Was she right? Was there no true sentiment behind the time they’d spent together? Jac shook her head. No, she wasn’t that callous. “I cared for you, Vee. I truly did. And you’re right, we had some good times, but we both know it hasn’t been right for a while now.” She smiled sadly. “I’m glad we can be honest about this.”
Jac didn’t want a fight. She didn’t want to argue. If this was the path they were walking, then she just wanted it done with. And she didn’t want to create any hard feelings. There was no need for that. Besides, Jac wasn’t convinced that either of them felt enough for what they had to really cause either of them much in the way of hurt. That in itself said everything Jac needed to know. She stepped into the room properly and held her hands out to Vanessa.
“You’re a wonderful young woman, Vee, and I wish you all the luck in the world going forward.” She took Vanessa’s face in her hands and placed a soft kiss to her forehead. “I’m sorry this didn’t work out, but you’re right to move on. We both deserve to be happy.”
Vanessa’s hands touched hers as she pulled back and looked into Jac’s eyes. For a second, Jac saw the sparkle in her eyes that had attracted her to Vanessa in the first place, a sparkle she had mistaken for a depth Vanessa didn’t truly possess and could adopt for only so long, like any other role she played.
Jac closed her eyes and touched her forehead to Vanessa’s.
“Be happy, Vee.”
Vanessa let a tear roll down her cheek as she pressed her keys into Jac’s hand, squeezed, and walked away. Jac smirked. Vanessa could have her dramatic parting scene. She wouldn’t even look back at her. Sure this would be aggrandised in the retelling to make it sound like the parting of two soulmates divided across a wasteland of broken promises and shattered dreams, but Jac found she didn’t care. She focused on the wheels of the suitcase running and clicking across the floor and then the sound of the door opening, then closing with a tinny metallic click.
She fidgeted with the keys in her hand, spinning them around her finger, over and over again, just as her mind played over the conversation. She tossed her keys onto the coffee table and picked up Vanessa’s envelope. As soon as she opened it, she saw how short and to the point the note was. That, too, told her everything she needed to know.
I’m sorry, but this isn’t working for me anymore. Good luck and goodbye.
V
“We want different things, Jac.”
Jac looked about the empty flat; the sound of a boiler cycling on as the heating kicked in hummed in the background. The only break in the silence. Maybe she was right. Maybe Jac did want something different in her life. Only question is…I don’t know what the hell that is…well, not outside of work, anyway.
Chapter 3
“I have a confession to make.”
Sasha sighed inwardly, plastered on a smile and turned to face Bobbi, who stood with her hands stuffed into the pocket of her oversized hoodie, and her usually mischievous gaze glued to the floor.
“Another one? Already?”
Bobbi nodded.
“Need me to drive a getaway car?”
“You can’t drive.”
“Good point. I’d be useless at that, but I can ride a mean scooter.”
“You’ve never ridden a scooter.”
“’Course I have.”
“Have not.”
“I rode one to school every day in junior one. Ask Mum.”
Bobbi sputtered, “I—I didn’t mean a push scooter when you were six, you numpty.”
Shrugging, Sasha said, “Yeah, but I did.” She bumped Bobbi with her shoulder. “Come on, then. Out with your big confession.”
“I sent your screenplay off to a competition I saw on Facebook and you made the finalist list, the winners are drawn by the end of the week, and you might be a winner, and the producer loved it,” Bobbi said without taking a breath, and without looking up. As they stood in the middle of IKEA, her coal-black eyes flitting to Sasha’s face before sinking to the lino-covered walkway again. She looked much younger than her forty-two years, and Sasha almost felt sorry for the discomfort she clearly felt.
Almost.
“What?”
Bobbi’s throat worked in a heavy swallow, and her gaze slowly rose to meet Sasha’s from under those long eyelashes. Her brown cheeks had paled, taking on a grey tinge Sasha hadn’t seen on her before, and she tugged on her top from inside the kangaroo pocket. She took a deep, visible breath and started again. “I said, I entered you into a screenplay competition I saw on Facebook, and they like it.” She shrugged one shoulder. “If you win, they’re gonna make your script into a film.”
