Chapter 1
It’s twenty minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve, and I’m thinking about the Ugly Sisters from Cinderella. Or one of them, at least.
Okay, it’s me. I’m thinking about me. I’m the Ugly Sister; only Cinderella isn’t actually my sister — she’s my best friend. And her name isn’t Cinderella, funnily enough; it’s Chloe. Oh, and while we’re at it, we’re not in some fancy palace, either. We’re in a ‘fun’ pub called Diamonds in Margate.
No one ever writes fairy tales about places like that, though, do they?
Even so, everything else more or less scans. There’s even a handsome prince, who’s currently standing by the bar, looking like he’s about to film a commercial for an aftershave called Titan, or Conquest, or something else reeking of toxic masculinity. He’s got one of those ‘chiseled’ kind of faces that are so perfect they almost don’t look real, and if I were to get close enough, I just know he’d smell like leather and wood-smoke, and all the broken hearts he’s left behind him.
Not that I’m going to get close enough, obviously. My heart is in no danger, because I know I’m just here in my role of Ugly Sister — I mean, friend — and the first rule of the Ugly Friend is ‘Know Thine Place’. Sure enough, before I can finish the sticky glass of liquid that passes for wine here in Diamonds, Chloe’s grabbing my hand and pulling me up onto the tiny dance-floor that’s supposed to be the ‘fun’ part of this place.
“Come on, Summer,” she hisses, flipping her glossy blonde hair over her shoulder, then checking to make sure Prince Charming has noticed. “Just one dance, I promise.”
I follow her reluctantly into the crowd. I hate New Year’s Eve. All that pressure to have the best night ever. All those random strangers you have to hug. The blind panic that descends when the countdown begins and you’re forced to stand there pretending to be having fun when all you can think about is how you can literally feel time running out on another year in which nothing really happened, and oh my God, what if this is it? What if you never manage to do all the things you wanted to do with your life, and you just find yourself standing here again this time next year, as if no time at all has passed and you’re still —
“Summer! Focus!”
Chloe snaps her freshly manicured fingers in my face to get my attention. The nails are long and pointed, like weapons, so there’s no ignoring them.
“This isn’t the time for one of your existential crises,” she yells above the thump of the music. “It’s New Year’s Eve!”
“New Year’s Eve is the perfect time for an existential crisis,” I tell her, shaking my hips to the beat. “I’ve had three today already. I might try to fit in another one before bed.”
Chloe rolls her eyes, then suddenly narrows them as something behind me catches her attention. She’s cleverly positioned herself so that she’s facing Prince C, so it’s probably him. I wiggle my hips some more, knowing that my time on the dance floor is coming to an end, and I’m about to be replaced, having discharged my Ugly Friend duty to the best of my ability.
“Wait,” Chloe says, her heavily made-up eyes widening in disbelief. “I think he’s looking at you.”
This statement is so surprising — not to mention unlikely — that it prompts me to turn around to see for myself. And it’s true. Chloe wasn’t just winding me up, like I thought she was. The man of the moment isn’t so much looking at me as staring at me, his soulful brown eyes following me intently as Chloe grabs my hand again and dances into his line of sight.
“Just keep dancing,” she whispers urgently in my ear. “And pretend I’m saying something funny. Come on, Summer.”
I throw my head back and guffaw with obviously fake laughter as we whirl around the dance floor, looking a bit like rejects from Riverdance.
“Oh my God,” Chloe says, looking like she wants to slap me. “I think he’s coming over. I think he’s going to ask you to dance.”
She pouts with the annoyance of someone who knows this isn’t the way it’s supposed to happen. Cinderella is the one who gets the guy, not the Ugly Sister. But there he is, putting his glass down on the bar, then striding confidently towards the dance-floor, his intention to break my heart written all over his implausibly handsome face.
The crowds part. The entire room seems to hold its breath. My heart suddenly decides it’s too big for my body and tries to escape through my mouth. I can’t believe this is happening. The most handsome man in the room has picked me. Me, Summer Brookes: call center team leader and professional Ugly Friend. It’s just like a fairy tale — albeit one set in a grim “fun pub” above a tanning salon. I am literally inside the You Belong With Me Video, at the bit where the guy picks the nerdy girl rather than the cheerleader, and we know her life will never be the same again.
My life will never be the same again.
Thank God for that.
I smile up at him as he reaches me, hoping I don’t have lipstick on my teeth. Time seems to slow down as he leans in, his breath warm on my cheek as he gently brushes the hair back from my ear, and presses his soft lips close so I can hear him over the music.
