Heart of Us

by Emma Browne

Sophia, being all kinds of nosey today, asked her about what was going on between her and Nick, and she told us that they had decided to be bury the hatchet after bickering for as long as they had known each other. That gave me some confidence. If Julia and Nick could be friends, then maybe Jack and I could too.

  After a while, the conversation turned to what we were now calling Project Cup. I went over our agenda, and we got down to business. A few months ago, when Julia was still in Kenya, we’d decided via our Skype meeting that I had the better business head to bring to Julia’s idea. I started chairing the meetings and even though we had a lot of logistics to get through, I didn’t mind at all – in fact, I enjoyed it. Still, budgets, fundraising, branding and marketing weren’t why any of us were involved with Project Cup. Instead, we all felt strongly about the cause.

  It was mid-afternoon by the time Sophia and Miranda left and I was debating going for a run, when Jack came over. Strolling into my kitchen, where I was sitting with notes strewn all over the table and my laptop open to my spreadsheets, he pulled out the chair next to me and sat down.

  I reminded myself that I did want to be friends with him, even as it irked me that he had just barged in unannounced. Why did he look so relaxed and right in my kitchen?

  Couldn’t he at least knock?

  I raised an eyebrow at him. ‘Hi?’

  ‘Your doorbell needs to be fixed.’

  I sighed. ‘I don’t have a doorbell.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ He nodded. ‘Exactly.

  Chapter 6

  Miranda

  ‘What’s all this?’ Jack asked and picked up some of the papers on the table.

  I took a deep breath, reminding myself that I wanted to be his friend. I did want to be his friend. ‘Look, Jacky, do you see me barging into your house picking up random pieces of paper that seem important and reading them?’

  His eyes glittered as he looked at me, but he put the papers back down. ‘Nope, I don’t. But if you did, you’d be welcome. Just saying.’

  ‘Well, you’re not.’ I gave him a pointed look. ‘Welcome, that is.’

  ‘You want me to leave?’ He sat up straighter. Although everything about him screamed strong and powerful, his face was kind in a way that made my pulse pick up its pace. It reminded me of how Mum used to tell me that when it came to picking a husband, the most important trait in any man was that he was kind. The kindness in Jack’s eyes was new, and it confused me. The Jack I knew was a great guy, but also impatient, and he never had much empathy with anyone. He had never been good at handling feelings, and instead of showing compassion, he would avoid, attack or challenge people instead.

  I shook my head. I wasn’t looking to pick a husband, and even if I was, Jack wasn’t ever getting back on that list. No matter how kind he was now. Tired, I blew out a deep breath. ‘No, it’s ok. You can stay.’ Standing up and gathering the papers into a neat pile, I forced a smile. ‘But leave the papers alone. I don’t need you messing up my system.’

  He relaxed back into his chair. ‘Do you want a drink of anything?’

  ‘Um…’

  He got up. ‘I’ll just put the kettle on.’

  I sat back down and watched him make himself at home in my kitchen. I had a feeling Jack and I had rather different ideas regarding what our new friendship was going to look like. Jack making tea in my kitchen felt a little bit too right. Like he hadn’t been gone for the previous six years. Like he knew his way around my kitchen, even though I had changed it after Mum died.

  Like he belonged there.

  And that made me feel both safe and terrified. Safe, because it was nice to know that someone knew me. And terrified, because I wasn’t sure I could handle falling in love with him again when I knew there was no future for us.

  ‘What are you having?’ He asked once he had put the kettle on and got two mugs out.

  ‘Um…’ I said again and cleared my throat. It was hard to make decisions about drinks when my thoughts were all jumbled by his smile.

  ‘You have quite the tea collection here.’ He rummaged through the cupboard. ‘Ah! You have Chinese green tea leaves? Where did you get them?’

  ‘Karen brought them back for me after she’d been out to visit you last time.’

  ‘Oh yeah? Mind if I have some?’

  I shook my head. ‘Go ahead. I’ll have some, too.’

