‘Not like that,’ he says, allowing himself a smile for a second. ‘Didn’t you feel anything between us?’
‘Of course I did,’ I tell him. ‘But you work here, I’m just on holiday and then I’m going back home, we have the same problem we had before…’
I really don’t want to go through all this again.
‘Except we don’t,’ Josh says as he sits up next to me, taking my hands in his. ‘The next voyage, the one back to Liverpool that leaves tomorrow afternoon, is my final one.’
‘What?’
‘It’s my last one. I don’t want to live my life on a ship any more, I want to get back on dry land, I want to start my life properly.’
This piece of information has floored me. That’s the last thing I expected to hear him say. Singing professionally has always been his dream, and now he’s doing it. Like he said, he gets to enjoy all the pros of being a famous singer without all the cons that come with it. He’s living his dream.
‘You would really give this up just to be with me?’ I ask him.
‘Well, yes, of course I would, but I’d be lying if I said that you were the reason I was quitting. I gave my notice sometime ago. I meant what I said, I don’t want to live and work at sea, I want to start my life properly… and now that I’ve found you again, I want to start it with you. What we had between us is clearly still there, Rosie, I know you feel it…’
‘Wait, wait, so you’re not doing this for me? You were doing this anyway?’
‘I was,’ he admits. ‘My plan was to quit, move in with my mum in the short term, start a new job in Manchester…’
‘So, you’re not doing this for me,’ I say, only this time it isn’t a question, it’s a statement.
‘Rosie, I was already doing this,’ he says.
‘But… this isn’t some big gesture for me, this is you deciding you’ve had enough of jetsetting around the globe and now you want to go back to life before, moving back in with your mum, start things up with me again – make it like you never left?’
Josh laughs in disbelief, but it’s not an amused laugh, it’s closer to an angry one. ‘I didn’t know you were going to be here, Rosie,’ he reminds me. ‘Yes, the wheels were already in motion for me to quit singing on the ship, but – as much as a person might be able to make a case for this being some kind of course correction, I mean, what are the chances? – I don’t think that we’re just going to get back together and pick up where we left of, I just want the chance to be in your life again, if we’re both living in Manchester… I thought you’d be happy.’
I take my hands back from him. I’m annoyed at him, but do I have any right to be? I suppose I just wanted to feel like he had finally chosen me, rather than a case of good timing opening the door for him to pick up where he left off. If he hadn’t been quitting the Michael Bublé gig, and this had still happened between us, would he still want me, or would he be helping me pack my suitcase and hiding my big chunk of Silverline branded glass in the wardrobe so I don’t have to take it with me before waving me off? I can never, ever know what the truth is, and that worries me.
‘Look, I have plans with Simon tonight– and I can’t stress enough that we’re only catching up,’ I remind him. ‘I’m not going to bail on him just because you’re, what, ready for me now?’
‘I can’t believe you’re willing to spend a second with him,’ Josh says. ‘After everything he did, I can’t believe a bunch of crap flowers has turned your head.’
‘Whoa, OK, first of all, they weren’t crap flowers, they were quite nice. Second of all, it takes two to tango, and it was me who tanked that relationship. You know how insecure I was.’
‘Because he was cheating on you,’ Josh says.
‘I don’t know for sure that he was though, do I? I was clearly imagining it, and he proved that to me when he set me up, to catch me snooping.’
Josh puffs air from his cheeks. ‘Rosie, I was the one who was there for you after Simon set you up – in the most unforgivable way. I don’t care if he thought you were snooping. If you have a problem with someone, you talk to them, you don’t trick them into thinking you’re going to propose to them, get their hopes up, only to embarrass them and then dump them. I was the person who comforted you, held you while you cried, helped you overcome your issues.’
‘And I’m so, so grateful to you for that,’ I tell him honestly. ‘You saved me – if it weren’t for you, I never would have trusted another man again.’
