Cecelia Ahern - One Hundred Names

‘I don’t snore.’

‘Yes, you do. When you’ve had a drink, you snore as loudly as my dad.’

‘I do not. You don’t know that.’

He fixed her with that look again, that froze her outsides but turned her insides to mush. ‘I know that at least on one occasion you did.’

She swallowed. ‘No one’s ever told me that before,’ she said quietly.

‘Maybe they were never awake when you were asleep.’

It was a simple comment but it went straight to her heart again, and all she could think of was lying in that student accommodation beside him, sleeping on his chest while Steve, with those long black eyelashes and messy mop of hair, watched her. Suddenly there was a tinkling sound as Sam stood and tapped his spoon against the glass.

‘Oh, no, Sam,’ Mary-Rose said, her face meaning business without an ounce of a smile this time.

‘Esmerelda,’ he said in a warning tone.

‘Esmerelda?’ Jedrek said, confused. ‘I have been calling you Mary-Rose,’ he leaned over the table and shouted down to her.

‘Just ignore him,’ Mary-Rose said, covering her face with her hands. ‘Sam, I mean it, stop it.’

But Sam wasn’t picking up on her cooler-than-usual mood, or he was misreading it as something he could fix with a proposal, when it was clear at least to Kitty that he couldn’t. She had witnessed two proposals already; she considered herself an expert.

‘Okay, fine,’ Sam appeased the confused diners. ‘Esmerelda is like a term of endearment,’ he explained. ‘Isn’t it, darling?’

‘No,’ she snapped. ‘It is not.’

‘Okay. Mary-Rose Godfrey,’ he said dramatically, smiling. ‘My best friend in the whole world.’

‘Stop, Sam.’

‘No, I can’t, I can’t stop how I feel for you. I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t pretend that we are only friends. Every day when we are together, I feel it inside and I can’t tell you.’

Kitty suddenly stiffened beside Steve, feeling uncomfortable with his words. If this was how she was feeling, she couldn’t imagine how Mary-Rose was feeling.

‘We have known each other since we were six years old. When you walked into our class on the first day of school with your shoes on your wrong feet I knew that you were someone I had to talk to.’

Suddenly Mary-Rose started laughing. ‘That’s true,’ she said in surprise.

So Sam wasn’t reading from his script that evening, but did he mean it?

‘And then we started talking, and when we had a fight over whose turn it was to play with the yellow Lego, and you pinched me and got in trouble with the teacher and had to stand in the corner, I thought to myself, that girl has balls. I want to be friends with that girl. Not that I’m into girls with balls or anything,’ Sam said, fluffing his lines, and they all laughed. All but Mary-Rose, anyway. She wasn’t smiling, not because she was embarrassed but because she was sad, that much was evident. Sam’s words were touching, so close to the bone, in fact, that Kitty questioned their authenticity. For a moment, she could tell Mary-Rose did too as she lifted her chin to study his face carefully.

‘We were friends all through school, through secondary school even though your mum sent you to that convent school where you had to wear that unflattering knee-length brown skirt and knee-high socks for six years of your life. And I could put up with you being my friend, but it’s only the last few months when I’ve …’ he looked at her.

‘Is this real?’ Steve whispered to Kitty, sending a shiver through her body again.

‘I honestly don’t know,’ she whispered back so close that her lip touched his ear lobe. She felt volts of electricity rush through her.

Though distracted by her own feelings, she tried to focus on the drama opposite her.

Sam made his way to Mary-Rose’s side; some people had stood to watch, their breaths held. They all believed it was real.

‘Mary-Rose Godfrey, you have been my best friend since we were kids but I can’t hide it any more. I am desperately in love with you. I know this may seem over the top and terribly dramatic but I know that we’re right for each other. Will you … will you marry me?’

Mary-Rose’s eyes lit up, they were twinkling with tears, she looked absolutely besotted and delighted and happier than Kitty had ever seen her, and even Kitty believed it was completely true, that this was all for real.

Everyone in the beer garden cheered, but while they cheered and looked at one another they missed Sam’s wink, and it had the same effect on Kitty as it had on Mary-Rose. It shattered the illusion, brought it home that it all wasn’t real. And then came the obligatory hush for silence.

Mary-Rose’s smile faded fast.

‘No,’ she said in the silence.

There was a gasp.

‘No?’ he asked uncertainly, trying to read her face for signs.

‘No,’ she repeated firmly, and as she said so, a tear fell down her cheek.

‘Is this real?’ Steve asked again. Kitty and Steve’s heads were so close together that the warmth from his body was keeping her warm in the cool night.

Ambrose’s face was one of shock. She instinctively grabbed Eugene’s hand, to his utter surprise, but he followed her lead and placed his hand around her shoulders as if to protect her from what she was seeing.

‘Please stop doing this, Sam,’ Mary-Rose said, choking on her words as more tears fell.

‘What?’ he asked, genuine now.

Mary-Rose stood and left the table.

There was a stunned silence.

‘Hard luck, pal,’ Archie said, placing his hand on Sam’s back and patting it roughly, though he intended it to be supportive.

Sam looked at Kitty wide-eyed. ‘What the …?’

‘I’ll go speak to her,’ Kitty said, reluctant to leave the closeness with Steve but knowing it was the right thing to do.

She found her in the snug, with her face in her hands.

‘Oh God, what have I done?’ she sobbed. ‘I just couldn’t do it any more, Kitty. I can’t listen to that stuff, hoping it’s real and knowing it’s not.’

Kitty held her close and said nothing but made comforting sounds.

‘Now I’ve made it so obvious,’ she sobbed into Kitty’s blouse. ‘Now he knows and how can I face him?’

‘Hey, Mary-Rose, that was the best ever!’ they heard Sam’s voice as he swung himself into the snug and plonked himself beside them. ‘Hey, what’s going on? You can stop pretending now; you totally convinced everyone in the place. I’ve already got two free pints waiting for me on the table. Sympathy pints, I never thought of that one before. Nice twist, by the way. You almost had me fooled. When did you come up with it?’ he laughed.

Mary-Rose slowly lifted her head from Kitty’s shoulder and looked at him, confused.

‘I think I’ll leave you two alone,’ Kitty said, standing up.

‘No, you don’t have to do that,’ Mary-Rose said nervously.

‘Yes I do,’ she said, giving her the eyes that said, tell him.

As Kitty made her way back outside to the table, her phone rang.

‘Sorry to call you so late but I know you guys are still up because I was just talking to Eva,’ Gaby shouted down the phone to Kitty. Kitty turned the volume down on her phone.

‘Hi, Gaby, no problem, don’t worry, everything is going fine.’

‘Good, good, but that’s not what I’m calling you about. It’s the book you gave me. My boss read it today.’

‘That was quick,’ Kitty smiled, sitting down and waiting for her payback. ‘I hope I didn’t waste his time too much by sending it in. It was just a favour for a friend, you know?’

‘Well, your friend will be delighted because it’s good news. My boss loves it. Crime is huge right now and he wants to get in touch with your friend.’