But something different. Something new.”
Betty frowns a little. “So, for the foreseeable future, you’re just - hanging out?”
He’s thankful that he has an answer. “No. There’s this course starting up through the University of London - it’s for professionals looking at career changes. Three days a week for the next couple of months, intense business education stuff. They bill it as being for people who don’t want to get a second MBA. Hopefully you don’t have to have a first MBA to get in.”
“Come on. You know you’ll get in. You graduated from Harvard.”
“After six years.”
“Still!”
“Hope you’re right,” Daniel says. “I applied at the last minute. Seems like a good place to start looking.” In truth, this is the only educational experience he’s ever signed himself up for, an “intense” one at that, and it freaks him out a little. He’s not sure if he can do it. But he means to find out.
“I’m proud of you.” Betty smiles brilliantly, although there’s still something between them - a wariness in her. How do they get past it? Daniel doesn’t know.
He takes a deep drink of his wine, trying to bathe the uncertainty into silence. But he can’t get drunk, not even tipsy, because, wow, that is not going to win him any points. Daniel feels he needs points right around now.
“So,” she says, in a way that makes it clear she felt the awkward pause as heavily as he did. “Wilhelmina must have been thrilled with your decision.”
“She took it with uncharacteristically good grace,” Daniel says. “Mom says she’s been in a wonderful mood. When her new assistant messed up her lunch order the other day, she still threw it at him, but everyone’s pretty sure she meant to miss.”
“Do you trust her?”
“I trust her to do a good job with the magazine and make it profitable, or as profitable as it can be in this market. As long as that’s the only relationship we have to have, we ought to be okay. Besides - she has her moments.”
“Wilhelmina came to the farewell party.” Betty’s voice is a bit too bright. “She said I had really big balls, which means something coming from her.”
Daniel nods, but he finally knows what’s shadowing her smile. “I was there, you know.” She stares at him, and he takes a deep breath. “I watched you dancing from the hallway. You looked so - happy to be leaving. I couldn’t be happy for you, and I hated feeling like that.”
“I kept leaving you voicemails.” Her voice wavers at the end. “If you couldn’t do anything else, you could have called me back. Or texted. Something.”
“No, I should have come into the party. I should’ve danced with you. I should’ve sucked it up enough to tell you goodbye.” Daniel had known he’d screwed up, but he hadn’t realized how badly it hurt her until now. Until this second, he’s been afraid that he hadn’t mattered to her as much as she matters to him - but he can’t take any reassurance from seeing her in pain. “I’m truly sorry, Betty. There aren’t even words for how much I owe you, but - I know I at least owed you that.”
She nods. It’s not all right again, but it’s better; her even letting him see this much vulnerability is a step forward. “Thank you for telling me. I needed to hear it, you know? Why you couldn’t say goodbye.”
“That’s not why I couldn’t say goodbye,” he says slowly. “It’s why I couldn’t come to the party.”
Betty’s eyes meet his. Moment of truth. It’s important to get this right - it can’t sound like he’s throwing this back at her. He just wants her to see how they’re the same. Or how he hopes they’re the same.
“I didn’t tell you goodbye for the same reason you didn’t tell me you were taking the job in London,” Daniel finally says. “Neither of us could say we were ready to let each other go. Because we aren’t.”
She blinks, obviously more startled than moved. Not the reception he was hoping for.
Tentatively, he asks, “… are we?”
Betty looks down at the patterned tablecloth, thick dark hair falling in front of her face, and for a moment Daniel’s heart plunges to an area somewhere around his socks.
Without looking up, she says, “No. We’re not.”
Then she lifts her head, and when their eyes make contact, he feels it in his gut, in his heart, all along his skin.
“I missed you,” he said.
“I missed you too. I’m glad you’re here.” Betty tucks a bit of hair behind her ear and laughs - almost nervous, Daniel thinks, but in a good way. He knows because he feels it too. “I want to show you London. But - you must have been here before, right? Probably lots of times.”
“A few times,” Daniel concedes. “But I want to see your London.”
“And find your own.”
“And find my own.”
**
2. Late April 2010
“So, are you anxious about your big lunch?” Daniel says.
“Nah.” Tyler walks along 57th Street, just in front of Carnegie Hall. Carnegie Hall! Technically he’s a New Yorker now, but he’s still new enough to marvel at it. Sometimes Tyler thinks he’s wandered into a film set instead of his new life. It’s eventful enough to be a movie, that’s for sure. “After you and Alexis, I figure meeting my one remaining sibling should be easy.”
“Matt Hartley’s a nice guy,” Daniel says. The transatlantic connection is so clear that Tyler almost wants to turn his head and see if Daniel’s following him. Or is that paranoia? With the Meades, family feeling and paranoia seem to go hand in hand. “A writer, a painter - he’s talented. You’ll get along.”
“Hope so.”
“Listen,” Daniel says, and there’s a new weight to it. Whatever Daniel’s about to say, it’s important to him. Tyler braces himself: Does he have other siblings he hasn’t been told about yet? These days, anything seems possible. He just hopes it isn’t an evil twin. Please, no evil twin. “Can you maybe give me a heads-up about something?”
“Yeahhh--” Tyler draws it out cautiously. “What is it?”
“If Matt’s coming to London to see Betty, could you let me know?”
Tyler has a vague memory of Betty as a nice sort of girl who wore glasses. “Were they friends?”
“They were actually an item for quite a while there.”
“Oh, I get it.” Mom’s hints about Daniel’s sudden move to London come together, and Tyler starts to grin. He should’ve taken a closer look at Betty Suarez. “You’re going to outmaneuver the competition?”
“I just want to know. That’s it. No scheming,” Daniel says firmly. “After MODE, seriously, I’m done for a lifetime.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
It’s only a joke, but Daniel says, “And there’s the Meade in you. I was starting to wonder.”
Tyler weighs it and shrugs. “Can I tell Matt I’m telling you?”
“Sure, if you want to.”
“That’s not a scheme at all.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“Now that I’m in this family? I feel like I need some practice.”
“You’re not wrong,” Daniel says, and Tyler can hear the smile in his voice.
“Hey, speaking of competition …” Tyler would definitely prefer to bring this up while they’re in a good place. “Now that I’ve finished the rehab, and I’m feeling okay, I was thinking of, well, getting back out there. Dating.”
“Amanda, huh?” Thankfully, the smile’s still. “No competition, trust me. Go for it.”
“Thanks. I will.”
As Tyler disconnects the call, he reflects that asking permission to date his brother’s ex isn’t a very Meade thing to do. But he’s not wholly a Meade, and he doesn’t want this romance to start out with any drama - or, he muses, without any more drama than Amanda’s likely to bring to the table on her own. As much as he’s enjoying getting to know Mom, Daniel and Alexis, he needs something in his life that isn’t a total soap opera.
**
Matt is not a character in a soap opera. The first thing Tyler says to him is, “Thank God. I was starting to think I was the only person in New York who owns a flannel shirt.”
“There are at least three of us,” Matt says. “You, me, and the remaining hipster who hasn’t received the memo about Western shirts being the next big thing.”
They share a grin, kindred spirits at once.
The conversation swiftly goes from polite to easy to fun to intimate; within half an hour, Tyler’s spilling about how much it sucks to be an alcoholic when your main job skills are in bartending. Matt turns out to be a big believer in starting over, and he’s full of ideas - from delving into the art world to volunteering in Africa. As the meal goes on, Tyler feels a deep sense of relief. He’s become fond of Daniel and Alexis, but Matt feels like his sibling, immediately, in a way the others won’t for a long time to come. It’s nice to know that at least one part of this is going to be simple.
They even get down to the money.
“Claim your shares,” Matt says with total conviction. “They’re worth millions, they’re rightfully yours, and honestly, hitting Dad in the pocketbook is sometimes the only way to get his attention.”
Tyler doesn’t know if he wants Cal Hartley’s attention or his money. “Those millions - it’s half of what would otherwise be yours. Only yours. You honestly don’t care?”
“It’s only money.” Matt says this in the way that only people with money can. Tyler appreciates it anyway.
“Maybe. I have to think about it.”
“Don’t think too long. Hesitation - it can cost you.” Matt’s face takes on a wistful look. “When I took off for Africa - don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret it, but I left someone behind. Someone I never should’ve left behind.”
Uhoh, Tyler thinks. Red alert, Daniel. “You mean Betty?”
“You met Betty?”
“Yeah, she was still at MODE when I got here.”
“She’s great,” Matt says, his smile fond. “God, I was crazy about her.”
“… was?”
“Some things happened before I left that convinced me - convinced us, I think - we just weren’t right. Being in Africa only strengthened that for me.”
Tyler smiles. Daniel doesn’t have to worry about competition after all. “So who’s the lucky girl?”
“She used to work at MODE too - I’ve still got to look her up.” Matt’s voice has become almost dreamy. “Did you meet a girl named Amanda Tanen?”
So much for any of this being easy.
