Are You Ready? Read online

  About the Book

  Ready for . . . love?

  Ready for . . . a new job?

  Ready to . . . grow up?

  Ready for . . . change?

  Ready for . . . Life?

  Life has been good for Ali, Molly, Ben and Sarah, things have seemed easy and uncomplicated and they have had the world at their feet. But now as they say goodbye to their twenties and thirty looms, they begin to question themselves . . .

  Is Ali really ready to get married and become a wife, or is everything moving too fast? Molly has followed her dreams and changed jobs, but has she made a big mistake? Ben is still living at home – surely it’s time he moved out? And will Sarah ever find someone to love or will she always be single?

  Life is full of twists and turns and change is inevitable. Now they must ask themselves . . . are they ready?

  Contents

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Copyright

  ARE YOU READY?

  Amanda Hearty

  For the love of my life, my husband, Michael

  1

  ‘Flip. Flip. Flip, Sarah, flip! The pancakes are burning. Flip them over quickly.’

  Sarah stared at the melted butter and pale batter in the frying pan, watching as it turned a golden colour.

  ‘Mum, just because I’m your only single daughter doesn’t mean we need to pretend that these pancakes are really important,’ she protested.

  ‘Sarah, it’s a family tradition on Pancake Tuesday to make plenty of them.’

  ‘Well, as my married sister is busy making pancakes for her husband, I’m just making pancakes for you, me and the cat! It is hardly the massive family gathering it used to be. I don’t even think Pumpkin is home, she’s probably out with her cat boyfriend.’

  ‘Oh, Sarah, you were always so dramatic. No wonder you’re single. I’ve been looking forward to this day all week, looking forward to whipping up a storm in the kitchen. It’s a nice tradition, love, don’t ruin it with talk of not being married and cats,’ sighed Catherine Doyle, Sarah’s mother.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum. These are perfect. You are great to have made so many pancakes for just the two of us, so let’s just get on with it … flip.’

  As Sarah flipped the pancake she wondered how many more Pancake Tuesdays she would be single. As much as she loved her mother and appreciated her excitement at keeping the pancake tradition, it wasn’t the same now that she was the only daughter at home. Her elder sister Mel was married, and had left home two years ago. And although she loved Mel’s husband and was so happy for them, it was hard to be the singleton, still living in the red-brick family home in Monkstown Park, South Dublin, with her widowed mum and cat. She didn’t know how she had got here, how life and men were just passing her by. How had she got to be thirty and single, with all her friends now fiancées, brides or mothers? What was she doing wrong? It had to change. If only she could flip her life over instead of these blasted pancakes.

  2

  Across town in Heavenly Bakery and Café there was more flipping going on.

  ‘Flip those pancakes, Mum,’ Molly Kennedy cried. ‘Sterling Bank have ordered two hundred to be delivered by 11 a.m., and O’Keefe’s Public Relations want seventy-five by 10 a.m. too. Wow, this is so exciting, I could make these all day long. Life is great, isn’t it, Mum?’

  ‘What are you talking about, Molly?’ Helen Kennedy argued, flushed with effort. ‘We have about four hundred pancakes to make this morning and we are running out of eggs. I can barely see through my glasses for all the batter firmly attached to them, and if I’ve to cut one more lemon I’ll become allergic to them like your cousin.’

  ‘Well, Mum, trust me, this is heaven compared to filing client reports. A few months ago the only thing I made was the odd error in a bloody Excel document, and now I’m making pancakes, buns, cupcakes, salads, quiches. Compared to working in a boring office job, this is a dream come true. Life is great, Mum, I’m telling you.’

  ‘Oh, love.’ Helen softened, staring at her only daughter, whose pretty face, long brown hair and petite frame hadn’t changed since she was young. ‘I’m happy for you. It’s lovely for me to be working alongside you, too, but if we could leave the heart-to-heart chat until after this blasted batter has been peeled off my glasses and every inch of this kitchen it would be better – and I would be a lot calmer. Now, flip!’

