Summer in the City: The perfect feel-good summer romance

by Emma Jackson

  I went to her door and knocked on it, even though it was still open. She was going through her handbag and looked up with her eyebrow raised. ‘Good morning, Stephen. You’re the eager beaver for my attention this morning, aren’t you? Missed me?’

  ‘I’ve got something important to talk to you about, but it won’t take long. Have you got five minutes?’ This was nerve-racking but I had Nick’s voice in my head, Noelle’s words from when we discussed this, and I knew it had to be done. I couldn’t work until the end of the summer with the situation like this. Whether it was partly my imagination or me making a big deal of something that was small, I needed to deal with it.

  ‘I’m always available for a quickie for you, Sir Stephen.’ She smiled and tossed her hair. ‘Close the door over, will you?’

  ‘I’d actually prefer to keep it open, but shall we sit over at your table?’ I didn’t wait for her but went over to the corner of the room by the windows, even though it hardly helped with my nerves.

  She pulled up the chair opposite me, her expression more serious now I’d made my strange request. ‘What’s this about?’

  All the words I’d just had in my head fled. It didn’t help me a great deal being at the window. I could back out of this and play it safe, let her know about the big trades I’d pulled off last week, and about arranging the meeting with that final client…but then I remembered what she’d said about making it a dinner meeting and I could just imagine her cornering me in a hotel or dragging me into her town car. This had to stop.

  ‘I’d like you to stop making inappropriate comments please, Georgina.’

  ‘Inappropriate…?’

  ‘Like the one you just made about a quickie.’

  ‘A turn of phrase, Stephen. What are you suggesting?’

  ‘Some of your turns of phrase make me uncomfortable.’

  ‘You’re uncomfortable with banter? That seems so odd considering what I’ve heard about your antics back in London.’ She laughed.

  ‘Whatever I do in my personal life has nothing to do with the office. And banter is fine. But suggestive comments are not. Nor is any…touching.’ I swallowed. Why did I feel like such a fool doing this? Social conditioning, I supposed. I needed to push on. ‘You’re my boss, Georgina, and I don’t want there to be any confusion. I’m not interested in anything but a professional relationship with you.’

  She stared at me. ‘Of course our relationship is professional and nothing more than that.’

  ‘Then there’s no problem and I’m looking forward to working with you for the rest of the summer.’

  She recovered herself and sent me a cool smile. ‘If that’s all then?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  I went back to my desk and didn’t hear a word from her for the rest of the day that wasn’t utterly professional and distant, but I could deal with an icy manner.

  I wanted to tell Noelle I’d dealt with it like she advised and find out if she’d dealt with her issue with her neighbour too, but I couldn’t call her up and find out. Because whether or not I was coming to believe I wasn’t as bad as my father, she saw me as a womaniser still.

  When I got home at the end of the day, there was a Jiffy bag sitting in my pigeonhole. Just the sight of another large padded envelope like that with a New York address on it was enough to give me the shivers. Dear God, please don’t let it be more secrets revealed, another batch of birthday cards or family photos from a bunch of relatives I never knew existed.

  I slid it out and hefted it in my arm. It was heavy. If it was birthday cards there were more there than the number of birthdays I’d actually had. But I was fairly certain I recognised the handwriting, round and neat and large, and I felt a leap of hope in my chest.

  I took it straight over to the table when I got into my apartment and pulled out the huge stack of A4 pages with print on one side held together by an elastic band. On top of that was a letter.

  Dear Stephen

  We are a pair of idiots.

  I blinked. That was a hell of an opening line.

  In this letter I will explain why. I’ll explain why I am an idiot first and then I’ll tell you why you’re an idiot, and then I’m going to conclude with a suggestion for how we can de-idiotise ourselves.

  This was going to need a beer. I grabbed one from my kitchen and then sat at the table.

