Category: Fiction

La La Land Made Me Do it

La La Land Made Me Do it

sandybarker

2016. Ben and I had just returned from another sailing trip in Greece.

My manuscript called to me from the desk drawer. ‘Hey, remember me? I’m about falling in love on a sailing trip in Greece. You could, um, you know, give me a new lick of paint or something?’

I ignored it.

I’d had an agent the year before. He’d loved the book, but he couldn’t get any takers. I was done with it. I was done with the whole ‘being an author’ lark. I was giving up on my dream.

Then we saw La La Land.

La La Land, which will forever be known as ‘the film that changed my life’.

Yes, really.

You see, towards the end of the film [spoiler alert, but really, you should have seen it by now—it’s incredible], Emma Stone’s character, Mia, is at the point where she wants to give up on acting. And Ryan Gosling’s character, Sebastian, convinces her to go to this one particular audition.

She does, and it is a beautiful audition. La La Land is a musical, so she sings it—a song called ‘The Fools Who Dream’. In a perfect Oscar-winning moment, she lays it all out there, her heart bare and raw.

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[MAJOR SPOILER] She gets the part and she becomes a huge star.

The rest of the film devolves into a flash forward and then completely the wrong ending, but that scene!!!!

After the film, we caught the tram home and I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t stop the tears streaming down my face. When we got home, I told Ben I wanted to be alone, and sitting at my desk, I had a serious talk with myself.

No one was going to knock on my door and ask if I had a completed manuscript lying about. No one was going to ever read it if I didn’t do something—if I didn’t at least try.

This was my dream. I was a fool who dreamed, and if I didn’t give this everything I had, it would never happen and I would always be heartbroken that my dream hadn’t come true.

So, I had to try—again.

And I did. I re-wrote the book and self-published and queried it and wrote more books and queried those. I kept going. I gave it everything I had—all because of that one scene in that one film. Yes, eventually I may have had a nudge from somewhere else, but I will always remember La La Land as the film that changed my life.

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Ubud

 

My name is Sandy and I am an author

My name is Sandy and I am an author

sandybarker
Ubud
My fave coffee shop in Bali
Writing by the pool in Bali
Uluwatu
Amsterdam
With Lindsey Kelk
Poolside Ubud

I met with a financial advisor once – once. When he asked about my long-term plans (career, finances, retirement), I replied that I would probably never truly retire, because one day I’d be an author and I would continue to write ’til the day I stopped breathing.

He laughed at me. Out loud. Then he tilted his head and gave me a pitying look. I asked him to leave and went back to my desk and wrote a chapter.

That was in 2001.

I finished that manuscript, a travel biography of my year as a Contiki Tour Manager, then stuck it in a drawer. For years.

I dusted it off once and gave it to a writer friend. “This should be a novel,” she said, so I started turning it into a novel. In late 2012, I got 70000 words into a re-write, then queried it to an agent in Australia. He loved the first three chapters and immediately asked for the rest.

“This isn’t your first book,” he said on the phone a few days later. “It’s good – you’re an excellent writer – but you’re not Liane Moriarty. There are too many narratives, too many characters. Go and write a single narrative – a simple story. Then come back to me.”

Encouraged, I did.

Mining my own (sometimes interesting) life, I turned my true-life love story into a novel. I wrote You Might Meet Someone about a woman in her late-thirties, who – post-breakup – is fed up with men and takes herself on holiday to Greece, sailing the Cyclades Islands. Everyone tells her how she might meet someone – so condescending and unhelpful – but she just wants to travel and soak up the briny air and sunshine. Of course, she does meet someone – make that two someones.

(Aside: in real life, there was only one someone and he is still my someone.)

I went back to the agent. “Hi, do you remember me?” – that sort of thing. He did and said he’d read the first three chapters. Loved them and later that day, he asked for the rest. The next morning, well before I’d had my first cup of tea, I got the call. He’d read it twice and loved it. ‘Eat, Sail, Love,’ he called it.

He represented me for a year – per our contract – to no avail. No publishing deal. In retrospect, my synopsis and pitch were ‘off’, but my agent thought I should add some ‘danger’ to the book – apparently, danger was selling at the time. I wondered how I could do that. How could I turn a travel romcom into a book with danger? We parted ways amicably and I put the book in a (metaphorical) drawer. That was 2015.

In 2016 Ben and I had been together nearly 10 years and we decided to celebrate our real-life ‘meet cute’ with another sailing trip around the Greek Islands with the same skipper.

On return from that wondrous trip, I was inspired to pull out the book and give it another pass. “Why don’t you self-publish on Kindle?” asked my supportive love. I percolated on that question for a short while, gave the book a final edit, handed it off to a colleague with editorial chops, collaborated with a cover artist in London, and – bottom lip firmly between my teeth – published it on Kindle.

