Central Park Showdown

by Sheila Agnew

  ‘To get Joanna of course!’

  YES! I thought.

  We chased every yellow cab in a six-block radius, but it’s impossible to get a cab in New York when it is raining.

  ‘Forget this, too slow,’ said Scott and grabbing my hand, he half-pulled me back to the clinic. He wheeled the almost-as-good-as-new Harley out of the waiting room and handed me a helmet. We roared all the way downtown, dodging around cars and with me screaming when we went through the puddles. I’d never been on a motorbike before. It was a fantastic feeling, tinged with fear.

  I have to admit some of our euphoria evaporated a little as we stood, dripping, before the security desk in the intimidating glass lobby of WTC 7. The security guard was old with grey hair and a face like a constipated Schnauzer. Scott pleaded with him to let us go up to where Joanna was at her meeting on the 49th floor, but he was immovable.

  The more we begged, the more irritated he got.

  ‘What part of no don’t you guys understand?’ he snapped.

  I stood on my tippy toes and leaned over his desk.

  ‘Sir, please, you know that really old movie, the one where at the end, the couple meet at the top of the Empire State Building?

  ‘Yeah,’ said the man, ‘sure, the one with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr.’

  ‘No, with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, but anyway, it’s a super old film, maybe they’ve remade it, but the point is – this is one of those moments. Scott, HAS to get upstairs or else, he might lose Joanna forever.’

  The security guard snorted.

  ‘This isn’t the Empire State Building.’

  He was a very practical man.

  ‘Right,’ I said, trying not to sound sarcastic, ‘but don’t you see, if you don’t let Scott go upstairs, you’ll always be the security guard that got in the way of TRUE LOVE.’

  The security guard looked at me, then at Scott and back at me.

  He pulled out two security badges and passed them over the counter.

  ‘I can’t believe I’m doing this,’ he said with a groan, ‘they’ll probably have my job! I could lose my pension!’

  I reached up and gave him a huge hug, which surprised me more than him because I’m not normally a touchy-feely person.

  ‘Get out of here,’ said the security guard.

  When the elevator doors opened on the 49th floor, Scott ran out and I followed him. He came to complete standstill and I bumped right into him, banging my knee painfully against the helmet in his hand.

  We had figured Joanna and Jeffrey were at a meeting with two or three other people but there was about fifty people in the room, all very important looking and dressed in suits, sitting around a long table. And, most surprising of all, the Mayor was sitting at the head of the table.

  Everyone turned around in their chairs to stare at us. You could almost smell their disapproval. Joanna’s red hair gleamed from near the bottom of the table.

  ‘There she is,’ I said to Scott, pointing, ‘beside Jeffrey.’

  Scott raised his hand in a casual half-wave.

  ‘Hi, everyone, um, sorry to interrupt your meeting, and by the way, Mayor, whatever the tabloids said, you did a great job with the clean-up of the city after the snowstorms this winter.’

  There was a deafening silence.

  I poked Scott in his arm. He took the hint.

  ‘Excuse me everyone, but if I could have a minute or maybe two with Joanna, I mean Dr Barratt, she’s my colleague, just a quick emergency consultation, I have a Chihuahua patient with a dangerous case of … conjunctivitis. Um, that’s one sick little puppy.’

  I rolled my eyes.

  Joanna stood up and hissed loudly, ‘Scott, what the hell are you doing? You can’t roll up here demanding to talk to me. Have you gone totally insane? I’ll call you later.’

  Jeffrey stood up, reaching nearly to her shoulder and said smoothly, ‘Could we get some security people down the back please to escort Dr Brooks and his little sidekick out of here.’

  Two of the Mayor’s security detail, bulky, tough-looking men in dark suits with microphones in their ears, started to approach us.

  ‘Whoa, hold it guys,’ said Scott raising both his hands, ‘I was sort of hoping for a private moment but the moment’s here and it’s a public one so here goes: Joanna I love you, I’ve loved you since the very first time you turned up at the clinic in that sad black garbage bag type thing you called a dress and I’ve loved you every moment since. But I was too much of an idiot to deserve you. And, um, not man enough and grown-up enough and all that, but if you could give me one chance to be with you, I’d appreciate that. I mean, more than appreciate it. Much more. I’m lost without you. Nothing is good without you.’

  ‘Awwww,’ said the handful of women at the meeting.

  ‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ said Joanna.

  ‘Scott, you’re deranged!’ interjected Jeffrey, ‘You’re the very last man in the world that Joanna would want to be with.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that,’ said Joanna, picking up her handbag and walking around the table towards us.

  ‘Awwwwwww!’ said the crowd, all of them this time, even the men. One of the tough-looking security guards pulled out a baby blue and white checkered handkerchief and blew his nose very loudly.

  Scott put his arms around Joanna and they had a kiss that went on for so long, it seemed like basic good manners to look away. Jeffrey stood beside me, watching them with a stunned expression on his face. I felt a bit sorry for him.

  ‘Um, Jeffrey, Joanna told me you guys found a whole colony of those spiders in Texas, the Braken Bat Cave Meshweaver thingies,’ I said in an effort to make polite and distracting conversation. He stared at me with a strong look of disgust. I tried again.

  ‘The Mayor is much better looking in real life than he is on TV, ‘and taller too,’ I added. This time, Jeffrey gave me a withering look of contempt. I handled it very cheerfully. Without a backward glance, he stomped off.

  Chapter 37

  Kylie was an experienced junior bridesmaid but I’d never been in a wedding party before. I almost forgot – I was a flower girl once for one of Mum’s friends when I was about three and a half years old. Apparently, I circled the reception draining the dregs from the guests’ champagne flutes and collapsed not long afterwards. My godmother, Janet enjoys telling the story of Mum being woken in the middle of the night by my pitiful voice croaking, ‘Water. Please, Mommy. Thirsty. Thirsty.’

