‘I’m coming!’ I yelled, dashing up the hallway in my beautiful gold dress
and delicate borrowed Jimmy Choos, clutch bag wedged into my armpit,
one diamond stud in my ear and one in the palm of my hand. But the
knocking at the door didn’t stop.
‘But Miss Summers, you look beautiful.’ Matthew stood at the front
door, resplendent in a new grey suit and pale gold tie, purchased especially
to complement my dress. ‘Really, you look amazing.’ He leaned in to give
me a delicate air kiss on the cheek that wouldn’t smudge my make-up.
‘You scrub up all right yourself,’ I commented, while he did a twirl. ‘I’m
almost ready. Why didn’t you let yourself in?’
‘Just wanted to make a grand entrance,’ he called from the hallway. ‘You
put the pictures up all by yourself? They look great.’
‘I am capable of hammering a nail into a wall as it happens,’ I replied,
applying one last coat of mascara in the living-room mirror. ‘I put them up
yesterday.’
After arriving back in London, I’d made a last-ditch dash over to Dan’s
place, calling en route and hoping I’d make it before he left for LA. But he
wasn’t home. And, according to the neighbour who’d come out to see what
exactly all the racket was about, he hadn’t been home in a day or so. I was
too late, he’d gone. Instead of throwing myself off Waterloo Bridge, I got
back in the taxi and let him drive me back home. There was nothing I could
do until he decided to talk to me, whenever that might be. Until then, I’d
decided to keep myself busy.
Once I’d prised myself out of bed sometime on Thursday afternoon, I
went for a run, then came home and gave the hallway a fresh coat of paint
to cover up the sad shadows where mine and Simon’s photos had once
hung. And, on Friday, after another mid-morning run, I took myself to Ikea
and came back with a cartload of new picture frames to fill. There was the
photo I’d taken on my phone of my new do, a ticket from the charity do at
The Savoy and even the scrap of paper bearing Asher’s number. I’d framed
my Agent Provocateur receipt. I’d taken a photo of my, Emelie’s and
Matthew’s tattoos and framed them as well. I put up what felt like several
thousand photos of me in the slingshot bungee ball and several thousand
more of me and my two best friends at Niagara Falls. In two short weeks,
I’d been able to rewrite my entire hallway. And, in the living room, in prime
position over the sofa, was a worse-for-wear-looking napkin, covered in
scribble, mounted in a huge black wooden frame.
‘Emelie’s already gone?’ Matthew wandered into the living room and
picked my new Mad Men DVD up off the top of the TV. ‘She’s not coming
with us?’
‘She went home last night.’ I gave myself one last look in the mirror.
Hair was shiny, dress was spotless, make-up pretty, fresh and – as
experience had taught me was essential – waterproof. ‘I don’t think she
wanted Paul to pick her up from here.’
‘Fair enough,’ he smiled at my artistic masterpiece. ‘I suppose she has to
go home anyway, with you abandoning us so callously.’
‘Well yeah,’ I agreed. ‘If she’s going to be alone in anyone’s house, it
might as well be hers. Besides, there’s no way she’s getting it on with my
brother here. I’m not that OK with it.’
‘When do you leave again?’ he asked.
About ten minutes after I’d given up banging Dan’s door down, Veronica
had called to tell me I’d got the Sydney job. The make-up artist the
magazine had originally booked had quit when she’d heard Dan had pulled
out, and Dan had only pulled out because he thought I was going. There
wasn’t a single verse in Alanis Morissette’s entire songbook to deal with the
irony of the situation. Because Dan had let them down, I was getting to go
to Australia. Because I had let him down, I got the opportunity of a lifetime.
Or had he let me down? Either way, neither of us had seemed very happy
the last time we’d spoken and now we were both going to be on opposite
sides of the planet because he wouldn’t listen. I was prepared to accept
some responsibility but, quite frankly, not a lot.
‘I’m going tomorrow night.’ I picked up the wedding invite from the arm
of the sofa and held out my arms to indicate I was all done. ‘Flight’s at ten.’
‘I’ll drive you.’ Matthew held out his arm. ‘You have to bring me back
some Vegemite.’