This is it, I think, trying my best to take a mental snapshot of this moment. This is my moment. I wonder if this bar has CCTV, so I can watch this back later? It’s the only way I’ll believe it actually happened.
“Excuse me,” Prince Charming whispers, his voice just as low and husky as I imagined it would be. “Sorry to bother you, but … would you mind if I danced with your friend? She’s absolutely gorgeous.”
And then I run across the room and jump neatly out of the window, disappearing into the blackness beyond, never to be seen again.
The End.
Except I don’t, obviously. I just wish I could. Instead, I turn roughly the color of a strawberry margarita (Which is a particular skill of mine, and undoubtedly one of the reasons I’m currently single…), then shrug my shoulders as casually as I can manage.
“Sure,” I say, aiming for indifference, but sounding like I’ve just stubbed my toe. “I was just going to the bathroom, anyway. I, er, really need to pee.”
Naturally, the music chooses that exact moment to fade out, which means my intention to take a whiz is announced to everyone on the dance floor.
Good one, Summer.
Prince Charming smiles politely, then turns to Chloe, our brief interaction already forgotten — by him, if not by me — as I turn and leave the dance-floor, forcing my way through the crowd until I reach my seat in the corner.
It’s ten minutes to midnight, and my carriage has already turned back into a pumpkin.
I pick up my bag and am rummaging through it to make sure I have enough change for the taxi home, when suddenly a claw-like hand with nicotine-stained fingers reaches out and grabs my wrist, twisting it painfully.
“Oww!” I yelp, turning to see an older woman wearing heavy makeup and a pink feather boa standing in front of me. She has dyed orange hair, and looks like she’s so used to chain smoking her way through the day that she doesn’t quite know what to do with her hands without a cigarette in one of them.
“Listen,” she says, in a voice that sounds like she just drank a triple-shot of whiskey, then ate the glass. “You have to get out of here.”
“What, Diamonds?” I ask, confused? “Why, do you want my seat? You can have it if you like; I was just leaving.”
“No,” says the woman. “Well, I mean, yes: I’ll take the seat if you’re not using it. But no, I mean you have to get out of here. This town. Margate. You have to leave. You don’t belong here.”
I stare at her, wondering if I’ve heard her properly. The music is pretty loud.
“Is this… like an intervention or something?” I say at last, trying to figure out whether she’s serious or not. “Are you my Fairy Godmother?”
She considers this briefly.
“Think of me as a Wise Old Crone,” she says, looking pleased with herself. “Someone a few years older than you, who’s been around the block a few times, and knows the score. Or, actually, I’ve got a better one: think of me as you in twenty years’ time, if you don’t listen to what I’m telling you.”
“Okay, this is getting weird now,” I tell her, plucking my coat off the back of the chair. “I think I’m just going to go home. Thanks for the, er, advice, though. I’ll definitely bear it in mind.”
I shrug my coat on, my mind whirring. The thing is, I may not be the prettiest girl in the room — or even the cleverest — but I know a Yoda figure when I see one (A very drunk, chain-smoking Yoda in this case. It’s the side of Yoda you don’t often hear about, isn’t it?), and this woman is speaking right to my very soul. Crazily, and pretty incoherently, sure, but all the same, something makes me want to hear what else she has to say.
“I’m not joking,” she says, squeezing herself into the seat next to me. “Trust me. I know what I’m talking about. Plus, I’ve been watching you and your friend over there. In a non-creepy way, obviously.”
She nods towards the dance-floor, where Chloe is wrapped firmly around her Prince Charming. I can’t really think of a non-creepy way to watch them, but I nod anyway, wondering what my new friend is going to say next.
“I used to be just like you,” the woman tells me. “But I didn’t get out. I stayed here; and now look at me.”
“You look… lovely,” I tell her politely, glad she was the one who made the Wise Old Crone observation, and not me.
“Don’t be daft,” she says, her face so close to mine that I can smell the alcohol on her breath. “You don’t want to end up like me. That’s why you have to get out of this bloody place. So you can make something of your life. You must want to make something of your life?”
“Well, yeah,” I agree, surreptitiously checking the time on my phone. “Of course I do.”
Five minutes to midnight. I feel the familiar pre-countdown anxiety start to build in my stomach. Now I really do need to pee.
“Well?” The Crone stares at me as if she’s waiting for an answer.
“Well, what?”
“Well, what do you want to do with your life?”
“I don’t really know,” I admit, feeling stupid. “I used to want to be a singer. I was quite good at it when I was younger. But—”
“So, why didn’t you?”
I frown, wondering why I’m having to justify my life choices to an obviously drunk and/or insane stranger.