3. early May 2010
“Reinvention,” Betty says. As she presses a button on her laptop, the projected image changes from one of a downbeat woman to one who is happy and energized. She’s not photoshopped to be thinner or more glamorous - she’s just more excited about her life. And, well, with no more blue colorwash like in the “depressed” photo; in magazines, subtlety doesn’t pay. “Virtually every lifestyle magazine plays with this theme, but usually in very superficial ways. Before and after photos, that kind of thing. I’m suggesting an issue about reinvention from the inside out.”
“I like it,” purrs Lindsey Dunne. “Edgy and yet upbeat. Rather like Oprah before she became an oligarch.”
In the world of media, being compared to Oprah is always a good thing. “I’m not saying we can’t tie wardrobe updates into this.” FM is not going to be a fashion magazine - it’s about ideas, careers, life-work balance, stuff that matters - but no lifestyle magazine can afford to ignore fashion entirely, and these days, Betty gets why. “But pieces always claim that if you change the outside, you can magically change the inside. I want to write something that shows you how you have to change from within first. It’s kind of important to me.”
“And why is that?”
Betty stops. She doesn’t have an answer; it’s too obvious for words. Or it would be to anyone who had known her for more than six months.
But here, in London, nobody knows she’s reinvented herself. This Betty - sleek and successful - is the only one they know.
She says only, “I think, down deep, we all see ourselves as works in progress. Don’t you?”
Dunne chuckles softly, admitting it without words. “A universal theme, indeed. Well done, Betty.”
For one instant, she feels as though her former self has ceased to exist. Like there’s no floor beneath her, only sky. It’s too early to tell if she’s falling or flying.
**
The feeling stays with Betty for hours, ambiguous and overwhelming, until dinner, when she is more pleasantly distracted.
“The concept is called Covet,” Daniel explains over Chinese food and beer. “Basically, take the iPhone app for identifying a song and automatically buying it, and apply that to consumer goods.”
“How is your phone supposed to identify a sweater or a car?” Betty scoops rice onto her chopsticks.
“Forget cars. They’re too large for impulse purchases,” says Daniel, apparently forgetting that Betty knows about the Ferrari he bought on a dare when he was 23. Then again, he’s not exactly the average consumer. “Ailes’ idea was to convince manufacturers to implant info chips in everything they sell. Some manufacturers are already doing this, and that number is probably only going to increase--”
“But right now, it’s not enough people to be viable. And nobody’s going to add security chips just to fit in with an untried app.”
“Which is why I told him we should roll it out with the one segment of clothing manufacturers who are already using the chips.”
Betty sees the genius of it, and Daniel starts grinning even before she speaks. “Designer couture. The anti-counterfeiting tags--”
“The designers will share the information. They want people to be able to tell the genuine article from the knockoffs on sight. And if we introduce Covet as something high-end, luxurious, exclusive--”
“Then everyone else will want in on it. It’s an amazing concept, Daniel. How did you meet this Roland Ailes guy again?”
“Since I was kind of assistant-less after Amanda left, I actually went through my own mail for a while, and this press release caught my attention. Ailes sent it to MODE during my last month there - pretty amateur stuff. He might be a great software designer, but he doesn’t have any idea how to present himself. It’s no wonder nobody else bit. But I figured as long as I was moving to London, I should talk with him.” Daniel looks a bit sheepish. “I admit, I don’t get the tech side of it at all.”
“No, really?”
“Yeah, okay, I suppose I don’t have to tell that to the person who taught me how to send a fax. But Ailes can handle the science if I provide the financing and the contacts. We’ve had a few good ideas already.”
Betty parses what he’s said. “You keep saying ‘we.’ You’re going after this, aren’t you?”
Daniel wards off speculation by holding up his chopsticks. “He’s got a lot more development to do. And I have to survive this course. But - you know, I think it’s solid. Worth investing in.”
“And you have the connections to make it work.” She’s almost absurdly proud of him. He ducks his head, bashful at the praise, and once again she feels the frisson of - whatever this new thing is between them.
And she’s still not sure if it’s flying or falling.
Ever since Claire hinted around at the big farewell party, Betty’s been turning the idea of her and Daniel - something she can’t even say out loud, me and Daniel - over and over in her head. At first it was a curiosity, so wrong it was almost funny.
And then, on her last day in New York, when Betty realized he really wasn’t going to come by or call, she started to realize how not-wrong it might be - and not just for Daniel. She remembered how she’d felt about Trista, how her mere existence had grated on Betty’s nerves: This despite the fact that Trista, dim as she appeared to be, was a kind-hearted, friendly girl. She’d gone into her phone’s memory to see just how many times she’d called Daniel’s voicemail in the previous few days; her need to see him was there, over and over, ten digits repeating themselves with no answer. Even at the airport, she’d found herself looking for him, like he was going to emerge from the crowd with flowers like some character in an Anne Hathaway movie.
She knew she wasn’t in love with him. But in those few hours, she’d wondered if she could be. Whether, if she hadn’t gotten the job offer, she might have been within a few months. If he was in love with her. The questions unsettled her so that she was almost relieved when the plane took off and the ocean slipped between them, with no movie endings in sight.
Of course, then Daniel showed up in Trafalgar Square, three blocks from her new office, just like a character in an Anne Hathaway movie, and now -
Now they’ve already slipped into spending a lot of their free time together. Five dinners and two lunches in two weeks, and text messaging is sharply on the rise. They’re telling each other as much about their thoughts as they did when they worked together, facing one another through a glass wall for eight hours in a row, five days a week. It feels natural - enjoyable - to talk to Daniel about everything in the world.
Except one subject, the one that is rapidly becoming the elephant in the room.
But when they crack open their fortune cookies tonight, hers reads, THERE IS A TIME FOR STILLNESS AND A TIME FOR ACTION. Is that a sign that it’s okay to remain silent right now? To let this simply be whatever it is for a few days more? Betty thinks it might be. Maybe it’s just the beer at the end of a long day, but it feels right to just … relax into the moment.
She unfolds her message for Daniel, who nods. “Good one. Cryptic enough to mean anything, but definitely seems to mean something.”
“The fortune cookie ideal.”
“Exactly.” Then he reads his own and his eyes go wide.
“Daniel? What is it?”
He holds up the paper, which reads, LOOK OUT FOR MRS. MAGGI.
“Whoa!”
“Is that the creepiest fortune ever?”
“Yeah, I think it is. Do we know a Mrs. Maggi?”
“No, but I’m going to keep an eye out.” Daniel starts laughing only a couple moments before Betty does. “Jesus, that is weird.”
They cab it back to her place, speculating the whole while. “Maybe she was one of the guy’s teachers back in school,” Betty says. Rain splatters down outside, and the windshield wipers keep time with their conversation. “A really mean one. He was so scared in her classes that he blanked on the tests, and he failed to graduate, so now the only job he can get is writing fortunes.”
“Maybe it’s his mom. Maybe this is Junior Maggi, tired of being nagged about getting married.”
They’re sitting very close to one another, even though it’s a big cab. Their knees are angled toward each other, so they slide together for a moment every time they take a turn. Betty notices how Daniel has arranged this - or is it her? Probably it’s them. But right now, it seems less dangerous to figure out the secret of Mrs. Maggi.
She gasps. “I’ve got it! She’s an evil supervisor at the fortune-cookie company.”
“Gotta be.” Daniel smiles in satisfaction. “You’re brilliant.”
“Yeah, well, we knew that.”
The cab reaches its destination, and they hug goodbye in the backseat. Daniel squeezes her hand. “Good night, Betty. See you Friday?”
“Friday,” she says. The anticipation she already feels must be in her voice, because his smile broadens. Daniel doesn’t let go of her hand, and she doesn’t pull away. The only sounds are the idling motor and the slap of windshield wipers. There’s a moment’s hesitation between them - a moment when something could happen - but that’s when an idea decides to be born. “Not Covet.”
“What?”
“The business. You shouldn’t call it Covet.”
“Uh, okay.” Daniel looks a little dazed, as well he might. “Why not?”
“The ten commandments,” she says. “Do you really want your business to be named after something the Bible says thou shalt not do?”
He weighs this for a second. “You’re probably right. But Covet has the right feel - short, to the point, suggests desire. It should be something like that.” An almost boyish disappointment creeps into his voice. “We’d even worked out this really cool C logo. For the little app thing on the iPhone, you know?”
Betty considers. Then a slow smile spreads across her face as it comes to her. “Crave.”
“Crave,” he repeats, and they grin like co-conspirators. He squeezes her hand again, and it’s the only goodbye they need. She dashes through the rain to the front steps of her building, and there, under the small green awning, she turns to see the taxi drive away, until it’s only a few red lights among all the rest.
Tonight, she doesn’t have to define who Daniel is in her life. She only has to be glad he’s back in it.
4. Late May 2010
“How much for this thing?” Hilda holds up a stuffed leather burro one of the girls bought in Mexico. “You think we could get $10 for it?”
“I don’t care how much we get,” Ignacio says, for about the twentieth time that morning. Madre de Dios, he loves his family, but not one of them has the slightest idea how to handle a yard sale. “We want it out. Price it to move.”
“Somebody might pay $10,” Hilda insists. When he stares at her, she adds, “Well, somebody crazy might. And we have plenty of crazies in this neighborhood.”
Ignacio shrugs. She’s got a point.
