Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis
Chapter Twenty-Six
I knew it would happen. We were kissing. Kissing a lot when we got back to the hotel room. Then Ed had showered and tried to coax me in there with him, but I’d said no, and I’d sat looking out to the busy city streets below as the water showered onto the stone tiles next door and Ed sang to himself. ‘You wanted this more than anything,’ said that voice in my head. ‘And now here you are. In a beautiful place with Ed. So why aren’t you happy?’ Ed had then appeared, a towel knotted at his waist, drops of water peppered across his toned stomach, and he tried it on again, as we waited for the soft knock at the door from room service, kissing me at first, then moving his hand to my thigh, moving up, up, up, until I moved away, sliding across the duvet.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘Because I’m here for work.’
‘But Nell, look at this place,’ he’d said, as if a beautiful hotel room and king size bed were wasted if it wasn’t shagged in at least once.
‘I know, but – that’s not why I’m here.’ Then we’d eaten cross-legged on the bed watching some boring quiz show, my eyes constantly on the clock, and when he’d kissed my neck I told him to stop and stood up.
‘I thought we were away together,’ he said, shaking his head, and I had absolutely no idea what to say, so I went into the bathroom, locked the door, and showered. I let the water hammer my face, as if to somehow shake the thoughts in my head loose, arrange them into some sort of comprehensive order. But it didn’t work. I suddenly felt panicked, like I needed to shove the door of the glass shower cubicle open, escape. I put on a face of make-up, took my time with the eyeliner flicks, with the smoky eye, and pinned my hair back, into some sort of messy up-do, thinking the entire time, as I looked into my own eyes in the large, hotel bathroom mirror, about what the fuck was going on – about what I was doing. Here, with him. He was all I ever wanted. I dreamed of this – of him coming back, of him realising we’d made a mistake, and going out together, into the world. So why didn’t I want to be close to him, to have sex with him? Why doesn’t it feel like I thought it would – should. It feels different. It feels wrong.
When I finally left the bathroom, Ed was passed out on the bed, and I’d felt relief that I didn’t have to look at him or my feelings in the eye any more. I slipped out.
The Balmoral’s lobby is jam packed full of black ties when I step out of the elevator and I feel better now, lost in the noise and the din of a Friday night in the city. Tens of people in sharp, pressed suits and expensive dresses, shrouding the place in aftershave and perfume and raucous laughter file slowly into the banquet hall opposite where Candice and Steve will get married tomorrow. They are meeting some of their guests tonight and having drinks in the bar, and they invited Ed and me to join them, if I’m finished with the flowers early enough so I wanted to be prepared – nice dress, nice make-up. Plus, I don’t really want to be walking through somewhere as beautiful as this, in my cruddy tracksuit bottoms. The Balmoral is too grand, and I am far enough from home to feel like it’s a special occasion. I never get to dress up, but tonight is different. I blend right in, like I could easily slip into one of these little circles, titter a little laugh, and fit effortlessly into the conversation.
Outside in the car park, the drizzle has stopped and the autumnal sky is an amalgamation of pastel colour, as if the sky gods were inspired by fruit-salad sweets, and I stand for a while, against the little hire van, looking up at it. Daisy. I always think of Daisy when I see a pretty sky, when I’m doing something new. She loved taking photos of the sky. She loved talking about all the people who are under it right now, and ‘isn’t it weird, Elle, to think the people we’ll fall in love with are under this sky right now’ she’d say. What would she think now, if she could see me? Would she be proud? What would she think about me being here with Ed? Everything feels so confused and like a hundred loose ends, untied. I wish she was still here. I wish things were simple. I wish I wasn’t me. I wish I wasn’t so confused, and I wish I didn’t feel so scared. To live. Because I am, I think. I’m afraid to live too loudly. And I wasn’t always like this, but I don’t know how to get back there. I was definitely there the night we buried the time capsule, the moment Daisy took that photo of Ed and me. And I’d felt it so surely in my heart that my forever was in that photo. Not just Ed and me, but that photo was proof that I had forever, or what felt like it, ahead of me. My future was so bright. It was mine for the taking. The stars in the sky behind us just goading us to go ahead, take what we wanted, with both hands.
Two women walk by me holding hands. One of them says something to the other, and they tip their heads back, laugh, fingers spread at their chests, and I feel that pull. Sam. Sam always laughs at me. Nothing I’ve ever said has shocked him, embarrassed him, prompted him to try to fix it or change it. Sam. Ugh. All my thoughts end up back at bloody Sam Attwood. And to think – he’s somewhere nearby. OK, he’s right, it’s a big place, but I like knowing that we’re in the same city, that the same tufty, fire-tinged clouds above my head are floating over his too.
I open the van and pull out the buckets I picked up from the supplier. I bet Candice feels like the world is hers right now. Everyone racing around, for her, the brand-new chapter of her life just waiting for her when the sun rises tomorrow. And I think that’s why I wish I had the camera, more than anything. So I could see photos of myself again, of who I used to be. That Noelle who dared to hope for bigger things. Before I almost died and accepted that I should be grateful for anything I was handed. Even if I didn’t want it, it was better than not living at all, right? Daisy would give anything to still be here, like me. ‘Daisy doesn’t know she isn’t here,’ Ed would say to me and it helped and hurt all at once. Daisy believed in the afterlife. Daisy believed you were bigger than just bones and a beating heart. I close my eyes. Are you there? Send me a sign that you’re there. I miss you. I’m sorry I don’t do this enough, I’m sorry I don’t talk about you, but I miss you every day, and I don’t know what to do. I feel lost. I feel alone.