“Fuck off!” Sasha blurted out, unable to stop herself. She clapped her hand over her mouth.
Bobbi’s eyes widened, and the corners of her mouth twitched almost into a smile. Almost.
Sasha glanced around, noting a mother hurrying her child away from Sasha and her filthy mouth with a withering look. “Sorry,” Sasha said and grabbed hold of Bobbi’s arm, dragging her past the display of a ridiculously small model studio apartment with some admittedly clever storage solutions Sasha promised to revisit later. Some may just be big enough to hide a body Bobbi’s size. She was only five-foot-nothing and skinny, and Sasha was pretty sure that if she was angry enough, she could fold her friend up like a paper doll.
Sasha found a deserted corner between two displays and shoved Bobbi in ahead of her, rose to her full five-foot-five inches in height, planted her hands on her hips, and stared menacingly. At least she hoped it was menacingly. Because Sasha was well aware that she was more the cuddly maternal type than the ferocious-warrior kind of woman.
But Bobbi gulped and looked suitably terrified. Good.
“They really like—”
Sasha held up a hand. “Start at the beginning. Which screenplay? What possessed you to think it was a good idea? And…and…and what the hell?”
Bobbi tucked her hands back into her pocket and sighed. “Right, so, that screenplay you let me read. The one about the girls at the music college, one of them was Muslim, the arranged-marriage one. You remember giving me that to read?”
Sasha waited. Toe tapping. Bobbi gulped again and glanced over Sasha’s shoulder.
“Well, anyway, I thought it was so cool. I mean, so much better than loads of the lesbian films, well, than a lot of the straight films out there at the moment too. It was sweet and funny and sexy and, like, so relevant, it really should be made into a film, Sash. I told you that I thought it was awesome.”
It was difficult to maintain the scowl under praise, but Sasha felt she did an admirable job. It had Bobbi looking at her feet again.
“Anyway, I saw this link being shared around on Facebook, it was a competition for writers to submit a screenplay they wrote for a chance at exposure, and the winner gets to talk to some big producer about the chance to make their screenplay into a film.”
“How do you know this is legitimate and not some sort of scam? Did you have to pay money to enter this competition?”
“Just a nominal entry fee. And I looked up the company and the producer. It was legit, Sash. I swear. This producer’s done some really cool stuff.”
“Who is it?”
“Jac Kensington. She produced that one we watched last year. What was it called again? The one with the woman who was getting married and fell for the florist doing her bouquet. You know the one I mean, right?”
“Bloomin’ Perfect?”
“That’s the one. She did that one. It’s her company, and it all looks totally legit, so I sent it to her.”
“And she likes it?” Sasha was stunned. Her hands dropped from her hips.
“She loves it.” Bobbi’s excitement was palpable now that the fear of imminent death no longer tempered it. “She sent an email when the finalists were announced. I’ll show it to you when we get out
of here.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Sasha pointed her finger in Bobbi’s face as the numb feeling gave way to something else, something not nearly so comfortable. Something a little like panic. She wasn’t cut out for something like this. She wrote her little screenplays as a way to vent about her very normal, rather boring life, not to get to the finals list of a competition. Not to have a producer “love” her story.
She latched on to uncomfortable and ran with it, morphing her fear into anger…sort of. “Or better yet, why didn’t you ask me? Point it out and let me decide for myself if I wanted to enter something like this? Why go behind my back like this?”
Bobbi took hold of her hands and squeezed them lightly. “Because you wouldn’t have done it, Sash.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yeah, I do. So do you.” She wiggled Sasha’s hands. “You’d tell yourself it wasn’t good enough, or that even if it was, you couldn’t possibly enter, just in case you did win, because you couldn’t possibly go anywhere.”
“Well I can’t—”
“Like Longsight is the place to be.”
