Falling in Love in New York (16 page)

Lately, Abby found she was beginning to distance herself from him more and more, and with this distance came a much greater sense of clarity. Kieran leaving
hadn’t
been the end of the world, and slowly but surely she was beginning to understand that. But now that she’d begun to recognise that there was lots of living to do, she wanted to throw herself into it whole-heartedly.

Which was why, the Saturday night after their movie-watching weekend, Abby was in a great frame of mind to put her trust in Erin and was willing go along with whatever her best friend had in mind for that evening.

“OK,” Erin announced, when she called to Abby’s flat at around seven. As she had no clue what was had planned other than it would be happening tonight, Abby wasn’t sure what to expect, or indeed what to wear. “You’re probably not going to like this but–”

She looked at Erin, surprised. “What do you mean I’m not going to like this? The whole point of this is to pick something I
will
like, something I won’t forget in a hurry isn’t it?” she reminded her.

Erin smiled cryptically. “Yes, well, that’s the intention certainly. But I think that sometimes the most memorable experiences can stem from stepping out of your comfort zone and taking chances, don’t you think?”

Abby squirmed, not liking the sound of this at all. “What
kind
of chances?”

But Erin refused to elaborate. “You’ll see … hopefully,” she added in an aside, as Abby put on her coat and they left the flat.

“So where are we off to?” she asked as they continued walking down the street towards the city centre.

“Dame Street direction,” her friend replied, again refusing to be drawn any further.

“OK.” If they were staying in town they were obviously going out somewhere, Abby mused, faintly disappointed. A night out in Dublin on a Saturday night wasn’t exactly an earth-shattering experience, was it?

Erin was still chatting away as they walked along, evidently oblivous to Abby’s worries. “So did you talk to the travel agent about our trip?”

Since that intial discussion, they’d done some more research on the Californian road trip and had decided to book the trip for April. It would give Erin enough notice to organise time off from work. As all this had arisen partly because of her, Abby had insisted on arranging the booking.  

“Yep, we’re all booked and ready to go. She’ll be sending out the tickets about a week before we go.”

Erin grinned. “Fantastic, I really can’t wait!”

Some fifteen minutes later, they reached the centre of town, Abby still in the dark as to what they were doing, until finally Erin stopped outside a popular pizza chain. 

“We’re going for pizza?” Abby asked, puzzled.

Erin was all innocence. “What, you don’t fancy it?”

“Well, not particularly.” While pizza was one the few ‘foreign’ foods Abby liked, she’d thought tonight was supposed to be something
exciting
, something enjoyable. Sharing a margherita pizza over a cheap plastic table wasn’t exactly ground-breaking she thought, sligthtly deflated.

“Hoping for something more exciting, were you?”

“Well yes–why did you tell me to dress up if all we were doing was going here?”

Now, Erin was grinning like the cat that got the cream. “OK, then great, let’s go somewhere else then, somewhere a bit more interesting.”

“Hold on.”
Now
Abby was starting to get it. She stood rooted to the spot, refusing to go any further until she had some answers. “What’s all this about?”

“
This
is what it’s like for me and everyone else who agrees to eat out with you, Abby. We get our hopes up but instead end up having to eat bland, tasteless mass-produced rubbish. Hey, I’m not saying this to get at you,” Erin said quickly, noticing Abby’s wounded expression. “I’m just trying to make a point. But,” she added with a wicked grin, “now I think it’s time to show you
exactly
what you’re missing.”

Some ten minutes later, Abby was reluctantly pushed in the door of a small, but charming-looking restaurant. The décor was all warm oranges and terracottas, and apart from the small candles dotted around the wooden tables, the place was barely-lit which added to the cosy atmosphere. She and Erin were led to a small table for two at the back of the room, and the waitress was warm and courteous as she asked for their drinks order.

“What
is
this place?” Abby asked, skimming the four-page menu and finding hardly anything on it that she recognised.

