by Eric Asher
“Do you know anyone who is perfect and happy? Look at all those stars that keep having surgery to better themselves when all they are doing is making themselves look ugly. You have to believe in yourself Faith. Once you do that, then you will be confident in your beauty.”
It’s not long after that she falls asleep, so I fish in my bag and take out the book I wanted to read. The Ugly Duckling. I smile when I open it, it reminds me of Auntie Jenny. There is a quotation at the front of the book:-
“It is only with the heart that one can see clearly, for the most essential things are invisible to the eye.” – Antoine De Sainte Exupery
I smile to myself, which must be what Toby, Janie and Mum keep telling me. Maybe they’re not wrong.
When I start reading the book I realise that it is not a children’s book in that it hasn’t got big writing and only a few words, it’s a really big story. It takes a lot longer to read it than I thought, we are soon ready to land. I have felt inspired by the book; I can see what they want me to do. They want me to look inside myself and find the real Faith. Not the one that I think people want me to be.
When we pull up at the house, I really can’t believe it. This is like a fairytale, surely no one lives here, I can’t believe it has lain empty for years. It is a beautiful beach house with a lovely windy lane and garden to the rear, a huge balcony to the front, which then has steps down onto the beach.
“Wow mum this is beautiful. Let’s dump our bags, get changed and walk into the town to see what there is around and do some food shopping.”
“Great idea, I need to ring Dad first though to let him know we have arrived.”
We both go and wander around this lovely house, it is really hot and I am so glad Bridie had persuaded me to buy a swimsuit and sarong. “You just never know when you might need it Faith” she had said. Little did she know I needed it sooner than I thought.
We meet back in the kitchen and I open the cupboards and fridge to see what space we have and when I do I see there is food in the cupboards and the fridge. Someone has stocked up ready for us. “Mum who knew we were coming? Everything we need is right here.”
“It must have been the solicitor I told him we were going to go out this weekend. He must have arranged it. The place is so clean too.”
We leave the house and walk into town along the beach. It is so tranquil and beautiful. We stop at a supermarket and grab a bottle of water, it’s that hot.
When we walk past a small café and decide we are both hungry and go inside. The owner smiles at us and looks down at his paper. He suddenly lifts his head again “Madame Jen you look so well. I can’t believe you came back to us after all these years.” He walks over and hugs mum and then he starts to cry. “We were all so sad when Philip died but we thought you would stay and become one of us again. I understand why you left and I thought I would never see you again.”
He stands back and mum says to him “I’m not Jen, I’m her sister Fionnula. I’m sorry to tell you that Jen died a few weeks ago. We only found out about Philip and this house after she died. I don’t know why she didn’t tell us because it is so beautiful and she would have been so happy here.”
“I’m sorry, but you look so much like her. I am sorry for your loss Madame.”
“Thank you, we are trying to get some information together on Philip. We didn’t know about him, he died before she could tell us. I know they loved each so very much and it saddens me that we didn’t get to meet him or his family. Do you think you might be able to help us?”
He nods and then he goes to the phone and makes a call. “One moment and my wife will be here, she was Jen’s best friend for many years.”
“Can we place an order then please? We are very hungry we just got off the plane.”
“Of course.” He takes our order and starts cooking our breakfasts.
While we are eating his wife comes in and she puts her hand in front of her mouth. “Oh my god you look so much like Jen, it’s uncanny. My name is Alyssa and I can try and help you with your search.”
She sits down and we chat for a few hours. She tells us how happy Philip and Auntie Jenny were and how they had a whirlwind romance, that they both knew from the start that they were destined to be together. She cried when we told her Auntie Jenny had died a few weeks ago, but she was happy that she would be with her Philip again.
Over the next two days we meet lots of people who knew both Auntie Jenny and Philip and we managed to piece together some important information.
I have also looked at myself and I can see the weight dropping off me, I have started getting a tan and with my short haircut I am getting a lot of male attention. I’m flattered but it’s not from the one person I want it to be.
I have checked my phone, because lets face it who can really stay away from their phone for a few days. I have a couple of messages from Janie just asking if I am ok and that she is there if I need her.
I have one from Toby.
“I’m sorry about my message the other day. If you really want to go ahead with the surgery then I want to do it. I can’t stand the thought of another surgeon cutting into your beautiful skin. He might make a mess of it and I could never live with myself if that happened. See you Thursday morning Faith x”
I have made a decision not to go ahead with the surgery on Thursday. Toby is right, it doesn’t need to be done. I just need to believe in myself more and this will make me more confident in my own skin.
I ring A New You’s office when I know he won’t be there. “Hi Toby it’s Faith. I want to cancel my surgery. I’ve decided that you were right, I don’t need to have the surgery done to be beautiful because I already am, it just took me a lot longer to see it than everyone else. Thank you for everything you have done for me. I would have gone through with all of this if I had rung another cosmetic surgeon. So thank you.”
I hang up and turn off my phone; I don’t want to speak to him. He doesn’t want me in his life, he pushed me away.
