I open it, ready to greet the person like a long-lost brother. Gas man, insurance salesman or Jehovah’s witness – whatever.
It’s Will.
He’s wearing his cream shirt again. He looks nervous. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
I want them on me.
I’m so glad neither of them can read my mind.
'Hi,' he says awkwardly. 'I was hoping we could…'
Matt knocks over his empty coffee mug, accidentally on purpose. Will’s eyes snap over to him. Then he looks back to me, staring intently.
'Sorry to interrupt,' he says quietly. 'I’ll…come back some other time.'
He starts to turn, but then stops. My heart leaps.
'Your lipstick is a little smudged,' he says, even more quietly. My heart crashes to the floor and breaks a leg.
Then he starts to leave.
I want to run after him. I want to yell ‘Will!' at the top of my lungs and throw myself on him so he can’t go. Then I want to tell him exactly how I feel about him and he’ll tell me that he’s dumped Natalie and realised that I’m the only one for him and…
Hollywood should be sued for misleading impressionable young women. He’d just think I’d gone mad.
I close the door very slowly and turn around.
'Bad timing,' Matt remarks.
Yes, it is. If he wasn’t here, me and Will would be sitting down and getting things sorted out.
But I guess that isn’t quite what he meant.
'Matt,' I say, still standing by the door, 'I have thought and I’m sorry, but I don’t think we should date. I’m…'
In love with our mutual friend.
'…not sure that we’re right for each other. I think we’re better just as friends.'
That was…easier than I thought it would be.
Matt’s sitting very still on the sofa. 'Oh,' he says, nodding. 'Right.' He pauses.' To be honest, I kind of expected you to say yes.'
'I probably would’ve done,' I say honestly, 'if you’d asked me when we first met. But…I suppose my ideas about things have changed.'
Matt gets up from the sofa and comes to join me. For a second, I think that he’s just going to leave. Then he turns to me and says 'There’s someone else, isn’t there?'.
'No!' I say automatically. 'Of course not!'
Why do people ask that question? Has anyone ever said yes?
Matt’s eyes narrow. 'Are you sure?' he asks suspiciously.
Another stupid question. I don’t know, maybe I’m sleeping with someone else, but I might not be. Let me just think…
'I’m not seeing anyone else,' I say, probably more convincingly now I’m actually telling the truth. 'I promise.'
Matt’s still giving me the x-ray stare. 'But you’re thinking of someone, aren’t you?' he says.
He’s just going to keep pushing if I say no.
'You’re right,' I admit. 'I am.'
I think he was expecting another denial.
'Who?' he asks.
'I don’t want to say,' I say. 'He doesn’t feel the same way and it will never go anywhere, but he’s still my first choice. It’s not fair to date someone else until I can figure out what to do about that.'
Matt straightens himself up. 'Fine,' he says, offhandedly. 'Maybe you can give me a call when you’re finished with that. If you ever are. See you at work.'
He lets himself out and I don’t stop him.
I’ve no desire to run after him.
Chapter 27
The next morning, while I’m in the shower, I decide to call Brittany. I question this decision while I’m getting dressed, while I eat breakfast, on the way to work and roughly every other minute from then on. Finally, five minutes before work is out for the day, I take action.
Naturally, I get the answer machine.
'Brittany,' I say, making a lightening decision. 'I’m coming to see you. Tonight. Unless you phone me and tell me that you’re busy. My mobile number is…'
There’s a click as someone picks up the phone.
'Mel?' Brittany’s voice asks warily.
'Yes,' I say, trying to sound all calm and adult. Even though half of me really wants to hang up.
'You want to…come here?' she asks, the tiniest hint of disbelief in her voice.
'Yes,' I say again, very positively. Maybe if I act well enough, I’ll convince myself as well as her.
Silence.
'Okay,' Brittany says eventually. 'Phillip is working late again, so I’ll try to get Mrs. Jaffer from next door to watch James. I’ll make us some dinner. You…like lasagne, don’t you?'
Wow, she actually remembers.
'Lasagne’s great,' I say, a little cheered that she actually seems to want to make something I’ll like. 'I’ll see you…whenever the bus gets there.'
'Okay,' Brittany says again, sounding uncertain.
'Okay,' I echo, sounding more uncertain.
Awkward moment.
'See you then,' I say. 'Bye.'
'Bye.'
I put the phone down.
It’s official, I’m going to go make it up with my sister.
I really need some chocolate.
**
She’s got flour on her cheek. That’s the first thing I notice when she answers the door. Brittany has always looked perfect at our family gatherings. Every single time.
She’s wearing a God-awful flowered dress and an apron. Not a huge, plastic, sensible apron – the kind you use to keep your clothes clean while you cook – but a little, frilly, delicate one – the kind you wear if you’re a 1950s housewife. She looks ridiculous.
But insulting her outfit probably isn’t the greatest way to start off our reconciliation. And, let’s face it, I’m no fashion plate myself.
'You look well,' I say politely. ‘You look nice’ being too much of a lie.
Actually, she doesn’t. She looks tired. Like a real new mother, as opposed to these perfectly manicured actresses in the dangerously misleading nappy adverts.
I don’t think she believes my platitude.
'So do you. Come in,' she says wearily. 'Dinner’s nearly ready.'