‘All right you two, ready?’ Stephen poked his head around the livingroom
door and Matthew lit up like a Christmas tree. ‘The car’s double
parked. Rachel, you look amazing.’
Lucky lady that I was, I had two escorts to the wedding. And, given the
way they were smiling at each other, there would be another wedding to go
to soon enough. God knows Stephen had spent every waking moment
working me and Emelie over for approval since we got back from Toronto.
And rightly so. Matthew might be ready to give him a second chance, but
Emelie and I had agreed he was on a six-month probation period as far as
we were concerned. One wrong look and we took his balls.
‘Shall we go?’ Matthew asked, holding out his arm.
I checked the list in my little pink notebook – invite, directions, card,
present – yep, I had everything.
‘We shall,’ I gave him a tiny curtsey and took the offered appendage.
Since I was sworn off men for the time being, it was likely to be the only
appendage I’d be manhandling for a while.
Emelie and Paul were waiting for us outside the church and, as much as it
pained me to admit it, they both looked incredibly happy to be together.
Paul had clearly washed his Ewok hair and Em, wearing my pale blue silk
number and cute little white lace gloves, was glowing. It was just
unfortunate that they weren’t the only people waiting for me outside the
church.
I spotted Simon before anyone else. I put it down to the fact that
spending five years of being with someone gave you something of a Spidey
sense as to when they were present. His car, our car, was parked a little way
down the lane from the church and he was leaning against a gravestone a
few feet away, decked out in his best suit, his slightly-too-long dark blond
hair combed down flat. He’d clearly missed his monthly haircut
appointment.
‘Don’t worry,’ Matthew said as Paul pushed up his suit sleeves. ‘We’ll
get rid of him.’
‘No.’ I held my hand over my eyes to shield them from the sun. I could
tell he wasn’t there to start trouble. He looked so sad. ‘I’ll talk to him. Wait
for me inside.’
Seeing I was serious, the four of them set off up the path to the church
while I turned in the opposite direction. This wouldn’t take long.
‘Simon?’
‘Rachel?’ He squinted at me and then did a double take. ‘Is that you?’
‘I realize it’s been a while but I wouldn’t have thought you’d have
forgotten what I look like.’ I crossed my arms in front of me. ‘What are you
doing here?’
‘Your hair.’ He continued to look me up and down until we passed right
through ignorant and onto completely obnoxious. ‘You look great.’
‘Thank you,’ I replied. At least I actually did, which was a weight off my
mind. We were a long way from baggy boxers and his dirty old T-shirt in
the hallway. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Well, you wouldn’t talk to me on the phone,’ he said. His tie flapped
awkwardly in the breeze. He never could tie them properly and the skinny
end was far too long. ‘And I know you hate coming to family things on
your own. I wanted to come with you.’
‘I’m not on my own, though.’ I pointed out Matthew and Paul, who –
against my instructions – were attempting to look menacing on the steps of
the church. They weren’t quite pulling off the Mitchell brothers. Chuckle
Brothers maybe, but that probably wasn’t quite the effect they were going
for. ‘And if I wanted to talk to you, I’d have called you.’
‘I didn’t recognize you,’ he said. ‘From over there, I didn’t realize it was
you. Your hair?’
The hair. Always the hair.
‘Simon, we’re at my dad’s wedding, don’t you think today’s going to be
enough of a pain in the arse for me without you pulling this shit?’ I shook
my head. ‘Just go home.’
‘Rachel, listen.’ He shuffled a little bit closer. I didn’t move an inch. ‘I
know you’re pissed off, you’re right to be pissed off, but I really am sorry.
Can’t you give me a second chance? Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.’
Wow. Whatever it takes. I wondered if he’d get in a barrel and let me
throw him over Niagara Falls? I sighed and looked at the sorry state of my
ex-boyfriend. The former love of my life. The man I’d accepted would be
the father of my children. Before I knew better than to settle. I had no doubt
he meant what he was saying: he was a complete mess. If I took him back, I
was certain he’d spend a good six months at least on his best behaviour;
maybe he would even propose. And it would be wonderful to have someone
back in my bed at night, someone to be there when I got home at night,
someone to take care of me.
