“I have a few things I want to do this morning,” I tell them. “It’s my first time here, you know? I thought I might head out to explore; just get my bearings, see some of the sights.”
“On your own?” says Julian, aghast. “Well, we can’t have that now, can we? A young woman like you, out on her own … anything could happen. And we’re your new Fairy God…folk. We have to look after you.”
Gerald opens his mouth, clearly about to offer to accompany me, but Alice comes to my rescue, nudging her husband in the side with a bottle of sunscreen.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Julian,” she says. “Summer’s a strong, independent young woman, remember? She can look after herself. Can’t you, Summer?”
Everyone including me looks unconvinced by this, but I nod gratefully at her all the same.
“That’s right,” I say, as much for my own benefit as theirs. “I can look after myself. I have Google Maps on my phone in case I get lost. And how difficult can it be to find my way around a holiday resort, anyway?”
Everyone looks worried again. I take out my phone to reassure them, putting it hurriedly away again when I touch the ‘home’ button by mistake and the photo of Alex Fox flashes back up on the screen.
“I’ll be fine,” I tell them again, firmly. And then, before anyone can try to argue with me, I toss my hair over my shoulder, adjust my heart-shaped sunglasses, and stride off down the corridor, feeling four pairs of elderly eyes follow me as I go.
“First day vibes,” I say out loud, earning a look of surprise from a passing housekeeper. “First day vibes, indeed…”
Six
Jamie Reynold’s bar is called The Rowdy Squirrel Bar & Grill, and all I can say is I’m glad I didn’t give Alexander ‘Judgy Pants’ Fox that particular nugget of information yesterday, because there’s literally no way I can make it sound cool. Not even in my head. Probably not even in the head of my 13-year-old self, actually: and my 13-year-old self thought it was pretty cool when Chloe bedazzled her velour tracksuit and wore it to Arianna Morgan’s birthday party that time, so it’s not like she was a great arbiter of taste either.
The bar is tucked between a Chinese restaurant and Irish pub on a strip of land opposite the beach in Playa de las Americas, and I find it easily enough, thanks to a taxi driver called Carlos, and The Squirrel’s own Instagram account, which proudly proclaims it to be ‘the best nite spot in Tenerife South’.
There’s a sandwich board outside advertising a full English breakfast for 8 EUR, but even though my stomach’s still growling hungrily at me, I walk right past it, suddenly too overcome with nerves to make myself go in and sit down.
Because then he mightseeme.
I… really don’t want him to see me.
Back in high school, my tacticwith boys I liked was always to make sure they did not, under any circumstances,knowI liked them. That way they didn’t ever ask me out, so I never had to go through the agony of actuallyhaving a boyfriend, and was free instead to indulge in my favorite hobby: crying over the fact that I didn’t have a boyfriend.
It seemed to make sense at the time.
It doesn’t make much sensenow, though, as an allegedly grown woman: which is why, once I’ve walked past the Chinese restaurant so many times that the waiter positioned outside has given up trying to hand me a menu, I take a seat at one of the tables outside the Irish bar instead, immediately holding the menu up in front of my face, and peering over the top, like a cartoon detective on a stakeout.
There.
That’ll do it.
Dowhat, though? That’s the question. The truth is, my drunken decision to change my life, one ancient regret at a time, was so out of character for me that I barely gave the idea time to land before I was jumping aboard it, telling myself it would be good for me to do something on impulse for once. My planning — if you can call it that — only got me as far as the airport, then on to the Hotel Martinez. After that, everything becomes a bit fuzzy around the edges — a bit like Chloe’s tracksuit, by the end of Ariana Morgan’s party, actually.
So I don’t know what I’m going to say to Jamie when I see him. Whatdoyou say to the high school crush you ditched your job and flew two thousand miles to see, though? Other than the truth, obviously, which, when you put it likethat, makes it sound a bit like you’re here to boil his pet bunny?
You look like a stalker,says Alex’s voice from this morning in my head.
“Shut up, Alexander,” I mutter under my breath. “I’m just having a coffee. That’s all. Absolutely nothing stalker-ish about it.”
Just to prove it, I get the waiter’s attention and order a cappuccino, then lean back in my seat to drink it, keeping one eye on The Rowdy Squirrel as I watch the world go by. As it turns out, it’s a pretty good spot for people watching, too. The beach beside me is a busy one, and it’s lined, not just with restaurants and pubs, but with various other stores, selling things like pool toys, postcards (Do people still send postcards?) and garishly colored bikinis, for 15 euros each. Music booms out from at least three different bars at once, and every so often, someone stops by my table and tries to sell me a pair of knockoff designer sunglasses or a giant piece of cloth that can apparently be used as both a windbreakanda towel.
Amazing.
The sun is blisteringly hot, and the beachside promenade is so busy that by the time the smiley-eyed waiter brings me a second cappuccino, along with the ham and cheese toastie I finally succumbed to, it feels like almost everyone on the island must have walked past my table, from a group of men in lime-green mankinis who are clearly on a stag do, to a woman in sunglasses who I’m fairly certain is a nun. Or possibly a stripper: it’s honestly hard to tell.
I don’t see Jamie Reynolds, though.
Even though I sit there until the sun almost bakes me right into the pavement, and make sure The Rowdy Squirrel is in my line of sight the entire time, there’s no sign of the boy who once broke my heart; or, indeed, the older, but still recognizable, version of him whose photo is all over the bar’s Instagram page.
So I sit and watch the world pass by my table, and try not to think about how this is a pretty apt metaphor for my life, really — everyone out enjoying themselves while I sit there on the periphery, looking on. At one point, a young couple who seem to be on their honeymoon come and sit at the table next to mine, and I watch out of the corner of my eye as he pulls out a chair for her, then moves his own so he can sit as close to her as possible. The woman smiles up at him adoringly, and I frown into my coffee, trying to figure out what the weird feeling is in the pit of my stomach.
