5
TITS,” I SHOUT, as Ginny and Kate both freeze on the screen again and I hold the phone out of my bathroom window. “Can you hear me?”
“Ican hear you,” replies Ginny.
“Stand still, Olive, for god’s sake! Give the wi-fi a chance to catch you,” Kate shouts, as if the volume of her voice alone will frighten my wi-fi into action. I laugh. I can so imagine Kate as a parent.
“Here. Three bars,” I yelp. “It’s the best I can do, I think. Fuck it, let me try in the hall.”
I grab the key and go sit on the stairs next to the ice machine and a wine-bottle vending machine, which I eye thirstily. This hotel really is divine, in a way I never appreciated when I was younger. I take in the beautifully ornate baroque detailing in the carved wood of the banister, the walls and carpets all pale blues and green tiles cool to the touch. On the landing just outside my room hangs a vaguely erotic and highly relatable painting of a naked man being simultaneously kissed and stabbed by a woman.
I glance at my phone. Five bars! Bingo.
The girls spring back into high-resolution full motion.
“Thank god for that,” I say.
“The hotel soundsdreamy,” says Kate. “And how are you feeling?”
“Adrift. Lost at sea.”
“You’ll find your feet,” says Kate firmly.
“It’s hot, the airline lost my fucking bag, and all I have is the heavy denim jumpsuit I’m wearing. And my lavender Crocs,” I moan.
“Oh dear,” says Ginny, grimacing.
“But you have the ashes with you?” Kate says, momentarily horrified.
“Yes. Although I’m terrified of leaving them behind somewhere,” I reply wearily. “Can you imagine?”
Both the girls laugh gently, and I feel warmed by their voices, as though they really are here with me, holding my hand.
“I don’t know what to do first. It’s only four. I can’t just stay in and—?”
“No! Youmustgo out,” says Ginny. “Go to the bar, flirt with some hot strangers, and try to relax. You’re a single woman traveling mostly alone. You’ve practically gothit me upwritten on your back.”
“That’s terrible, emotionally destabilizing advice. Also incredibly slutty,” Kate chastises, before tilting her head from side to side in careful consideration. “Still. You should probably do it.”
“Speaking ofdoing it... have you contacted the hot chef yet?” Ginny asks.
“Leo?” I ask, as though there are a gaggle of other hot chefs.
“Oh, please tell me you’ve at least called him and made friends now,”she pleads. “I have visions of you under the Tuscanson,” Ginny adds wistfully.
Kate and I snort-laugh and I try to contain myself, as two guests squeeze past me on the stairs. “You’re not going to get a transformational journey out of me, I’m afraid. I can’t think of a cliché any more tired.”
“Come on, this could be yourEat, Pray, Loveera,” Ginny says.
“I’m more Eat, Play,Run,” I whisper to more laughter, as flashes of Leo’s dark eyes staring intensely threaten to unsettle me for a moment. I clear my throat.
“One day, Olive, you’ll fall in love, and there will be no more running,” says Kate, who thinks I reject men because I don’t wish to be rejected. WhereasIthink the problem is simply that most men eventually have an insurmountable fault. Like clapping when a plane lands, or pronouncing David Bowie’s name wrong, or overusing exclamation marks.
Ginny thinks I could find fault in a sunset.
“The only thing I’m falling into is a bath,” I say firmly.
“Fair,” says Kate.
