Where Rainbows End (3 page)

PS: Please STOP calling me Buttercup!

from:

Alex

to:

Rosie

subject:

18th Birthday

Rosie, Good to hear you’re alive after all, I was beginning to worry! I would love to celebrate my 18th with you but Bethany’s parents are taking me and my parents out for dinner to the Hazel. How posh is that??!

Sorry Rosie, another night definitely.

love, rosie

23

Dearest Alex,

Well whoopdeedoo for you

Fuck Bethany

Fuck her parents

Fuck the hazel

And fuck you

Love your best friend Rosie

from:

Rosie

to:

Alex

subject:

Happy Birthday!

OK then well, enjoy the meal. Happy birthday!

from:

Rosie

to:

Alex

subject:

DISASTER!

I can’t believe this is happening! I was just talking to your mum; called over for a chat and she told me the bad news. I can’t believe it, this is the
worst
news
ever
! Please call me when you can, your boss keeps telling me you can’t take calls during working hours—QUIT! Mr. I never EVER want to work in an office.

Get in touch with me as soon as you can, this is so terrible, I feel awful!

Dear Mr. Stewart,

We are delighted to inform you that you have been accepted to fill the position of Vice President of Charles and Charles Co. We are delighted that you will be joining the team over here and we look forward to welcoming you and your family to Boston.

I hope the relocation package we offer will be to your satisfaction. If there is anything further that Charles and Charles Co. can do for you, do not hesitate to ask. Maria will call you to discuss a suitable date for you to begin work.

We look forward to seeing you at the office.

Welcome to the team!

Yours sincerely,

Robert Brasco

President of Charles and Charles Co.

from:

Alex

to:

Rosie

subject:

Re: DISASTER!

I’ll call you when I get home. It’s true. Dad was offered a job doing something that sounds incredibly boring . . . I don’t really know, I wasn’t lis-love, rosie

25

tening. I don’t know why he has to go all the way over to Boston to do a boring job, there’s plenty of them right here. He can have mine.

Oh Rosie, I’m so pissed off. I don’t want to go. I only have a year left in school; this is such the wrong time to leave. I don’t want to go to a stupid American high school or whatever it is they call it. I don’t want to leave you.

I’ll call you later and we can talk about it. We have to think of a way that I can stay. This is really bad, Rosie.

from:

Rosie

to:

Alex

subject:

Stay with me!

Don’t go! Mum and Dad said that you could stay here for the year! Finish school here and then we can both decide what to do after that! Please stay! It will be so brilliant, us living together. It’ll be just like when we were young and we used to keep each other up all night with those walkie talkies!

Remember them?!! We used to hear more static than our voices but we thought we were so cool! Remember that time on Christmas Eve absolutely
years
ago we decided to start a “Santa” watch! We planned it for weeks. I can’t remember ever being so excited! We drew little diagrams of the road and maps of our houses just so we could cover every angle and not miss him.

You were on the 7-10pm watch and I was on the 10pm-1am watch. You were
supposed
to wake up and take over from me, but surprise, surprise you didn’t . . . I stayed awake all night screaming down into that walkie talkie trying to wake you up! Ah well, it was your loss, I saw Santa and you didn’t . . .

If you stay with us Alex we’ll be able to just talk all night! Oh it would be so much fun. When we were kids we always wanted to live together, now’s our chance . . .

Talk to your Mum and Dad about it. Convince them to say yes, anyway you’re 18 you can do what you like! OK if you can’t stay with me then at least stay with Phil. Your parents can’t say no to you staying with your brother.

26

Cecelia Ahern

Rosie,

I didn’t want to wake you so your mum said she would pass this on to you. You know I hate goodbyes and it’s not goodbye anyway because you’re going to come over and visit all the time. Promise me.

I have to go . . . I’ll miss you. Ring you when I get there.

Love,

Alex

PS: I told you, I was awake that Christmas Eve, my battery just went dead on my walkie talkie . . . (and I did see Santa, I’ll have you know).

