Highland Fling

by Emma Baird

  “Th-th-thing is,” I say, “I want to take this little one with me. I lo-lo-love her so much.”

  “Get a grip,” Katya says, though she sticks a hand out to stroke Mena too, her little head butting against her fingers. “There’ll be other lovely cats. Why don’t you go for somewhere more exotic next time? I found plenty of cat owners in Las Vegas looking for sitters when I checked.”

  That’s what Kirsty promised. She owes me a glowing reference, that’s for sure. When Jack goes back to her, she’ll be so pleased with herself she’ll write anything. Instead of Las Vegas, perhaps I can go to Los Angeles. That will please Melissa, seeing as that is where Blissful Beauty has its official headquarters. I want to be millions of miles away from the perfect couple, and if I never to go on social media or watch The One Show ever again just in case, I can avoid any accidental sightings.

  In the end, we both fall asleep early, the food, exercise and fresh air kicking in. My dreams are a terrible mash-up of Jack dressed as Jamie Fraser appearing and disappearing behind the walls of Doune Castle, a blonde woman who giggles too much and hammers that smash through the castle walls while a white Highland terrier barks his head off.

  The sunlight streaming in on Sunday morning wakes us, the smell of toast and bacon drifting upstairs.

  “I don’t s’pose any of that is for us,” Katya says, throwing back the duvet and swinging her legs out of bed.

  “Nope,” I say, “but worth a try.”

  Up and dressed, we edge our way to the kitchen just in case Ryan has booby-trapped the stairs. To my astonishment, Kirsty perches on one of the high chairs around the kitchen island, her chin in her hands, a move that looks too practised, all the better to display her heart-shaped face to advantage. Ryan moves behind her in the kitchen, making scrambled eggs once more and grilling bacon. He doesn’t bother looking around. Kirsty lets out that (annoying) tinkly laugh as soon as she sees us.

  “Goodness me! I’ve no idea why I’m so bright and fresh this morning. And I had hardly any sleep last night! How was your night?” she says, the words directed at me.

  “Brilliant,” I say. “Catching up with my best friend.”

  At that, her eyes narrow. “Oh? Didn’t you and Ryan...?”

  Ryan slams the frying pan down on the chopping board.

  “No,” I say, careful to make my voice cheerful. “Kayleigh wasn’t the first, so yes, Kirsty, I allow everyone one mistake. I draw the line at six though.”

  The number was a wild guess, but when Ryan doesn’t deny the figure, I realise I’ve hit the spot. Katya starts up about lousy cheating gits once more, but Kirsty says we’ll all feel better after tea.

  “I’m taking Ryan back to the airport this morning,” she says. “I promise you he’s a changed man, Gaby. Who could fail to be thrilled by a guy who does something as romantic as that amazing post on Facebook? Everyone on my website swooned at that. You must have a heart of stone!”

  She giggles again when she says that and Katya mimes vomiting while Ryan glares at her.

  “Well,” Kirsty slides off the seat and pats me on the back. “Think carefully, Gaby. Ryan’s your best opportunity. You should give it a week, hmm? That isn’t much for a guy to ask after ten years, is it?”

  I nod automatically, stopping the moment Katya digs me hard in the ribs. It’s a huge relief to wave them off in Kirsty’s good as brand new BMW half an hour later, Kirsty telling us she needs to return to London for talks with her agent about the personal project she’s working on and the latest super-exciting development but she’ll be back next weekend. My heart sinks further. That will be the development where she’s able to add a personal story to the back of her ruddy How to Hook a Commitment-Phobe book, complete with a sickly picture of her and Jack. Urgh.

  “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” Katya says as we watch the car drive off. “I’m chucking that ghostwriting job. The book’s nowhere near finished because she’s so useless so I haven’t written too much to have to keep going with it. I’ve also decided I’m going to stay the week as I want to see how the Highland Games turn out. How does that sound?”

  I hug her. “It sounds brilliant.”

  CHAPTER 24

  A week later, the village transforms in front of us. Lochalshie’s villagers have focussed their efforts on wishing for sunshine or at least a dry day. Whatever they did, and I suspect it meant a deal with the Devil, it has worked and the day of the Highland Games dawns bright and sunny.

