The Best Thing That Never Happened to Me

by Laura Tait

  ‘Morning, Harold,’ I say, when I’ve downed a pint of orange squash.

  Really? is her riposte. That’s all I’m getting? All day by myself yesterday, shut out of your room all night because that friend of yours is over, and the best you can do is a ‘Morning, Harold’?

  I assume what happens next is that I curl up next to her on the couch, because before I know it it’s 10 a.m. and Richard is shaking me awake, bearing tea and toast.

  God love him.

  Harold meows angrily and runs away as Richard squeezes next to me and puts his arm around me.

  I snuggle into his bare chest, and attempt to approach the subject of us coming out of our non-gay closet.

  ‘Thanks again for coming yesterday,’ I murmur.

  ‘That’s OK, babe.’ He kisses my forehead. ‘I know it was important to you. Besides, I’m back out to New York next weekend, so I’ll get everything else done then.’

  The tiny little drummers going at it nineteen to the dozen inside my skull mean it takes me a moment to work out what’s wrong with this sentence.

  When I do, I try to sit up but the drummers get angry so I rest my head back on his chest to ask . . .

  ‘Next weekend? But what about Harold?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Her, not him – and you’re meant to be feeding her next weekend.’

  His face is blank.

  ‘While I’m at my parents, remember?’

  ‘Oh shit, sorry, Holly.’ One hand flies to his forehead. ‘I totally forgot.’

  OK, be reasonable. I can’t expect him to ruin his chances of promotion to feed my cat.

  It’s just, well – would it hurt him to have at least remembered?

  ‘I really am sorry. I should have put it in my diary.’

  ‘I did put it in your diary,’ I tell him weakly, no longer in the mood for a relationship chat. ‘But it’s fine. I’ll sort it.’

  I’ll have to ask Jemma. Although if there’s one thing she dislikes more than coming south of the river, it’s cats.

  I could always ask Alex, I guess. Or is that a bit cheeky?

  Maybe there’s some sort of school fête I could make cakes for in return. I mull it over while I nibble my toast.

  Chapter Fifteen

  HOLLY

  November 1998

  I could always ask Alex, I guess. Or is that a bit cheeky?

  He did say as soon as he passed his test that if ever I wanted a lift then just ask him. Any time, any place were his exact words. Though I’m not sure a random house party a few miles out of Mothston, at – I shut one eye and squint at my watch – 2.23 a.m. is exactly what he had in mind.

  Sitting on the hallway stairs, I try to check my reflection in the full-length mirror opposite but I’m struggling to focus. I sit up and tuck in the curls that are falling out of my bun. Damn it – I spent forty minutes earlier trying to make my hair look like I’d pinned it up haphazardly in seconds.

  I could get a taxi home, I suppose, but Mum would FREAK if she knew I’d lied about being out with Alex tonight. It was the only way I could get away with staying out this late – and if (when) she looks out of the window when she hears a car pull up it’ll look well suss if it’s not Alex’s rusty Ford Fiesta.

  ‘There you go, Hols-Bols.’ Ellie thrusts a watermelon Bacardi Breezer into my hand and sits on the stair in front of me, clutching a Moscow Mule bottle.

  There’s no room for her to sit next to me, skinny as she is, because there is a line of girls pinned up against the wall with boys attached to their faces.

  Her glittery dress is both low-cut and short, even though I keep reminding her that the rule is boobs OR legs. I may have to keep checking my nipples aren’t trying to escape my boob tube but I’m wearing it with baggy hipster jeans.

  I take a glug of my drink, even though the room is already a bit spinny, and wonder if anyone will notice if I take off Ministry of Sound’s House Anthems and put Now 40 back on. I want to dance again. Then I remember I want to go home.

  ‘Whose house is this again, Ells-Bells? I need to ask to borrow their phone.’

  ‘Fuck knows – just use it.’ She reaches out to grab the cordless phone from the hallway table but falls onto her hands and pushes it off the table with her head. We laugh until our tummy muscles ache – her still lying on the floor where she fell. We’ve just calmed down when she looks up at me.

  ‘I’ve got Moscow Mule coming out of my nose.’ And we crack up again.

  ‘So . . .’ She clutches the table to pull herself to her feet, smearing her mascara as she wipes the tears away, and sits on the stair again. ‘I think I’m going to get off with Dean Jones tonight.’