  Molly just couldn’t believe her luck. She was finally working in her dream job. Ever s
ince she was a child she’d loved cooking. Her favourite bedtime reading had been cookbooks and her mum used to joke that she was the only seven-year-old making pavlovas and pudding to go with the Sunday roast each week! But when you are in college it is hard to see how you can make a proper living from baking, and before she knew it she had studied finance and ended up working in the funds department – in a very big impersonal bank in Dublin’s Financial Services Centre, which she hated. Moving money from one account to another, and watching it grow by a few euros or dollars a day was hardly fulfilling. She had never been that good at funds and investments, and found it boring – her heart wasn’t in it – but still it paid the bills, and so time had ticked on. The older you get the harder it is to make a change, it is nerve-racking to enter the unknown; so if it hadn’t been for her boyfriend Luke’s support – both emotional and financial – she would never have changed jobs. It had upset him to see her so unhappy and bored with her job and life, and one night when they had drunk too much wine and she had started complaining again, he had told her that if her job was making her miserable she should: ‘For God’s sake, go and do something you like.’ And so she had.

  After handing in her notice to the bank, she had gone and signed up for a twelve-week cookery course at Cork’s famous Ballymaloe Cookery School. Afterwards she had been delighted when her Aunt Fran had insisted she come and work for her in her small delicatessen and bakery on Mount Street in Dublin’s city centre, where Molly’s mother often helped out. It was a family-run business, with Molly’s cousin Eve and Eve’s boyfriend working there, too. It was a small café cum bakery, but they made most of their money from their take-out menu of sandwiches, salads, breads, lasagne, cakes and buns. And they had recently begun to supply the many local offices with daily sandwiches and lunch treats. They hadn’t really needed another employee, and hadn’t been able to afford to pay much, but Luke had known Molly had to be given a push to go for it, so he had started saving to help her out financially, and she hadn’t looked back. She was so grateful to Luke, and because of his generous support she now felt so happy. Sometimes you just needed to make a change.

  3

  ‘Mum, I’ve about 2.3 seconds to talk before that dragon Mary comes back into the office. So be quick and tell me what’s new down home on the farm, and remember, if Mary walks back in I’ll have to refer to you as Mr Barrington, and ask you about a deposition,’ Ali McEvoy whispered, glancing around the high-ceilinged room.

  ‘Oh, Ali! For God’s sake, you must be allowed to make a personal phone call every once in a while. It’s a solicitor’s office not a prison cell. I’m sure your boss makes calls, too.’

  ‘I swear, Mum, she doesn’t. She has no friends to call! She even gives me dirty glances if I go to the bathroom. She is a sad old dragon who is taking her single status out on me. She is jealous of me being young and madly in love with Robin, I mean MR BARRINGTON. Yes, Mr Barrington, I’ll fax that deposition to you right away. Goodbye.’

  * * *

  Ali grabbed a blank sheet and headed for the fax machine. Once again she was going to have to fax a blank sheet home to cover up a personal call. How had this happened? Ali had worked hard in school in Kilkenny to get enough points to study law at University College Dublin, and even though the move to the ‘big smoke’ had been hard, she had loved law in college, and hadn’t minded all the endless exams, as she had known she could be a great solicitor and make a difference in the world. She had thought she could help the small people fight their cases. But seven years later, and with everyone in Dublin desperate to be a solicitor and become wealthy overnight, it was getting harder and harder to get a job, and she had got stuck working for Hewson & Keane – a very small law firm located in hard-floored offices in a tall draughty Georgian wreck of a building on Merrion Square. The firm was tight on budgets, salaries, holidays and any kind of fun! They specialized in property law, and all Ali seemed to do was help wealthy clients with the legal side of buying and expanding their property portfolios. Ali spent her whole day checking mortgages, deeds and planning permissions. It was a far cry from protecting the innocent and fighting for justice – the ideals which had made her want to study law in the first place. Her boss, Mary Lynch, was a forty-year-old who was single and seemed to take all her frustration out on Ali. She tried to control everything Ali did. Ali wasn’t even allowed to make a work phone call at the same time as Mary, as Mary said it distracted her! With her tall, thin frame, tightly tied-back bun of mousy brown hair, and assortment of black, grey or navy suits teamed with a variety of striped shirts, Mary really did look like an old spinster who had nothing better to do than boss Ali around. It was like working with a strict school teacher or old librarian. Ali was actually waiting for the day when she would be given a detention for speaking! Mary really was awful to work for, but what could Ali do? Law was the only thing she knew, and she needed a job, so unless something exciting happened or changed she was stuck with Mary the dragon.

  4

  Ben lay half-awake with one eye on the Liverpool match playing on the small flat screen at the end of his bed. He had drunk way too much last night, and even his favourite team playing Man United wasn’t going to stir him from his bed, but he supposed that since his best friend was getting married, he had had no option but to get very drunk on the stag night. It had been a great night, and poor Jeremy had been in bits by the time they left the nightclub, but it had reminded Ben how far behind he was on the dating scene. There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Guess who’s come to keep you company? Ben, guess who?’

