Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

‘No, no, I’m sure about this, please—’

‘I think we’ve taken enough time here,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go back and join the others and I’ll have a think about what we’ve discussed. Thank you, Lucy. Thank you, Cosmo.’

She shook both our hands and I was quickly ushered out of her office. I went back to my desk in shock at what had occurred. Life followed me. Sat down at the empty desk that looked directly opposite. He drummed his fingers on the table.

‘So what do you do now?’ he said. ‘Want me to photocopy anything?’

‘I can’t believe you did that,’ I said. ‘I just can’t believe you had the nerve to do that to me. What happened to the we’re a team talk? You were just sweet-talking me so you could make a fucking fool out of me.’ I raised my voice by accident and the others looked over at me. ‘I’m going for a cigarette,’ I said, then stood up and left the room, my chin high and mighty as I made my way under everybody’s watchful gaze.

The last thing I heard before I left the room was his voice loud and clear saying, ‘She doesn’t smoke. She pretends to, to get extra breaks.’

I slammed the door behind me.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I was standing on the fire escape, secret smoking location number three of the year after the disabled toilet on the second floor and the cleaning staff service room. Two other people were there too; a man and a woman but they weren’t there together and none of us spoke. It wasn’t like the smoking section outside a club or pub where everybody spoke to everybody, united by the happiness of being out on a social occasion. This was work and the only reason we were all here, apart from needing to feed the nicotine fix, was to get away from talking to people. We had come here to have a break from thoughts and the hard work that came with the constant interaction with idiots. Or at least people we considered idiots because they were not mind readers and we had to, patiently, use polite words to explain things that we were thinking when really inside we were fighting the urge to take their heads in our hands and softly and repeatedly thud their foreheads off the wall. But there was no such politeness here; we were shutting off our brains, deliberately ignoring each other and satisfied by our right to do so, concentrating only on breathing in and blowing out smoke. Only I wasn’t. I hadn’t stopped thinking, and I wasn’t smoking.

I heard the door open behind me. I didn’t bother turning around, I didn’t care if location number three had been found and we had all been caught. What was another misdemeanour on my current rap sheet? But the other two did care and they hid their cigarettes in their closed and quickly yellowing palms, forgetting the rising smoke would give the game away, and they both quickly turned to see who had stumbled upon their lair. They didn’t appear too concerned by who they saw but they didn’t relax either which meant it wasn’t the boss but it wasn’t someone they knew. The man took a final long drag of his cigarette and quickly left, the scare of the close call enough to ruin his nicotine thrill. The woman stayed where she was, but eyed the new guest up and down as she had done with me when I joined them. I still didn’t turn around to see who it was, partly because I didn’t care who it was, but mostly because I knew who it was.

‘Hi,’ he said, standing so close to me our shoulders rubbed.

‘I’m not talking to you,’ I said, staring straight ahead. The woman sensed something juicy and settled down to suck on the remainder of her cigarette.

‘I told you it was going to be harder than you thought,’ he said gently. ‘But don’t worry, we’ll get there.’

‘Will we now,’ I said. ‘Excuse me,’ I turned to the lady, ‘would you mind if I borrowed a cigarette, please?’

‘I think she means can she take it. She can’t give it back once it’s smoked,’ Life added for me.

She looked at me as though she’d rather sell her favourite grandmother but she gave me one anyway because that’s what people do, they’re mostly polite, even when they’re feeling rude inside.

I inhaled. Then I coughed.

‘You don’t smoke,’ he said.

I inhaled again in his face, then tried to stifle the cough that immediately came after.

‘Why don’t you just tell me why you’re so angry?’

‘Why?’ I finally turned to him. ‘Are you demented? You know bloody well why. You made a fool of me in there. You made me look like a … like a …’

‘Liar, by any chance?’

‘Look, I had a plan. I had it all under control. You were just supposed to sit there and observe, that’s what you said.’

‘I never said that.’

‘Somebody said that.’

‘No, you assumed.’

I silently fumed.

‘So tell me, what was the great plan? You were going to lie again and all of a sudden like the great genius you are, learn Spanish overnight?’

‘I have a great aptitude for learning, that’s what my French teacher said,’ I huffed.

‘And your civics teacher said “could do better”.’ He looked away. ‘I did the right thing.’

Silence. The smoker sniffed.

‘Okay, so I should have told the truth, but there has to be another way of doing this. You can’t just bulldoze your way into my life and try to fix every little lie that I’ve ever told. What are you going to do when you meet my parents? Come out with every little fib and give them a heart attack? Are you going to tell them that instead of a study group, I had a house party the night they went to my Aunt Julie’s fortieth and that their darling nephew Colin shagged a girl in their bed and Fiona streaked across the lawn for the last bit of hash and that no, I’m sorry, it wasn’t vegetable soup on the floor like I said it was, it was Melanie’s vomit and I shouldn’t have let the dog eat it? And by the way, Lucy can’t speak Spanish.’ I gasped for air.

He was taken aback. ‘Even your parents think you can speak Spanish?’

‘They paid for a summer there, what else was I meant to tell them?’ I snapped.

‘The truth? Does that ever occur to you?’

‘That I was a podium dancer in a night club instead of doing the job they set up for me at a hotel reception?’

‘Maybe not, then.’

‘I mean, where does the big reveal begin and end? One minute you’re buying light bulbs and the next minute you’re telling my father I think he needs to get off his high horse and stop being a pretentious little shit. You need to have a little sensitivity about this, you’re supposed to be helping me make things better, not putting me in the unemployment line and ending what little relationship I already have with my family. We need to have a plan.’

He was silent for a while, I could see he was mulling it over and I waited for one of his analogies but none came. Instead he said, ‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’

I pretended to keel over the banister but he and the smoker pulled me back, thinking I was serious.

‘Thanks,’ I said to her, a little embarrassed, and she quite wisely found that an appropriate time to leave.

‘But I’m not sorry for what I did, just the way that I went about it. We’ll work on another strategy for the future.’

I respected his fairness, his ability to admit when he was wrong. So I took another drag of the cigarette and then put it out, as a mark of respect. But he wasn’t finished and I examined the crushed smouldering cigarette to see if I could pick it up again and continue smoking.

‘I couldn’t just sit there and listen to you lie again, Lucy, and I’m never going to be able to do that so whatever strategy we work out, it has to involve you not lying again. It gives me heartburn.’