But it wasn’t going to be him. And until I’d worked out who it was, I was
more than capable of taking care of myself.
‘I’m sorry, Simon.’ I stepped in closer, gave him a hug and sorted out his
tie. ‘It’s not going to work out. Go home.’
‘But the flat? The car? Croatia?’ he said with desperation.
Hmm. Weren’t they my arguments once upon a time?
‘My mum says she’ll buy you out of the flat,’ I replied, thankful that my
mum was a lot better with money than I ever would be. ‘The car is yours; I
never drive it anyway. We’ll take whatever it works out to off the cost of the
flat. And you’ll have to go to Croatia without me. I’ll be in Sydney.’
‘Sydney, Australia?’ Desperation petered out into defeat and Simon
shrank back into himself. I felt myself grow taller in my heels.
‘I have a job there,’ I nodded. ‘I’ll call you when I get back. We can sort
out the house stuff then.’
And, with one final kiss on the cheek, I turned and walked back up the
path to the church, took Matthew’s hands and closed the door on Simon.
Which would have been an incredibly dignified and elegant end to our
relationship if Paul hadn’t gone back outside and chased him all the way to
his car and screamed obscenities down the lane, in front of the vicar, until
Simon drove away in tears.
My brother, my protector.
My dad’s wedding, just like the previous two I’d attended in non-foetus
form, was beautiful. But you’d think, by the time you’d made it to your
fourth, you’d have it down to a fine art. I had to give the man his due: he
really did seem to look as though he meant what he was saying, while he
was saying it. And he couldn’t be completely evil, I reasoned, otherwise my
mum and Theresa, his second wife, wouldn’t be sitting in the back of the
church nattering away after the ceremony. Maybe his last wife would make
it to the next wedding. Give her a bumper marriage in the middle to get
over the disappointment.
‘Rachel Summers,’ a familiar voice crowed over my shoulder outside the
church. ‘Don’t you look a vision?’
‘Aunt Beverley,’ I acknowledged, wondering what the wedding etiquette
was on pushing an elderly relative over and then hiding behind the
headstones. Probably not OK at aged 28. Maybe I could pay one of the
younger cousins to do it. Or just ask Matthew. He’d totally do it.
‘That dress really is splendid,’ she said, holding my hands out to my
sides so she could get a proper look. A proper look as to where to stick the
knife. ‘Almost a wedding dress, isn’t it? And yet I still don’t see a ring on
that finger. Such a shame. You’re what? Thirty now? Thirty-one?’
Ahh, she’d gone straight in with a direct blow. Only one way to fight
back really, and Redhead Rachel wasn’t afraid to fight passive-aggressive
bitchiness with passive-aggressive bitchiness.
‘Oh shit, has it fallen off?’ I snatched my hand away and theatrically
inspected my left hand. ‘Matthew’ll be ever so mad.’
‘You’re engaged?’ She looked a little bit confused. But then she was old;
she always looked a little bit confused. ‘To that young man?’
We both looked over to where that young man was pawing Stephen and
completely blowing my cover. The one condition of him bringing his
boyfriend to the wedding was that he acted as my Aunt Beverley cover and
he’d failed. Oh, young love.
‘No, I’m only joking.’ I turned back to my aunt and gave her my biggest,
brightest smile. ‘We’re just fuck buddies, you know?’
‘Oh,’ she let go of my other hand. ‘Rachel.’
‘Yeah, well, he’s a massive poof really, but you know what men are like,
never satisfied. He’d probably put it in a goat if it let him.’ I leaned over to
give her a far-too-tight hug for far too long. ‘Bye, Bev. Love to Uncle
Alan.’
I strolled off across the lawn with a smile on my face and a song in my
heart. Turned out I didn’t need a date to make this wedding tolerable.
Veronica had been right, as long as I had my own balls, who needed a man?
