Summer Nights at the Moonlight Hotel (16 page)

I’m busy over the weekend with various house-related chores, including pruning my bush to keep Agnes happy, but my mind constantly drifts to blissful, drunken flashbacks from Thursday.
Then on Sunday night, I’m sitting in front of some gentle television, flicking through Facebook on my phone, when an instant message pops up from Steph.

I cannot wait til you get here, Loz!
That’s been her nickname for me since we were little. I look at the clock and work out that it’s 4 a.m. there.

You’re still enjoying it there then?
I ask, suspecting she’s not yet ready to deal with the knowledge that I’ve spent the evening reading such
articles as
S
INGAPORE
’
S BEST COCKTAIL BARS
.

When Steph makes a statement like that it’s usually impossible to predict what’s going to come next. And my brain doesn’t have the technicolour capacity for this one.
Whaddaya think
? An image pops up that I have to turn upside down several times in a bid to identify.

I eventually realise I am looking at a tattoo. I also recognise that the tattoo in question is some sort of representation of the Sydney Opera House. Only, it’s slightly pink and looks
more like a psychedelic sea creature that’s just emerged from a bath full of Radox.

I am just pondering which part of her body this monstrosity appears on, when a second picture pops up, clearly designed to give me an alternative view, the way estate agents take pictures of a
room from different angles. Only this particular alternative view is a massive photo of her bare bum.

I hesitate, at a loss as to how to reply, before eventually tapping out:
Wow!

Why have you been to see a doctor?
A myriad of catastrophic health and safety breaches at the tattoo parlour burst into my head.

I frown.
So why were you showing him your bum, when you’d only broken your arm?

That’s the last message Steph sends, before disappearing, presumably to either get rid of her house full of people or go to give her doctor a second viewing of her arse.

I hesitate, then flick on to the draft application form I filled in for the teaching agency in Singapore. I’d told myself that the second Edwin asked me out, I’d hit the Send button.
But suddenly that seems slightly ridiculous.

Am I seriously making this monumental decision based solely on whether Edwin asks me for a
second date?

I need to make this decision on my own. Romantic developments between Edwin and me should be entirely incidental. I open up the agency document and compose an email. Then I stare at it for ten
minutes, reading it through for the umpteenth time.

I remind myself that applying doesn’t commit me to anything. Nothing at all.

I glance at my phone for one last time, on the off-chance that Edwin has texted in the last thirty seconds to ask me out. But it remains blank.

So I attach my application, sign off the email and, before I can release my breath, press Send.

An entire week and a half passes without Edwin showing the faintest sign of asking me out. My despondency must be apparent when Cate asks me – again – for an Edwin
update in the ladies of Casa Lagos, five minutes before our salsa class starts.

‘Do. Not. Panic.’ She says this with the tone of a First World War reservist sent into the trenches after spending the first three years of service learning the art of
embroidery.

‘I’m not panicking
as such
,’ I reply. ‘I just am really disappointed.’

‘It’s weird, I can’t deny it. But from what you’ve said, he spent the evening trying to persuade you to move to Singapore.
Plus
you almost kissed. Edwin is
clearly just not very confident. I still think he’ll get round to asking. I wish for your sake he’d get a move on, though.’

‘Now I’m just panicking that I read things into the situation that weren’t there.’

‘I thought you weren’t panicking?’

I sigh. ‘I suppose that sending off an application to Singapore has focused my mind. Do you think I’ve done the right thing?’

She puts her arm round me and looks at me through the mirror. ‘I
obviously
don’t want you to go anywhere because I’ll miss you like mad, but that’s the case
whether you bugger off to Singapore, Australia or Mars. You’ve got to have your big adventure at some point, Lauren. Wherever, and whenever it is.’

I decide to change the subject. ‘So, tell me about Will’s mum and dad.’

Cate and I have already exchanged innumerable texts on this subject after her first Sunday dinner with them, but she’s clearly bursting to talk about it.