My book was out there. I was an author.

Fast forward to our sabbatical in 2018 and I wrote the sequel (also published on Kindle), then book three in the series. Sarah (books one and two) and her sister, Cat (book three), came to life. The men they loved, their travel adventures, their friendships, their internal battles, their journeys to love, came to life.

Concurrently, I soaked up as much as I could about author life. I took a course on building my author profile and engaged with fellow authors on Twitter. I read widely – both within my genre and about the business of being an author.

As I embarked on the indie author path, I tweaked and honed and finessed my pitches to book bloggers, agents and publishers. I joined author communities. I sought and gave feedback. I engaged beta readers and I became a beta reader – I learned what a beta reader is and why they are so important to the writing process. I entered contests and Twitter pitches, and was featured on book blogs and UKRomChat (hi, lovelies – I adore you so much!). I even did my first NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and smashed it, writing 70000 words of my third book in three weeks.

I worked my little Aussie bum off.

Along the way, I made friends with some incredibly talented, generous, and supportive people – most of whom I’ve yet to meet face to face. I became part of the writing community.

Excitingly, my blood, sweat and lots of tears – a.k.a. ‘hard work’ – is now paying off. I have a new agent, the inimitable Lina Langlee of the Kate Nash Literary Agency in the UK, and she has secured me a two-book deal (!) with a soon-to-be-named imprint of a soon-to-be-named (big five) publishing house.

It’s happening. I am being published – by a world-renowned publisher.

I am embarking on a long-distance, long-term relationship with an agent who loves my work and believes in me, and a publishing house who described my writing as ‘beautifully sumptuous and evocative’.

So, as I commence writing my fourth book, as I assemble the dream cast for the movies of my books, as I continue to work in a field I (also) love and am great at – adult education – I am humbled, excited, terrified, vindicated, grateful, and … well, I am an author.

p.s. Doesn’t Lina Langlee have the best name ever?

p.s.p.s. If you read either of my first two books while they were out in the world, thank you. They’ll be back. (pssst, please leave a review on Goodreads)

p.s.p.s.p.s. Thank you to William (Bill) Aicher of the Indie Author Coalition; Aimee Brown, fellow romance author and leader amongst women; DC Wright-Hammer, who shines the spotlight on fellow authors; Rebecca Langham, who started #AusWrites on Twitter (often the highlight of my day); Jeanna, Eilidh, Lucy and all my fellow authors of UKRomChat on Twitter (always the highlight of my romance author week); Allison and Valerie from the Australian Writers’ Centre; and Jen and Kerry from The Business of Books. Thank you Lindsey Kelk, my favourite author who (actually) replies to my emails. And thank you to my friend, Mike Curato, who took a leap of faith to become a best-selling artist and author.

p.s.p.s.p.s.p.s. Thank you Ben and my sis and my family and Lins and Jen and all my lovely friends. x

 

 

Romance Must-reads

Romance Must-reads

sandybarker

I was a romance reader long before I was a romance writer – actually, since I used to sneak Mills and Boon books from my mother’s beside table at the precocious age of 12.

By 13, I’d graduated to Shirley Conran and Jackie Collins, and she’d ‘graduated’ to just handing them to me.

At high school, I read every Sweet Dreams book ever written along with all the other teenage girls in existence. As an adult, I discovered chicklit – mostly romcoms, but also the more heartfelt side of the genre.

And when I read my first Lindsey Kelk book in January 2013, I knew two things. First, I wanted to read all her books (there were 5 then; there are soon to be 13). And second, I wanted to write romance novels.

I still read widely across the genre and wanted to share some (old and new) favourites with you.

AAG - LKThe first in the Tess Brookes series (my fave chicklit series ever) – this book is hilarious.  Buy it here. Kelk’s book that started my love affair with romance writing is I Heart New York, and you can now pre-order the 8th ‘I Heart’ book, I Heart Hawaii.

Outlander

Outlander is, simply, one of the most beautifully-written books I’ve ever read; the prose is sublime. Couple that with a love story that transcends time, it is an absolute must-read. And if you’ve been living under a kilt, there’s also a television show – perhaps the sexiest one on air. I am up to #7 of Diana Gabaldon’s series.

Penny Reid

Penny Reid’s Knitting in the City series is terrific, and I devoured book 1, Neanderthal Seeks Human. I am only 3 books in (there are 8, each focussing on a different member of the knitting circle), but the way she crafts distinct characters through first person is just terrific.

