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Don't Stop Me Now: The perfect laugh out loud romantic comedy

Page 8

by Colleen Coleman


  The pedestrian light turns from amber to red. As disappointed as I was to go home, it is a little bit terrifying to think I’ve now got to go and deliver Leanne’s message to Tom ALL BY MYSELF!

  But what choice do I have? Leanne can’t come, and she can’t reach Tom, and I promised I’d help. So what if he doesn’t remember me, or if he remembers me as his sister’s geeky little friend or one of the utterly indistinguishable small-voiced, downward-looking masses? Either way, it doesn’t matter. It’s not about me or who I am now or who I was then. I promised Leanne I’d help her, and that’s what I’m going to do.

  The light stays red. I take some deep breaths and shake out my swingy new hair, ready to put one foot in front of the other, walk right up to Tom Jones and do what I’ve got to do.

  Gulp.

  Despite the red light, I see a lull in the traffic and dash across the road towards the arches. I’ve broken into a sprint in an effort to get it over as quickly and painlessly as possible, but halfway there, I pause, stop and steady myself. I think of Leanne and my mother and the girls at the salon, how they meet stuff head on, and I decide that today, I’m going to do that too. Even if I’m just pretending, even if it’s not quite right, I’m going to try it out. What I’m not going to be is the mousy-voiced girl who avoids eye contact and hides in books and puzzles. I slow down. I take a slow, sure step and a slow, deep breath and my heart takes a slow, measured beat.

  Poppy, can you handle this? Just watch me ’cos I’m ALL OVER this.

  I turn the corner, certain that I’m in the right place. I can hear the alarm blaring from here, and sure enough, there’s a sign outside in graffiti lettering reading Gymbox. Two men are standing just outside the doorway. From this distance I can’t tell if one of them is Tom; anyway, after all this time, he may be totally unrecognisable. Nearly fifteen years! He might be utterly changed.

  But God, let’s hope not.

  The taller one lifts his sunglasses, breaks into a smile and pats the other man on the arm. Now there is no doubt in my mind. There he is; that’s Tom Jones. Thoroughly unchanged. Same tousled blonde hair, dark green eyes and, of course, those dimples. But he looks bigger, broader, stronger, even next to the other guy, who has a tight crew cut and a puffed-out superhero chest.

  The shorter man slices a finger across his neck, then slides his phone out of his back pocket. Tom nods sadly and turns his head towards the gym, his hand cupping his ear, before taking a long sidestep over to help a frazzled mother lift a buggy over the kerb. As I get closer, I can hear what the short man is saying.

  ‘I’m sick of it, Tom. This alarm of yours is costing me business!’ He points over to the pub on the corner. ‘All my after-work drinkers have got up and left; who the hell wants to come and have a quiet pint with this racket in their ear? I’m done playin’ Mr Nice Guy. If you don’t sort it out, I’ll sort it out for you, and believe me, you won’t like it one bit.’

  Tom keeps a light smile on his face, his eyebrows knitted together earnestly. ‘I get it, George. I know where you’re coming from and I’m sorry. I really, really am. This’ll be the last time, I promise. Leanne’s sending the engineer around right as we speak.’

  ‘Oh yeah, ring her then.’

  ‘I can’t, my phone is out of juice.’

  The angry publican shakes his head. ‘Basics, Tom, you need to get yourself together. Make yourself a list, write stuff down. Maybe if you wrote down the bloody code, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.’

  ‘It’ll get sorted, I promise,’ says Tom, crossing and then uncrossing his arms.

  ‘Tom?’ I wave as I try to interject.

  He turns to me, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Leanne sent me down to meet you,’ I tell him, and try a muted wave to the publican as well.

  Tom claps his hands together. ‘Ah, see, George! I told you we’d sort it! The help has arrived! We’ll have this fixed in no time, mate.’

  The publican looks him up and down and then shrugs. ‘Ten minutes, Tom, I mean it this time. If it’s still blaring, I’m picking up the phone and reporting you to the coppers. I will shut you down, don’t think I won’t.’ He clenches his fist and the muscles flex in his neck.

