He reaches into his courier bag and pulls out a golf ball, a ping-pong ball and a red shoelace. ‘Which one? Today is all about the choices you make. So which will it be?’
Well, definitely not the golf ball. I hate golf. I was made to play it once when I worked at the hotel in Brighton. The management suddenly came over all American and thought we needed to bond. We did bond, over our shared hatred of golf.
I take the red shoelace.
‘That’s lucky. All right.’ He consults a small notebook from his bag. Then he looks at his phone. ‘Come this way.’
‘Why is that lucky?’ I ask, as we hurry across the busy road with the small crowd that’s amassed at the crosswalk.
‘If you’d chosen either of the others, we’d have to stay outside and it’s a bit cold.’
‘It feels nice in the sun,’ I say.
‘Enjoy it while you can. We’re going underground.’
‘Bowling?’ I say when I catch sight of the sign we’re approaching. ‘I never would have guessed by a red shoelace.’
‘I had to think of something bowling-y. Bowling shoes. Get it? I couldn’t fit the ball in my bag. Have you been bowling before?’
‘Not since my friend’s birthday party when we were about twelve. Are you going to tell me you’re an expert bowler?’
‘I’m pretty sporty.’
‘Does bowling count as a sport?’
‘Let’s find out.’
There aren’t any laces on the bowling shoes, though. Just Velcro. ‘These are ever so lovely,’ I say, staring at the red and blue horrors on my feet. ‘I might see if they’ll let me keep them. Then I can make all of my future wardrobe choices around the shoes.’
‘We’d have to ring each other before we met,’ Rory says, staring at his own feet. ‘Because I’m definitely keeping these and it’d be embarrassing if we both turned up wearing them. Do you want to go first, or should I show you how it’s done?’
‘Oh, I’d love you to show me how it’s done. No pressure.’ I wait till he’s chosen a ball and is peering down the lane. ‘Just don’t choke.’ He glances back and smiles, then squares up to the lane again with his ball in two hands centred in front of his face. ‘Shouldn’t you stretch or something first? You might pull a bowling muscle.’
Sighing, he stands at ease. ‘Are you finished?’
‘Oh, sorry. Am I distracting you? Go on.’
Just as he’s about to release the ball, I say, ‘Aim for the middle.’
The ball skids along the wooden floor, vaguely in the centre, before leaning off to the right and rolling into the gutter.
‘Bad luck,’ I say. ‘My turn?’
‘I get two goes.’
‘Just don’t aim for the same spot again,’ I say. ‘That didn’t work out too well last time.’
We’re both completely rubbish at bowling but, it turns out, brilliant at winding each other up.
Rory takes my hand as we emerge back into London’s streets. It’s clouded over now and feels a lot colder. This is a grand-looking area, with imposing stone and glass buildings. A few people are wreathed in smoke or vapour near the big plate-glass or revolving office doors, while others hurry by clutching takeaway coffee cups. I guess most people are inside working now.
Even if this wasn’t my day off, I’d have to mark it down as a top day so far. Rory and I are getting on like a house on fire. Not that I thought we’d have trouble finding things to talk about. We have managed to carry on day-long conversations at the hotel for months.
This is getting exciting.
‘You’ve got a blister,’ he says, rubbing his thumb gently over the raised skin on my hand.
‘I’ve got one on my foot too. I’m rethinking the bowling shoes as fashion statements.’
Gently he raises my thumb to his lips. ‘Better? I’m not kissing your foot.’
‘It’s not worse,’ I say. Then I smile, wondering if he’d believe I have a blister on my lip.
Rory hands me a Hello Kitty Pez dispenser, a little bag of Gummi fish and a packet of dog treats. ‘Your choice. Warning: this involves live animals.’
‘Do I have to eat what I choose?’
He laughs and shakes his head. ‘I hope you’re talking about the props.’
‘Hello Kitty.’
‘All right.’ He consults his little notebook again. ‘We need the Tube for this one.’
‘Can I eat the Gummi fish, though?’
‘And the dog treats if you really want to,’ he says as we follow the map on Rory’s phone to the Underground.