“It’s where you’re finally going to rid yourself of that self-imposed pickiness of yours.”

“Erin I–”

“Abby just hear me out. When we were younger, you were absolutely fine about food. OK, so we weren’t eating out much, but at the same time you were pretty willing to try anything. But over the last few years, for some reason,” she added levelly, and Abby sensed she was trying to choose her words carefully, “you developed an ‘aversion’ to anything other than corned beef and cabbage.” When Abby opened her mouth to speak, Erin cut her off. “Maybe not that exactly, but you know what I mean.
Plain
food.”

“But I just don’t like–”

“How do you know you don’t like things if you’ve never even tried them?” Erin argued. “So here’s the thing–I brought you here tonight because it’s a great place to ease you into trying something now. Don’t worry, I’m not going to force you to eat anything you don’t like the look of,” she added quickly. “What’s going to happen is that we’re going to order eight different dishes from this menu–four each, but you must promise me that you will at least taste–even the teeniest, tiniest piece of every single one.”

“Eight dishes? But that’s an awful waste!” Abby was struck by how much like Kieran she sounded now.

“It’s not like that–this is a tapas restaurant; they only serve half-sized dishes here, small portions of whatever you choose.

“Tapas?” Abby had heard of such places but (naturally enough) had never been in one. But she had to admit she’d always thought they sounded kind of cool.

“Yes. Remember that thing on your list about facing your fears?” Erin reminded her. “Well this is as good a way as any to start.”

The waitress returned with their drinks and Abby used this break in the conversation to think about it. Now, a boring old margharita pizza sounded like heaven compared to the scary things she might have to face now!

But at the same time, as Erin pointed out, what harm could it do her? She picked up the menu and tentatively read through the list. OK, as expected there were lots of weird-sounding stuff in this sauce and that sauce and so on and so forth… But there really was no hiding from this, was there? Not to mention that if she
did
manage to come up with four reasonably ‘normal’ sounding dishes, Erin would only make her try her choices too.

Abby closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “OK,” she said, deciding again to throw caution to the winds. There was nothing here that could poison her was there? “Just make sure there’s nothing with eyes, OK? I really couldn’t eat anything with eyes.”

“Seriously?” Erin could barely contain her delight. “You’ll do it? Oh Abby that’s brilliant, I’m absolutely positive you’ll find something you like here, honestly you will! I’m going to pick some really great things, things I’m sure you’ll absolutely love and you’re right yes, nothing with eyes. And when you
do
try this… well I promise you, you’ll never go back to boring old …” She stopped mid-sentence, a bashful look on her face. “Oh look,  I’ll just shut up about it now and let us get on with it. I’m starving!”

It was kind of funny to think that her agreeing just to
try
new things could have such a affect on Erin. Had she
really
been that much of stick-in-the-mud in the past? And if so, how had anyone–friends or family–ever put up with her?

As per Erin’s instructions they each ordered four dishes, Abby failling miserably to pronounce some of the names of her choices, and when some ten minutes later, the waitress returned with the first of their tapas, Abby gulped.

Erin immediately began pointing out each dish by name, but Abby’s gaze became fixated on a small plate of something that looked like… well there was no denying that it looked like the very same as baby puke.

She took a deep breath and tried to stop her stomach from churning. This couldn’t be a self-induced neurosis like Erin said, could it? Not when her insides were reacting so strongly to even the
smell
of this stuff!

Then, without thinking any more about it, Abby suddenly picked up her fork and popped some of the puke-like stuff in her mouth. She let it sit on her tongue for a few moments, almost afraid to let herself taste it until, finally, she let her jaws move. And when she did she had an overwhelming urge to …
die
.

“Ugh!” she spluttered, having swooped on her drink and swallowed it down in the hope of quenching the fire on her tongue. “What the hell was
that
?”

Erin’s eyes were wide. “Erm, the plan was for you to
ease
yourself into this, not start off with the spiciest dish on the menu!”