Alex,

Good luck little brother. Don’t worry, you’ll enjoy yourself once you get there and I can’t wait to come and visit. I’ll miss you all. It won’t be the same without you. Stop worrying about Rosie, her life’s not going to fall apart just because you’re not in the same country. But if it’ll make you feel any better I’ll look out for her for you—she almost feels like my little sister in a way. By the way if Sandy doesn’t learn how to control her bladder in this house then I’m sending her over to you on a plane.

We’ll miss you,

Phil. (+ Margaret)

from:

Rosie

to:

Stephanie

subject:

Urgent sisterly advice needed

I can’t believe he’s gone Steph. I can’t believe you’re gone. Why is everyone leaving me? Surely you could have “found yourself” a little closer to home? But France? Alex has only been gone a few weeks and I feel like he’s dead, which is an absolutely awful thing to think, I know, but it just feels that way . . .

Why did he have to break up with Slutty Bethany just two weeks before he left? Then I wouldn’t have gotten used to him being around so much again. Things really got back to normal, Steph. It was brilliant. We spent every second together . . . literally. We had so much fun!

love, rosie

27

Brian the Whine threw a going-away party for him just last week; I think it was just an excuse for Brian the Whine to get permission from his parents to have a party to be honest because the two of them
never
liked each other. Not since that pizza in James’ hair incident. But anyway Whine held the party in his house and invited all of his friends and I don’t think me and Alex knew anyone in the entire place! The people we did know we can’t stand so we left and headed into town. You know that pub O’Brien’s where we held your surprise 21st? Well, we went there and Alex had the bright idea of standing outside the door and pretending to be the bouncer of the pub!

(There was none on the door that night because it was only a Monday night.) Well he pulled it off anyway because he’s really tall and muscley, you know Alex! Anyway we stood there for ages turning people away; I don’t think he let one person in. Eventually we got bored and headed inside to the empty pub. Of course me and Alex ended up getting all weepy about him moving away . . . Apart from that the night was brilliant. I miss the times we had, just us together like that.

You wouldn’t believe how lonely it is at school these days. I’m just short of getting down on my hands and knees and begging for someone to be my friend. How pathetic. No one really cares. I spent the last few years ignoring them so they don’t feel like they really have to talk to me. I think some of them are even enjoying it. The teachers are loving it. Mr. Simpson called me back after class to congratulate me on how well I’m doing lately. It’s shame-ful; Alex would be appalled if he found out I was actually working at school.

I’m horrified that things have gotten so bad that I actually pay attention to the teachers. They’re the only people who actually talk to me from one day to the next. How depressing.

I wake up in the morning and I feel like I’m missing something. I know that there’s something not right, and it takes me a while to remember what it is . . . then I remember. My best friend is gone. My only friend. It was silly of me to rely so much on one person. It’s all coming back on me now.

Anyway, sorry for whingeing on and on all the time, I’m sure you have enough problems of your own to worry about. Tell me how my sophisticated big sis is doing over in France. I can’t believe you’re over there, you always hated French class. At least it’s only for a few months right? And then you’re 28

Cecelia Ahern

coming back? Dad’s still not happy about you dropping out of college. Why you had to go away to find yourself is beyond me. Just look in the mirror.

What’s the restaurant like? Have you dropped any plates yet? Are you going to work there for long? Any nice men? There must be, French men are yummy. If there are any spare men that you don’t want, send them my way.

Love,

Rosie

PS: Dad wants to know if you have enough money and if you’ve found yourself yet. Mum wants to know if you are eating properly. Little Kevin (he is so tall now you wouldn’t believe!) wants to know if you’ll send him some video game over. I don’t know what he’s talking about so just ignore him.

from:

Stephanie

to:

Rosie

subject:

Re: Urgent sisterly advice needed

Hello my darling little sister,

Don’t worry about Alex, I thought long and hard about it and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a good idea he’s not there for your final year of school because you know how bad you two are when you get together! At least for the first year EVER you may not get suspended from school. Think of how proud you would make Mum and Dad. (Oh by the way tell them I’m broke and starving and currently looking for myself in an Internet café in Paris.)