  I’m an idiot

  Because I keep thinking I can take a look at a person and get them all figured out. From the start you confused me though, and I’ve been desperate to try and fit you in one of my stupid boxes so that I wouldn’t get hurt. You are not a Type A or a Type B. You do not pass my dating quiz with flying colours. In fact, you flunk it fairly spectacularly, but I’ve learnt that it doesn’t mean you are a waste of time. The quiz is what is a waste of time.

  I’m sorry I did that to you. I’m sorry I spent so much time fighting my feelings for you and not being honest about what I wanted from you. And I’m sorry I told you the worst thing I could possibly tell you when you were reeling and having a shitty time and feeling awful. I was the selfish one.

  Here’s why you’re an idiot:

  You found the character worksheet about James and assumed it was you, didn’t you? I know that I’ve said things about how I’ve judged you that would have backed up that assumption. (See above for my errors on that front.) But here is the thing. You have to stop believing that rubbish about yourself first. Some people are going to think you’re an awful human being – not everyone can like us – and some people are going to think you’re great. But it won’t matter either way if you don’t like yourself. And there is so much about you that there is to like. You are not anything like my character James or your father and you need to stop telling yourself that. You are Cartwright, Stephen Cartwright, and you’re a pretty damn fantastic human being in my opinion.

  The De-idiotising Plan

  1) Read through the passages marked in blue in my manuscript.

  When I realised that you had seen the character profile for James, I thought about going through the whole manuscript and highlighting where he appears to prove to you that he was just a character and one who does a lot of very awful stuff that you would never do. And then I noticed as I was reading that you were actually in my novel and I picked up my pink highlighter too.

  2) Read through the passages marked in pink in my manuscript

  I was struggling so hard to write this novel because of the love story. How could I understand a relationship and get my two main characters, Charmaine and Kit, together when I understood nothing about functioning relationships? I wanted to help you search for your dad this summer because I thought it would help with my mystery plot – and it did* – but the main thing it helped me with was the relationship development.

  If you inspired anyone in my novel, it’s Kit. He’s always been the image of a dependable, perfect boyfriend that Charmaine didn’t realise was under her nose. But as I wrote the changes in this story and we spent more time together, Kit became so much more, their relationship became so much more, because I realised he didn’t need to be perfect – he just needed to be the right balance for her. Supportive when she needed it. Challenging when she needed that too. Being with you taught me that. Kit is the opposite of James.

  *please don’t sue me, I can’t afford it

  3) Burn the lists

  Not all of them! Let’s not get carried away. But the ones where I try and contain a real human being in a checklist, I swear I won’t ever do that again, on paper or in my head. There are some questions for which the answers are deal-breakers. I don’t think I’m wrong about that but what I’ve learnt as I’ve spent this summer with you, is that the gray areas are just as important as the black and white answers. What is the point of having a relationship with someone who agrees with you entirely? There’s no growth there. Nothing to communicate about. In that way life is like fiction, because without conflict, it’s simply not interesting. And we’ve had plenty of conflict so the las
t thing I’d like to do is:

  4) Try again

  Yours,

  Noelle

  PS. If for any reason you don’t want to take me up on my de-idiotising plan, please shred this manuscript. Or burn it. You can imagine it’s one of my Horcruxes.

  My eyes darted over the page, picking out bits of information, trying to make sense of what the letter was telling me.

  My heart was racing even though all I was doing was sitting at my table. She thought we were both idiots. She thought I was a pretty damn fantastic human being?

  And she wanted to try again.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I made myself busy through the first couple of days of the week writing blog posts and catching up on social media activity to promote my latest release, which I’d all but forgotten about in the frenzy of trying to write Book 8.

  My apartment was actually clean and tidy, I was able to sit down and read the massive pile of novels I’d accumulated over the last couple of months. Except I couldn’t concentrate at all for wondering about what Stephen had thought of my letter. Was he finally convinced that I didn’t think he was a selfish womaniser like his dad, or had I rambled too much and he was still so angry he’d dumped my book in his wastepaper basket and set fire to it?