“My mum needs me.”
Bobbi’s eyes twinkled. “Who do you think paid the entrance fee?”
Sasha took a step back. “What?”
“Your mum was the one who paid for you to enter the competition.”
Competition. Wait. Comp. Project Comp. Shit.
“Why would she do that? She needs me.”
“You should probably ask her that.”
“Oh, believe me, I will.”
“But, you know, maybe she thinks it’s time you, I don’t know, moved out, or maybe moved on is a better way to put it. I mean, you’re what, forty-five now? That’s like—”
Sasha held up her hand again, and Bobbi cut herself off like she’d hit a brick wall. “Listen, Bobbi, I moved back in with my mother five years ago when she was battling cancer and needed help. Before that I was perfectly happy in my own place, thank you very much. I’m not some loser who’s never cut the apron strings. Mum’s still recovering. She still needs help.”
Bobbi shrugged, clearly deciding not to pursue it any further.
Narrowing her eyes, Sasha had prepared herself for the next round when a vibration from her pocket drew Sasha’s attention. She pulled out her phone, looked at the Unknown Number ID, and shifted it to voicemail. She wasn’t in the mood for cold-callers today. “Come on,” she said with a heavy sigh as she flicked her long hair over her shoulder. “You said you needed a new mattress.” She backed out of the corner and headed towards the bedroom displays, Bobbi playing shadow behind her. “You can tell me the rest as we go around this bloody maze.”
“The rest” turned out to be light on the details and heavy on the excitement until Sasha had a headache and Bobbi’s new mattress was on the trolley ready to be loaded into the back of Bobbi’s car. The rain had started while they’d been in the store, sometime during all three hours of looking, trying out, relooking, retesting, and then finally queuing up to buy said mattress. The grey clouds that had loomed earlier over Ashton-under-Lyne were now spitting their heavy load with a vengeance.
Bobbi grabbed the handles of the cart, towed it through the doors, and out to the car park while Sasha stood looking out, wishing they’d thought ahead to park under the covered section. Or that she’d thought to bring an umbrella.
Grateful she at least had a hood on her coat, she pulled her long hair into a bunch at the back of her head, twisted and tucked it into the collar, then flipped up the hood on her jacket.
A torrent of tiny pencils rained down on her head, past her face, and clattered to the ground with a tinkle and a splash.
Bobbi spun around, eyes and mouth making perfect circles, hands flapping before she started to yank the trolley behind her, gathering some speed. Her loud announcement was already trailing off into the distance she put between them.
“I have a littler confession to make!”
Bobbi looked at her sheepishly. “I’m really sorry, Sasha,” she said as she turned off the main road. “I just get a bit bored and I can’t help myself.”
After a moment’s thought, Sasha shook her head. She’d been on the receiving end of more than one of Bobbi’s boredom-related incidents over the ten years they’d been friends. This was another she’d probably laugh at before long.
“Forget it, bitch. I’m saving up all these incidents for one hell of a revenge attack.”
Bobbi grinned. “Oh, I look forward to that. See you at work tomorrow.”
“Yup.” Sasha tugged her coat tighter around her and stuffed her hands deep into her pockets as she climbed out of Bobbi’s car. She waved as it retreated into the distance.
Sasha pulled her keys from her pocket and opened the door to the house. A cloud of smoke greeted her, and the combined odours of lavender, sage, and pot assaulted her nostrils. Holistic therapies, indeed. Sasha half expected to one day walk into their house and find her mother dealing her wares to the teenagers who hung around on the corner.
“I don’t want to know.”
She closed her eyes and seriously debated heading down to the pub for the night. But then decided against it. She had work in the morning, and working through the munchies after getting inadvertently stoned due to her mother’s tinkering was better than trying to give a dozen massages, pedicures, or facials with a hangover.