We emerge from the station under the dark railway arches into a different world. Two-storey brick-fronted warehouses, covered in graffiti, line the road. It’s got a much more industrial feel than where we just left. ‘You take a girl to all the fancy places,’ I say, standing a bit closer to him.
Rory is peering at his phone. ‘I think it’s this way.’
‘I think we want to be sure of that before we go wandering off into an estate or something.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll protect you.’
‘With what? Your golf ball?’
He laughs, pushing his specs up his nose. ‘It’s definitely this way. I take it by your choice that you’re not allergic to cats? I could have given you a horse-riding option too, but they scare me to death.’
As we walk, I tell Rory that I did once have a reaction to a cat, but my parents were convinced that it was just overexcitement that made me come up in blotches. It might have been. They never let me have a proper pet growing up. I was allowed fish and, once, a painted turtle that Dad had won for me at a fair.
I lived a frustratingly fur-free childhood. Just knowing that a classmate had a cat or a dog was enough to make me desperate to befriend her. I had no standards whatsoever. I sucked up to the class nose-picker and the girl who stole your pencils if you didn’t watch her.
‘Then this will make all your childhood dreams come true,’ Rory says as he holds open the door for me. ‘It’s a café with cats.’
It’s Mum’s worst fear. All that fur! she’d say. I can’t wait.
Rory gives the lady his name. ‘You’ve booked?’ I ask.
‘I had to. There’s not much room inside.’
‘How did you know I’d choose cats?’
‘I didn’t. I booked it anyway, just in case,’ he says, ushering me through to where we’re asked to wash our hands.
I like his forward-planning.
The room is one big kitty play area. There’s an enormous floor-to-ceiling tree for them to climb, with lots of cat-sized shelves and ledges for napping. People are seated at the tables and on comfy-looking sofas and chairs and on the floor, where they can get down to the real reason we’re all here.
I can’t stop grinning. Rory is right. This is my dream come true.
Tea and scones arrive, but the hunger I was starting to feel on the journey over is gone. ‘Will you excuse me while I cuddle all the cats?’
‘Only if you’ll excuse me,’ he says as we move to the floor.
The fluffy grey moggy that I go for is happy enough to let me pet him. Rory dangles a tiny fishing rod with a feathery bit on the end in front of a calico, who humours him with a few swipes.
‘I was desperate for a cat too,’ Rory tells me. ‘But Mum had a phobia about what he might bring into the house. It wasn’t the dead mice, she said, that bothered her so much. It was the live ones that he might let go inside. We did get a little dog, though.’ His eyes dart to mine. ‘This is going to sound really stupid, so please don’t judge me. I was only about six.’
‘Please,’ I say, ‘I’m in no position. I had a turtle, remember?’
‘I thought it was a cat,’ he says.
‘You thought your dog was a cat?’
‘Only because I’d never seen a small dog before. My aunties all had Alsatians and Labradors. Our dog was cat-sized. He didn’t bark much. So my six-year-old reasoning told me he was obviously a cat. I realised the difference after a few y
ears. It explained why he wouldn’t chase string. And why he cocked his leg outside. I just thought I had a special cat.’ He sees my expression. ‘You promised you wouldn’t judge.’
‘This isn’t a face of judgment. It’s a face of pity.’ So both our parents were cat-ist. ‘You could get a cat now,’ I say. ‘Now that you know the difference.’
‘I’m away too much with my work. It wouldn’t be fair.’ Then he looks at me. ‘Maybe when I settle in one place.’
We leave the statement hanging.
‘So if I hadn’t chosen Hello Kitty, where would we be now?’ I ask, when we’ve gone back to our table to devour the scones.
‘Either Battersea Dog’s Home to play with puppies, or the Aquarium.’
‘I’m happy with my choice,’ I say. ‘Though maybe you want to go see the dogs? Or would it be too painful?’
‘I get the feeling you’re not going to let that go.’
‘Probably not. So what was the ping-pong ball for?’
‘Ping-pong,’ he says.
So he’s not the only one who misses the obvious clues.
‘There’s more?’ I ask when he starts pulling items from his courier bag again. I already feel like we’ve spent about a week in London. In a good way. A really good way.