Mayes

How I adore Frances Mayes’ writing. She evokes place like no other. Women in Sunlight is not your typical romance novel, as it’s not the primary theme, but I love the approach in this novel which explores love, sex and romance in your 60s.

TTTW

The Time Traveller’s Wife is one of my favourite books – ever. This story will simply take your breath away.

Moyes

The 3rd in the trilogy, this was actually my favourite of the moving, yet hopeful ‘Me Before You’ series. An original concept brings Louisa and Will together in a the most devastating ‘meet cute’ ever. Buy the first one here.

Allende

Traversing generations, Allende has woven a beautiful and epic love story in The Japanese Lover.

Some other lovely romantic reads I’ve loved over the past few months are: Her Brooding Scottish Heir (my first foray into M&B in decades) by Ella Hayes; French Kissing (sexy, funny, dreamy) by Lynne Selby; A Room at the Manor (heartfelt and lovely) by Julie Shackman; A Village Affair (laugh out loud) by Julie Houston; One Way Ticket to Paris (rekindling true love) by Emma Robinson, and Lottie Loser (romance with a dramatic twist) by Dana L. Brown.

I’m making myself stop there and if you think that’s a lot of books, you should see my TBR (to be read) list!

Happy Valentine’s Day or Galentine’s Day or just plain old February 14th.

Sandy xx

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, what exactly is #chicklit?

So, what exactly is #chicklit?

sandybarker

I published my first novel nearly a year ago and I’m about to publish my third. Something I’m often asked—and something I need to define as an author—is what genre I write in.

The long answer is ‘Contemporary Women’s Fiction’, but as this broad category also includes authors like Liane Moriarty and Jodi Picoult, whose books are brilliant but very different from mine, I tend to answer ‘RomCom’ or ‘Chicklit’.

RomCom is a little limiting, however, because in each of my books I delve into heartbreak, goodbyes, loss, and other harsh realities of life, like alcoholism and infidelity. The other day, Ben asked me if I was okay because I started sobbing while sitting at my computer. “I’m just writing a sad scene,” I said and he left me to it. My characters live and breathe in my head; when they’re heartbroken, so am I.

That said, I also write a lot of humour into my books. The main characters are funny women. They’re self-deprecating, smart and witty. Their inner monologues, where they ‘say’ whatever they like, are some of the funniest parts of the books.

In short, I write them to be relatable, well-rounded, flawed, and fabulous women—like your best friends, your sisters, your cousins/aunts/mums, like you.

So, is Chicklit a more apt description of the genre I write? Yes and no.

Yes, because fans of the genre know what type of book they’re getting when they buy one of mine—and it’s likely they’ll enjoy it. And I’m in good company in this genre. Take a look at the Goodreads list of most popular Chick Lit titles. You’ll notice some famous bestsellers, like Bridget Jones’s Diary and The Devil Wears Prada.

And no, because it’s (become) a loaded term. For those who don’t really know what it is, who are afraid to dip their toe in the pool, who might love my books and others that sit in this category if they actually read them, there can be the perception that Chicklit = fluffy nonsense.

This is not true.

Sure, like in any genre, books in this category span the entire spectrum from outstanding to atrocious, but the best examples of the genre are fantastic reads. And, like any genre, the lines are fluid. It includes everything from laugh-out-loud comedies (a la Bridget Jones) to heartbreaking tales like JoJo Moyes’ Me Before You.

A way I can narrow down my specific corner of the genre further, is to identify the books that would sit next to mine on the shelf, those ‘people-who-bought-this-book-also-bought…’ books.

My fave Chicklit author—the one who I want my books to sit next to the most—is Lindsey Kelk.

lindsey-kelk-2-book-bestsellers-collection-about-a-girl-i-heart-new-york

She’s written seven (soon to be eight) I Heart books and three Tess Brookes books, as well as several stand-alones. Her writing is fast-paced, funny, heartfelt, and relatable. She’s a full-time author and her books are sold worldwide, and I feel qualified to say this because I’ve read hundreds of Chicklit books, one of the best in the biz.

So, if I was pressed to give the Twitter pitch definition of Chicklit, I would say this:

It’s fiction about women, for women.

That would leave me 204 characters to further explain that men often read and enjoy it, and some of it is written by men, but I stand by my one-liner.

I am also trying (without a lot of traction at the moment) to get ‘travel romance’ to take off as a sub-genre: exploring the transformative effects of travel on the love-weary. But until it becomes mainstream, I’m happy to inhabit my little corner of Chicklit.

 

Drama Queen: Becoming a Novelist

sandybarker

Since I can remember, I’ve loved writing. I still have my Year 4 composition book and I was quite the short storyist (I also like to make up words). In my teens I wrote a gripping satirical piece on public toilets and started a novel (to date, still unfinished).