‘As someone who got to know everything about your relationship, take it from me, he was cheating on you. He absolutely was. I know that you think he proved you wrong, but you were right. It never seemed worth arguing that point with you before, but now it feels important. He cheated on you, he set you up, and then he dumped you, because he was at the end of his rope with the situation. There was nowhere to go from there.’
‘I know you think badly of him, because he tricked me, but that doesn’t make him a cheater…’
‘Lying to you, setting you up, manipulating what you could and couldn’t see on his phone – that doesn’t sound like the behaviour of a dishonest person to you?’
‘Josh, we could argue about this forever,’ I say, trying to nip it in the bud. ‘But there’s no point. I’m going to get off the ship, I’m going to enjoy my holiday, I’m going to go and see Simon for just a catch-up – which I am sick of saying – and then, when and if I end up back in Manchester, if you’re serious, maybe we can talk, OK?’
Josh gets out of bed and hurries his clothes on.
‘Go and see Simon,’ he tells me. ‘Have a great time together, see that he’s changed, stay in New York with him, if that’s what you want – it sounds like that’s what you were implying.’
I suppose I was, not that it seems like something that would be on the cards. I’m just so angry that Josh thinks that we can just pick up where we left off, now that he has space in his life for me. It’s not fair. You don’t get to just pick me up and put me down as and when you get a better offer. I deserve better than that. I might be happier when I have a boyfriend, but I would rather be single and secure for the rest of my life, than waiting for the phone to ring with Josh’s next big break that’s going to take him away from me.
‘We can talk when things are back to normal,’ I tell him. ‘When we’ve both had time to think. This is just so fast…’
‘In other words, you want to go and see if Simon sent you the flowers first, see how things are with him, and then come back to me if they’re not what you want…’
‘That’s not it at all,’ I insist.
‘Well, I’ll save you the trouble,’ he says. ‘Have a lovely holiday, sorry things didn’t work out.’
With that, Josh storms out.
I quickly wipe away the tear that has escaped from one of my eyes, just in time before Eli walks in through the door.
‘What?’ he bellows theatrically. ‘You haven’t packed my suitcase for me? It’s no wonder I’m off women, I feel like they have been completely missold to me.’
I laugh. It’s so nice to see him.
‘You OK, kid?’ he asks me, sitting down at the foot of my bed. ‘I thought you’d still be asleep, I was coming to wake you, to see if you fancied grabbing a quick breakfast before we pack.’
‘Yeah, I’m…’ I cough, trying to clear the emotion from my throat. ‘I’m OK, just ready to get to New York and see the city.’
Eli stands up, takes me by the hand and gently pulls me out of bed before leading me to the balcony. Without saying a word, he opens the curtains and points outside.
‘Oh my God,’ I blurt. ‘We’re here.’
‘We’re here,’ he says. ‘Did you not notice we’d stopped moving?’
‘I didn’t,’ I admit. ‘I think I’d finally got used to the feeling of being at sea.’
I expected to be in some ferry port, like the kind we have back home, but, here at the Brooklyn cruise terminal, I already feel like I’m in New York. I can s
ee the city, I can even see some of its most famous skyscrapers, right here in front of me, in real life, just far enough away to still seem like something out of a movie. I can see the One World Trade Center, standing the tallest of them all, I can see the Empire State Building, I can see what I believe is the green roof of the Trump Building… it is so surreal.
I can’t quite get Josh out of my head but I’m here now and I need to make the most of it. I’ve been looking forward to visiting New York for so long, I need to make sure I enjoy myself.
‘It’s incredible,’ I say. ‘It kind of all seems worth it, now that we’re actually here…’
‘While that might be true for you, the only thing I have done to get to this point is go on a cruise, so it has literally been plain sailing for me,’ he says with a chuckle.
‘How is André?’ I ask.
Eli’s face falls as I bring him back to earth a little. That wasn’t my intention, I was just curious about what happens next for them.
‘He’ll be fine,’ Eli says. ‘So will I. It was just a holiday romance, as much as I liked him, this is his home, most of the time, right? Nothing was ever going to come of it… it’s a shame but… we’re going to stay in touch. You never know.’