“You’re really getting rid of a lot of stuff, Grandpa.” Justin emerges from the laundry room with a newly dried pile of Betty’s old Disney sheets. It hurts to throw those out; Ignacio even kept one set, and he has to hope they’ll go to a good home. Somebody should buy those for their own little girl, who loves princesses and dreams of a fairy tale of her own. “Are you sure that’s okay? I mean, nobody respects minimalist chic more than I do - well, more than Oshi and I do - but won’t the house look kind of empty?”
“I’ll fill it back up,” Ignacio says. “And faster than you think. Get cracking, will you? The bargain hunters get started by 6 a.m.”
In truth, Ignacio isn’t sure how the house will ever feel full again. Betty already gone, Hilda, Justin and Bobby only a few days from walking out the door: Within a week, he’ll be as alone as he’s been since he moved out of his parents’ house as a boy. Even then, within a year, he’d met his wife and fled with her to the United States. What will his life be like in a year? He can’t imagine.
Austin has turned out to be the kind of kid who will show up at 4:30 in the morning to help with his boyfriend’s grandfather’s yard sale. Good thing, too, as he’s the only one who seems to have any idea how to put the household goods in an order that might sell. Ignacio adds another item to his new, ever-increasing list: The gays are good at organizing. After Austin opens a box from the attic, he holds up something glittery. “Are these ... Christmas ornaments?”
“Don’t you dare sell those!” Hilda vaults over a pile of old clothes, like Austin could dispose of the ornaments that instant if she didn’t stop him. “Papi, you can’t get rid of our homemade decorations. I’ll take them if you don’t want them.”
“I want them,” Ignacio says. But then his eyes meet Hilda’s, and he knows they’re both seeing the dilemma for the first time. Where will they spend Christmas this year? Who gets the ornaments they all made together, as a family? Even the most constant parts of his life are now subject to doubt.
Shut up, old man, he tells himself. What kind of a father keeps his daughters in his home with him forever? A failure of a father, that’s what kind. You did your job. They are in the world and doing well, and you can ask for nothing better than that.
Except, perhaps, some idea of his own place in the world now.
**
By 9 a.m., the kitchen implements and linens have been thoroughly picked over; the leather burro, repriced at $2, remains standing guard over some old shoes. Although they won’t close up until after noon, Ignacio is willing to bet that they’ve made all the profit they’re going to - until a cab pulls up and Amanda bursts out, Marc right behind.
“Oh, my God, you started without me!” She clatters along the sidewalk on high heels - really, women wear those at 9 a.m. on a Saturday? - and half-falls, half-pounces on the clothing rack. “If people have pawed through the racks and taken all the good Bettywear, I will hunt them down and scalp them.”
“I’m willing to wager it’s on the rack unpawed and untouched, just as it was when she wore it,” Marc says. He’s wearing a royal blue trenchcoat and an ascot. “Morning, Mr. Suarez. Hey, Justin!”
Justin beams. “Hey, Marc. I’ve figured out how to make a mochaccino. Want one?”
“And betray the frappuccino? Never.” Marc flinches from the burro. “Please tell me that was never alive.”
“The Flower Skirt of a Thousand Deaths!” Amanda pulls it from the rack and stuffs it into her oversized metallic handbag. “The Dumpy Sweater, Blue Version! The Dumpy Sweater, Yellow Version! Hellbelt! The Dumpy Sweater, Red Version! Mark, look. It’s the whole greatest hits collection, just here waiting for us.”
“We should build a shrine,” Marc says. “And set it on fire.”
She smacks him. “If you burn my precious collection of Bettywear, I’ll - I’ll - let’s just say I know where you keep your porn, and there is NOTHING to stop me from replacing it with DVDs of ‘Ghost Whisperer.’”
Ignacio would like to be offended on his daughter’s behalf, but after being surrounded by issues of MODE for the past four years, he feels fashion-conscious enough to agree that, yes, that belt was from hell. “What do you plan to do with all this?”
“I’m going to create a massive work of performance art,” Amanda says dreamily. “Or a shrine. Or maybe I’ll mail them to Betty, one by one, like they’re trying to sneak up on her. Like they’re haunting her.”
“Ghosts of ghastly outfits past,” Marc says. “I like it.” Justin elbows him, but affectionately.
“Well, don’t send them to Betty if you want them preserved forever,” Ignacio says. “She says she’s got no closet space in London. Apparently her apartment makes even the places in Manhattan look roomy.”
Marc and Amanda stare, aghast. “I just felt an icy shiver down my spine,” Marc says.
“Like biting into a York Peppermint Patty,” Amanda says. “But evil.”
Hilda sticks her head from the front door. “Hey, you guys! You know we’re about to be neighbors, right?”
“Are you moving into Betty’s old place?” Amanda chews her lower lip and looks weirdly guilty. “Give me a chance to scrub out the freezer first, okay?”
“No, silly! We’re moving to our own little corner of Manhattan. Inwood. You know it?”
Marc and Amanda stare at Hilda blankly, and Ignacio has to stifle a smile.
Hilda repeats, “Inwood. You know. Way up there? North of 200th Street?”
“I don’t think Manhattan has a 200th Street,” Marc says.
“It so does,” Justin says. “You know, the Dominican Day Parade? Always starts up there.”
Amanda squeezes Ignacio’s shoulder. “It’s a Dominican neighborhood? Then you’ll feel right at home!”
Ignacio would like to point out that he’s not moving, but there’s something more important to clear up: “Dominican is not the same as Mexican.”
Amanda frowns suspiciously. “Then how come Dominicans speak Mexican?”
“You got me there.” Ignacio sighs and pats her on the arm as she returns to shopping
“Come on and get something to eat, Marc,” Hilda says. “You’re too thin. And you gotta tell us all about how it’s going with Troy!”
“Too thin,” Marc muses. “It’s one of those phrases in English that ought to make sense, but is essentially meaningless.” But when Justin starts pushing him up the steps, he goes.
“Is this for sale too?” Amanda says, pointing at a laundry basket. When Ignacio nods, she starts grabbing Betty’s old clothes off the rack by the armful and tossing them in. Without stopping, she says, “Mr. Suarez? You’re good at, like, advice, right? I mean, I have my own dad now, and he’s great, but he’s still kind of new at this whole fatherly business.”
Ignacio braces himself. “Out with it. What’s troubling you?”
She never looks away from the clothing rack. He wonders if she really thinks she’s fooling anyone with that bravado. “OK, I used to have a thing for Matt, Betty’s Matt, though it never turned into anything. Except now he’s back and it maybe could turn into something.”
“I’m sure Betty wouldn’t mind if you went out with him now.” Betty no doubt is meeting new men in London. Maybe Daniel can introduce her to some friends, as long as he’s over there.
“Right, but see, while Matt was off in Africa doing African stuff, I got to know Tyler - Daniel’s secret brother? And he’s awesome, and he wants to go out with me too. If I liked one of them more, I would know what to do, but I want both. And they’re not open to that. I asked.” Finally Amanda glances over her shoulder, expression as uncertain as a child’s. “My whole life, I never even met one guy who really seemed to like me for me. And now there are two of them at once. Why couldn’t they space themselves out?”
“Life doesn’t work that way,” Ignacio says. “Listen. It doesn’t only matter how you feel about a person. It matters who you are when you’re with them. When I met my wife, I knew I was becoming a better man. Who makes you the better woman? Ask yourself that, and you’ll know the answer.”
“That’s how I pick?” Amanda frowns. “Reality TV is so wrong about that.”
“I’m shocked.”
“Thank you,” she whispers, before diving back into shopping with even more gusto than before. “You solve everyone’s problems!”
That’s the moment that makes Ignacio realize - he can solve his own problems too.
Heck, what problems? For the first time in a long time - too long - his life is going to change. Why has he been spending the last few weeks feeling old? Change is something that happens to young people. It won’t be easy, but who is it easy for? Not his Beatriz, making a new home for herself half a world away. Not Justin, daring to stand up and say who he is even if the world wants to disapprove. Not even Hilda, who has to learn how to run a home instead of live in it.
Maybe he can put his own touches on the house. Maybe he can travel. Hey - Elena was talking about how much she liked that summer she worked in Florida. Ignacio wonders if he could surf places like Hotwire and Priceline, maybe get a deal on a weekend getaway for the two of them. Now, that’s the kind of change he could use more of in his life.
As he grins, Amanda points at the burro. “If I give you $50 for all these clothes, will you throw him in? I think he could wear some of Halston’s old outfits.”
“Deal,” Ignacio says. Yep, someone crazy took it.
5. A couple days later in late May 2010
Tonight’s the night.
Daniel came to London with the understanding that he wasn’t going to rush things with Betty, that he’d probably have some persuasion to do, but he hadn’t counted on how hard it would be to wait. After years of seeing Betty as adorable only in a very abstract way, it’s almost humiliating to find himself in thrall to her. Three weeks in and already he can’t stand not touching her. It’s time to make his move.
He’s never been very patient, romantically speaking. In part, this is because for years he mostly dated girls who had only a passing acquaintance with the concept of wearing underwear. Even as Daniel has become more discerning, though, he’s remained bad at waiting. Anticipation makes him crazy; it’s a turn-on in itself.
