Chapter One
Central Park is a world of activity all year, but never more so than in the summertime. There are people everywhere: going to the zoo, jogging, doing tai chi, eating ice-creams, visiting one of the outdoor theatres, relaxing on the grass,kissingon the grass, boating,kissingwhile boating… Why do people get so horny in the summer?
I’d been counting on it being a great place to get some inspiration. I was fed up with staring at the four walls of my sweatbox of an apartment, going out of my tiny mind because of the editorial letter my publisher sent me that morning, attached to a very brief cover email:
Noelle
Hope you’re well. Please find attached my edit letter.
Yours, Patti
It hadn’t boded well from the off. Patti was usually way chattier than that.
Ihadbeen expecting a brutal critique though. I wasn’t happy with the book when I sent it off to her two weeks ago. And there’s a difference between knowing it’s rough around the edges and needs development – which is how it always feels – and feeling in my gut that something was missing.
I’d dived straight into the letter because I don’t believe in delaying inevitable pain; best to get it over with. It was five pages long. Not too bad but…I’d scrolled down and saw what the headings were. Everything.Everyintegral component of a novel needed drastic work. Particularly the conclusion of the love story.
So, here I was, sitting on a bench opposite the Alice in Wonderland statue staring at all the passers-by trying to smile rather than squint as the sun laser-beamed off its bronze surface while they took their photos. I had my latest sparkly notebook in front of me, ready for the epiphany to fix everything and…nothing. Just nothing.
Honestly, it was like I’d never written a book before. It was driving me crazy.
‘Christ on a cracker.’ I jumped as my phone pinged, interrupting my reverie.
Daisy: Are you going to be here soon? I’m
soooo bored. Dad and Uncle Joe are talking
about how wrongCSIis. Again.
Shoot. My little sister Daisy. I checked the time. I was supposed to leave ten minutes ago to meet my family at the parking-lot-cum-outdoor-theatre where my twin brothers, Alfie and Teddy, were performing the final show of the semester for their college theatre class. They were going to be the main players in a gender flipped version ofA Streetcar Named Desire– Stella and Blanche respectively – and I was looking forward to it. They were both great actors. They ought to be since they’d started their careers in kindergarten impersonating each other, driving us and their teachers mad.
I scooped my belongings into my tote and left the park, trying to jog along the sidewalk to catch the subway across town. My progress was hampered both by the fact I’d not fastened my sandal tightly enough and by all of the people milling around in the heat like confused cattle. The train was typically hellish in the heat too, but it was running on time and I didn’t have far to go thankfully.
The entire ride I watched all the couples, wondering what their deal was. How did they get together? Why did it work?
I mean, I understood the basics of human biology – it was something like eighty per cent the right pheromones to suit their genetic code, but I couldn’t write a satisfying finale to my series with the heroine choosing her partner because she’d noticed he smelt right.
Could I?
How I was supposed to replicate that kind of relationship in my book when my own love life had sputtered to a halt. The last serious relationship I’d had (and I use the word “serious” in its loosest form), was a year ago. Since then I’d been trawling the depths of internet dating and not got past a second date with anyone.
‘Noelle,’ my mom called over the top of people’s heads as soon as she spotted me through the wire mesh, just outside the entrance to the parking lot. She waved her arm violently, knocking my eldest brother Tim – I have alotof brothers – in the head. Her voice was accustomed to being pitched above the din of over half a dozen kids squabbling at home, so it carried like a football announcer across to me. ‘Over here, honey. I left your ticket on the door.’
“The door” was a grumpy-looking teenager with a book of raffle tickets at the barrier. The place wasn’t exactly sold out.
My family took up the entire back row on one side of the bleachers, which had been brought in. Mom, Dad, Tim and his girlfriend Delia, Sam – another brother – Daisy, my brother-in-law Quinn who must’ve been roped in because my eldest sister Lucy was staying at home with the baby, my aunt and uncle and my parents’ neighbour. It was a full house. Wherever we went, we went in force. It was like mobilising an army for every extracurricular activity.
‘Here she is finally,’ Uncle Joe cried. ‘Better late than never as always, eh Noelle?’
‘Better never than late when it comes to you, Uncle Joe,’ I quipped in response and flicked the brim of his baseball cap as I did the awkward side shuffle past them all to the space they’d left me between Daisy and Tim. I heard him laughing as I sat down.
‘We’ve just been staring at concrete anyhow,’ Daisy told me under her breath, referring to the asphalt stage with its bare-boned props of broken wooden crates and bald tyres. She wasn’t great at sitting down at the best of times. Daisy was always most comfortable when she was active but being parked here in the sunshine was especially painful for her.
‘Where’s your sun hat?’ I asked.
‘Oh, don’t start fussing.’ She tutted. ‘I left it in my kit bag, is all.’
‘She can use some of yours, can’t she?’ Tim commented, trying to rearrange his shoulder around my, admittedly, rather large white hat. I made no apologies. When you’re red-headed, you don’t sit out in the sun for two hours without protection unless you want to end up with skin the colour and texture of a red M&M.