Her friend was still laughing as she explained that what Abby had chosen had in fact been some kind of vegetable and chili conconction, and although she insisted it was actually quite mild …

“Well, you know what they say,” Abby said, feeling heady and more than a little reckless now. She reached out and picked up a forkful of some other weird-looking and unpronouncable food. “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger!”

Chapter 18

OK, so a full day’s shopping wasn’t something she would have chosen for
herself
as a particularly memorable experience, but Caroline was so excited about the prospect and equally determined that Abby enjoy it, that she didn’t really have the heart to say anything.

Once again, it seemed that someone close to her had decided that forcing Abby to endure something she normally didn’t enjoy was the best way to go about things. Although in Erin’s case, it actually hadn’t been that bad at all. While she couldn’t see herself becoming a regular at the tapas restaurant, she had in any case, enjoyed the atmosphere and the great
craic
.

“See I told you–eating out isn’t just about the food,” her friend tried to reiterate, her voice a little slurred after her third glass of wine. “It’s only the half of it actually. And now that you’ve broken through that psychological barrier of yours, and actually started trying new things, you never know what you might find.”

Abby smiled, thinking her tipsy friend was starting to sound a hell of a lot like Hannah. But at the same time, perhaps there was a grain of truth in what Erin was saying. By throwing herself whole-heartedly into completing the items on the list and letting herself be talked into doing stuff she wouldn’t normally dream of, Abby was, if nothing else, managing to put her problems to the back of her mind and getting on with her life.

This time, it was Caroline’s turn, and no sooner had they agreed-upon a suitable date (and much to Abby’s dismay, a supposedly memorable activity) her sister was determined to have her fall right into line. 

“Be ready ‘cause we’re starting early,” she’d ordered Abby over the phone a few days before and true to her word, Caroline and her Merc pulled up outside the flat first thing that Saturday morning.

“There was hardly any need to collect me–we could have met up somewhere in town,” Abby said, as she sat into the passenger seat of Caroline’s sporty Coupe.

“We aren’t going to town,” her elegantly coiffed sister replied with a conspiratorial wink. As usual, she looked effortlessly stylish in black T-shirt and cropped cream-coloured swing jacket over a pair of skinny jeans. The city-chic look was completed with a pair of over-sized dark sunglasses perched on her head and of course the obligatory funky designer handbag. As usual, Abby felt (and looked) about ten years older in her ancient but comfy jeans and trusty black V-neck sweater.  

“What?” she asked, puzzled. “Then where
are
we going?”

Caroline wasn’t the type to shop in the larger shopping centres on the outskirts of the city, where designer labels were generally few and far between, so Abby had naturally assumed their shopping spree would be concentrated between her sister’s second home, Brown Thomas, and other little bijou boutiques she often frequented. But perhaps for one day only and out of respect for Abby’s limited budget and even more limited taste, her sister had deigned to visit the more affordable high street chain stores.

She was wrong.

“I promised I’d take you on the shopping spree of a lifetime, didn’t I?” Caroline said, lowering her Prada sunglasses. “So in order to do that, we have to get out of boring old Dublin and go somewhere we can really go crazy. So little sister,” she announced with a dramatic flourish, “I’m taking you to London.”

“London? You mean England, London?”

“Well London England is how it usually goes but yes! Our plane leaves in an hour, and I’ve arranged to have a car waiting at Heathrow to take us straight to the hotel so – ”

“Hotel? You mean we’re staying over?”

“Of course. You didn’t think we’d go over and back in one day, did you?”

“But why didn’t you tell me?” Abby cried, panicked. “I don’t have anything with me, no overnight bag, change of clothes … nothing.”

“And you won’t need one, because we’re going
shopping
Abby,” her sister replied blithely. “Claridges will have everything you need cosmetics-wise, and as for the rest … well our shopping spree will take care of that.”

Abby couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Caroline, don’t get me wrong, a overnight stay in London sounds great, but what I can’t understand is why go all the way over there when we have virtually the same shops here?”

