Page 7 of Counting Down To You

For you, Al, I can be a miracle worker.

Chapter

3

The next morning, I leave a note for Julie stuck to the fridge with a magnet Cal bought me in the office secret Santa a few years back—the Grinch with the caption “Resting Grinch Face.” I’m not convinced Julie will even notice I’m gone, but it seems impolite to just take off.

I leave the flat ridiculously early, considering my flight isn’t until the afternoon. But I have somewhere I want to stop by on the way to the airport. I lug my suitcase down the staircase with a thud on each step, so that I’m bound to wake anyone up who was planning on having a lie-in.

I order an Uber when I get to the ground floor, then check the email from Cal. True to his word, he’s proven to be very much a miracle worker, and I have newfound respect for him. I must remember to drop it into conversation with Farah—he’s been trying to get into permanent recruitment for ages.

I’m going to be working at a luxury hotel. My official title is “guest-relations manager,” and when I asked Cal what, exactly, that entailed, he said:

Just make all the rich people staying there think they are the most important person to you, and you’ll be grand.

Which isn’t overly helpful, but I’ve not had too much time to think on it what with all the packing and filling relevant people in on my last-minute plans (Mum: Oh what fun! Send photos! I’ve heard there’s a good yoga retreat in the Alps—can you ask around? My university friends WhatsApp group: Wow! Your life is so much more exciting than mine! Will miss you at drinks!). I do know that the reason the hotel needs a replacement is because the person they’d initially hired has, according to Cal, absconded with one of the guests within the first week of starting the job. They are, as a result, desperate and happy to take me on a short-term basis.

It’s only once I get into my Uber, the driver having to clear space for my suitcase in the trunk, that it really hits me. I’m doing this. I’m going to France. For a whole month. It seems, suddenly, totally insane. And it also, suddenly, feels too hot in here. I want to wind the window down, but the driver might not appreciate that, given how cold it is outside.

“Are you okay?” The driver glances at me in the rearview mirror with a concerned expression. So clearly it’s relatively obvious I’ve been on the verge of hyperventilating.

I try for a reassuring smile as I nod back, but I’m not totally sure I am all right. I don’t do things like this. I do not take sabbaticals and agree to jobs that I am vastly unqualified for. It’s my pet peeve in my actual job—people applying for stuff they clearly have no interest or experience in. I can’t even ski, for God’s sake. Robyn was the spontaneous one—sure, I went along for the ride sometimes, but Robyn had always been the one driving it. Although I suppose it’s still Robyn driving it now. I can imagine her grin, the spark of delight in her amber eyes. Picturing that expression calms me down a bit.

Thankfully, the driver does not appear to be a talker, so I reach into my carry-on bag on the seat next to me and take out the challenge calendar. I find the number 2 in the top left corner.

Take a photo with a hot man and post it on Instagram. I think you ought to make Adam regret treating you that way.

I grimace. I don’t really want to be reminded of how Adam treated me, discarding me for someone better (and hotter) when things got tough. The challenge is so completely Robyn though, and a part of me wants to laugh out loud, even if I already feel embarrassed by just the idea of it. It makes me think of one of the challenges from our university days. Get in as many people’s photos as you can this year—we want to be remembered!

It’s not so much the photo itself, though, that’s the issue here, it’s the bloody Instagram part. If Robyn were here, I’d fight her on this. Insist that I’d get the photo but wouldn’t post it.

Too bad I’m dead, then, isn’t it? Can’t argue with a dead person.

Does it qualify as madness, hearing your dead best friend’s voice in your head?

Nah. Totally normal I reckon.

Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you?

Okay, arguing with your dead best friend almost definitely qualifies.

But, still, I like hearing her voice. I slip my headphones into my ears, bringing up Audible on my phone. As I listen to Robyn narrate, I try to surreptitiously glance at the driver to see if he qualifies as “hot,” then immediately feel bad for sizing him up that way. He’s got to be in his fifties and has a photo of what are presumably his wife and kids stuck to the dashboard.

My gut tightens as we reach our destination, right on the outskirts of London. As the taxi pulls into the main hospital car park, I try not to think about the last time I was here, a few days before Robyn died. I missed her final moments. They hadn’t expected her to take a turn for the worse so quickly, so I was back at the flat, still holding on to hope that Robyn would make it. But when I’d got the call from Robyn’s mum and heard nothing but sobs, I’d known.

I hate this building. Hate the small, white rooms with the beeping machines and the sound of labored breathing and the smell of antiseptic. Hate the busy corridors, the canteen with children eating fishfingers and chips, while they hope for sick parents to get better.

But I don’t hate the people who work here. The nurses who took care of Robyn, the doctor who treated her as a human first and patient second. And it’s for them that I’m here. Because I know from the mailing list I’m signed up to that today is their Christmas fundraiser, for new equipment that will help them to keep trying to save as many people as possible.

The driver pulls up as close to the entrance as it’s possible to get, so that I can almost see through the glass doors. He hops out and unloads my suitcase, while I stow my headphones and the calendar back in my bag. I try not to look directly at the hospital as I get out of the car. Which is, obviously, impossible, given the size of it.

“I hope everything is okay,” the driver says as he hands over my suitcase.

“Oh, I’m fine. I’m just here because my friend was here and—” I catch myself before I go into full-blown babble mode. “Thank you,” I say instead, and he nods politely.

Thankfully I don’t have to head into the building itself, but rather round the side to the “healing garden,” which was put in a few years ago for patients, staff, and visitors alike. Robyn and I spent a lot of time in this garden, even though it was the depths of winter. Robyn said it made her feel vaguely normal, sitting outside. It was a bit of a risk to hold an event outside in December, though we’re lucky because today is the perfect crisp, blue winter’s day.

The fundraiser is small—it would have to be, given the space—with a few stalls selling hot food and drink, plus homemade Christmas ornaments. It looks a bit like a mini fair, with a raffle on one table and a silent auction on another. The garden is buzzing with chatter and the jingle of Christmas music, and the scent of coffee and baked goods fills the air. The trees are bare, but the space is pleasantly green, and if you don’t look directly behind you, it’s almost possible to believe you’re in a park, rather than at a hospital. As long as you don’t take note of all the nurses and doctors in their scrubs, that is.