How to Fall in Love (16 page)

It was only when we’d driven to the flat to collect the lily pad, and returned to the car after mere minutes inside the house, that we discovered the windshield of the car completely smashed in.

12

How to Solve a Problem Like Maria

Maria worked in Grand Canal Dock in a modern high-rise that looked like a chequered board from the outside. I was going to take care of the lily pad’s delivery; Adam was sure Maria would personally come to reception to sign for it as long as she was told that it was from him. He was under strict instructions to remain outside, but in a place where he would be able to observe her reaction. Seeing as the building appeared to be built entirely of glass and steel, he had many possible vantage points; the tricky part was ensuring she wouldn’t see him. I wanted the moment when Maria and Adam reunited to come when he was ready. He wasn’t anywhere near ready yet.

I felt odd about meeting Maria.
The
Maria. The woman whose quite intimate details I knew and who I’d spoken to over the phone twice and who was the reason or one of the reasons that Adam, rather beautiful Adam, had ended up with his life hanging in the balance. As I walked across the marble floor with my heels tapping so that the long line of receptionists looked up to watch me, I realised I resented Maria. And what timing. I couldn’t help but blame her for holding such power over a man she’d supposedly once loved while apparently oblivious to the effects of her rejection on him. When I thought of what he was going through right now to get her back, and her standing here with no idea, my blood boiled. Again, really not good timing, and inappropriate for me to become so protective of him when my role was supposed to be impartial, but I couldn’t feel anything close to unbiased at that moment.

Rationally, I knew it wasn’t Maria’s fault. If Maria had been a friend confiding in me about Adam’s behaviour, I probably would have supported her in leaving him once everything she’d tried to salvage the relationship had failed. But the woman bugged me despite all that. I knew I should really be telling Adam to move on, not to try to win her back. She was already with someone else, his friend; she’d moved on. Was a further rejection going to break him even more? Yes. It would kill him. I already knew that. I needed their relationship to work for Adam’s life. Which brought me back to resenting Maria.

‘I have a delivery for Maria Harty in Red Lips Productions,’ I said to the receptionist.

‘Who will I say it’s from?’

‘Adam Basil.’

I could see Adam outside, his woollen hat low, his duffle coat closed all the way up to his chin, his face was barely visible and what skin was exposed turning red raw from the cold. I would have to make sure I positioned myself so that Adam could see her reaction. I only hoped Maria wouldn’t throw the lily pad on the floor and stamp all over it. I didn’t think I’d reach him on time if he wanted to dive over the edge into the canal.

The elevator doors opened and a doll stepped out in skinny black jeans, biker boots, a T-shirt with a naked woman in a suggestive pose, jet-black hair which was rich and glossy and framed her doll-like chin, a severe fringe, big blue eyes, a perfect nose, and red, red lips. I wouldn’t have thought she was Maria at all. I had pictured her as a corporate type, expecting a suit to appear, but as soon as I saw her, I knew. It was the red lips that gave her away and suddenly the company name made sense. I knew it was her and yet I couldn’t call out to her as I watched her walk across the lobby to reception. I imagined she and Adam cut a very striking couple, turning heads wherever they went, and in that moment I resented Maria even more. Good old-fashioned female jealousy. I was annoyed with myself; I’d never fallen prey to that kind of thinking before. I wasn’t the type. But then, I’d always been happy, settled in my life and now I wasn’t, so anything, anybody secure sent my already wobbly confidence crashing down like a skittle.

The receptionist pointed over at me, and Maria took me in. In the days when they spoke to me, Peter and Paul greeted me as ‘Casual Friday’ in the mornings, because jeans were my staple wardrobe. And not just your regular jeans. I had them in almost every colour of the rainbow, as was the palette of the rest of my clothes. My wardrobe was one great kaleidoscope with the purpose of brightening up my day even when everything else in the world failed to comply. I’d gone from a muted wardrobe of blacks and beiges to this burst of colour in my mid-twenties. I always had on at least one item of colour after I’d read a book,
How to Enrich Our Soul Through the Clothes We Wear
, which taught me that our skin and soul took energy from the colours we wore, and wearing dark colours drained us. Our bodies craved colour the same way they needed sun, yet here was Maria, all in black and ultra-cool, as if she’d drifted out of an All Saints store, and there was me, like a packet of Skittles, my long, wavy, sandy-coloured hair beneath a stripy woollen hat that looked like I’d stolen it off the set of
Zingzillas
. My sandy ‘beach’ hair was carefully maintained and treated each week, tousled and teased into looking like it didn’t care, like it didn’t have a trouble in the world, but believe me it cared, it only pretended not to. My hair giggled and flirted, it blew in the breeze, whereas Maria’s … that trendy bob with its strict fringe laughed in the face of danger, it
demanded
rebellion.