At university, while studying a BA in English and majoring in Literature and Theatre Arts, I wrote piercing exposes about sexism in classic novels and the sexualisation of men in Glam Rock – I know, also gripping stuff. I wrote angst-ridden monologues, which were somewhat sophomoric considering I was in my early twenties and no longer a sulking teen.

I kept a journal from age twelve, one of those small, but fat diaries with a gold lock that my eight year-old sister could easily pick. I upgraded to bigger and better journals, but stopped journalling about fifteen years ago when I realised I spent more time writing about my life than living it.

All of these writings and musings are where I cut my teeth as an author, but the one thing that has served me best as an author is Drama – my time studying performance and plays, my time on stage, and my time as a Drama teacher.

Drama taught me invaluable lessons I draw on every time I write.

Character motivations

Characters must have a motivation. It’s that simple. They must want something, even if they don’t (yet) know that they want it. Characters can also be their own antagonist – just think of how many people you know who self-sabotage. Any time my writing stalls, I ask myself, what does this character want and what will they do to get it?

Character arcs

Not only do characters need a motivation, they must move – and I don’t mean that they need to join a dance class or change their address. Characters – particularly the protagonist – must develop, grow, or change in some way. They must have an arc. They should be different at the end of the story from when the reader first meets them. It’s good for me as a writer to be able to articulate that continuum of growth, that arc.

Back stories

Acting taught me of the importance of back stories. Characters – again, particularly protagonists – need to be as fully fleshed out as possible. They should have histories and there should be reasons for their personality traits, their motivations, their flaws, their relationships. As a writer, I must create histories for my characters, so they ring true to readers.

Setting

In a play, there’s a great deal of attention to setting – how characters interact with it, how it’s referred to and how it is staged. On paper, a richly-developed setting can become almost a character in itself. And how characters engage with the setting can evoke a specific tone or mood. As I travel avidly, I tend to write about places I know well and aim to capture what it is like to be in those places.

Dialogue

I have received some terrific feedback on the realism of my dialogue, which I greatly appreciate because I tend to use a lot of it and I work hard to make it sound A) true to each character and B) natural and realistic.

Writing plays in the noughties helped me develop this skill. I was teaching at a girls’ school and was seeking out plays for student productions. There’s a dearth of well-written, easy-to-stage ensemble pieces which are appropriate for high school students – especially for an all-female cast. So, I wrote plays. (They have since been published on Drama Notebook in the US and have been performed by schools in Australia, the UK and the US.)

I also hone this skill every time I work on one of my novels. Once I finish a conversation, I read it aloud as the characters (with voices – I can’t help myself), and tweak the phrasing, words, tone and inflections. My aim is to make it seem like a real conversation that I happened to capture in print.

Scenes

I follow a lot of authors on social media through Twitter, Facebook, blogs and websites, and I’ve been pleased to see more and more discussions about writing in scenes. Rather than focussing on chapters, the author focuses on a scene where something specific happens – just like in a play. A scene could comprise a whole chapter, or it might be part of one.

I realised recently that as a novelist I always write in scenes – again, perhaps a throw-back to writing plays. It is easier for me to approach the over-arching story in smaller, self-contained chunks. As a reader, I’ve seen a shift in writing towards this format. Likely you’ve seen this too – authors denote the end of a scene within a chapter with a double space or a physical page break that looks something like this:

***

Where I used to have to finish reading a whole chapter before putting a book down, I can now get to the end of a scene and feel like I have a natural place to pause.

A quick nod to grammar

I mentioned that I studied Literature as well as Theatre Arts and it was through my Lit classes that I began my love affair all things grammar. I have since taught English and worked as a professional editor. It means I can conduct decent and thorough editorial passes at my own writing before handing off to a(nother) pro (always get another pair of eyes on a manuscript).

And a quick nod to my contemporaries

A good writer reads. A good writer reads widely. A good writer reads voraciously.

Reading teaches you what to do and what not to do – how to evoke time, place, passion, fear, love, loss and the human condition – how to avoid over-using a word – how to structure a phrase, a sentence, a chapter, a thought – how to make your readers laugh aloud and weep onto the page – how to play with words and ignore the rules for effect.

I want to be a good writer – sorry, make that a great writer – so I read. Every day. Across genres. Indie authors, emerging authors, well established authors, and sometimes super famous authors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Book giveaway!

Book giveaway!

sandybarker

Hello everyone!

To celebrate the release of my second book in the ‘Someone’ series, I Think I Met Someone, I am giving away book one, You Might Meet Someone, for FREE on Amazon (Kindle) in all regions until Wednesday July 25. Yes, free!!!

