Eight Perfect Hours by Lia Louis
Chapter Twenty-Eight
‘The woman needs a hobby, Nell. She’s driving me mad with all of it. Do you know she called me seven times in two hours about canapes? She’s ordered from some deli near us and I feel like saying, just invite some of Dad’s mates over, stick them in the lounge with the piano and let them get drunk, you know? Nell? Nell?’
I blink, look beside me at Ed who looks bright and pink-cheeked and rested. As if he actually spent the night in a five-star hotel, with a king-sized bed – the exact polar opposite of how I feel this morning.
‘Sorry. I was miles away.’
‘Stop worrying. They’re flowers, remember. Just flowers.’ Ed smiles gently. ‘You nailed it, Nell. Even better without my help.’ He yawns, ruffling his wild brown hair, a slice of toned stomach appearing beneath his navy-blue t-shirt. ‘Jesus, man, how long’re they going to take seating everyone? I need breakfast. I’m fuckin’ starved.’
The breakfast queue is long today at the Balmoral – there’s a sort of chaotic chatter in the dining room as people are squashed onto tables, and more of us wait here at the grand, bright entrance in a big straggled crowd more than a queue. And I’m relieved as Ed takes out his phone and scrolls, because I can barely string a sentence together. Because I can’t stop thinking about last night. About Sam and that gorgeous kiss and how it had gone on for what felt like forever but was probably more like ten seconds, before Sam’s phone had buzzed and it was Clay, who couldn’t find his hotel room. We said goodbye then, in the hazy dim light, and Sam had asked if I needed his help in the morning because he’d booked a stupidly early breakfast and wanted to head out early. Yes, I wanted to say. Yes, and never leave. I wanted him to kiss me again, wanted to squeeze every moment of time out of the world to spend with only him. But I said no. Because of Ed. Because of Jenna. Because he runs. Because frankly: I am fucking terrified of everything that I feel. It feels like a tornado inside of me, gathering speed, gathering more and more information and confusion and emotion, until it’s just going to take flight, and take me with it.
The people in front of us are seated, and the waitress smiles at us, but doesn’t speak, and taps away on the iPad on the podium in front of her. The restaurant is crammed with people, and the din of griddle pans and cutlery on plates, and the smell of toast makes my stomach rumble. I haven’t eaten. I haven’t slept. Even my hands are shaking. Nerves, I told Ed, for the wedding and the flowers later. But it isn’t just that. It’s Sam. It’s the kiss. It’s Ed and it’s the flowers and this hotel and the confusion and the speed everything seems to be going, and it’s all swelling until it’s a saturated sponge in my skull. I press a hand to my forehead. Ed eyes me and says nothing.
‘Good morning,’ smiles the waitress. ‘Your room number, please?’
‘Morning,’ I say. ‘It’s 231. Under Butterby. Noelle Butterby?’
The waitress runs a slim finger down the bright screen of an iPad. ‘Ah, yes.’ She looks over her shoulder and studies the brimming restaurant. ‘We’ve had a few double bookings,’ she says as if to herself and Ed sighs.
‘How do you have a few double bookings?’ he asks me but loud enough for the woman to hear.
She looks at him and gives a stiff smile. ‘We took in a last-minute booking of twenty guests and a charity event of ninety-six yesterday when the other venue flooded. It’s been a stretch. Don’t worry, we will get you seated but we may have to wait for––’
Oh my God.
Oh. My. God. Waves rush into my brain, drowning out the waitress, drowning out Ed and the restaurant chatter, and I know they’re all still talking because their lips are still moving, but all that’s in my head is static. Like someone just pulled the plug.
Sam. He’s at the table, just over the way, with Clay. The both of them sitting at a table for four, coffees and plates and newspapers spread over its wooden top. There are two spare chairs either side of them. Sam looks up from his cup and – he’s seen me. Fuck, he’s seen me. My belly flips over like a fish. I’m going to vomit. And before either of us can react, Clay sees me too.
‘Hey!’he shouts across the restaurant. ‘Hey, it’s the mirage! Join us!’
Ed looks at me, half confusion, half amusement. ‘You – you know this bloke?’
