The Longest Holiday (2 page)

‘No, it’s okay.’ She brushes me off. ‘I slept on the plane, so I’m alright.’ She yawns loudly. What a martyr.

‘What have I missed?’ Marty demands to know, wriggling in her seat.

‘Bridget spotted the ocean first,’ I tell her as we drive onto a massive bridge with ocean all around us.

‘Wow, exciting stuff,’ she replies sardonically.

I guess this is why they call it the Overseas Highway, I think to myself as I look out of the window. The Atlantic on our left is choppy and sparkling, while the Gulf of Mexico on our right is glassily still. Two pelicans glide over the road ahead, huge and grey with an enormous wingspan, and then we’re back on land again.

We pass a dolphin rescue centre with a sign out at the front saying: ‘Have you hugged a dolphin today?’

‘I want to hug a dolphin!’ Marty shouts at the top of her voice, making Bridget jump out of her skin. Marty and I giggle. And then I see another sign on someone’s front gate, saying: ‘Wish you were here’, and for a brief moment I imagine Matthew sitting on the empty seat beside me and I miss him so much it hurts.

The urge to get out of the car overcomes me.

‘Can we stop for a moment?’ I ask, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.

‘What’s wrong?’ Marty whips her head around to look at me.

‘Sure,’ Bridget replies, nonplussed, indicating left. She pulls off the road into a small car park next to a white sandy beach. A middle-aged couple sits at one of the picnic tables, but other than that it’s deserted.

‘Don’t know if there’s a loo here, though,’ she adds, misunderstanding my needs.

‘I just want some air,’ I explain, opening the car door and climbing out. I hear the sound of Bridget’s car door opening, too, but Marty says something to her in a quiet voice, so they stay in the car. My oldest and dearest friend knows me well.

Head and heart pounding in unison, I walk to the water’s edge and kick off my shoes, stepping into cool, clear, turquoise-coloured water. Then I take a deep breath and momentarily close my eyes before opening them again and staring out at the nothingness of the vast ocean.

On his stag do, my husband-to-be got wasted beyond recognition and ended up kissing a random girl at a club. He didn’t tell me this before marrying me a week later. Nor did he think it would be wise to confess to it during our first seven months of marriage. He probably wouldn’t have confessed to it at all except that, two weeks ago, I saw a message on his Facebook page from a pretty girl called Tessa Blight. It soon transpired that she’d been messaging every Matthew Perry she could find – trying to track down my Matthew Perry. My Matthew Perry, whose kiss with a random girl at a club called Elation had somehow developed into dirty sex in the club’s toilets. And now that random girl is having Matthew Perry’s – my Matthew Perry’s – baby in less than two months.

My husband is going to be a father to another woman’s child for the rest of his life. There’s no getting away from that. No getting away from the crippling humiliation of all of our friends and family knowing that he had sex with another woman a week before marrying me, the so-called love of his life. He’s sorry, of course he’s sorry. He’s not a terrible person, but it was a terrible, terrible mistake. He didn’t mean to hurt me, he didn’t mean to do it at all – he was so drunk, it just happened. And he will do anything he can possibly do to make it up to me.

But he will never be able to make it up to me. I’ll never forget. How could I when this baby will be a constant, lifelong reminder?

I feel like he has ripped my heart out from my chest and thrown it to the sharks. And in this moment I want to hurl myself into the water to join it.

I hear the car door slam behind me and, moments later, Marty is standing in the water at my side.

‘You okay?’ she asks warily.

I nod, not meeting her eyes.

‘You’re doing the right thing,’ she says, but I still have my doubts. ‘Two weeks away will give you space to clear your head, decide what you’re going to do.’

She used this argument on me in England, but it seemed to make more sense then. Now I just wonder what I’m doing. Running away is only prolonging the inevitable. I don’t even know what the inevitable is yet, but shouldn’t I be back at home, trying to work that out?

‘Has he contacted you?’ she asks.

‘I don’t know. I haven’t switched on my phone.’

‘Oh. Probably for the best.’

‘Mmm.’

Pause.

‘If a tidal wave came along right now, we’d be well screwed,’ she muses.

‘Thank you for that comforting thought, Marty,’ I say with as much sarcasm as I can muster.

‘EEEEEEEEEEE!’

We turn with a start to see Bridget, in a lime-green bikini, running into the ocean. We squeal as water splashes in our direction.