  I was becoming spectacularly proficient at diving for my cell phone whenever it rang. If they ever made it an Olympic sport, I was confident I would win gold because the damn thing only ever seemed to light up when I was ten feet away from it.

  When it did start ringing on Wednesday evening I dumped the jar of peanut butter I was scraping the dregs out of in the kitchen and did a belly slide across my counter to grab it.

  But it was only Lucy asking me to babysit for her tomorrow afternoon, which I was more than happy to do for her. I slept through most of Thursday morning because it felt easier to just shut down for a while. I would stop acting like a basket case soon I was sure but for now, it was sleep and then go babysit. One day at a time. I had to store up my energy anyhow to deal with any questions my family might have about Stephen.

  I braided my hair in two plaits, and put on my glasses because my eyes were sore from all the screen work I’d done recently – oh, okay, it was the crying too – and a pair of dungarees with my favourite T-shirt underneath. That was the wonderful thing about going to see family: they didn’t care if you wanted to revert to your teenage self for the sake of comfort. I was only babysitting, and I knew little Brigid wouldn’t mind. I was looking forward to the snuggles in fact.

  Even though the last time I’d seen her I’d been with Stephen.

  There were a few wisps of white cloud in the cornflower blue sky and the hectic heat of the summer had eased off a couple degrees. Lucy answered her door with Brigid in a sling over her chest. She wasn’t very dressed up for going out on a date, but then maybe she’d got me over early so we could have a chat.

  ‘Don’t come in.’ She blocked me from coming in the door. ‘We need to pop over to Mom and Dad’s first.’

  ‘Oh, right, okay.’ I went back down the steps to her porch. ‘Did you leave something over there? I can go grab it for you.’

  ‘That’s kind, honey, but I’ll walk with you. Nice to get out of the four walls y’know.’ She joined me, straightening a sun hat over Brigid’s little head, resting on her chest.

  ‘You are going out tonight. That’s why I’m here remember?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ She laughed lightly. ‘Of course. Still, it’s a nice day and I’ll get a chance to see Mom.’

  We walked around the block to my parents’ place in suspicious quiet. Being quiet in and of itself wasn’t the suspicious thing but the way she was biting her lip and avoiding eye contact was.

  When we got to our parents’, the place was noisy as usual. Most of the family were there, the twins playing a computer game in the den, Mom in the kitchen, Dad in his office and Daisy in the back garden playing soccer against the fence. As soon as they realised we’d arrived, they all congregated around me to say hi, instead of calling out or ignoring me as was normally the case.

  ‘Okay what’s going on? Is this an intervention or something?’ Had Tim made me sound like a complete basket case? ‘I’m okay, I just haven’t been in touch so much for the last couple of weeks because of finishing off my novel.’

  ‘Is that really all it was?’ Mom asked, putting her hands on my shoulders and looking at me closely.

  ‘Bel.’ My dad shook his head his head at her and she dropped her hands and forced a smile.

  ‘There’s something upstairs for you, in your old bedroom,’ she told me.

  ‘Daisy’s room,’ Daisy corrected her, her ball tucked under her arm.

  ‘Yes, up in Daisy’s room on your old desk—’

  ‘Daisy’s—’

  ‘Yes, Daisy, she knows,’ Lucy interrupted. ‘Run on up and fetch it, Noelle.’

  ‘Okay…’ I went upstairs, thoroughly unnerved by the way they all stood down there in the hall watching me. What had they found? Some of my old fan fiction from my hormonal teenager days? That would be fairly worrying for them. I’d had a thing about one of my history teachers and written some pretty lurid scenes involving him in the school library that might’ve caused them concern. If they thought they were based on real life Dad would be wondering if he needed to get his gun out and pay a visit to Mr Swift with a warrant.

  Daisy’s room smelt worse than my brother’s. Sweaty sports shoes and dirty team kits lay around on the floor in heaps. I nudged them out of the way with my toes and went to open the window to get some air in.

