Three Amazing Things About You (11 page)

The doorbell shrilled and she froze. What?
What?
Heart thumping, she crossed the room, pressed the intercom and said, ‘Who is it?’

‘Me. I forgot something.’

What could he have forgotten? She buzzed open the front door and heard Zander’s footsteps on the stairs.

And then he was standing before her. She gazed up at him, feeling the cold air emanating from his body, simultaneously breathing in the scent of his skin.

He drew her to him and kissed her on the mouth. Oh, oh wow, this was amazing . . . the cool, firm pressure of his lips and the warmth of his tongue were having a mesmerising effect, his hand was cupping the back of her head and she could feel his own heart beating against her chest . . .

He pulled away at last, the side of his thumb gently stroking her cheek. ‘I didn’t have the nerve to do that before. It wasn’t until I turned round and saw you watching me from the window that I plucked up the courage to come back.’

To look at him, who would ever think he could be lacking in self-confidence? People with carved cheekbones and perfect eyebrows should never be shy.

‘I’m glad you did.’
Oh my word, just listen to me; what a brazen hussy!

‘But now I really do have to go.’ He gave her one more brief kiss. ‘Before my sister dies of frostbite on our doorstep. What’s this?’

‘What’s what?’ Flo turned to try and see what he was looking at, but his hand stayed in her hair at the back of her head.

‘Don’t move, there’s something in here . . . OK, got it . . .’

They both looked at what he’d found: two grains of fried rice and a bit of noodle.

From the carpet. God,
nits
would have been less embarrassing. At least nits had a reason to
be
in her hair.

‘How did those get in there?’ Zander frowned, genuinely baffled.

‘I have no idea. I picked Jeremy up just before you rang the bell. He must have been stealing food off my plate and got some on his whiskers.’ Flo gave Jeremy a stern look and said, ‘No more leaving rice in my hair, OK? That’s gross.’

Jeremy twitched his ears at her. Blaming him was low, but Flo was sure he didn’t mind being her scapecat.

‘I’m going now.’ Zander put the offending items in one of the empty containers. ‘Definitely leaving this time.’

‘OK.’

He smiled. ‘Quite a night. Look, I have to fly to Toronto tomorrow on business. I’m going to be there for a couple of weeks. But as soon as I get back, I’ll be in touch.’

What was it she’d said earlier, about life taking an unexpected turn? Who would ever have predicted something like this happening? Best of all, when he said he’d be in touch, Flo knew he wouldn’t let her down.

Feeling all pink and glowy, she said, ‘Good.’

Dear Rose,

Three things about me:

I adore my husband.

I can’t stand my mother-in-law.

I don’t look great in a bikini.

The truth is, my mother-in-law wishes I was prettier, more like her. She’s super-glamorous and I’m not. Her Christmas present to me was a cosmetic surgery voucher, and she’s already told me that once I’ve had the liposuction, she’ll give me another voucher for a nose job. (You can’t say she’s not generous!)

I’m happy with the way I look but fed up with the constant digs. Every year my in-laws pay for us to fly out to Barbados and join them at their holiday villa. I’m quite sporty and enjoy being active, but we’re expected to spend all our time with them just lying by the pool. By day we sunbathe, by night we eat and drink . . . and that’s it. I wish we didn’t have to go, but my husband says we’ll hurt their feelings if we refuse, and he doesn’t want to do that. Nor can we afford any kind of holiday ourselves.

Please help. I just don’t know what to do.

Love, Laura

Dear Laura,

Oh dear, I kind of feel sorry for all of you. It can’t be much fun for your mother-in-law, having to put up with a guest who is clearly bored out of her mind. Maybe she’s just being polite, inviting you to join them on their holiday, and would be secretly relieved if you said you couldn’t go.

Obviously her choice of gift is awful, but maybe it isn’t a personal dig; in her mind, she may genuinely be trying to help. Yes, I’m giving your mother-in-law the benefit of the doubt here, but some people just have different priorities in life.

Here’s my suggestion: tell your in-laws that you’re only able to take two weeks off work, and you’ve decided to use the time to have the plastic surgery. Then get a refund on the voucher and spend the money on a brilliant holiday for you and your husband. Tell your mother-in-law that you had the lipo, wait a few weeks, then proudly show off your new body. Tell her you’re thrilled with it. If she says she can’t see any difference . . . well, that’s her problem, not yours. (If she says she can’t see any scars, tell her that’s because the plastic surgeon was a genius.)