  My mouth opens a little bit in shock, but she can’t see because her back is to me. She’s licking her finger and wiping a smudge off her high silver sandals, which she refuses to take off, even though the pointy heels are leaving dents in the carpet of whoever’s house this is. I can’t tell if she’s waiting to see if I react or if she genuinely doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with the fact she’s after Dean.

  Even though she knows I already got off with him. Even though I told her that he’d been talking to me a lot at school recently, and that I’m wondering if he’s going to ask me out, and I asked her what she thought of him, and she shrugged and said: ‘He’s all right.’

  Even though last week, after me and Dean were lab partners in science, I joked that we had chemistry.

  We’ve been silent for a good minute and a half now so she says, ‘I saw that guy in the red polo shirt you were chatting to for ages – he’s cute.’ She pronounces it ker-ute. ‘You should so get off with him.’

  He’s not cute. Ellie doesn’t think he’s cute either – he’s about three foot eight with acne the colour of his polo shirt – and Ellie knows full well that I was talking to him because I’m polite, because unlike her I don’t only talk to boys I think are fit.

  Maybe I should remind her about me and Dean? Maybe she’s forgotten.

  ‘I didn’t fancy that guy,’ I say, playing with her straight blonde hair. I love her hair. I asked her if I could have it once and she said she’d swap it for my boobs.

  ‘Actually, I’ve been thinking I might say yes to Dean. You know, about going on a date with him. But it’s not like he’s my boyfriend or anything and it was just one kiss so it’s not like I can stop you doing—’

  ‘Oh, I know – it’s not like you’ve actually been on a date with him. Obviously, I’d never steal him off you if you guys were a thing. That would be well out of order – you’re my best mate.’ She stands up and kisses me on the cheek, then struts into the living room. I get up to pick the phone off the floor where Ellie left it, and as I do I glance through the living-room doorway just in time to see her squeeze her tiny bum onto the sofa next to Dean.

  I wonder if he fancies her. She’s skinny and blonde – what’s not to fancy? I thought I’d seen him checking me out when I was bumping and grinding to R. Kelly’s ‘Bump n’ Grind’ earlier, but he could have easily been watching her dancing next to me. And if he was, fine! I’m not going to fight a mate for a man. As if!

  I dial Alex’s number, grateful that he has a phone next to his bed and his dad doesn’t.

  ‘Two seven zero seven?’ he says after two rings.

  ‘Hello, two seven zero seven.’ It sounds like he’s yawning. ‘Sorry, did I wake you?’

  ‘Yes! I mean no. I mean, yep, you did but I wasn’t properly asleep or anything. You all right?’

  ‘Actually, I was wondering if you’d do me a MASSIVE favour.’ I manage to turn the five-word asking of the favour into a five-minute monologue. I’m not so drunk I don’t realize I’m over-enunciating the way drunk people do when they’re talking to sober people, but I’m too drunk to stop.

  ‘Holly!’ Alex interrupts – actually, I think it might be for the third time. ‘The address?’

  I have to run outside to check both the house number and the street name, and alt
hough he doesn’t know exactly where it is he says he’ll look it up in the A-Z in his glove box and be with me as soon as he can.

  Once I’ve hung up and replaced whoever’s phone I’ve just used I do a little equation to work out how long that’s likely to be. Maths was my one A* at GCSE so this shit is easy. It took about twenty minutes to get here in a taxi but when you take into account that Alex has to get dressed and look up the address (add ten minutes) and the fact that it’s Alex who’s driving (reduce average speed by one third) I decide I definitely have time for another drink.

  There are no more Bacardi Breezers so I settle for a Diamond White. Bobby Shepherd, who’s sitting on the worktop next to the fridge, grabs it and uses his teeth to pull the top off, before proudly handing it back to me.

  ‘Good skills.’ I smile. ‘No wonder you’ve been accepted into the army.’

  He doesn’t pick up on the sarcasm and now he’s asking me if I’ve ever got high by pouring vodka into my eyeballs. I give him an honest ‘no’, and he asks if I want to try it and I give him an equally honest ‘no’, and when he goes to show me how it’s done I’m wishing someone would come and pull me away. And then as if by magic Dean appears at the doorway.