  We are up almost before the sun rises as there is so much to do. Katya comes with me to meet Dexter, desperate to clap eyes on the man she’s done so much writing for. Or rather, wrote the first article, changed it, rewrote it, revised it once more and then returned to her original version, which he finally declared himself happy with. “I want to meet this idiot,” she mutters darkly, “so I can see what a fool looks like. And persuade you not to give his offer any headroom. I’m here to save you from yourself.” Katya is still not convinced I am not giving serious consideration to Ryan’s offer either.

  Already, the village is filling up. When we open the gate to Kirsty’s house, cars queue up the whole road heading for the car park, and the games don’t start for another four hours. Jamal waves at us both from across the street where he is busy putting out baskets with sun hats and rain ponchos (one must cover all the bases in Scotland). The Blissful Beauty team have given him an end of aisle make-up display, especially for the occasion. As he’d read up on how much Boots charges for an end of aisle display, Jamal named a fat fee when the company approached. He gives us a cheery grin, no doubt expecting a flood of customers. People pack the streets too. Katya and I have to dodge around hundreds of young women, all peering at their phones and talking about where will be the best place to park themselves when Caitlin makes her appearance. Stewart stands at the shores of the loch and yells at Scottie who has tangled himself up around the legs of one woman.

  “OMG!” Another of them exclaims, stopping dead in front of Katya and I. “That’s Jamie Fraser! Luce, let’s get a selfie with him!”

  My head jerks instinctively in the direction they run off. I have only seen him in passing since the car park incident last week, though my mind has filled in plenty of torturous imaginations since. Be still my heart, I mutter to myself to no avail. It throbs double-time, taken aback by how glorious he looks today. Katya lets out a low whistle I hope he doesn’t hear. Today, as he will be manning a stall advertising the Outlander tours, Jack has dressed the part in an authentic 18th-century kilt. They are drab compared to the bright greens, reds and golds you see in modern tartan, but the simplicity of it highlights his beauty I decide. Brown tones drive the eyes upward and show off the gold glints of his hair. You focus on his face and its exquisite, sharp planes and those big brown eyes. And the knees are on show, the bit of his body I’m strangely obsessed with. We watch as Luce and her friend screech to a halt in front of him.

  “Can we get a picture with you?” the first one asks, and he rolls his eyes and agrees. Over the tops of their heads, he catches my eye and shakes his head. I guess he knew this was bound to happen today, but it doesn’t mean he’s comfortable with it. A second later and he smiles at the phone the girls hold up. Katya clutches my arm. “Dear heaven,” she breathes. “He’s lethal.”

  I wave at him as we pass, mouthing the words ‘good luck!’ both for the Highland Games when he will contest the caber toss, and for the tours. Since I explained to him his failure to publish the website I made for him, it’s now live and the bookings have flooded in. Today will be the icing on the cake. Thousands of people will walk past a stall manned by someone who looks like Sam Heughan. Or his younger brother as Jack keeps reminding me, promising them tours of places mentioned in the books or that turn up in the TV series. Success guaranteed. He doesn’t need my good luck, but I pass it on anyway and hope it makes him think of me fondly.

  Dexter is in residence in the Lochside Welcome where the launch is to take place—sort of. His Glaswegian exp
erience had convinced him of the wisdom of not putting your trust in the British weather. He booked the hotel and decided Caitlin could launch her skin care and make-up brand there. If the skies opened on the day, at least she would be warm and dry.

  The hotel is unrecognisable. The Blissful Beauty’s branding people arrived last night and littered the company’s colours and logos everywhere. They have replaced the hotel sign with a Blissful Beauty one, and a long pink and silver carpet stretches out the front. in the grounds, projectors beam Caitlin’s face and the Blissful Beauty logo on the walls of the hotel. Organised chaos reigns inside. I wave at Ashley, who stands at the stairs, a glazed look on his face as people bustle about him, lugging furniture and boxes, and shouting orders at each other. Every optic at the bar offers pink gin to match Blissful Beauty’s company colours, and pop-ups and decals decorate the whole area. The Blissful Beauty people have even changed the lighting, pink bulbs sending out a soft glow.