As he dresses for the evening - black shirt, just dressy enough; good jeans, just casual enough; those shoes she found for him years ago, so maybe she’ll remember - Daniel decides: We’ve known each other for four years. Haven’t we waited long enough?
She must be as eager as he is.
**
Three hours later, in Betty’s apartment - after an abortive kiss that had Betty bending away from him so fast she banged her head against the brick wall outside her door - Daniel is holding an ice bag to her temple and wondering whether he’ll simply be able to sweep the remains of his ego from the floor, or whether this task will require a mop.
“Look at it this way,” Betty says, after way too many seconds of silence. “We’ve been in more embarrassing situations.”
“None are coming to mind.”
“When you lied about saving that Girl Scout from drowning? The time I did the motorcycle stunt for PLAYER? That oompa-loompa tan you bought to convince everyone you’d been to Rio? Tornado Girl?”
“You know, all of that is true, and none of it is helping.”
“Daniel, we’re okay. Aren’t we?” Betty clearly wants to be careful here. Like she’s the one who might have offended him, instead of the one who got rushed at by her best friend who clearly didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
Worst of all: On one small, bitter, petty level, he feels offended. His imagination hadn’t really encompassed the idea that he might want Betty when she didn’t want him. The part of him who thinks this isn’t the way things should be is the part of himself he hates the most, and yet, it’s there.
“We’re okay,” he says. “I have to admit, I was hoping the first time I came up to your apartment wouldn’t be to make sure you didn’t need stitches.”
It’s a feeble joke, but it seems to affect her. “Ever since you got to London, I can’t tell if we’re - hanging out or flirting or, or … what.”
He’s still holding the bag against her head as they sit on her tiny loveseat, with only one lamp on. Someone across the room would probably assume they were lovers, Daniel thinks, with her only an arm’s length away, and him leaning close enough to kiss. “I thought maybe we could figure that out together.”
“But you’re not figuring it out. Are you? It feels like it’s only me.”
She feels like he’s being evasive, still, only minutes after the most embarrassing non-kiss since he unknowingly hit on Alexis. Daniel wants nothing so much as to laugh it off and come up with some silly lie that gets him off the hook. He knows Betty well enough to know she’d let it slide. Probably she wants to escape from this moment as badly as he does. But letting this go means letting her go, and he can’t.
“Those last few days you were in New York - when I couldn’t tell you goodbye - I guess it hit me. Yeah, it’s a really stupid time to figure out you’re in love with somebody -- right before they’re leaving the country. So I asked myself if I wanted to be with you badly enough to change my whole life for it. And I did.”
Betty’s face flushes somewhere around the words “in love.” It hasn’t made her happy; it’s flustered her. “But you came here for the University of London course. Not for me.”
“They have those courses in New York. Boston. Sydney. Lots of places. I wanted to do it, but - you’re the reason I’m in London. I want more. I want you.”
Silence. Betty couldn’t look blanker if she were trying; Daniel really hopes that’s from shock and not dismay. She hasn’t pulled back. That’s got to be a good sign, right? Or maybe it’s just that her head still hurts.
She finally says, “I have to think about this.”
“Yeah. Absolutely.”
“You mean a lot to me, Daniel. I don’t want to change our relationship if it’s only going to mess us up.”
“I know.”
“And - it’s like you said in New York - I don’t want to go backwards.”
It’s karma in action for his interference with Betty and Henry, sending his own words back at him like a boomerang. And its aim is true: The worst thing Daniel can say about his misspent years is that they mean Betty might not be wrong. “Okay.”
“You don’t need to go backwards either!” Betty wraps his free hand in both of hers, and her touch almost deafens him to the harder reality of what she’s saying. “We have these patterns, you know? You take risks you shouldn’t, and I -”
“You clean up the mess.”
“We both want to break out of that, right? I don’t want us to trip each other up.”
He feels as though he could wither on the spot, like some dead thing. “So,” he says. “That’s … a no.”
But Betty shakes her head. “It’s a maybe.”
“Maybe,” Daniel repeats.
“Are you okay with that?” She genuinely looks frightened that he’ll walk out the door.
Be a man, he tells himself. “I’m not giving up my best friend, no matter what.”
Betty relaxes slightly, and he knows he’s said the right thing. It helps.
And yet he stays awake for hours after he goes home, wondering if he’s been on a fool’s errand after all.
**
Daniel spends the next day at home on his sofa, in his boxers and an old T-shirt, alternating between eating his way through a packet of HobNobs and watching ITV. It’s hard to say which of the two is more pathetic, at least until evening, when he begins to form opinions about Audrey on “Coronation Street” and gets his answer.
He gets exactly three messages the entire day. One is from his mother, which Daniel doesn’t open; she’ll be asking how things are with Betty, and he wants to lie to her about it only slightly less than he wants to tell her the truth. The second is from Alexis, who turns out to be headed to London and thinks they should get together. Daniel wonders if Alexis would even bother coming if he wrote back that his soul is already as crushed as it can get, thus depriving his sister of her favorite sport. The final one is from Ailes, asking if they’re still on for the Monday meeting about Crave. It takes him longer than it should to say yes.
Conspicuous by their absence are any messages from Betty. They’d been texting or emailing each other about once every hour or two; now, neither of them knows what to say.
The next morning is the first day of his University of London course. Daniel sets the alarm, but for ten minutes in the morning lies in bed, motionless. He considers going back to New York. He considers going somewhere else entirely - Milan, maybe, or Rio for real this time. He considers catching up with back episodes of “Coronation Street” on the ITV website.
And then he gets out of bed and goes to class.
It’s terrifying. Almost everyone else in the class has a solid decade or two of real business experience, and they don’t seem daunted remotely by the prospect of spending eight solid hours a day, three days a week, delving into corporate structures. Daniel knows must look like a deer in the headlights, but he listens, and he types notes furiously, and he hopes he’s following some of this.
Come lunchtime, everyone starts introducing themselves and setting up power lunches, and Daniel plays the game, but he feels like he’s faking it until halfway through the meal, when he looks down at his phone and sees a message from Betty.
“How’s your first day?”
“Confusion and flop sweat. But hanging in there. How’s your head?”
“Better. Are we still up for a drink after?”
Daniel had hoped their plans for a drink tonight would be romantic - that by now he’d be in a position to kiss her hello, and goodbye, or ideally good morning - but mostly he just wants to see her. “Absolutely.”
**
So he stops hanging on to Betty’s hand and finally starts finding his London. He keeps going to class, even if, at the end of the day, he often feels like his head’s been repeatedly slammed into a brick wall. Some of what they cover - way too much of it - is totally alien territory. And yet every once in a while they hit upon something he learned from his four years at MODE: distribution of goods, refinancing, marketing. When that happens, he goes from treading water to swimming. It feels kind of amazing.
He hears about a crewing team that’s looking for a rower. Crew was just about the only thing Daniel liked about Andover. A couple of emails, a talk on the phone, and the next thing Daniel knows, he’s spending his Saturday mornings on the Thames. The guys are mostly just people he says generic hellos to, then drinks beer and jokes around with after. But a couple of them seem interesting, and one burly fellow, Gareth, might actually turn into a friend.
And he works his contacts. Although Daniel profoundly hopes he has written his last editorial letter about swimwear, he knows he’d be stupid to burn the bridges MODE built for him. Stella McCartney is free for lunch; he flies to Paris one morning to spend the day at Chanel before returning that same night. Right now this is mostly schmoozing, but if and when Crave goes from theory to reality, these meetings will pay off.
So a lot of the time - most of the time, really - Daniel focuses on building a new life for himself, as himself.
But then he and Betty get together, and he sees her smile, and it feels like everything else he does is just a way of killing time until he can be with her again.
**
Continued in Part Two --
( Part Three
Part Four)
Thanks are greatly due to betas rheanna27 and her_lovelyheart. One of Willie's jabs at Claire (the best one, you'll know it) is paraphrased from Joan Rivers, and a UB-related joke by sheldrake also made its way into Willie's dialogue. Expect spoilers, and characters, from the entire run of the show. Hope you enjoy!
**
MODE: FInal Issue!
by Yahtzee
1. mid-April 2010
“That guy who plays the evil doctor and the really evil doctor?” Betty’s eyes go so wide Daniel has to laugh. “Oh, my God. That’s amazing. She must be so thrilled. Why didn’t she tell me at the farewell party?”
“Apparently Amanda and her father ran out of the party so she could get a matching tattoo that very night,” Daniel says. “But it turns out choosing a tattoo artist at the last minute on impulse isn’t necessarily the way to go.” When Betty raises an eyebrow, he elaborates: “Remember the time Tweety took those pills that turned him into giant evil Tweety? Marc says it looks more like that.”
“Oh, no,” Betty says, but she’s laughing too. “Wow. I just remembered that clip that went viral a couple years ago - you know, the one where the really evil doctor pushes his twin off a cliff before setting the reception tent on fire? It’s so … Amanda.”
“I know. Looking back, I can’t believe we didn’t figure it out just from that.” He’s only half-joking.