  ‘I’m going to have it sorted, I promise. Ten minutes and everything will be just fine.’

  I hope he’s right. This guy looks like he might not be able to wait ten minutes.

  ‘Let’s get going.’ Tom turns on his heel, places his hand on my elbow and guides me in through the rotating doors of the gym. ‘Perfect timing. Thank God you’re here. George was ready to beat the crap out of me. We need to get this fixed, and fast.’

  The gym is empty, and it’s no wonder. The shrill pitch and volume of the alarm is deafening. We walk by reception, through the weights area and into a little glass-panelled office with one desk, one chair, a bright pink filing cabinet and a flashing metal box in the top left corner of the room. I stand in the doorway as Tom points and shouts over the din.

  ‘There it is, please work your magic.’

  I tilt my head to the side and draw my brows together. ‘What do you mean?’ I ask.

  ‘Fix it! Make it stop! As you’ve probably gathered, I’m under a bit of pressure. I’ve got eight minutes before George flips and calls the cops and then I’ll be forced to use everyone’s wages to pay the emergency callout guy and Leanne will string me up by my balls, so when you’re ready …’

  I raise my hands, palms open, and shrug my apology. ‘But I can’t fix it. I just know where the manual is. That’s why I’m here.’

  Tom tilts his weight onto one foot and rubs his neck. ‘But you said Leanne sent you.’

  ‘No. Well, yes. I’m Leanne’s friend. Poppy? She sent me to tell you to turn on your phone and that the manual is in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet.’

  ‘Poppy, yeah, Leanne said we were at school together …’ Tom runs his palms down his face and tightens his lips. ‘I see. Well … shit.’ He looks at his watch. ‘Right, we now have six minutes. This bloody manual better have the passcode written inside.’

  He hunches down on his knees and starts searching through the drawer. He pulls out the manual, leafs through the first and last pages, glances over the front and back cover and shakes his head.

  ‘Nope. No code. No surprise. I knew I didn’t write it down anywhere, I just thought I’d be able to remember it. Friggin’ hell, a few numbers – you’d think that’d be easy, right?’

  He throws the book at me. It is easily as thick as an old-fashioned phone book. I catch it with both hands.

  ‘So there you go. Maybe you can work out how to disable it.’

  Hmm … Disabling alarm systems isn’t my typical night out party trick. But I can see the despair in his eyes. I need to try. If it’s a manual, then it’s pretty much designed to help normal people in exactly this type of emergency situation work out what to do. I swallow hard. Yes, just go to the index, find the instructions on disabling and it will stop. How hard can it be?

  I open it up. The pages are tissue-paper thin. The font is teensy. I squint closer to the unfamiliar lettering … The manual is written in Korean.

  ‘I don’t think this is going to be much help,’ I tell him.

  Tom runs his fingers through his hair and shakes his head. ‘No point looking at me. I’m dyslexic … I hate to write and I hate to read, so a big monster book like that is a complete head-fuck for me.’

  He slumps on to the chair. Deflated. The screaming alarm pierces the air and overwhelms the tiny space. We sit in hopeless silence, the noise becoming oppressive and menacing.

  Tom looks up at the flashing box. ‘I don’t know what else I can do. I’ve already tried everything. I know you’re no engineer, but can’t you just look at it? There’s nothing to lose at this point.’

  ‘I really don’t have a clue about this,’ I begin, but I see him sinking in front of me.

  ‘Leanne is going to go absolutely berserk.’ He breathe
s into his cupped hands.

  I need to try. As Tom says, there’s nothing to lose, so I don’t have to worry about making matters worse or failing or messing things up. I can tell by his tone that we’re already at rock bottom. So the very least I can do is show willing.

  ‘Okay,’ I say, and he jumps to his feet, a slight spark in his beautiful olive-green eyes. He looks to the revolving office chair, then to the box high up on the wall, and then to me. ‘You won’t make it standing on that chair, though. Wrong height, and it’s too unstable.’

