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Can you find a ‘How Did You Meet?’ couple who met at a train station? Network Trains want an advertorial. In fact, any train-themed love stories – we could create a ‘Love on the Line’ feature?
S
Laura,
We all like your ‘Then and Now’ photos as an angle for the coin story. Keep them coming on social today. Do you have photos of your great-grandparents? Would be good to include images of the original wartime love story.
This is exactly the kind of in-depth, well-researched feature that puts LL above the purely tabloid content. Good work, Laura – confident you can pull something together that has it all; romance, history, and a personal angle.
S
Suki is the queen of this carrot/stick management technique, where she beats you around the head with a large carrot and then compliments you on how good the carrot-shaped bruise looks. I wonder if it is normal to have your anxiety levels so dictated by the mood of your employer. My mind jumps to an image of Ilídio, so calm and at ease on his own in the workshop. What must it be like to be your own master, to not be plagued by a sense of dread every time your phone vibrates?
I have a text from Monica, asking if I’ll come over for coffee ‘with us’ tomorrow at ten. I wonder who she means by ‘us’. Has she convinced Bad Granny to meet with me, or does the ‘us’ allude to another one of her kitchen appliances? Either way, I reply saying I’d love to come. Monica is one of the few family members I have left, I would like to get to know her better. Besides, even if she doesn’t remember my parents’ story correctly, she did say she had photos I could see.
After replying to Monica, I flick through the photos I took on my phone yesterday, pausing on the one of Ted. His eyes shine out from the screen, as sparkling as the jewels in his beard. He really is surprisingly photogenic, considering how little of his face is visible beneath all that hair. I shake my head, flicking the screen closed. Ted’s sparkly eyes are not relevant to any of this; I need to focus on what’s important.
Looking at all those emails, at how much work I need to do, it feels irresponsible that I’ve agreed to spend the day with Jasper, on a boat of all places – I’m about as sea smart as a camel. I shall just have to make this trip count – take lots of photos of the Écréhous and pick Jasper’s brain for my article on the way. After all, if the universe goes to the trouble of presenting you with your soulmate, you don’t tell the universe that you’re busy and you have to work. That said, I do quickly reply to a few of Suki’s more pressing emails – the hierarchy of authority in my life goes: Suki, the universe, then all other worldly concerns.
When I’m finally ready to go, and I open the cottage door, I hear a voice call down from Sans Ennui. ‘Laura, morning!’
I turn around to see someone bounding down the slope towards me. It takes me a second to realise who it is: it’s Ted, but he looks totally different – he’s shaved off his beard.
‘Hey, how are you feeling, how’s the cut on your leg?’ he says, his face dancing with energy.
I stare at him, my mouth agape – wow. It turns out, beneath the Castaway beard, Ted is incredibly attractive. I don’t mean good-looking, in a ‘clean-shaven suits him’ kind of way; I mean he’s the real-life love child of Brad Pitt and James Dean. He has a chiselled jaw, a dimpled smile, and those dark expressive eyes stand out all the more from a cleaner canvas. He’s also far younger than I assumed him to be. When I first got in the cab, I thought he must be nearly twice my age, but now I see he’s definitely only late thirties. He’s the real-life Benjamin Button, getting younger and younger every time I see him. Perhaps tomorrow he’ll be a teenager, heading off to the sea for a surf before school.
‘Ted, you— Your—’
My mouth can’t find the words, so I finally resort to pointing at his face.
‘I thought it was time to de-fuzz,’ he says, stroking his jaw and then running a hand through his hair, which I swear looks styled somehow. It had been a shapeless mess on Thursday night and now it looks textured, as though he’s run some wax through it. Whatever it is, it’s hair you want to grab and— whoa, what? Where did that thought come from?
‘You look different,’ I say, biting my lip in case any of the thoughts in my head accidentally fall out of my mouth.
‘Different good?’ he asks, holding eye contact with me until I have to look away because it feels as though someone is flipping pancakes in my belly. I have a flashback to last night, to the feeling I had as he walked me to my door. His lips look so much more accessible now. Why am I thinking about Ted’s lips? Gift from the Universe Jasper is going to be here any minute.
‘How – how old are you, Ted?’ I ask with a frown.
Ted laughs at the question.
‘Thirty-seven, why?’
‘It’s just, well, you had a grey beard – it’s confusing for people.’
‘Well, I apologise that the follicles on my face grow a different colour to the ones on my head.’ Ted looks bemused.
With a silent nod, I shift my gaze out to the safety of the sea. My heart seems to be pounding unnecessarily loudly in my chest.
‘Thank you for your help last night, Laura. With your system in place, the whole task feels a lot more manageable this morning.’
Words come to my throat, but I swallow them before they can emerge as sentences. Beardy McCastaway might have been easier to talk to than Hotty McFace here. Really? That’s the best nickname I can come up with?
‘No problem.’
‘Listen, I know we hardly got to any of the places you wanted to visit yesterday. How about we head out now, and I can take you to the southern beaches. There’s a great spot for brunch, this little café right on the beach where—’
The gravel on the drive crunches, and we both turn around to see Jasper’s red sports car drive in.