Here’s a snapshot – it’s a romcom with a travel theme: Sarah’s taking herself on holiday – not looking for love, but for herself. Join her for a heartfelt, fun and romantic romp in the Greek Islands.

Download your FREE copy before Wednesday! Links below.

You Might Meet Someone Cover Art DIGITAL

Amazon US | Amazon UK | Amazon Australia

Also available in all other geographies.

You Might Just Meet Someone Chapter One

sandybarker

This is chapter one of a novel I have written. Feedback is welcome.

Chapter One

I woke up stiff and achy. I was pretty sure I had the beginnings of jetlag even though I was still in the air. It was that wretched mixture of queasiness and exhaustion. I hate flying long-haul. Let me correct that. I hate flying long-haul in economy. Flying across the world when I’ve been upgraded to business class is awesome. I can highly recommend it. But this wasn’t one of those times.

I checked my watch. I had slept – if you want to call it that – for five hours. That may sound like a lot on a plane, but I’d started counting when I left Sydney 26 hours before. There was still two hours to go before we landed in London, but I knew I had no more sleeping in me. I was annoyingly wide awake. I yawned a big, ugly yawn, the kind I usually reserve for solitary moments. It was one of the few benefits of sitting in a cabin full of people I’d never see again once we landed.

I stretched my neck from side to side and pushed my palms into my eye sockets. My eyes felt like they wanted to be anywhere but inside my head. I dug around in my seat pocket for eye-drops, tipped my head back, and irrigated the poor things with soothing coolness. Resting my head back on the seat I longed to be in a bed – any bed – even a camp cot, and I hate camping. I just wanted to be lying flat so I could stretch out my aching muscles. I certainly did not want to be cooped up with all those strangers in a ridiculously uncomfortable seat, breathing that stale, nasty air.

Yup, I’d definitely woken up on the wrong side of the plane.

Still, crankiness was easier to deal with than the other thing on my mind. I was anxious and I had been for the past few weeks. Not about the flying. I’d flown enough times to treat a patch of turbulence with indifference, but when it came to the thousand and one other things that could go wrong while travelling, I was in full-blown neurotic mode.

To be fair, I had a reason to be anxious. Those thousand and one things – I’d experienced every single one of them – a flight delayed so long I’d had to sleep on the airport floor; flights cancelled altogether; missing hotel reservations; a stolen wallet; a suitcase that disappeared in transit; a suitcase that showed up a mangled mess and spilling its contents on the baggage carousel; malaria! Okay, so it wasn’t actually malaria. It was a slightly less insidious parasite, but it still knocked me on my ass for five days when I was supposed to be hiking the Inca Trail.

I looked out the window at the passing clouds. Whatever was going on, I should have been excited about the amazing trip I was about to embark on. I was on holiday! After an overnight stay in London, I was going to Santorini. That’s right, the Santorini of Greek island fame. So you see, in the big scheme of things, I had very little reason to feel so sucky.

Thank the Greek gods that my sister lived in London. I was thrilled I’d get to see her before I went to Santorini. I’d missed her like crazy. Plus, she’d tell me not to be such a drama queen, which I desperately needed to hear. I really didn’t want to start my holiday with a rash of nervous hives.

Catherine – or Cat, as I called her – had moved to England fifteen years before, aged nineteen. We only saw each other in the flesh every couple of years when she came home to Sydney or I went over to London. I knew that she would ease my worries – real or imagined – with a good hard dose of tough love. It was one of the many, many reasons she was my best friend.

The rest of the flight was uneventful and within a couple of hours of waking up, I’d had my breakfast of congealed eggs and cold toast, washed my face with a moist towelette, cleared immigration, and was waiting at baggage claim for my backpack. I was normally a suitcase kind of a girl, but I’d brought a backpack because the brochure had said to. Apparently, there wasn’t much space inside a yacht.

Oh, did I forget to mention that? The trip would start in Santorini, and then I was sailing around the Greek Islands for nine days. Not by myself – I don’t actually know how to sail a boat. The skipper would be doing the sailing, and there’d be some other people on the boat, but most importantly there would be me – on a yacht!

As I watched bag after bag pop out of the baggage shoot and tumble down onto the carousel, my nerves were replaced by something much better, excitement. I felt it bubble up inside me, as it really hit me that I was going to Santorini! In Greece! And then to a bunch of other Greek islands that I couldn’t remember the names of!

I could see myself on the bow of the yacht wearing my tangerine bikini and duty-free Prada sunglasses – which both looked fantastic on me, by the way – the wind whipping through my hair. I’d be like Leonardo DiCaprio – the king of the world! Well, queen anyway. Princess, at the very least.

