One Endless Summer: Heartwarming and uplifting the perfect holiday read
’This is a remarkable book, incredibly uplifting. The perfect summer read.’ Brew and Books ReviewThree best friends.Three continents.Three months to live.How long can you keep a secret?Three best friends are embarking on an all-expenses paid trip of their dreams. The only catch? Every moment will be documented on film.Lizzie is finally ready to embrace adventure for the very first time. It’s their last three months together, but it is Lizzie’s time to finally start living!Jaddi is known for her stunning looks, flirtatious attitude and many conquests. But Jaddi has a secret and on this last trip together she needs to decide whether her best friends will ever know the real her.Samantha has always been the ‘grown up’ of the group, the one with a five year plan. What Lizzie and Jaddi don’t know is that Sam is trapped, and her perfect life isn’t quite what it seems…As they trek across the globe Lizzie, Jaddi and Samantha must come to terms with loss, love and trusting one another. But will it all be too late…‘Speechless at just how breathtaking this book really is.’Rachel Gilbey’Mind-blowing, enchanting, heart-breaking, moving, spell-binding and emotional.’The Writing Garnet
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LAURIE ELLINGHAM lives in a small village on the Suffolk/Essex border with her two children, husband and cockerpoo Rodney. She has a first-class honors degree in Psychology and a background in public relations, but her main love is writing and disappearing into the fictional world of her characters, preferably with a large coffee and a Twix (or two) to hand.
For Andy
CONTENTS
PART I
PART II
PART III
Day 1
Lizzie
The sweet unnatural fragrance of hairspray and deodorant clung to the air in the windowless dressing room. The scents clawed at the back of Lizzie’s throat. She drew in a shallow breath and stared into the camera. ‘My name is Lizzie Appleton, I’m twenty-nine years old, and I have three months to live.’
Lizzie’s words hung in the silence, bringing the enormity of her situation crashing down on her, and with it a fusion of colours that blurred the edges of her vision; blobs of reds and blues floating next to purples and yellows as if she was looking down the barrel of a kaleidoscope. Her head began to pound. What was she doing? Three months. 90 days. It wasn’t enough.
‘That was great, Lizzie.’ Caroline clasped her hands together from behind the camera tripod. ‘Let’s try it one more time with a bit more feeling, OK?’ Caroline pushed her glasses further up her thin nose as she bent over to watch Lizzie through the small, digital screen poking out from one side of the camera. ‘Remember that this is for the advert, so we really need to grab the viewers’ attention.’
‘More feeling? Are you serious?’ Lizzie asked, pulling at the black wool of her dress where it prickled her skin and wondering, not the first time, how it had come to this.
‘Just think of something that makes you sad,’ Caroline said with her usual pursed lip smile.
‘Because dying isn’t sad enough?’ Lizzie narrowed her dark-blue eyes and waited for the documentary producer to squirm inside her grey trouser suit. The producer had been an almost-permanent fixture in Lizzie’s life for the past seven days, and Lizzie was looking forward to saying goodbye to her at the airport in a few hours’ time. In the meantime, any payback Lizzie could give for the hours of listening to Caroline’s voice – which was always a notch higher than it needed to be as she encouraged and chided all in one breath – was worth it. Smile, but not at the camera. Be yourself, but without that sarcasm of yours. Wear comfortable clothes, but be presentable.
But Caroline didn’t squirm or flinch. Instead, she pushed her glasses onto the top of her nest of dark curls and returned the stare. ‘The sooner we get this done, the sooner I’ll be out of your way.’
Lizzie sighed. After their week together, her sarcasm no longer seemed to goad the producer. Lizzie tried to focus; she squared her shoulders, fixed her gaze on the camera, and stared at her reflection in the circular glass of the lens: the button nose and high cheek bones she’d inherited from her mother; the dark-blue eyes; and brown hair of her father, now cut short to accommodate the bare patch at the nape of her neck – a parting gift from the radiotherapy.
The throbbing in her head intensified. Images of her parents from the previous evening bombarded her thoughts. The shaking hand of her father, Peter, and the watery-grey eyes of her mother, Evelyn, which had begged the words her mum had been unable to voice: Don’t go, Lizzie. Stay here with us.
Both her parents looked ten years older than their sixty-one years, and had the lines on their faces of people who’d spent so much of their lives worrying. She’d done that to them. An ache spread across her chest. They deserved so much better than the hand they’d been dealt. But, then again, so did she.
‘Ready?’ Caroline asked, pulling her glasses back into place and brushing off an imaginary fleck of lint from her jacket.
Lizzie nodded. ‘My name is Lizzie Appleton, I’m twenty-nine years old, and I have three months to live.’
‘How does it make you feel?’
Lizzie’s eyes shot to Caroline. ‘I didn’t know you were going to ask me that. We … we haven’t practised that one.’
‘I didn’t want you to practise it,’ Caroline said, raising her perfectly shaped eyebrows. ‘I want to know how you feel. The viewers will want to know – how does it feel to know you only have three months to live?’