“I… I’m not sure. I guess life got in the way. So I didn’t ever do it.”
“And you never will, if you stay here,” says The Wise Old Crone dramatically. “Take it from one who knows.”
“But how do you know?” I ask. “Did you want to be a singer, too? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
“Look, Ginger,” she sighs, looking like she’s starting to get fed up with me. “You can take my advice or leave it, it’s up to you. You don’t know me. I’m just some mad, probably drunk old woman in a pub, right?”
“Right,” I nod, glad we’re on the same page at last. “I mean, I’m sure you’re not mad. You seem really nice, honest. Well, other than the ‘ginger’ thing, obviously. I prefer ‘redhead’. But it’s just…”
The music suddenly cuts out, and is replaced by the familiar chime of Big Ben playing over the speakers.
“Ten!” everyone screams in unison. “Nine!”
My stomach flips over with the anxiety that comes from being forced to witness time literally running out. I feel it at other times too, but on New Year’s Eve, the feeling is so visceral it makes me wish life came with a ‘rewind’ button, so I didn’t have to experience it.
No more New Year’s Eve. No more wasted time. No more existential angst.
Doesn’t that sound amazing?
On the dance floor, Chloe and the Prince are already kissing, not bothering to wait until midnight.
“Five! Four!”
This is not where I want to be. I’m not sure it’s where anyone wants to be, really, but, when I was younger, I always imagined myself spending New Year’s Eve sipping cocktails on some tropical beach; not sitting with a bunch of strangers in a dive bar in my hometown.
And yet, here I am.
“Get out of here, I’m tellin’ ya,” says the Crone, looking at me meaningfully. And, even though I have no real clue what the meaning of her look actually is, as the clock strikes midnight, and everyone except me has someone to kiss (I guess I could kiss the Crone, but… no), I decide to take her advice.
I get out.
I go home.
“But now what?” I wail miserably to myself, dumping my coat onto my bedroom floor and throwing myself face-first onto the bed when I arrive back at my cold, empty flat, the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne still ringing in my ears.
The words of the Crone keep going round and round in my mind.
What if the Crone was right?
What if I really am running out of time to do all the things I want to do with my life? Because I certainly feel like I am. And the fact that the only person to wish me a Happy New Year so far was an Uber driver called Kevin who kept calling me Sarah, isn’t exactly doing much to diminish that feeling.
I roll over onto my back just as my phone beeps urgently inside my bag.
I bet that’s Chloe, wondering where I am.
I struggle back into a sitting position and rummage for my phone, navigating to the messages app to see what she has to say for herself.
But it’s not Chloe.
No, it’s my boss, Linda, messaging me at 12:33am on New Year’s Day to ask if I’ve finished this week’s KPIs.
I stuff my face into my pillow to stifle a scream of frustration.
I hate my job. Which is unfortunate for me, because the only logical next step up for me from here would be Linda’s job. Then I’d be the one messaging people in the middle of the night, asking for a set of figures that literally no one cares about. I’d be the one with no life. Or even less of a life, rather.
Maybe that woman in the pub was sent to me for a reason? Maybe she really was some kind of Fairy Godmother? Maybe this is the sign I’ve been waiting for to force me to change my stupid life?
Out of the corner of my eye, something catches my attention. It’s a cardboard box, a little damp around the edges, and with a musty, just-out-of-the-attic look about it.
SUMMER’S DIARIES reads the scrawled caption on the box. DO NOT OPEN. ON PAIN OF DEATH.
Oh yeah. I almost forgot Mum dropped that off earlier. Well, I guess I could do with a distraction.
I pick up the box and open it cautiously, as if the contents might be dangerous. But it’s just a pile of old notebooks, in varying states of repair. The one on top is a blue, hard-backed exercise book which I recognize from Science class. I pull it out and idly flip it open, hoping that whatever’s inside will give me enough of a laugh to make me forget all about Chloe, and Prince Charming, and Wise Old Crones. Maybe even enough to make me forget Linda and her KPIs.
The Secret Diary of Summer Brookes, Age 13 and Three-Quarters
Dear Diary,
Well, here we are: a new year, and hopefully a new beginning.
New year is a strange time of year for me, because I always feel like crying. Is that weird? I feel like that’s probably weird. Just forget I said it. I’ll go back and change it later, if I can find some Tippex.
