Still Me (Me Before You #3) - Jojo Moyes Page 0,180
through the morass of sunburnt shoulders, of shifting bodies and querulous children and ‘I HEART NY’ T-shirts, the lift doors coming slowly closer. But less than twenty feet away the queue came to a solid stop. I hopped, trying to see over the top of people’s heads, and came face to face with a fake iron girder. It rested against a huge black and white photographic backdrop of the New York skyline. Visitors were seating themselves in groups on the structure, mimicking the iconic photograph of workmen eating their lunch during the tower’s construction, while a young woman behind a camera yelled at them: ‘Put your hands in the air, that’s it, now thumbs up for New York, that’s it, now pretend to push each other off, now kiss. Okay. Pictures available when you leave. Next!’ Time after time she repeated her four phrases as we shifted gradually closer. The only way to get past would mean ruining someone’s possibly once-in-a-lifetime 30 Rock novelty photograph. It was four minutes past seven. I made to push through, to see if I could edge behind her, but found myself blocked by a group of teenagers with rucksacks. Someone shoved my back and we were moving.
‘On the girder, please. Ma’am?’ The way through was blocked by an immovable wall of people. The photographer beckoned. I was going to do whatever would make this move fastest. Obediently I hoisted myself up onto the girder, muttering under my breath, ‘Come on, come on, I need to move.’
‘Put your hands in the air, that’s it, now thumbs up for New York!’ I put my hands in the air, forced my thumbs up. ‘Now pretend to push each other off, that’s it … Now kiss.’ A teenage boy with glasses turned to me, surprised, and then delighted.
I shook my head. ‘Not this one, bud. Sorry.’ I leapt off the girder, pushed past him and ran to the final queue waiting in front of the lift.
It was nine minutes past seven.
It was at this point that I wanted to cry. I stood, squashed in the hot, grumbling queue, shifting from foot to foot and watching as the other lift disgorged people, cursing myself for not doing my research. This was the problem with grand gestures, I realized. They tended to backfire in spectacular fashion. The guards observed my agitation with the indifference of service workers who have seen every kind of human behaviour. And then, finally, at twelve minutes past, the elevator door opened and a guard herded people towards it, counting our heads. When he got to me, he pulled the rope across. ‘Next elevator.’
‘Oh, come on.’
‘It’s the rules, lady.’
‘Please. I have to meet someone. I’m so, so late. Just let me squeeze in? Please. I’m begging you.’
‘Can’t. Strict on numbers.’
But as I let out a small moan of anguish, a woman a few yards away beckoned to me. ‘Here,’ she said, stepping out of the lift. ‘Take my place. I’ll get the next one.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Gotta love a romantic meeting.’
‘Oh, thank you, thank you!’ I said, as I slid past. I didn’t like to tell her that the chance of it being romantic, or even a meeting, was growing slimmer by the second. I wedged myself into the lift, conscious of the curious glances of the other passengers, and clenched my fists as the lift started to move.
This time the lift flew upwards at warp speed, causing children to giggle and point as the glass ceiling betrayed how fast we were going. Lights flashed overhead. My stomach turned somersaults. An elderly woman beside me in a floral hat nudged me. ‘Want a breath mint?’ she said, and winked. ‘For when you finally see him?’
I took one and smiled nervously.
‘I wanna know how this goes,’ she said, and tucked the packet back into her bag. ‘You come find me.’ And then, as my ears popped, the lift began to slow and we were stopping.
Once upon a time there was a small-town girl who lived in a small world. She was perfectly happy, or at least she told herself she was. Like many girls, she loved to try different looks, to be someone she wasn’t. But, like too many girls, life had chipped away at her until, instead of finding what truly suited her, she camouflaged herself, hid the bits that made her different. For a while she let the world bruise her until she decided it was safer not to be herself at all.