They’re at a Moroccan restaurant near Covent Garden, sitting on cushions, scooping up lamb and rice with torn bits of bread. Betty’s as smooth at it as Daniel, if not more so. For a moment he remembers the Betty of four years ago, who hid her mussels in a napkin rather than try to eat them. He took her out for pizza after, and they drank cheap red wine and sang karaoke. They ended up on the Queensborough Bridge in the wee hours of the morning, looking out on the quiet city and promising to meet each other one day at dawn - something that never happened. Why didn’t he make that happen? In retrospect, he can’t believe he didn’t know even then.
But that Betty is gone. If that’s the person he’s come across the Atlantic to find, Daniel reminds himself - he’s out of luck. He has to find out how he and this Betty fit together, if they still fit at all.
He hopes they do.
“You know, I mentioned to Lindsey Dunne that you were in town for a while.” The expression on her face is so familiar that he takes heart - her hopeful good-sense look. “He says the two of you should have lunch. Talk some things over.”
“Is he personally interviewing candidates to be your assistant?”
“Ha ha. Seriously, Daniel, he owns as many publications as Meade does. Maybe more. Meade Publications doesn’t compete with his stuff in Great Britain. If you’re still interested in editing--”
“I’m not.” He glances upward at the multicolored lanterns overhead, trying to find the right words. “I don’t know what I am interested in, exactly. But something different. Something new.”
Betty frowns a little. “So, for the foreseeable future, you’re just - hanging out?”
He’s thankful that he has an answer. “No. There’s this course starting up through the University of London - it’s for professionals looking at career changes. Three days a week for the next couple of months, intense business education stuff. They bill it as being for people who don’t want to get a second MBA. Hopefully you don’t have to have a first MBA to get in.”
“Come on. You know you’ll get in. You graduated from Harvard.”
“After six years.”
“Still!”
“Hope you’re right,” Daniel says. “I applied at the last minute. Seems like a good place to start looking.” In truth, this is the only educational experience he’s ever signed himself up for, an “intense” one at that, and it freaks him out a little. He’s not sure if he can do it. But he means to find out.
“I’m proud of you.” Betty smiles brilliantly, although there’s still something between them - a wariness in her. How do they get past it? Daniel doesn’t know.
He takes a deep drink of his wine, trying to bathe the uncertainty into silence. But he can’t get drunk, not even tipsy, because, wow, that is not going to win him any points. Daniel feels he needs points right around now.
“So,” she says, in a way that makes it clear she felt the awkward pause as heavily as he did. “Wilhelmina must have been thrilled with your decision.”
“She took it with uncharacteristically good grace,” Daniel says. “Mom says she’s been in a wonderful mood. When her new assistant messed up her lunch order the other day, she still threw it at him, but everyone’s pretty sure she meant to miss.”
“Do you trust her?”
“I trust her to do a good job with the magazine and make it profitable, or as profitable as it can be in this market. As long as that’s the only relationship we have to have, we ought to be okay. Besides - she has her moments.”
“Wilhelmina came to the farewell party.” Betty’s voice is a bit too bright. “She said I had really big balls, which means something coming from her.”
Daniel nods, but he finally knows what’s shadowing her smile. “I was there, you know.” She stares at him, and he takes a deep breath. “I watched you dancing from the hallway. You looked so - happy to be leaving. I couldn’t be happy for you, and I hated feeling like that.”
“I kept leaving you voicemails.” Her voice wavers at the end. “If you couldn’t do anything else, you could have called me back. Or texted. Something.”
“No, I should have come into the party. I should’ve danced with you. I should’ve sucked it up enough to tell you goodbye.” Daniel had known he’d screwed up, but he hadn’t realized how badly it hurt her until now. Until this second, he’s been afraid that he hadn’t mattered to her as much as she matters to him - but he can’t take any reassurance from seeing her in pain. “I’m truly sorry, Betty. There aren’t even words for how much I owe you, but - I know I at least owed you that.”
She nods. It’s not all right again, but it’s better; her even letting him see this much vulnerability is a step forward. “Thank you for telling me. I needed to hear it, you know? Why you couldn’t say goodbye.”
“That’s not why I couldn’t say goodbye,” he says slowly. “It’s why I couldn’t come to the party.”
Betty’s eyes meet his. Moment of truth. It’s important to get this right - it can’t sound like he’s throwing this back at her. He just wants her to see how they’re the same. Or how he hopes they’re the same.
“I didn’t tell you goodbye for the same reason you didn’t tell me you were taking the job in London,” Daniel finally says. “Neither of us could say we were ready to let each other go. Because we aren’t.”
She blinks, obviously more startled than moved. Not the reception he was hoping for.
Tentatively, he asks, “… are we?”
Betty looks down at the patterned tablecloth, thick dark hair falling in front of her face, and for a moment Daniel’s heart plunges to an area somewhere around his socks.
Without looking up, she says, “No. We’re not.”
Then she lifts her head, and when their eyes make contact, he feels it in his gut, in his heart, all along his skin.
“I missed you,” he said.
“I missed you too. I’m glad you’re here.” Betty tucks a bit of hair behind her ear and laughs - almost nervous, Daniel thinks, but in a good way. He knows because he feels it too. “I want to show you London. But - you must have been here before, right? Probably lots of times.”
“A few times,” Daniel concedes. “But I want to see your London.”
“And find your own.”
“And find my own.”
**
2. Late April 2010
“So, are you anxious about your big lunch?” Daniel says.
“Nah.” Tyler walks along 57th Street, just in front of Carnegie Hall. Carnegie Hall! Technically he’s a New Yorker now, but he’s still new enough to marvel at it. Sometimes Tyler thinks he’s wandered into a film set instead of his new life. It’s eventful enough to be a movie, that’s for sure. “After you and Alexis, I figure meeting my one remaining sibling should be easy.”
“Matt Hartley’s a nice guy,” Daniel says. The transatlantic connection is so clear that Tyler almost wants to turn his head and see if Daniel’s following him. Or is that paranoia? With the Meades, family feeling and paranoia seem to go hand in hand. “A writer, a painter - he’s talented. You’ll get along.”
“Hope so.”
“Listen,” Daniel says, and there’s a new weight to it. Whatever Daniel’s about to say, it’s important to him. Tyler braces himself: Does he have other siblings he hasn’t been told about yet? These days, anything seems possible. He just hopes it isn’t an evil twin. Please, no evil twin. “Can you maybe give me a heads-up about something?”
“Yeahhh--” Tyler draws it out cautiously. “What is it?”
“If Matt’s coming to London to see Betty, could you let me know?”
Tyler has a vague memory of Betty as a nice sort of girl who wore glasses. “Were they friends?”
“They were actually an item for quite a while there.”
“Oh, I get it.” Mom’s hints about Daniel’s sudden move to London come together, and Tyler starts to grin. He should’ve taken a closer look at Betty Suarez. “You’re going to outmaneuver the competition?”
“I just want to know. That’s it. No scheming,” Daniel says firmly. “After MODE, seriously, I’m done for a lifetime.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
It’s only a joke, but Daniel says, “And there’s the Meade in you. I was starting to wonder.”
Tyler weighs it and shrugs. “Can I tell Matt I’m telling you?”
“Sure, if you want to.”
“That’s not a scheme at all.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“Now that I’m in this family? I feel like I need some practice.”
“You’re not wrong,” Daniel says, and Tyler can hear the smile in his voice.
“Hey, speaking of competition …” Tyler would definitely prefer to bring this up while they’re in a good place. “Now that I’ve finished the rehab, and I’m feeling okay, I was thinking of, well, getting back out there. Dating.”
“Amanda, huh?” Thankfully, the smile’s still. “No competition, trust me. Go for it.”
“Thanks. I will.”
As Tyler disconnects the call, he reflects that asking permission to date his brother’s ex isn’t a very Meade thing to do. But he’s not wholly a Meade, and he doesn’t want this romance to start out with any drama - or, he muses, without any more drama than Amanda’s likely to bring to the table on her own. As much as he’s enjoying getting to know Mom, Daniel and Alexis, he needs something in his life that isn’t a total soap opera.
**
Matt is not a character in a soap opera. The first thing Tyler says to him is, “Thank God. I was starting to think I was the only person in New York who owns a flannel shirt.”
“There are at least three of us,” Matt says. “You, me, and the remaining hipster who hasn’t received the memo about Western shirts being the next big thing.”
They share a grin, kindred spirits at once.
The conversation swiftly goes from polite to easy to fun to intimate; within half an hour, Tyler’s spilling about how much it sucks to be an alcoholic when your main job skills are in bartending. Matt turns out to be a big believer in starting over, and he’s full of ideas - from delving into the art world to volunteering in Africa. As the meal goes on, Tyler feels a deep sense of relief. He’s become fond of Daniel and Alexis, but Matt feels like his sibling, immediately, in a way the others won’t for a long time to come. It’s nice to know that at least one part of this is going to be simple.
They even get down to the money.
“Claim your shares,” Matt says with total conviction. “They’re worth millions, they’re rightfully yours, and honestly, hitting Dad in the pocketbook is sometimes the only way to get his attention.”