  He put three or four dried leaves into each of our mugs and poured on the boiling water. ‘I love the smell of this. Brings me right back.’

  I smiled. ‘I bet it’s got to be quite the change coming back here after all these years away?’

  He put my mug in front of me and sat down. ‘You have no idea.’ He shook his head. ‘Maybe the strangest part of it all though, is moving back in with Mum and Dad.’

  ‘Yeah? I didn’t realise you were planning on staying there permanently.’

  He held his hands up and shook his head. ‘I’m not. Definitely not. Just until I find my own place.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ That was good news. Then maybe I wouldn’t have to see him all the time. ‘Have you been looking?’

  ‘Just online so far. I have to go back to Hong Kong in October to tie up a couple of loose ends, and then I’m hoping to get it all sorted out when I come back.’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘Tell me about this social enterprise you guys are setting up.’

  I sipped my tea slowly. ‘What do you want to know?’

  His head tilted to the side. ‘Why are you doing it?’

  I frowned. ‘Probably a mixture of reasons, if I’m honest.’

  ‘Honest is best.’ His lips pulled to the side as he watched me. There was a lightness to his tone that made me feel as though I could be real with him without him making too much of it.

  I shrugged. ‘Partly I got involved because the thought of girls not being able to keep up with school because they don’t have access to sanitary products is appalling. When Julia first told us about the girls at the school where she was teaching in Kenya, I wanted to help. I’ve never been the kind of person to jump at a new idea, you know. I prefer to sit down and work out the risks first.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Jack’s smile grew and he nodded. ‘I seem to remember that, yes.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ I gave him a dry look as I remembered how we used to disagree on how to make decisions. Jack was all for jumping into things and working out the details later, whereas I was… not. ‘But this time, I didn’t need persuading.’

  Jack’s eyes narrowed and his eyebrows raised, even as the smile stayed in place. ‘You didn’t even do a pros and cons list before going for it?’ He knew me too well.

  ‘I’ve done plenty of risk calculations since.’

  He nodded, pursing his lips as though to stop himself from smiling. ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘But though there were still a whole bunch of questions that needed answers, I felt confident it was a good idea.’ I scrunched my nose. ‘And although there are an awful lot of things to do, I still kind of think we can make it happen.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Jack noted the hesitation in my voice. ‘What’s the plan?’

  ‘We’re in the test phase right now, so we’re working on sourcing two thousand five hundred period cups to sell in Scotland and hope to make enough money to sponsor a project at a high school in Kenya.’

  ‘The same school that Julia worked at, right?’

  ‘Right.’ I nodded. ‘The period cups will be given to high school girls so they can stay in education.’

  ‘What’s your timeline?’

  ‘Yeah, the timeline is somewhat unattainable.’ I grimaced. ‘Don’t tell Julia or Sophia I said that, though.’

  ‘How bad is it?’ Jack sipped his tea, and I remembered my own cup. I took a sip, noting how the leaves at the bottom of the cup had expanded.

  ‘Well, we need to sell about two thousand cups by the end of the year.’

  Jack set his cup on the table. ‘And you don’t have the cups yet?’

  ‘Nope.’

  He frow
ned. ‘Yeah, that does sound somewhat unattainable.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ I smiled. ‘What’s life without a challenge though, eh?’

  ‘Right.’ Jack’s eyes glittered as his smile reappeared. His smile reminded me of all the times when we used to step outside of our comfort zone and do something crazy together. He would smile at me like that then: like it was us against the world and he wouldn’t have it any other way. It used to give me the biggest thrill. ‘So, once you get through the test phase, then what happens?’

  ‘If we get past the test phase…’

  He waved his hand in the air as though my hesitation was superfluous.

  ‘Depending on how the test phase goes, we then make a decision as to whether we want to plunge deeper and sponsor more projects, or if we are satisfied with what we might have achieved in Kenya. Although, every time we meet there are new ideas of how to help people in need of better menstrual health management, and I think we all feel we would like to keep going. If we can make it work, that is.’

  ‘Course you can make it work.’