By nightfall, the wedding had been declared a huge success and, more
importantly, everyone loved my dress. I’d have felt guilty for stealing the
bride’s thunder but, given that most of the people in attendance, including
Paul, couldn’t even remember her name, I chose not to. And besides, she
seemed more pissed off at the presence of my mother and Theresa to notice
what her eldest stepchild was wearing. Not that I was sure she knew who I
was: my dad had so many kids now we were practically the Von Trapp
family, except without musical talent and considerably better dressed.
‘How long do you give this one?’ my mum asked, taking the empty seat
next to me at a table right by the dance floor. ‘I like her, she’s got a good
energy.’
‘A year? Two?’ I suggested.
‘Generous,’ she said. ‘First anniversary max.’
‘I thought you liked her?’
‘That’s why I’m only giving them a year,’ she smiled. ‘Far too good for
your father.’
‘And the two of you claim to be friends.’ I sipped my billionth glass of
champagne and smiled at Em as she and Paul joined my dad and his newest
wife for their first dance. They’d been inseparable and quite frankly,
insufferable all day long, but even I had to admit they looked great together.
I’d never seen Em so smitten with a boy and I’d never seen Paul so
attentive. Maybe they were meant to be. But still. Ew. ‘I can’t believe she’s
here with Paul.’
‘He’s been taken with her for some time, you know.’ Mum accepted a
top-up on her champagne and clinked my glass. ‘You might have to get
used to this. I know I’d be much happier with Emelie for a daughter-in-law
than some of the young ladies I’ve heard about in the past.’
‘Young ladies?’
‘Exactly,’ Mum replied. ‘And Matthew is back with Stephen?’
‘He is,’ I confirmed. ‘Apparently sometimes a break can work. I’ve never
seen either of them so happy.’
‘And you?’
I turned in my chair to give her the full effect of my dazzling smile and
jazz hands. ‘Haven’t you heard? I’m in a three-way relationship with two
gays. It’s been the talk of the wedding.’
Aunt Beverley hadn’t been slow in getting the gossip out.
‘Well, yes, I’d heard that,’ she sighed. ‘I told Bev I’d had you all over for
Christmas dinner last year and they both call me Mum.’
I loved my mother.
‘But really, what’s going on? Are you OK?’
‘I am,’ I replied. ‘Or at least I will be. But yeah, work is good, my friends
are happy, my brother is going out with someone he won’t catch anything
from and you’re smiling. What more could I want?’
‘I saw Simon outside earlier.’ She ignored my comment about Paul, just
as she had been ignoring them for the last twenty-seven years. ‘Are you
…?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘Good.’
‘Why would I waste my time on a Scorpio?’ I gave her a nudge and
sipped my wine while my alleged gay lovers joined in the slow dance. Cue
mass murmurs around the room. ‘I’m going to give boys a miss for now. No
point wasting time on the wrong one.’
‘Glad you’ve finally come round to my way of thinking,’ Mum said.
‘Being alone doesn’t mean being lonely. We’re made of stronger stuff, you
and I. A man can’t make you happy if you’re not happy with yourself, you
know.’
‘I know,’ I said, setting my champagne down and giving her a hug. ‘I’m
sorry I’ve given you such a hard time in the past. I didn’t really understand
before.’
‘You forget you’ll always be my baby,’ she said, hugging back. ‘You
might think you’re all grown up, but you’ve still got a lot to learn before
you’re as wise as your old mum.’
‘Point taken.’ Did it ever get any easier to accept your parents were right
and you were wrong?
‘Ms Summers?’ Matthew appeared and held out his hand to lead me to
the dance floor while Stephen offered the same to my mum. ‘Quick spin
and then home?’ he suggested, spinning me out and then whirling me back
in. ‘That really is a fabulous dress. Remind me to take you somewhere
worthy of its presence.’
‘Thanks.’ I gave my dad a wave over Matthew’s shoulder. He looked
happy. ‘I might take you up on that. Anywhere in mind?’
‘I’m feeling another list coming on actually.’ He dipped me low on the
dance floor. ‘Ten more stamps in the passport? A country from each
continent? Visit every state in America?’
‘Shall I get Sydney out of the way first and we can take it from there?’ I
suggested.
‘Done and done,’ he said, pulling me in close. ‘Love you, Rach.’