Have a great holiday!

Love, Rose

The queue for the check-in desk at the airport was ridiculously long, snaking like a maze and composed of hundreds of travellers in various stages of impatience.

Rory, already checked in for his brief flight to Zurich on a two-day business trip, was waiting to meet up with his colleagues. He watched as a small child took a bite of an egg sandwich, pulled a face and shoved it, unwrapped, into his Thomas the Tank Engine knapsack.

A group of men heading off on a stag weekend and keen to reach the bar in Departures were complaining noisily about the queue. Teenagers attempting not to look as if they were with their parents were plugged into their headphones and lost in a world of music. An overly loved-up couple, possibly on their honeymoon, were passing the time with their arms wrapped around each other, locked in an emotional embrace. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t also been kissing. Noisily.

Rather like a couple of camels.

Oh well, each to his own. The corners of Rory’s mouth twitched as the pair pulled apart for a moment and the woman, gazing dreamily into the man’s eyes, murmured, ‘Wuv you.’

Oh God, don’t do it, don’t say it . . .

The man nuzzled her, nose to nose. ‘Wuv you too.’

Eurgh, he said it. And no one else in the queue had even noticed.

Then he realised he wasn’t the only one after all; at the very end of the check-in queue was a group of girls in their late twenties, one of whom was in a wheelchair. She had cropped wavy dark-red hair and plastic tubing across her face, mask-style, feeding her oxygen. She was chalk-pale beneath a scattering of freckles and there were violet shadows beneath her huge dark eyes, but she was watching the couple and trying hard not to laugh as well. The next moment, her gaze met Rory’s and they silently shared the comedy-gold moment that everyone else had been too distracted to witness.

She looked so unwell, so thin and frail, that Rory wondered if she were actually fit enough to travel. But she was there in the queue, so she must be. And despite the obvious fragility, she was evidently still capable of retaining her sense of fun. As the couple ahead of her in the queue exchanged another noisy kiss –
mwahhh!
– the girl discreetly mouthed the words
Wuv you
and mimed sticking her thin fingers down her throat.

Wuv you too
, Rory mouthed back, and she started to laugh, provoking a helpless coughing fit.

One of the officials from the airline approached the girl with a clipboard. ‘Hello, you don’t need to queue here! If you’d like to come with me, we can fast-track you through.’

‘Really? Fantastic.’ The girl’s friend swivelled the chair round and detoured out of the snaking line, to the considerable annoyance of a group of people halfway along the queue.

‘Hey, hold on! Just ’cos she’s in a wheelchair, how come she gets better treatment than we do? We’ve been stuck here waiting for half an hour . . .’

The girl coughed, looked at them and said with a half-smile, ‘I know, it’s so unfair. I’m just lucky, I guess.’

What a bunch of imbeciles. They carried on whingeing and complaining as the girl was whisked up to the desk. When she lifted herself briefly out of the wheelchair in order to disentangle the strap on her shoulder bag from the plastic oxygen tubing, they howled with fresh outrage because she wasn’t completely paralysed and
could
stand up.

‘She’d better not be on our flight,’ snorted one of the angry family. ‘I saw someone who looked like that on one of those hospital programmes the other week. Turned out they had Aids.’

Jesus.

‘Look, and now she’s got someone pushing her along, taking her up to Departures in a lift. She’s probably only pretending to be ill for the special treatment.’

Rory marvelled at the morons’ staggering lack of empathy. He had no idea what was wrong with the girl, but she was clearly very unwell. Imagine feeling that ill
and
having to deal with the ignorance of people like that.

Maybe he’d stop for a chat with her if they happened to bump into each other again.

Meanwhile, here came Den and Ehjaz now . . .

The others were so thrilled to be here at the airport, about to fly to Paris for three days to celebrate Bea’s birthday. Hallie had been looking forward to it too; having made the decision to go, she’d found herself getting more and more excited about the prospect. Their rooms in Montmartre were all booked, she’d pored over the website for so long she practically knew every inch of the hotel off by heart, and people had recommended all sorts of brilliant restaurants to visit and fantastic places to go. Tomorrow they were taking a trip down the Seine on a Bateau Mouche . . .

