Where Rainbows End (10 page)

Greg:

Well . . . thank you for sharing all that with me Rosie, I can’t tell you enough how thrilled I am to hear that you are no longer in love with a man named Alex “
at all whatsoever
” as you so articulately put it . . .

Rosie:

Oh my god Ruby!! I just sent Greg the message that was supposed to be for you!! Fuck fuck
FUCKETY FUCK!
I TOLD HIM I
LOVED
HIM!!!!

Greg:

Em . . . that eh . . . went to me again Rosie . . . sorry . . .

Rosie:

Oh . . .

Ruby:

Oh what??

Rosie:

OK so that has to be the singularly
most embarrassing
thing that has
ever
happened to me, without
any
doubts,
NO
exceptions!!!

Ruby:

What about the time you wore that white dress out to a club with no underwear on and someone spilled water all over you and it was suddenly completely see-through?

Rosie:

OK so that was pretty embarrassing.

Ruby:

And what about the time you were in the supermarket and you grabbed another little girl’s hand by mistake and started dragging her out to the car while Katie waited inside crying her eyes out.

Rosie:

That little girl’s mother said it was fine and she dropped the charges . . .

Ruby:

And what about the time—

Rosie:

OK that’s enough thank you! I take back what I said, it was not
the
most embarrassing thing that has ever happened, but it’s pretty much up there with the all-time classics. The number one embarrassing moment being the time I kissed Alex.

Ruby:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Rosie:

Oh come on you’re supposed to make me feel better.

Ruby:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Rosie:

Oh the joy of having supportive friends. I’m going now; Randy love, rosie

87

Andy is glaring at me like a schoolmaster over the rim of his incredibly sexy brown-rimmed spectacles.

Ruby:

Maybe he wants you to be the naughty schoolgirl.

Rosie:

Well he’s just a few years too late for that. I think he wants to kill me, his nostrils are flaring and he’s breathing quite heavily Ruby:

Are his hands above the desk?

Rosie:

Uuugh! Ruby stop!

Ruby:

What?! You don’t think they call him Randy Andy for nothing do you?

Rosie:

I hate open plan offices, he can see me from every corner of this room, and he can also see my legs underneath the desk. Oh my, now he’s staring at my legs.

Ruby:

Rosie you really need to get out of that office. It’s not healthy.

Rosie:

I know, I’m working on it but I can’t quit until I get another job and that’s proving to be rather difficult. Apparently no one really cares about whether or not you work as a secretary in a paper-clip factory.

Ruby:

Hmm . . . how odd . . . And it
sounds
so glamorous, you would think . . . Honestly,
some
people . . .

Rosie:

Oh my god, he has now moved his chair over so he can get a better look. Hold on a minute while I send him a message, I’ve had enough!

Ruby:

Don’t!

Rosie:

Why not? I’ll just send him a polite message asking to stop looking at me because I find it distracting while I’m trying to work.

You have an instant message from: ROSIE

Rosie:

Stop staring at my tits you pervert.

Rosie:

OK Ruby, I sent it.

Ruby:

Oh you are so fired; Randy Andy doesn’t take too kindly to brash young ladies who stick up for themselves.

Rosie:

Screw him! He can’t fire me for that!

88

Cecelia Ahern

Ms. Rosie Dunne,

Andy Sheedy Paper Clip & Co. will no longer be requiring your services, which means that your contract will therefore not be up for renewal next month as was previously discussed.

You are, however, entitled to remain as an employee of Andy Sheedy Paper Clip & Co. until the end of the month, i.e. June the 30th.

Andy Sheedy Paper Clip & Co. thanks you for the work you have put into the company over the past few years and we wish you luck in the future.

Yours sincerely,

Andy Sheedy

Owner of Andy Sheedy Paper Clip & Co.

You have an instant message from: ROSIE

Rosie:

I faxed the letter over, did you see it?