  ‘Um, Holly?’ He looks at me apologetically. ‘Ellie’s asking for you – she’s not well.’

  When Dean leads me through to the living room, where Ellie is sitting with her head in her hands and lumpy orange-coloured puke on her sandals, I’m wishing I was back in the kitchen with Bobby-vodka-in-his-eyeballs. The two girls stroking Ellie’s back run away gratefully as soon as they see me and as I get closer, the smell of ginger beer and sick hits me in the face.

  ‘Ells,’ I say gently, crouching next to her and putting my arms around her.

  ‘Hols,’ she sobs into my shoulder. ‘I think I’m dying.’

  ‘You’re fine,’ I tell her. ‘Alex is on his way – he’ll drop you home. You can sleep in the back all the way there.’

  ‘I ruv roooo, Hols.’

  ‘I love you too, Ellie.’

  As I stand up, Ellie flops across the couch. I get our coats from the upstairs bedroom and drape one around her shoulders and the other over her legs, before going to get a cloth to clean the carpet where she was sick. Worried I’ll throw up soon myself, I wash my hands, then head out the front to wait for Alex.

  ‘That can’t have been a fun job.’ Dean has followed me out, and drops down next to me on the porch step.

  ‘Can’t have been much fun for you either.’ I grin. ‘Hope she realized she was going to be sick in time to get her tongue out of your mouth.’

  ‘What? We didn’t do anything,’ Dean says quickly, putting his beer can down and gently laying his hand on my knee. ‘Um, actually, I was in the middle of asking her whether she thought I was in with a chance with you.’

  Wow, no wonder she threw up.

  Is the hottest guy in sixth form really sitting here asking me to be his girlfriend? I don’t know where to look. I’d have been fine half an hour ago when I was really pissed, but nothing sobers you up like cleaning up someone else’s puke.

  ‘Holly?’ he says, using his hand to turn my face towards him. ‘Can I ask you something?’

  ‘Yeah, course,’ I say lightly, even though I think I know what he’s going to ask and I still haven’t decided my answer.

  ‘Will you go out with me?’

  I smile and look away shyly. What girl in my school wouldn’t want to be me right now? I might not have that feeling I have when I sit this closely to Alex, all tingly and desperate to close the gap between us. But I don’t know him as well as I know Alex, so maybe we could get there. He’s so good-looking – everyone thinks so. Ellie included, it turns out. And I can’t sit around my whole life waiting for Alex if he doesn’t want to close the gap.

  In the end Dean saves me from having to answer by pulling my face towards his so that our lips mash together. He tastes of beer and fags and is kind of a good kisser. I wonder what he’s thinking. Am I a good kisser? I wish I’d known this was going to happen – I’ve got Polos in my handbag. My neck is starting to hurt a little bit now because of the angle my head is turned at but I don’t dare stop. Then a car horn blares.

  ‘Is that a yes?’ Dean asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I laugh, rubbing my neck. ‘Call me tomorrow, OK?’

  ‘Wicked. Is that your taxi?’

  ‘No, it’s Alex Tyler – he’s giving me a lift.’

  ‘Ha, you’re kidding. Isn’t it past his bedtime?’

  ‘Shut it, Jones.’ I slap him gently on the arm, hoping he’ll take the hint and actually shut it.

  ‘You know he’s trying to have it off with you, right?’

  ‘He is not!’ Is he? No, of course not. Is he? ‘He’s a mate.’

  ‘He’s a bloke. He might be a bit of a girly bloke but he’s still a bloke, and that means the only reason he’d drive out to pick up a girl in the middle of the night is if he thinks he’ll eventually get into her knickers.’

  ‘You’re wrong. Seriously, Dean – lay off him, OK? And help me get Ellie.’

  ‘Fine, but he better keep his hands to himself.’

  Alex’s hands are the least of my problems. I’m more worried about his reaction when I tell him he needs to let a sick-covered Ellie into the back of his car.

  ‘I really am sorry, Alex,’ I say again.

  He agreed without hesitating to give Ellie a lift – even getting a blanket out of the boot to cover her with, which I’m 99 per cent sure he’ll just bin when he gets home. But he’s been really quiet the entire journey so I think it’s safe to say he’s a bit pissed off.