Finally after a millennium, my bag appeared. Good thing too, as my yacht fantasy was devolving into something out of an 80s video clip. I grabbed for the handle, fumbled with it a bit, and then lugged it off the carousel. It wasn’t very big, but it was filled to the brim with the perfect Greek Island adventure trousseau: the obligatory summer dresses, the obligatory bikinis, and the obligatory Bermuda shorts, flowing skirts, cute tops, sunhat – all of the obligatories. I was a travelling cliché and I didn’t care. Did I mention I was going to Greece?

I dragged the bag over to one of the airport trolleys, swung it aboard, stacked my handbag on top and headed for the ‘Nothing to Declare’ exit. The only think I had to declare was that I was going sailing in the Aegean, and I didn’t think that the Customs agents gave a crap about that.

Cat was waiting on the other side of the door behind the silver railing. She and I look almost exactly alike, except that I am 5’6” and she’s five foot. She’ll say she’s 5’ ¾” but she’s not. And she got the good hair. Bitch. It’s the only thing I hate about her. While I’m stuck with masses of curls – the really curly ones – she has thick cascading, chestnut waves. Like I said, bitch.

She ducked under the railing, even though I don’t think you’re supposed to do that. “You’re here!” she declared, throwing her little arms around my neck. I stopped pushing the trolley and returned the hug. We stepped back and regarded each other.

“You look fab!” I declared, tears in my eyes.

“You too!” she lied.

“Like hell I do. I just got off a 28-hour flight. I look like crap.”

“You’re right, but that’s nothing a shower and a good night’s sleep won’t cure. Come on.” Then she took over pushing my trolley, which was probably a good thing because Heathrow is busy even at the slowest of times and I wasn’t up to running the gauntlet. I followed obediently as she parted the crowd with a series of slightly-rude, “Excuse me’s.”

Back in her flat, my hair wet from the best shower I’d ever had, a cup of tea in one hand and a chocolate biscuit in the other, I sat on one end of her couch while we caught each other up on the previous two years. Of course, we’d emailed and Facetimed – we weren’t estranged or anything – but those things are just not the same as actually being together.

It was a new flat since the last time I’d last been there. She lived with a guy and a girl, and apparently the guy was never there, always away on business or something. I was immensely grateful for this arrangement, because it meant I could sleep in his bed rather than on the couch. Still, even the couch was better than sleeping in an airplane seat.

The girl, Jane, would be home later, and Cat had planned for the three of us to have dinner in. She said she was cooking and I pretended to be excited about it. Beggars cannot be choosers. Still, after four meals of airplane food, I would have been happy with baked beans on toast, or even just the rest of the chocolate biscuits.

“So, tomorrow you fly to Athens and then what?”

“I pretty much fly straight to Santorini. The lay-over in Athens is a few hours and I thought about sightseeing, but knowing me if I left the airport I’d get caught in a Greek traffic jam on the way back and miss my island-hopper.”

“Probably.”

“Thank you so very much,” I replied my voice thick with sisterly sarcasm.

“I’m just agreeing with you. Sometimes you have shitty luck when you travel.” Sometimes. Understatement of the century. Still the excitement won out.

“Cat, can you believe I’m totally going to Santorini tomorrow?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jealous.

“But listen, when I first decided to go, I read all the brochures and about a zillion online reviews and then I booked it. And I was really excited for a while, but it’s been months since then, so after a while it stopped feeling real, until now, until today. I can’t believe I’m really going!” I grinned at her, and then I stopped. “I’m not being too obnoxious, am I?”

She smiled. “No, I’m happy for you. Really.” Not so jealous after all.

“I wish you could come too.”

“So do I, but there’s no way I could have gotten time off.” Cat was a teacher like me, but while I was on holidays, her school year had just started.

“Probably for the best. As you said, I have shitty luck with this stuff. Maybe you’re escaping a huge disaster of a trip.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well, every time I travel somewhere, things go wrong. Look at last time in Peru! Plus I won’t know anyone, and…”

“Sarah, a little bad luck does not a disaster make. And besides, you used to run tours – long ones – for fifty people. You know how to make friends.”

“I know, but…”

“But nothing. The occasional bad luck aside, you’re you. You always manage to come out of whatever life throws at you. You’re a very capable traveller, and you’ve been around –” I threw her a stern look. “You know what I mean, I mean you’ve literally been around. You’ve been practically everywhere. You’ll be fine.”

See? Tough love. Plus, everything she said made sense, but still…

“That’s true, but what if it’s just completely horrible?”

