Taking a breath to adjust her composure, she opened the pack of sandwiches on her lap and scrolled through her phone as a message came through.
How are you? Did you get home okay? It was SO lovely to see you!
Lovely Jess. How good it had been to get the girls back together. How connected did she feel to them? It surprised her. Even Amanda, despite her cutting the afternoon short. It was like she’d found her tribe. The women she could rely on. She had friends, of course she did. She loved Beth at work. She had the mums from school, but these women were different. They were old souls to her, people who, she now realised, she had missed. She took a bite of her sandwich, giddy to be able to message back.
I’m okay ta, just snatching five minutes peace in town before heading back to work. How are you? It was great to see you too, thanks for making sure I got back.
The bubbles of Jess typing back gave Lolly a warm feeling. The bite of pickled onion Monster Munch, however, did not. They may have been a mistake. Did they always get caught up in your teeth like that? She rooted her tongue around the side of her mouth wishing she’d stuck to a French fry.
We should do it again. Maybe dinner one night? Do you like curry?
Lolly loved curry but now was probably not the time to be spending cash on meals out.
Things a bit tight at the moment. Cash wise. It seems Kitt has lost his job. I didn’t know, poor bloke admitted it when I got back the other night. I saw a text, thought it was something awful and it turned out he’d been pretending to still be in work because he was so worried about letting me down. Can you imagine? So, curry might have to wait until he’s got sorted, but you could all come round to mine one night? He’d hide himself away, no problem. Let’s do that. A cheese night. And wine.
As she typed, she grew more excited. Kitt would be fine to keep the kids away, watch a film up in their bed. Lolly could get a bit of cheese in; the girls could bring a few bits too; it would be cheap and they could talk all night, she’d love to have them round.
What do you think? Would you all come?
The dots of Jess’s response didn’t come straight away. She was probably at work. Lolly finished her sandwich. She unenthusiastically ate the last of her Monster Munch. She took a sip of water from the bottle she carried everywhere and brushed down her clothes. Still no response. Had she been too eager? Oh god, what if Jess was being polite? What if they never wanted to get together again? Lolly couldn’t bear the idea of not seeing them for another twenty years.
I’ll message the others, set up a group. It’s no problem if you can’t make it. I know how busy we all are. Better get back to work. Talk soon! X
She hovered over send, unsure if it was a bit much. She flicked back through her messages, it was fine, wasn’t it? She’d not said anything stupid or offensive. Jess was probably just busy. That’s all. And Lolly was being needy. One of her least favourite traits. She clicked send, dropped her phone in her bag and headed back to work. She had a pregnancy test (or two) to take.
Jess
Jess walked into her boss’s office with what she hoped would come over as respectful but not to be messed with. She was well aware that what she was about to say would come as a surprise, but her gut was telling her this was important and, having ignored her instincts for most of her adult life, Jess felt now was the time to stop.
‘Hi, Susan. Can we talk?’
Susan looked up from her screen, flicking her glasses off onto the desk in front of her. ‘Of course. What can I do for you? How did you get on with Cobber’s? Did they go for the intern idea? I think it’s great, will really free us up to focus on the detail of their expansion.’
‘Yes, they’re fine. Actually, we managed to land them a piece in The Times this morning so they’re not questioning anything.’
‘Nice work. Come on then, what is it?’
‘Well, I know this is not going to be ideal, but I need to take some time off.’
Susan pulled her diary in front of her, pen poised. ‘You’re allowed time off, when would you like?’
‘Well… I could really do with tomorrow and next week too. I’ve shifted things around, the team have got it all in hand. I know it’s last minute but I just… I have some thinking to do.’ Susan put her pen down. ‘A few things have happened recently, I need to take stock. I need space to think.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah, I am.’ Jess wasn’t sure that was entirely true. She didn’t feel okay, but then she didn’t feel ill. If anything, she felt confused. ‘I don’t know how to explain it other than maybe it’s a mid-life thing. Maybe it’s hormones. Maybe it’s just that I’ve not had much of a break and I feel I need to sleep, but I promise, if you can let me go, I’ll be back, full up and raring to go.’
