Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis
Chapter Twenty-Three
Three weeks pass in a blur. I see Ed a lot for takeaways and walks through town after his shifts, and I enjoy being totally caught up in the wedding whirlwind. I watch YouTube videos about preserving wedding flowers and timings of bouquets, from water to bride, I call the hotel to double-check they definitely have a cool, dark room for me to work in, contact the flower supplier up in Edinburgh. I even got a call from Candice’s hotel’s wedding planner and I flushed with fizzy excitement as she talked. I’m a wedding florist! I’ve felt like shouting in random people’s faces, as I worked, as I ran my usual boring errands, feeling like I have springs in my shoes. At this moment, I am designing the flowers for someone’s wedding and everyone is treating me as though I am the actual real deal! Me!
‘You are the real deal,’ said Charlie yesterday as she sat at my kitchen table, thumbing the leaves of yet another ‘dummy run’ bouquet. ‘I mean, look at this. If I tried to make this, it would look like I wiped Petal’s arse with it then whacked Theo over the head with it. You are good at this, Elle. Beyond good. Believe me.’ And for the first time in my life, I’ve let myself believe her. Maybe I can do this. Maybe I can expand my world a little, chase dreams like loose balloons, like other people do. And I don’t know how it would work, but ever since I’ve said yes to Candice and Steve, everything and anything has felt possible. A spark of something has flickered to life deep down in my gut, and it won’t go out.
‘You can do your own flowers.’ Charlie had grinned then. ‘When you and Sam get married.’
‘I am not marrying Sam,’ I’d replied, and she’d leant over and kissed my cheek.
‘Tell that to Theo. He is convinced,’ and I couldn’t help but grin back at her. My Charlie, smiling, cheeks like red, rosy apples. She’s getting there. Her meds have kicked in and her mum and dad have stepped up and promised to take Petal every Friday so she and Theo can have a date night – or sleep. Which is exactly what they’ve done for the first two. She spent thirty quid on organic ingredients in Waitrose last Friday, printouts of Deliciously Ella recipes poking out of her handbag, but in the end they were asleep by eight, with bellies full of Nutella on toast. The next morning, she’d sent me a photo of Petal, all gummy and wide-eyed. I cried when the text that followed said ‘My girl. Missed her.’
Today I’m back at Frank’s and when I go to let myself in, the door swoops open before my spare key even hits the lock.
‘You have worked wonders,’ says Sam, standing in the doorway. He’s sun-kissed and smiley and when he holds my shoulders with large, warm hands, I feel like my heart is going to shoot out of my body and explode, like a dirty great firework above us both. I wasn’t expecting to see him. I don’t feel prepared, although I’m not even sure what I mean by that. He’s a person, after all, not a bloody science exam. ‘You’re a genius,’ he says.
‘Well, hello to you too.’ I laugh, and heat creeps up my spine. ‘You really think so?’
‘For sure,’ says Sam, and he steps aside to let me in. ‘And it smells different in here – like, I dunno – is it … lavender?’
‘Lavender disinfectant. Only the most luxurious of scents for Have-a-Go Frank.’
Sam groans, pulls his mouth into a grimace. ‘Is he still being an ass?’ he asks out of the side of his mouth.
‘Oh, one hundred per cent,’ I whisper, as I follow him inside, the heat of the flat hitting me the way it does when you step off a plane into a hot country. ‘Hates me. Despises me. And perhaps, also the world, so I try not to take it too personally.’
‘If it helps, I think he secretly likes you.’
‘Sure he does.’
‘Trust me, Gallagher.’ Sam shoots a look over his shoulder at me – his dark eyes dancing with the secret inside joke of my now evolved nickname, and I feel like my kneecaps might disintegrate. ‘But hey, come through to the kitchen. I have something for you.’
‘For me?’