  ‘Oh God, Mum, do not bring Mango in here, do not. Oh, too late! Here he comes.’

  ‘Darling, he loves you, and you adore him. He just wants to keep you company and help you get over your hangover. God, the smell of drink in here is worse than the Guinness brewery back in the eighties,’ his mum Maura said, as she stood in her son’s room in her pink dressing gown and matching slippers.

  ‘Mum, I do not want Mango the parrot in here with me. Even if we do all love him, I’m thirty and a man, and do not need a child’s pet beside me all day long. I’ve told you that a million times.’

  ‘Ben O’Connor, you will not speak of your childhood best friend and beloved member of this family like that. Now, I’ll ignore what you said and put it down to you being sad that you are the last single man of your group of friends, and instead I will go to the kitchen and make you a BLT. I’ll ring the bell when it is ready.’

  Ben looked at the slammed bedroom door and then at Mango. Living at home when you were thirty wasn’t easy, especially as his mother still treated him like he was ten. Ben had tried to break free, and had left home two years ago, and rented an apartment with a friend. But eventually the friend had bought his own place, and Ben had felt renting was a waste of money, and decided to move back home to his parents and their big home in the leafy suburbs, in Foxrock, so that he could save for a place of his own. He missed the freedom and the parties, but what could he do? He tried to save, but property in South Dublin was very expensive. His dad had offered to help him with a deposit for a place, but it was the monthly repayments Ben knew he couldn’t really afford on his own, not with his salary. Of course, as his mum reminded him, if he had a girlfriend they could split the monthly payments, but Ben was a single as his parrot Mango. Of course, at times he wanted a girlfriend, but he just found it hard to meet anyone he liked. There had been plenty of offers, and his last girlfriend Susie had been great, and they had been serious, but the minute she had started using sentences with ‘when we have kids’ in them he had had to break it off. It had been an awful break-up. He had loved her, but not enough to move in with her, let alone get engaged or start talking about kids.

  His mum had been delighted to have him back home to cook for and chat with, but of course with that came the daily question: ‘Any girls?’ Even if he went to the garage he was greeted with it as he walked in the front door, as if he was going to meet his future wife at Esso.
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br />   Even Mango seemed to look at him with disappointment nowadays. As if a parrot could tell he was single and thirty! Mango had been his pet since he was thirteen and Ben did love him, but the older you got the more girls and football generally consumed your heart. Yet Ben’s mum still looked after Mango for him, and presumed he wanted to have the bird at his side morning, noon and night. Suddenly his mobile rang; he found it under the bed.

  ‘God, what a session last night! Best night ever, I’m hanging.’ It was the husband-to-be, Jeremy.

  ‘How come you’re awake?’ Ben croaked.

  ‘Well, Lisa has it all planned out for us to go looking at wedding cakes today. So I’m up and dressed. Do you want to go swing by Eddie Rocket’s before I head off, to get some hangover chips and a burger?’

  ‘I’d love to, Jeremy, but Mum has a BLT waiting for me, it’s the pleasure of living at home!’

  ‘What? Ben? Ben, I can’t hear you. God, don’t say that bird Mango is squawking in the background! BLT or not, for God’s sake, man, you need to get out of your parents’ place. They are great parents, don’t get me wrong, but you are thirty, you know. Anyway I’ll talk to you later.’

  As Ben put the phone down his mum rang the ‘kitchen bell’, a cable-car bell from San Francisco that he had brought back with him when he’d spent the summer working in the West Coast of America almost ten years ago. It still worked, and his mum used it to round up everyone for dinner or any meals in the kitchen. As he traipsed down the stairs she shouted up to him not to forget ‘your best friend, Mango’.

  Oh God, he thought, he didn’t want to hurt her feelings but this would have to stop. No more parrots and living at home. He needed to change his job, his living arrangements and his life, as soon as possible.

  5

  Sarah Doyle pushed back her long blonde wavy hair as she began printing out the catalogue for tonight’s opening. The work going on show was from the newest upcoming Dublin artist, Willow McIntyre. Her work was different and strong, yet calming. Sarah really loved her art pieces, and was glad she could enjoy the new ones on her own for a few hours, before they were hung from the art gallery wall and discussed to death by every art critic in Dublin.