Susan looked at her, narrowing her eyes just enough to suggest that she was trying to work out what was really going on. Jess stood tall, zipping up like her Pilates instructor had always advised. She kept eye contact and she hoped, above all else, that Susan wouldn’t detect any of the self-doubt she was having right at this moment. Not least because Jess wasn’t sure where the self-doubt was founded. Did she really know what she wanted to do for the next few days? Aside from trying to work out how to help Lolly and Jess and writing pros and cons for all the alternative career ideas she’d come up with. She’d realised in the last twenty-four hours that her past was catching up with her. Stuff left undealt with. Seeing the girls had triggered it and now she just needed to work out how to stop burying the things that hurt the most. And for that, she needed not to be in an office with Jay.
‘You sure you’re okay?’ Susan asked.
‘Positive.’
‘And the team have got it covered?’
‘Million per cent.’
‘I guess that’s one of the benefits of having Jay here now, there’s two of you to shoulder the overall responsibility.’
‘Yes. Definitely a benefit.’ Jess tried not to let the words stick in her throat.
‘You can never go on holiday together!’ Susan said, laughing. And Jess had to remind herself that she didn’t mean together, together. ‘Go on, no problem. Have a few days. Can we call if we need you?’
‘Sure. No problem,’ lied Jess, because actually she had already decided to turn her phone off the second she walked out of the door.
‘Go on then, get out of here. See you a week on Monday. Have fun.’
Jess thanked Susan and walked out of the door feeling an odd mixture of relief and trepidation. Did she really want time to think? Or was thinking about to make life more difficult? Thinking could unravel her; it’s why she had always avoided it. Thinking set her off down a path of lost loves and missed opportunities. Thinking made her revisit stuff that changed the course of her life forever. Space and time she needed, no doubt. But thinking… that might be a very different matter.
As Jess left the building, Jay jumped out of a cab, taking a receipt from the driver and stuffing it into his back pocket. It was probably polite to let him know what was going on, though his face dropped when he saw her waiting.
Ignoring the fact, she said, ‘I’m heading off. Taking a few days away. And all of next week.’
‘You’re what?’
‘Heading off.’
‘I didn’t realise you had leave booked?’
‘No, I didn’t.’ Jess pulled her bag into her chest, clasping her fingers across its bulk. ‘A last-minute thing really.’
‘Oh, right. Nice.’ His tone did not suggest he thought this was nice at all.
‘The team are fine, they know what I was on with. They can pick stuff up until I’m back.’
‘Right. I was rather hoping we could catch up, I wanted to chat about a few things. Jess.’ He looked over his shoulder, pulling her into the doorway of an empty shop. ‘This isn’t how I wanted to do this, Jess, but we need to talk. We need to sort this out.’ He sighed, checking again that there was nobody in earshot. His hand fell from her arm to her hand, their fingers ligh
tly touched. He looked at her like he used to look at her, back when they first got together. ‘I didn’t come here to cause problems for you but—’
‘But what? Huh? What did you come here for? You’re a married man, Jay. You’ve a beautiful wife. What the hell are you doing, playing with fire? Playing with my emotions.’
‘That’s not… it isn’t like that.’
‘Isn’t it? Because with you holding my hand, with you looking at me the way you’re looking at me right now, that is how it feels.’ She flicked his hand from hers. ‘I can’t do this, Jay. I can’t. I thought I could, but I’d be lying to myself and I don’t deserve that.’ He stared at her, fracturing her resolve. ‘Go. Go and get on with your job. Leave me alone.’
‘What about work stuff?’
‘It’ll have to wait until I get back, won’t it? You’ll survive. You’ve coped perfectly well without me before, we both know that.’
Jay looked injured. ‘Right. Well. That told me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘No, nothing. When you’re back. Fine.’
‘Jay!’
‘No, no. I get it. It’s fine. Maybe it’s a good thing you’re not here for a few days. Might give me a chance to get my feet under the table without feeling like your subordinate.’
