Cecelia Ahern - P.S. I Love You

“Yeah, I went out to dinner with the girls and about a hundred other people I didn't know.”

Holly rubbed her eyes tiredly.

“How are the girls?” Elizabeth said fondly. She had always gotten along well with Holly's friends, unlike Ciara's friends, who terrified her.

Holly took a sip of her tea. “Sharon's pregnant and Denise got engaged,” she said, still staring off into space.

“Oh,” Elizabeth squeaked, not sure how to react in front of her obviously distressed daughter.

“How do you feel about that?” she asked softly, brushing a hair away from Holly's face.

Holly stared down at her hands and tried to compose herself. She wasn't successful and her shoulders began to tremble and she tried to hide her face behind her hair.

“Oh Holly,” Elizabeth said sadly, putting her cup down and moving closer to her daughter. “It's perfectly normal to feel like this.”

Holly couldn't even manage to get any words out of her mouth.

The front door banged and Ciara announced to the house, “We're hoooome!”

“Great,” Holly sniffed, resting her head on her mum's chest.

“Where is everyone?” Ciara shouted, banging doors closed around the house.

“Just a minute, love,” Elizabeth called out, angry that her moment with Holly was ruined.

“I have news!” Ciara's voice got louder as she got nearer to the living room. Mathew burst open the door carrying Ciara in his arms. “Me and Mathew are moving back to Australia!” she yelled happily into the room. She froze as she saw her upset sister in her mum's arms. She quickly jumped down from Mathew's arms, led him out of the room, and closed the door silently behind them.

“Now Ciara's going too, Mum,” Holly cried even harder, and Elizabeth cried softly for her daughter.

Holly stayed up late that night talking to her mum about everything that had been bubbling up inside her for the past few months. And although her mother offered many words of kind reassurance, Holly still felt as trapped as before. She stayed in the guest bedroom that night and woke up to a madhouse the following morning. Holly smiled at the familiarity of the sound of her brother and sister running around the house screaming about how they were late for college and late for work, followed by their dad grumbling at them to get a move on, followed by her mum's gentle pleas for everyone to stay silent so as not to disturb Holly. The world went on, simple as that, and there was no bubble big enough to protect her.

At lunchtime Holly's dad dropped her home and squeezed a check for five thousand euro into her hand.

“Oh, Dad, I can't accept this,” Holly said, overcome with emotion.

“Take it,” he said, gently pushing her hand away. “Let us help you, love.”

“I'll pay back every cent,” she said, hugging him tightly.

Holly stood at the door and waved her father off down the road. She looked at the check in her hand and immediately a weight was lifted from her shoulders. She could think of twenty things she could do with this check, and for once buying clothes wasn't one of them. Walking into the kitchen she noticed the red light flashing on the answering machine on the table in the hall. She sat on the end of the stairs and hit the button.

She had five new messages.

One was from Sharon ringing to see if she was OK because she hadn't heard from her all day.

The second was from Denise ringing to see if she was OK because she hadn't heard from her all day. The two girls had obviously been talking to each other. The third was from Sharon, the fourth was from Denise and the fifth was just somebody hanging up. Holly pressed delete and ran upstairs to change her clothes. She wasn't quite ready to talk to Sharon and Denise yet; she needed to get her life into order first so she could be more of a support for them.

She sat in the spare room in front of her computer and began to type up a CV. She had become an old pro at doing this as she changed her jobs so often. It had been a while since she had to worry about going to interviews, though. And if she did get an interview, who would want to hire someone who hadn't been working for a whole year?

It took her two hours to finally print out something that she thought was at least half decent. In fact, she was really proud of what she had done, she had somehow managed to make herself look intelligent and experienced. She laughed loudly in the room, hoping she would manage to fool her future employers into thinking she was a capable worker. Reading back over her CV

she decided that even she would hire herself. She dressed smartly and drove down to the village in the car she had finally managed to fill with petrol. She parked outside the recruitment office and applied lip gloss in her car mirror. There was to be no more time wasting. If Gerry said to find a job, she was going to find a job.

Thirty-two

A COUPLE OF DAYS LATER HOLLY sat out on her new garden furniture in her back garden, sipped on a glass of red wine and listened to the sound of her wind chimes making music in the breeze. She looked around at the neat lines of her newly landscaped garden and decided that whoever was working on her garden had to be a professional. She breathed in and allowed the sweet scent of the flowers to fill her nostrils. It was eight o'clock and already it was beginning to get dark. The bright evenings were gone, and everybody was once again preparing for hibernation for the winter months.

She thought about the message she had received on her answering machine that day. It had been from the recruitment agency and she was shocked to have received a reply from them so quickly.

The woman on the phone said that there had been a great response to her resume and already Holly had two job interviews lined up. Butterflies fluttered around her stomach at the thought of it. She had never been particularly good at job interviews, but then again she had never been particularly keen on any of the jobs she was being interviewed for. This time she felt different; she was excited to get back to work and to try something new. Her first interview was for a job selling advertising space for a magazine that circulated throughout Dublin. It was something she had absolutely no experience in, but she was willing to learn because the idea of it sounded far more interesting than any of her former jobs, which had mostly entailed answering the phone, taking messages and filing. Anything that involved not having to do any of those things was a step up.

The second interview was with a leading Irish advertising company and she knew she had absolutely no hope of being employed there. But Gerry had told her to shoot for the moon . . .

Holly also thought about the phone call she had just received from Denise. Denise had been so excited on the phone she didn't seem to be at all bothered by the fact that Holly hadn't talked to her since they'd gone out for dinner. In fact, Holly didn't think she had even noticed that Holly hadn't returned her phone call. Denise had been all talk about her wedding arrangements and rambled on for almost an hour about what kind of dress she should wear, what flowers she should choose, where she should hold the reception. She started sentences and then forgot to finish them as she jumped from topic to topic. All Holly had to do was make a few noises to let her know she was still listening . . . although she wasn't. The only piece of information she had taken in was that Denise was planning to have the wedding on New Year's Eve, and by the sounds of it Tom wouldn't be having a say in how Denise's special day should be run. Holly was surprised to hear they had set a date so soon, she had just assumed it would be one of those long-winded last-a-few-years kind of engagements, especially as Denise and Tom had only been an item for four months. But Holly didn't worry about that as much as she would have when she was her old self. She was now a regular subscriber to the finding love and holding on to it forever magazine. Denise and Tom were right not to waste time worrying about what people thought if they knew in their hearts it was the right decision.