mind.
They’d had so many angry, bitter fights, but what was in the air was the stillness of grief. The calmness when everything is lost. She’d moved beyond the turbulence of rage and fury into the still static waters of no return.
What would she do with the rest of her life, she asked herself. How was she going to fill in all the time between now and the time she died?
Roller-blade, planted itself in her head. Immediately she told herself not to be so ridiculous. How could she go roller-blading?
But why not? What else was she going to do until bedtime, and despite all the events of the evening it was only still eight-thirty. She pulled on her leggings even though they had a tear on one knee and ran across the sand. She was surprised to find how uplifted she was by whizzing back and forth at high speed on her skates. It had something to do with pride in what a good roller-blader she was – she really was excellent, considering this was only her second time doing it. Her sense of balance was especially wonderful.
The little boy Tod who had been there the previous night was there again, with his long-suffering mother Bethany. Bethany was red-faced and breathless from having to run and hold on to Tod while he cycled up and down the same six yards of boardwalk and Ros gave her a sympathetic smile.
Then Ros went back to her room and against all expectations managed to sleep. When morning came she woke up and went to work, where, with a deftness that left the Los Angeles company reeling in shock, negotiated a thirty per cent discount when she’d only ever planned to ask for twenty. Blowing smoke from her imaginary gun, she gave them such firm handshakes that they all winced, then she swanned back to the hotel to pack. Successful mission or what?
Bib was in agony. What was he going to do? Was he going to back to England with Ros, or home to his own planet? Though he’d grown very fond – too fond – of Ros, he had a feeling that somehow he just wasn’t her type and that revealing himself, in all his glorious custard-yellowness, would be a very, very bad idea. It killed him not to be able to. In just over two days he’d fallen in love with her.
But would she be OK? She thought she was OK, but what would happen when he left her and there was no one to shore up her confidence? Would she go back to Michael? Because that wouldn’t do. That wouldn’t do at all.
He worried and fretted uncharacteristically. And the answer came to him on the evening of the last day. Ros had a couple of hours to kill before her night-flight, so instead of moping in her room, she ran to the boardwalk for one last roller-blading session. Bib didn’t have anything to do with it – she decided all on her own. He’d have preferred a few quiet moments with her, actually, instead of trundling alongside her trying to keep up as she whizzed up and down, laughing with pleasure.
Bethany and Tod were there again. Time after time, Bethany ran behind the bike, holding tightly as Tod pedalled a few yards. Back and forth on the same strip of boardwalk they travelled, until, unexpectedly, Bethany let go and Tod careened away. When he realized that he was cycling alone, with no one to support him, he wobbled briefly, before righting himself. ‘I’m doing it on my own,’ he screamed with exhilaration. ‘Look, Mom, it’s just me.’
‘It’s all a question of confidence,’ Bethany smiled at Ros.
‘I suppose it is,’ Ros agreed, as she freewheeled gracefully. Then crashed into a jogger.
As Bib helped her to her feet, he was undergoing a realization. Of course, he suddenly understood. He’d been Ros’s training wheels, and without her knowing anything about it, he’d given her confidence – confidence to do her job in a strange city, confidence to break free from a bullying man. And just as Tod no longer needed his mother to hold his bike, Ros no longer needed Bib. She was doing it for real now, he could feel it. From her performance in her final meeting to deciding to go roller-blading without any prompting from Bib, there was a strength and a confidence about her that was wholly convincing.
He was happy for her. He really was. But, there was no getting away from the fact that the time had come for him to leave her. Bib wondered what the strange sensation in his chest was and it took a moment or two for him to realize that it was his heart breaking for the very first time.
LA airport was aswarm with people, more than just the usual crowd of passengers.
‘Alien-spotters,’ the check-in girl informed Ros. ‘Apparently a little yellow man was spotted here a few days ago.’
‘Aliens!’ Ros thought, looking around scornfully at the over-excited and fervent crowd who were laden with geiger-counters and metal-detectors. ‘Honestly! What are these people like?’
As Ros strapped herself in her airline seat, she had no idea that her plane was being watched intently by a yard-high, yellow life-form who was struggling to hold back tears. ‘Big boys don’t cry,’ Bib admonished himself, as he watched Ros’s plane taxi along the runway until it was almost out of sight. In the distance he watched it angle itself towards the sky, and suddenly become ludicrously light and airborne. He watched until it became a dot in the blueness, then traipsed back through the hordes of people keen to make his acquaintance to where he’d hidden his own craft. Time to go home.
Ros’s plane landed on a breezy English summer’s day, ferrying her back to her Michael-free life. As the whining engines wound down, she tried to swallow away the sweet, hard stone of sadness in her chest.
But, even as she felt the loss, she knew she was going to be fine. In the midst of the grief, at the eye of the storm, was the certainty that she was going to cope with this. She was alone and it was OK. And something else was with her – a firm conviction, an unshakeable faith in the fact that she wouldn’t be alone for the rest of her life. It didn’t make sense because she was now a single girl, but she had a strange warm sensation of being loved. She felt surrounded and carried by it. Empowered by it.
Gathering her bag and book, slipping on her shoes, she shuffled down the aisle towards the door. As she came down the plane’s steps she inhaled the mild English day, so different from the thick hot Los Angeles air. Then she took a moment to stand on the runway and look around at the vast sky, curving over and dwarfing the airport, stretching away forever. And this she knew to be true – that somewhere out there was a man who would love her for what she was. She didn’t know how or why she was so certain. But she was.
Before getting on the bus to take her to the terminal, she paused and did one last scan of the great blue yonder. Yes, no doubt about it, she could feel it in her gut. As surely as the sun will rise in the morning, he’s out there. Somewhere …
Lisa Jewell
Lisa Jewell was born and raised in north London, where she lives with her husband and two daughters. Her first novel, Ralph's Party, was the bestselling debut of 1999. She is also the author of twelve other novels including Vince and Joy, The Truth About Melody Browne, The Making of Us, Before I Met You, The House We Grew Up In, The Third Wife and The Girls.
Rudy brushes up the nap of his tan suede desert boots with an old toothbrush. He picks a bit of dried food off his grey T-shirt and checks the fly on his beige brushed-cotton combat trousers. Turning towards the mirror, he hooks his shiny conker-coloured hair over his ears and pushes his fringe out of his face. His top lip curls itself up over his teeth to allow for a tooth inspection and he’s ready to go.
He moves through his sparsely furnished flat, dominated by his collection of guitars, displayed on stands: two Fenders, a twelve-string, two acoustics and a bass. He pulls the door closed behind him and takes the narrow stairway that separates his hallway from the kebab shop upstairs. He has to walk sideways because his feet are too big for the steps. Mojo, his dog, follows closely behind, his claws tapping