  Okay, so I guess that’s the end of that short-lived plan. Unless I can solve this telepathically or he’s got a pair of stilts handy, there isn’t a chance of me reaching that box.

  He flashes me a look ‘I know. We can still do this.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep.’ Tom offers me his hand. ‘Stand on the desk and then hook your legs over my shoulders. That way you’ll be eye level.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Yes. Of course I’m serious. How else can we do it?’ he asks, a bemused smile playing on his lips.

  ‘But I’m wearing a skirt!’

  ‘So?’ he says, his face unflinching.

  ‘I don’t really know you … like, not enough to put my, you know … beside your, um, head.’ I can’t even get the words out; they jam in my throat. I drop my eyes to the floor, my cheeks burning at the thought of the closeness, the intimacy. An hour ago I was nervous about shaking his hand after so many years, never mind clutching his head between my legs. Oh dear God.

  He nods and then thrusts his hand out in front of him. ‘Hi Poppy, nice to see you again.’

  ‘Um … you too,’ I tell him, shaking his outstretched hand, glad of the distraction. A bit of formality is a welcome distancing gesture. Civilised, chivalrous, manageable.

  He bows with mock drama, and then glances up to the clock. ‘So now that we are properly reacquainted, we’ve got three minutes left. So please, Poppy, for me, for Leanne, for George and my potentially broken and bruised body, for the party of a hundred and the band booked to play in the pub … please, climb on board.’

  I open my mouth to say that I’m too heavy and that I think this is too much, too soon, but before the words can even leave my lips, Tom looks me directly in the eye and gently places his hand on my cheek. ‘I won’t drop you,’ he says, and I nod and don’t look away and I know that all my resolutions have dissolved into fine particles of dust.

  I scamper up on to the table, and once I am standing, he crouches in front of me. I slide my thighs over his shoulders, tightening them around either side of his head. Then I hook my feet under his arms to steady myself. And I feel steady. He is rock solid underneath me. I guess there might be something to this going-to-the-gym business after all. He spins around with me in position and smoothly walks over to the flashing box as if I was light as a feather.

  ‘Two minutes. Come on, Poppy. Give it your best shot.’

  Oh, I really want to … I really, really want to, for him and for Leanne and for myself, but I’m not hopeful. I have never figured out a passcode on an alarm system before in my life. Fair enough, at school I was the chief codebreaker in the Mensa society, and we often had to decipher encryptions or work out complex sequences, but again, like everything in my life to date, this all just existed on paper as an exercise of the mind, a fun little challenge to do when you were bored. And I did get bored sitting upstairs in the advanced studies classroom, peering out onto the football pitch to gaze dreamily at Tom Jones …

  I glance down and see his blonde wavy tendrils a fingertip’s distance away from my belly button. I’m suddenly overcome with the reality of it. I’m alone in a back office with a gorgeous but strange man … Well, not exactly a strange man. A man I hopelessly crushed on as a schoolgirl. And now here I am perched on his shoulders. I feel dizzy at the thought of it. At the sensation of it; the warmth of him against my bare skin, his smell, like salty caramel.

  ‘One minute thirty seconds,’ says Tom from underneath my skirt. I clench, and then realise that the way I’m sitting, he’s going to feel that clench. Probably right at the back of his neck. This is no position for secret clenching. I clench again involuntarily. Oh my God. Is this the best or the worst day of my life ever?

  ‘Any luck? How does it look up there?’

  Okay, Poppy, concentrate. Slap all impure thoughts about being wrapped around Tom Jones’s beautiful head out of the way and try your damnedest to work this out.

  ‘Well, the display shows that there are four digits required,’ I call down.

  ‘Yeah, I know. I’ve already tried everything I thought would work: 1234, then 0000, then mine and Leanne’s birth year, but no luck.’

  ‘Did you ever know the passcode?’

  ‘Yeah, once upon a time … I just can’t remember it. I’ve racked my brains, but I’m totally blank on what it could be.’

  ‘Sure. I understand. If you could think back, do you remember if there were any double digits?