  ‘Mm-hm, sure.’ I laughed as I wished I had the same confidence in me that he appeared to have. ‘Yeah, I guess though the timeline is crazy, we do have enough dedication that it might work.’

  Jack scratched his jaw, which looked like it hadn’t been shaved for a couple of days. He could probably grow a full beard now if he wanted to. It used to be patchier, but now the stubble looked fuller, and my hands itched to reach out to feel it.

  ‘Who’s doing what?’

  Jack’s question startled me out of my beard thoughts. I cleared my throat to give myself time to think. ‘So, obviously it’s Julia’s idea…’

  ‘Obviously.’ Jack nodded.

  ‘And Sophia’s doing the marketing, and sales strategies, and things like that.’

  ‘Uh-huh, makes sense, given her degree and experience in marketing.’

  ‘And as I have a business with accounting degree and have been working with small businesses at the bank, I volunteered to do all the legal and finance bits.’

  ‘Right, and who’s sourcing the cups?’

  ‘I am.’

  Jack sucked his cheeks in and nodded. ‘Where are you getting them from?’

  ‘I’m still looking at options, but it looks like I’ll get them from China.’ After much research, I had found that Chinese companies could give us a much better price than any European company producing medical grade silicone products. But with a better price came all the questions of how the products were produced and by whom, and if the workers were treated fairly, and so on. Therefore, I had concluded a trip to China was in order – in order to check it all out in person.

  I had wanted to visit China for a long time – ever since Jack and I had planned to go live in Hong Kong for a year – and this seemed like the perfect excuse to finally take some of the annual leave I had saved up. I hadn’t booked any tickets yet, but I had my eye on some dates in October. That was only a few weeks away, but I figured we would need to sort out getting the cups as soon as possible, as Julia wanted to go out to the high school in Kenya in January.

  ‘Sounds like you’re doing a lot.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s ok. We’re all helping each other. It’s not like we’re expecting Sophia to somehow sell two thousand five hundred cups alone, you know?’

  ‘Sure. Do you need any help with sourcing the cups?’

  ‘Nope.’ As much as I felt in over my head with the idea of sourcing the menstrual cups, there was no way I was going to put myself in the position of needing Jack’s help. Been there, done that. Not going back there in a million years.

  ‘Ok.’ He bit his lip as if to keep a smile from slipping out. ‘I could end up being useful, though. I’ve got a few connections in China.’

  ‘Thanks for offering.’ Maybe if I tried the polite way, he would get the hint? ‘I’ll be fine. I’ve got a couple of leads.’

  I did have a couple of leads, but at this point I had nothing in stone, and it was starting to stress me out in view of our timeline. The stress reminded me of how, whenever Mum stood in front of a big task, she used to mutter how hard can it be? And then she would get on with it. That is what I intended to do, too.

  How hard could it be?

  Chapter 7

  Past

  Jack

  They say that in Scotland, it only ever rains. And that might be true on the west coast, but in Edinburgh we see the sun quite a bit. And, for the most part, I prefer the sunshine. The week my sister Josie died, though, I would have liked it to rain.

  Most of all, I would have liked some torrential rain, each drop hammering the pavement and making big puddles that would splash pedestrians as the cars went through them. Or a thick dreich mist, “the haar” as we call it in Edinburgh, which comes down so thick it’s like wading through a cloud, and though there is no actual rain, you are soaked after spending two minutes in it. Even some random showers or just heavy clouds would have been preferable to the raging sunshine that seemed to have come to stay for good.

  I wanted the angels to cry with us, but instead God sent the sunshine, as if he was gloating at how miserable we were, when he had been able to bring Josie home to be with him. And I may have taken a leaf from his book going forward. Empathy didn’t seem important to God, and I swung between hating him for it and agreeing with him. Empathy was for wimps.

  Josie was only four when she died. She was seven years younger than me, and though that might seem like a large age gap, I had very few memories of life before she was born. Josie was daring and adventurous, and where there was competition and sibling rivalry between me and Julia, I felt more protective of Josie. I would watch out for her, and she followed me around like I was her hero.