‘Unbelievably nice people,’ she smiles. ‘Especially his older brother Peter, who’s a detective inspector for Cumbria Police, and his fiancée Charlotte, who’s
pregnant. I swear you’ve never seen a guy as excited about becoming a dad. All he could talk about was things he’d seen in Mothercare. They live in Near Sawrey so we went to the Cuckoo
Brow Inn first with their dog Wilbur, who is just the cutest . . . and the house is really big and, you know, just nice. Homely. The kind of place where everything feels
right
.’

‘And Sunday dinner was good?’

‘It looked it, but I could barely eat anything. I hadn’t realised how nervous I was. It honestly couldn’t have gone better, Lauren. I’ve even been invited to go to one of
his cousin’s christenings in a few weeks.’

‘You’re obviously part of the family already. When are you taking him to meet your parents?’

‘It’s going to have to be soon,’ she grins. ‘I know they’ll love him.’

I actually think she’s right, too – even if Cate’s mum can be hard to please. I was always slightly scared of her when I went round for tea when we were younger. I don’t
think she ever told
me
off, but she was always terrifyingly strict with Cate and that was enough.

‘Though there was something else,’ she continues.

‘What?’

Her face breaks into an enormous smile. ‘He told me he loves me.’

‘Are you kidding me?’ I laugh.

She shakes her head. ‘I’m not.’

‘So what did you say to that?’ I ask, though I don’t really need to.

‘I said I loved him too.’ She looks at me. ‘I really do, Lauren. He makes my heart feel like it’s about to burst out of my chest every time I look at him.’

‘Do you think he could be The One?’

‘I just know I’ve never felt like this about anyone before. Ever.’

‘Sounds like you’ve got your answer then.’

Salsa is brilliant tonight, exactly what I need to take my mind off Edwin. It’s as if the evening has been sprinkled with an indefinable magic. Perhaps that’s
because even the most distracted of hearts couldn’t fail to be lifted by Cate’s mood. Perhaps it’s the music, which thrums through my spine, making every bit of me tingle. Or
perhaps it’s simply because the group is so comfortable with each other now – we breeze through stumbles, trips and almighty fails on the dance floor without worrying. If I stop and
think about the fact that everyone around me is falling in love – Cate and Will, Emily and Joe – it might depress me. So I don’t. I just concentrate on my loops, locks, twists and
turns – and
keep those knees loose
, as if Marion would ever let me forget.

‘If you know anyone to drag along here on a Tuesday, please do,’ says Lulu, during the break. ‘We’re out of beginners. All my new starters have done so well they’ve
moved up to the improvers’ class.’

I briefly wonder about asking Jeremy to come one day. It’d get him out of my mum’s hair for one night a week, although I’m not overly keen on admitting he’s a blood
relative, however distant. It’d be a lot easier if Edwin would just walk through that door, swing me into a wraparound and dance the night away with me. Or even dance five minutes away
– I’d take anything.

As the class resumes, Marion announces that we’re going to ‘nail’ the steps she introduced last week, failing to notice that the introduction of this routine takes things more
seriously than any of us ever imagined. Having already danced with Esteban, Luke and Frank, Joe appears in front of me. ‘Can you remember how this starts?’ he asks.

‘Haven’t the first clue,’ I reply, peering at my own feet. ‘I was counting on my partner.’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that,’ he grins, as we turn towards Marion and attempt to copy what she’s doing: a cuddle turn, then a ladies’ right turn, then a few steps that
bring us back-to-back, from where we step into a reverse salsa wrap. It seems so ludicrously fast, all we can do is stumble around as if attempting to break the world speed record in a game of
Twister. I glance over at Will and Cate, who seem to be managing better than anyone else.

‘Maybe it’s easier if you’re madly in love,’ says Joe, who’s clearly noticed too.

I suppress a smile. ‘Will’s
madly
in love then?’

‘Oh, I would say so. A classic case. You know those trees planted in the shape of a heart just off the M6?’

‘You mean Broken Gill Plantation,’ I inform him. If you’re driving past the landmark, it’s unmissable – dozens of conifers planted on a hillside in a perfect
heart-shaped formation, legend has it by a farmer devoted to his wife.