“Honey,” Caroline purred, driving towards the Port Tunnel. “You’ve obviously never shopped in London.”

***

They reached central London around midday and having checked into the hotel–(or at least picked up their keys as they’d both arrived with their hands hanging), she and Caroline hopped in a taxi and hit the shops. First up was Selfridges, the famous Oxford Street department store, which Abby had of course heard of, but had never been inside.

“Right first things first,” her sister said, leading the way inside, a determined look on her face; Abby dutifully following in her wake as she negotiated a multitude of shoppers, weaving her way through the crowds with practised ease. Then, Abby looked ahead and realised they were heading in the direction of what looked to be some kind of …

“A cocktail bar? What’s going on?” she asked bewildered, as Caroline climbed the spiral staircase towards a place called the Moet Bar.

Her sister grinned wickedly. “What’s
going on
is that today will be a long day, so we might as well kick it off in style.” She picked up a cocktail menu from the bar. “So what do you fancy?” she asked airily. “Something by Julien MacDonald, or maybe an Alice Temperley?”

Abby was amazed. “They do designer label
cocktails
here too?” she said, shaking her head in amused disbelief.

“Of course. But if you don’t fancy a cocktail, we could just go for a plain old glass of pink champagne?”

“Plain old …” Abby had to laugh at her sister’s choice of words. Apart from that time on the flight to New York ‘to calm her nerves’ she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a regular glass of the stuff, let alone a
pink
one. But seeing this was supposed to be a girlie day out …

“Pink champagne it is then,” she said, giddily pleased at the flamboyancy of it all.

As the two clinked champagne glasses and took a seat at the impressively stylish bar, Abby felt a delicious thrill as the bubbly liquid hit her tongue for the first time. OK, so drinking champagne at midday wasn’t exactly sensible, but hadn’t she spent long enough being bloody sensible? And Caroline had clearly gone to lots of trouble to make this day special, so she might as well get into the spirit of things.

“Look at all that amazing stuff,” Caroline sighed, turning in her seat to look out over the accessories department, above which the bar was situated. “Chloe bags, Marni belts, Chanel sunglasses …ooh, sends a shiver down my spine just looking at it.”

Abby, who didn’t know her Chloe from her Chanel couldn’t quite understand what all the fuss was about, but if Caroline had her way she thought with a grin, no doubt she would soon find out.

“So where do you want to start?” her sister asked, deciding to get right down to business. “Shoes, dresses, handbags …”

Abby thought about it. “Well, there’s nothing that I really need, to be honest.”

Caroline looked horrified. “Need! Who said anything about
need
! Abby, shopping for something you need is no fun at all–is that what you’ve been doing all these years?” She seemed to shudder at the very idea. “God, no wonder you haven’t been bothered about it up to now.”

Abby shrugged, not sure what to say to this.

Eventually Caroline stood up and drained the contents of her glass, and again Abby was struck by how much energy her sister always seemed to have. “Come on, enough time-wasting, drink that down,” she chided jokingly. “It’s time you and I went and did some serious
shopping–and what better way to start than by finding you a truly
fabulous
dress!”

Abby finished her drink and followed Caroline upstairs to the next floor where a truly bewildering amount of women’s clothes in various shapes, colours and sizes awaited them.

While Abby didn’t know where to look, Caroline was already zooming in on various rails and departments, picking up and discarding dresses skirts and tops with military precision.

“OK, daytime stuff first, I think,” she muttered. “Diane Van Furstenberg, Victor & Rolf, Gharani Strok … what size are you–a ten, twelve at the most?”

“A fourteen by the looks of some of these things,” Abby said, fingering a multicoloured diaphanous-looking dress that would make any normal sized woman look like Ten Ton Tessie!

“Nonsense, that one would look fab on you,” Caroline replied, swooping in on the dress and throwing it on the alarmingly large pile she now held over one arm. She peered at the label above the rail. “Issa, good choice – hmm, maybe you do have some taste after all.”