We walk through the flat together. Sam looks good. Again. And I wish I had worn something different from the baggy over-sized t-shirt and leggings I slung on in a rush this morning while Mum called for me from the bedroom, unable to reach her left slipper. He’s wearing a white t-shirt, his arms muscular at the seams, and he smells of – ugh, I don’t know, but that gorgeous Sam smell. Showers and fresh laundry and sun on skin. ‘I wish you’d just snog Sam,’ Charlie had said after I told her about Ed and me kissing. ‘And you keep saying you don’t like him like that, but I have to say, dude, I don’t believe you.’ And as I look at him now, golden and handsome and tall, I sort of wish I could too. No, no, no, must keep remembering Jenna. Must keep remembering Jenna and Ed and screwed up bloody phone numbers left on smelly hospital benches.
‘Hi, Frank,’ I call, as we pass the living room.
‘Hello,’ he answers, and although he says it as if he has a revolver at his temple, I feel a sense of victory.
‘Well, would you look at that,’ I whisper. ‘One nil to Noelle Butterby.’
Sam gives a deep chuckle, and steps into the kitchen. ‘Told you.’ Then he bends, rifles through a large hessian shopping bag on the floor, and when he stands, he’s holding a huge bunch of freesias wrapped in peanut-brown paper. They are beautiful. Gorgeous and coral-reef pink, petals open as if ready to sing. ‘For you,’ he says.
‘For me? Why – what for?’
‘The old man’s a jackass,’ he says dryly, ‘and you’ve done an incredible job and so quickly. And I was thinking about what you were saying about gut feeling and trusting your instincts and then I passed these, and – I don’t know. Gut instinct said I should take them …’
I open my mouth to speak, but it stretches into a wide spontaneous smile. ‘Do you know – they actually do symbolise trust?’ I say, and as I hear myself say it, goosebumps pepper my arms.
‘Seriously?’
‘Yup. And they’re my favourites. First flowers I managed to grow from bulbs.’ I don’t need a mirror to know that my face is totally ablaze with heat. Less Crayfish Face, more Lobstered to Fuck. ‘Thank you. Seriously, Sam, you didn’t need to do this––’
‘No, I know I didn’t but – well, I figured you’re always the one that gives the flowers, so …’ He trails off, reaches up to push his hand through his hair, his hand resting at the back of his neck.
‘Thank you,’ I say again, and he smiles softly. ‘Will you keep them in water for me?’
‘Sure,’ he says, and as he starts to fill the empty sink, water sploshing onto the ridges of the draining board, my heart opens in my chest, like a box burst wide, sending sunbeams up and around my body.
Charlie says she doesn’t believe me when I say I don’t like Sam. And I don’t think I believe me either. That question mark fades like smoke, to nothing.
Two hours later, Sam gets back from popping into town, and we take a break on the balcony of Frank’s flat. It’s a warm, late August day, the sky is the colour of the ocean, the clouds above like swirls of cream in coffee. There’s nothing up here, besides the sound of Frank’s television and the distant chinking and mumbling of other people’s homes through open windows.
‘How’re you doing over there?’ asks Sam.
‘Ish.’ I say, gripping the back of a garden chair and sitting down. ‘Can I say ish?’
‘You can say ish,’ laughs Sam. He leans against the railings and the concrete of the adjoining wall in the corner, a tanned forearm resting on the metal rail. Then he produces two paper bags from behind his back. ‘Left or right hand?’
‘What?’
‘This is pasty roulette.’
‘You got pasties?’
‘I got pasties,’ he says.
I can’t stop the grin from spreading across my face. I lean forward, try to grab at a bag, see what’s in what, but he retracts the bags closer to him. ‘Come on,’ he teases. ‘Play ball.’
‘Fine. Left.’
He hands it to me, a square white paper bag, and I open it up. ‘Still none the wiser,’ I say. ‘So, do I have to bite it to find out?’
‘Yup.’
And so I do, conscious of not spilling it all down my chin and looking up at him like he’s caught me in the middle of a country fair eating competition. ‘Oh my God. A classic. I got the classic pasty. Cornish. Perfection.’
‘Ah, shit,’ says Sam, opening the greasy white paper of his own bag. ‘That means I have the wild chicken curry option.’