‘I think Will’s got it so bad he’ll be doing the same soon,’ he says. ‘Although he doesn’t own much land so she might have to put up with a few
geraniums.’

I laugh. ‘Personally, I’d be delighted with a few geraniums at the moment. Hell, dandelions would do.’

‘Oh,
come on
. That’s tragic.’

‘It’s true,’ I shrug mournfully, only half-joking. ‘I’d be happy with someone giving me their last Rolo. Or baking me a cake. Or knitting me a nice
scarf.’

‘Knitting,’ he repeats. ‘Ah, so this is where my romantic gestures have been going wrong all these years. I haven’t
knitted
enough.’

‘OK, maybe I’ll take that one back. The point I’m making is, as long as they’re from the right person . . .’

‘Lauren and Joe! Don’t you remember
anything
from last week?’ Marion snaps.

Joe turns back to me. ‘Every time I dance with you, I get in trouble.’

‘Don’t even
think
about blaming me. I’m brilliant when I dance with anyone else. It’s only when you turn up that it all goes wrong.’

‘Keep your core
strong
, Lauren,’ Marion hollers.

Joe squeezes my hand, presumably as a demonstration of support as Marion instructs us to break while she huffily demonstrates the steps with Frank again.

I’m peering in, trying to get my head around how she slips seamlessly from a cuddle to a turn, when Joe whispers to me, ‘So can I take it from your comment about the Rolo that your
date with Whatsisname didn’t go as hoped?’

The question instantly stops me from concentrating on Marion.

‘
Edwin
,’ I say. ‘And no, actually, I was only joking about the Rolo. It was wonderful.’ Clearly I’m not going to go into the fact that he’s not
followed it up by asking me out again.

‘Glad to hear it,’ Joe says, as the dancing resumes and he lifts his arm for me to spin under. ‘You deserve to meet someone nice.’

‘You hardly know me. I might not deserve it at all.’

‘You’re still speaking to me after seeing my zebra. That’s enough for me,’ he replies, at which point I stand on his toes.

‘It’s not the zebra that bothers me most.’

He pauses before answering. ‘Bothers you? Your reaction was underwhelming but I hadn’t realised it actually
bothered
you.’

‘It’s hard to explain, Joe. There’s no question that you’ve come up with a hotel that will get great reviews and people will enjoy staying there. I just prefer it the way
it was. They’re my childhood memories – and you’re messing with them.’

His back straightens defensively. ‘I’m determined that what we come up with will do you proud.’

I don’t answer him because I know that’s impossible and I also know that there’s absolutely no point in saying it out loud. And OK, because I sound whingey. Which will achieve
nothing, because if one thing’s clear it’s that I have very little choice about any of it.

‘So are you going out again?’ he asks.

I do a double-take. ‘Going out?’

‘You and Whatsisname.’

I suddenly wish that his attempts to make conversation would focus on something else.

‘I’m not sure yet,’ I mumble, as Marion claps and Joe, mercifully, moves on to his next partner, leaving me to dwell on that question yet again for the rest of the class.

Yet, after we’ve said our goodbyes and Emily, Cate and I are walking up the hill back to the van, something happens that makes all thoughts of Edwin pale into insignificance. Emily and I
are comparing notes about our lack of ability to keep up with tonight’s routine, when Cate takes out her phone and idly logs on. We’re nearly at the van when the noise escapes her lips.
It’s almost like a gasp, but more guttural, more raw.

‘What is it?’ Emily asks, spinning round to see Cate’s features, white under the moonlight, as she stands immobile, her hand on her mouth, whimpering ‘Oh my God. Oh my
God.’

‘Cate, seriously – what’s the matter?’ I ask, walking towards her.

She doesn’t hand over the phone, but she’s powerless with shock to stop Emily from reaching out and gently prising it from her grasp. I suspect if Em’d known what was on it,
she wouldn’t have touched it.

The picture is on a website called meetmyexx.com. In it, Cate is gazing at the camera, her eyes heavy and flirtatious. She is naked, next to a window I recognise as the one in her bedroom, her
arms stretched up above her head, sunlight streaming on to her bare breasts.