This Book Made Me Think of You(21)

“I do enjoy my job.”

“But do you though? Because I remember you saying you were just going to work there for a year to get some experience and then apply for jobs in fiction. But you’ve been there, what, six years now? That seems a bit more than temporary.”

Seven years, Tilly thinks.

“I’ve worked really hard to get to where I am.”

Harper rolls her eyes. “No one is questioning that, Tils. You’ve always been a hard worker. I just think you’ve got so used to working hard that you’ve forgotten how to dream.”

Tilly’s grip on her drink tightens.

“Not everyone can go on holiday for a living.”

Harper shrugs, shaking out her hair and rolling the paper umbrella in her drink between her fingers. She leans back casually in her chair, eyeing Tilly across the table with a raised eyebrow.

“Maybe. But that doesn’t mean you can’t find something you enjoy more or shouldn’t at least try. Didn’t you apply for a fiction editor job a while ago? I remember you mentioning it but being cagey about the details. What happened there?”

Tilly stiffens, looking down at her cocktail glass.

“It didn’t work out.”

Which is partly true.

Never one to linger on any subject for too long, Harper gestures with her cocktail umbrella in the direction of a man walking from the beach toward the bar. He is dressed in board shorts and a loose white shirt, his body muscular and tanned.

“Hey, what do you think of him?”

“Well, I’ve never met him before, so I don’t have much of an opinion.”

“But you could meet him,” Harper says with a mischievous smile. “He’s been looking at you all evening.”

“No he hasn’t! And besides, I’m not interested.”

Undeterred, Harper turns her attention to the rest of the bar. She scans the faces for a while and then points out another man, this time taller and with a linen shirt open to reveal a toned chest.

“Not even him? I would.” Harper waggles her eyebrows suggestively, her face split with a smile.

Tilly nudges her sister gently in the ribs. “Hey, what about Raj? You know, your boyfriend of four years? Who you live with?”

Harper shrugs again, downing the last dregs of her drink and placing her glass down firmly on the table.

“I just think that a holiday fling might be good for you, Tils. It might help you move on.”

Tilly sits up straighter, wrapping her arms around herself.

“I don’t want a holiday fling. And I don’t want to move on. What I want is Joe.”

The silence that follows sits heavily between them. Further down the beach come the sounds of people laughing and dancing on the sand. The sky is now a pale indigo, the lights from the bar and the firepits reflecting on the water. Harper fiddles with her hoop earrings and looks down at her lap. Her lips press tightly together, and Tilly is reminded of seeing the same expression on her face all those times when they were little and Tilly would say, Just one more page, and then we can play, and one page would become two, then three, then four…

However much her sister might make her bristle sometimes, she is here, isn’t she? There’s no way that Tilly would have made this trip on her own. She reaches across the table for her sister’s hand.

“You said you had something else planned for us this evening?” Tilly says, squeezing. Harper’s face immediately brightens into a wide smile. Her eyes flash up to meet Tilly’s.

“You’re going to love it, I promise.”





Thirteen




“No,” says Tilly. “Absolutely not.”

“Why not?”

“Why not? I can think of lots of reasons why someone might not want to stand up and sing in front of a bar full of strangers.”

They have relocated to a different bar a little further along the beach, this one with a glittering disco ball hanging from its straw roof above a small stage and a DJ booth.

“But you’ve always loved karaoke!” says Harper, the light from the disco ball catching on her sequin top and making her sparkle. Despite Tilly never having been much of a joiner, as Ellen Carter put it all those years ago, for some reason it’s always been different when it comes to karaoke. It’s the one time Tilly allows herself to let go of her inhibitions.

Memories flood her mind of nights spent singing her heart out with her sister and friends. The first time Joe joined for a karaoke night, Tilly expected him to sit with a beer, shaking his head and laughing affectionately at the transformation of his bookish girlfriend into a diva onstage. But to her surprise, he’d got up and delivered a memorable performance of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” flinging himself down onto his knees and stretching his arms out dramatically toward Tilly, making everyone cry with laughter.

“I know. But that was before. I don’t feel like it now.”

There’s a buzz in the bar as people step up to give the DJ their song choices.

“Go on,” urges Harper. “I really think you’ll have fun if you give it a go.”

“I don’t want to.”

But Harper doesn’t back down. “One teeny-tiny song. Pleaase?”

She presses her hands together in prayer and her face is so encouraging and the coconut daiquiri has softened Tilly’s edges so much that she pulls herself to her feet.