PS, I Love You, Page 40

  She was a woman who made mistakes, who sometimes cried on a Monday morning or at night alone in bed. She was a woman who often became bored with her life and found it hard to get up for work in the morning. She was a woman who more often than not had a bad hair day, who looked in the mirror and wondered why she couldn’t just drag herself to the gym more often, she was a woman who had sometimes hated her job and questioned what reason she had to live on this planet. She was a woman who sometimes just got things wrong.

  On the other hand, she was a woman with a million happy memories, who knew what it was like to experience true love and who was ready to experience more life, more love and make new memories. Whether it happened in ten months or ten years, Holly would obey Gerry’s final message. Whatever lay ahead, she knew she would open her heart and follow where it led her.

  In the meantime, she would just live.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you, Mom, Dad, Georgina, Nicky, all my family and friends.

  Thank you, Marianne Gunn O’Connor.

  Thank you to my Hyperion editor, Peternelle van Arsdale.

  About the Author

  Cecelia Ahern, author of the international bestsellers, PS, I Love You; Love, Rosie; and If You Could See Me Now, is the daughter of Ireland’s prime minister. Cecelia’s books are published in forty-six countries and collectively have sold more than 6 million copies worldwide. A movie based on her first novel PS, I Love You, will be released in December 2007 from Warner Bros. Pictures. She is also the co-creator, along with screenwriter Don Todd, of the ABC sitcom Sam I Am, which will premiere on ABC stations in September 2007. Cecelia has just completed her fifth novel, Thanks For the Memories. She is twenty-six years old and lives in Dublin.

  READER’S GUIDE

  The following questions are intended to provide individual readers and book groups with a starting place for reflection or discussion. We hope they will suggest a variety of perspectives from which you might approach PS, I Love You.

  Discussion Questions

  Who is narrating PS, I Love You? Where is the story located? What effect, if any, does location have on the story. Why?

  At what point does the book hook you? What makes you keep reading? What is your favorite part?

  Keeping in mind that Ahern was twenty-one when she wrote PS, I Love You, discuss her strengths as a storyteller. How effective is she at describing Holly’s experiences? If you have lost a loved one, or know someone who has, discuss how much you relate to Holly’s mourning process.

  Look at the first two paragraphs of Chapter One. What is going on? What information does Cecelia Ahern provide at this early stage to set up the story that follows?

  Thinking about the book’s early dialogue, like Holly’s wedding preparation in Chapter Two, explore Ahern’s word choices. What do they convey about the story? Read aloud the long paragraph on page 10. What does Ahern reveal about the characters?

  Briefly describe Holly’s family and friends. Which characters do you like most? Why?

  How does the idea of “a list” come about? What is so compelling about a list left by a loved one who has died? How does the list help Holly? Talk about which item was the most difficult for her, and why. If you know anyone who has been left such a list, share how it affected them.

  Consider the last two paragraphs of Chapter Four, beginning with “Her stomach did a little dance… ” Discuss your response. What is the author sharing with the reader? How successful is she? Why?

  Looking at Gerry’s letter to Holly in the package with the envelopes/list, discuss what you feel while reading it. Why does Holly feel both sad and relieved?

  Overall, which item or items on the list move you the most? Why?

  Think about Holly’s reaction to Gerry’s karaoke instruction. How does the experience help her? What happens to her when she learns her name had been placed on the list for karaoke months earlier?

  Even though Gerry is dead, how does he come alive in the book? At what point in the book do we learn the most about Gerry? Describe him both physically and mentally.

  In Chapter Five, what does Holly mean when she says she knew that she needed Gerry more than he needed her (when he was sick)? Why does she say that the list is the best thing that could have happened right now, three months after Gerry’s death?

  Look at Chapter Ten and discuss Richard’s interaction with Holly. Share your opinions of him—both at the beginning of the book and at the end. What do you think of Richard?

  Discuss who experiences a transformation in PS, I Love You. Why is it important that we see the characters moving on? Who is Holly at the book’s start, and at the book’s end?

  What is some of the evidence that shows Holly moving on? Why does Holly cool toward Jack? How do Sharon’s pregnancy and Denise’s marriage help Holly?

  How does Ahern set up Holly’s relationship with Daniel? Did you think Holly was going to hook up with Daniel? Why? Discuss what happens in Daniel’s love life, and why he makes the choice he does.

  Consider Declan’s film about girls, Girls and the City. Does it remind you of anything else? What do you think of it? Why does it strike a chord with its audience?

  Who did you think the secret gardener was? Are you surprised that it is Richard? The garden is one of many metaphors Ahern uses in PS, I Love You. What are some others? How do these metaphors enrich the story? How do they amplify Holly’s journey?

  What effect does the vacation to Spain have on Holly? How does the magazine job change her?

  When the film of the book is made, what actors might make the story come alive for you?

  Share how PS, I Love You has affected you? Has it had any impact on your close relationships? How?