‘So your first pasty experience is an outlandish curry one.’ I laugh as Sam examines the pasty in his large hand. ‘You really are an adrenaline junkie.’
Sam sinks his teeth into it and nods at me. ‘OK. OK, this is – good?’
‘You’re a fan?’
‘I think I’m a fan.’
‘Oh, well that’s a relief,’ I say. ‘I’d have had to have completely stopped seeing you if you’d have hated it.’
‘Nah.’ He grins. ‘You’d have orchestrated another blizzard. Stolen another keyring …’
‘So you do admit it then,’ I swoop in, a finger shooting up to point at him. ‘That maybe my keyring was yours, that maybe we had the same nurse––’
‘No. It was a joke.’
‘But don’t you – think it’s weird, at least,’ I say, ‘that we keep bumping into each other, that there are all these coincidences, like … you keep showing up in my life.’ Those last few words fall from my mouth and I’m grateful there’s a pasty to hide behind, although I drop a confetti-cannon’s worth of crumbs down my top as I do.
‘I guess,’ he says. ‘But then it’s a small world––’
‘Not that small,’ I jump in and Sam looks at me, says nothing. ‘My friend Charlie wonders if you went to the Green Day concert in Milton Keynes, back in 2005, the same one we went to.’
Sam smiles, three creases in his forehead appearing, as if he’ll humour me, nothing more. ‘Um, nope, ’fraid not.’
‘What secondary school did you go to?’
‘St Agnes High School,’ chews Sam. ‘In Oregon.’ He raises a mocking eyebrow. ‘Did you go to school in Oregon too, Noelle Butterby?’
I roll my eyes. ‘Oh, just eat your pasty.’
We sit on the balcony for a while, looking out to the blue summer sky, to the leafy horizon, Bath sitting proudly in the distance with its biscuit-coloured buildings standing high like sandcastles. And as always when Sam and I are together, we talk about everything, and nothing, and it’s there, the whole time, that churn in my stomach, the tingling skin, the heart racing just that bit too fast. But at the same time, it’s like I can say anything. No posturing, no selling myself and – God, is that what I do? Do I sell myself when I’m with Ed? And if I do, why? What am I trying to prove?
‘You OK?’ Sam asks.
I nod my head as if shaking off the thoughts, and say, ‘So, guess what, Samuel Attwood?’
He looks up from his lunch, licks his lips. ‘What?’
‘I have said yes to something and I am definitely panicking, as you would say. In real time. Before your eyes.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘Candice at Jetson’s.’
‘Post-it Candice?’
‘Of Candice and Steve fame, yes.’ I nod. ‘She’s asked me to do the flowers at her wedding. And I’ve said yes. Shitting myself. Like – properly shitting myself. But I’m doing it.’
Sam stares at me, a slow, easy smile spreading across his face. ‘Noelle, that’s amazing.’
‘Well, not quite amazing yet because I might fuck it all up and I haven’t even done anything yet and I actually thought last night, I have the power to fuck their entire day up and––’
‘No, but you did it,’ says Sam factually. ‘You said yes. That’s – that’s brave.’
I drop my eyes to my lap, pick away stray pasty crumbs. I can’t look at him. Sometimes, looking into Sam’s eyes makes me feel like I’m naked. Like he can see too much of me. ‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘But I’m not sure I’d have actually said yes really. It was you, you know, talking about saying yes and panicking later and looking death in the face, and OK weddings aren’t death – although I’m sure they represent that for some people …’
Sam chuckles, a rumble in his throat, his hand at the dark stubble of his chin.
‘But I just thought fuck it. I wanna do it. For me. Because sometimes it feels like I’m fading into the background or something and – nobody can see me. You know? But I thought – well, I can see me. Right? And this is what I want to do.’
Sam hesitates, his brow crinkling beneath the dark hair he then swoops a hand through. But then he just says, ‘Yeah. Right. Definitely.’
‘Ed said he’s going to help me,’ I carry on. ‘It’s in Scotland so I need to sort trains and stuff, but he’s going to follow me up. Help. Stay over with me.’