As soon as Maria spotted the lily pad in my arms, which wasn’t difficult to see, her face broke into a beam. Relief flooded through me and I was afraid to turn around to see Adam’s reaction in case I alerted Maria to his whereabouts. She clasped her hands to her mouth and started to laugh, trying not to attract too much attention to herself, though I guessed word would be around the office in no time that Maria Harty had received a delivery of a lily pad.

‘Oh my God!’ She wiped her wet eyes. They were tears of joy but also from the sudden memory of a person from another time. She reached out to take the pad. ‘This is probably the oddest delivery you’ve ever made.’ She smiled at me. ‘My goodness, I can’t believe he did this. I thought he’d forgotten. It was a long, long time ago.’ She held the lily pad in her arms. Suddenly embarrassed, she said, ‘I’m sorry, you don’t need people telling you their stories. I’m sure you’ve somewhere else to deliver to. Where do I sign?’

‘Maria, I’m Christine, we spoke on the phone.’

‘Christine
…’ Her forehead crinkled then realisation set in. ‘Oh. Christine. Is that your name? You’ve been answering Adam’s phone?’

‘That’s me.’

‘Oh.’ Maria looked me up and down, sized me up in seconds. ‘I didn’t think that you were young. I mean, you sound much older on the phone.’

‘Oh.’ I felt all warm inside, loving the reaction, but knowing I shouldn’t.

There was an awkward silence.

‘He really got this for me?’

‘He sure did. Dived into subzero temperatures. Got soaking wet. Blue lips and all,’ I said, still feeling my head cold building.

Maria shook her head. ‘He’s crazy.’

‘About you.’

‘Is that what he’s telling me? He still loves me?’

I nodded. ‘He really does.’ And for some reason my throat tightened. Unfortunate timing perhaps. I cleared my throat. ‘I thought he should include flowers, but he insisted on those. I don’t know if they mean anything to you.’

Maria looked down to the lily pad and it was only then that she noticed the tiny lips wrapped in red foil. Adam had added them on at the last minute before I entered the building and suddenly everything was making sense to me. I now recognised them as the tiny chocolates that were scattered on the bed in the Gresham Hotel.

‘Oh my,’ Maria whispered, noticing them for the first time. She attempted to pick them up but couldn’t hold the enormous lily pad with one hand.

I took it back from her so she could examine the tiny lips.

‘I can’t believe there were still some left. You know what they are?’

I shook my head.

‘He made them for me the year we first met. Red lips are, well, kind of my trademark.’ She started to open the foil and when she saw chocolate beneath she laughed. ‘They’re real!’

‘Adam knows how to make chocolate?’ I laughed, feeling doubtful. If Maria wanted to believe that then I shouldn’t be placing doubt in her mind, but I couldn’t help but question it.

‘Well, not personally, obviously, but the company.’ She carried on studying them. ‘They were a prototype, they weren’t supposed to ever see the light of day. I thought we’d eaten them all.’

‘The company
…’ I said, trying to figure it all out.

‘He designed it for me, then he got the people at Basil’s to make them. He put pralines, hazelnuts and almonds in it because he said I’m nutty.’ She laughed, but her laugh caught in her throat and her eyes filled. ‘Shit, sorry.’ She turned her back to reception and fanned her eyes to make them stop welling.

I was slightly in shock by this time but tried to play it cool. I could have asked Maria about Adam, learned more about him, but for some reason I didn’t want Maria to find out that I didn’t know; my insecurity since seeing her stopping me from doing my job properly.

‘There’s no need to be sorry. It’s not easy remembering the good times. But he did want to remind you.’

She nodded. ‘Tell him I remember.’

‘He’s still there, you know,’ I said earnestly. ‘He’s as funny and spontaneous as you remember. Maybe not exactly like when you first met. Maybe that’s impossible for anybody to be. But he makes me laugh all the time.’