  My old desk didn’t look like it got much use in there, but on top was my massive white sun hat…

  But no, that couldn’t be right. My sun hat had ended up in the Hudson when I pushed Stephen in accidentally. No. Worse. It had been in his boss’s cabin when she was trying to take advantage of him. Either way it had been ruined and was not the pristine version sitting on the desk. I picked it up and underneath was a stack of A4 sheets.

  My lungs spasmed. My manuscript. What was it doing here? What did this mean? He’d read it but didn’t want to burn it or shred it, so he left it with my parents rather than seeing or speaking to me directly?

  But what was the hat about? Just his way of repaying what he felt was owed?

  Whatever the answers, my family obviously knew things had been going on and must’ve had some contact with Stephen.

  Still holding the hat, I headed back out to the stairs, hurrying down them until I saw who was in the hallway by the front door and the shock stopped me in my tracks.

  My family had disappeared and in their place was Stephen.

  He stood by the front door in a white shirt, open wide at the collar, the picture of confidence and ease until his dark eyes met mine.

  ‘Stephen, you’re here,’ my voice came out loud and high-pitched.

  ‘Way to state the obvi – ooff.’

  I guessed my family hadn’t exactly disappeared. Teddy’s voice had come from behind the closed doors to the den, cut off by what sounded like a firmly placed elbow.

  ‘Shh,’ Lucy hissed.

  ‘All of you, out the back,’ Mom muttered.

  There was lots of shuffling and footsteps and I looked back at Stephen, whose nose was wrinkled in a cute, nervous expression, like he was trying not to laugh.

  ‘I think we’re alone now,’ he said. I’d missed his voice, so smooth and low.

  I walked slowly down the rest of the stairs, stopping two steps from the bottom when he came to meet me, so I could look down on him slightly.

  ‘You didn’t burn it.’

  ‘How could I burn it? I know how much of yourself you put into it.’ His words gave me another lift of hope. He was here and he didn’t burn it. But that didn’t mean he wanted us to try again.

  ‘You understand now, that I never wrote that character profile about you? I don’t see you like that. I never put real people in my books. I mean, you are in it, like I said in the letter, but
not really. Does that make sense?’

  ‘I think I understand.’ He laughed softly and put his hand to the newel post, closer to me but not touching. ‘Even if I am just a heartless banker, not a creative genius.’

  ‘You’re not heartless.’ I reached out and put my hand over his on the post, squeezing hard.

  ‘No. I know I’m not.’ He moved up onto the bottom step of the stairs, bringing us closer, moving his hand from the post to my wrist and pressing my hand against his chest where his heart beat strong and fast beneath my palm.

  It was too much, having him here, having him so close, saying things that were making me dare to dream again. I was trembling despite the hot patch of sunshine we were bathed in from the windows alongside the front door.

  ‘Does that mean you don’t think I’m a genius?’ I joked, trying to breathe, trying to keep myself together and not throw myself into his arms as though his turning up at my parents’ like this made it a foregone conclusion that we were going to get back together.

  ‘No.’ His eyes twinkled and skimmed over my face.

  ‘Does that mean—’

  ‘Noelle. I missed you and I’m sorry.’ He grazed his teeth over his bottom lip. ‘You were right – I was so messed up by everything after seeing my father that night I didn’t give you a chance to explain and I was convinced that we were doomed anyway; what was the point in trying to reconcile?’

  ‘You…don’t still feel that way?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ve had a lot to think about and I’ve realised a couple of things. I am like my dad—’ He pressed his finger softly to my lips as I made to object. ‘But not because I’m genetically incapable of committing. It’s because I’ve been giving myself that as an excuse to avoid relationships. I’ve been scared of hurting people but mainly, selfishly, I’ve been scared of getting hurt myself. Of people getting close enough to see that I’m…lacking somehow and then leaving me. Like he did.’ He cleared his throat and glanced over at the doors my family had been hiding behind. ‘God, I hope your family aren’t still there, listening to this. It’s going to be really awkward when I see them again…if I see them again?’ He lifted his eyebrows hopefully at me.