  Dexter stands in the middle of the room, armed with a clipboard. When he spots us, he signals us over, and I introduce Katya. The next bit astonishes me so much, I’m forced to question everything I thought I knew about life, my best friend and the universe.

  “Katya,” Dexter says, his tones reverential. “So awesome to meet you at last.”

  “Dexter,” she says, her tone an exact match for his. “Ditto.”

  I search the words for any trace of sarcasm and find none. They regard each other solemnly, and I work out that Dexter’s original offer of a date post event has nose-dived to the ground, crashed and burned. The hand-shaking continues far longer than it should, two people reluctant to stop their contact with each other. I wonder afresh at my nanna’s insight—there’s a lid for every pot. Too right, nanna, I think. It’s just that sometimes you’d never put a particular lid with a particular pot. I remind myself of Katya’s list of ‘dont’s’ for boyfriends. Dexter probably ticked every one of those boxes, but it looks as if she is about to abandon that list.

  When they eventually drop hands, Dexter turns to me. “The website’s live, Gaby. We launched it this morning, and it crashed after an hour!”

  In theory, this is a bad thing. The back room stuff on a website shouldn’t be so feeble a flood of traffic causes it to meltdown. But these days, a website crash is a badge of honour. Take Meghan Markle, for instance. The Markle Sparkle means anything she’s worn in the last year from a relatively unknown designer has caused websites to blow up the world over. It says something about your company if you implode, thanks to too many people typing its name into Google. I’m in no doubt that behind-the-scenes tech bods are working their socks off to get that website live again. And meanwhile Dexter can put messages on Blissful Beauty’s social media accounts saying, “Sorry everyone! We’re experiencing so much traffic at the moment, our website can’t cope! We’ll have it back up and running as soon as. In the meantime why not sign up for our mailing list, so you don’t miss out?”

  “Good-o!” I say. “When’s Caitlin arriving?”

  Dexter tears his eyes from Katya, the move reluctant. He holds his wrist up to check his Apple watch. “Two minutes’ time. We cleared the school football field for her helicopter. Do you wanna come and meet her?”

  It’s a question addressed to both of us in theory when it means just Katya. Much as I love my best friend and want to encourage this burgeoning relationship, the opportunity to meet one of the biggest megastars in the world is too tempting to resist.

  “Yes!” I say, “but you two go ahead of me. I want a quick word with Ashley.”

  I watch them skip out of the room, heads tipped towards each other. I count to thirty and follow them, arriving at the football field as the chopper descends. It too is decorated in pink and silver, a contrast to the two pilots who wear the universal uniform of pilots the world over—shirt, trousers, peaked hat, aviator glasses and stony faces. The blades slowly whirl to a halt, and the door opens. Out jumps the tiniest woman in the world. I’m serious. It’s common knowledge that celebrities are always much shorter and thinner in real life than they appear on the screen, but Caitlin must be the universe’s smallest person. She bounds over to us, extending a hand.

  “Hey! I’m Caitlin,” she says and flings her arms around first Dexter, then me and then Katya. Her being so small her arms only come round our waists. I was ready to hate her, but the gesture makes me melt. Then she cements my like for her forever.

  “Dexie, you beautiful man you, I need to pee like nothing else. For the love of everything holy, please get me to a toilet before all this liquid explodes out of me.”

  We hurry her on to the Lochside Welcome, her promising us she’s just about desperate enough to squat on the street and let it all out. She exclaims about the beauty of the place and expresses huge disappointment Dexter decided against the thing where a speed boat soared into the loch, did a fancy double turn and deposited Caitlin to walk down the pier. The crowds of people gathered in the streets see us, and there’s a collective gasp.

  “It’s HER!” And they surge forward. Dexter must have expected this and security guards jump into place funnelling us a tunnel to walk through while Caitlin waves and blows kisses to her fans. Inside the hotel, Ashley hurries to meet her, grasping her tiny hands in his massive ones, having to bend in half to do so as she reaches his knees.

  “This counts as the most fantastic day of my life,” he says, tears in his eyes. “Caitlin’s Cool Life is the best thing on TV. It’s a dream come true to meet you.”