‘We’re only half finished,’ he says. ‘You know the drill.’ He hands me a tiny furry mouse, a cartoon strip and a small square of pretty blue floral wallpaper. ‘This is the educational portion of our date.’
‘Do you have a preference?’ I say. ‘I feel bad calling all the shots today.’
‘But you’re only making choices within the choices I’ve already made,’ he points out. ‘I already vetoed the horse-riding, remember? So I’m happy to do everything else I’m proposing. Note that I haven’t given you the option of the London Eye either.’
‘You can’t be frightened of the London Eye. You mean the giant wheel that goes around slowly, right? Is there a scary option, or are you afraid of wheels?’
‘Heights,’ Rory says. ‘We’re not taking the cable car across the Thames either. Sorry. My feet need to stay firmly on the ground.’
‘So I can assume these three options are at ground level.’ I rub the wallpaper, which has a pleasing velvety feel. ‘It’s going to have to be the mouse. Just in case it’s cat-related too.’
‘It’s not, but nice guess,’ he says. ‘Come on. Back to where we started.’
‘Why didn’t we just stay there in the first place?’
‘Because, Rosie, your choice led us elsewhere. That’s how fate works.’
Chapter 12
Rory’s words stick in my mind all the way to the museum, where we end up next, because isn’t that exactly what happened with Chuck? I made choices. Terrible choices, as it turned out.
Within a few days of getting back from our Vermont weekend, everything went back to normal. Too normal. I was still on the late shift and Chuck was still swamped with work. So of course I worried about our future. Well, technically I worried that we wouldn’t have one when I left New York for Paris. If I thought it was hard snatching precious hours together now, how did I think I was going to do it from thousands of miles away?
Way back when I’d first met Chuck, I told him about the Paris job. I was just being full of myself, bragging about my fabulous life. I wished I hadn’t. It was going to be tricky to turn down my fabulous life without freaking him out.
He’d brought it up a few times, actually, in an offhand way. ‘You’ll be having real croissants soon,’ he’d say when I reached for a giant buttery pastry to have with my coffee or, ‘I wonder if you’ll come back with an accent.’ Things like that. Nothing to hint that he didn’t want me to go. Which had me feeling sick to my stomach.
‘Couldn’t we go to lunch instead?’ I asked him one afternoon when he rang to suggest coffee. Again. ‘To be honest, I’m starting to develop an irrational dislike of Kona roast.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, laughing. ‘We’ve only been doing the coffee thing because I didn’t think Andi would let you go out longer. We can go anywhere. Name the place.’
‘How about Chelsea Market? I keep hearing about it.’
He hesitated. ‘You don’t want to go somewhere closer? The market is more of a stand-up kind of eating place. I can take you to a nice restaurant instead.’
‘I want to go to the market.’ I didn’t know why I was being so stubborn. Maybe because it had seemed lately like Chuck was making all the decisions. ‘If you don’t want to go, that’s fine. I can go on my own.’
‘Rosie, I’d go with you to sit on a garbage bin and eat potato chips. What time?’
I smiled into the phone. Sometimes all it took was putting a foot down to feel better.
Chelsea Market was exactly what I’d imagined – a huge market building with a concourse of exposed bricks and peeling ironwork that, Chuck told me, wasn’t nearly as old as it looked. I didn’t care about authenticity. I wanted romance.
‘What do you feel like for lunch?’ Chuck asked as we wandered past the shops selling meats, teas and, for some reason, woven baskets. ‘There’s a taco place that’s good, but there’s no seating.’
I was still getting used to eating Mexican food in New York. Every corner seemed to have a taco truck and people insisted on ruining perfectly good lunches by squirting hot sauce all over them. ‘Maybe not tacos. What’s further down?’
‘Let’s go see,’ he said. ‘I’ve only been here once with my boss.’
Just as we started walking again, someone shouted Chuck’s name from behind us. ‘Chuck!’ she said again. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘My sister,’ he said to me with his back still turned. ‘Sorry about this. I don’t want her latching on to us for lunch. I’ll make something up.’
‘Just here for a quick lunch,’ he said to his sister as we turned around. The pretty young woman was smiling and looking curiously at me, so I stuck out my hand. ‘Hi, I’m Rosie.’