‘It’s – no – the other one – it’s Sam. The American. Well. That’s his friend. You know. Sam. Who I clean for. The uh – his dad. F-Frank. C-cleaner?’ Oh my God. I can’t speak. It’s like my tongue is an overgrown fucking clam in my mouth and my brain is no longer a brain, but a joint of roast beef instead.
The waitress looks at me hopefully. ‘Are you happy to join?’
‘Uh, I don’t think …’
‘Well, if it’s our only chance of getting some scran.’ Ed looks at me and gives a big shrug. ‘I’d sit anywhere if I’m honest.’
The waitress looks at me expectantly. I look at Sam who gives a small, comforting smile. A smile that says, ‘It’s cool. It’ll be fine.’
‘OK,’ I say, standing tall like someone who is absolutely cool with this. ‘OK, sure. Makes sense.’
Clay and Sam stand up as we approach the table and God, why does Sam have to be so tall and why does his tired, didn’t-get-much-sleep-last-night face and dishevelled bed-hair make me want to bury my face into his neck? And yup, just like that, my hunger pains have disappeared completely. Can’t-eat, wanna-puke love … No, no, shut up, not now.
‘Eh, see, this is nice and cosy,’ says Clay, his lips pale, his eyes bruise-like with the rings of someone hung-over and still drunk. ‘How’s it going, Noelle? And is this your …’ He eyes Sam for a moment, then me. ‘Your …’
‘This is Ed,’ I jump in.
‘Her date. Her helper. Her slave.’ Ed grins and holds his hand out.
‘Ah, I should’ve known a queen like this would have a slave. Have many.’ Clay winks at me, a teasing blue eye, and they shake hands roughly. I can feel Sam’s eyes burning into me, but I don’t dare look at him, into his eyes, at his lips, the ones I was kissing last night …
‘Morning,’ says Sam, and Ed holds out his hand, ever cool, ever confident. ‘I’m Sam.’
Ed shakes his hand, but his brow creases. ‘Sam,’ he says. ‘Oh – you’re … shit you’re – no way – I know you.’
Sam doesn’t react, he just looks at him, and I don’t think I have ever seen Sam stone-faced before, but he is. Right this moment, he is. His jaw set, his shoulders are back. What is Ed talking about? He knows him? ‘You do?’
Ed laughs, but his cheeks pinken. ‘Yeah, I – your dad. You brought your dad into rheumatology. Few weeks ago. We – we had a chat.’
Sam nods, but he’s still standing tall and rigid. Sam’s tall, yes, but standing like this, he looks enormous. ‘That’s right. I remember.’
‘You’re Frank’s doctor?’ I ask.
‘No,’ cuts in Sam before Ed can reply, then Ed clears his throat, a balled fist at his mouth.
‘No, no that’s Pragya, isn’t it – Doctor Laghari I mean?’ he says.
Sam nods once.
‘I filled in on her surgery,’ says Ed to me, then he turns back to Sam. ‘And how is he, your dad?’
‘Frank? Yeah, he’s good.’ Sam smiles a tiny smile as Clay laughs, and says, ‘Holy shit, so you’re a doctor? Oh …’ Clay downs a shot of espresso. ‘Let me scoot round there and we can all sit—’
‘Actually,’ says Sam, ‘we’re kind of done anyway, right, dude?’
Clay pauses, fixes his eyes on Sam. ‘Um.’ He looks down at the empty espresso cup in his hand. ‘Yeah? Yeah, I guess if you want to …’
‘You don’t have to go …’ I start, although I really don’t mean it, because I’m relieved I haven’t got to sit at the table with both of them. My head feels fit to burst, to explode all over the restaurant like a detonated pumpkin. Ed and Sam have met. They’ve had a chat. Sam thinks Ed is a twat. I’m not exactly a body language expert but that much is clear.
‘No, no,’ says Sam, ‘we’ve taken up enough space for long enough and they’re super packed so …’
Ed nods and holds out his hand again. ‘Well, it was good to see you again,’ he says, laughingly. ‘The world’s never been so small, eh?’
Sam gives a nod, then looks at me. ‘Good luck today, Noelle,’ he says, and before I can even register what just happened, before I can take in the icy, icy stare from Sam to Ed, they’re gone.
