P.S. I Love You (43 page)

“Oh, I’m not brave at all.” She blew her nose.

“Ever hear the saying that you need to be scared to be brave?”

Holly thought about that. “But I don’t feel brave, I just feel scared.”

“Oh, we all feel scared at times. There’s nothing wrong with that and there will come a day when you will stop feeling scared. Look at all you’ve done!” He held his hands up displaying her office. “And look at all this!” He flicked through the pages of the magazine. “That’s the work of a very brave person.”

Holly smiled, “I love the job.”

“And that’s great news! But you need to learn to love more than your job.”

Holly frowned. She hoped this wasn’t one of those get-over-one-man-by-sleeping-under-another type chats.

“I mean learn to love yourself, learn to love your new life. Don’t just let your entire life revolve around your job. There’s more to it than that.”

Holly raised her eyebrows at him. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

“I know I’m not the greatest example of that,” he nodded. “But I’m learning too…” He placed his hand on the table and started to brush away imaginary crumbs while he thought about what to say next. “I heard you don’t want to go to this ball.”

Holly cringed at the fact he had heard her phone conversation.

Chris continued. “There were a million places I refused to go to when Maureen died,” he said sadly. “We used to go for walks in the Botanic Gardens every Sunday, and I just couldn’t go there anymore after I lost her. There were a million little memories contained in every flower and tree that grew in there. The bench we used to sit on, her favorite tree, her favorite rose garden, just everything about it reminded me of her.”

“Did you go back?” Holly asked, sipping the hot tea, feeling it warm her insides.

“A few months ago,” he said sadly. “It was a difficult thing to do but I did it and now I go every Sunday again. You have to confront things, Holly, and think of things positively. I say to myself, this is a place we used to laugh in, cry in, fight in, and when you go there and remember all those beautiful times you feel closer to your loved one. You can celebrate the love you had instead of hiding from it.”

He leaned forward in his chair and stared directly into her eyes. “Some people go through life searching and
never
find their soul mates. They
never
do. You and I did, we just happened to have them for a shorter period of time. It’s sad, but it’s life! So you go to this ball, Holly, and you embrace the fact that you had someone whom you loved and who loved you back.”

Tears trickled down Holly’s face as she realized he was right. She needed to remember Gerry and be happy about the love they shared and the love she still continued to feel; but not to cry about them, not to yearn for the many more years with him that would never come. She thought of the line he had written in his last letter to her, “Remember our wonderful memories, but please don’t be afraid to make some more.” She needed to put the ghost of Gerry that haunted her to rest but to keep his memory alive.

There was still life for her after his death.

FORTY-FIVE

“
I
’M SO SORRY, DENISE,” HOLLY apologized to her friend. They were sitting in the staff room of Denise’s workplace surrounded by boxes of hangers, rails of clothes, bags and accessories, which were untidily strewn around the room. There was a musty smell in the air from the dust that had landed on the rails and rails of clothes that had been sitting out for so long. A security camera attached to the wall stared at them and recorded their conversation.

Holly watched Denise’s face for a reaction and saw her friend purse her lips and nod her head wildly, as if to let Holly know it was OK.

“No, it’s not OK.” Holly sat forward in her chair, trying to have a serious discussion. “I didn’t mean to lose my temper on the phone. Just because I’m feeling extrasensitive these days, it doesn’t give me the right to take it out on you.”

Denise looked brave enough to finally speak. “No, you were right, Holly…”

Holly shook her head and tried to disagree but Denise kept on talking, “I’ve been so excited about this wedding that I didn’t stop to think about how you might be feeling.” Her eyes rested on her friend, whose face looked pale against her dark jacket. Holly was doing so well it was easy for them all to forget that she still had ghosts to be rid of.

“But you’re right to be excited,” Holly insisted.

“And you’re right to be upset,” Denise said firmly. “I didn’t think, I just didn’t think.” She held her hands to her cheeks as she shook her head. “Don’t go to the ball if you don’t feel comfortable. We will all understand.” She reached out to hold her friend’s hands.