‘I’m Marilyn,’ she said, taking my hand. ‘Oh my God, you’re Rosie! From the hotel. I’m sorry, it just clicked. Chuck can’t stop talking about you.’
‘Chuck’s told me a lot about you too,’ I said, glossing over the fact that he mostly whinged about how annoying she was.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming this way?’ Marilyn said.
‘It wasn’t planned, but Rosie’s never been here, so when I said I’d take her out …’
‘Such a gentleman you are. I’m just grabbing a sandwich, actually,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to run back to the office.’ She had the same golden looks that Chuck did. They bred pretty people in Wisconsin. ‘Rosie, you should definitely have the pulled pork, it’s delicious. If you eat pork. Do you eat pork?’
I was just about to answer when Chuck said, ‘We’ve actually got some things to discuss over lunch, so …’
Marilyn got the hint. ‘Don’t have pasta if you’ll want what I’m cooking tonight. I’m trying a new recipe. I’ll put the leftovers in the fridge for when you get home.’ She pats her shoulder bag. ‘It’s got prosciutto in it and about a ton of cheese. Yum! Nice to meet you, Rosie. Enjoy lunch!’ She waved over her shoulder as she turned away.
‘Your sister seems nice.’
‘You should try living with her,’ he said. ‘She’s a pain in the ass, but I don’t have to see her that much.’
‘She said she was going to the office. I thought you said she didn’t have a job?’
‘Not a real job. She temps,’ he said, scanning the different stalls, where long queues were forming. ‘To be honest, I forgot she was working near here. She’s always getting different assignments. She’s just a receptionist. How about Mexican? I could murder a burrito.’
‘I wouldn’t commit murder if I were you,’ I said. ‘They’d put you away for cinco to diez.’ That was a pretty good pun, considering I only knew about a dozen words in Spanish.
‘Nah,’ Chuck said, ‘I’d beat the tortilla wrap and be out on frijole in t
wo.’
We thought we were the cleverest couple in the market.
I knew I had to talk to Digby about Paris, but I put it off for weeks. That just meant that every time he brought it up, I had to pretend to be as excited as him. I felt terrible. But I couldn’t leave New York. It would mean the end of Chuck and me. And that felt like it would mean the end of me.
I checked with Andi first, just to make sure that staying in New York was an option. Of course, she agreed to extend my assignment for another year. Who wouldn’t want an indentured servant to work the late shift?
Then I pulled on my big girl pants and resolved to tell Digby. We had a two-hour overlap at the end of his shift and the beginning of mine, and my tummy was in knots. I should never have played down his worries early on. If I’d been honest from the start, then it wouldn’t come as such a shock when I told him.
Even then, knowing I had to do it, I just couldn’t bring myself to say the words. Instead I started talking about how a Paris assignment might not actually be such a good career move for me. Unlike Digby, who liked to do eighteen-month stints, I’d tended to change jobs every six or nine months. ‘You know how the hotels like to see continuity on a CV,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid I’ve done it wrong, Dig, chopping and changing so much.’ Maybe pity would soften his reaction. ‘I wish someone had told me that before.’
‘Who’s telling you that now?’ he asked.
‘Nobody, but don’t you think? You’ve always stayed for at least a year. And most people do, now that I think about it. I should really be staying in my assignments for longer.’
He glared at me. ‘Rosie, just admit it. You’re backing out of Paris, aren’t you?’
I was so relieved that I wasn’t the one who’d had to say the words that all I could do was nod.
‘Dammit, Rosie, I knew it!’
‘I just think that if I’ve got the chance to stay here and build up my CV, I need to do it. It won’t be so bad.’ I had no idea why I said that, making it sound like I was making a big sacrifice. ‘I really love New York.’
‘That’s such bullshit. You don’t even like New York. And you can’t stand Andi. We both know it’s because of Chuck. At least be honest about it. You’re being stupid over that guy. That is a huge mistake. And in doing it, you’ve totally screwed me over too. Where am I supposed to live now in Paris? We were going to get an apartment together, remember? I only applied because of you. I would have been the one staying in New York if it wasn’t for you.’ Angrily, he shook his head. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this. You’re supposed to be my friend.’
The Big Dreams Beach Hotel Page 12