‘Come on!’ she shouts, sinking to her knees on the sandy bed, so the water comes up to her neck, soaking half of her hair.

Marty grabs my arm. ‘Come on.’

I hesitate, but she’s made up my mind for me. She drags me back to the car to hunt for our swimming costumes.

She’s right. This is what I need. And even if it turns out I’m wrong, I’m not going to get back on a plane today. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

I heave my suitcase out of the car and unzip it. Where’s my bikini?

Marty is already dragging her T-shirt over her head, keeping an eye out to make sure the middle-aged man at the picnic table isn’t perving.

‘Don’t tell me you didn’t pack one,’ she says as I rummage through my belongings at an increasingly frenetic speed.

My heart sinks. It’s bright bloody yellow. If it were here, I would have found it by now. I can see it so clearly sitting in my drawer at home – a purchase for my honeymoon, taunting me …

‘For fuck’s sake!’ I erupt, furious all of a sudden. I said it was hard to care about anything, but right now I DO care. I care immensely.

‘Have mine,’ Marty insists, shoving it into my hands before I can protest. And the next thing I know, she’s flinging herself into the water in her mismatched red bra and stripy knickers. If the man hadn’t noticed us before, he has now.

‘Hurry up!’ she shouts back at me. She’s a little shorter and curvier than me, but her costume stretches to fit. I’m not about to let her immodesty go to waste, so I hurry up and join her, this time with a smile on my face.

An hour later, our hair still damp, tangled and salty from the seawater, we drive into Key West. The final Florida key is only about four miles long and two miles wide, so it takes us next to no time to pass through the characterless part of the new town before we reach the old town, where beautiful historic houses, hotels and B&Bs line the tiny lanes and streets. Tropical trees and plants are crammed into the small front gardens, casting welcome shade over colonial balconies and front porches. The weatherboarded houses and their wooden shutters are painted with contrasting hues: pink and lilac, grey and green, yellow and white, and everywhere the blossom on the trees is bursting with vibrant colour.

‘I think this is it, here,’ Bridget says, turning into a small car park.

Our hotel is situated a few blocks east of Duval Street, where most of the nightlife is, and as we get out of the car and pull our suitcases around to the front entrance, I feel a small flutter of anticipation. The hotel, set within a lush landscape, is white with green shutters and has an overhanging porch. Mike, the friendly, gay, front-desk clerk takes us on a short tour of the property, and I can’t help but smile at Marty as we round a corner to see the cool blue pool. The sunloungers are still full of people chilling out with drinks in the late afternoon sunshine, and my eyes inadvertently fall on three well-rounded middle-aged men in skimpy, brightly coloured briefs. There’s also a hot tub, a hammock area set under palm trees, and swinging chairs hanging from the porches. Mike informs us that happy hour begins poolside at four p.m. daily and lasts for an hour, when we can help ourselves to as many free drinks as we’d like. It’s already in full swing, but he gives us three complimentary beers to take up to our room in case we don’t make it down in time. He doesn’t know Marty very well.

We’re staying in a loft apartment on the first floor at the front of the house. We have our own secluded balcony with a swinging chair, plus two more white, wrought-iron chairs and a small table. Inside the apartment there is a double bed situated at the top of a spiral staircase, which Marty had agreed Bridget could have because her travel feature is scoring them a good discount on this place. The sofa converts into a second double bed for Marty, and underneath the staircase is a blow-up single mattress: my sleeping quarters.

‘I don’t mind going there,’ Marty says graciously as I put my bag next to my bed, which is half a metre high and pretty impressive for an inflatable.

‘No, it’s okay,’ I reply, sitting down and almost sliding off. It looks sturdier than it actually is. Bridget snorts.

‘I’ll crash upstairs with you, if you’re not careful,’ Marty warns her. ‘Laura can have the sofa bed.’

‘Yeah, yeah, you’re always trying to cop a feel,’ Bridget jokes, trying to drag her enormous suitcase up the spiral staircase, noisily bumping it up one step at a time. ‘Give me a hand, would you?’ she finally snaps. I quickly get up and crack my head on the underside of the staircase.

‘Shit, are you alright?’ Marty exclaims.

‘Ow,’ I reply, pressing my hand to my head. That really hurt.