Anyway, I don’t really believe in New Year’s Resolutions, but I saw this thing on TV about how if you want things to happen in your life, you have to ‘manifest’ them, so I guess this is it. This is me manifesting. Here are the things I want to happen in my life:
1. Kiss Jamie Reynolds from next door.
2. Overcome fear of flying so I can get out of Margate and travel the world.
3. Sing somewhere other than in the shower. Become famous for this.
4. See Taylor Swift in concert.
5. Become cool. (This should maybe be number 1, seeing as everything else kind of depends on it?)
6. Maybe ride a motorcycle? That seems like something a cool girl might do?
7. Meet the love of my life.
8. Jump out of an airplane. Climb a mountain.
9. Some other stuff TBC. (That means ‘to be confirmed’, by the way.)
10. Just totally change my life, basically.
I ideally want to do all this by the end of the year, because, let’s face it, I’m not getting any younger here.
On the plus side, though, I think I can probably cross off number 7, because I already know Jamie Reynolds, so at least that’s one down, without even trying. Just 9 more to go!
Wish me luck…
Summer xoxo
I close the book slowly, then sit there silently in the dark, feeling like I’m going to cry.
My 13-year-old self would have had no problem telling Wise Old Crones — or anyone else who asked — exactly what she wanted to do with her life. She had it all planned out, in a 10-point list.
The thing is, though, she never actually did any of it.
Not one thing.
(Well, not unless by ‘some other stuff TBC’ she meant, ‘get a shit job in a call center, and still be single in my thirties’, and I just don’t think she did, somehow.)
All of a sudden, this feels like a tragedy of such epic proportions that it’s almost more than I can bear.
Why didn’t I do any of that stuff? How did I somehow go from being a wide-eyed teenager, who totally thought she was going to be famous one day, to a downtrodden call center worker, who hasn’t done the KPIs her boss is looking for yet, and who’s not even totally sure what they even are?
No, seriously, how? How does that happen? How did life just get away from me like that? And, okay, I guess it was always unlikely that I’d one day be famous; but Jamie Reynolds? He was right there, almost every day of my young life. And I didn’t even kiss him.
Why didn’t I kiss Jamie Reynolds, even once?
Everything I wanted was right there in front of me. It was within my reach. But I somehow managed to cunningly avoid actually touching it, and now, just like the Fairy Godmother/Wise Old Crone said, it’s probably too late.
My downward spiral almost complete, I pick up my phone again, deciding to torture myself some more by seeing if I can track Jamie down and see what he’s up to these days.
I bet he’s married.
I bet he has kids.
I bet he’s living this amazing, adventure-filled life; the kind I can’t even dream of.
I find Jamie on Instagram without too much trouble. He’s instantly recognizable, even though I haven’t seen him for years now. But there he is, smiling on a boat somewhere. There he is again, holding a cocktail in a bar. There he is, brown eyes laughing at the camera, looking so familiar that the nostalgia almost takes my breath away.
He’s living an amazing life, filled with adventure: that much is certainly true.
But he’s not married.
He doesn’t have kids.
He does, however, have a bar in Tenerife, according to the information on his profile. A bar that looks rowdy and happy, and a million miles away from Diamonds, with its sticky carpets, its watered-down drinks, and its weird old ladies who may or may not have been sent from the future, with an important message for Summer Brookes, aged 31-and-a-half.
A bar which I could get to on a budget airline for just £139 return, according to Google.
“No,” I say out loud, putting the phone firmly down on the bed beside the box of old diaries. “No, that’s crazy. I can’t go to Tenerife. I just can’t. I have work tomorrow, for one thing. I have those KPIs to do, for another. And I’m terrified of flying.”
Also, that would be crazy. Impulsive. Reckless. All the things I’m not.
I pause, thinking about it.
Fear-of-flying aside, there’s really nothing stopping me from getting on a plane and going out to Tenerife. No husband or partner. No kids. Hell, I don’t even have plants to worry about.
There’s nothing stopping me from booking a flight. There’s nothing stopping me from doing any of the things I wanted to do with my life, back when I was 13, in fact.
So… why don’t you, Summer?
I’m not totally sure how the Wise Old Crone has somehow managed to speak inside my head, and I’m even less sure why I’m listening to her. But the more I think about it, the simpler it all seems.
I could fly to Spain.
I could kiss Jamie Reynolds.
I could, to quote my younger self, just totally change my life, basically.
And maybe the wine I was drinking tonight was stronger than I thought it was, but right now I can’t think of a single reason why I shouldn’t do it, other than the fact that it’s not the kind of thing I do. My life is lived by rules and schedules, and … and KPIs. I’ve never done anything even remotely spontaneous in my life.
But maybe now’s the time to start?
It’s fifty-three minutes past midnight.
And it looks like I’m going to Spain.