Wishful Thinking (a journey that will change lives forever) (21 page)

Right then, Dara deep down began to properly question whether she had made a huge mistake in marrying Mark.

But if she had, it was a bit late to be thinking about it now, wasn’t it?

As she carefully applied her make-up, Louise couldn’t remember ever feeling so nervous.   She’d agreed to meet Sam in town for a drink and was so worried about it she’d barely eaten all day.   Which wasn’t a bad thing in a way; at least there was no danger of her bursting out of the slim-fitting jeans she planned to wear.

“Now be careful,” Fiona warned, setting off even more butterflies in Louise’s tummy. “You don’t know this guy very well so …”

So …what? Louise wanted to ask.  Sam didn’t seem the axe-murdering type, although these days it was hard to tell.  She was touched by her friend’s concern though. Fiona had her moments, but she was a bit of a softie at the end of the day.

“I’ll be fine,” she replied.  “And you met him too – did he seem odd to you?”

Fiona wrinkled her nose.  “Not weird as such, it’s just … well, let’s be honest, he wasn’t your usual type, Louise.”

“My usual type?”

“Well, he was a bit too suave, a bit too … I don’t know, too good-looking I suppose.”

So my type is weird, ugly, blokes, then? Louise thought, more than a little insulted.  And surely there was no such thing as
too
good-looking?

When she said this to Fiona, her friend shrugged and said, “Sorry, I really didn’t mean to freak you out but sometimes you can be too trusting for your own good. Just try to be careful, that’s all I’m saying. Guys like that … well, you just need to know how to handle them.”

Now, sitting on the train on the way into town, Louise wondered if her friend might have been right.  She didn’t know Sam at all, really.  Maybe she had been a little bit hasty in agreeing to meet with him in town like this, rather than somewhere closer to home.

But didn’t you take risks with every guy you met these days? And she was a firm believer in going with her gut instinct.  Sam was lovely that night at the Four Seasons, and he was even lovelier that time on the phone.  And playing hard to get had been a brainwave on her part, she decided happily.  The ball was well and truly in her court, and if she could just keep her wits about her, tonight she’d play it to perfection.   She liked him – a lot, and for once she wasn’t going to ruin it all by being over-eager.  Men didn’t like that.  No, tonight, Louise would be the self-assured, happy-go-lucky independent woman all the magazines insisted every woman should be.  And, hopefully, Sam would fall madly in love with her and … well, no point in running away with herself at the same time, she thought, biting her lip.  If they got on well tonight and Sam was interested in seeing her again, then that would be a job well done.

It was pouring out of the heavens, and by the time she’d walked from the train station to the pub, Louise was soaked.  She’d agreed to meet Sam in a popular city centre bar, a trendy spot with lots of harsh lights, loud music and – maddeningly – beautiful, self-assured, clientele.  The kind of place that made someone like Louise – raindrops (and make-up) running down her face, dressed in white jeans, beaded cerise pink top and matching pink shoes – stand out like a sore thumb in comparison to the bohemian, hippy-chick look common there. 

Once inside the pub, she ran her fingers through her wet hair, hoping and praying it wouldn’t go too frizzy.  So much for spending all that time with the hair-straightener.  She couldn’t see any sign of Sam, so while waiting for him to arrive, she grabbed a table and tried to assume a cool-as-you-like posture, all the time trying to conceal her rain-spattered jeans and soaking feet under the table.  In all honestly, she must look like a drowned rat.  What had possessed her to wear white jeans and strappy sandals – in the rain?  God, she was an idiot sometimes. 

“Glad you could make it!”

Louise felt warmth breath on her ear and, startled, she turned around to see Sam grinning from ear to ear. 

“You’re here!” She smiled back, delighted to see him again, and thinking he looked even better than she remembered.  She loved those little freckles across his cheeks – it made him look so boyish and innocent and cuddly.

“I was standing at the bar and saw you come in.” He looked her briefly up and down. “You look …um…great.”

