The Longest Holiday by Paige Toon

Except Marty didn’t come home.’
    ‘Really?’ Bridget looks surprised.
    ‘I still remember your dad’s face!’ I say, hooting loudly. I’ve definitely had a few too many vodkas. My hysteria is infectious.
    It wasn’t funny at the time, me turning up at the airport, sans Marty. He went absolutely ballistic. It took me months to forgive her for sending me home alone, even though she followed only a few weeks after me, in the end. With her tail between her legs. Turns out Pablo wasn’t The One, after all.
    ‘Oh, I wish I’d been there,’ Bridget manages to spit out, as tears trail down her cheeks.
    The memory comes back to me of Marty’s dad’s stunned face as he stands next to my dad at the airport. Then, in my mind, he transforms into Matthew. Imagine how Matthew would feel if I didn’t come home? The thought is tremendously appealing.
    Today the flags look like they’re trying to get away from their masts, like overeager puppies on leashes being restrained by their masters. The rain has stopped pelting down for a moment, so we decide to brave the weather and go out for breakfast.
    At the weekend we discovered a place called Blue Heaven, a restaurant with two indoor spaces and a large outdoor area and bar. We didn’t bother with food because the queue was enormous, but we sat and had a few cocktails, trying to avoid the deposits from the cockerel perching precariously on a branch over our heads.
    We’re hoping it will be less busy today, with the bad weather and it being a Wednesday, but it’s still full to capacity, so we wait by the outdoor bar for our names to be called.
    This place is the very definition of eclectic. I look around at the murals and battered blue, yellow and grey weatherboarding. A man on a small stage plays a leopard-print guitar and his harmonica, while surrounded by statues of angels and mermaids. Vines hang down from the big old trees shading the tables – not that we need shade today – and the sandy ground is dotted with broken-up bits of tiles and bricks. A family of chickens wanders freely around the yard. Despite the weather, practically everyone here is wearing beach dresses or Bermuda shorts. I notice a skinny, leathery brown woman in a short fluorescent-pink dress with a palm tree tattooed on her ankle. Anything goes. I smile to myself and glance past her to see Leo sitting at a table on his own, drinking a coffee and reading a newspaper.
    ‘It’s Leo!’ I gasp in Marty and Bridget’s general direction as they stand by the bar. ‘I’m going to go and say hi.’ I don’t wait for them to answer.
    Wet sand seeps into my flip-flops and I try to kick it out as I make my way between the stone tables and wrought-iron chairs to talk to him. I’m almost at his table before he looks up.
    ‘Hello!’ I exclaim, barely able to contain my delight. Not very cool of me.
    His eyes widen briefly with surprise. ‘Hello,’ he replies.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ So not cool. He’s drinking a coffee – dur!
    He lifts up his cup in response.
    ‘But of course I can see that. Silly me.’ Without thinking, I pull up a chair and sit down. ‘Bummer about the dive today.’ I lean forward and put my arms on the table. He’s slouched right back in his chair, his elbow resting on the armrest. The saying, ‘He’s so laid back he could be in a coma,’ comes to me.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Have you got the day off?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    A man of so few words. But I’m not giving up.
    ‘What have you got planned?’
    He shrugs. ‘Nothing.’
    ‘We were thinking about going on one of those little conch train tours.’
    Out of the blue, he throws his head back and laughs loudly.
    ‘What’s so funny?’ I pretend to be offended, but I’m grinning, too.
    ‘The thought of you three jiggling around Key West on one of those things …’ The corners of his eyes crinkle up very attractively when he smiles.
    ‘Bridget and Marty would rather visit Ernest Hemingway’s house,’ I confide with a