“Cheers,” Abby mumbled, wondering who the hell Issa was and how he or she got away with charging an arm and a leg for something that was in effect just a piece of bog-standard material. 

But ten minutes later she was eating her words. The dress, made of silk jersey which Abby was certain would cling in all the wrong places, (like that disastrous one on which she’d spent a small fortune) somehow managed to accentuate all the
right
ones, and with it’s multicoloured but predominantly purple and green butterfly print pattern, instantly transformed her from a dumpy thirty-year-old to a curvy and vivacious-looking girl-about-town.

“Well?” Caroline poked her head around the fitting room door, eager to take a look. “Hmm, just give me one second,” she said, her doubtful expression temporarily deflating Abby’s early optimism, until she returned and handed her a funky pair of Anna Sui brown satin boots, which ended up working surprisingly well with the dress.

Staring at her reflection in the mirror, Abby was entranced. In this outfit, she was no longer her normal dull and dowdy self, instead she looked glam and fashionable and dare she say it …cool!

“I love it!” she cried, doing a twirl in front of the mirror. “It’s just so …
not
me that I love it.”

“Finally, she gets the point,” Caroline deadpanned with wicked smile. “OK, now try the Pucci one–prints really
are
you actually. I don’t know why you don’t wear them more often.”

“Um, maybe because I don’t have a rich husband and limitless amounts of cash like you do,” Abby couldn’t help but retort as she tried on the lively and colourful pink and orange silk tunic. It was actually quite unusual looking what with its jewelled mandarin-style collar and self-tie belt and speaking of cash … she glanced down briefly at the garment’s price-tag and did a double take. Seven hundred and fifty
pounds
!

“No excuse, the high-street do some great replica versions these days,” Caroline lectured, “you just don’t bother looking.” 

It was true, Abby admitted, after Kieran left (and admittedly, long before) she’d not only lost interest in enjoying life, she’d also lost interest in the simple pleasures to be had in finding clothes that looked great, irrespective of cost. But then again, she’d never been any good at that kind of stuff, had never had much of an eye for it–certainly not like Caroline had anyway.

“Not bad, not bad, although Abby,” her sister said and the grimace on her face made Abby wonder what piece of excess flesh she was going to pinpoint, “you should really think about getting those legs waxed once in a while.”

Waxed? Abby had never considered the idea in her life. She usually only bothered
shaving
her legs whenever they were likely to be exposed, like in the summer or that one time she and Kieran went to Spain. Now she wondered if his new wife Jessica always kept her legs smooth and hair-free, and if so, had that made the difference?

Caroline was still talking. “In fairness, you’ve got really great legs, although you definitely need a killer pair of heels to go with a dress like that. Manolos would work, I think.”

“OK.” As most of the brands and names were going right over Abby’s head, she simply nodded in agreement, and decided she’d think about maybe booking a leg-wax when she got home. 

“Now try this,” Caroline again sifted through the pile she was holding and held up a mid-length purple red and white creation. “Diane Van Furstenberg  – if the size twelve Issa dress fits well, then this should be absolutely
perfect
on you.”

The dress did indeed look perfect on Abby, as did the petrol-blue jersey Stella McCartney mini-dress, the gorgeous Zandra Rhodes pink and purple chiffon maxi dress, and the floaty cotton Anna Sui vest top over Rock and Republic jeans.

By the time she got to the Whistles vintage-style flapper skirt, which Caroline insisted she team with silver foil and black suede Jimmy Choo sling-backs, Abby was well on her way towards becoming a fashion convert.

She had no problem admitting that up until now, she’d been perplexed by her sister’s penchant for designer clothes, believing it all rather silly.

But there was absolutely no doubt that these clothes really transformed her and at the same time there was this guilty thrill to be had about wearing these designer names with their incredibly lavish prices. So while Abby wasn’t planning on actually
buying
any of these clothes, she had to admit it sure was fun trying them on.