Everything had seemed to be going so well. For the last week, praying that she’d be OK for the trip, Hallie had actually felt fine, if anything a bit better than usual.

Until this morning, when she’d woken up feeling just that bit
less
well and, deep down, had recognised the early symptoms and realised she was harbouring the beginnings of yet another infection. Whether her immune system would be up to the task of fighting it off was another matter.

Maybe in her heart she’d known the truth, but desperation had led her to deny it. Like waking up in the night feeling sick and trying hard to go back to sleep in the hope that the nausea might somehow magically disappear, Hallie had resolutely ignored the signs.

But that had been five hours ago, and the infection evidently had no intention of going anywhere. Rather than fighting it off, her hopeless, feeble body appeared to be surrendering completely. She was feeling shivery and weak all over, the backs of her eyes hurt and her chest was already tightening in that oh-so-familiar way.

In the confines of the disabled cubicle in the ladies’ loo, Hallie took the thermometer out of her medical bag, uncapped it and put it under her tongue. She already knew she was running a temperature. At a guess, 38.5°C.

OK, and take a look . . .

Damn, 39.2°C.

She took out her mobile, called the surgery and asked Mary on reception to see if Luke could possibly come to the phone.

He knew what she was doing today, obviously. Within twenty seconds she heard his voice.

‘Hallie. What is it?’

‘I’m at the airport. Feeling pretty rough. Just took my temp and it’s thirty nine point two.’

A pause at the other end, then: ‘Well, you can ask to be seen by a first-aider, but I think you already know the answer.’

‘Yes.’ There was no point getting upset and all why-me? about it. She wasn’t fit to travel, and even if she made it to Paris, she wouldn’t be well enough to enjoy the trip.

‘I’m sorry.’ Luke’s tone was compassionate.

‘I know. Me too.’ Such a waste of anticipation; all that looking forward to something that was no longer going to happen.

‘Have you told the others yet?’

‘No.’ Hallie coughed weakly. ‘Nor my mum. Oh God, I’m going to be messing up her plans too.’ Her mother, taking advantage of her absence, had booked a weekend away in Edinburgh. Which she would cancel in a heartbeat, naturally, but it all contributed to Hallie’s feelings of guilt. Her poor mum had little enough free time as it was.

Luke, who knew this too, said, ‘Look, don’t call Fay yet. Let’s see if we can work something out. I may be able to help.’

‘OK. Thanks. I’ll tell the girls now.’

Emerging from the disabled loo, she made her way back through Departures to the champagne bar, where Bea and the others were starting as they meant to go on.

‘Here she is! You’ve been
ages
. Come on, catch up, get this down you.’ Bea held out a brimming fizzing glass.

‘I’m so sorry, I have an infection.’ Hallie’s voice cracked; how she hated always having to be the bearer of bad news. ‘You’re going to have to have a brilliant time without me. I can’t fly.’

Oh well, at least the extortionate travel insurance meant she wouldn’t miss out financially too. Apart from the extortionate taxi back to Carranford, obviously. Once she’d been seen by the airport first-aider, who confirmed that she wasn’t fit to travel, Hallie completed the necessary paperwork and let the airline staff take her and her belongings along the covered walkway to the taxi office.

As they waited for the next cab to become available, Hallie’s phone rang. Answering it, she assumed a cheerful holiday voice. ‘Hi, Mum! Everything OK?’

‘Just wondering how it’s all going, darling. Checking you haven’t forgotten anything. Not that there’s much you can do about it now if you have!’

Hallie’s heart went out to her mum, who had worried about her her whole life. As any parent would, obviously, under their particular circumstances. But when it was just the two of them, Fay and Hallie Kingsley against the world, maybe the worry was that much more intense.

Luke was right: she couldn’t let her mother cancel her own plans for a weekend away from Carranford. More than anyone, she deserved a break.

‘I have everything I need. We’ve all had a glass of champagne.’ Well, she’d forced herself to take a couple of sips. ‘And they’ve just called our flight, so we’ll be getting on the plane any minute. I’ve got priority boarding!’ Chirpily she added, ‘Because I’m extra special!’