Cecelia Ahern - The Time of My Life

‘Oh, Quentin.’ I covered my mouth and tried not to laugh at his deathly serious face. ‘Thank you.’

‘No need to thank me …’ He reached into his bottom drawer and retrieved a brown paper bag. ‘Here it is, a complimentary two-bean salad and a voucher for lunch.’

‘Quentin.’ I threw my arms around him. ‘Thank you.’

He was a little flustered.

‘Thank you for defending my honour.’

Fish Face entered the office and eyed everyone up, took in Quentin and me standing away from the others.

‘I always have your back, Lucy, don’t you worry,’ Twitch said, just as Edna walked by.

Edna eyed me warily and I knew instantly that she thought we were talking about how Quentin was protecting me over the Spanish inquisition.

‘I’m sorry, could you please repeat the question,’ Life said loudly for my benefit only.

‘What language,’ Mary asked timidly but with the greatest smile, ‘does Lucy’s CV say she can speak but in truth has no knowledge of?’

‘Well, you all know this one,’ Life said. ‘On three. One, two …’

‘Spanish!’ they all shouted simultaneously, including Twitch, and they all looked at me and laughed.

I couldn’t help but join in. I think I had just been forgiven.

CHAPTER TWENTY

‘So you’re Lucy’s life.’ Nosy was sitting on the edge of Life’s new desk, which he’d assigned for himself further away from me. Louise had positioned herself there for the last few minutes and was heavily monitoring him.

‘Yep,’ he replied, tapping away on his laptop, not looking at her.

‘And that’s your job?’ she asked.

‘Yep.’

‘Are you anyone else’s life as well?’

‘Nope.’

‘So it’s just one person at a time.’

‘Yep.’

‘When she dies, do you die?’

He stopped tapping and raised his head slowly. He glared at her, she didn’t take the hint.

‘Do you?’ she asked again. ‘And I don’t mean, if you’re both in the same car accident. I mean, if she dies and you’re in a different place do you drop dead too?’

He began typing again.

She chewed her bubble gum, blew a small bubble that popped and stuck to her lips. She scraped it off with her false nails. ‘Do you have family?’

‘Nope.’

I stopped working and looked up at him.

‘Do you live alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you have a girlfriend?’

‘No.’

‘Are you allowed to have one?’

‘Yes.’

‘I mean, are you able to have one? Like, as in, does your, you know—’

‘Yes,’ he interrupted her. ‘It works.’

‘But you don’t have one.’

He sighed. ‘A girlfriend or a—’

‘A girlfriend,’ she interrupted, horrified.

‘No.’

‘So you live alone.’

‘Yep.’

‘And your life revolves around Lucy.’

‘Yes.’

Suddenly I felt sad for him, guilty even. I was all he had and I wasn’t giving him much. He looked up suddenly and I quickly looked away and back at my paperwork.

‘Do you want to come to my wedding?’

‘Nope.’

Louise finally dragged herself away from his desk, to annoy somebody else, but as soon as she was gone, I heard the keys of his laptop stop tapping. I looked at him from the corner of my eye. He was staring at his screen, chewing the inside of his mouth, lost. I mistimed it and he caught my eye.

‘Did he call?’

‘Who?’

‘Who do you think? Mr Shake ’n’ Vac.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘No.’

‘Did he text?’

‘No.’

‘Bastard,’ he said, seeming insulted.

‘I don’t mind,’ I said, amused by his reaction.

‘Lucy.’ He swung his chair around to face me. ‘Believe me, if I care, then you care. Look.’ He pointed at his chin.

‘Eeww.’

‘Is it big?’

He had a great big spot on his chin.

‘Massive,’ I said. ‘It looks sore. You got that because he hasn’t called?’

‘No, I got this because you did something to make him not call.’

‘Of course, it’s my fault.’

Graham had stopped working and was watching the exchange with amusement. Then Edna’s door opened and we all looked up. She stared at me, then at Twitch. ‘Quentin, could I see you, please?’

‘Of course.’ He stood up, pulled his brown trousers up past his belly as usual, pushed his glasses onto the bridge of his nose, smoothed down his tie and made his way to Edna. He didn’t look at any of us, which made it worse. As soon as the door closed I jumped up and gasped.

‘Oh my God, I can’t believe it,’ I said to the others.

‘What?’ Mary looked concerned.

‘She’s called him in.’ I made big eyes at her and for some unknown reason pointed repeatedly at the door.

‘Yes, so?’ Louise asked.

‘What? None of you think this is a big deal?’ I asked, astonished. Usually it was me who wasn’t concerned.

They shrugged and looked at each other.

‘What about you?’ I looked at my life.

He was examining his phone. ‘Do you remember if I gave him my number? Maybe he’ll call me. Or even a text. A text would be nice after last night.’

‘Quentin is going to get fired and it’s all my fault,’ I exclaimed.

They all jumped up from their chairs wanting to know more, apart from Life who rolled his eyes at my dramatics and then turned his attention back to his phone for a call from Don.

‘I can’t tell you.’ I paced up and down, wringing my hands. ‘We don’t have time for that. I have to think of a way to prevent him from getting fired.’ I looked at them all, they stared back at me with dull tired faces. If they could think of a way of stopping him from being fired they would have either used it already to help the others we lost or they were saving it for themselves. I paced some more, going through everything in my head.

I looked at Life, looking through his phone, searching for a text. ‘Maybe the signal is out,’ he said to himself, raising his phone in the air and moving it around. ‘I’m going to try out in the hall. He opened the door and left the room.

‘I know what I have to do,’ I said firmly.

‘What?’ Nosy asked but I couldn’t answer, I was already charging towards the office, my mind made up, the words forming in my mouth.

I pushed open the door and burst into the room. Edna and Quentin looked up.

‘Fire me,’ I said firmly, standing in the middle of her office, my legs apart ready to take on the world.

‘Excuse me?’ Edna asked.

‘Fire me,’ I repeated. ‘I do not deserve to be in this job.’ I looked at Quentin and hoped that he would understand this, ‘I am a two-bean salad. I didn’t deliver on what I promised, I don’t deserve to be here, I only truly appreciated being here in the past two weeks. Before that, I took this job and everybody in this building for granted.’ I studied Edna’s face and she just looked shocked. I needed her to be angry, I needed her to fire me so that Quentin could stay. I gulped. ‘I gave everybody nicknames, I’d rather not tell you what they are but if you want me to I will.’ I closed my eyes tight. ‘Yours was something to do with a fish.’ I opened them again, embarrassed. ‘I wasted a lot of time. I smoke indoors. I am a fire hazard, I could have killed us all.’

I heard Mary gasp behind me and realised that I hadn’t closed the door and they were all listening. I turned around. Life had come back into the office and was staring at me with an open mouth. I hoped that he was proud; I wasn’t lying, I was sacrificing myself, I was doing the right thing to protect an innocent man.