Tyler doesn’t know if he wants Cal Hartley’s attention or his money. “Those millions - it’s half of what would otherwise be yours. Only yours. You honestly don’t care?”
“It’s only money.” Matt says this in the way that only people with money can. Tyler appreciates it anyway.
“Maybe. I have to think about it.”
“Don’t think too long. Hesitation - it can cost you.” Matt’s face takes on a wistful look. “When I took off for Africa - don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret it, but I left someone behind. Someone I never should’ve left behind.”
Uhoh, Tyler thinks. Red alert, Daniel. “You mean Betty?”
“You met Betty?”
“Yeah, she was still at MODE when I got here.”
“She’s great,” Matt says, his smile fond. “God, I was crazy about her.”
“… was?”
“Some things happened before I left that convinced me - convinced us, I think - we just weren’t right. Being in Africa only strengthened that for me.”
Tyler smiles. Daniel doesn’t have to worry about competition after all. “So who’s the lucky girl?”
“She used to work at MODE too - I’ve still got to look her up.” Matt’s voice has become almost dreamy. “Did you meet a girl named Amanda Tanen?”
So much for any of this being easy.
3. early May 2010
“Reinvention,” Betty says. As she presses a button on her laptop, the projected image changes from one of a downbeat woman to one who is happy and energized. She’s not photoshopped to be thinner or more glamorous - she’s just more excited about her life. And, well, with no more blue colorwash like in the “depressed” photo; in magazines, subtlety doesn’t pay. “Virtually every lifestyle magazine plays with this theme, but usually in very superficial ways. Before and after photos, that kind of thing. I’m suggesting an issue about reinvention from the inside out.”
“I like it,” purrs Lindsey Dunne. “Edgy and yet upbeat. Rather like Oprah before she became an oligarch.”
In the world of media, being compared to Oprah is always a good thing. “I’m not saying we can’t tie wardrobe updates into this.” FM is not going to be a fashion magazine - it’s about ideas, careers, life-work balance, stuff that matters - but no lifestyle magazine can afford to ignore fashion entirely, and these days, Betty gets why. “But pieces always claim that if you change the outside, you can magically change the inside. I want to write something that shows you how you have to change from within first. It’s kind of important to me.”
“And why is that?”
Betty stops. She doesn’t have an answer; it’s too obvious for words. Or it would be to anyone who had known her for more than six months.
But here, in London, nobody knows she’s reinvented herself. This Betty - sleek and successful - is the only one they know.
She says only, “I think, down deep, we all see ourselves as works in progress. Don’t you?”
Dunne chuckles softly, admitting it without words. “A universal theme, indeed. Well done, Betty.”
For one instant, she feels as though her former self has ceased to exist. Like there’s no floor beneath her, only sky. It’s too early to tell if she’s falling or flying.
**
The feeling stays with Betty for hours, ambiguous and overwhelming, until dinner, when she is more pleasantly distracted.
“The concept is called Covet,” Daniel explains over Chinese food and beer. “Basically, take the iPhone app for identifying a song and automatically buying it, and apply that to consumer goods.”
“How is your phone supposed to identify a sweater or a car?” Betty scoops rice onto her chopsticks.
“Forget cars. They’re too large for impulse purchases,” says Daniel, apparently forgetting that Betty knows about the Ferrari he bought on a dare when he was 23. Then again, he’s not exactly the average consumer. “Ailes’ idea was to convince manufacturers to implant info chips in everything they sell. Some manufacturers are already doing this, and that number is probably only going to increase--”
“But right now, it’s not enough people to be viable. And nobody’s going to add security chips just to fit in with an untried app.”
“Which is why I told him we should roll it out with the one segment of clothing manufacturers who are already using the chips.”
Betty sees the genius of it, and Daniel starts grinning even before she speaks. “Designer couture. The anti-counterfeiting tags--”
“The designers will share the information. They want people to be able to tell the genuine article from the knockoffs on sight. And if we introduce Covet as something high-end, luxurious, exclusive--”
“Then everyone else will want in on it. It’s an amazing concept, Daniel. How did you meet this Roland Ailes guy again?”
“Since I was kind of assistant-less after Amanda left, I actually went through my own mail for a while, and this press release caught my attention. Ailes sent it to MODE during my last month there - pretty amateur stuff. He might be a great software designer, but he doesn’t have any idea how to present himself. It’s no wonder nobody else bit. But I figured as long as I was moving to London, I should talk with him.” Daniel looks a bit sheepish. “I admit, I don’t get the tech side of it at all.”
“No, really?”
“Yeah, okay, I suppose I don’t have to tell that to the person who taught me how to send a fax. But Ailes can handle the science if I provide the financing and the contacts. We’ve had a few good ideas already.”
Betty parses what he’s said. “You keep saying ‘we.’ You’re going after this, aren’t you?”
Daniel wards off speculation by holding up his chopsticks. “He’s got a lot more development to do. And I have to survive this course. But - you know, I think it’s solid. Worth investing in.”
“And you have the connections to make it work.” She’s almost absurdly proud of him. He ducks his head, bashful at the praise, and once again she feels the frisson of - whatever this new thing is between them.
And she’s still not sure if it’s flying or falling.
Ever since Claire hinted around at the big farewell party, Betty’s been turning the idea of her and Daniel - something she can’t even say out loud, me and Daniel - over and over in her head. At first it was a curiosity, so wrong it was almost funny.
And then, on her last day in New York, when Betty realized he really wasn’t going to come by or call, she started to realize how not-wrong it might be - and not just for Daniel. She remembered how she’d felt about Trista, how her mere existence had grated on Betty’s nerves: This despite the fact that Trista, dim as she appeared to be, was a kind-hearted, friendly girl. She’d gone into her phone’s memory to see just how many times she’d called Daniel’s voicemail in the previous few days; her need to see him was there, over and over, ten digits repeating themselves with no answer. Even at the airport, she’d found herself looking for him, like he was going to emerge from the crowd with flowers like some character in an Anne Hathaway movie.
She knew she wasn’t in love with him. But in those few hours, she’d wondered if she could be. Whether, if she hadn’t gotten the job offer, she might have been within a few months. If he was in love with her. The questions unsettled her so that she was almost relieved when the plane took off and the ocean slipped between them, with no movie endings in sight.
Of course, then Daniel showed up in Trafalgar Square, three blocks from her new office, just like a character in an Anne Hathaway movie, and now -
Now they’ve already slipped into spending a lot of their free time together. Five dinners and two lunches in two weeks, and text messaging is sharply on the rise. They’re telling each other as much about their thoughts as they did when they worked together, facing one another through a glass wall for eight hours in a row, five days a week. It feels natural - enjoyable - to talk to Daniel about everything in the world.
Except one subject, the one that is rapidly becoming the elephant in the room.
But when they crack open their fortune cookies tonight, hers reads, THERE IS A TIME FOR STILLNESS AND A TIME FOR ACTION. Is that a sign that it’s okay to remain silent right now? To let this simply be whatever it is for a few days more? Betty thinks it might be. Maybe it’s just the beer at the end of a long day, but it feels right to just … relax into the moment.
She unfolds her message for Daniel, who nods. “Good one. Cryptic enough to mean anything, but definitely seems to mean something.”
“The fortune cookie ideal.”
“Exactly.” Then he reads his own and his eyes go wide.
“Daniel? What is it?”
He holds up the paper, which reads, LOOK OUT FOR MRS. MAGGI.
“Whoa!”
“Is that the creepiest fortune ever?”
“Yeah, I think it is. Do we know a Mrs. Maggi?”
“No, but I’m going to keep an eye out.” Daniel starts laughing only a couple moments before Betty does. “Jesus, that is weird.”
They cab it back to her place, speculating the whole while. “Maybe she was one of the guy’s teachers back in school,” Betty says. Rain splatters down outside, and the windshield wipers keep time with their conversation. “A really mean one. He was so scared in her classes that he blanked on the tests, and he failed to graduate, so now the only job he can get is writing fortunes.”
“Maybe it’s his mom. Maybe this is Junior Maggi, tired of being nagged about getting married.”
They’re sitting very close to one another, even though it’s a big cab. Their knees are angled toward each other, so they slide together for a moment every time they take a turn. Betty notices how Daniel has arranged this - or is it her? Probably it’s them. But right now, it seems less dangerous to figure out the secret of Mrs. Maggi.
She gasps. “I’ve got it! She’s an evil supervisor at the fortune-cookie company.”
“Gotta be.” Daniel smiles in satisfaction. “You’re brilliant.”
“Yeah, well, we knew that.”
The cab reaches its destination, and they hug goodbye in the backseat. Daniel squeezes her hand. “Good night, Betty. See you Friday?”
“Friday,” she says. The anticipation she already feels must be in her voice, because his smile broadens. Daniel doesn’t let go of her hand, and she doesn’t pull away. The only sounds are the idling motor and the slap of windshield wipers. There’s a moment’s hesitation between them - a moment when something could happen - but that’s when an idea decides to be born. “Not Covet.”
“What?”
“The business. You shouldn’t call it Covet.”
“Uh, okay.” Daniel looks a little dazed, as well he might. “Why not?”