Holly felt confused. Chris had succeeded in convincing her to go to the ball, but now her best friend was saying it was OK not to go. She had a headache, and headaches scared her. She hugged Denise good-bye in the shop, promising to call her later to give her a decision about the ball.

She headed back to the office feeling even more unsure than before. Maybe Denise was right, it was only a stupid ball and she didn’t have to go if she didn’t want to. However, it was a stupid ball that was hugely representative of Holly and Gerry’s time together. It was a night they had both enjoyed, a night they would share with their friends and an opportunity to dance to their favorite songs. If she went without him she would be destroying that tradition, replacing happy memories with an entirely different one. She didn’t want to do that. She wanted to hang on to every single shred of memory of the two of them together. It was scaring her that she was forgetting his face. When she dreamed about him he was always somebody else; a person she made up in her mind with a different face and a different voice.

Now and again she rang his mobile phone just to hear his voice on his answering machine, she had even been paying the mobile company every month just to keep his account open. His smell had faded from the house; his clothes long gone under his own orders. He was fading from her mind, and she clung to every little bit of him that she could. She deliberately thought about him every night right before she went to sleep just so that she would dream about him. She even bought his favorite aftershave and splashed it around the house so she wouldn’t feel so alone. Sometimes she would be out and a familiar smell or song would transport her back to another time and place. A happier time.

She would catch a glimpse of him walking down the street or driving by in a car and she would chase that person for miles only to discover it wasn’t him; just a look-alike. She couldn’t seem to let go. She couldn’t let go because she didn’t want to let go, and she didn’t want to let go because he was all she had. But she didn’t really have him, so she felt lost and confused.

Just before reaching the office Holly poked her head into Hogan’s. She was feeling much more at ease with Daniel. Since that dinner where she had felt so uncomfortable in his company, she had realized that she was being ridiculous. She understood now why she had felt that way. Before, the only close friendship she had ever had with a man was with Gerry, and that was a romantic relationship. The idea of becoming so close to Daniel seemed strange and unusual. Holly had since convinced herself that there didn’t need to be a romantic link for her to share a friendship with an unattached man. Even if he was good-looking.

And the ease she felt had become a feeling of companionship. She had felt that from the moment she’d met him. They could talk for hours discussing her feelings, her life, his feelings, his life, and she knew that they had a common enemy: loneliness. She knew that he was suffering from a different kind of grief and they were helping each other through the difficult days, when they needed a caring ear or someone to make them laugh. And there were many of those days.

“Well?” he said, walking around from behind the bar. “Will Cinderella go to the ball?”

Holly smiled and scrunched up her nose, about to tell him that she wouldn’t be going, when she stopped herself. “Are you going?”

He smiled and scrunched up his nose and she laughed. “Well, it’s going to be another case of Couples ‘R’ Us. I don’t think I could cope with another night of Sam and Samantha or Robert and Roberta.” He pulled out a high stool for her at the bar and she sat down.

Holly giggled, “Well, we could just be terribly rude and ignore them all.”

“Then what would be the point in going?” Daniel sat beside her and rested his leather boot on the footrest of her chair. “You don’t expect me to talk to you all night, do you? We’ve talked the ears off each other by now; maybe I’m bored of you.”

“Fine then!” Holly pretended to be insulted. “I was planning on ignoring you anyway.”

“Phew!” Daniel wiped his brow and pretended to look relieved. “I’m definitely going then.”

Holly became serious. “I think I really need to be there.”

Daniel stopped laughing. “Well then, we shall go.”

Holly smiled at him. “I think it would be good for you too, Daniel,” she said softly.

His foot dropped from her chair and he turned his head away from her to pretend to survey the lounge. “Holly, I’m fine,” he said unconvincingly.

Holly hopped off her chair, held him by the cheeks and kissed him roughly on the forehead. “Daniel Connelly, stop trying to be all macho and strong. It doesn’t wash with me.”

They hugged each other good-bye and Holly marched back to her office, determined not to change her mind again. She banged loudly up the stairs and marched straight by Alice, who was still staring dreamily at her article. “John Paul!” Holly yelled. “I need a dress, quick!”