‘I love you too,’ I said, nuzzling into his chest. Across the floor, I saw a
tall, dark middle-aged man cut in on my mum and Stephen. It wasn’t
anyone I recognized, but I was familiar with the glint in her eye. There was
hope for her yet. ‘And if a little old lady in a navy suit asks, we’re doing it.’
‘Gotcha,’ he nodded.
And after another verse chorus and verse of the wildly inappropriate
‘Three Times a Lady’, he gestured for us to make a move. A plan I backed
wholeheartedly.
At my request, we listened to Magic FM all the way back to London,
Matthew and Stephen belting out power ballads as though their lives
depended on it, while I attempted to harmonize. We had just put in a
spectacular version of ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ when our hire car pulled
up outside my flat.
‘Night beautiful,’ Matthew kissed me on the cheek through the driver’s
side window. I shoved myself halfway across him to give Stephen a sloppy
kiss on the cheek that I still wasn’t sure he deserved, before turning on my
heel and heading for the door. I was happy my friends were happy. I was
happy my family was happy. I was happy I was drunk. Until I got home and
saw a tall dark figure loitering around my doorstep. Why had I sent
Matthew home without seeing me in the door? Now I was going to be
murdered in this beautiful party dress and Aunt Beverley would tell
everyone at the funeral I was having relations with a gay man.
‘Hi.’
I didn’t think it was usual for murderers to say hello.
I didn’t think it was usual for murderers to bring a suitcase.
But then I hadn’t counted on the murderer not being a murderer at all but
in fact being a very tired-looking, two days’ worth of beard-wearing Dan.
On my doorstep. At midnight.
‘Hi.’ I stayed at the bottom of the steps, my heart pounding and climbing
up my throat. ‘You’re in LA.’
‘And you’re drunk,’ he replied, pointing to the case beside him. ‘I
haven’t left yet. I’m on my way now.’
‘Oh.’ Heart crashing back down to my feet. ‘You didn’t call me back.’
‘No.’ He tipped his head to one side, his curls sliding across his forehead,
covering up his eyes. ‘I had some thinking to do.’
‘Dangerous,’ I replied. This Mexican stand-off was starting to become a
problem. I was drunk, it was cold and I really needed a wee. The unholy
triumvirate of doorstep dilemmas.
‘Yeah, thing is,’ he said, peeling off his jumper and holding it out to me.
This one was black, cashmere again. If we kept this up, I’d have quite the
collection soon enough. ‘I’m in love with this girl who isn’t in love with me
and I don’t really know what to do about it.’
‘Right.’ I skipped up the steps as lightly as possible given that the balls of
my feet were burning. And I really, really did need that wee. ‘How do you
know she’s not in love with you?’
‘Because if she felt the same way I did, I’d know.’ He took a deep breath
and sat back down. I was just going to have to hold it. Afraid to stop him
mid-sentence, I sat down beside him.
‘I knew it from the first day we worked together but I didn’t know what
to do about it. I’d never, ever felt that way about anyone before, but she
really didn’t seem that impressed by me. And she had a boyfriend, although
that had never stopped me before if we’re being entirely honest.’
‘You were wearing a baseball cap,’ I said in a completely flat voice,
praying for my cloudy brain to clear up. I was going to need all my wits
about me for this one. ‘That first day. It was a Cosmo shoot.’
‘And you told me you couldn’t take me seriously while I was wearing it,’
he went on. ‘But I remember thinking that, sooner or later, you’d break up
with your boyfriend and realize that we were meant to be together. So I
threw away all my baseball caps.’
Jaw on the floor. That was hands-down the most romantic thing anyone
had ever done for me. Even if I didn’t know it at the time.
‘You did?’
‘I say all. Most of them,’ he shrugged. ‘But I never wore one on a shoot
with you ever again. I just waited for you to break up with your boyfriend.
But when you did, by the time I’d heard about it, you’d got another one.’
‘I was a bit of a fast worker,’ I acknowledged. This was bizarre; I’d had
no idea for six years. Talk about playing it cool.
