Anybody Out There - Marian Keyes Read Online Free PDF Page B

fine, I'm just going to--"

"Grand! Good girl."

I could have said anything--"I'm just going to set the house on fire," "I'm just going round to
Kilfeathers to have a three-in-a-bed romp with Angela and her girlfriend"--and I'd have got the
same response. They were in a profoundly unreachable state, similar to a trance, and would
remain that way for the next hour or so. I closed the door firmly, lifted the phone from the hall,
and took it into my room.
I stared at the little piece of machinery: phones have always seemed magical to me, the way
they pull off the unlikeliest, most geographically distant connections. I know there are perfectly
good explanations of how it all works, but I've never stopped being amazed at the wondrousness
of people on opposite sides of oceans being able to talk to each other.

My heart was banging hard in my chest and I was hopeful--excited, in fact. So where should I
try him? Not at work because someone else might pick up. His cell phone was the best idea. I
didn't know what had happened to it, it might have been disconnected, but when I hit the number
I'd called a thousand times, there was a click and then I heard his voice. Not his real voice, just
his message, but it was enough to stop me breathing.

"Hi, this is Aidan. I can't take your call right now, but leave a message and I'll get back to you as
soon as I can."

"Aidan," I heard my voice say. I sounded quavery. "It's me. Are you okay? Will you really get
back to me as soon as you can? Please do." What else? "I love you, baby, I hope you know that."

I disconnected, feeling shaky, dizzy, elated; I'd heard his voice. But within seconds I'd crashed.
Leaving messages on his cell phone wasn't enough.

I could try e-mailing him. But that wouldn't be enough either. I had to go back to New York and
try to find him. There was a chance he mightn't be there but I had to give it a go because there
was one thing I was certain of: he wasn't here.

Quietly I replaced the phone in the hall. If they found out what I'd been up to, there was no way
in the whole wide world they'd let me leave.

     5
How I met Aidan

T he August before last, Candy Grrrl was preparing to launch a new skin-care line called
Future Face (and the eye cream was called Future Eye, the lip cream Future Lip, and you get the
picture...). Constantly on the quest for new and innovative ways to love-bomb beauty editors, I
had a middle-of-the-night, lightbulb-over-the-head moment and thought I would buy each editor
a "future" to tie in with the "future" theme of the launch. The obvious "future" to buy would be a
personalized horoscope, but that had already been done for See Yourself in Ten Years' Time, our
time-defying serum, and had ended in tears when the assistant beauty editor of Britta got told
that she'd lose her job and her pet dog would run away within the month. (Funnily enough,
although the dog stayed put, the job bit actually did come true; she had a total career change and
now works as a hostess at the Four Seasons.)

Instead, I decided to buy some of those investment things, called "futures." I hadn't the first clue
about them except what I'd heard about people pulling down millions of dollars working on Wall
Street. But I couldn't get an appointment with a Wall Street futures analyst, even if I'd been
prepared to pay a thousand dollars for every second of his time. I tried several and got
stonewalled over and over. By then I was sorry I'd ever started, but I'd made the mistake of
boasting about it to Lauryn, who'd liked the idea, so I was forced to work my way through less
and less famous banks until finally I found a stockbroker in a midtown bank who agreed to see
me and only then because I'd sent Nita, his assistant, tons of free stuff, with a promise of more if
she could get me in.

So along I went, taking the rare opportunity to strip myself of as many kooky accoutrements as
possible. Let me explain: all McArthur publicists have to take on the personality of the brand
they