  I’ve always had my doubts about the authenticity of that story. I don’t remember ever calling Mum Mommy.

  Kylie dyed her hair the same vivid shade of aquamarine as her bridesmaid dress. She looked like a young, Asian Katy Perry. Her mom, Rachel, the maid of honour, wore the same dress except in a more revealing style. Poor Ben was forced to wear an aquamarine ribbon around his neck, to which I attached the little white satin box, containing the matching simple rose-gold wedding bands.

  Scott asked me to be his joint best man with Jake, even though I’m a girl. I was thrilled although he wouldn’t let me go to the bachelor party.

  Nikki from the tattoo parlour did my make-up and a Brazilian hairdresser friend of Eurdes’s came and did my hair. Then I put on my tuxedo. I felt very grown-up with make-up and a 1940s movie star hairstyle. Rachel said that I looked about seventeen and she said that as if it was a bad thing. Ha!

  My godmother, Janet, and her fiancée, Brendan, arrived in New York a couple of days ago for the wedding. As a super-special present for me, Scott arranged for them to bring Deirdre, my best friend from Ireland with them. Deirdre is LOVING New York and admires everything I show her. She and Kylie have not clicked at all like I thought they would. It’s so disappointing when your best friends don’t get along, but I’m sure they will like one another more when they get to know each other better. You see, Deirdre and I tend to talk about people and stuff we know back in Ireland and Kylie is bored. But Kylie and I talk about people we know here in New York and Deirdre g
ets bored. Kylie and Deirdre both love a fashion bargain. I think I just need to put them together for a day in Century 21.

  Sonia at CPZ tried her best to cut through a mountain of red tape so that Scott and Joanna could get married at the zoo. But she couldn’t make it happen. We were so disappointed but Greg helped me write an email to the Mayor’s office. The Mayor sent a very nice email back and said that he absolutely remembered Scott and me. (I hope he gets re-elected. I would vote for him if I were 21). The Mayor called the clinic to let Scott and Joanna know that he, personally, had arranged for the zoo to be available for their wedding.

  Joanna isn’t remotely a bridezilla type; the whole wedding was organised in less than six weeks and Scott definitely agonised more about what to wear than she did.

  It was Joanna who suggested that we invite Michael and his wife to the wedding. For a second, Scott looked angry and then he relaxed and said, ‘That’s a good idea, it’s up to Evie.’

  I thought about it. Michael and I had exchanged a few emails and we spoke on the phone twice. He said that receiving my first email was one of the happiest days of his life. I was glad but I didn’t feel we were at the let’s-hang-out-at-weddings stage and this was Scott’s day, Scott’s and Joanna’s.

  The wedding reception was held outside in the middle of the zoo on a perfect June morning with a pale blue, cloudless sky and a hint of a breeze. All of our friends and the pet visitors to the clinic attended. It was a little like the Blessing of the Animals in the Cathedral of St John the Divine except noisier. Ben, looking very dignified, trotted up the aisle beside Kylie. For one awful moment, he paused, put his nose in the air and sniffed and I was sure he was about to bolt, but after cocking his head to one side, he resumed trotting straight up to me. I untied the box with the wedding bands from around his neck and put them in my pocket. The best thing about being a best man instead of a bridesmaid is that you have useful things like pockets.

  In the evening when the stars came out, the band played and everyone danced. Holly came from Chicago for the wedding and she danced with Greg five times. (He hasn’t stopped talking about it since. If Holly had more consideration for those of us who are Greg’s friends, she might have danced with him a little less). A little before midnight while I was trying not to step on Lorcan’s feet, I thought about making a wish, to freeze time, so we could all stay exactly as we were forever. I felt the heavy weight of someone’s gaze and I looked over Lorcan’s shoulder. It was Finn dancing with Tamara and staring intensely at me. I looked back at him.

  NOBODY, NOBODY, NOBODY has eyes as darkly beautiful as Finn’s.

  I didn’t go ahead and make my wish. I didn’t want to be forever thirteen after all. Being fourteen could be very interesting.

  About the Author

  SHEILA AGNEW was born in New York and grew up in Dublin with her sister and two brothers. They liked to pretend to be the children in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

  Although Sheila couldn’t quite make it to Narnia, she set out to experience what she could of this world. After graduating from UCD, she practised as a lawyer in London, Sydney and New York and got to work in such far-flung places as Accra, Cairo and Bratislava.

  Sheila has wanted to be a writer since she was seven and fell in love with Danny, the Champion of the World. In 2002, she took time-out from her legal career to write and to travel around Asia. In 2011, she moved to Argentina to learn Spanish and work on a horse farm. The following year, she relocated to Dingle in County Kerry where she wrote the first book about Evie, Evie Brooks is Marooned in Manhattan. Sheila based the character of ‘Ben’ on her own black-and-white spaniel of dubious lineage.

  Sheila now lives and writes in New York City.

  Copyright

  This eBook edition first published 2014 by

  The O’Brien Press Ltd,

  12 Terenure Road East,

  Rathgar, Dublin 6,

  Ireland.

  Tel: +353 1 4923333

  Fax: +353 1 4922777

  E-mail: books@obrien.ie

  Website: www.obrien.ie

  First published 2014

  eBook ISBN: 978–1–84717–715–5

  Text © copyright Sheila Agnew 2014 Copyright for typesetting, layout, editing, design © The O’Brien Press Ltd

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or in any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Illustrations courtesy of iStockphoto

  The O’Brien Press receives financial assistance from

  After Evie Brooks’ mother dies, she is forced to go live with her uncle Scott, a vet in New York City: between the pets, their owners, Scott and his lawyer girlfriend, the summer quickly becomes a whirlwind of change and activity!