‘Luckily, that one didn’t last,’ Dan kept talking. ‘But I told myself to wait
because I didn’t want to be your rebound fling. So I waited, just a bit too
long, because as soon as you’d told me you’d broken up with one bloke,
you’d met Simon and you practically moved in together right away. Once
you bought the house, I thought it was all over, so I started dating Ana to try
to distract myself. But then … well, but then. And now we’re here.’
Even if I’d had any grasp over my vocabulary, I wouldn’t have been able
to speak for all the butterflies dicking about in my stomach. What was it
butterflies actually did, anyway? Besides make me feel as if I was
absolutely, positively about to throw up? What was pretty about that?
‘Rachel?’ Dan took hold of my hand. ‘I would feel really good if you
could join in with something right now. Anything really.’
‘I went to Canada to see a boy,’ I started, forcing the butterflies under
control. Now if I could just hear myself over my own heartbeat. ‘He was
my first crush.’
‘I know I said say anything, but I’m not sure I meant this,’ Dan
interrupted. ‘Anything else?’
‘Shut up,’ I ordered. His hand was so hot around mine. Hot and big and
solid, like him. I had long fingers but, compared to Dan, I had tiny hands. ‘I
went to Canada to see this boy and it was lovely. He was lovely. But the
whole time I was there, all I could think about was you.’
‘Oh,’ he nudged me with his knees. ‘That sounds better.’
‘And then I did a bungee jump at Niagara Falls and called you to tell you
but you didn’t want to listen and then I came home to see you but I thought
you’d gone to LA which you bloody hadn’t,’ I added. ‘So I sort of gave up.’
‘Oh yeah.’ He wrapped his other arm around my shoulders, rubbing my
back absently. Boom. The butterflies took cover from the uncontrollable
lightning bolts. ‘Sorry about that. Hang on, you did a bungee jump?’
‘Kind of. It was on my list.’ I turned my face up to look at his. ‘I came
back a day early. When you wouldn’t answer your phone, I flew back a day
early to see you but you’d already gone.’
‘I panicked.’ He pushed my hair out of my face, then traced a fingertip
along the neckline of my dress, brushing my collarbone. ‘But I’m here.’
‘But you’re leaving,’ I pointed out, wrapping my fingers around his and
putting them back on his knees. This was going to be hard. ‘Tonight?’
‘I’ll be back in a week.’ Dan squeezed my hand but I shook it free. ‘Or
you could come with me. Go in and pack a bag. Just come.’
‘I can’t.’ My voice wasn’t even really a whisper. ‘I’m going to Australia.’
‘You booked the Sydney job.’ He closed his eyes and retracted his hands.
The lightning subsided for just one minute. ‘Of course you did.’
Old Rachel wanted to tell him she’d blow the job off, that she’d just tell
them she was sick or stuck in Canada or something and run off to LA with
Dan, but I just couldn’t. New Rachel wouldn’t let her.
‘How long are you gone for?’ He fiddled with the hem of his T-shirt
before looking up and turning those big brown eyes on me. ‘I’ll be back
next Sunday.’
‘I’m staying for a month. At least.’ This time, I was the one who took
hold of his hand. ‘Veronica booked me some jobs, I’m going to travel for a
bit.’
It was as though I’d just gone to tell Bambi the bad news about his mum.
‘I thought you’d gone, Dan,’ I said. ‘I thought this wasn’t happening.
Getting away for a bit was the best idea.’
‘My timing is shit. ‘He pushed his too-long curls out of his eyes.
‘It’s not brilliant.’ A tiny fluttery laugh escaped from my throat. Probably
wasn’t the right time for giggles, but if I didn’t laugh, I was absolutely
going to cry. ‘What time’s your flight?’
‘Not until morning.’ Dan rapped a fist against his case. ‘To be honest, it
was either convince you to come with me or go out and get totally
hammered. Tried-and-tested method of dealing with rejection.’
‘It’s not rejection,’ I said after a few too many moments of silence. ‘I’ll
be gone for a month. In the greater scheme of things, it’s really nothing.’
Didn’t feel like nothing, though. From my perspective, it felt like this
was really not meant to be. I was right in the first place: never give in to the
butterflies, they just make you sick. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what
Dan was thinking.
