Page 93 of Little Miss Fortune

Oh fuck, oh no.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ I drop the bags and rush to put my shoes back on. The knot does not want to budge.

‘Toby, who is that?’ a melodic voice calls out from the kitchen.

‘Uh... It’s...’ He tries to find a word for our relationship. ‘It’s, uh, Fuko.’

‘Well, invite her in.’ A man’s voice joins in.

He shuts his eyes and sighs, as if the ground is slipping from under him. When he opens them, his mouth whispers, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

My head tilts in a panicked question. Why?

He winces. You’ll see.

The table is laid out to perfection. Two cooks are working in the kitchen, Crocs on their feet. One of them breaks away from stirring to bring another chair and a set of cutlery. The other takes my bags from me and stashes the contents in the fridge, separate from their own.

I sit down at the head of the table, feeling everyone’s eyes on me. To my surprise, there are two sets of familiar eyes: Toby’s and his sister’s. Her brows shoot up in recognition from the last time I saw her at the coffee shop being berated by her douchebag of a boyfriend. Her shoulders, completely tense before this moment, fall.

Maybe she thought I was a daylight cat burglar or something. Understandable. I hate intruders as well.

Toby notices our momentary familiarity and gives me an I’ll-ask-you-later look. The other two, Toby’s mother and father, are well dressed, tall even when sitting down, their mouths stretched into a tight polite smile. They look very different, with Mrs. Lewis having softer features, an upturned nose, and Toby’s eyes, and Mr. Lewis having a more angular face and deeply set eyes, yet the air around them feels the same. One that makes you straighten your back and pull your elbows off the table.

‘So, Fuko, was it?’ His father turns to me. ‘My son hasn’t mentioned you before.’

I can’t read his tone. Is he implying that I am not significant enough to be mentioned or berating his son for failing to mention me?

‘I am just a colleague from work.’

‘A colleague that knows where he lives and can come uninvited?’ The question seems to be aimed at me, but Mr. Lewis doesn’t look away from Toby, who downs a glass of water and pours himself another one.

‘Fuko is an... interesting name,’ says his mother, kinder with her smile. ‘Where is it from?’

‘It’s Japanese.’

‘Oh, how interesting.’ She repeats that word, clasping her hands in an enthusiastic slap. Interesting.

I predict that she might use interesting, different, maybe even throw in a quaint or two over the course of the dinner. Our plates are decorated with thinly sliced vegetables standing up and leaning against each other like a tent. Sophie, I think that’s the sister’s name, sits closest to me. She taps the fork that we are meant to use and blinks when I grab the correct one. I now realise that I haven’t really said anything or asked a single question.

‘I am so sorry for intruding, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis,’ I say when everyone digs in.

‘Nonsense. A friend of Toby is a friend of ours,’ Mr. Lewis responds. ‘Say, what college did you go to?’

‘College?’ My head cocks to the side. I didn’t go to a college, I did my A levels at the same Catholic school Hannah studied at up until now, which is rated excellent by Ofsted.

‘Dad, please—’ Toby tries to intervene.

‘At Oxbridge,’ he continues firmly, disregarding his son’s plea.

‘I didn’t go to Oxford or Cambridge, sir.’ I haven’t used sir unironically since my A levels, funnily enough.

‘Oh,’ his mother sings out. The same way one would react to a celebrity divorce. Mild amusement with slight shock. ‘Neither did Sophie.’

Sophie is wearing this great woollen turtleneck jumper that I now realise might have been a strategic pick, as she dips her chin behind the collar. Her shoulders are tense again. So are mine.

‘What do your parents do, then, Fuko?’ His dad turns back to me.

‘My father.’ I have never called him father to others before, but now it feels like the only appropriate word. ‘He works as a strategy director at’—I don’t know where, if I am being completely honest—‘a company that has something to do with change and innovation.’