I open my eyes, lock the van, sniff back the hot tears that are desperate to fall. I make my way back to the hotel. A group of women pile out of a taxi at the entrance screeching with laughter. I think of Candice, of those beautiful flowers waiting for me inside, to be made into something to be admired, to be photographed and remembered. I have dreamed of this for so many, many years, and I’m here. I’m actually here. I stop on the pavement. I can’t sabotage this, ruin it for myself. This wedding. These flowers. This opportunity. Now. Now, not then. That’s what matters.
I stand tall, look up at the gorgeous autumnal sky one last time, then carry the buckets up through the hotel doors, aware of how weird I must look in a tea dress and full make-up, carrying metal buckets like some sort of dusty labourer, but not giving a single shit. Yup. This is me. Noelle Butterby. Wedding florist. Flower designer, don’t you know.
The lobby is jam packed, like the bar before a concert, with people standing around chatting. Through the double doors of the banquet hall, I see others seated, wine buckets in the centre of their tables, the room bathed in indigo disco lights.
A group stand before the doors chatting, all black tuxes and deep voices, and low music floats out from the inside. There’s a stand beside the entrance, a crisp white page slotted inside the frame. ‘Climbing for Causes’, it says. I stop, my feet on the shiny floor, a bucket at each side.
Climbing for Causes.
Climbing for Causes.
Oh my God.
And –
There he is. Sam. And of course he is. In the group of tall, black tuxes, Sam looks up, and before I can even register that he’s there, our eyes meet, locking into place like two magnets. I feel like I want to cry at the sight of him. You’re here, you’re here, you’re here beats my relieved, racing little heart. His face freezes, perfect pink lips parted in mid conversation, as if straight from a photograph, and as if perfectly synchronised, we both break out into smiles. ‘What the fuck?’ he mouths eventually. ‘I know!’ I mouth back.
Of course. Of course Sam is here. And as much as it is completely ridiculous that he is actually here, in this same hotel, it also feels unsurprising. Here we are, yet again in each other’s paths, and for what reason, I really don’t know, other than – this is meant to be. Isn’t it?
Sam breaks away from the group, all back slaps and hard nods, and approaches me, his dark eyebrows knitting together, a white, stunned and lopsided smile on his handsome face. My heart bangs. My whole body feels as if it’s just been slowly dunked into cold water. A mist of tingles and prickles across my skin. He looks gorgeous. He looks so gorgeous.
‘The wedding,’ he says, gesturing to us both, and I stand, buckets at my side and look up at him.
‘The charity event,’ I say. ‘Y-you said it was a – club?’
‘It moved. Venue flooded, so we moved here – it was mini-bus mayhem let me tell you and – you – you have buckets,’ he says.
‘I have buckets.’
He flashes a playful smile. ‘Noelle, you look …’ His dark eyes drift to my dress, then back to my face. I see his Adam’s apple bob in his throat. ‘You look – beautiful.’
I swallow too because I feel like something is swelling, blocking my airwaves, because I can hardly bear to look at him. He’s the sun. He’s the fucking sun. ‘And you … you really do suit a – well, suit.’
He grins at me, and seeing him like this, somewhere new, miles away from everything, from Farthing Heights and stuffy launderettes, and in this glittering hotel beneath antique chandeliers, surrounded by noise and life and glamour, him in that suit … it feels too much. As if it’s a glimpse, somehow, of what could be, in another life, in another world. Me in my dress, him in his suit, here together. And I think he feels it too, because we both just stare at one another, for a moment, speechless. Then he steps forward and slowly, purposely, puts his arms around me, and it’s the first time. It’s the first time I’ve been this close to him, properly, slowly, feeling his warm, strong body against mine, his hands against my cold bare back. He holds me. He really holds me, not just like he did when he was consoling me in my mad Moomin pyjamas. Properly. Like a perfect slotting together. And I don’t even know if I’m breathing, if I’m even here but I never want to let him go.
‘Hey, hey, hey, Attwood, what’s going on here?’
We pull away as a large hand lands on Sam’s shoulder, slapping him twice. Sam’s face breaks into a smile. ‘Clay, this is Noelle.’
Clay stands next to Sam, the total surfer dream boy, with floppy blond hair and tanned skin. Daisy would’ve fancied him. Charlie definitely pre-Theo, would’ve ridden him into the sunset and back again (then totally broken his poor little wave-chasing heart). ‘Holy shit,’ says Clay. ‘Noelle from the traffic jam?’
Sam’s cheeks colour for the first time ever and he gives a deep nod. ‘Yup. That’s right. Noelle, this is my buddy Clay––’
And before he can finish his sentence, Clay has closed his eyes, widened his long, shirted arms and is saying, ‘Bring it in, Noelle from the traffic jam, bring it the eff in. You’re a living legend. Do you know that?’
And when I laugh and hug him, my arms around his taut middle, he says out the side of his mouth into my ear, ‘If I’m honest with you, Noelle, I thought you might be a mirage he dreamed up. You know, how people do, to get through a rough time. Make shit up.’
‘What did you just say?’ asks Sam.
‘Nothing, bro,’ says Clay with a wink. ‘Nothing.’