‘Annie – over here!’ she heard someone call out, as she and Charlie came through to the Arrivals terminal in Naples airport.
‘Kim, what are you doing here?’ She wasn’t prepared for this. She’d told her friend they were coming, of course, but she hadn’t expected to see her until later, after they’d arrived at the hotel.
Shite… Annie put a hand up to her clothes, instinctively straightening the wrinkled T-shirt she’d worn under her zip-up top on the flight.
She’d fully intended to doll herself up to the nines beforehand and appear at the hotel looking and feeling like a film star, but since they were running so late, and she’d been getting Charlie ready, too, she’d barely had the chance to dress herself.
Kim, by comparison, looked like she’d just stepped off a catwalk, dressed as she was in a floaty silk floral top, blinding white capri trousers, hot pink espadrilles, and a pair of Gucci cat-eye sunglasses perched atop her chic blonde head.
‘Surprise!’ she cried cheerfully, pulling Annie into a huge hug, as Charlie looked on. ‘Andof courseI’d be here. Where else would I be? I took the day off so I’m all yours – I hope,’ she added.
Kim released her hold on Annie and then turned to Charlie.‘Oh my goodness, you’ve got so big!’ Despite having only briefly met her once when he was smaller, he immediately flung two happy arms around her waist. He was such a friendly child.
‘I’m so glad that you and your mum could come for the party. Why don’t we get you in the car so we can show you what Italy’s like?’
‘Yes!’ Charlie exclaimed. ‘Where is it?’
‘Right this way,’ Kim instructed as she placed her hand on his back and directed him to where a snazzy convertible was waiting.
Annie tried to dampen down her inner resentment as Charlie’s eyes widened in awe at the open roof.
She closed her eyes and took several cleansing breaths.
Once in the car, Kim’s animated conversation and obvious delight at their reunion continued, but Annie couldn’t work up sufficient enthusiasm to match it.
Mostly, she listened to her chatter away to Charlie while she watched the world go by, a leaden lump in her stomach as she began to relive the same journey she’d taken all those years before, when she’d thought the world was her oyster.
‘Are you OK?’ Kim asked, noticing Annie’s silence.
She smiled wanly. ‘I’m grand. Just a bit tired after the flight. How’s Gabriel and Lily?’
‘All good. They’re out and about today but should be back at the hotel later. Lily is so excited about having another child to play with in the pool, which hopefully means you and I will have some quiet time to catch up.’ She winked conspiratorially. ‘Aw, it’s such a shame Colette isn’t coming out till Friday, though – it won’t feel real until all three of us are back together.’
‘She isn’t? That’s a shame.’ This was news to Annie.She’d have thought Colette and Ed would be there in advance of the party to support Kim.
‘I know, right? Apparently Ed can’t get away from work.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I mean, I totally get that, but still …’
Kim chit-chatted on about this and that and old times, trying to catch up on everything that had happened in Annie’s life since they’d seen each other the year before last.
Of course, Annie didn’t utter a word about her business worries or the fact that her life had only recently turned into a complete disaster, and she and Charlie were facing a scarily uncertain future – something made all the more acute as Kim then chattered animatedly about last-minute preparations and hitches with the launch, and all her grand plans for the party.
Talk about chalk and cheese …
Conversation ebbed and flowed along the journey until eventually, they reached the outskirts of Sorrento. The only one really talking by this point was Charlie, who had a thousand and one questions to ask Kim.
His lively chatter automatically quieted Annie’s discomfort and mercifully also seemed to distract Kim.
Once she and Charlie were checked in to their room at the Excelsior, agreeing to meet Kim back downstairs once they got settled, he was in her ear.
‘Can I go down to the pool now? Please, please,please?’
‘Go on then, munchkin,’ she teased fondly, as he ran to the bathroom to get changed, then took off for the water at breakneck speed once they got back down.
As she kept an eye on her son from her vantage point beneath an umbrella at a nearby patio table, Annie couldn’t believe that here he was, actually running and bouncing around the part of the world in which he was conceived.
How had the time gone by so quickly? It felt like only yesterday that she’d found out about his impending arrival once she’d returned back home, and became desperately worried about how she was going to cope.
She looked up now to see Kim approach with her phone to her ear, and a concerned look on her face.