Her face fell.  “Am I that bad?” she asked, all hope of looking the part of the poised, sophisticated girl-about-town rapidly deflating. 

Sam tried to keep a straight face. “Well, unless you’re trying out some new Goth look …” He made trail marks along his own cheeks, and instantly she understood.

“Oh shit – my mascara!” Louise leapt up out of her seat.

“Well, I wasn’t going to say anything but –”

“Where’s the ladies’ in here?”

Sam indicated somewhere down the back, so Louise had to suffer the indignity of passing a group of stunning girls, each of whom it seemed achieved naturally what Louise had spent the last few hours trying to pull off – effortless perfection.   She tried to make herself seem inconspicuous but when she reached the ladies’ and spied her reflection in the mirror, she realised that this was next to impossible.

Oh, my God, she looked like one of those mad Curehead-types gone wrong!  Her lovely Clarins bronzer seemed to have completely dissolved in the rain, and her mascara, which the label had assured Louise was waterproof, was now happily running down both cheeks!

What must he think of her?  However attractive she might have appeared to him the first night, he would almost definitely be changing his mind now.  Chances were he would have run off when she went back out there.

But amazingly – and once she had done a repair job on her make-up – when Louise went back to the table, Sam was still there.  He smiled impishly at her, his lovely dark eyes twinkling mischievously as she rejoined him.

“I wasn’t sure what to get you,” he said, indicating his own Budweiser.

“A beer is fine for me too, thanks,” she said pleasantly to the waiting lounge girl.

Sam seemed amused. “Are you sure?  You don’t have to slum it with me, you know.”

Louise frowned absently. Slum it? What was he … oh!  She remembered then he was referring to those blasted overpriced, underfilled, cocktails.  She smiled and shook her head.  “Beer will do.”

“So what have you been up to lately?” Sam asked, settling himself comfortably.

And Louise, feeling much better after fixing her make-up, began to relax a little.  Yes, he was definitely still as cute as she remembered, if not cuter, dressed as he was in a blue and navy rugby shirt and stonewashed denims.  His tousled dark hair curled attractively at the ends and when he smiled … phew!  Once again, she wondered what on earth he saw in her. 

“Oh, not a whole lot,” she began, “I …” she trailed off, realising he’d be bored to tears within five minutes if she told him the truth, that she’d spent the last few days trying to sell finance packages to desperate financially overburdened families, desperate for some extra cash in the run-up to Christmas.  

And that she had a court case coming up soon, which was worrying her to death, and that her friend Fiona had convinced her to move into a lovely, but very expensive seafront apartment . . . speaking of which . . .

“I’m planning to move apartment soon,” she told him, thinking that he would be most impressed at this.  In fact, now that she thought about it, the game would be up if he ever found out about her poxy bedsit, wouldn’t it?  Then he’d know damn well she was just an ordinary, boring, run-of-the-mill office worker and not the sophisticated woman of the world he’d chatted up in the Ice Bar.

As she’d hoped, Sam’s eyes lit up with interest. “Really?”

“Yep – into one of those fabulous new places out near Dun Laoghaire,” she continued proudly. “The Marina Quarter.”  The Marina Quarter, her new address. It sounded good, didn’t it?

“Wow!” As expected, Sam looked suitably impressed.  “I’ve seen those advertised – they’re fucking fantastic!”

She smiled coquettishly. “Well, as my friend Fiona says – you met her, remember? ‘We’re worth it!’” 

Sam laughed along, but Louise could see something else behind the smile.  What was he thinking, she wondered.  Was he worried that maybe she was out of his league, that this girl-about-town was too much for him, that he wouldn’t be able keep up with her? But if he was drinking in a place like the Four Seasons then he must be used to girls like her and … 

“What about yourself?” she asked, quickly changing the subject.  “Have you been busy? By the way, what is it that you do?  I know you told me you worked in an office but – ”

Sam took a sip of his beer, and rolled his eyes. “You don’t really want to know – I guarantee it would bore you tears – and it’s a bit complicated.”