Ruby:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Rosie:

Do you know what? The more I read it, the more I’m glad that I’m leaving. The name Andy Sheedy Paper Clip & Co. says it all really, doesn’t it? I wonder who wrote the letter for him, seeing as I’m his secretary and that’s my job and all. I probably did it myself and didn’t even realize it. I never pay attention to half the stuff he gives me to type up anyway. Ah well, so what do you think?

Ruby:

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Rosie:

Well I’m glad you find me losing my job
so
funny.

Ruby:

Oh please it’s not like you weren’t leaving anyway. This is the best way to go. Rosie Dunne, you will go down in history in this building as the woman who told Randy Andy to f off. I will spread the word Rosie; you being fired will not have been in vain. I’ll miss you!

Where will you go?

Rosie:

I have absolutely no idea.

Ruby:

Why don’t you apply for a job in a hotel? Ever since I’ve met you you’ve been going on and on about hotels.

love, rosie

89

Rosie:

I know. I have a slight obsession with them. Perhaps it’s the huge furniture that makes me feel so safe in them, like oversized vases the size of people and couches that wouldn’t fit in my living room and kitchen put together. I feel like Alice in Wonderland in hotel lobbies.

At least I have a month to find somewhere, it shouldn’t be
that
hard. I better start writing up my CV.

Ruby:

That shouldn’t take long then.

from:

Rosie

to:

Alex

subject:

Is my CV OK?

Attachment—CV.doc

Please, please, please help me with my CV or my poor daughter and I will starve to death. How do you make all my crappy jobs look impressive?

Help! Help! Help!

from:

Alex

to:

Rosie

subject:

Re: CV

Attachment: CV.doc

As you can see (by the attached document) I have rewritten your CV.

The one you sent me was practically perfect as it was of course but I just fixed the grammar and a few spelling mistakes . . . you no how great at spelling I am!

By the way Rosie, just to let you no, you haven’t been doing a “crappy job” as you so nicely phrased it. I don’t think you understand the difficulty of what you are doing. You are a full-time
single
mum who has a job as a personal secretary to a very successful businessman. I only changed the words around; I didn’t alter the truth in any way. What you have been doing day after day is incredible. When I come home from work I’m so shattered that I just collapse; I barely take care of myself, never mind another person.

90

Cecelia Ahern

Don’t underestimate yourself, Rosie, don’t play down what you do.

When you go into your interviews keep your head held high and feel confident with the knowledge that you are an incredibly hard worker (when you want to be), you have the wonderful ability to work with other people as you are always well liked (except that time when we had to do a group project in school on the planets and you insisted on drawing little men on Mars and little women on Venus over Helen Corrigan’s picture that took her weeks to do in art class which ended up causing every one in the group to walk out in protest leaving just the two of us having to start another one all by ourselves. God what is it about you and me being together that makes everyone hate us?!) You are wonderful, beautiful, smart, and intelligent, and if you knew anything about coronary heart diseases I’d hire you myself.

I mentioned that you were offered a place in Boston College which is impressive so everything will be fine, just be yourself and they’ll love you.

Just one more thing, I
strongly
suggest that you apply for a job that you actually
like
this time. You would be surprised at how easy it is to get out of bed in the morning when you’re going to do something that doesn’t make you want to jump off the top floor of the bus (I was a bit worried when I got that e-mail). How about finally trying to find a place in a hotel? You’ve wanted to do that since you stayed in the Holiday Inn in London when you were seven, remember?

Go for it and let me no how you get on.

from:

Alex

to:

Rosie

subject:

Boston visit?

Just taking a sneaky break from performing “lobotomies” to send a quick e-mail to see how you’re getting on with the job search. You have one week left till Randy Andy throws you out of his paper clip empire, so there’s still plenty of time, and if by any chance something hasn’t caught your eye by then, I can send a check over to help tide you over for a while (but only if you
want
my help.)

I would love to go home right now and go to bed, I am so tired. I’ve worked a double shift so I don’t have to get my hands bloody tomorrow; I have the day off, such bliss . . . The problem is that when I get home Sally will be getting ready to go on her shift. We don’t have the most sociable hours in the world; well not unless you count talking to people who are rolling around in agony on hospital beds. Sorry that wasn’t funny.