  (((LISTEN TO)))

  Performed by Victoria Smurfit with Rupert Degas

  Featuring a conversation with the author

  “Sweet and sad and funny: a charming journey from grief to hope.”

  —Marian Keyes

  “Four and a half hankies out of five.”

  —Boston Globe

  “A sentimental tale of sweethearts parted by death.”

  —New York Magazine

  ISBN 1-4013-9844-8

  $25.98

  6 hours on 4 cassettes

  ABRIDGED

  ISBN 1-4013-9845-6

  $26.98

  6 hours on 5 CDs

  ABRIDGED

  Available wherever books are sold, or call 1-800-759-0190 to order.

  HYPERION AUDIOBOOKS

  www.HyperionBooks.com

  If you enjoyed PS, I LOVE YOU,

  be sure to catch Cecelia Ahern’s new book,

  THERE’S NO PLACE

  LIKE HERE

  An excerpt follows.

  1

  Jenny-May Butler, the little girl who lived across the road from me, went missing when I was a child.

  The Gardaí launched an investigation, which led to their lengthy public search for her. For months every night the story was on the news, every day it was on the front pages of the papers, everywhere it was discussed in every conversation. The entire country pitched in to help; it was the biggest search for a missing person I, at ten years of age, had ever seen, and it seemed to affect everyone.

  Jenny-May Butler was a blond-haired blue-eyed beauty who smiled and beamed from the TV screen into the living rooms of every home around the country, causing eyes to fill with tears and parents to hug their children that extra bit tighter before they sent them off to bed. She was in everyone’s dreams and everyone’s prayers.

  She too was ten years old and in my class at school. I used to stare at the pretty photograph of her on the news every day and listen to them speak about her as though she was an angel. From the way they described her, you never would have known that she threw stones at Fiona Brady during yard time when the teacher wasn’t looking, or that she called me a frizzy-haired cow in front of Stephen Spencer just so he would fancy her instead of me. No, for those few months she had become the perfec
t being, and I didn’t think it fair to ruin that. After a while even I forgot about all the bad things she’d done because she wasn’t just Jenny-May anymore: she was Jenny-May Butler, the sweet missing girl from the nice family who cried on the nine o’clock news every night.

  She was never found, not her body, not a trace; it was as though she had disappeared into thin air. No suspicious characters had been seen lurking around, no CCTV was available to show her last movements. There were no witnesses, no suspects; the Gardaí questioned everyone possible. The street became suspicious, its inhabitants calling friendly hellos to one another on the way to their cars in the early morning but all the time wondering, second-guessing, and visualizing surprisingly distorted thoughts they couldn’t help about their neighbors. Washing cars, painting picket fences, weeding the flowerbeds, and mowing lawns on Saturday mornings while surreptitiously looking around the neighborhood brought shameful thoughts. People were shocked at themselves, angry that this incident had perverted their minds.

  Pointed fingers behind closed doors couldn’t give the Gardaí any leads; they had absolutely nothing to go on but a pretty picture.

  I always wondered where Jenny-May went, where she had disappeared to, how on earth anyone could just vanish into thin air without a trace, without someone knowing something.

  At night I would look out my bedroom window and stare at her house. The porch light was always on, acting as a beacon to guide Jenny-May home. Mrs. Butler couldn’t sleep anymore and I could see her perpetually perched on the edge of her couch, as though she was on her marks waiting for the pistol to be fired. She would sit in her living room, looking out the window, waiting for someone to call by with news. Sometimes I would wave at her and she’d wave back sadly. Most of the time she couldn’t see past her tears.

  Like Mrs. Butler, I wasn’t happy with not having any answers. I liked Jenny-May Butler a lot more when she was gone than when she was here and that also interested me. I missed her, the idea of her, and wondered if she was somewhere nearby, throwing stones at someone else and laughing loudly, but that we just couldn’t find her or hear her. I took to searching thoroughly for everything I’d mislaid after that. When my favorite pair of socks went missing I turned the house upside down while my worried parents looked on, not knowing what to do but eventually settling on helping me.

  It disturbed me that frequently my missing possessions were nowhere to be found and on the odd time that I did find them, it disturbed me that in the case of the socks I could only ever find one. Then I’d picture Jenny-May Butler somewhere, throwing stones, laughing and wearing my favorite socks.

  I never wanted anything new; from the age of ten, I was convinced that you couldn’t replace what was lost. I insisted on things having to be found.

  I think I wondered about all those odd pairs of socks as much as Mrs. Butler worried about her daughter. I too stayed awake at night running through all the unanswerable questions. Each time my lids grew heavy and neared closing, another question would be flung from the depths of my mind, forcing my lids to open again. Much-needed sleep was kept at bay and each morning I was tireder yet none the wiser.

  Perhaps this is why it happened to me. Perhaps because I had spent so many years turning my own life upside down and looking for everything, I had forgotten to look for myself. Somewhere along the line I had forgotten to figure out who and where I was.

  Twenty-four years after Jenny-May Butler disappeared, I went missing too.

  This is my story.