“I do want to know,” Louise took a slug of her Budweiser. 

“Well, if you insist – I suppose you could say that I’m a troubleshooter,” he replied simply, his tone suggesting that most people hadn’t a clue what he did.

Louise nodded immediately.  She knew exactly what that meant. She’d needed assistance from people like him often enough. “Helping people find out what’s wrong with things … like in computers and electrical goods, things like that?”

He nodded. “Something like that.”

“So you’re a techie then.”

“Well, not quite, but close enough,” he said grinning. “And what about you?”

“Me?”

“Yep, what do you do?”

“Oh, my job’s even more boring,” Louise replied, rolling her eyes. “I work in finance.”

Sam nodded. “Perfect! And handy for all these nights out, and holidays abroad too, I’ll bet!”

You have no idea,
Louise thought, groaning inwardly. “Very handy,” she agreed, laughing.

All too soon, her glass was empty and Sam quickly called for another round. 

They chatted some more and, as Louise felt herself relax and become more comfortable with him, she realised how much she really did like him.  He was nice, really nice and not just nice in a one-date kind of way.  He was the kind of guy she really could see herself getting to know.  Despite his obvious good looks, he didn’t seem at all vain, something that was all too common in good-looking guys like that.  Fiona had it all wrong.  Sam was as normal as they came, and there was something about him that told Louise she could trust him with anything.

She wasn’t quite sure why – she just knew it.    

******

Over the next few weeks, she and Sam began to see more and more of one another.  They seemed to get on amazingly well and enjoyed doing the same things: cheap and cheerful Italian restaurants, Thai takeaways and nights out at the cinema. The only snag was that Sam had a very sweet tooth and his constant chocolate munching was playing havoc with Louise’s careful diet. Crème eggs especially were his thing, and one night at the cinema, and to Louise’s immense amusement, he’d scoffed five gooey eggs in quick succession!   Gradually she began to fall for him.  No, let’s be honest, she thought grinning, she’d
fallen for him right from the very beginning. In the meantime, she’d simply kept falling harder.  

“You should bring him over for a visit sometime,” Heather suggested one day over the phone.  She tried to sound off-hand about it, but Louise knew her sister would be dying to suss Sam out, and see what he was like, or more importantly, to see if he was good enough for her baby sister.

“Maybe soon,” Louise replied, “but you might need a bit of coaching beforehand!” She went on to laughingly explain how she’d led Sam to believe she was some kind of high-maintenance girl-about-town.

But Heather’s disapproval was almost palpable.  “Why does he think that? And more importantly why are you
letting
him think that?” she asked, in her most annoying, big-sister tone.

Louise explained how she and Sam had first met, and how while trying to appear cool and disinterested, she’d kept up the pretence of being someone worth getting to know.

“But Louise, you
are
someone worth getting to know,” Heather replied, exasperated. “You don’t need to pretend to be anything other than yourself!”

“But I really like him, Heather.  He’s different to most guys I’ve gone out with.  He’s mature, sensitive, funny and I feel as though I can talk to him about anything.”

“Well, if that’s the case, what does it matter if he finds out the truth? That you’re not some rich kid from a well-off background, that you’re just an ordinary, decent, hard-working person from a normal, decent, hardworking background.  If he’s as nice as you say he is, then I’m sure he won’t care where you come from.”

At this, Louise felt ashamed.  Her sister was right.  She had no reason to be embarrassed about her upbringing.  Her parents, and indeed Heather, had always done their best for her, and here she was more or less trying to deny them.  It wasn’t right. 

But, at the time, she hadn’t seen it like that. She just thought it would be fun pretending to be the kind of girl she’d always wanted to be, a fun, confident, desirable woman of the world.  And in truth, she’d enjoyed her little fabrications to the point where she almost delighted in coming up with something new and equally outrageous.  She wanted to live that kind of lifestyle – the shopping, the holidays, the girly friendships.

It hadn’t really been about her background at all, it had been more about the kind of life Louise wanted to live, and how she wanted Sam and everyone else to see her.