I tried. I tried really hard, to sit with Ed, in the loud, overbearing dining room of the Balmoral, but in the end, I couldn’t. I stood up – frankly, in the manner of someone having an adverse reaction to a drug – and my chair squeaked suddenly on the hard, shiny floor. ‘Sorry,’ I said, as Ed looked up from his newspaper. ‘I need to check something. With Martina. Can’t sit still.’ And thankfully, he seemed to buy it. He didn’t seem to notice my flusterment or the fact I was the colour of the white marble floors or that I pushed a slice of toast around my plate like it was a bathroom tile and not food. He just said he’d go up to the room and pack, ready for our train. And I’d torn outside, as if the hotel was filled with twenty-foot-deep water, and the outside was air.
I stand now, against the cold, ornate walls of the hotel. I need to think, but I can’t seem to grasp a thought long enough to understand it, and I can feel my heart rate quicken – a freight train, going so fast, it’s just a blur on the horizon. I fix my eyes on the huge window of a shop opposite and inhale, hold, exhale, inhale, hold, exhale. Why does this keep happening? The gasping for breath, the racing heart. It’s as if I am still and stationary and the whole world around me is on fast forward. Panic. Panic like I used to, when I lost my way. Last time, a kind mental health nurse had suggested I wasn’t listening to myself – I wasn’t digesting something I was feeling, not looking it in the eye. What is it? What is it I’m feeling?
Confusion. Overwhelmed. Like I want to withdraw from Ed because something niggles at me when we’re together and I don’t know what it is. And Sam. I want to run towards him and away all at once. And questions. So many questions flood my brain, squash into every crack. If I’d have gone to Oregon with Ed, would I have met Sam? If I’d never gone to the time capsule event, would I have taken the job at Frank’s? Would I have met Sam for the first time then? Or would we have chatted in the hospital waiting room? Would we have even talked at all? Magnets. The same planes. Meant to be? ‘I’d mention your soulmate …’ Daisy’s voice drifts through my mind, ‘but I don’t want to make your eyes roll so much they get stuck in the back of your head because you want to be able to look at him. Because he’ll be totally hot. Charming too. And so tall, he’ll give you a neck ache.’
My phone buzzes in my pocket, my shallow breath deepening again, slowly but surely. It’s a reminder. It’s ten to ten. I need to go back and put the final touches to the flowers and put them on the tables, at the ends of the pews, deliver the bouquets. That is what I’m here for. Candice and Steve. Everything else will have to wait until that long train ride home. I can’t have a mini emotional meltdown now. Not here. Not today.
I wander back through the doors of the hotel, my feet squeaking on the polished floor. And then I stop. Because Ed and Sam are by the elevators. They’re talking – well, Ed is, and seriously and quickly, and Sam’s jaw is set again, and he nods, once. Ed is bent close to him, like he’s explaining something complicated, all hand gestures and serious eyes, and I know all his faces – well, most of them. I know when he’s sad, or he’s angry, and he looks – stressed. Irked. Are they arguing? Why would they be arguing? Did Sam tell him that we kissed? No. No, surely not, why would he do that? Life is not a Nicholas Sparks novel.
‘Um – hello?’ I call, and although it’s loud and bustling in the lobby, with voices and music and telephones ringing, they both look up. Ed’s face breaks into a huge, too-big-to-believe grin. Sam gives a barely there, shadow of a smile.
‘Hey you,’ says Ed. ‘Just catching up. Talking about climbing. Mount Hood.’
I look at Sam, who dips his head. ‘Yeah,’ is all he says.
‘So, I’ll go and get the bags together,’ says Ed with another big smile and that weird look again in the eyes – what would I have said that was, when we were together, that look? A secret, maybe. Something he’s not telling me. ‘Meet you over in the stockroom?’ Ed looks at us, to and fro, then disappears into the lift, leaving Sam and me alone in the lobby, a stretch of shiny floor between us.
‘What were you two talking about?’ I ask. Neither of us move.
Sam puts his hands into his pockets, his shoulders stiff, but that stone-faced jaw relaxing. ‘Just climbing. Dad. Stuff.’
‘Stuff?’
Sam nods, then his face softens. ‘Are you OK?’
I shrug, feel emotion bubble up inside me. ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘No. No. I don’t know. Can I say ish?’
‘You can say ish,’ repeats Sam sadly, but he doesn’t smile this time or say anything else.
‘So you two met already,’ I say.
