Chapter 8
Grace, sitting cross-legged on her bed, couldn’t help but smile at her sister’s excited chatter. Ava hadn’t let her get a word in since she’d answered her call, and her cheeks were flushed pink, her eyes alight as she filled her in on what she and Shane had been seeing and doing in the three days since they’d last caught up. It seemed New York really was the city that never slept with a lot to offer, including bagels – Shane had ventured down to a nearby deli to pick up Saturday brunch coffee and bagels apparently.
Behind her twin, she could see the exposed brick wall of the shoebox Ava and Shane had recently rented, having decided to stay in the city for a year. The entire space wasn’t much bigger than their bedroom over The Shamrock, and Ava had informed her it was, as you’d expect for Manhattan, ridiculously overpriced but functional, with everything they needed.
‘I’ve got something else to tell you.’
There was a breathless excitement to Ava’s tone that had Grace on high alert. ‘Oh yes?’
‘I’ve started writing a novel. I’m five chapters in.’
Grace’s mouth rounded as she pictured her sister writing the great American novel in her New York loft apartment, sheets of paper piling up at her feet as she banged away on her typewriter, a woman possessed. Then she remembered Ava wasn’t American, nor was her apartment a loft, and she had a laptop.
The news took her by surprise, in part because she’d no clue where Ava had found time to write between working and sampling NYC’s delights, but also because her sister had been talking about writing a book for as long as Grace could remember. A need for more life experience had been her favourite excuse for not knuckling down and starting it, but Grace knew her twin inside out, and while this might have played a small part in her reticence, fear of failure was what had been holding her back. For her to have overcome that was huge. Life in the Big Apple suited her.
‘That’s fantastic, Aves!’
Ava’s eyes were shining. ‘Thanks. I mean, I’ve no clue whether it’ll be any good, but it feels amazing to have something underway finally.’
Grace could see she was buzzing. ‘It’ll be brilliant, and c’mon then – tell me. What’s it about? And if you say it’s a story about twin sisters and how one of them is a right old bossy boots, then I’m hanging up!’ She was only half joking.
Ava’s eyes creased. ‘It’s not. Although my main character, Ruby, is from a small village in Ireland. She travels to New York, and, well, that’s as far as I’ve got.’ Then, holding her hand up, she added, ‘And before you ask, it’s not autobiographical, and I know it sounds vague, but I’ve decided I’m what’s called a pantser, not a plotter, when it comes to story writing.’
‘A what?’
‘A pantser.’
‘That’s what I thought you said.’
‘It means I’m flying by the seat of my pants writing it. The story is revealing itself to me as I go along. I get what authors mean when they say you have to trust the process now.’
‘Well, pants or no pants, I think it’s brilliant.’
Ava laughed. ‘Pantser. And thanks.’ Her eyes narrowed as she stared out the phone at her sister. ‘Hang on a sec. You’ve got that look on your face. What is it?’
There was no point denying it, Grace thought, her pursed lips moving from side to side as she sought a place to start, finally settling on the beginning. ‘Aves, I haven’t been entirely truthful with you since you left London.’
Ava’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Oh yes?’
‘It’s not that I’ve lied as such; I just haven’t told you the whole story.’
‘Spit it out, Grace.’
Grace’s nails were digging into her palms as she plunged in. ‘OK, so you know I told you I met Chris, who I house-share with, after he put up a note about looking for a room on the pub noticeboard?’
There was a pause, and Ava tilted her head to one side. ‘Yeah,’ she said slowly.
Grace took a deep breath and dived in, grateful Ava, whose eyes were growing ever wider, didn’t interrupt while she confessed who Chris actually was. By the time she’d spilled it all out, coffee and a bagel had been placed before her sister. Shane had given her a brief wave as she’d burbled on but had made himself scarce. He must have picked up on the vibes and was probably sitting on the loo seat lid, enjoying his brunch, because there was nowhere else he could go to give Ava some privacy.
As for Ava, she was ignoring her husband’s offerings, not having taken her eyes off her sister the whole time she was speaking. She shook her head, and her hair shimmered like burnished copper under the light.
‘Let me get this straight then. The Chris who moved into my old room in December – who, by the way, you’ve mentioned to me multiple times, never once alluding to me knowing him and always with a moony “I love him” face – is, in fact, Christopher Dorrance? Thick glasses, kind of spindly legs, always-off-to-choir-practice Christopher Dorrance from Emerald Bay?’
‘Erm, yeah. Only he’s not got the little spider legs anymore. Although he still sings. And I definitely don’t love him.’ At least she didn’t think she loved him. Love was a strong word. Fancied she would concede. Really, really fancied if she was being truthful.
‘You’re doing it again!’ Ava pointed a triumphant finger at her.
‘What?’
‘The “I love him” face.’
Was she? Grace tried to keep her face neutral. She’d have to train herself to think about something she had no feelings about one way or the other whenever Chris’s name came up around her sister, who was behaving like Sherlock Holmes. Something to put her off the scent like… she thought hard. Radishes! They were coming into season now. People seemed to either loathe or love them. She, however, was ambivalent.
