by Haley Hill
She shrugged her shoulders and then grabbed another onion ring.
‘But you’re healed. You’re happy. Aren’t you?’ she said.
I reached for the ketchup and squeezed an enormous blob onto my plate.
‘Just because I can live without him, doesn’t mean I want to.’ I replied.
Mandi shoved the onion ring into her mouth, chewed for a bit and then swallowed.
‘You’ll find the answers Ellie. You always do.’
I shrugged my shoulders and took another sip of wine. ‘And you? Do you still think Aristotle was right about the one soul, two bodies thing?’
She shook her head while mumbling something about Celine Dion. ‘Anyway,’ she added, ‘in Steve’s case, it was more like one soul inhabiting the entire female population.’
I smirked. ‘So what do you think now?’
She took a deep breath and then looked me directly in the eye. ‘Celine was wrong. There’s no soulmate, no one special person for everyone. Love is what you make it. It isn’t a feeling, or even a need.’ She looked down and swivelled her engagement ring around on her finger. ‘It’s a choice.’
An onion ring slipped from my grasp and sank into the ketchup. I pulled it out and started dabbing it with my napkin. Mandi watched for a moment and then her gaze drifted behind me. Suddenly, her eyes widened, she jumped off her seat and ducked down under the table.
‘Quick. Get down,’ she said, tugging my arm.
I dropped down next to her and we peered over the tabletop.
‘Over there. Look.’ she whispered, negating the subtlety of her tone with extravagant pointing.
A tall dark-haired man wearing white linen sauntered along the other side of the concourse. I noticed his shirt was unbuttoned, exposing a sculpted waxed chest.
‘Is that Mr Mills and Boon?’ I whispered to Mandi.
I turned to her to see her head nodding with the fervour of a pneumatic drill. When I looked back at Mr Mills and Boon, I noticed beside him, behind a curtain of dark hair was a tall slim girl. She had her hand tucked into his back pocket. They were wearing matching outfits. I couldn’t see her face but I recognised something about the way she walked. It reminded me somewhat of a military commander.
‘That’s not Mia is it?’ I said to Mandi.
Mandi nodded, even faster this time, to the point where I was concerned she might actually bore a hole in the concrete floor.
‘Looks like they’ve been on a mini-break,’ I said, admiring their stylish “his and hers” overnight bags.
Once Mr and Mrs Mills and Boon had exited the airport in the throws of a climactic snog, Mandi turned to me, her mouth twitching at the sides. My smile broke first, and then hers, and in less time than it would take us to attempt a Miastyle eye-roll, we both collapsed into a fit of giggles.
‘What on earth are you two doing?’
We looked up to see Victoria, peering down at us, her eyes narrowed, her mouth downturned.
Mandi and I jumped up and smoothed down our clothes.
‘I thought you’d already left,’ I said, feeling like a teenager who’d been caught smoking behind the bike sheds.
Victoria looked us up and down, glanced at the onion rings and then scrunched up her face.
‘If we’re going to be working together, then I’ll expect more professionalism than this,’ she said.
‘Working together?’ Mandi asked, looking startled.
‘I just bumped into Mia. She told me she’s left.’ Victoria swished her ponytail and her eyes narrowed further. ‘So you need a new matchmaker then, don’t you?’ She leaned forward and picked a piece of batter off my top, then flicked it onto the floor. ‘Obviously I’m staggeringly overqualified but now you’ve got a Venture Capitalist involved, it’s doubtful you’ll be able to manage without me.’
Mandi’s jaw dropped. Mine quickly followed.
‘What?’ I asked.
Victoria sniffed, ‘Mia just told me. She said some investor called her while she was away. Apparently he wants to take your agency international.’
I stepped back, turned to Mandi, then back to Victoria.
Victoria flicked her hand as though offers of global expansion were a routine occurrence. ‘She said she’d email you the details later.’
I stood still for a moment, wondering if the onion rings might have been laced with narcotics. At what point did tapping people on the shoulder and asking them if they were single become a business model viable enough for overseas replication? Immediately I imagined international variants of Mia and Mandi forcibly pairing couples in a myriad of locations across the globe.
Victoria tapped me on the chin. ‘Close your mouth. You look like a simpleton.’
I closed it, though Victoria’s reciprocal expression implied the simpleton look was still very much present.
‘Come along then. Let’s get going,’ she said, grabbing Mandi’s hand and mine before dragging us out of the bar. ‘Leave your baggage. Mike can deal with it. We’ve got work to do.’
‘Work? Now?’ I asked, contemplating throwing myself to the ground and screaming “terrorist”. All I wanted to do was go home, open a bottle of wine and start planning my future as a universally acclaimed love guru.
Eyes down and striding forwards, she dragged us out through the airport exit and into the biting morning air. Just as she was about to haul us into the path of an oncoming taxi, I stopped and pulled her back.
‘Victoria. What are you doing?’
‘I want to go home. I’m tired.’ Mandi said, looking as though she we about to stamp her feet.
‘Oh stop whining, the both of you,’ she said. ‘I’m a matchmaker now and I have an extremely important match to make. Wait here.’
Victoria took a few steps towards the taxi, which had just pulled up in front of us. Through the people milling around, I could just make out the back of a man’s head in the rear window. Victoria’s ponytail, which had been swaying like a pendulum, suddenly slowed to a stop. Her expression softened and a smile swept across her face as the taxi door swung open.
‘Ellie, come.’ She summoned me as though I were a sheepdog.
I heard a gasp from Mandi. I glanced beside me to see her grinning and clasping her hands together.
When I turned back to the taxi, I drew a sharp breath. The man swung his legs out and then planted his feet on the ground. I recognised his shoes immediately. They were the same pair that had descended the spiral staircase five years ago.
I exhaled a long deep breath. Instantly it felt as though there was stillness all around me. As though the flights had been grounded, the Tannoy unplugged, and even the world itself had stopped spinning. As though all that remained were the steady beat of my heart, and my chest rising and falling with each breath. I took in one more breath then held it there as I watched him climb out of the taxi.
The moment his bright brown eyes met mine, my stomach didn’t flip, my muscles didn’t tense. Instead, as we stared at each other in silence all I felt was the warmth of the sun, soaking into my skin, as though granting each cell a vital component.
When I fell into his arms and felt the softness of his lips against mine, I prayed that I had learnt the hardest lessons already. But as I glanced over his shoulder, up at the sky, towards a cloud where I imagined God, Eros and the angels to be collating the minutes of their meeting, I had an inkling somewhere deep inside that there might be a whole lot more to come.
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
A Note To The Reader
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Part Two
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Contents
A Note To The Reader
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Part Two
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Chapter Twenty Five