Sam straightens at that – his dark brows raise, and he shoves his hands in his pockets, stands rigid, shoulders broad. ‘That’s cool,’ he says. ‘Ed the Ped, showing up when he’s needed, that’s good.’
‘Yeah. Really good.’
‘Yeah. Totally.’
Silence follows, thick and loaded, like static. Sam kicks the bottom of the balcony with the top of his trainer, and I fiddle with the paper bakery bag in my hand. I pretend to see something in the distance, but it’s pointless, because Sam hasn’t looked at me once.
‘I sort of want to take the sleeper train there,’ I say, words breaking the silence. ‘It was something I always wanted to do. When I was a kid.’
‘Then you should do it,’ says Sam, looking up at me. ‘When is it? The wedding.’
‘September twenty-eighth.’
‘Ah. Same as that charity event I talked about – the charity climbing thing?’
‘And you seem riveted by that,’ I joke and he laughs.
‘Yeah, it’s – not my thing. It’s all suits and dancing and …’ He shudders, makes a face at me then smiles, teeth grazing his lip. ‘But there’ll be booze. And food, and there’s a charity auction where they sell us off as guides or whatever. Last year it was at a ballroom in Manchester. Me. A guy who likes hanging off rocks in his spare time, in a ballroom.’
I giggle, but think to myself that he’d look perfect in a ballroom, in a suit, in anything. ‘And where is it this year? Oh – shit. You said Scotland! Didn’t you? When you mentioned it before? At the launderette?’ My heart starts to whoosh loudly in my ears.
‘Yeah. Yeah, it’s in …’
‘Edinburgh,’we say together. Sam’s eyes widen and his hand drifts slowly to his chin, at the same time I spew out, ‘Oh my fucking God. Where?’ My voice is so high pitched, I’m giving myself tinnitus.
‘Uh. Some huge famous night club, according to Clay, my buddy – what?’
‘The wedding. Candice and Steve’s. It’s at a hotel. In Edinburgh. Oh my God.’
Sam laughs, but it’s a nervous, strained laugh, and he looks at his feet. ‘Weird,’ he says.
‘Just weird? We’re both going to be in Edinburgh, Sam. We are both going to be in Edinburgh at the same time, on the same weekend––’
‘It’s a big place,’ says Sam, and I stare at him. ‘And a small world. What?’ he laughs.
I shake my head, curls bouncing around my shoulders. ‘Nothing,’ I say, when really, all I want to do is squeal, spill it all out on the phone to Charlie and Theo, or sit, like I’m in some sort of crime drama, and try to work out why this keeps happening – spread it all out, all the evidence, across the floor. If we hadn’t had this conversation, we might’ve just been wandering around Edinburgh and yet again, bumped into each other. It is weird. It’s weird and wonderful and it’s bubbling away, the wonder of it, under my skin, as if it’s going to burst through the surface.
‘Maybe I’ll bump into you,’ is all I say, and he says, ‘If I manage to escape the hours of speeches,’ and a part of me wants to grab him by his collars, ask him what he thinks it means. Because he always seems so annoyingly relaxed – almost dismissive of it. As if I believe in fairy tales or something, and he’s far too old for such shit.
‘Speeches,’ I say instead. ‘Sounds a bit like a wedding.’
Sam nods. ‘Probably why I’ve never had one.’
‘You mean, why you never got married?’
Sam nods. ‘Jenna always wanted to.’
‘And why didn’t you?’
He shrugs and looks down at the floor, kicks the balcony gently again, the way people might gently and pointlessly kick a tyre. ‘I guess I’ve always just associated marriage with, you know, settled life, pets and kids and two vacations a year and white picket fences …’ He smiles over at me. ‘I dunno, that’s never been me. And it wasn’t Jenna either, for a while but …’
‘It is now?’
Sam nods.
‘Do you think you ever will?’
Sam looks down at his coffee, then looks at me with a slight smile. ‘Cars are for confessionals, Gallagher,’ he says. ‘Balconies are for pasties.’