Cecelia Ahern - The Gift

“Oh, look,” Gabe said in a bored tone. “It looks like I dropped one on the ground.”

“What? Where?” Lou instantly forgot the pain in his toe and raced back to the bin. He examined the ground around it. Between the cracks of the cobbles he saw something white peering up at him. Leaning closer, he noticed it was a pill.

“Aha! Found one!”

“Yeah, I had to throw them away from a distance, the smell was so bad,” Gabe explained. “A few fell on the ground.”

“A few? How many?”

Lou got down on his hands and knees and started searching.

“I thought you only needed one. Lou, you really should just go back inside. You’ve had a good day Why don’t you just leave it at that? Learn from it and move on?”

“I have learned from it,” Lou said, nose close to the cobbles. “I’ve learned that I’m the hero around here with these things. Aha! There’s another one.” Satisfied that those two were all he could salvage, he put them in his handkerchief and slipped them into his pocket, then stood up and wiped his knees.

“Two will do for now,” he said, wiping his forehead. “I can see two more under the Dumpster, but I’ll leave them for the time being.”

When Lou turned around, his knees dirty and his hair disheveled, he found he had more company. Alfred was standing beside Gabe, his arms folded, a smug look on his face.

“Drop something, Lou?”

WHEN LOU ENTERED THE BOARDROOM, a little delayed after washing up in the bathroom, all twelve colleagues around the table stood to applaud him, their big, white-toothed smiles beaming from ear to ear, but not quite meeting their tired morning eyes. This was what everybody he knew was faced with. Not enough hours of sleep and the inability to get away from work or work-related devices like laptops, BlackBerrys, and cell phones: distractions that each of their family members wanted to flush down the toilet. Of course they were all happy for him, in a frazzled kind of way. They were all functioning to stay alive, to pay the mortgages, to do the presentations, to meet the quotas, to please the boss, to get in early enough to beat the traffic, to hang around long enough in the evenings until it had gone. Everyone in that room was putting in all the hours under the sun trying to unload their work before Christmas, and as they all did that, the pile of personal problems in their in-boxes only grew higher. That would all be dealt with over Christmas break. Finally, time for festive family issues that had been sidelined all year. ’Twas the season for family folly.

The applause was led by a beaming Mr. Patterson, and everyone joined in but Alfred, who was exceptionally slow to stand. While the others were on their feet, he was slowly pushing his chair back. When the others were clapping, he was adjusting his tie and fastening his gold buttons. He succeeded in clapping just once before the applause died down, a single clap that sounded more like a burst balloon.

Lou worked his way around the table, shaking hands, slapping backs, kissing cheeks. By the time he reached Alfred, his friend had already seated himself, though he offered Lou a limp, clammy hand.

“Ah, the man of the moment,” Mr. Patterson said happily, taking Lou’s hand warmly and placing his left hand firmly on Lou’s upper arm. He stood back and looked at Lou proudly, as a grandfather would his grandson on Communion Day, beaming with pride and admiration.

Feeling like he was floating, Lou sat down and found it hard to keep up with the rest of the morning’s discussion. From the corner of his eye, Lou could see Alfred staring at him, the shark beginning to circle again.

“You look tired, Lou, were you out celebrating last night?” a colleague asked.

“I was up all night with my little girl. Vomiting bug. My wife had it, too, so it was a busy night.” He smiled, thinking of Lucy tucked in bed, her thick hair hiding half her face.

Alfred laughed, and his wheeze was loud. “You used that excuse just yesterday, Lou.”

So he had. A few people laughed.

The aggression was emanating from Alfred in waves. It seeped from his soul, distorting the air around him, and Lou wondered if everybody could see it. Lou felt for him oddly; he could see how lost and fearful Alfred was.

“It’s not just me you should be congratulating,” Lou announced to the table. “Alfred was in on the New York deal, too. And a fine job he did.”

“Absolutely.” Alfred brightened up, coming back to the room and fidgeting with his tie. “It was nice of Lou to finally join me at the end, just in time to see me wrap it all up.”

Everyone around the table laughed at the joke, but it hit Lou hard.

“Yes, we have already commended Alfred,” Mr. Patterson said. “But two deals at once, Lou, how on earth did you manage it? We all know you’re a multitasker at the best of times, but what an extraordinary use of time management and, of course, your negotiating skills.”

“Yes, extraordinary,” Alfred agreed. His tone was playful, but underneath it there was venom. “Almost unbelievable. Perhaps unnatural. What was it, Lou, a magic little pill? Speed?”

There were a few nervous laughs, a cough, and then a silence. Mr. Patterson broke the tension by getting the meeting started, but the damage had already been done. Alfred had left something hanging in the air. A question replaced what had previously been pure admiration; a seed had been planted in each mind. Whether the others believed Alfred or not, each time Lou achieved anything in the future, Alfred’s comment would be momentarily, perhaps subconsciously, entertained, and that seed would grow, peep up from dirty soil, and rear its ugly head.

After all his hard work, missing out on important family events, always running out of his home to get to the office, quick pecks on Ruth’s cheek for the sake of long handshakes with strangers, he had finally had his moment. Two minutes of handshakes and applause. Followed by a seed of doubt. Had it all been worth it?

YOU’LL BE THERE, WON’T YOU, Lou?” Ruth asked, trying her best to hide the worry in her voice. She moved around their bedroom in her bare feet, the sound of her skin against the wooden floors like feet splashing in water. Her long brown hair was up in rollers, her body was draped in a towel, and beads of water from her shower glistened on her shoulders.

From their bed, Lou watched his wife of ten years get ready for the evening. They were going into the city center in separate cars at separate times; he had to stop in at his office party before joining the rest of his family at his father’s party. Lou hadn’t been home long from work; he had showered and dressed in the space of twenty minutes. But instead of pacing downstairs as he normally did, waiting for his wife impatiently, he had chosen to lie on the bed and watch her. He was just learning tonight that staying up here and watching was so much more entertaining than pacing downstairs in anger. Lucy had joined him on their bed only moments ago and was cuddling her loyal blanket that followed her everywhere. Fresh out of the bath, she was dressed in her pajamas and smelled so freshly of strawberries that he almost wanted to eat her.

“Of course I’ll be there.” He smiled at Ruth.

“It’s just that you should have left the house a half hour ago, and that would have put you behind as it is.” She rushed by him and disappeared into the walk-in closet. The rest of her sentence disappeared along with her, muffling into the clothes neatly folded within. He lay back on the bed and rested his arms behind his head.

“She’s talking fast,” Lucy whispered.

“She does that.” Lou smiled, reached out, and tucked a loose strand of hair behind his daughter’s ear.