Ava was still on a roll as Grace desperately conjured up an image of the latest health trend, boiled radishes.
‘Christopher Dorrance, whose family are loaded thanks to their landscaping business and whose father’s name makes our dad go all red in the face and start using bad words?’
‘Yep. That’s him. And what’s that all about with Dad anyway? I mean, whatever happened between them was years ago. Chris has no idea what the issue is either. It’s high time they got over themselves.’
Ava shrugged. ‘I don’t know what went on. I asked Mam once when Dad had been on a rant after seeing Mr Dorrance in the village, and she told me to mind my own business. But the way she said it wasn’t like Mam at all.’
That piqued Grace’s interest, and she resolved to get to the bottom of it. As their mam would say when they were behaving like eejits, if the two men didn’t shake hands and let bygones be bygones by the time she’d finished with them, she’d bang their heads together! It might make them see sense.
‘And what I want to know, Grace, is why didn’t you tell me? It’s not as if I’m the one with a problem with the Dorrances.’
Grace didn’t have to think about her reply. ‘I didn’t want to take the focus off you and your wedding by mentioning it. Then it was easier not to say anything, because what if you’d let it slip to Mam or Dad? You know yourself, I’d never hear the end of it.’
Grace waited while her sister processed that, wishing she could stick her hand through the screen and take that bagel if she wasn’t going to eat it.
Ava’s expression changed from indignation to curiosity. ‘And does he look like Liam Hemsworth, or did you make that up, too?’
‘You should drink your coffee before it goes cold.’
‘Does he?’ Ava pressed, lifting the recyclable cup to her lips.
Grace nodded, thinking of the radishes again. ‘He does, and the band he sings in is cool.’
Ava thought on this for a second then flicked back, ‘What about the girlfriend? Is she real? Or did you make her up to put me off the scent of you fancying him?’
‘Oh, that part’s true enough. The Silent Finn, and she hogged all the hot water again this morning. I’ve not been able to have a bath since he moved in and she started coming around. You know how much I love my baths.’
‘I do. And I seem to recall you having no qualms about using all the hot water in order to have them.’ Ava picked up the bagel, smirking.
‘Water calms me – you know that.’
‘I do. But you were still a hot-water hog like your Ulla one.’
‘The Silent Finn.’
Ava grinned.
Grace was filled with a yearning to have her sister here with her in the flesh, mirroring her cross-legged position like when they were kids confiding in one another. She wanted to grab hold of her hands and describe how Chris made her feel out of control. It was an unfamiliar sensation. She’d always been in the driving seat, but with Chris, she wasn’t even in the passenger seat next to him. Ulla was. Instead, she told her sister about the parsley stuck in her teeth.
Predictably, Ava found this hilarious.
It wasn’t that funny, she thought, pressing her lips together as Ava began gasping for air between giggles.
‘All right, all right, you’ve had your fun.’
Ava wiped her eyes, taking a few steadying breaths before asking, ‘But why are you telling me now? What’s changed?’
‘Because I don’t have a choice. It’s going to come out anyway.’
‘Why?’ Ava bit into the doughy ring, and cream cheese squished out the sides. ‘Mm, so good.’
‘Rub it in why don’t you? I heard from Clara this morning.’ Was it really only this morning? So much had happened between now and then. ‘You’d have heard they had some rough weather in Emerald Bay?’
‘No.’ Ava, her bagel poised for another bite, frowned. ‘The time difference, remember. Unless it was a civil emergency, Mam wouldn’t ring in the middle of the night. Was it very bad?’
Grace nodded, relaying everything from Clara’s confession about her insurance through to meeting up with The Shamrockers.
Ava put her breakfast down, and by the time her twin finished speaking, she was massaging her temples.
‘What do you think about the idea of a music festival on the last day of summer then?’ Grace was suddenly nervous. What if Ava thought the idea was crazy? Her opinion mattered to her more than anybody else in the world’s.
‘Emerald Grooves,’ Ava said, rolling it off her tongue. ‘I like it. And, Grace, I think it’s a brilliant idea.’
‘Well, to be fair, it was Chris’s idea.’
‘But it was your idea to help Clara and Alfie.’
‘I can’t do nothing, Aves.’
‘I wish I could hug you.’
‘I wish you could, too.’
‘Because I’m super proud of you. It’s going to be amazing.’
‘You think?’
‘I know, because you’re the driving force behind it, and when you put your mind to something, you’re unstoppable.’
‘Well, Chris is right there with me, too.’
‘Is he now?’
‘The Silent Finn, remember.’
Grace was still basking in the warm glow of her sister’s words five minutes later, after they’d said their goodbyes. They could do this. Her earlier pessimism about what needed to be done between now and the last day of August to make it happen vanished. Ava believed in her, and now she had to trust in herself and Chris. She needed to do something proactive to get things moving.
It was time for step one.
Grace booked a flight home to Ireland.