I definitely know how you feel right now. I’m alone here too, but just stick the year out and when you’re finished maybe Alex will move back to Ireland, or maybe you can go to college in Boston!

Aim for something Rosie, I know you don’t want to hear it, but it will help. Aim for what you want and the year will all make sense. Go to Boston if that will make you happy. Study hotel management like you’ve always wanted.

You’re only young Rosie, and I know that you absolutely hate to hear that but it’s true. What seems tragic now won’t even be an issue in a few love, rosie

29

years time. You’re only 17. You and Alex have the rest of your lives to catch up together . . . After all, soul mates always end up together. Silly Bethany won’t even be remembered in a few years time. Ex-girlfriends are easily forgotten.
Best friends stay with you forever.

Take care. Tell Mum and Dad I said hi and that I’m still looking for myself but may have found someone else in the process. Tall, dark and handsome . . .

Dear Ms. Rosie Dunne,

Boston College thanks you for your application to study Hotel Management with us and we are delighted to inform you that you were successful in your application . . .

from:

Rosie

to:

Alex

subject:

Boston here I come!

I GOT IN!! Boston College, here I come!!! WAHOOO! The letter just arrived for me this morning and I am soooo excited! You better not move a muscle, Mr. Stewart, because I am finally coming to see you. It’ll be great, even though you and I won’t be studying in the same college (Harvard is far too distinguished for the likes of me!) But I think it’s just as well because I don’t think we can really afford to get suspended again.

I’m so excited. Are you???! E-mail or call me as soon as possible, I’d call you but Dad put a block on long-distance calls as you know. Mum and Dad are so proud, they’re calling all the family to tell them. I think they’re hoping I’ll be the first Dunne child to go to college and actually finish the course.

Dad keeps warning me not to go trying to “find myself” anywhere like Stephanie did. By the way it doesn’t look like Steph is coming home anytime love, rosie

31

soon, she met some chef that works at the restaurant she’s waiting at and she’s “in love.”

The phone hasn’t stopped ringing all day with congratulations! Paul and Eileen from across the road sent over a bunch of flowers for me which was really nice. Mum’s getting the house ready for a get-together tonight, just a few sandwiches and cocktail sausages, that kind of thing. Honestly Alex, the house is buzzing! Kevin is happy I’m leaving so he can be even more spoiled than usual. I’ll miss the brat even though he never talks to me. I’ll miss Mum and Dad even more but right now everyone is just so excited I’ve been accepted to think about the fact that I won’t be living here anymore. I’ll deal with it the day I wave good-bye but in the meantime we’ll continue to celebrate!

Love, Rosie

PS: One of these days I can run a hotel and you can be the doctor-in-the-house who saves the lives of the guests I poison in the restaurant . . . Oh this will all work out wonderfully . . .

from:

Alex

to:

Rosie

subject:

Re: Boston here I come!

This is
brilliant
news! I can’t wait to see you too! Harvard isn’t too far away from BC (well in comparison to being a whole ocean apart—can you believe Harvard accepted me? It must be the intellects’ idea of a hilarious joke). I’m too excited to type, just get over here! When are you coming?

from:

Rosie

to:

Alex

subject:

September

I won’t be over till September, just a few days before the semester starts because I have got so many things to sort out you wouldn’t believe! The debs are at the end of August, will you come over for them? Everyone would love to see you and I need someone to go with! We will have so much fun and we can annoy all our teachers. Just like old times . . . let me know.

32

Cecelia Ahern

from:

Alex

to:

Rosie

subject:

Debs

Of course I’ll come home for our debs, I wouldn’t miss it for the world!

Where r u??? I’m waiting at airport. Me and dad have been here for hours. I tried ur house phone & mobile. Don’t know where else 2 call. Hope everything’s ok.