She laughed at me. I probably deserved it. “It’s not going to be horrible. It’s going to be amazing, and you’ll probably meet some really cool people.” Then she hit me with the one thing I didn’t want to hear. “You know, you might just meet someone.” And then she gave me that look.

And in that instant, my sister, my best friend in the entire world, joined the ‘poor Sarah needs a mate’ pity party.

“Did you really just say that?” I asked, shooting what I hoped were fiery daggers from my eyes.

“What?” She feigned innocence.

“You know exactly what!” I didn’t think it was possible, but her eyes got even bigger. “Do you know how many people have said that to me since I booked this bloody trip?”

She shook her head, her eyes like saucers.

“A bazillion!” Okay, so sometimes I tend towards the hyperbole. It was probably more like twelve, but in my world, that’s a lot.

“Oh-kay!” she retaliated. “I didn’t realise it was such a sore point. I hope you don’t meet anyone, especially not anyone who’s good looking and makes you laugh – especially not an all-round great guy. I hope all the men you meet are old and fat and ugly. No! Better yet, I hope there are no men. I hope you sail around the Greek islands with a bunch of middle-aged lesbians! I hope you go to Lesbos, and are surrounded with lesbians!!” She pinned me down with a so-there stare, and after a beat we both fell about laughing. My laughter then turned into a yawn.

“How’re you doing over there?” she asked.

“Good!” I replied with more enthusiasm than I felt. She looked dubious. “Okay, I’m shattered, but I need to stay up and get on European time. I’ll be fine. The tea’s kicking in.”

“Okay, so how about some more tea then?”

“Yes! Definitely more tea.” I drained the last of my mug and handed it to her. She took it into the kitchen and put the kettle on.

With her back to me, she asked “So, as long as you’re staying up for a while, do you want to talk about it now?” She turned to face me, looking mildly uncomfortable, like she was holding in a fart or something.

“About what?” I asked, not really wanting to know.

“Neil.” I was right. I didn’t want to know. Neil was literally the last person on the planet I wanted to talk about. I would have put having a lively conversation about Hitler, or Stalin, or even Idi Amin over talking about the sack of shit I had called my boyfriend for the better part of a year.

“Not really.”

“Oh. Okay.” I could see the disappointment registered on her face. I could also see her mind working. “It’s just that…well, we never talked about it.”

She was right. I hadn’t wanted to talk to anybody about what happened with Neil – not my closest friends – not even Cat. It was just so humiliating.

“True, but…” I hesitated. But what, Sarah? But, please don’t make me relive it all now when I am so exhausted that I would rather stick a fork in my eye? I thought that, but what I said was, “Okay.”

She brought fresh cups of tea back to the couch and pushed the plate of chocolate biscuits towards me. She knew me so well. “So, what happened?” She folded her legs under her and looked at me expectantly.

“Well, Neil was a dickhead and it took me far too long to do anything about it.” I took a bite of a chocolate biscuit.

“But why did you stay with him?” That was a question I’d asked myself a thousand times. I swallowed the hard lump of biscuit.

“I really don’t know. Pretty much from the beginning, there were all these alarm bells going off in my head. And I dismissed them – time and time again. I pretended that it wasn’t weird that he wouldn’t see me during the week, or that he refused to meet my friends, or that he hated me telling him anything good that happened to me.” Cat’s brow furrowed. “You know when I got promoted to head of department?” She nodded. “Well, I told him about it and he said – and I quote – ‘Well, thanks for telling me. Now I feel like shit about myself. Nice one, Sarah.’”

“He did not!”

“He bloody did. And I still didn’t leave him.”

“Jesus. And who was this slapper that he cheated on you with?”

“A friend.”

“Hardly. Do I know her?”

“No, she was a new friend – from yoga – or at least, I thought she was my friend.”

“But, how did they meet?”

“They were both at a barbecue at my place. And I didn’t think anything of them talking to each other most of the night. I was just happy that he was finally meeting my friends. Apparently, it started right after that.”

“How did you find out?”

“I suspected something was up, because he was acting way weirder than usual, so I did something I never thought I would do – something awful.”

“What?” I could see the suspense was killing her, but I had never revealed this detail to anyone before. I sucked in my breath through my teeth. “I hacked into his email account.”

“Oh my God! That’s brilliant. How did you do that?” I laughed. I loved that rather than judging me, she was impressed that I’d done something so sneaky.

“Well, it wasn’t exactly hacking. I tried guessing his password. And I got in.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep. Second try. It was his footy team.”

“What a stupid idiot.”

“Yep. And there was an email trail of the whole thing. Months it had been going on – and get this, the whole time she was telling me to my face all about this new guy she was seeing.”