  ‘Umm, let me think …’ I hear Tom muttering to himself.

  ‘Close your eyes and picture yourself at the keypad, and pay attention to where your finger is going. Is it top left? Top right? Over to the centre? Just try to visualise it in your mind. Use your finger if necessary.’

  I examine the box while Tom concentrates. There are no clues anywhere – no sticker with a reminder, no numbers etched into the polished metal box. This is looking hopeless. I expect that fuming George the publican is watching the passing of every second, eagerly awaiting his time to pounce and make the threatened call. And at this rate, it looks like he’ll be speaking to the police and lodging his complaint very soon indeed.

  ‘Poppy, I think I remember! I can see it! I remember pressing the same number twice in a row on the keypad … actually, yes, I can picture myself doing it …’

  ‘Amazing! What was it?’

  ‘Aggh!’ I hear him swallow hard. ‘I just can’t think … I’m sorry, it’s my brain: letters and numbers just don’t stick.’

  ‘No, that’s fine, that’s good. The number of four-digit combinations is relatively easy to calculate.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah … so you have ten choices for the first digit, then ten for the second, so that’s ten times ten – a hundred choices for the first two digits; then you have ten choices for the third digit, so that’s a thousand choices for the first three digits.’ I’m speaking out loud, as much for myself as for Tom.

  ‘I have no idea what you are talking about.’

  ‘Well, it means there are ten thousand possible combinations …’

  ‘Okay, great, get started. Try them all out.’

  Tom doesn’t get it. It’s technically impossible for us to do that within the time we have available without a team of trained administrators and a methodical strategy to ensure no repetition.

  ‘I can’t. I’ll need to write them all down, work out a system. We can’t just randomly type in numbers; we won’t be able to record what’s not worked, and we haven’t got time even with two of us’ I explain.

  He is silent for a moment. Then he shouts so loudly it makes me jump. ‘Five! Right smack in the middle of the keypad! I pressed five twice! I can see it clear as day! The first two digits are five and five … a hundred per cent no doubt in my mind.’

  ‘Okay, that’s good, but it still means there are a hundred choices left for the last two,’ I explain.

  ‘Well, we’ve got a minute left. Start punching numbers in … Just try.’

  ‘A hundred combinations in sixty seconds? We’ll never do it.’

  ‘What have we got to lose? Any system, any order you like, but just get on it, give it a try.’

  ‘Okay,’ I sigh. I admire Tom’s optimism and fearlessness, but let’s face facts: our chances of finding the combination are very, very slim. And within the time scale, highly improbable. But I do it; I listen to Tom and try to breathe in his optimism and I start to punch in the numbers.
/>
  5501

  5502

  5503

  5504

  Nothing. Surprise, surprise. If anything, the blaring siren seems to be getting even louder, screaming in my ears and making my head throb.

  ‘Don’t stop now, Poppy. Keep going,’ Tom encourages.

  5505

  5506

  5507

  5508

  5509

  ‘How much time left?’ I ask.

  ‘Ten seconds.’ I can hear in his voice that he’s still hopeful, still believes we can do it.

  I sigh deeply. ‘But Tom, ten seconds and ninety more combinations …

  ‘Don’t stop now, Poppy.’

  5510

  5511

  5512

  5513

  I’m beginning to lose hope. Tom might not even be right about the double fives. For all we know, we could be totally off.

  5514

  And then it stops.

  The urgent red light stops flashing. The screeching of the alarm cuts to a halt. Perfect silence gushes forth from every angle.

  I sit still on Tom’s shoulders and wait for something to happen: for the box to blow up or the police to rush in or the power to cut, but nothing happens. Just beautiful, peaceful, silent nothing.

  ‘You did it, Poppy! You did it!’

  Tom’s hands slide into the back of my knees and he starts to victory-dance in the middle of the office. I can’t stop laughing. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe that we worked it out. I can’t believe that we are here, like this, celebrating together. I slip my hands into his hair and hold on to the sides of his head as we bounce around the office, like I’m holding on to the saddle at a rodeo.

 

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