Cecelia Ahern - P.S. I Love You

Eventually when people began to throw things at the stage and when the karaoke host himself encouraged them to boo even louder, Holly felt that her work there had been done. When she handed him back the microphone there was a cheer so loud that people from the pub next door came running in. It was all the more people to see Holly trip down the steps in her stilettos and fall flat on her face. They all watched as her skirt went flying over her head to reveal the old underwear that had once been white was now gray, and that she hadn't bothered to change when she got home from work.

Holly was taken to hospital to see to her broken nose.

Gerry lost his voice from laughing so loudly and Denise and Sharon helped matters by taking photographs of the scene of the crime, which Denise then chose as the cover for the invitations to her Christmas party, with the heading “Let's get pissed!”

Holly vowed never to do karaoke again.

Fifteen

“HOLLY KENNEDY? ARE YOU HERE?” the karaoke host's voice boomed. The crowd's applause died down into a loud chatter as everyone looked around in search of Holly. Well, they would be a long time looking, she thought as she lowered the toilet seat and sat down to wait for the excitement to settle so they could move on to their next victim. She closed her eyes, rested her head on her hands and prayed for this moment to pass. She wanted to open her eyes and be safely at home a week from now. She counted to ten, praying for a miracle, and then slowly opened her eyes again.

She was still in the toilet.

Why couldn't she, at least just this once, suddenly find magical powers? It always happened to the American girls in the films and it just wasn't fair . . .

Holly had known this would happen; from the moment she opened that envelope and read Gerry's third letter, she foresaw tears and humiliation. Her nightmare had come true.

Outside, the club sounded very quiet and a sense of calm engulfed her as she realized they were moving on to the next singer. Her shoulders relaxed and she unclenched her fists, her jaw relaxed and air flowed more easily into her lungs. The panic was over, but she decided to wait until the next singer began his song before she made a run for it. She couldn't even climb out the window because she wasn't on the ground floor, well, not unless she wanted to plummet to her own death. Another thing her American friend would be able to do.

Outside the cubicle Holly heard the toilet door open and slam. Uh-oh, they were coming to get her. Whoever they were.

“Holly?”

It was Sharon.

“Holly, I know you're in there, so just listen to me, OK?”

Holly sniffed back the tears that were beginning to well.

“OK, I know that this is an absolute nightmare for you and I know you have a major phobia about this kind of thing, but you need to relax, OK?”

Sharon's voice was so soothing, Holly's shoulders once again relaxed.

“Holly, I hate mice, you know that.”

Holly frowned, wondering where this little pep talk was going.

“And my worst nightmare would be to walk out of here to a room full of mice. Now could you imagine me?”

Holly smiled at the thought and remembered the time when Sharon moved in with Gerry and Holly for two weeks after she had caught a mouse in her house. John, of course, was granted conjugal visits.

“Yeah, well I would be right here where you are now and nothing in the whole world would bring me out.”

She paused.

“What?” the DJ's voice said into the microphone and then started laughing, “Ladies and gentlemen, it appears that our singer is currently in the toilets.” The entire room erupted in laughter.

“Sharon!” Holly's voice trembled in fear. She felt as though the angry mob were about to break down the door, strip her of her clothes and carry her over their heads to the stage for her execution. Panic took over for the third time. Sharon rushed her next sentence. “Anyway, Holly, all I'm saying is that you don't have to do this if you don't want to. Nobody here is forcing you . .

.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, let's let Holly know that she's up next!” yelled the DJ. “Come on!”

Everybody began to stamp their feet and chant her name.

“OK, well, at least nobody who cares about you is forcing you to do this,” stammered Sharon, now under pressure from the approaching mob. “But if you don't do this, I know you will never be able to forgive yourself. Gerry wanted you to do this for a reason.”

“HOLLY! HOLLY! HOLLY!”

“Oh Sharon!” Holly repeated again, panicking. Suddenly the walls of the cubicle felt like they were closing in on her; beads of sweat formed on her forehead. She had to get out of there. She burst through the door. Sharon's eyes widened at the sight of her distraught friend, who looked like she had just seen a ghost. Her eyes were red and puffy with black lines of mascara streaming down her face (that waterproof stuff never works) and her tears had washed all her makeup away.

“Don't mind them, Holly,” Sharon said coolly, “they can't make you do anything you don't want to do.”

Holly's lower lip began to tremble.

“Don't!” Sharon said, gripping her by the shoulders and looking her in the eye. “Don't even think about it!”

Her lip stopped trembling but the rest of her didn't. Finally Holly broke her silence. “I can't sing, Sharon,” she whispered, her eyes wide with terror.

“I know that!” Sharon said laughing. “And your family knows that! Screw the rest of them! You are never gonna see any of their ugly mugs ever again! Who cares what they think? I don't, do you?”

Holly thought about it for a minute. “No,” she whispered.

“I didn't hear you, what did you say? Do you care what they think?”

“No,” she said, a little stronger.

“Louder!” Sharon shook her by the shoulders.

“No!” she yelled.

“Louder!”

“NOOOOOOOOO! I DON'T CARE WHAT THEY THINK!” Holly screamed so loud the crowd began to quiet down outside. Sharon looked a little shaken, was probably a little deaf, and stood frozen in her place for a while. The two of them smiled at each other and then began to giggle at their stupidity.

“Just let this be another silly Holly day so we can laugh about it a few months from now,”

Sharon pleaded with her.

Holly took one last look at her reflection in the mirror, washed away her smudged mascara lines, took a deep breath and charged toward the door like a woman on a mission. She opened the door to her adoring fans, who were all facing it and chanting her name. They all began to cheer when they saw her, so she took an extremely theatrical bow and headed toward the stage to the sound of claps and laughter and a yell from Sharon saying, “Screw them!”

Holly had everybody's attention now whether she liked it or not. If she hadn't run into the toilet, the people who were chatting down the back of the club probably wouldn't have noticed her singing, but now she had attracted even more attention.

She stood with her arms folded on the stage and stared at the audience in shock. The music started without her even noticing and she missed the first few lines of the song. The DJ stopped the track and put it back to the start.

There was complete silence. Holly cleared her throat and the sound echoed around the room.

Holly stared down at Denise and Sharon for help and her whole table held their thumbs up at her. Ordinarily Holly would have laughed at how corny they all looked, but right then it was strangely comforting. Finally the music began again and Holly held the microphone tightly in her two hands and prepared to sing. With an extremely shaky and timid voice she sang: “What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you stand up and walk out on me?”