“Mum?” She waved her hand in front of her face and made her way to the living room, opening windows as she went, hoping no one was driving by who might be interested in the pungent plume venting into the cold, dank evening. While it was perfectly legal for her mother to use the stuff, going through the rigmarole of explaining it to a new batch of coppers every time was…frustrating? Annoying? Time-consuming? All of the above? “You promised you’d only smoke in the conservatory! The whole house stinks now!”
“Oh, don’t be such a fun-sponge. Here, have a puff on this.”
Fleur was draped across the sofa in a sea of tie-dyed taffeta and chiffon. Her shoulder-length grey locks were tied back with a bandana of every colour under the sun. She looked like she belonged at Woodstock. Sasha sniffed. She smelled like she belonged at Woodstock, except for the cat that lay cradled along one arm while her mother stroked its back and it flicked its tail in Sasha’s direction. Nip’s green eyes stared malevolently, and Sasha wasn’t sure if it was as stoned as her mother or plotting the interloper’s death. Either was entirely possible, and it gave Fleur a decidedly Doctor Evil edge to her hippie chic.
Sasha waved the roach away. “Fun-sponge?”
“Yes, you know? A bore, dear.” She pulled another drag off her spliff. “I’m up with the kids,” she murmured around the smoke she’d inhaled, letting it seep out of the corner of her mouth in a way that always reminded Sasha of Frenchy from Grease trying to teach Sandy how to smoke.
Sasha wrinkled her nose. “I think you mean ‘down with the kids’, Mum. And, no, you’re not.”
Fleur shrugged, exhaled, and eyed her up and down before motioning Sasha to bend towards her. When they were eye to eye, she reached over and pulled a pencil out of her hair. “What happened to you?”
“Bobbi.”
Fleur cracked a sloppy grin. “About time you got yourself a little lesbi-action there.” She elbowed Sasha in the ribs. “Not gonna ask about the pencil. There are some things a mother does not need to know.”
Sasha tutted, grabbed the pencil from her fingers, and tossed it onto the coffee table as she stood up straight. “That’s just so wrong. You’re my mother, and Bobbi’s my friend.”
“All the better. You’re still young, and you’re letting that thing heal itself closed like a pierced ear.” Fleur waved her hand in the direction of Sasha’s crotch. “It’s not like I don’t know what sex is, dear. How’d you think you got here? Your father and I, well, he used to do this thin
g with his tong—”
“Stop! Stop. Just…stop.”
Fleur snickered somewhat evilly despite the obvious lethargy and said, “Rowr,” while holding out her bony hand like she was clawing at something. The whole visual was just too…disturbing.
“Ew. So not going to happen. And please, don’t ever make that noise again.”
“Fun-sponge.”
“So it would seem.” She opened another window and handed her mother a blanket for the moment she would inevitably complain about the cold. She fetched two glasses of water and a jumbo-sized bag of crisps from the kitchen, then plopped down on the sofa next to her mum. Just far enough away to be out of Nip’s reach, should she decide to attack. Not that it looked like the feline could be bothered…but Sasha had learnt to be cautious over the years. “Mum, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, dear, I thought even you could tell that Bobbi wanted a little of your lady-loving.”
Sasha rolled her eyes. “Bobbi told me all about Project Comp.”
“That girl can’t keep a secret to save her life.”
“No, she can’t. So, come on, why didn’t you tell me you wanted me out of your hair?”
“I don’t. I want you to let yours down a bit, honey.” She reached across the back of the sofa and ran her fingers through Sasha’s locks. “So soft.” She twirled the strands around her fingers the way Sasha remembered her doing when she was a child. “And still lovely and dark. You can barely see those few grey ones scattered about.”
“Love you too, Mother,” Sasha said through gritted teeth. She wasn’t particularly vain, but she didn’t need to be reminded that she wasn’t getting any younger either.
“Oh, pish. You’re a beautiful, vibrant, young woman, and I want you to have a life.”
“I do have a life. A very full one, as it so happens.”
“You go to work, you come home, you cook, you clean, you tidy up after me, and you lock yourself away in that room of yours. That’s not a life. That’s servitude.”
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