Topper is back in Georgetown, and I’m about to return to Los Angeles.
“I need to wrap things up with Mr Woolf,” I tell everyone, and it’s true. I do need to drive over to thank him for his time and give him a parting gift, a Baroque French clock I picked up at auction. But what I really need is time for myself, for the things that belong to me alone. I feel the pull of the desert, its strange magic. I want to breathe in the hot, dry air and find my way back to the essence of things.
The odd thing is, the more lost I feel, the prettier I seem to become. Everyone keeps saying I look radiant. Tilly asks if I’m pregnant. I’m not, I know I’m not, and I don’t understand what’s happening to me. Some lady Mrs Montgomery lunches with says I’m “coming into my bloom.” Mrs Montgomery smiles at her, then turns to me: “Birdie has been in bloom since she was born. She’s that sort of girl.”
I am on display, and it fills me with a kind of unease that’s new to me. I used to enjoy being complimented, used to take it as generosity. Now it feels obtuse, almost like a criticism. As if it’s one of only two things about me that matters to them. The other being what Mrs Montgomery flew to England to find out for herself.
I make my excuses, walk to the park, and try to make sense of myself. I do what I always do, put one foot in front of the other.
***
Cornelia and I have arranged to meet at Idlewild. She’s flying to the Caribbean to shoot a photo montage for Life Magazine with Slim Aarons, and our flights leave nearly at the same time. It seems like the right moment to see each other. I’ve missed her and the way she moves through the world. She’s been working non-stop since graduation; out of all of us, she’s the only one of the three of us to already have a career. I’m proud of her. And part of me wonders why it was always Tilly who drew the attention.
I’m halfway through this thought when I hear her voice: familiar and clear:
“Birdie?”
I turn. She’s waving across the concourse. I walk to meet her.
“Cornelia, darling,” I say, hugging her. “Am I glad to see you.”
“It’s good to see you too.” She studies me for a moment. “You look…” A tilt of her head. “…miserable. What’s happened?”
“Do I?”
“Yes,” she says, “you look drawn. And tired. And not at all happy.”
She slips her arm through mine and guides us toward the lounge.
Inside, she finds two seats by the window. I sit, trying not to meet her eyes. A steward walks past with a tray of highballs, and I follow him with my gaze, grateful for any distraction. Cornelia notices.
“Birdie,” she says quietly, “are you all right?”
I stare down at my hands. “I’m just a little tired.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I swallow, wishing for the ease of my usual lines, the cordial phrases that smooth everything over. Nothing comes to mind.
“You look stretched too thinly,” she says.
I try to joke. “It’s just the wedding. Mrs Montgomery being… Mrs Montgomery.”
Cornelia gives me a sympathetic smile. “You’re disappearing behind all of this.”
I know she’s right, but something inside me resists. I should be grateful. I should be composed. Topper is perfect; I’m the luckiest girl alive. I’m everything everyone tells me is to be revered: wealthy, pretty, and now securely placed inside the myth of America. It feels as if I’m living on Mount Olympus, perched at the top of the Empire, yet somehow not belonging to any of it. I think of when I danced down the corridors of Humes High, dreaming of this America. And now that I’m no longer a girl, but an adult, it isn’t what I imagined. The American Dream doesn’t offer happiness so much as momentum, a big white house, and cars, to keep rushing for the endless promise of what is ahead. It keeps you chasing what can never be reached, unless you stop, truly stop, and step off the road.
I look at Cornelia, her loose white shirt, black capri pants, flat shoes, her hair in a ponytail. She’s modern. And suddenly I feel old-fashioned, my cinched skirt, my Grace Kelly bob. I used to be modern too. But something has shifted in the last few months, and it’s only now that I’m admitting it to myself.
“How do you do it?” I ask.
She shrugs. “Don’t turn this on me. We can talk about my life another time.” Then, gently: “Right now, we need to look at you.”
I glance out at the runway, where planes lift off into the winter light. Something inside me cracks.
“What do you mean?” I manage.
“Can we talk about Topper?” she asks. “I don’t want to overstep, but I’ve known you, and him, together and separately, since we were children.”
My stomach tightens. Another plane rises.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I say lightly.
Cornelia gives a small, knowing laugh. “Birdie. You can drop the act with me.”
“I’m marrying him,” I say. “That should tell you everything.”
“It tells me you’re doing what’s expected,” she says.
“I love Topper. He’s the best man I’ve ever met.” And I mean it. Topper is magnificent, honourable, good, beautiful and safe, and I have never gotten along with anyone in quite the same way as I do with him. He makes all of it easy. It’s important to me that Cornelia knows it.
“He is good,” Cornelia agrees. “But he sees you in a very particular way.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means,” she says, “he loves the Birdie who fits neatly into his life. The independent girl who never needs anything from him. The girl who already has money, already has a name, already has a place. The girl who makes him look modern for ‘letting’ her be free.”