  Caitlin kisses his hands, and he sways, overcome. I worry he might faint. “Ashley,” she says. “I gotta pee. Where are your toilets?”

  He points her toward the toilet and watches her run off. “I’ll need to put a sign up,” he tells us. “‘Caitlin used this toilet’ Imagine the crowds that’ll attract.”

  Caitlin rejoins us minutes later, her expression much calmer. “Boy,” she says. “You can’t beat a good horse pee, is there? It’s better than anything, better than s—”

  “Shall I run through the programme for today,” Dexter interrupts. “And your speech?”

  They move off, though I don’t miss the look he shoots Katya, which I interpret as ‘I’ll hook up with you later if that is okay’. I’m not facing my friend so I can’t see what she returns it with. but I’m willing to bet it was agreement. “Well,” I say, “I’m gob-smacked. I would never, in a million, billion years, have put you with Dexter. You said he was a workaholic and too critical.”

  Katya purses her lips. “Yes, well. Perhaps I’ve changed my mind...”

  She blushes, which astonishes me once more. In all the years I’ve known my best friend, I’ve never seen her embarrassed. Mainly because she leaves making a fool of oneself to me, and secondly because she is an expert at styling anything out. It’s a day for mind-blowing revelations.

  I suggest we head to the park and offer our services helping set up the games. Outside, we move against the tide. Everyone else is heading to the Lochside Welcome, and I cross my fingers the games will get enough attention. In the park, the hive of activity makes the Lochside Welcome look tame. People dart here and there, putting up signs, fencing off areas for stalls and stages and cart about strange bits of kit I assume are for the Highland Games bit. The re-enactment of the Battle of Stirling Bridge appears to have started early as groups of kids wearing fake armour bash each other with plastic swords.

  Jolene, armed with a clipboard, waves at me, and we ask her what she wants us to do. She points at a small purple tent at the far side of the field. “Can you help Psychic Josie set up?”

  “Psychic Josie?” Katya asks as we head over to her tent. “Yes,” I say. “She communes with the dead to make predictions about your love life. Wildly successful by all accounts.”

  “What absolute tosh,” Katya says, just as I decide I’m going to ask Psychic Josie if Ryan is telling the truth and if she thinks I should give it another try. Or, and my mind is too afraid to even admit it to myself, I should concentra
te my questions on some-some-some-one else.

  The tent’s interior is as dark as the outer, the entry covered by old-fashioned, brightly coloured door beads that clink together as we enter. An oil distiller burns, wafting out jasmine, lavender and eucalyptus. There’s a table against the back, and a woman sits behind it, her face half hidden by a veil that covers her mouth and nose, and a Paisley-patterned scarf on her head. She looks familiar, and I put it down to having seen her on social media somewhere advertising her seminars.

  “I sense a non-believer,” she says, and Katya bristles beside me.

  “Too right, but if daft gullible people want to hand over money for your advice who am I to stand in their way? What do you need doing?”

  The veil covers her mouth, but I sense Psychic Josie smile. She points towards boxes. “If you could put the signs up outside, that would be great. And then set up the money box and float. D’ye want me to predict how you and Dexter will work out, love?”

  Katya’s mouth tightens. She grabs one of the boxes and flounces out. I’m still trying to figure out Psychic Josie’s accent. It’s part Eastern European, part Scottish. I guess she’s a Romanian who has lived here most of her life.

  “Shall I do you?” she says to me. “A freebie? The air trembles with the incredible energy coming off you! And the spirits hover, desperate to intervene and stop you making a mistake.”

  Ooh. “Okay then,” I sit down opposite her and she takes my hand, turning it over, so it’s palm up.

  “Dinnae make mistakes with your love life,” she says. I screw my face up. Is that it? I’m not the one claiming psychic powers here, but don’t make mistakes with boyfriends is like the advice they give you in horoscopes—far too general to be useful. It could apply to anyone.

  “Anything else?” I say, glad I didn’t pay for this crap.

  “I sense questions. Ask me, and I’ll channel them through the spirits. The spirits are never wrong, ye know.”