  ‘It’s fine,’ he says again, then starts singing along to Stereophonics’s ‘More Life in a Tramp’s Vest’, as if to prove he is indeed fine.

  I stare out of the window, trying to think of something to talk about to ease the tension, and notice a twenty-something couple staggering along arm and arm – him carrying her high heels and her carrying a handful of those red roses that sellers carry around restaurants, guilt-tripping blokes into buying for their dates.

  ‘Yuk,’ I laugh.

  ‘What?’ Alex’s eyes flick to me.

  ‘Red roses. The world’s biggest cliché. I’d dump a bloke who was that unoriginal. Sunflowers maybe. Or Roses chocolates. But not red bloody roses.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry,’ he says after a minute or two. ‘I don’t think Dean Jones is a red roses kind of guy.’

  ‘You saw that?’

  ‘Yeah, I saw.’ He pauses. ‘So was it just because you’re drunk?’

  I glance at the back seat to check Ellie is still sleeping. She’s drooling all over the seat.

  ‘Actually,’ I watch his face closely as I turn back to him, ‘he asked me out.’

  I notice Alex’s jaw clench a little.

  ‘He’s bad news, Holly. Him and his mates – they’re always smoking weed and bunking off school and stuff.’

  ‘Look at you getting all big-brotherly on me.’ I force a smile and pat his leg affectionately, then lean my head back and close my eyes.

  ‘I just think you’re too good for him, that’s all.’

  My heart speeds up a little. Is Alex trying to tell me something? I look his way and wait for his eyes to meet mine, but they stay on the road while he starts singing along to ‘Local Boy in the Photograph’, and I realize he’s not trying to tell me anything at all.

  Chapter Sixteen

  ALEX

  May 2010

  The tinny fallout of iPods spills from the corridor as someone enters the staffroom. I tap a Biro between my teeth, keeping my eyes on my crossword.

  Nonsense; an expression of disagreement. Seven letters, sixth letter E.

  Someone stands in front of me and blocks my light. I wait for them to move. They don’t. Impatient, I look up, and my face instantly softens. Cassie is smiling down at me, waiting to be acknowledged. She smoothes the back of her flowery, knee-length skirt as she falls onto the ripped leather seat
beside me.

  ‘Thank God it’s Friday, eh?’ she says, and I place the newspaper and pen on my lap. ‘Got any plans for the weekend?’

  ‘Feeding a mate’s cat,’ I reply. ‘I’m so rock ’n’ roll.’

  Cassie nods in sarcastic agreement.

  ‘How about you?’ I say.

  She shakes her head. ‘Nothing in the diary. Expect I’ll just curl up on the sofa with a book. Unless I get a better offer.’

  Cassie glances my way, and the glance lasts a second or two longer than I expect.

  ‘Four down,’ I say, because it seems easier than asking what she’s staring at. ‘Nonsense; an expression of disagreement. Seven letters, sixth letter E.’

  Cassie finally stops looking at me and thinks for a second. ‘I’m rubbish at crosswords.’

  ‘And you work in the English department?’ I grin, and she punches my arm teasingly so that I stop thinking about the crossword and try to establish whether we’ve just engaged in pre-sexual contact, or whether Cassie is a kindly care worker and I’m an elderly patient. And then I realize. The funny way she looked at me. It was me. It was me who was supposed to give her a better offer.

  ‘Afternoon, Japseye,’ says Kev when I answer the phone.

  Working day complete, I’m on my way to feed Harold. The bus is packed, and squeezed in next to me is an old lady with one hand resting on a tartan trolley that’s obstructing the aisle.

  ‘Just thought you should know, I had sex last night.’

  Baloney. That’s what it was. Four down. Seven letters, sixth letter E. Why did I leave my newspaper in the staffroom?

  ‘Pull the other one, Kev.’

  ‘Seriously, remember the girl I told you about who was giving me the eye on the train?’

  ‘Whatever you say.’

  ‘I swear. We fucked like rabbits. Twice.’

  ‘How on earth did that happen?’

  ‘Well, Alex, I took my trousers off, gave it a bit of a slap and stuck it in.’

  ‘That’s a lovely image, Kev – but what I meant was, how did you get to a situation where she . . .’ I lower my voice to a whisper. ‘Where she let you stick it in?’