I’m just tired, and Sally and I don’t really get to spend a lot of time together, and when we do we’re usually so tired we just pass out.

Here’s a good idea. If you come over with Katie and whats-his-name then I’ll take a few days off and we can see all the sights, eat out, enjoy ourselves, and I can
sleep
. And I’ll finally get to meet whats-his-name. I’ve had a 92

Cecelia Ahern

lousy few weeks; I really need your comic relief! Work your magic Rosie Dunne and make me laugh.

from:

Rosie

to:

Alex

subject:

Rosie is here!

Hello there misery man, have no fear, Rosie is here! Sorry things have been shit for you lately. I think life likes to do that every now and again.

Every so often it likes to dip and when you feel like you can’t take any more it smoothes out again. But until then my dear friend I will try to humor you by explaining the events of my life.

OK firstly you are a bad, bad influence on me. After I read the master-piece that was my CV, and after I read your letter I felt so motivated and hyped up that I donned my tracksuit, headband, wrist bands, and jogging shoes (not really) and I raced around Dublin city like a woman on a mission.

You horrible, horrible man. You made me feel like I could do anything, like I could take on the world (never
ever
do that again) so I proceeded to drop my CV into every single hotel I’ve ever wanted to work in but was always too afraid to try. Shame on you for giving me strength, because it quickly disappeared and I found myself faced with a million billion interviews with a million billion snotty companies that hated me and my cheek for even
thinking
I could work for them.

So let’s see, which embarrassing interview should I tell you about first?

Hmm . . . there are so many to choose from. Well let’s start with the most recent, shall we? Yesterday I had an interview to work at the reception in the Two Lakes Hotel; you know that really posh one in the city? The front of the building is entirely made of glass so you can see the big bright glistening chandeliers dripping down, from miles away. At nighttime the building looks like it’s on fire, it’s so bright. The restaurant is on the top floor so that you can look out over the entire city. It really is very beautiful.

But it’s also one of those places where there’s a guy (actually more of a gentleman) dressed in one of those cloak things and a top hat who stands at love, rosie

93

the door and refuses to let anyone in. It must have taken me about ten minutes just to get inside the door, he just wouldn’t listen, and he kept saying that I needed to be a resident. Honestly, how could anybody ever get to be a resident if they don’t let you in the door? Anyway, finally he let me in and I nearly slipped on the marble floor that was
so
shiny.

The place was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. No, I mean it literally; the woman at reception actually
did
drop a pin. I heard it. Well I suppose the hotel wasn’t
that
quiet, there was the twinkling sound of a piano filtering out from the lounge, there was a water fountain trickling down through the lobby area, the sounds were just so calming. It even had all those giant pieces of furniture that I always loved as a child, like huge mirrors, gigantic chandeliers, doors the length of my apartment wall. When I stepped onto the carpets I thought I was going to bounce up to the balcony, they were so spongy.

I was seated at “The Longest Table Ever” for the interview. Two men and a woman sat at one end, at least I think that’s what they were, I was so far away I could barely see (I almost felt like asking them to pass the salt).

So I thought that I would try and make myself sound interested in the company, just like you told me to, so I asked them how the hotel got its name as I wasn’t aware of any lakes in that part of the city. The two men started laughing and introduced themselves as Bill and Bob Lake. They own the place. How embarrassing.

So I basically just kept talking about what you told me to say: how I like working as part of a team, that I’m good with people, how I’m very interested in the running of a hotel and about how I’m such a hard worker and always put my mind to working on tasks and always finishing off what I start. And then I waffled on for what felt like an hour about how I’ve loved hotels since I was a child and have always wanted to work in one. (Well, the luxury is in
staying
in one but we both know I can’t afford
that
.) And then they go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like: “So Rosie, from the time you spent working at Andy Sheedy Paper Clip & Co.