“The ten commandments,” she says. “Do you really want your business to be named after something the Bible says thou shalt not do?”
He weighs this for a second. “You’re probably right. But Covet has the right feel - short, to the point, suggests desire. It should be something like that.” An almost boyish disappointment creeps into his voice. “We’d even worked out this really cool C logo. For the little app thing on the iPhone, you know?”
Betty considers. Then a slow smile spreads across her face as it comes to her. “Crave.”
“Crave,” he repeats, and they grin like co-conspirators. He squeezes her hand again, and it’s the only goodbye they need. She dashes through the rain to the front steps of her building, and there, under the small green awning, she turns to see the taxi drive away, until it’s only a few red lights among all the rest.
Tonight, she doesn’t have to define who Daniel is in her life. She only has to be glad he’s back in it.
4. Late May 2010
“How much for this thing?” Hilda holds up a stuffed leather burro one of the girls bought in Mexico. “You think we could get $10 for it?”
“I don’t care how much we get,” Ignacio says, for about the twentieth time that morning. Madre de Dios, he loves his family, but not one of them has the slightest idea how to handle a yard sale. “We want it out. Price it to move.”
“Somebody might pay $10,” Hilda insists. When he stares at her, she adds, “Well, somebody crazy might. And we have plenty of crazies in this neighborhood.”
Ignacio shrugs. She’s got a point.
“You’re really getting rid of a lot of stuff, Grandpa.” Justin emerges from the laundry room with a newly dried pile of Betty’s old Disney sheets. It hurts to throw those out; Ignacio even kept one set, and he has to hope they’ll go to a good home. Somebody should buy those for their own little girl, who loves princesses and dreams of a fairy tale of her own. “Are you sure that’s okay? I mean, nobody respects minimalist chic more than I do - well, more than Oshi and I do - but won’t the house look kind of empty?”
“I’ll fill it back up,” Ignacio says. “And faster than you think. Get cracking, will you? The bargain hunters get started by 6 a.m.”
In truth, Ignacio isn’t sure how the house will ever feel full again. Betty already gone, Hilda, Justin and Bobby only a few days from walking out the door: Within a week, he’ll be as alone as he’s been since he moved out of his parents’ house as a boy. Even then, within a year, he’d met his wife and fled with her to the United States. What will his life be like in a year? He can’t imagine.
Austin has turned out to be the kind of kid who will show up at 4:30 in the morning to help with his boyfriend’s grandfather’s yard sale. Good thing, too, as he’s the only one who seems to have any idea how to put the household goods in an order that might sell. Ignacio adds another item to his new, ever-increasing list: The gays are good at organizing. After Austin opens a box from the attic, he holds up something glittery. “Are these ... Christmas ornaments?”
“Don’t you dare sell those!” Hilda vaults over a pile of old clothes, like Austin could dispose of the ornaments that instant if she didn’t stop him. “Papi, you can’t get rid of our homemade decorations. I’ll take them if you don’t want them.”
“I want them,” Ignacio says. But then his eyes meet Hilda’s, and he knows they’re both seeing the dilemma for the first time. Where will they spend Christmas this year? Who gets the ornaments they all made together, as a family? Even the most constant parts of his life are now subject to doubt.
Shut up, old man, he tells himself. What kind of a father keeps his daughters in his home with him forever? A failure of a father, that’s what kind. You did your job. They are in the world and doing well, and you can ask for nothing better than that.
Except, perhaps, some idea of his own place in the world now.
**
By 9 a.m., the kitchen implements and linens have been thoroughly picked over; the leather burro, repriced at $2, remains standing guard over some old shoes. Although they won’t close up until after noon, Ignacio is willing to bet that they’ve made all the profit they’re going to - until a cab pulls up and Amanda bursts out, Marc right behind.
“Oh, my God, you started without me!” She clatters along the sidewalk on high heels - really, women wear those at 9 a.m. on a Saturday? - and half-falls, half-pounces on the clothing rack. “If people have pawed through the racks and taken all the good Bettywear, I will hunt them down and scalp them.”
“I’m willing to wager it’s on the rack unpawed and untouched, just as it was when she wore it,” Marc says. He’s wearing a royal blue trenchcoat and an ascot. “Morning, Mr. Suarez. Hey, Justin!”
Justin beams. “Hey, Marc. I’ve figured out how to make a mochaccino. Want one?”
“And betray the frappuccino? Never.” Marc flinches from the burro. “Please tell me that was never alive.”
“The Flower Skirt of a Thousand Deaths!” Amanda pulls it from the rack and stuffs it into her oversized metallic handbag. “The Dumpy Sweater, Blue Version! The Dumpy Sweater, Yellow Version! Hellbelt! The Dumpy Sweater, Red Version! Mark, look. It’s the whole greatest hits collection, just here waiting for us.”
“We should build a shrine,” Marc says. “And set it on fire.”
She smacks him. “If you burn my precious collection of Bettywear, I’ll - I’ll - let’s just say I know where you keep your porn, and there is NOTHING to stop me from replacing it with DVDs of ‘Ghost Whisperer.’”
Ignacio would like to be offended on his daughter’s behalf, but after being surrounded by issues of MODE for the past four years, he feels fashion-conscious enough to agree that, yes, that belt was from hell. “What do you plan to do with all this?”
“I’m going to create a massive work of performance art,” Amanda says dreamily. “Or a shrine. Or maybe I’ll mail them to Betty, one by one, like they’re trying to sneak up on her. Like they’re haunting her.”
“Ghosts of ghastly outfits past,” Marc says. “I like it.” Justin elbows him, but affectionately.
“Well, don’t send them to Betty if you want them preserved forever,” Ignacio says. “She says she’s got no closet space in London. Apparently her apartment makes even the places in Manhattan look roomy.”
Marc and Amanda stare, aghast. “I just felt an icy shiver down my spine,” Marc says.
“Like biting into a York Peppermint Patty,” Amanda says. “But evil.”
Hilda sticks her head from the front door. “Hey, you guys! You know we’re about to be neighbors, right?”
“Are you moving into Betty’s old place?” Amanda chews her lower lip and looks weirdly guilty. “Give me a chance to scrub out the freezer first, okay?”
“No, silly! We’re moving to our own little corner of Manhattan. Inwood. You know it?”
Marc and Amanda stare at Hilda blankly, and Ignacio has to stifle a smile.
Hilda repeats, “Inwood. You know. Way up there? North of 200th Street?”
“I don’t think Manhattan has a 200th Street,” Marc says.
“It so does,” Justin says. “You know, the Dominican Day Parade? Always starts up there.”
Amanda squeezes Ignacio’s shoulder. “It’s a Dominican neighborhood? Then you’ll feel right at home!”
Ignacio would like to point out that he’s not moving, but there’s something more important to clear up: “Dominican is not the same as Mexican.”
Amanda frowns suspiciously. “Then how come Dominicans speak Mexican?”
“You got me there.” Ignacio sighs and pats her on the arm as she returns to shopping
“Come on and get something to eat, Marc,” Hilda says. “You’re too thin. And you gotta tell us all about how it’s going with Troy!”
“Too thin,” Marc muses. “It’s one of those phrases in English that ought to make sense, but is essentially meaningless.” But when Justin starts pushing him up the steps, he goes.
“Is this for sale too?” Amanda says, pointing at a laundry basket. When Ignacio nods, she starts grabbing Betty’s old clothes off the rack by the armful and tossing them in. Without stopping, she says, “Mr. Suarez? You’re good at, like, advice, right? I mean, I have my own dad now, and he’s great, but he’s still kind of new at this whole fatherly business.”
Ignacio braces himself. “Out with it. What’s troubling you?”
She never looks away from the clothing rack. He wonders if she really thinks she’s fooling anyone with that bravado. “OK, I used to have a thing for Matt, Betty’s Matt, though it never turned into anything. Except now he’s back and it maybe could turn into something.”
“I’m sure Betty wouldn’t mind if you went out with him now.” Betty no doubt is meeting new men in London. Maybe Daniel can introduce her to some friends, as long as he’s over there.
“Right, but see, while Matt was off in Africa doing African stuff, I got to know Tyler - Daniel’s secret brother? And he’s awesome, and he wants to go out with me too. If I liked one of them more, I would know what to do, but I want both. And they’re not open to that. I asked.” Finally Amanda glances over her shoulder, expression as uncertain as a child’s. “My whole life, I never even met one guy who really seemed to like me for me. And now there are two of them at once. Why couldn’t they space themselves out?”
“Life doesn’t work that way,” Ignacio says. “Listen. It doesn’t only matter how you feel about a person. It matters who you are when you’re with them. When I met my wife, I knew I was becoming a better man. Who makes you the better woman? Ask yourself that, and you’ll know the answer.”
“That’s how I pick?” Amanda frowns. “Reality TV is so wrong about that.”
“I’m shocked.”
“Thank you,” she whispers, before diving back into shopping with even more gusto than before. “You solve everyone’s problems!”
That’s the moment that makes Ignacio realize - he can solve his own problems too.