Maria studied me closely. ‘Does he?’

I felt my cheeks get hot. It was the woollen hat, must have been, going from extreme cold to stuffy office building heat and the head cold that I knew I was getting after being in the freezing cold pond. I wasn’t going to take it off though, not with her and her poker-straight hair. Who knew what lurked beneath my hat?

‘You really are looking after him, aren’t you?’

‘Well, yes.’ I couldn’t hold her gaze any more and so handed the lily pad over. ‘I should let you get back to work now.’

‘I hope he knows how lucky he is to have you.’ Maria pushed it a little further.

I couldn’t help my eyes filling a little. ‘I’m only doing my job.’ I flashed her a bright and breezy smile and tried hard for my response not to sound like a cheesy super-hero retort.

‘And what job is that?’

‘A friend,’ I said, taking a few steps away. ‘I’m a friend, that’s all.’

I turned and left then, feeling my face blazing. I was thankful for the icy breeze that hit my cheeks as soon as I stepped outside. I kept walking, feeling Maria’s eyes on me. I was glad to turn the corner as soon as I could, to escape the transparent surfaces and have solid brick between us. I stopped walking immediately and put my back to the wall, my eyes closed as I relived the conversation in a state of panic. What had come over me? Why had I reacted like that? Maria acted as if she knew something about my feelings that I didn’t, she made me feel guilty and pathetic for momentarily feeling something I didn’t feel, that I couldn’t
possibly
feel. My aim here was to get them together, not to start having feelings for Adam. Impossible. Ridiculous.

‘Hi,’ I heard an excited voice say close to my ear and I jumped, startled.

‘Jesus, Adam.’

‘What’s wrong? Are you crying?’

‘No, I’m not crying,’ I snapped. ‘I think I’m getting a cold.’ I rubbed my eyes.

‘Well, I’m not surprised, swimming in ponds in the middle of the night. So, what did she say?’ He was practically nose to nose with me he was so excited, so eager to hear the words.

‘You saw her reaction.’

‘Yes!’ He fist-pumped the air. ‘It was perfect. Just perfect. And was she crying? She looked like she was crying. You know, Maria never cries, that’s really a big deal. You were talking for ages – what did she say?’ He was hopping around, bouncing on his feet, searching my face for every little sign so he’d know exactly how it went.

I coldly cut out my emotions and told him the story, minus my own internal tormented thoughts. ‘She asked if you were trying to tell her you still loved her. She said someone who jumps into subzero water to get a lily pad must really love someone. And I said that, yes, you did.’

‘But I didn’t do that.’ Adam fixed me with those blue eyes which usually made my heart surge but right then made it ache. ‘You did it for me.’

We held each other’s gaze, then I looked away. ‘That’s not the point. The point is, she gets the point.’ I started moving, I had to, I needed to get away.

‘Christine? Where are you going?’

‘Er … anywhere. I’m cold, I need to keep moving.’

‘Okay, good idea. Did she like the chocolates?’

‘She
loved
the chocolates, they’re what made her cry. Hey, you made her
chocolates
? You’re Adam Basil, as in “With Basil, You Dazzle”?’

He rolled his eyes but was clearly ecstatic about the outcome. ‘What did she say?’

‘She almost made love to them, she was so happy to see them again. You made a woman chocolates? Jesus, Adam, you were good.’

‘Were?’

‘You know what I mean. You’re getting there again.’

‘They had praline, hazelnuts and almond in them, because she’s nutty,’ he said proudly.

‘I know, she told me.’

‘She did? What did she say?’

His eagerness was endearing so I rehashed the entire conversation, leaving out the part where Maria questioned me about my role in his life. I still hadn’t made sense of that part yet.

‘So you’re Adam Basil of Basil’s Chocolate.’ I shook my head, still not believing it. ‘You should have told me yesterday. You denied it.’

‘I didn’t deny it. As I recall, I said, “Yes, and like the herb.”’

‘Oh. Well, when all this ends you’ll have to make me my own chocolate, as a token of your appreciation.’

‘Easy. Black coffee flavour.’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Not very original.’

‘Shaped as an espresso cup.’ He tried hard to impress me.

‘I hope you have a good creative team at Basil’s.’

‘Why? You wouldn’t eat it anyway,’ he laughed.