‘Well, I wouldn’t say we met, we just––’
‘Do you think I was meant to meet you, Sam,’ I say, words rushing from my mouth. ‘The more I keep thinking of everything, the more I’m here, the more I’m with you––’
‘Noelle … ’
‘Don’t say that it’s random. You know it isn’t. I think we were …’ I realise my voice is too loud, and I step closer to him, lower it, shrink the words small, so they’re just ours. ‘I think we were meant to meet. If Ed and I hadn’t broken up, if I had moved to Portland––’
‘If.’Sam takes a breath. ‘Noelle, I drove myself crazy with ifs for such a long time and I can’t believe in ifs and signs and––’
‘But why? Why can’t you just say it is?’ He says nothing, but my mouth keeps moving because of course it does. ‘Why can’t you just see that this is fate or at least might be––’
‘Because I can’t.’
‘But why? I feel – something––’
‘Noelle!’ A shrill, excitable puppy dog voice cut right through mine. Candice calls across the lobby from the open double-doors behind me, a golden croissant balancing on a small white plate, her hair in rollers, a dressing gown tied at the waist. ‘Mum. Mum!’ she says turning. ‘This is Noelle. This is my florist!’
Sam smiles at me softly. ‘Go be with your people,’ he says. Then he leans and presses warm lips to my forehead. ‘I’ll see you soon.’
And I know now, that I will. Regardless of everything, of every if in the world, I know that I will.
When I let myself into the hotel room, Ed is on the phone. He quickly hangs up.
‘It was uh – Mum,’ he says, rolling his round eyes. ‘Droning on again, about Dad’s seventieth. Did I tell you I’m not allowed a plus-one––’
‘Ed, Candice has asked me to stay,’ I say into the quiet room. The TV on the wall is just an inch away from mute, a football commentator barely audible, a footballer rolling around clutching at his leg. ‘For the ceremony and the reception.’
Ed’s brow creases, his lips turn down at the corners, as if trying to work out an impossible sum. ‘But our train is in two hours.’
‘I’m going to get the sleeper train home tonight.’
Ed scrunches up his face as if he’s just stepped in something disgusting. ‘Nell, sleeper trains are grim––’
‘I want to take the sleeper train,’ I tell him. ‘I’m being paid and I can afford it, and I want to stay.’
Ed turns his phone in his lap, breathes a noisy inhale through his nose. ‘OK,’ he says. ‘Course, Nell. You should stay,’ and the look he gives me makes me want to cry. I see Ed. I see the boy I fell in love with, the man I flat-hunted with, the man I loved with every piece of me for so long. ‘Are we OK, Nell?’ he asks feebly.
‘I don’t know.’ The words catch in my throat. ‘Maybe – maybe you coming here with me was too soon.’
He looks down at his lap, rubs a rough hand over his face. ‘Right,’ he says. ‘OK. So, I’ll go then. Get the train?’
I nod stiffly.
‘All right then,’ he says defeatedly. ‘OK.’
I feel numb as I walk back down the corridor away from Ed, as I take the elevator down, as I cross the lobby and walk down the aisle between lines of white, uniform chairs – everything prepared and lined up, ready for guests and moments to be made, my flowers, the backdrop of so many memories forever.
I push open the storeroom door, switch on the lights, and I’m almost winded myself, at the sight of everything I’ve done. The floor is brimming with colour, a sea of pearly cream petals and powder blues, like blueberry swirled yogurt. The flowers – my flowers, all neat and waiting patiently in their big silver buckets. They look exactly how they did in my head, in every daydream I ever had about doing this. I’ve done it. I have actually done it.
I jam open the door of the storeroom, and quickly, but meticulously, pin flowers to every aisle seat’s edge. I carry table arrangements to the Holyrood room, I buzz and fizz as I place them down, as Martina, the wedding planner, gawps at them, takes photos. This is what I want, I think, as I deliver the bouquets to Candice and the bridesmaids, watch their eyes light up, watch them hold these beautiful puffs of hydrangeas to their stomachs. I want this. A life of colour. Sam’s right. It could all be over in a heartbeat. And I don’t want to wait any more.
Later, I head back into the dark, empty storeroom. On the back of the door, there’s a Post-it note: ‘Proud of you,’ it says. ‘Love, Sam x’