Heck, what problems? For the first time in a long time - too long - his life is going to change. Why has he been spending the last few weeks feeling old? Change is something that happens to young people. It won’t be easy, but who is it easy for? Not his Beatriz, making a new home for herself half a world away. Not Justin, daring to stand up and say who he is even if the world wants to disapprove. Not even Hilda, who has to learn how to run a home instead of live in it.
Maybe he can put his own touches on the house. Maybe he can travel. Hey - Elena was talking about how much she liked that summer she worked in Florida. Ignacio wonders if he could surf places like Hotwire and Priceline, maybe get a deal on a weekend getaway for the two of them. Now, that’s the kind of change he could use more of in his life.
As he grins, Amanda points at the burro. “If I give you $50 for all these clothes, will you throw him in? I think he could wear some of Halston’s old outfits.”
“Deal,” Ignacio says. Yep, someone crazy took it.
5. A couple days later in late May 2010
Tonight’s the night.
Daniel came to London with the understanding that he wasn’t going to rush things with Betty, that he’d probably have some persuasion to do, but he hadn’t counted on how hard it would be to wait. After years of seeing Betty as adorable only in a very abstract way, it’s almost humiliating to find himself in thrall to her. Three weeks in and already he can’t stand not touching her. It’s time to make his move.
He’s never been very patient, romantically speaking. In part, this is because for years he mostly dated girls who had only a passing acquaintance with the concept of wearing underwear. Even as Daniel has become more discerning, though, he’s remained bad at waiting. Anticipation makes him crazy; it’s a turn-on in itself.
As he dresses for the evening - black shirt, just dressy enough; good jeans, just casual enough; those shoes she found for him years ago, so maybe she’ll remember - Daniel decides: We’ve known each other for four years. Haven’t we waited long enough?
She must be as eager as he is.
**
Three hours later, in Betty’s apartment - after an abortive kiss that had Betty bending away from him so fast she banged her head against the brick wall outside her door - Daniel is holding an ice bag to her temple and wondering whether he’ll simply be able to sweep the remains of his ego from the floor, or whether this task will require a mop.
“Look at it this way,” Betty says, after way too many seconds of silence. “We’ve been in more embarrassing situations.”
“None are coming to mind.”
“When you lied about saving that Girl Scout from drowning? The time I did the motorcycle stunt for PLAYER? That oompa-loompa tan you bought to convince everyone you’d been to Rio? Tornado Girl?”
“You know, all of that is true, and none of it is helping.”
“Daniel, we’re okay. Aren’t we?” Betty clearly wants to be careful here. Like she’s the one who might have offended him, instead of the one who got rushed at by her best friend who clearly didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
Worst of all: On one small, bitter, petty level, he feels offended. His imagination hadn’t really encompassed the idea that he might want Betty when she didn’t want him. The part of him who thinks this isn’t the way things should be is the part of himself he hates the most, and yet, it’s there.
“We’re okay,” he says. “I have to admit, I was hoping the first time I came up to your apartment wouldn’t be to make sure you didn’t need stitches.”
It’s a feeble joke, but it seems to affect her. “Ever since you got to London, I can’t tell if we’re - hanging out or flirting or, or … what.”
He’s still holding the bag against her head as they sit on her tiny loveseat, with only one lamp on. Someone across the room would probably assume they were lovers, Daniel thinks, with her only an arm’s length away, and him leaning close enough to kiss. “I thought maybe we could figure that out together.”
“But you’re not figuring it out. Are you? It feels like it’s only me.”
She feels like he’s being evasive, still, only minutes after the most embarrassing non-kiss since he unknowingly hit on Alexis. Daniel wants nothing so much as to laugh it off and come up with some silly lie that gets him off the hook. He knows Betty well enough to know she’d let it slide. Probably she wants to escape from this moment as badly as he does. But letting this go means letting her go, and he can’t.
“Those last few days you were in New York - when I couldn’t tell you goodbye - I guess it hit me. Yeah, it’s a really stupid time to figure out you’re in love with somebody -- right before they’re leaving the country. So I asked myself if I wanted to be with you badly enough to change my whole life for it. And I did.”
Betty’s face flushes somewhere around the words “in love.” It hasn’t made her happy; it’s flustered her. “But you came here for the University of London course. Not for me.”
“They have those courses in New York. Boston. Sydney. Lots of places. I wanted to do it, but - you’re the reason I’m in London. I want more. I want you.”
Silence. Betty couldn’t look blanker if she were trying; Daniel really hopes that’s from shock and not dismay. She hasn’t pulled back. That’s got to be a good sign, right? Or maybe it’s just that her head still hurts.
She finally says, “I have to think about this.”
“Yeah. Absolutely.”
“You mean a lot to me, Daniel. I don’t want to change our relationship if it’s only going to mess us up.”
“I know.”
“And - it’s like you said in New York - I don’t want to go backwards.”
It’s karma in action for his interference with Betty and Henry, sending his own words back at him like a boomerang. And its aim is true: The worst thing Daniel can say about his misspent years is that they mean Betty might not be wrong. “Okay.”
“You don’t need to go backwards either!” Betty wraps his free hand in both of hers, and her touch almost deafens him to the harder reality of what she’s saying. “We have these patterns, you know? You take risks you shouldn’t, and I -”
“You clean up the mess.”
“We both want to break out of that, right? I don’t want us to trip each other up.”
He feels as though he could wither on the spot, like some dead thing. “So,” he says. “That’s … a no.”
But Betty shakes her head. “It’s a maybe.”
“Maybe,” Daniel repeats.
“Are you okay with that?” She genuinely looks frightened that he’ll walk out the door.
Be a man, he tells himself. “I’m not giving up my best friend, no matter what.”
Betty relaxes slightly, and he knows he’s said the right thing. It helps.
And yet he stays awake for hours after he goes home, wondering if he’s been on a fool’s errand after all.
**
Daniel spends the next day at home on his sofa, in his boxers and an old T-shirt, alternating between eating his way through a packet of HobNobs and watching ITV. It’s hard to say which of the two is more pathetic, at least until evening, when he begins to form opinions about Audrey on “Coronation Street” and gets his answer.
He gets exactly three messages the entire day. One is from his mother, which Daniel doesn’t open; she’ll be asking how things are with Betty, and he wants to lie to her about it only slightly less than he wants to tell her the truth. The second is from Alexis, who turns out to be headed to London and thinks they should get together. Daniel wonders if Alexis would even bother coming if he wrote back that his soul is already as crushed as it can get, thus depriving his sister of her favorite sport. The final one is from Ailes, asking if they’re still on for the Monday meeting about Crave. It takes him longer than it should to say yes.
Conspicuous by their absence are any messages from Betty. They’d been texting or emailing each other about once every hour or two; now, neither of them knows what to say.
The next morning is the first day of his University of London course. Daniel sets the alarm, but for ten minutes in the morning lies in bed, motionless. He considers going back to New York. He considers going somewhere else entirely - Milan, maybe, or Rio for real this time. He considers catching up with back episodes of “Coronation Street” on the ITV website.
And then he gets out of bed and goes to class.
It’s terrifying. Almost everyone else in the class has a solid decade or two of real business experience, and they don’t seem daunted remotely by the prospect of spending eight solid hours a day, three days a week, delving into corporate structures. Daniel knows must look like a deer in the headlights, but he listens, and he types notes furiously, and he hopes he’s following some of this.
Come lunchtime, everyone starts introducing themselves and setting up power lunches, and Daniel plays the game, but he feels like he’s faking it until halfway through the meal, when he looks down at his phone and sees a message from Betty.
“How’s your first day?”
“Confusion and flop sweat. But hanging in there. How’s your head?”
“Better. Are we still up for a drink after?”
Daniel had hoped their plans for a drink tonight would be romantic - that by now he’d be in a position to kiss her hello, and goodbye, or ideally good morning - but mostly he just wants to see her. “Absolutely.”
**
So he stops hanging on to Betty’s hand and finally starts finding his London. He keeps going to class, even if, at the end of the day, he often feels like his head’s been repeatedly slammed into a brick wall. Some of what they cover - way too much of it - is totally alien territory. And yet every once in a while they hit upon something he learned from his four years at MODE: distribution of goods, refinancing, marketing. When that happens, he goes from treading water to swimming. It feels kind of amazing.
He hears about a crewing team that’s looking for a rower. Crew was just about the only thing Daniel liked about Andover. A couple of emails, a talk on the phone, and the next thing Daniel knows, he’s spending his Saturday mornings on the Thames. The guys are mostly just people he says generic hellos to, then drinks beer and jokes around with after. But a couple of them seem interesting, and one burly fellow, Gareth, might actually turn into a friend.
And he works his contacts. Although Daniel profoundly hopes he has written his last editorial letter about swimwear, he knows he’d be stupid to burn the bridges MODE built for him. Stella McCartney is free for lunch; he flies to Paris one morning to spend the day at Chanel before returning that same night. Right now this is mostly schmoozing, but if and when Crave goes from theory to reality, these meetings will pay off.
So a lot of the time - most of the time, really - Daniel focuses on building a new life for himself, as himself.
But then he and Betty get together, and he sees her smile, and it feels like everything else he does is just a way of killing time until he can be with her again.
**
Continued in Part Two --
( Part Three
Part Four)