‘Can I stay tonight?’ he asked.
Oh. So that’s what he was thinking. I suppose six-year epic unrequited
love or not, he did still have a penis.
‘I really want to say yes,’ I whispered, my forehead resting against his.
‘But I don’t think it’s a very good idea.’
‘I think it’s a very good idea.’ His breath tickled my ear and my resolve
wavered as that now-familiar feeling shivered all the way down my spine.
‘I need a bit more time.’ The words didn’t come out easily but I knew
they were the right ones. ‘I don’t want to mess you about but I’m not
ready.’
‘Right.’ He pulled away abruptly and leapt to his feet. ‘Plan B then, I’ll
go and get hammered. Have fun in Sydney.’
‘Dan, wait.’ I tried not to keel over as he vanished from my side.
‘I’m done waiting,’ he called back, dragging the case noisily down the
street. ‘Maybe you can put “call Dan” on your list when you get back from
Australia.’
Of course, the grand romantic gesture would have been to kick off my
heels, forget that I was desperate for a wee and run down the street after
him. But New Rachel didn’t run after men. New Rachel stood on her own
two feet, high heels attached, and unlocked the door to my house.
Four weeks later …
It only took one ten-hour layover at LAX to remind me why I hated flying.
I shifted in my crappy chair and waited for the feeling to come back into my
left arse-cheek while I pondered another run round duty-free. There was no
such thing as too many cheap Toblerones.
The airport was a bit of a shock to the system after the month I’d had.
The magazine shoot had been great; I’d made lots of excellent new contacts
and one job led to another and to another and another. Before I knew it, I
was flying out to New Zealand with a group of models from London,
swimming through caves lit up by glow worms and re-enacting scenes from
Xena: Warrior Princess before spending happy drunken nights hanging out
on the beach. Most amazing of all, I even had a bit of a tan. So to go from
the wide-open spaces of Australia and New Zealand to the confines of an
airport was a bit much. I wanted to be home. I wanted to be in my bed. I
wanted to find out just exactly what Emelie was thinking when she and my
brother changed their Facebook status to ‘in a relationship’ last week. She’d
been strangely un-Skype-able since the announcement. It was still taking
some getting used to, but I was trying.
On the other hand, Matthew and Stephen couldn’t leave me alone. I took
my iPhone out of my pocket and read his last message. I couldn’t remember
the last time I’d seen him this happy and he really, really wanted to share
that joy. Every day I got an update of their adventures – nothing sordid,
thank god, but they never left the house without letting me know where
they were off to. And I suppose I was supposed to be honoured that they’d
named their new kitten Red for me, but I just had everything crossed that
they would never ask me to look after it.
The only person I hadn’t heard from was Dan. Matthew had tried to
convince me that it didn’t mean anything, his arguments flipping from ‘he’s
cooling off because he thinks you rejected him’ to ‘he’s giving you space to
think’, depending on which suited my mood. I’d sent him a couple of
emails, a couple of texts, but got nothing back. If this was Dan cooling off,
they should consider using him in the fight against global warming. Just
thinking about him made me feel positively chilly.
I flicked through my text messages one last time. I could call my mum.
She’d love a chat. It was only, oh, four a.m. in London. Maybe not then.
Besides, she was another one who had apparently jumped on the love
bandwagon while I was out of town. The last time I’d called she was out at
Pizza Express with the ‘gentleman friend’ she’d met at the wedding. My
first instinct was to be pissed off that she’d taken him to ‘our’ place, but
then I remembered I wasn’t thirteen and she was allowed to go to eat
overpriced pizzas without me. It was too early to call anyone in England.
Too soon to call anyone in Australia. And I was too full to eat another
Panda Express.
I could call Ethan, who, having got over my callous abandonment – in
that he was dating the chemistry teacher at his high school and, it turned
out, hadn’t been taking the whole thing quite as seriously as I had in the
first place; my ego was adequately deflated – had turned out to be a fairly
constant email buddy. It was nice to have a straight boy to fire questions at,
even if his answers were often lacking in tact. Really, though, what did I
expect?
Giving up on communication with another human being, I put my phone
away and closed my eyes. Just another two hours to go.