  2

  My life has been made up of a great many ironies, my going missing only added to an already very long list.

  First, I’m six foot one. Ever since I was a child I’ve been towering over just about everyone. I could never get lost in a shopping center like other kids, I could never hide properly when playing games, I was never asked to dance at discos, I was the only teenager who wasn’t aching to buy her first pair of high heels. Jenny-May Butler’s favorite name for me well, certainly one of her top ten was ‘Daddy-long-legs,’ which she liked to call me in front of large crowds of her friends and admirers. Believe me, I’ve heard them all. I was the kind of person you could see coming from a mile away. I was the awkward dancer on the dance floor, the girl at the cinema who nobody wanted to sit behind, the one in the shop that rooted for the extra-long-legged trousers, the girl in the back line of every photograph. You see, I stick out like a sore thumb. Everyone who passes me, registers me and remembers me. But despite all that, I went missing. Never mind the odd socks, never mind Jenny-May Butler; how a throbbing sore thumb on a hand so bland couldn’t be seen was the ultimate icing on the cake. The mystery that beat all mysteries was my own.

  The second irony is that my job was to search for missing persons. For years I worked as a garda. With a desire to work solely on missing persons but without working in an actual division assigned to these, I had to rest solely upon the ‘luck’ of coming across these cases. You see, the Jenny-May Butler situation really sparked off something inside me. I wanted answers, I wanted solutions, and I wanted to find them all myself. I suppose my searching became an obsession. I looked around the outside world for so many clues, I don’t think that I once thought about what was going on inside my own head.

  In the Guards sometimes we found missing people in a state I won’t ever forget for the rest of this life and far into the next, and then there were people who just didn’t want to be found. Often we uncovered only a trace, too often not even that. Those were the moments that drove me to keep looking far beyond my call of duty. I would investigate cases long after they were closed, stay in touch with families long after I should. I realized I couldn’t go on to the next case without solving the previous, with the result that there was too much paperwork and too little action. And so knowing that my heart lay only in finding the missing, I left the Gardaí and I searched in my own time.

  You wouldn’t believe how many people out there wanted to search as much as I did. The families always wondered what my reason was. They had a reason, a link, a love for the missing, whereas my fees were barely enough for me to get by on, so if it wasn’t monetary, what was my motivation? Peace of mind, I suppose. A way to help me close my eyes and sleep at night.

  How can someone like me, with my physical attributes and my mental attitude, go missing?

  I’ve just realized that I haven’t even told you my name. It’s Sandy Shortt. It’s OK, you can laugh. I know you want to. I would too if it wasn’t so bloody heartbreaking. My parents called me Sandy because I was born with a head of sandy-colored hair. Pity they didn’t foresee that my hair would turn as black as coal. They didn’t know either that those cute podgy little legs would soon stop kicking and start growing at such a fast rate, for so long. So Sandy Shortt is my name. That is who I am supposed to be, how I am identified and recorded for all time, but I am neither of those things. The contradiction often makes people laugh during introductions. Pardon me if I fail to crack a smile. You see, there’s nothing funny about being missing and I realized there’s nothing very different about being missing: every day I do the same as I did when I was working. I search. Only this time I search for a way back to be found.

  I have learned one thing worth mentioning. There is one huge difference in my life from before, one vital piece of evidence. For once in my life I want to go home.

  What bad timing to realize such a thing. The biggest irony of all.

  3

  I was born and reared in County Leitrim in Ireland, the smallest county in the country with a population of about 25,000. Once the county town, Leitrim has the remains of a castle and some other ancient buildings, but it has lost its former importance and dwindled to a village. The landscape ranges from bushy brown hills to majestic mountains with yawning valleys and countless picturesque lakes. Leitrim is landlocked, bounded to the west by Sligo and Roscommon, to the south by Roscommon and Longford, to the east by Cavan and Fermanagh, and to the north by Donegal. When there, I feel it brings on a sudden f
eeling of claustrophobia and an overwhelming desire for solid ground.

  There’s a saying about Leitrim, and that is that the best thing to come out of Leitrim is the road to Dublin. I finished school when I was seventeen, applied for the Guards, and I eventually got myself on that road to Dublin. Since then I have rarely traveled back. Once every two months I used visit my parents in the three-bedroom terraced house in a small cul-de-sac of twelve houses where I grew up. The usual intention was to stay for the weekend but most of the time I only lasted a day, using an emergency at work as the excuse to grab my unpacked bag by the door and drive, drive, drive very fast on the best thing to come out of Leitrim.

  I didn’t have a bad relationship with my parents. They were always so supportive, even ready to dive in front of bullets, into fires, and off mountains if it meant my happiness. The truth is they made me uneasy. In their eyes I could see who they saw and I didn’t like it. I saw my reflection in their expressions more than in any mirror. Some people have the power to do that, to look at you and their faces let you know exactly how you’re behaving. I suppose it was because they loved me, but I couldn’t spend too much time with people who loved me, because of those eyes, because of that reflection.