“Utter bitch!”

“I know!” I bit into the biscuit and chewed furiously; Cat was literally on the edge of her seat. “So, I confronted him about it, and he lied to my face and told me not to be ridiculous. I just looked at him – straight in the eye – and said, ‘I know for a fact that you’ve been fucking her, you lying cheat. That little slut can’t keep her legs or her mouth shut. So, this is over. Never contact me again. Oh, and I hope you catch her chlamydia.’ Then I left his place and that was it.” I shoved the rest of the biscuit in my mouth.

“That’s like something out of a movie.”

I nodded and swallowed. “Well, I did practice it a few times before I went over there. I knew he would deny it. Some of their emails to each even said how dumb I was for not knowing what was going on.”

“Oh, Sez.”

I started to tear up. I chanced a glance at Cat and she was looking at me as though I was a wounded puppy. I looked away and blinked the tears from my eyes. I wasn’t shedding any more tears for fucking Neil.

“He’s a stupid bastard!” she declared.

“Yes, he is. But I haven’t told you the best part. After I broke up with him, I kept logging into his email so I could watch the aftermath. And boy did it get ugly. He accused her of telling me and she denied it, he asked if she had chlamydia, and she was outraged. He called her names, she called him names back and eventually she told him to fuck right off. So in the end he lost both of us. So, yes, a stupid bastard.”

“And you were with him for what, a year?”

“Close – it was about ten months, but I still can’t believe I stayed as long as I did. I haven’t seen him since, though, so it’s all good. I booked this trip the week we broke up.”

“Well, I’m glad you booked this trip – no matter what drove you to it.” She paused, “Sez, you deserve way better, you know that, right?”

I smiled. I did know that, yes. I knew that I deserved far better than to be cheated on by every man who I had ever called my boyfriend, starting with my high school sweetheart and ending with Neil the dickhead.

“Anyway, I’ve kind of sworn off men since then. I just want to be on my own for a while. I’m not sure how long ‘a while’ is, but for right now, I think that’s best.”

“Oh.” She looked surprised, which after everything I had just told her, surprised me.

“I’m happily single.” I wasn’t sure if I was trying to convince her or me.

“I’m sorry about what I said before – about you meeting someone on the boat.”

“It’s cool. I know that you’re just looking out for me.”

“And your vagina.”

“And my vagina? Well, that’s disturbing.”

“Why?”

“I don’t need my sister worrying about my vagina. I may have sworn off men, but my lady parts are just fine, thank you.”

“You’ve sworn off men? Entirely?”

“Well, not forever, but just until…” Until what, Sarah?

“Until what?” See? Even Cat wanted to know.

The thing was, I didn’t know myself what I was waiting for. I only knew that I wasn’t interested in meeting anyone. In fact, the thought of meeting someone new was utterly exhausting. And I had no idea when I’d be ready – or if I ever would.

A wave of fatigue hit me, sucking up my last ounce of energy. “Hey, would you hate me if I went and laid down for a bit? I can barely keep my eyes open.” I could see Cat mentally noting that I’d dodged her question.

“Of course not,” she said, letting me off the hook for the second time in as many minutes. “I changed the sheets in Justin’s room, so you’re all set. What time’s your flight in the morning?”

“Pft. Stupid o’clock. Six, I think.”

“Well, I’m a hundred percent sure that I’ll still be asleep when you take off, so it’s highly unlikely I’ll be up when you have to leave here. Want me to order you a car to Heathrow?”

“Sure. If I leave here at 4:15, will that give me enough time?”

“Should do. I’ll book it for you. I’m sooooo glad it’s not me.”

“You know, I’m just going to go lie down for an hour or so. I still want to meet Jane and have dinner with you guys.”

She looked at me with a knowing smile. “Sure, Sez.”

And that was the last thing I remembered when my horrid travel alarm intruded on my coma-like sleep at 3:30am London time. It was a good thing that when I went to lie down, I’d set it just in case. I tried to figure out how long I had slept, but I knew it didn’t matter. I felt even worse than when I woke up on the plane the morning before. I needed a hot shower, then a bucket of tea, and I only had forty-five – make that forty-three – minutes until my car arrived. Crap.

I only made the driver wait for five minutes, which I thought was pretty good considering how disoriented I was and how horrendous I felt. We made it to Heathrow in record time, as it seems that sometimes London does sleep and it’s at 4:30 in the morning. The sun was just lightening the sky as I forked over a small fortune in pounds to the cabbie. Then it was just me and my backpack and the behemoth that is terminal one of Heathrow. The nerves were back. I don’t know why on earth people refer to them as butterflies. They felt more like baby elephants to me.