‘Quick!’ Bridget gasps, snapping us to action. Marty runs to her aid, before the suitcase can come crashing down on me, too. I carefully step out from under the staircase and my head continues to throb as I straighten up. At the foot of my bed is a bathroom with a shower; there’s a flat-screen TV in front of the sofa and a small kitchen area behind it, with a tiny fridge, microwave and coffee machine. Finally, after much effing and blinding, Marty and Bridget deposit Bridget’s suitcase and return downstairs. I’m not surprised they struggled. Almost half of our luggage allowance was used up by Bridget’s bag alone. Just as well I packed light, otherwise we could have been paying excess. I remember my forgotten bikini and sigh. I’ll have to buy a new one before I can take a dip in that glorious-looking pool.

‘Happy hour?’ Marty suggests.

‘I might jump in the shower first,’ I say.

‘Oh, no, you don’t.’ She grabs my hand and pulls me across the room towards the door.

‘Can’t I wash my hair?’ I beg, dragging my feet.

‘Your golden locks look stunning, as usual,’ she says wryly, not paying any heed to me. I give Bridget a pleading look over my shoulder, but she just purses her lips and follows us out of the apartment.

‘Have you brought us to the gayest place on the planet?’ Marty snipes under her breath at Bridget ten minutes later, as we gawp at the second set of skimpily clad, rotund middle-aged men who have just climbed into the hot tub. ‘Don’t think I didn’t see all the rainbow flags on our drive in here.’

‘Oh, shush,’ she snaps.

‘Good one,’ Marty adds with a deadpan expression. ‘Just what we wanted for an all-girls holiday.’

I try not to giggle as Bridget defends herself. ‘This is a top destination for hot guys—’

‘Gays,’ Marty annoyingly interjects.

‘STRAIGHT guys on stag weekends and … and …’

Marty shoots her a warning look and Bridget’s voice fizzles out as she realises what she’s said.

They know of course that the last thing I want to see on this holiday is a bunch of wasted stags chatting up girls while their girlfriends and future wives are stuck at home in blissful ignorance. I feel ill as I picture, not for the first time, how Matthew must have looked on his stag do.

‘Sorry,’ Bridget apologises.

‘Don’t be silly.’ I brush her off, and violently shake my head to rid myself of the images that are still dwelling there. ‘I’m going to get another one,’ I say, standing up. ‘Same again?’

‘That’s the spirit,’ Marty says approvingly. ‘Yes, please.’

I wander over to the trolley on the other side of the pool, where a few people are gathered, helping themselves to drinks and savoury snack thingies. I extract three large plastic cups from the stack, pouring at least two shots of vodka into each. I reach for the jug of cranberry juice, but freeze mid-move as another hand gets there first.

‘Let me get that for you …’

I look up to see a bare-chested guy in sunglasses and a baseball hat grinning at me, jug aloft.

‘Thanks.’ I hold up the three glasses.

‘Say when,’ he murmurs as he starts to pour.

‘That’ll do,’ I tell him as he fills the first to about two-thirds of its capacity. I inadvertently glance at his chest as he starts pouring the second. He’s toned and tanned, an All-American kind of guy, and I can tell he’s good-looking, even with his face partially obscured.

‘You like it strong,’ he comments as he moves onto the third glass .

‘May as well.’

‘British?’ he asks.

‘Yes.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Laura.’

‘I’m Rick.’

‘Nice to meet you.’

‘You here for long?’ he asks.

‘Two weeks.’

‘Cool.’

‘What about you?’ I feel obliged to ask.

‘A few days. My buddies and I are here for a jet-skiing tournament.’

‘Wow. That sounds like fun.’ I nod at the drinks and make to move off. ‘See you around, no doubt.’

‘No doubt.’ He flashes me a pearly-toothed grin and I wander back over to our sunloungers.

It’s when I’m only a few feet away that I look up to see Bridget and Marty staring at me, agog.

‘What?’ I ask a little defensively.

‘Check out you, chatting up the hot guy!’ Bridget cries with glee and a touch of envy.

‘Shh!’ I frown. ‘He helped me with the drinks.’

‘I bet he did.’

‘Who are his friends?’ Marty asks in a low voice. We look over to see two similarly shirtless, tanned and toned guys in baseball caps and sunglasses jog down the steps from the sundeck.

‘They’re here for a jet-skiing tournament,’ I say with a shrug as they join Rick at the trolley and crack open a couple of cans of beer. ‘Probably gay.’

‘No way.’ Marty takes a very large gulp of her drink.