smell the Southern Comfort off the screen.’
‘Oh, now you’re just nit picking. Besides, I like it. In fact, I can almost get a feel for what Andy sounds like, just from the way he expresses himself online.’
‘Yeah, but aren’t you at all concerned at the whopping great howlers you’re peddling him? You told him you were reporting on a murder trial live from the Four Courts?’
‘Yeah, I know but …’
‘You don’t need to do any of this, Holly. Any guy in his sane mind would adore you just as you are. So come on then, time to choose. Come to the movies with us or stay home? Real life or keep spinning make-believe illusions?’
I think we both already know my answer to that one though.
And, sure enough, the very minute she was out the door, wouldn’t you know it I was straight back online. Fingers trembling, I attached the most passable photo I had of myself, taken on my birthday all of, ahem, five years ago. I was in Paris with Joy at the time on a girlie weekend, and it’s just that the background to the photo looks so Parisian and cool. It was taken at night (hence far more forgiving lighting), and I’m sitting on the Pont Neuf with my feet dangling over it, while Joy screeched at me from behind the camera to pose like something out of a Fellini film. As it happens though, I’m just trying to sober up and not fall in.
I clicked ‘send.’ And then waited.
And waited.
Just past midnight and I was all snuggled up in bed, half dozing off, but with half an ear open, just in case. And then, thank you God, a blessed ping as a message came through to my phone.
Him. Andy. Back to me already.
From: Guy_in_the_Sky
Well hey there Holly,
I sure hope this message isn’t waking you up from your beauty sleep? I know it’s the wee small hours over there in the Emerald Isle, but I just had to get in touch to say I got your photo, safe and sound.
And wow. I knew you were pretty, but honey, in this photo you’re a total knockout. A real belle, as we say down here. I’m just looking at you right now, swinging those long legs off the edge of a bridge in old Paree, and marveling at my good fortune in meeting a lovely, genuine lady like you. And I sure know it’s tough, all this messaging back and forth again and not actually getting to meet each other in real time, but that’s kinda what I wanted to talk to you about.
See, I just got my work roster for the next month, and as good fortune would have it, I’m flying on the ATL-DUB route right at the end of the week. That’s right honey, Atlanta to Dublin … I’m coming right to your hometown!
So I guess, here’s my question. Would you do me the great honour of having dinner with me? And if your answer is yes, then maybe you’d give me your phone number, so I can call you to arrange?
So that was pretty much it for me then. No more sleep for the rest of the night and come to think of it, for the whole rest of the week ahead.
The following day, I was back to work in a blurry haze from sleep deprivation, but was I complaining? Far from it. Instead, I almost skipped round our huge open-plan office, beaming and smiling at the world. I let all the small stuff that normally bugs the arse off me slide, and at once stage, even insisted on bringing back an americano for Maia Mars, seeing as how I was passing by Starbucks anyway.
‘Look at you, the Smitten Kitten,’ Dermot teased, perching on the edge of my desk and blocking my computer screen, so I’d no choice but to give him my undivided attention.
‘Well?’ he said probingly, but I just threw him a knowing smile and kept my mouth zipped.
‘Ask me what I’m doing this weekend. Go on, just ask me,’ I told him, all excited.
‘You’re meeting up with this mystery man? That’s fabulous news!’
‘Dinner,’ I told him proudly. ‘He wants to have dinner. Not just drinks where he can skedaddle off if he doesn’t like the look of me; full-on dinner. He’s even calling tonight to arrange it.’
‘I’ll even forgive your adolescent excitement. After all, there have been three popes and counting since the last time I even heard you use that sentence.’
It was an absolute gold star, red-letter of a day in work too. We went live on air with the idea I pitched about long-distance relationships and I’m not joking, the response to it was phenomenal. The segment was originally only intended to run for about fifteen minutes max, but we were so inundated with callers that it ended up stretching to a full hour, which, in a show like Afternoon Delight, is roughly the equivalent of striking a goldmine.
Throughout the show, all the gang in work kept coming up to me to say congratulations and even Aggie gave me a wink and said, ‘Great work, Holly. Keep this up and you’ll end up doing my job someday.’
Wow. Just wow.
And you want to have heard some of our callers’ love stories. Swear to God, it did me good just to listen in, and more than a few even reduced me to tears. One caller named Annie rang in to say she’d recently divorced and was living with three young kids all under the age of ten, while her ex was now shacked up with a newer, thinner ‘life partner,’ as he apparently refers to her.
‘I was in a complete slough of depression after my divorce,’ Annie told us, sounding shy and a bit wobbly, really speaking from the heart. ‘Even having to drop my kids off at my ex and the “life partner’s” fancy apartment for weekend visits was just killing me. Worst of all was the feeling that another woman – a complete stranger – was getting all this fun, quality time with my children, while I just spent weekend after weekend all alone by myself, with nothing but the telly for company.’
‘So what then?’ Noel Browne, our presenter, gently probed in that honey voice of his, like the expert he is in sniffing out a good story.
‘Well … there I was at my lowest ebb,’ she said, growing stronger and more confident by the second as her story came pouring out. ‘Then a pal suggested online dating to me. She very kindly told me that I was still only in my forties and that the romantic part of my life was far from over. Which was reassuring to say the least, and at the time, exactly what I needed to hear. But the problem was my confidence around men was on the floor after my divorce and I really did reach a point where I thought I’d never be happy again.’
‘So you signed up to a dating website?’
‘Yeah, I did. Terrified at first, because it was all so new to me. After all, I hadn’t been single and out there for the guts of twenty years and believe me, Noel, things have certainly changed since my day.’
‘But then someone special came along?’
‘After a few false starts, eventually, yeah. He’s a divorcé with kids, just like me. The only problem is that he lives in London and I’m here. But we got to messaging and emailing each other so frequently that eventually it was as though I felt I knew him inside out,