Oh, but I do know. I know all too well.
‘Speaking of which,’ he starts. ‘I just saw Josh in the corridor, face like thunder, no time to talk…’
‘Oh really?’
‘Yes, really,’ he replies, mocking my voice. ‘So unless he copped off with an old lady last night, I’d hazard a guess he was coming from this suite.’
I shrug my shoulders.
‘We need to pack our bags,’ I tell him.
‘We do,’ he replies. ‘OK, well how about we pack our bags now, while you unpack your baggage?’
‘I see what you did there,’ I say with a smile.
I tell Eli all about what just happened with Josh. He bites his lip thoughtfully.
‘Ergh, that’s messy,’ he says. ‘That is very messy. I completely see where you’re coming from, and where he is… but you’re right, now isn’t the time for you to just drop everything and go running back to him. You came here to see Sexy bloody Simon; you will see Sexy bloody Simon. OK?’
‘OK,’ I say, although I'm starting to have second thoughts for some reason.
‘For now, let’s forget about Josh – good things are coming, I promise you that. With or without a man, I promise you will end this holiday much happier, OK?’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘You really are my favourite ex, do you know that?’
‘I do,’ he says. ‘You would not stop telling me when you were drunk.’
I really am never ever drinking again.
31
I have only been in New York for a few hours and I am already head over heels in love with the place.
Eli and I were so excited when we arrived, and I was so desperate for a distraction, that we thought we might send my mum and dad (plus all of our luggage) straight over to the hotel in a taxi, because we fancied doing part of the journey on foot. Well, when in Brooklyn and heading for Manhattan, why not walk over the Brooklyn Bridge?
It took us just over an hour, all in, to get from the cruise terminal to the other side of the Brooklyn Bridge. Honestly, I couldn’t think of a cooler way to enter the heart of the city, it was like the city was revealing itself to us a bit at a time. It was just incredible, checking off landmarks that I’ve only ever seen on screen or read about in books. We could see the Empire State Building, amidst a forest of skyscrapers – we could even see the Statue of Liberty, across the water, standing tall (although not looking all that tall from where we were squinting) on Liberty Island.
I think, perhaps because New York is so well represented on TV and in movies, that, even standing here with these iconic landmarks in my sight, I still feel a little detached from them. Staring at the Statue of Liberty in the distance still feels like looking at it through a screen, you almost have to meet the feeling in the middle, accept that it doesn’t feel real and pretend that you’re in a movie or something. My life certainly feels that way at the moment.
By the time we crossed the bridge, we were ready for a taxi to take us the rest of the way. There is just so much I want to do and I know that time is limited. The last thing I want is to give myself blisters on the first day, only to spend the rest of the time limping around.
As soon as you arrive in Manhattan, there is something to see almost everywhere you look. Our hotel is pretty much on Times Square – my dad booked it, and I’ve been so scared to ask him where we were staying, just in case it sounded like a nightmare (à la cruise for people double my age), but he really has picked a good one. It’s a chain hotel, so nice enough, and being in the heart of the touristy bit is what I wanted, so no complaints from me. Well, I could potentially complain about the fact that he only booked two rooms for the four of us, but to be honest, I love sharing with Eli. Now more than ever, I really don’t want to go back to living on my own.
When we arrived at the hotel Eli and I laid all of my new dresses out on the bed and I ranked them in terms of comfort while Eli ordered them in terms of sexiness. In the end, we worked out that the long, slinky red number with the plunging neckline (well, I call it plunging, but Eli says it’s practically a turtle neck – I’d imagine it is somewhere in the middle) would be the perfect dress for this evening, although now that I’m out in the world in it, on my own, I feel a little… I don’t know, dressy. I should probably go shopping while I’m here. I mean, I should absolutely go shopping while I am here, I’m in New York! But I should probably shop specifically for some clothes to fill the gap I seem to have between casual and super formal. I feel like Jessica Rabbit’s bloated sister in this dress, as gorgeous as it is. I guess it’s too late to do anything about it now.