‘What on earth makes you feel that?’ Jess said, lowering her voice as one of the girls came out and jogged down to the bakers.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Your tone in meetings. Your superiority. Your heading off on annual leave that you hadn’t booked, without even talking to me about it.’
‘Why do I have to talk to you about it?’
‘Because we’re a team? Because as your opposite number, we need to communicate. Christ, Jess, I thought we could be adult about this but it feels like you’ve done nothing but put obstacles up since I got here.’
‘Obstacles! I didn’t ask for you to start work here.’
Jay looked at her, eyes wide.
‘Sorry. I’m sorry, that was… I don’t mean it. I just… this is harder than I was expecting.’
‘Isn’t it.’ He was deadpan. Frustrated. He looked at her as though he held her in the lowest possible esteem and now she couldn’t work out whether he’d come back to be closer to her or because there was a job he wanted to do and either way, he was married. And she deserved better than all of this. That much she did know.
‘I once knew someone, a girl, many years ago. She was brilliant, but she had no clue. She was smart, but didn’t realise. She was the love of my life and losing her was the hardest thing I ever lived through. But I did live through it. And I learned to love again. But what I took from her was the importance of living your best life. Of pushing yourself, of finding things that challenge you. And whilst now I wonder if that’s really why she went away, or if she was even that person I believe I knew, I will never forget what she taught me.’ Jess held her breath, not daring to speak. ‘And I don’t know, maybe in another life things would have been different.’
‘Jay…’
‘But we are where we are. And life moves on. And we all have to as well. I just hope that one day, the girl I fell in love with can find the person I know deep down she is. Because she deserves to be happy. She deserves to smile. It’s just a shame I was not the person to make that happen.’
‘Jay…’
‘Have a good break, I’ll handle things here.’ He took her hand again, he gave it the smallest squeeze that was so full of a love she used to know that Jess almost lost control of her heart.
Then Amanda called.
Amanda
Amanda padded around her kitchen until the line connected. ‘Jess, it’s me.’
‘Hey, how are you?’
Did she sound weary? Amanda wasn’t certain but if she didn’t now, she would in a moment. ‘So, guess who I got a message from.’
‘His lordship.’
‘Yup. And guess what he’s done now?’
‘I don’t need to guess.’
‘You’ve spoken to Lolly?’ Amanda braced herself against the kitchen worktop, the only place she could steady her anger at this point.
‘I messaged her, like we agreed. Turns out—’
‘He’s lost his job,’ Amanda finished her sentence, still shaking in disbelief at his manipulation both of Lolly and of the situation. ‘Or that’s what he’s told her. And if Lolly mentions anything, I’m to go along with it.’
‘Of course you are.’
‘Yup. She saw a text I sent him saying that I thought he should tell her and he managed to turn that into “I’ve lost my job and you need to feel sorry for me” instead.’
‘But as far as we know, he hasn’t lost his job at all. It’s just a lie to cover up the fact he was seeing you?’
‘As far as we know.’
‘Wow. He’s really something.’
‘He also thinks I should put some distance between us again. Thinks it’s unhealthy for his wife.’
‘Maybe him fucking other people is unhealthy for his wife.’
Amanda stayed quiet, she knew Jess wasn’t judging her, but the venom in her tone made Amanda feel part way responsible.
‘Sorry, that wasn’t directed at you.’
‘I know, I know.’
‘This isn’t your fault,’ said Jess and though Amanda knew it wasn’t, she appreciated Jess saying it out loud. ‘God, what do we do now? We can’t just let her think that, can we? Is it our place to get involved? I don’t know how these things work any more.’
‘No, me neither.’
Amanda could hear cars in the background, seagulls cawing. ‘Where are you? You got a meeting?’
‘No, no. Actually, I’ve taken some time off.’
‘Because of this? Oh god, I feel so bad.’
‘No! No, not you. Not this. Just… everything. Life. A sudden realisation that I’ve been avoiding dealing with some shit for most of my adult life and maybe it’s time I stopped. But it’s big, and I don’t know where to start so actually, if anything, this is a useful distraction but I don’t suppose that’s a nice thing to say about a crisis in Lolly’s marriage.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘Maybe. No. Not yet. I don’t know.’
