Second Chance - Jane Green [65]
Fw: Cowboys (Friends Part II)
An old cowboy sat down at the Starbucks and ordered a cup of coffee. As he sat sipping his coffee, a young woman sat down next to him.
She turned to the cowboy and asked, ‘Are you a real cowboy?’
He replied, ‘Well, I’ve spent my whole life breaking colts, working cows, going to rodeos, fixing fences, pulling calves, bailing hay, doctoring calves, cleaning my barn, fixing flats, working on tractors and feeding my dogs, so I guess I am a cowboy.’
She said, ‘I’m a lesbian. I spend my whole day thinking about women. As soon as I get up in the morning, I think about women. When I shower, I think about women. When I watch TV, I think about women. I even think about women when I eat. It seems that everything makes me think of women.’
The two sat sipping in silence.
A little while later, a man sat down on the other side of the old cowboy and asked, ‘Are you a real cowboy?’
He replied, ‘I always thought I was, but I just found out that I’m a lesbian.’
To: Holly
From: Will
01/12/06 10:33:25 AM
Re: Fw: Cowboys (Friends Part II)
So not only am I a whippersnapper, but I’m a lesbian too???!!!!!!!
Holly bursts into laughter reading Will’s email. She files it away and goes back to reread his previous emails. She’s not sure why she does this, but she has reread them every day. They make her feel happy. Free. Young. She even stole away one night when Marcus was asleep, just to check if another email had arrived. It had. It seems Will is as obsessive as she.
There is nothing quite as exciting as sitting at her desk, clicking on the inbox and seeing his email address, the anticipation so sweet at times she can hardly stand it. For the first time in years, Holly has something to look forward to, a reason to get up in the mornings.
She alternates between being giddy with happiness when the emails arrive and riddled with insecurity and doubt when they don’t. A lot of the time, she feels as if she is sixteen.
She is fun and playful with the children but far too distracted to give them her full attention, and her distraction is affecting her relationship with Marcus. She doesn’t care any more that he’s never at home or that he doesn’t seem particularly interested in her life.
*
One night Marcus comes home so much earlier than usual and announces that he has booked a table at Petrus as a special treat. Holly runs upstairs and changes, and Marcus frowns at her as she walks back into the hallway.
‘New clothes?’
‘Yup.’ Holly twirls. ‘You like?’ She is wearing a brightly coloured print dress, huge splashy flowers, and a long, retro necklace of enamel daisies. She fell in love with all of it when she took Daisy to Petit Bateau in Westbourne Grove the other day. And of course Daisy ended up with underwear and Holly ended up with four bags stuffed with the type of gorgeous, funky, hell–bohemian–clothes that she had tried to pretend she would never wear any more because she knows they don’t fit her role as Marcus’s wife.
‘It’s fun,’ Marcus says eventually, and they leave, Holly not feeling the slightest bit upset by Marcus’s clear disapproval. When it comes to Marcus she doesn’t feel much of anything these days. Not love. Not hate. Nothing. Sheer indifference.
Marcus’s wife, it seems, has left the building.
At the restaurant Marcus says, ‘You seem miles away.’ Tonight Holly hasn’t done what she so often does– chatter away about inane things, nineteen to the dozen, so all he has to do is smile and nod every now and then and look interested while he is actually thinking about work. Tonight Holly seems happy but not altogether there. And she looks different. Her hair is not pulled back in a sleek ponytail tonight, the way he likes it. It is messy, even a little curly. As it happens, it is actually quite sexy.
When they get home, Marcus comes up behind Holly in the bathroom and puts his arms around her. She turns round and kisses him back, and fifteen minutes later, when he rolls off her with a kiss and a smile, he watches her get up to go to the bathroom and says,