19
THE FLIGHT TIME is a little over twenty-four hours, counting the two-hour stop in LA airport. Hayley and I have come prepared. Snacks, eye masks, books, iPads full of TV shows, neck support, snuggly tracksuits and audiobooks and podcasts preloaded on our phones. I have a grand plan that I’m going to finish my book on the flight. I’m going to type the words THE END on my laptop before we land. That’s my goal. My brain will burst with creativity at 40,000 feet and I will solve the problem of my unfinished ending.
My book is overdue. Very, very overdue. I needed to have finished the novel two months ago, for a comfortable schedule to release in September next year. I have begged for more time, and then more time, promising the manuscript will be polished, that it will be brilliant, that I’ll turn the edit around in a month next year, that it’ll all work. My editor has put her faith in me and agreed. I have to submit it to her before Christmas.
Which makes this trip very ill-advised.
It’s Hayley’s fault, of course. She begged me. She has a work conference in New York, and she was meant to be going with Luke but he couldn’t get the time off work because one of his clients decided to roll out their new IT system that week so they could say it was done before the end of the year.
‘It’s New York . In December , Anna. It’ll be all Christmassy. How many times have we said we’d love to see New York at Christmas time?’ Hayley had said.
‘I can’t really afford it,’ I said, which wasn’t true. I have just been programmed by my parents to stress about spending any significant chunk of money—on anything. But I needed to embrace the moment. This is what being young(ish) and childless and beholden to no one is all about: taking impromptu trips to the other side of the world.
‘You don’t have to pay for accommodation and Luke will cover your flights with his points. It’s the cheapest trip you’ll ever take.’
‘Luke will not pay for my flights.’
‘He will! He’s abandoning me.’
‘He won’t.’
‘Let him pay half.’
‘No.’
‘I can’t go alone. Don’t make me. Please come.’ She had kneeled on the couch, begging and batting her eyes at me.
Why was I resisting? I wanted to go very badly. New York in December! With Hayley! A city I have always wanted to visit, and with my favourite person. We’d have so much fun.
And maybe I’d see Mac.
I tried to think that oh so casually.
And maybe Mac would be there. Maybe we’d see Mac. Who knows? Who cares? If I did see him, it would probably be the biggest letdown of my life. What if he had a girlfriend? It had been nine months since the wedding. Why would I even assume he’s single. What if he was rude or boring or not cute? What if he didn’t want to meet up with us? Well, so what? I’d lose the little crumb of fantasy I had been holding on to. It made my stomach hurt. I was already so nervous at the thought of seeing him that alarm bells were ringing in my head. This is dangerous . We’d had no contact since the wedding. I had stalked his social media but liked nothing, because I want him to find and follow me first. But he didn’t.
‘You need this trip,’ Hayley had said. ‘So you don’t have to think about the you-know-what.’
The you-know-what was Joel’s baby. Bianca had had a beautiful baby girl just the week before. Her name was Birdie, which I couldn’t get over. Joel was so traditional in his taste, I had imagined he would name a daughter Charlotte or Emma or Ava. A top-ten name. But Birdie. Birdie ! It must have been Bianca’s choice. But he still agreed to it. This really rankled because the few times he and I had discussed baby names, he’d vetoed the suggestion of Stevie as too out there.
It was this final point, Joel’s baby, that convinced me to go. I had looked up Bianca’s social media announcement of Birdie’s birth far too many times, staring at the gorgeous picture of a tiny newborn bundled in a blanket, reading through the hundreds of excited comments. I needed a distraction. I needed to get out of the country. So here we are, halfway to New York, the plane now somewhere over the Pacific.
I never told Hayley and Luke about what happened with Mac and me at the wedding. It was nothing, really—there was nothing to tell. And I didn’t want any opinions on it. I just wanted to keep it for me. But now that feels like a mistake, because I’m going to his city, and Hayley won’t be distracted by her wedding anymore, and she’ll immediately notice if I’m being awkward around Mac.
Well, there’s nothing to be awkward about. Mac might not even be around. I have no idea what is happening in his life.
And I am no longer chasing love, so it doesn’t matter anyway. If the universe is going to give me anything again (and let’s face it, it probably won’t), I would like book sales please.
To my great shame, I never replied to Patrick’s text message. I left it sitting there, telling myself I would deal with it once I wrote my word quota for the day, after dinner, tomorrow morning, after a walk. It was always the task I would do next, and I left it for so long, it became too embarrassing to do anything about. And so I accidentally ghosted him. I tell myself if I really wanted to see him, I would have replied. If we were meant to be, I would have done something about it. And I wouldn’t have written my book if I’d had any distractions. All I’ve done all year is work, basically—when I’m not at my day job, I’ve been writing the book.
But, really, I think the truth is I was too scared. A soulmate is a lot of pressure. I would probably screw it up. Better to leave Patrick as a lovely maybe, a could-have-been, a funny story, a plot for a future novel maybe. He can be a character in my mind, and a character in my next book, he can just belong to me, and I never have to be disappointed or let down or broken-hearted.
I turn back to my laptop. I am going back and forth on whether or not to give my two main characters a happy ending.
Do happy endings sell better?, I asked my editor once. My editor’s name is Samantha. She’s a year younger than me, which I find disconcerting, as I had always pictured an editor as an older parental figure, with a bun and glasses and an office filled with classics, never cracking a smile, her demeanour stern and unflinching. (This kind of editor would hate my books, so I don’t know why I ever wanted it.) Samantha signs off her emails with ‘Sam xxx’ and she writes funny notes and encouragement in her editorial comments on my Word doc and she sent me flowers when my first book went to print. She’s so nice that I find myself doubting any compliments she gives my work.
‘We aren’t writing the book to fit what we think sells better,’ she said in response to my question about happy endings, which answered my question. They do. And yet, I’ve written a sad, cynical ending. I’ve written it so the con man is in love with Stevie, and she’s in love with him, but they never tell each other, and she chooses to double-cross him and ruin his life.