  I mourned Josie, and it was a pain worse than any I had ever felt before. But worse still was everybody else’s pain. I didn’t know how to handle everybody around me grieving. Instead, I took my bike out and went to the park. Julia rarely came with me, she was stuck in her own shock, I think, and spent the summer doing chores, reading and watching TV. Miranda would come with me once in a while, though. To begin with, she seemed wary, and she was sad, too. But whenever I saw tears in her eyes, I would call her a cry-baby and challenge her to a race. She soon learnt, and the rest of the summer she provided a great distraction from all the grief at home.

  We told our parents we were taking our bikes to Figgate Park, and they were fine with that – it wasn’t far – and most of the time we did go to Figgate Park. But occasionally we took our picnic and bike to the steps of Duddingston Loch. From there, we would push and carry the bikes up the steps to Queen’s Drive. It took us almost an hour, but Miranda was pretty scrappy and could carry her bike most of the way. We sat down and had a drink then, before getting on our bikes and biking round Arthur’s Seat, stopping occasionally to look out over the city and further to the sea. Other times we stopped halfway up the hill and built a fort in the woods behind Dunsapie Hill, between the hill and the playpark. I was eleven and Miranda was nine, and though I would never have been caught alive playing with a nine-year-old girl at school, that summer I didn’t mind.

  ***

  Miranda

  Jack and I shared our first kiss – a quick peck to see what the fuss was all about – when we were ten and twelve. None the wiser, we laughed it off and kept playing. On my thirteenth birthday, we tried again. If our first attempt had been half-hearted, our second attempt was anything but.

  The dimples in Jack’s cheeks had been causing tingles up my back for months by then. Still, I didn’t want to be the girl who pined for a guy – Julia had that covered and was going through a stage of spending hours doing her make-up and telling me about how whatever guy she liked had spoken to her last week. The guys she had crushes on kept changing, and I suspected she was less interested in the guy and more interested in the feeling of being in love. For me, the feeling of falling in love was more uncomfortable. Jack’s friendship meant a lot to me, and I didn’t
want to lose it just because I had a silly crush on him.

  My thirteenth birthday was on a Monday. Mum made me breakfast in bed before school, but as she had to work all afternoon and evening, she had given me her present the night before. We had gone to see a film together, and Dad had been there too. He was living away at the time, but he had made the effort to be at the cinema. I can’t remember what we watched; it didn’t seem to matter as much as being there with both of them. Mum kept glancing at Dad, and he kept glancing at her, and by the end of the film they were holding hands. It made me hope that maybe something was about to change, and we could become a normal family again.

  After school the next day, I didn’t feel like spending my birthday alone. Instead, I went over to the Reids’ house. Karen made me a birthday dinner and a cake, and I remember feeling that – though I wished some of my circumstances were different – I had it good.

  When Karen set the cake in front of me and told me to blow out the candles, Julia said, ‘Make a wish!’

  ‘Oh Julia, we don’t wish upon cakes or candles.’ Karen tutted, and shook her head. ‘We don’t believe in superstition!’ Karen wasn’t into anything that she considered pagan or superstitious. There had never been a Father Christmas in the Reid household, as she didn’t want to have her children confused about what she told them was true and what was made up stories.

  I don’t think Jack, Julia or Josie suffered from not having Father Christmas, but I did think it was somewhat strange that she wouldn’t give them the chance to work it out for themselves. Also, I thought it was nice she wanted us to pray, but it wasn’t as though God ever gave me anything I asked for.

  Julia thought so, too. She rolled her eyes. ‘Yeah, well it’s also tradition, so…’

  I glanced at Jack. He was studying me closely from across the table, and I wondered how obvious my crush on him was. Did he know? My stomach tightened as I thought of how mortifying that would be. He would tease me mercilessly for years. Still, his eyes on me felt electrifying, and wondering whether he could ever be interested in me was killing me. I gave myself a mental slap at how pathetic I was being over a boy, as I closed my eyes and wished for Jack to fall in love with me.