‘Okay…’ Amanda rubbed her eyes with thumb and forefinger. ‘Lolly then. Should we tell her? Should I be the one? I mean, I sort of feel like I should, but I don’t think I can bear to see how it will hurt her.’
‘Do you remember when we were kids, when one of you saw Martin Harris kissing Liz Major in French that day.’
Amanda could remember it as if it was yesterday. They’d been mid GCSEs. It was back in the days when they finished school at Easter or some such, using the time to revise ahead of their exams. It was like one long summer of skiving from the books and pretending she really cared about what results she might get. ‘I remember.’ It was Lolly who saw Martin, Jess’s boyfriend at the time. He and Liz were huddled in a corner of the room where they thought nobody could see.
‘Didn’t you three get together? Didn’t you talk through how to deal with it?’
‘We did!’ Amanda had been against the idea at first, the idea that they should take Jess for a walk and a picnic and break the news to her somewhere she couldn’t immediately storm off and try and find either Martin or Liz. Which was wise because as Amanda recalled, Jess had the capacity to be pretty fiery back then. That plus exam stress and teen angst hormones, it could have gone wildly wrong. It also made her realise how much Jess had changed.
‘When I think back now, I was so glad you took time to get it right. It’s stupid, we were young, it shouldn’t have mattered really, but it did. And I felt safe with you all. I felt that my feelings mattered, you cared. Let’s get together with Emily. Let’s talk through the best way to do things. This is bigger than me and Martin, this is Lolly’s life, her marriage. He’s the father of her children, he’s the future she planned.’
‘That doesn’t mean he won’t still be. After she f
inds out.’
‘Of course not, and so we need to navigate that too, if we want our friendship to stand the test of another twenty years.’
‘I really do,’ said Amanda, feeling a sudden, overwhelming sense of need for these women in her life. ‘I really do.’
‘Me too. I’ll call Emily. Have you got time today?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Stand by, I’ll call you when I’ve spoken to her.’
Lolly
If she went to the toilet downstairs, near the main entrance, Lolly decided she was probably most likely to get a bit of privacy. If any colleagues were using those ones, they weren’t likely to be colleagues from physio since they mostly used toilets in their own building, round the corner. She tried to act as nonchalant as possible whilst butterflies formed in the pit of her belly. This could be it. This could be it. She felt differently this time, tired, a little bit sick, but mostly… intuitive. It was strange, she felt like she already knew, without having to take the test. She felt like she had already formed a bond with the tiny person that had to be growing in her belly because how else would she have suspected. She felt like she had the heart and soul of another human just sleeping within her. With clumsy fingers, she ripped first box, then packaging, pulling out the paddle she needed to pee on. She’d done it so many times over the years, she’d got it down to a fine art.
She put the cap over the fibres, resting it on the toilet roll dispenser as she nervously waited. She remembered this would be the longest three minutes. She breathed deeply, using the yoga count on her fingers to slow her thoughts down. She closed her eyes and imagined what their daughter would look like. Blonde hair, green eyes, bright, wide smile. She’d laugh and play and run. She’d be smart and fierce. She’d have confidence. She’d know all there was to know about her rights, about her choices. Lolly was ready to pass down every last drop of knowledge she’d picked up in this life, the things she wished she’d been told. The things she wished her mother had been around to talk about. For so many years, Lolly would have imaginary conversations with her mum, and now she could have those conversations with a daughter too. She just knew it. Her mother was called Valerie. It wasn’t a modern name, but it was a name Lolly loved and she had every intention of passing on the name to her own daughter. Kitt didn’t like it much, but he’d already said she could name their daughter anything she felt was right. He was invested, he knew how important this all was. He was prepared to take Lolly’s lead, and she loved him for it. And as the timer counted down, twenty seconds, fifteen, she realised just how much she loved Kitt. How much he had been there for her. How much she had expected of him and how much he tried, even though he didn’t always get it right. In fact, he so often got it wrong, but he tried. And that was everything to Lolly.
Her Best Friend's Secret: A gripping, emotional novel about love, life and the power of friendship Page 21