It turns out that where Simon lives now is actually not that far from where we are staying. A twenty-two-minute walk or a seven-minute taxi – guess which I selected to do, in this dress? Well, I might as well use my money to make my life easier while I can, right? And, anyway, catching a cab in New York is all part of the experience.
It did occur to me, when I was only a couple of minutes away, to check that Simon was still expecting me, and that he was actually going to be there. Well, when someone from thousands of miles away tells you they might drop in, how much do you actually expect them to show up?
Thankfully Simon replied, saying that he was preparing dinner for us, so that is both a huge relief and also really nice of him.
So here I am, standing outside an apartment building on 5th Avenue, the leafy green of Central Park behind me, as I wait to see Simon for the first time since the last time, when I threw a cup of cold tea over him.
Here we go…
32
I honestly don’t know which way to look. To my right is Simon’s living room window. He lives in a decent-sized apartment that overlooks Central Park, and he’s above the tree canopy, so he has views of the city too. It’s incredible, seeing all that green and all those skyscrapers, side by side, the most unlikely neighbours, but I quite like the way the park is this neat square of green in an otherwise concrete jungle. To my left is Simon himself, buzzing around the kitchen in his open-plan living space, preparing dinner, which smells amazing, but it’s Simon himself I can’t stop staring at. He looks so good – so different to the last time I saw him, but still Sexy Simon, all right. Perhaps Sexier Simon should be his new nickname…
Simon has grown his blonde hair a little longer, pulling it into a manbun on the back of his head. He’s got a bit of the Chris Hemsworths about him, with his hair, his stubble and his muscular frame. Simon is wearing a tight grey T-shirt and jeans, which makes me feel like my outfit is way over the top, but he keeps telling me how great I look, which is putting me at ease a little.
He walks over with two glasses of champagne in his hands and, I know I said I would never drink again, but one glass to be polite won’t hurt anyone, will it? Plus,
imagine trying to explain not wanting one…
‘Dinner is nearly ready,’ he tells me. ‘Sorry, I let you in and then immediately ignored you, I am a terrible host.’
As he jokes around, I notice how his accent has changed. I don’t know how long he has lived here, but it must be long enough for a New York twang to have infiltrated his vocal cords. It suits him though; he seems like an uber cool New York creative type. I guess life here just suits him. God, I wish life here suited me. I know that I’ve only been here a few hours, but all I want to do is abandon my old life and start a new one here. I think I’d need to win a lot more than £50k to be able to afford to do that though, and I’m pretty sure New York is already full to the brim with aspiring writers, it doesn’t need one more – especially not one who has spent the last year writing advertorials.
‘I can’t believe you’re cooking,’ I say. ‘You never cooked.’
‘Yeah, I move into a city full of incredible restaurants and I decide I want to learn to cook,’ he says with a laugh and a shrug. ‘My hours are so crazy sometimes. If I hadn’t learned to cook, I either would have lived on takeout or instant ramen noodles.’
‘I want to hear all about your work,’ I insist.
‘Well, let me plate up this food, and I’ll tell you everything, how’s that sound?’
‘Perfect,’ I reply.
As Simon does his thing in the kitchen, I walk across the living room. As I do, I take the smallest possible sip of my drink, testing the waters to see if my body will allow alcohol inside it after my last ordeal. Thankfully it is fine.
Simon’s place is so effortlessly stylish. It isn’t huge, but it’s in a great location. I can’t even imagine how much it must cost to live here, on the edge of Central Park, with the view he has, but I don’t need much of an imagination to know that I could never afford it. It’s a cute space, but he’s done so much with it. He has bookshelves built into alcoves, a kind of funky, modern sofa that seems like it can be rearranged with minimal effort, to create different shapes, depending on how you want it. The room is full of beautiful art, interesting sculptures, fancy rugs, and, of course, lots and lots of photos. I take a little time to look over them. I can spot Simon’s snaps a mile off – all portraits of models.
My Great Ex-Scape Page 19