It’s Wednesday already and we are talking about going home. Mum has a lot of information that she needs to go through to see if we can find Philips family. We decide to fly home on Friday seeing as I cancelled my surgery. I have all the free time in the world. I need to decide what I am going to do with the rest of my life.
We are having dinner at Auntie Jenny’s house with a lot of the neighbours who have been helping us, it is loud and fun. I hear a ringing of a phone. It’s mine. I must have left it turned on by mistake.
I walk over to it and see Toby’s name coming up on the screen. What does he want? He’s already walked away from me, what could he have to say.
If only it just was the ringing of the phone then I would have answered it.
I know it is more than that.
I don’t want to talk to him, not now.
If he was just ringing to say “hi” then I would have answered, but I know that isn’t what he’s ringing for.
I am so confused. I don’t need him to complicate matters even more.
I know what I’m doing and why I’m doing it!
This is what he wanted me to do so why is he ringing?
I slide down to the floor holding the phone in my hand, ignoring it’s incessant ringing. Every time it stops, it starts up again.
I sit there and I can feel the tears starting to roll silently down my cheek and off my face.
What am I going to do?
Why am I going to do it?
Is it the right thing to do? He’s making me doubt myself now. He obviously got my message and now he wants to change my mind. Why?
Two months ago my life wasn’t perfect but I knew what I wanted. I knew whom I wanted and I knew what I would have to do to get him. What I would have to do to have him to myself.
I never expected my life to change so much in such a short space of time.
The ringing eventually stops and I can hear the laughter down stairs. I’m not sure I can join them, I’m emotionally drained. I know I cancell
ed the surgery and I did it for the right reasons but it makes me realise that I won’t have any more excuses to see Toby again. That saddens me because I have missed him so much since Friday night. I finally realised what I want in life and then it gets taken away from me.
I fall asleep and hope that when I wake up everything is going to be all right in the world again, but I have a funny feeling it’s not.
When I wake up and go downstairs mum has already been up for a while and has cleaned up after the party. She is sat on the balcony so I go and join her.
“What happened to you last night Faith? I was worried about you.”
“My phone started ringing and it was Toby, I had left a message cancelling the surgery and he must have been ringing to tell me to go through with it.”
“Did you speak to him?”
“No I didn’t answer the phone. He rang it for about twenty minutes non stop.”
“If you had answered that phone Faith your life might have changed its course once more.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just that you can’t ignore things that are right in front of you. You need to face up to things. Toby obviously cares a lot about you or he wouldn’t have told you that he can’t have anyone else do the surgery after all. That should mean something to you Faith.”
I think about what she has said. I go for a walk on the beach and then sit down just staring out to sea. I think about Janie and Seamus, they are getting on really well and if I want to keep her as a friend then I will definitely be bumping into Toby again. It makes me smile because I know I want to see him. He might not fancy me or want to be with me, but he wants to be my friend and if that means he will be in my life then that is fine.
I take out my phone and ring his number. It goes straight into voicemail. What do I do now? I hang up. I need to think of a message to leave. I thought he would answer it and everything would be ok. I can see I need to work harder than that if I want him in my life one way or another.
I sit thinking about what I need to do when I decide to ring Janie. Her phone goes straight into voicemail. Strange. Unless they are together somewhere and there is no service.
When I first walked on the beach there was no one here and because I have been sitting here for a long time, I can hear the voices of children playing and adults talking. I start to make my way back to Auntie Jenny’s house and I can see a group of three people talking to mum. It must be some of the neighbours from last night. They were really nice and we have had an amazing time. I raise my hand to wave at them and they wave back. One of them starts to walk towards me and I smile.
All of a sudden that person starts to run towards me and it’s only when I have been swept up off my feet that I look at who it is. It’s Toby. “What are you doing here?” I ask stupidly.
“I’m seizing the moment, going after what I want. All those things that I told you to do. Well I’m doing that right now. Faith you are so beautiful, you always have been from the very first moment you walked into my offices. I couldn’t breathe, you are a gorgeous person inside and out. I’ve wanted you from that very moment and I wanted to do everything I could to stop you making a mistake.”
“Toby. You’re here. In Crete. Now”
He chuckles “yes I am. I would go to the moon and back if it meant I could have you in my life.” I am speechless. I am sure I have my mouth open when he is talking to me.
He eventually puts me down on the sand and pulls me in close to him. He smells divine and I can feel that funny feeling in my belly and my heart is speeding up. I look up to him, he really is gorgeous. He slowly lowers his head so that our foreheads are touching. “Faith, I’ve fallen in love with you. I know it’s not been long but true love doesn’t take long to find.”
I know I have shock in my eyes, he smiles and then he kisses me. If I thought our first kiss was amazing then this one is spectacular. He has to hold me close because I feel all wobbly and I might pass out.