I stare at her. I can’t see what’s wrong with any of that.
“He admires you,” she continues, “because you cost him nothing. Because you never force him to confront anything. Because you make him feel generous.”
A knot forms in my chest.
“That’s not fair,” I tell her.
“It’s not un-fair,” she says softly.
She hesitates, then adds:
“He doesn’t think he’s controlling you, because his way of controlling you is to make you grateful he isn’t. He gives you freedom knowing you’ll reward him with loyalty. That’s how he gets his way. By being the reasonable one. The steady one.”
The truth of it dizzies me. She doesn’t say it, but it’s implied that I’m the unsteady one. The unreasonable one. And I realise, suddenly, that I’ve only become those things because Topper and everyone in his world keep trying to fit me into their version of who I should be. If I were still just myself, my real self, no one would be able to call me any of those things. And I wouldn’t be pushed to feel guilty about any of it, or who I am. But this is the world I’m standing in, and I don’t control its rules.
Maybe Topper is simply as good a man as anyone can be here? I’ve never questioned him before, why start now? Surely this is nothing more than pre-wedding jitters, stirred up by the perennial singleton in our circle. I feel bad for thinking of Cornelia this way, but I’m also feeling belittled and infantilised by her, and my defences are up. It’s like she’s assuming I have no agency of my own.
“He does love you,” Cornelia finishes. “But he loves the version he can manage.”
I inhale sharply, but stay still.
“That’s not what being seen looks like,” she adds. “Real seeing asks something of you. Topper doesn’t ask. He expects.”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel,” I admit.
Aren’t we all flawed in some ways? I think. Isn’t she turning something simple into something sinister, when all Topper has ever had are good intentions? Aren’t we all selfish at times, with blind spots we can’t see until someone else points them out?
We sit in silence for a moment, the lounge humming around us.
“There’s something else,” she says. “About Tilly.”
My head lifts. “Tilly?”
“She’s not as charmed as she looks.”
“Tilly’s always been…Tilly.”
“And that’s the problem,” Cornelia says. “Everyone buys the performance. She looks self-contained, self-sufficient, like she doesn’t need anything from anyone.”
I open my mouth, but she lifts a hand.
“I’m not telling you her secrets, they’re not mine to share. But she’s carrying something heavy. And it’s been eating at her for years.”
A small coldness threads through me. “But she’s always so…”
“Perfect?” Cornelia offers. “Effortless? Admired?”
“Yes,” I say.
“She’s hurting,” she says simply. “And there’s shame in it. The kind that makes you hide.”
I swallow. “I always thought she had everything.”
“That’s because you saw the surface. Just like everyone else only sees the surface of you.”
I look down at my hands. I hear her, where she’s right, and where she’s wrong.
“Birdie,” she says softly, “if you’re not careful, you’ll end up like her.”
I look up. “What do you mean?”
“Lovely to look at,” she says, “and utterly alone inside.”
The words hit a nerve.
Cornelia doesn’t look away. “You keep doing the right things for the wrong reasons. One day you’ll wake up and not recognise your own life.”
I laugh nervously. “You make it sound like I’m making terrible mistakes.”
“Not terrible,” she says. “Just unexamined.”
She leans in. “You’ve spent years being what everyone else needed. But when did you last ask yourself what you need?”
I know what she’s pointing to. She doesn’t have to say it.
“Respectability isn’t love,” she murmurs. “And prettiness isn’t happiness.”
She reaches for my hand. “You’re on the edge of something honest. Don’t run.”
Another plane rises into the pale sky.
“That’s my boarding call,” she says, standing.
I smile back at her. “I love Topper,” I say. “The rest, we can work out together.”
She hesitates. “And whatever this is between you and… him,” no name, “you need to face it. It’s already shaping your life.”
I look away.
“You’re not doing anything wrong,” she says. “You’re just human. But you can’t keep living in halves.”
She squeezes my shoulder, kisses my cheek, and then she’s gone, ponytail swinging, not looking back.
***
The winter light shifts across the lounge carpet. Something inside me feels bruised, but clearer.
A plane roars overhead.
I stand, gather my things, and walk towards my gate. I don’t know if I’m running from something or towards it.
My flight is called. Passengers move around me with purpose.
I turn towards the nearest telephone booth, step inside, close the glass door, and lift the receiver.
“Operator,” a clipped voice answers.
“Long distance,” I say. “Los Angeles… Beverly Hills Hotel. Person-to-person.”
My novel GREAT ARE THE MYTHS will be serialised (one chapter each day) over the summer of 2026. If you would rather listen to the audiobook, the full story is available for free on all the usual platforms. Info and links HERE
My World of Interiors 