Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

‘Hi,’ gorgeous man smiled, resting his hands on the chair opposite me. ‘Are you alone?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Is anybody sitting here? The café’s full, do you mind if I join you?’

There was actually a free seat behind me but I wasn’t going to point that out. The man had a beautiful face, perfectly proportioned nose and lips and eyes and a jawline you could grate cheese on. I thought about my family signing off on Life’s intervention, I just couldn’t figure it out; why on earth Life had come to me, there were plenty of people who were unhappy after relationships ended, surely this wasn’t an emergency case. I had moved on, I was living my life. I wasn’t afraid to meet new people. I wasn’t stuck in the past. What did they think was wrong with me?

‘No problem,’ I said, then drained my cup as he sat down. ‘In fact, you can have the table to yourself, I’m just leaving to see my boyfriend.’

He looked disappointed but nodded his thanks.

Okay, I lied.

But in only a few hours from then, the outcome would be the same.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘We were up at four thirty this morning,’ he panted, beads of sweat trickling down the sides of his face and getting lost in his suntanned stubble-lined jaw. ‘The trail from the hostel to Machu Picchu has taken about one and a half hours. We were told to wake up that early so that we could leave Wiñay Wayna by five thirty to get to Machu Picchu before sunrise.’ He was wearing a navy blue T-shirt, the sleeves were tight around his biceps, sweat marks were on his chest, on his back, under his arms. He wore beige combat shorts and walking boots, his legs were tanned and muscular like the rest of his body. There was a long shot of him walking the trail and I paused the TV.

Mr Pan jumped onto the couch beside me. ‘Hi, Mary.’

He purred.

‘He’s doing the Inca Trail today. We were supposed to do that one together. Let’s see who else he’s doing it with now …’ I studied the girls in the long shot. She wasn’t there. I pressed play again.

‘As you can see the trail contours around this mountainside and drops into cloud forest before coming to an almost vertical flight of fifty steps leading up to the final pass at Intipunku, which means Sun Gate.’ Lots of shots of him panting, shots of scenery, close-ups on him, his walking shoes, his rucksack, the back of his head and the view before him, the reflection in his sunglasses. All of them were new, nothing I’d bought him. ‘And here we are,’ he smiled at the camera, big white perfect teeth. He looked off into the distance, took off his glasses to reveal his beautiful eyes and his face changed. ‘Wow.’

I paused it on his face. Studied him and smiled. Knew that it was for real, that it hadn’t been filmed twenty times already for his best look, knew that he was in heaven right there, right then and in a funny way I felt like I was experiencing it with him. Just like we used to do together, years ago. The camera panned and then I could see what he could see, the whole of Machu Picchu spread out before us.

‘There it is, Machu Picchu in all its glory. A fantastic sight. Beautiful,’ he said, taking it all in. There was a wider shot of him assessing the view. I paused the TV again and studied the girls around him. She wasn’t there. I pressed play again. It cut to later, he had wiped the sweat from his face, had changed his T-shirt to a fresher version of the same one, was sitting down and looked rested, had caught his breath for the final wrap-up scene. He gave his little summary of his journey and then, ‘Remember that happiness is a way of travel, it’s not a destination.’ Then he smiled, those teeth, those eyes, that hair, those arms and hands – I remember them all around me, sleeping beside me, showering with me, cooking for me, touching me, kissing me. Dumping me. ‘Wish you were here,’ he said with a wink, and he was gone and the credits took the place of his face.

‘Me too,’ I whispered. I swallowed a hard dry lump of nothing that had stuck in my throat. Had that awful sick feeling in my stomach, and the pain in my heart that came when the credits finished and it hit me that he was gone. I waited for the initial pain to go and then I paused the credits and searched. Her name was still there. I used my laptop to go on Facebook and check her status. Single.

I was psychotic and I knew it but I also knew that most of the time my paranoia was correct, and that most of the time it wasn’t paranoia, it was gut instinct and most of the time that was correct. But it had been almost three years and they hadn’t, by the looks of it, gotten together. I didn’t even know how present she’d be in his life as a production assistant; I didn’t know how TV shows worked, but when he’d first signed the deal to do the show we went to meet with the team. I’d met her and I got a feeling about her. That was all, one of those girlfriend feelings that you get about other girls. Then when we broke up I got a huge feeling about her, and those feelings had manifested into something so massive it was bordering on obsessive. But I couldn’t help it. Her name was Jenna. Jenna was a bitch. And every time I heard the name Jenna I thought of her and immediately hated the poor unrelated person named Jenna. She was from Australia and I hated everyone from Australia. It was a very weird thing that had taken over me, I didn’t even know her and I’d previously liked Australia, but I’d created this persona around her, this dislike for her and her country and anything, however minuscule, that I knew about her.

Just to taunt myself I imagined them having sex on the top of the mountain as soon as the camera was turned off and I wondered who he’d camped out with all those nights in that tiny little tent, in those close overcrowded little hostels. All of the environments he was in were too close for him to share with another woman, especially Jenna, especially the character that had grown in my mind. She would crawl into his tent in the dead of night and reveal her naked self to him, he would try to fight his urges but he wouldn’t be able to because he was a man and he was all pumped up from the walk up the mountain, and being in touch with nature made him even hornier. Every time I watched an episode, I pictured them together. I didn’t even know what a production assistant did but I Googled it to find out. I didn’t know if she was a set PA or an office PA; a big difference because it either meant she was with him all the time or their paths rarely crossed. Occasionally I looked through the other names on the credits to make sure someone else hadn’t slipped in that could also be sleeping with him on location, but I had investigated them through the power of Google and surmised that Jenna, the bitch from Australia, was the only woman he would go for.

My mobile rang, and took me out of my latest daydream. It was Riley again. Since lunch the previous day I had had nine missed calls from Riley and two from Mum. Silchesters didn’t ignore people, make a drama or cause a fuss, so I had texted them both that I was unavailable to speak and that I’d call them back as soon as I could. It wasn’t a lie. I just didn’t know how to be with them. I couldn’t be angry with them because as concerned family members they were only trying to help, but I couldn’t entertain mindless chit-chat because I was genuinely hurt, flabbergasted even, that they felt I was in such dire need of help that they couldn’t come directly to me to tell me. I had always done my best not to reveal anything about myself to my family, even to Riley. Despite him being my accomplice during family gatherings, he was not my best friend; he was my brother and there were things that brothers didn’t need or want to know.