Cecelia Ahern - The Year I Met You

The way he says other options makes me wonder if he’s not talking about the job, if he’s talking about Laurence. There is so much that I want to explain to him when this is all finished – only to him, though. I don’t care what anybody else thinks. As for you, you are the only person who knows everything already.

‘Sick, my arse,’ Dad mumbles and he gets another elbow from Leilah.

‘You were sick, Jasmine?’ Heather asks, so concerned. ‘Were you sick in Cork?’

‘Hold on, you were in Cork?’ Jamie asks, sitting forward. ‘I thought we agreed that Heather should go alone. Didn’t we say that?’ She looks at Leilah, who had also been at the meeting.

Leilah looks at me, clearly feeling conflicted, not wanting to step on anybody’s toes. I can see the battle going on in her head.

‘Well?’ Dad asks her.

‘Yes,’ she says, as if the word has been coughed up by a slap on the back. ‘But I’m sure Jasmine went for a reason.’

Jamie addresses the circle. ‘Heather had her first holiday away with her boyfriend, Jonathan. At Heather’s circle of support we all agreed that she was more than capable of going alone, and any actions contrary to this would be seen as unhelpful to Heather—’

‘Okay, Jamie, thank you,’ I snap. I rub my face tiredly.

‘So why did you go?’ Jamie asks, her voice less strident now.

‘She was worried about her,’ Kevin speaks up on my behalf. ‘Obviously.’

‘When did you go, Heather?’ Monday asks gently.

‘Friday till Monday.’ She smiles.

He nods, absorbing this. ‘Did you have a good time?’

‘The best!’ She grins.

Monday is looking at me with newfound softness. Everyone but Dad is. Dad’s shaking his head at me and concentrating on his phone in an effort to stop himself from blurting something out. This is not good. I feel a burning behind my eyes. I cannot cry.

‘I was just … she’s never been … it was the first time that she … you know, with a …’ I sigh, all eyes on me. I hear the wobble in my voice. I finally look at Heather. ‘I wasn’t ready to let you go.’ Before I can do anything to stop it, a tear falls and I wipe it away before it reaches my chin, like it never happened.

Heather’s cheeks turn pink and she speaks shyly. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Jasmine. I’m not leaving you. You missed your job interview for me?’

On that, another tear falls. And another. I wipe them all away quickly, eyes down, not wanting to see them watching me.

‘Can I please be excused?’ I say, sounding like a child.

Nobody answers. Nobody feels like they have the authority to tell me yes or no.

‘Hi, Monday. I knew about you,’ Caroline suddenly says, snapping out of her hangover, stepping in to save me. ‘I’m Caroline, I’m Jasmine’s friend.’

‘Hi.’

‘I have a website idea that she’s helping me with.’

That immediately makes me grind my teeth, but I hold my tongue.

‘What’s wrong, Jasmine?’ Kevin asks, studying me.

‘Nothing,’ I say. But it’s clipped and my nothing sounds like a something. ‘Well, it’s just that I’m not exactly “helping” with it. I am developing it with you, which is what I do, development, implement … “helping” sounds … you know …’

Her neck almost snaps in the way her head fires around to look at me.

She looks at me in that way she does when she’s offended. The single blink, the tight shiny forehead – though that is also due to the Botox – and I would usually retreat because she’s my friend, though in business I would persevere, which immediately tells me we’re doomed.

‘And then there’s Dad,’ I say, quickly moving on.

‘Hold on a minute,’ Kevin says. ‘I think we should continue here.’

‘Kevin, this is not a therapy session.’ I smile tightly. ‘It’s just a little chat. And I think we’re getting close to the end now.’

‘I think for you to get the best out of this you should—’

I interrupt Kevin. ‘This isn’t the time to—’

‘I’m happy to thrash it out.’ Caroline shrugs as if she hasn’t a care in the world, but her language, not to mention body language, says differently. I do not wish to thrash anything out with her.

Everyone is looking at me and her. You sit forward in your chair, elbows on your thighs. All you’re missing is a bowl of popcorn. You pump the air lightly with your fist and quietly chant, ‘Fight, fight, fight!’ then chuckle.

‘We’re not going to fight,’ I snap at you. ‘Okay,’ I clear my throat, smile at Heather to centre myself. ‘I feel that I could be of more use to you than you are currently allowing me to be.’

That wasn’t even bad, yet she has screwed her face up so much I think she’s going to spring back at me like a jack in the box.

‘How so?’ she squeaks in a shrill tone.

‘You’ve come to me to help bring the idea further, but you won’t actually take on any of my suggestions.’

‘You have experience in setting up companies. I wouldn’t have the first clue.’

‘Yes, but it’s not just about giving you my contact list, Caroline. In setting companies up I have a hand in developing strategies, implementing them. If I can’t develop this with you then I have no real personal interest in it. It has to represent me too,’ I say gently, but firmly.

We all sit in silence while Caroline stares at me in a delayed kind of stunned state.

‘What’s the other job option?’ Kevin asks then, and I’m grateful to him for moving things along.

‘Her dad,’ you say, and everyone looks at you first and then at Dad.

Probably already bored by the gathering, he gets straight to the point. ‘Accounts director, print company. Team of six. Forty K. If the job’s still there.’

‘It is,’ Leilah says to me, which annoys Dad.

‘She could do it in her sleep,’ he says to the room, looking at the mobile phone in his hand as though he’s reading it, but he isn’t. ‘If she shows up to the interview.’

Monday doesn’t join in with Dad on that jibe, which is what he was hoping. His smile disappears.

‘I don’t exactly want a job I can do in my sleep,’ I say, with a smile.

‘Of course you don’t, you want to be different.’

The comment surprises me. You love it, but not in the same way as the previous comments. You turn your studious gaze to him. Kevin of course is deeply offended on my behalf.

‘Now, Peter. I think that you owe Jasmine an apology for that comment.’

‘What are you talking about?’ he snaps.

Heather looks deeply uncomfortable now.

‘You’ve always been the same, ever since we were kids,’ Kevin says, the anger rising in him. ‘Any time Jasmine hasn’t wanted to do what you want, you push her away.’

This is true. I look at Dad.

‘Jasmine has never done what I’ve wanted her to do. Has never done what anyone but herself has wanted her to do. How do you think she’s found herself in this mess in the first place?’

‘Isn’t it a good thing for her to want to go her own way?’ Kevin asks. ‘Shouldn’t you want her to be independent? Her mother died when she was very young. She was sick for years before that. I don’t remember you being there all that much, apart from when you stepped in to tell her what to do and when you thought she’d got it wrong.’

And in that moment all my conversations with Kevin flood back to me. All the worries, the fears, frustrations of my teenage years come flooding back. The late-night talks with Kevin on the swing before he kissed me, at parties, walking to school. He always listened. Everything that bothered me about my life would be shared with him. I seemed to have forgotten about all that, but evidently he hadn’t.