by Sarah Salway
Love’s not like a roller coaster because of the ups and downs. It is more because you queue up for hours to get on the ride, then you are strapped in, so you can’t get out even when you’re about a third of the way through and realize you’ve changed your mind. There’s nothing you can do, you’ve just got to carry on until the end, and even then, you’ve got to wait until someone else releases you and says you can go.
And once you’re safely back on solid ground, you’re rushing off to join the next queue.
Luckily, I went back to sleep, and by the time the alarm went off, I’d come to my senses and forgotten all about this.
I remembered only when Sally told me that she feels now that living with Colin made her feel like she was strapped to a chair watching her life go by. I didn’t tell her my theory. She’d have only related it to the solicitor or something silly like that.
Sally’s going to be my date to the opening party for our hotel. She laughed when I told her that I wanted one room to be just like her parents’ spare room, but after all, that was where I used to imagine myself when I was suffering the most after John. I haven’t told Sally how I’ve kept that velvet scrap in my pocket the whole time. It’s nearly worn out now.
Sally said she always wanted to live in my house. She said she used to secretly pretend my mother was hers.
It made me think. I want each room in my hotel to be decorated like a different dream of home. After all, home is like love. It’s just a state of mind, a fantasy, that you can learn to live without if necessary.
I’m not going to invite anyone else to the party. Just Sally.
about the author
Sarah Salway lives in Kent with her husband and two children and is a prize-winning short-story writer and poet. The ABCs of Love is her first novel.
The ABCs of Love is a work of fiction. Names, places, and
incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Ballantine Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 2004 by Sarah Salway
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by
The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random
House, Inc., New York.
Ballantine and colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
Originally published in Great Britain by Bloomsbury
Publishing Plc in 2004 under the title Something
Beginning With.
www.ballantinebooks.com
Library of Congress Control Number is available from the
publisher upon request.
www.randomhouse.com
eISBN: 978-0-307-41682-7
v3.0