FORTY-SIX

H
OLLY WAS RUNNING LATE AS she rushed around her bedroom trying to get dressed for the ball. She had spent the past two hours applying her makeup, crying and smudging it and then reapplying it. She rolled the mascara brush over her eyelashes for the fourth time, praying the tear reservoir had run dry for the night. An unlikely prospect, but a girl could always hope.

“Cinderella, your prince has arrived!” Sharon yelled upstairs to Holly.

Holly’s heart raced, she needed more time. She needed to sit down and rethink the idea of going to the ball all over again, as she had completely forgotten her reasons for going. Now she was faced with only the negatives.

Reasons not to go: She didn’t want to go at all, she would spend all night crying, she would be stuck at a table full of so-called friends who hadn’t talked to her since Gerry had died, she felt like shit, she looked like shit and Gerry wouldn’t be there.

Reasons to go: She had an overwhelming feeling that she needed to go.

She breathed slowly, trying to prevent a whole new batch of tears from appearing.

“Holly, be strong, you can do this,” she whispered to her reflection in the mirror. “You need to do this, it will help you, it will make you stronger.” She repeated this over and over again until a creak at the door made her jump.

“Sorry,” Sharon apologized, appearing from around the door. “Oh Holly, you look fabulous!” she said excitedly.

“I look like shit,” Holly grumbled.

“Oh, stop saying that,” Sharon said angrily. “I look like a blimp and do you hear me complaining? Accept the fact that you’re a babe!” She smiled at her in the mirror, “You’ll be fine.”

“I just want to stay home tonight, Sharon. I have to open Gerry’s last message.” Holly couldn’t believe the time had come to open the last one. After tomorrow there would be no more kind words from Gerry, and she still felt that she needed them. In all her excitement back in April, she couldn’t wait for the months to pass so that she could rip the envelopes open and read that perfect handwriting, but she had wished the months away all too quickly and now it was the end. She wanted to stay in that night and savor their last special moment.

“I know,” Sharon said, understanding. “But that can wait for a few hours, can’t it?”

Holly was just about to say no when John shouted up the stairs. “Come on, girls! The taxi’s waiting! We have to collect Tom and Denise!”

Before Holly followed Sharon downstairs she slid open the drawer of her dressing table and took out the November letter from Gerry she had opened weeks ago. She needed his words of encouragement to help her out now. She ran her fingers over the ink and pictured him writing it. She pictured the face he made when he wrote that she always used to tease him about. It was a face of pure concentration; his tongue even licked his lips as he wrote. She loved that face. She missed that face. She slid the card from the envelope. She needed strength from this letter, and she knew she would find it. Every day, she read:

Cinderella must go to the ball this month. And she will look glamorous and beautiful
have the time of her life just like always…But no white dresses this year…

PS, I love you…

Holly took a deep breath and followed Sharon downstairs.

“Wow,” Daniel said, his mouth dropping open. “You look fabulous, Holly.”

“I look like shit,” Holly grumbled, and Sharon shot her a look. “But thanks,” she quickly added. John Paul had helped her choose a simple black halter-neck dress, with a split to the thigh up the middle. No white dresses this year.

They all piled into the seven-seater taxi, and as they approached each set of traffic lights Holly prayed that they would turn red. No such luck. For once the traffic on the streets of Dublin cleared, and after picking up Tom and Denise, they made it to the hotel in record time. Despite her prayers, a mud slide didn’t cascade down the Dublin Mountains and no volcano erupted. Hell refused to freeze over too.

They stepped up to the table just inside the door of the function room and Holly looked to the ground as she felt all eyes in their direction from the women eager to see how the newcomers were dressed. When they were satisfied that they were still the most beautiful people there, they turned away and continued their conversations. The woman sitting behind the desk smiled as they approached her. “Hello Sharon, hello John, hi Denise…oh gosh!” Her face might actually have gone whiter under her streaky fake-tanned face, but Holly couldn’t be sure. “Oh hello, Holly, it’s so good of you to come considering…” She trailed off and quickly flicked through the guest list to tick off their names.