‘Is that an iPhone in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?’
My eyes snapped open.
‘iPhone,’ I replied. ‘Definitely an iPhone.’
Dan Fraser stood in front of me. He clearly had not spent the last eight
hours hunched up in an unpadded chair. Rather than crumpled, cramped and
crappy, he looked fresh, tanned and far happier than he had any right to be.
‘Ouch.’ He picked my giant handbag up out of the chair next to me and
replaced it with himself, cradling the bag in his lap. ‘What do you keep in
here? It’s like the Tardis. Except bigger. And bluer.’
‘What are you doing here?’ I tried to funnel my shock into rage but
instead I was having a minor stroke as to the state of the carry-on baggage
under my eyes. What was the protocol on me running for the lavs to pop on
some Touche Éclat before he answered?
‘Funny story.’ He opened my bag and peered inside. Cheek. Of. The
Devil. ‘I ended up staying out here for a few weeks to try to clear my head
but for some reason, I just could not stop thinking about you.’
‘And yet you were unable to return my messages.’
Hi, my name is Rachel and I make snarky comments at inappropriate
moments when I don’t know what else to say.
‘And yet I was unable to return your messages,’ he agreed. ‘Because
whenever I wrote down what I was thinking, it came out wrong. And
because I had no idea what you were actually saying in your messages,
given that they made no reference to our last conversation whatsoever.’
I thought back to my emails. There was a chance I’d gone a little too far
with the ‘I’m breezy’ school of communication. It was hard to pour your
heart out on a medium that could so easily be printed out and used against
you at a later date. As I’d learned.
‘So I decided it was time to come home, get on with my life, when I was
on the phone to Veronica and she mentioned you were coming home and
that your flight connected in LA.’ He pulled four full-sized Toblerones out
of my bag and raised an eyebrow. ‘And here we are.’
‘You’re on my flight?’
‘I’m on your flight.’
He really had to stop sneaking up on me when I was knackered, jetlagged
or drunk. I was indecisive at the best of times but, right now, I had no idea
what I was going to do. All I knew was that, now he was here, sitting beside
me, I had missed him so much more than I’d let myself realize.
‘Bit convenient, isn’t it?’ I asked, not quite ready to look him straight in
the eye.
‘Not really.’ He replaced the chocolate and took out my notebook and a
pen. My heart stopped – and not in a good way. ‘It took me a lot of time and
a lot of money to casually run into you in a departures lounge halfway
round the world, but I thought the cool thing to do would be not to mention
that.’
‘Fair enough.’ I bit my lips, trying to will some colour back into them.
Oh god, my hair. What must my hair look like? I had Heidi plaits. Why did
I have Heidi plaits?
‘Lots of new lists, he said, leafing through the pages. ‘You really do have
a problem.’
‘This is not news,’ I pointed out, still trying to work out exactly what was
going on. Was he just trying to make friends? ‘What are you writing?’
He turned the book around to show me. It was a short list.
Accept Dan’s apology.
Give Dan a Toblerone.
Kiss Dan.
Without even trying to accomplish the first two tasks, Dan wove his
fingers into my hair, pulling me towards him until, finally, his lips were on
mine. Every firework from Niagara Falls went off in my stomach,
obliterating the butterfly population and putting the lightning in the shade.
It just felt right. So this was why Matthew was prepared to take Stephen
back. Why Emelie had held out for ten years for me to give her permission
to go out with my brother. I would have waited a lifetime for another kiss
like that but, luckily, I only had to wait a couple of seconds.
‘I’m sorry I was a dick that night on your doorstep,’ he murmured, his
hand tangled up in my messy plaits. ‘I thought I was out of options.’
‘I really did just need some time,’ I whispered back, not caring who was
watching. ‘But I know that’s not the easiest thing in the world to ask for.’
‘But it should have been,’ he countered. ‘So what do you reckon? Shall
we give it a go?’
‘Well,’ I ummed and ahhed for a moment. ‘I suppose it is on the list—’
‘It is on the list,’ Dan leaned in for another kiss, cutting me off.
He always did have to have the last word.
But, it was on the list.
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