“You’ve toldeveryoneyours,” he says under his breath. “It’s all we’ve heard about for hours now.”
“Oh,we’renot complaining, are we, Gerald?” Rita interjects. “I love a good story, me.”
“Absolutely,” replies the disembodied voice of Gerald, who obviously has no issues with his hearing. “But where does this Tim McGraw lad fit into it all? That’s what I want to know?”
I twist around in my seat and start to explain myself yet again, and, by the time the seat belt sign comes back on, signaling that we’re coming in to land, I’ve told the story so many times that it’s spread through the entire cabin, and I’m being treated like a minor celebrity.
Julian and Alice insist on buying me a miniature bottle of wine and a tub of Pringles from the food service. Rita asks to take a selfie with me. Even Libby, of hen party fame, stops by our row on her way to the bathroom to swap Instagram handles with me, so she can keep track of my progress.
“We need updates,” she says, leaning over Rita and her hat to get to me. “We need Stories. Maybe even a few Reels, if you have the time. We need thereceipts.”
“My Fred loved a good reel,” says Rita, who’s decimated her vodka stash and is now making eyes at my plastic cup of wine. “You can say what you like about him, but he was a fine dancer, that man.”
“It’s just so romantic,” sighs Libby. “It makes me wonder whatmyfirst love’s up to these days. You will post some updates, Summer, won’t you? I can’t go home without knowing what happens now.”
“I’ll do my best,” I agree, crossing my fingers tightly under my tray table just in case whatever happens with Jamie Reynolds turns out to not be the kind of thing I’ll want to put on Instagram. “It probably won’t be all that interesting, though.”
“Oh, nonsense,” says Libby good-naturedly. “So, do you think this woman reallywasyour Fairy Godmother, then?”
“I’m more worried that she really wasmein 20 years’ time,” I reply, twisting a strand of hair anxiously around my finger. “That’s a possibility, too.”
“So, more like the Ghost of Christmas Future, then?” says Gerald, who’s continuing to blatantly listen in to everyone’s conversations.
“It were New Year, Gerry, not Christmas,” says Rita. “There’s no Ghost of New Year’s Eve Future, is there?”
“Are you sure she didn’t just say ‘get me a beer’, rather than ‘get out of here’?” says Libby thoughtfully. “Because that would make more sense.”
“Don’t listen to her,” says Rita, patting my knee reassuringly as Libby sashays off down the plane. “Who knows, maybe this time next year you’ll be the one jetting off on your hen do, Summer? I love a good wedding, me. Don’t you just love a good wedding, Alexander?”
“Nope,” comes the mumbled reply from the joy-sucking wraith in the window seat. “Waste of time and money.”
“Don’t listen to the last of the great romantics over there,” says Rita, winking at me. “I have a feeling this is all going to work out perfectly for you, Summer. And my Fred always told me to trust my feelings. Especially when it comes to matters of the heart.”
I cling onto the armrest as the plane dips suddenly, leaving my own heart feeling like it’s floating somewhere near the ceiling. We’re just about to land. I suddenly feel like I might throw up again; not just from the movement of the aircraft, but from the sheer horror of realizing that this is it — I’m actually doing this… thing. There’s no turning back now. Well, not without having to spend a huge amount of money and take yet another flight, anyway. I start to reach for the sick bag in front of me, but then Alex’s words from earlier come back to me.
All I have to do is take this one step at a time. Get off the plane. Collect my suitcase. Find my way to the hotel.
And after that?
Er, I have no idea what comes after that. Sorry.
But as the plane dips again, and Alex wordlessly offers me his hand to cling onto, I feel like I’m ready for it.
Whatever ‘it’ turns out to be…
Five
Iwake up the next morning to the sound of suitcases being wheeled down the corridor outside my room, and a sliver of bright blue sky peeping through the crack in the curtains.
The hotel. I’m in the hotel. I can’t believe I’m actually here.
The taxi ride from the airport last night took me along a narrow strip of motorway, with the looming shadows of mountains on one side, and what I’m assuming was the sea on the other, although it was pretty hard to tell in the pitch dark we landed in. When I got to the hotel, I was too tired to explore, but now I’m awake I throw myself out of bed and launch myself across the room, wrenching open the curtains and pulling at the sliding doors behind them until they finally open, allowing me to step out onto the balcony beyond.
It’s the first day of my new, cool life.
And it’s amazing.
Actually, scratch that: compared to the cold, gray weather I left behind in the UK, this place isbeyondamazing. I almost want to cry with relief as I take in the infinity pool below me, which stretchessmoothly down to the sea beyond it, the surface of the water sparkling softly in the morning sun. From where I’m standing I can see both a swim-up bar, and a straw-topped tiki bar, with jewel-colored liqueur bottles lined up on a shelf, ready to be turned into cocktails. A bit of the tension I’ve been carrying since I arrived at the airport yesterday slowly leaves my body.