When he pulls away he is looking at me to say something. I don’t really know what to say. “Toby you are such a wonderful person, you have given me the courage to do what my heart tells me to do and not what I think people want me to do. I just don’t know how someone who looks like you can want someone who looks like me.”
He lets me go and takes my hand and drags me back to the house, we walk past everyone else and I see Janie and Seamus smile at me. “Where’s the bathroom Faith?” He says gruffly.
“Over there” I say pointing at the bathroom.
He opens the door and pulls me inside and then he closes the door. He turns on the light and I can see the two of us in the mirror. “Look in that mirror Faith and tell me what you see.”
I look really hard “I see a man and a woman. He is gorgeous and she is ….. she is ….. she is beautiful.” I start to cry and he pulls me close.
“You always have been beautiful you just needed to see it yourself. You are my beautiful little swan.” He kisses me again and this time I wrap my arms around his neck and bring him in close.
After a while we separate and he smiles at me “come on I think we need to go and talk to the people outside.”
I laugh. “Oh my god I’m embarrassed, we just walked right past mum.”
“Don’t worry I’ve been talking to your mum for the last hour. She likes me.” He says chuckling and I think I see him blush.
When we walk back outside the three of them are sitting around the table on the balcony drinking wine. “So anything to tell me Faith?” Mum says.
I blush and look at Toby, he winks at me. God I love it when he winks. “Mum, this is Toby. Toby this is Mum. This is who I have been talking about all week.”
We all laugh and over lunch Janie tells me the story of how they ended up here, today. Apparently when she went into work on Monday she heard that I punched Jake in the face for kissing me. Toby had come out to the smoking area when Jake was kissing me and then he turned and left before I punched him. He thought I had made my decision and decided to step away.
Everyone was talking about it and Jake was embarrassed and calling me names. Janie rang Seamus as soon as she heard and he obviously rang Toby. That’s when he said he would do my surgery – he was hoping for a last chance to see me and make me change my mind.
He couldn’t get hold of me and he was going crazy so he got Seamus to take him to Janie’s house for her to find my parents house. When he got there he explained himself to Dad. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation. Dad told them all where we were and the three of them booked flights and came out to see me. Toby didn’t want another day to go by with me thinking he didn’t want me, or I wasn’t good enough for him.
Toby and I decided to stay a few extra days to relax and get to know each other much better. It is during those few days that I realise I fell in love with him the first day I went into the office and that is why he took my breath away. I just never allowed myself to think that I would ever be good enough for him.
We talk about what we are going to do when we get home. We decide that I am going to move in with him, he has a three bedroomed apartment and I can rent out my house. We don’t need a garden when we will have the streets of Dublin and the River Liffey to look at. We also have the house here in Crete if we need to get away from the City.
He tells me that Bev rang him the other day and she told him that she is pregnant. Apparently she has been having IVF and she has to rest as she has had problems in the past. She was very upset when she told him that she wouldn’t be coming back to work and that she hoped he would be ok. He told me that the first thing he thought of was asking me if I would work with him, but more as a partner than an assistant. He could see my administration skills when I was there and knew that I was itching to get my hands on everything.
I tell him that I want nothing more than working with him and living with him. I love him so much, and more than that I love him because he loved me for who I am and not someone I wanted to be
.
Who would have thought that Auntie Jenny’s death could change the course of my life so dramatically?
EPILOGUE
TWO MONTHS LATER
When we came back from Crete we went straight to Toby’s apartment, it was so beautiful. The view is just spectacular, you can see all the way down the River Liffey and the hustle and bustle of the town yet you can get peace and quiet on his rooftop garden. He has this most wonderful spiral staircase, which just winds on and on until you eventually get to the garden. He even has a turret on top, which is where he stores his outside chairs when the weather is bad. I love it so much.
We then drove to mum and dads because they had offered to cook dinner. They loved Toby especially after everything he went through to tell me how much he loved me. I couldn’t stop looking at him and thinking I can’t believe he’s mine.
I have been working for him for nearly two months now and I have started to put my stamp on his office. I have changed the reception area to make it more welcoming and added a few little extras that he would never have thought of. One of those things is a beautiful mirror above the fake fireplace that we had built. It is very ornate gold, but in the carvings around the mirror are small little ducklings, which turn into swans by the time you follow them all around the mirror. Toby had it made especially for me.
Last weekend Toby took me out to a tattoo shop, I’ve always wanted one but didn’t think that people like me had them. He has a few and his friend did mine. He put a small little duckling on the curve at the bottom of my back and then he put a swan up by my hairline. I know what it means and it is so beautiful. It was sore and then it had to heal but tonight we are going out with Janie and Seamus and I am going to show it off. No one else has seen it except Toby and Mum.
I met with Bridie last weekend just to get some new clothes. She couldn’t believe how much I had changed since our first meeting. I have lost nearly two stone and am now a size 12, I still have curves and who would have known that my boobs would have grown when I lost a bit of weight. Not me anyway. She loves my new hairstyle and said that some of the clothes I had wouldn’t suit my hairstyle so we changed my style once again.
