Cecelia Ahern - If You Could See Me Now

Benjamin West rolled his eyes and ground his teeth together in frustration while his boss paced the floor of the on-site cabin and ranted in his thick New York accent.

“You see Benji, I’m just—”

“Benjamin,” he interrupted.

“—sick and tired,” he continued, not acknowledging him, “of hearing all the same shit from everyone. All these designers are the same. They want contemporary this, minimalist that. Well, Art Deco my balls, Benji!”

“It’s—”

“I mean, how many of these companies have we met with over here so far?” He stopped pacing and looked at Benjamin.

Benjamin flicked through his diary. “Em, eight, not including the woman who had to leave early on Friday, Elizabeth—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, cutting him off, “she’s the same as the rest.” He waved his hand dismissively and spun around to look out the window at the construction site. His thin gray plait swung with his head.

“Well, we have another meeting with her in a half hour,” Benjamin said, checking his watch.

“Cancel it. Whatever she has to say, I don’t care. She’s as straitlaced as they come. How many hotels have you and I worked on together, Benji?”

Benjamin sighed. “It’s Benjamin and we’ve worked together a lot, Vincent.”

“A lot.” He nodded to himself. “That’s what I thought. And how many of them have had a view as good as this?” He held out his hand to display the scenery out the window. Benjamin spun around in his chair, uninterested, and could barely bring himself to look past the noise and mess of the site. They were behind schedule. Sure it was pretty, but he’d prefer to look out that window and see a completed hotel standing there, not rolling hills and lakes. He’d been in Ireland for months now and the hotel was scheduled to be finished by August, three months away. Born in Haxton, Colorado, but living in New York, he thought he’d long escaped the claustrophobic feeling that only a small town could bring. Apparently not. At thirty-eight years old, it had been more than twenty years since he’d been in that place his parents liked to call home. But after spending the past seven months in the small village of Baile na gCroíthe, he felt like the stifled sixteen-year-old he thought he’d left well and truly behind in his hometown.

“Well?” Vincent had lit a cigar and was sucking on the end.

“It’s a great view,” Benjamin said in a bored tone.

“It’s a fucking fantastic view and I’m not gonna let some fancy shmancy interior designer come in here and make it look like some city hotel we’ve done a million times before.”

“What have you got in mind, Vincent?” All Benjamin had been hearing for the past two months was what he didn’t want.

Dressed in a shiny gray suit, Vincent marched toward his briefcase, took out a folder, and slid it down the table to Benjamin. “Look at those newspaper articles, the place is a goddamn gold mine. I want what they want. People don’t want some average hotel, it needs to be romantic, fun, artistic, none of this clinical, modern stuff. If the next person walks in here with the same shitty ideas, I’ll design the damn thing myself.” He turned to the window with a red face and puffed on his cigar.

Benjamin rolled his eyes at Vincent’s dramatics.

“I want a real artist,” he continued, “a raving damn lunatic. Someone creative, with a bit of flair. I’m sick of these corporate suits talking about paint colors, who’ve never picked up a paintbrush in their life. I want the van Gogh of interior design—”

A knock on the door interrupted him.

“Who’s that?” Vincent said grufFly, still red in the face from his rant.

“It’s probably Elizabeth Egan, here for the meeting.”

“I thought I told you to cancel that.”

Benjamin ignored him and walked over to the door to let Elizabeth in.

“Hello,” she said, entering the room, followed by a plum-haired Poppy, spattered with paint and weighed down with folders spilling with carpet samples and fabrics.

“Hi, I’m Benjamin West, project manager, we met on Friday.” He shook her hand.

“Yes, I’m sorry about having to leave early,” she replied crisply, not looking him in the eye. “It’s not a regular occurrence, I can assure you.” She turned to face the struggling lady behind her. “This is Poppy, my assistant. I hope you don’t mind her sitting in with us,” she said curtly.

Poppy battled with the folders in order to shake Benjamin’s hand, resulting in a few folders crashing to the ground.

“Oh, shit,” she said loudly and Elizabeth spun around with a face like thunder.

Benjamin laughed. “That’s OK, let me help you.”

“Mr. Taylor,” Elizabeth said loudly, walking across the room with an extended hand. “Good to meet you again, sorry about the last meeting.”

Vincent turned from the window, looked her black suit up and down, and puffed on his cigar. He didn’t shake her hand, instead turned to face out the window again.

Benjamin helped Poppy carry the folders to the table and spoke to clear the awkwardness from the room. “Why don’t we all take a seat.”

Elizabeth, flushed in the face, slowly lowered her hand and turned to face the table. Her voice went up an octave. “Ivan!”

Poppy’s face crumpled into a frown and she looked around the room.

“It’s OK,” Benjamin said to her, “people get my name wrong all the time. The name’s Benjamin, Ms. Egan.”

“Oh, not you.” Elizabeth laughed. “I’m talking about the man in the chair beside you.” She walked toward the table. “What are you doing here? I didn’t know you were involved in the hotel, I thought you worked with children.”

Vincent raised his eyebrows and watched her nodding and smiling politely in the silence. He began to laugh, a hearty guffaw that ended in hacking coughs.

“Are you OK, Mr. Taylor?” Elizabeth asked with concern.

“Yes, Ms. Egan, I’m fine. Absolutely fine, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” He held out his hand.

While Poppy and Elizabeth went about arranging their files, Vincent spoke under his breath to Benjamin. “This one might just be the type to cut her ear off after all.”

The door to the cabin opened and in walked the receptionist with a tray of coffee cups.

“Well, it was lovely to meet you again; ’bye, Ivan,” Elizabeth called out as the door closed behind the woman.

“Gone now, is he?” Poppy asked drily.

“Don’t worry.” Benjamin laughed, under his breath, to Poppy while watching Elizabeth in admiration. “She’s fitting the profile perfectly. You guys were listening outside the door, right?” He smiled at Poppy.

Poppy looked at him, confused.

“Don’t worry, you’re not gonna get into trouble or anything.” He laughed. “But you heard us talking, right?”

Poppy thought for a while, then nodded her head slowly up and down, still looking rather confused.

Benjamin chuckled and looked away. “I knew it. Clever woman,” he thought aloud, watching Elizabeth engrossed in conversation with Vincent.

They both tuned in to the conversation.

“I like you, Elizabeth, I really do,” Vincent was saying genuinely. “I like your eccentricity.”

Elizabeth frowned.

“You know, your quirkiness. That’s when you know someone’s a genius, and I like geniuses on my team.”

Elizabeth nodded slowly, utterly bewildered at what he was going on about.

“But,” Vincent continued, “I’m not too convinced on your ideas, in fact I’m not convinced at all. I don’t like ’em.”

There was silence.

Elizabeth moved uncomfortably in her seat. “OK.” She tried to remain businesslike. “What is it exactly that you have in mind?”