Cecelia Ahern - P.S. I Love You

“I just might have psychic powers after all, Holly,” Tracey giggled and flushed the toilet.

Alice winked at Holly in the mirror and Holly headed out of the bathroom. “Come on, Alice, we better get going to this thing or the photographer will go mad.”

“The photographer's already here,” Alice explained, applying some mascara.

“Where is he?”

“She.”

“Well then, where is she?”

“Ta-da!” Alice announced, taking a camera out of her bag.

“You're the photographer?” Holly laughed. “Well, at least we can both lose our jobs together when this article is published,” she called over her shoulder as she headed back to her office.

Holly and Alice pushed their way through the crowds in Hogan's pub and made their way upstairs to Club Diva. Holly gasped as they approached the door. A group of young muscular males dressed in swimwear were banging out some Hawaiian drumbeats to welcome all the guests. Some very skinny female models also dressed in skimpy bikinis greeted the girls at the door by wrapping beautiful multicolored leis around their necks.

“I feel like I'm in Hawaii,” Alice giggled, snapping away with her camera. “Oh my God,” she exclaimed as they entered the club.

Holly could barely recognize the club; it had been completely transformed. A huge water feature greeted them as they entered. Aqua blue water cascaded down from some rocks, and it looked like a miniature waterfall.

“Oh look, Blue Rock!” Alice laughed. “Very clever.”

Holly smiled; so much for her wonderful powers of journalistic observation, she hadn't even copped that the water was actually the drink itself. Then she panicked; Daniel hadn't told her anything about this, which meant she would have to adjust the article so she could hand it in to Chris tomorrow. She looked around the club for Denise and Tom and saw her friend being photographed as she held her hand up to the camera to show off her sparkly engagement ring.

Holly laughed at the big celebrity couple.

The bar staff were dressed in their bikinis and swimwear and they lined the entrance with trays of blue drinks in their hands. Holly lifted a drink from the tray and took a sip, trying not to make a face from its overly sweet taste as a photographer snapped her sipping the hot new drink for winter. As Daniel had said, the floors were scattered with sand, making it appear as if they were at a beach party. Each table was sheltered by a huge bamboo umbrella, the bar stools were all big kettle drums and there was a wonderful barbecue smell in the air. Holly's mouth watered as she spotted the waiters carrying trays of barbecued food to the tables. She darted to the nearest table, helped herself to a kebab and took a big bite.

“Oh, so you do eat.” Holly found herself facing Daniel. Chewing valiantly, she swallowed her food.

“Em, hello. I haven't had a thing to eat all day so I am absolutely starving. The place looks great,” she said, looking around, keen to distract him from the sight of her with a mouthful of kebab.

“Yeah, it worked well all right.” He looked pleased. Daniel was slightly more dressed than his staff members; he wore faded blue jeans and a blue Hawaiian shirt with big pink and yellow flowers. He still hadn't shaved and Holly wondered how painful it would be to kiss him with that sharp stubble. Not for her to kiss him, of course. Somebody else . . . and why she was even wondering about it annoyed her.

“Hey Holly! Let me get a photo of you and tall, dark, handsome man,” Alice yelled, rushing over with her camera.

Holly was mortified.

Daniel laughed. “You should bring your friends here more often.”

“She's not my friend,” Holly said through gritted teeth and posed beside Daniel for the photo.

“Hold on a second,” Daniel said, covering the camera lens with his hand. He took a napkin from the table and wiped the grease and barbecue sauce from Holly's face. Holly's skin tingled and warmth rushed through her body. She convinced herself it was from her face blushing so much.

“Now it's gone,” he said, smiling at her, wrapping his arm around her and facing the camera.

Alice skipped away again and continued to snap all around her. Holly turned to Daniel. “Daniel, once again I'm really sorry about the other night. Gerry's parents were so rude to you, and I'm sorry if you felt uncomfortable.”

“Oh, there's no need to apologize again, Holly. In fact, there's no need to apologize at all. I only felt uncomfortable for you. They shouldn't be able to tell you who to see and who not to see.

Anyway, if you're worried about me then there's no need.” He smiled and placed his hands on her shoulders as though he were going to say something more, but someone called him from the bar and he rushed over to sort the problem out.

“But I am not seeing you,” Holly muttered to herself. If she had to convince even Daniel of that then they certainly had a problem. She hoped he didn't think there was more to the dinner than there really was. He had called her almost every day since that episode. She realized that she looked forward to his calls. There was that niggling thing at the back of her mind again. Holly wandered over to Denise and joined her on the sun bed where she was sipping on the blue concoction.

“Hey Holly, I saved this for you.” She pointed to the raft in the corner of the room and the two girls giggled, remembering their big adventure out in the sea while on holiday.

“So what do you think of the hot new drink for winter?” Holly indicated the bottle.

Denise rolled her eyes. “Tacky. I've only had a few and my head is spinning already.”

Alice ran over to Holly dragging an enormously muscular man dressed in tiny little shorts. One of his biceps was the size of Alice's waist. She handed the camera to Holly. “Take a picture of the two of us, will you?”

Holly didn't think that these were the kind of photographs Chris was hoping for, but she obliged Alice.

“It's for the screen saver on my computer at work,” Alice explained to Denise.

Holly enjoyed herself that evening, laughing and chatting with Denise and Tom while Alice ran around taking photographs of all the half-naked male models. Holly felt guilty for ever being annoyed by Tom all those months ago at the karaoke competition; he was a sweet guy and he and Denise made a lovely couple. Holly barely got to speak to Daniel, as he was too busy running around being the responsible manager. She watched as he gave orders to his staff and they immediately got to work. It was obvious that his staff had great respect for him. He got things done. Every time she spotted him heading over to her group, somebody stopped him in his tracks for an interview or just for a chat. Most of the time, he was stopped by skinny young girls in bikinis. They annoyed Holly, so she looked away.

“I don't know how I'm going to write this article,” Holly moaned to Alice as they made their way outside into the cold air.

“Don't worry, Holly, you'll be fine; it's only eight hundred words, isn't it?”

“Yeah, only,” she said sarcastically. “You see, I already wrote a draft article a few days ago because Daniel gave me all the information. But after seeing all that, I'll have to change it extensively. It already almost killed me trying to get this version done in the first place.”

“You're really worried about this, aren't you?”

Holly sighed. “I just can't write, Alice. I was never any good at putting things into words and describing exactly how things are.”

Alice looked thoughtful. “Have you got the article in the office?”

Holly nodded.

“Why don't we go over there now? I'll look over it, and maybe I'll make a few changes if it needs it.”

“Oh Alice, thank you so much!” Holly said, hugging her with relief.