I follow her obediently into the kitchen. What with one thing and another – namely the damage done to my psyche by each visit – I’ve only been here once before. That was when they first moved in and I had to buy a set of hand-woven coasters and spend three hours chatting to a bunch of strangers whose sole aim in life seemed to be to climb up someone else and get on the next rung of whatever ladder they happened to be on.
I’ve never been overly fond of ladders. They have a way of falling over.
Everything’s very smart and polished, like this is some estate agent’s show home. The kind nobody actually lives in. I simply don’t understand how a house can be a home without clutter.
'I thought we could have dinner in here,' Brittany says, as we enter a shiny silver kitchen straight out of the IKEA catalogue. 'Since it’s just the two of us.'
'Sure,' I say, settling myself down at the table, which is stainless steel. It looks more like an operating table than a kitchen one. Maybe Phillip brought it home from work.
I really wish I hadn’t thought that.
I don’t dare put my elbows on it, so I fold my hands self-consciously in my lap and look around. Everything’s neat, everything matches. Even the floor-cloths are colour co-ordinated.
'You could set the table,' Brittany says, taking a pan from the cooker over to the sink to drain it. 'Over there, left-hand drawer.'
I go over and open it. Someone has tidied this cutlery drawer. There’s not a fork out of place.
God, I’m glad I don’t have that much free time.
I deliberately mess the drawer up as I get out the knives and forks. I locate plates in the cupboard above and lay out the table. The normal, roughly-in-the-right-place way, not the kitchen maid way.
Brittany bustles around, serving lasagne – which smells amazing – and matching vegetables, until finally there’s nothi
ng to do but eat.
We sit down, ready to bond over a plate of lasagne.
We stare at each other.
What do I do now?
This stuff doesn’t look half so hard on Oprah.
**
Since eating doesn't require being as emotionally vulnerable as talking does, we do that instead. The lasagne really is very, very good. Almost better than Beth’s, although I won’t tell her that.
'It’s great,' I say, between mouthfuls. 'You’re a really good cook.'
'I know,' Brittany answers, in a way that could have sounded conceited if she looked happier about it. 'I’m a wonderful cook, a wonderful cleaner and a wonderful nursemaid. The perfect wife and mother.'
Since when does she think that that’s a bad thing?
'And therefore the perfect daughter,' I say, perhaps slightly bitterly. It’s hard to be anything else.
'Yes,' Brittany says, nodding her head in agreement. 'The perfect daughter.'
I take another forkful of lasagne.
'I’m bored,' Brittany says, matter-of-factly.
I stare at her, not quite knowing what to say.
'I’m so bored that I ordered a full set of encyclopaedias from the man who came last week and invited two Jehovah’s witnesses in for coffee and carrot cake.'
That's pretty bored.
Does she have anymore carrot cake?
Obviously that was just a random, shock-evoked thought. Besides, cake without chocolate just isn't right.
'All I see all day are these four walls, the supermarket and the park,' Brittany says flatly. 'Some days it barely seems worth getting out of bed.'
There’s a lull while she takes a sip of tea. Daintily, like we’re discussing the weather or the state of the roads.
'I tried to tell Phillip once how miserable I was,' she says, 'and he just brushed it off. Then we had James and he decided that was enough to fill the gap.'
She snorts, very unladylike. A lot like me, come to think of it.
'He can’t talk,' she says bitterly. 'His greatest interest in life is his rainbow mobile and all he does is scream at me to do stuff for him all day and all night. That’s not company, it’s just an endless struggle.'
'Of course,' she continues, 'maybe if Phillip actually helped, it would be better. But babies need their mothers, don’t they? Because anyone with a Y chromosome is incapable of shoving a bottle into a screaming baby’s mouth or changing a nappy. So he comes home, goes out to play golf or stays in his office and listens to bloody Gilbert & Sullivan, while I have my life sucked out of me by a whining little poop machine. And now, for some unknown reason, he wants another. He barely sees the first one! We could just cut a few baby photos out of magazines and put them in his wallet. No one would ever know the difference. And even when he comes home early and doesn’t start playing ‘A Wandering Minstrel, I’ the second he gets in – and if I hear that song one more time I cannot be held responsible for my actions – he has the nerve to complain that I’m not falling over myself to scramble into bed with him. Like all I am is a combination milk machine and blow-up doll.'
Lovely image.
Naturally I’m sympathetic and outraged, but I’m also thrilled. I know Brittany being miserable shouldn’t make me happy, but it does. For so long she’s had the perfect life and I’ve been the failure. Now, suddenly, our positions are reversed.
Well, equalled anyway.
'And the thought of years and years of more screaming blobs and being shut up here like the mad woman in the attic makes me want to die,' Brittany finishes, burning herself out. 'It’s not that I don’t love James, because I do. I just need something in my life that doesn’t involve him. Does that make me so very selfish?'
Is she serious? She thinks she’s selfish?
'If I spent one day like that, I’d reward myself for surviving it,' I say truthfully. 'It’s completely illogical to think you’re selfish because you want a vacation from work. I take all the time off I can get and my job is nowhere near as full-on as yours.'
Brittany looks a little surprised, but pleased.
'Thanks,' she says, starting to smile. 'I wasn’t sure if you’d get it. All the mothers at playgroup look scandalised if you mention being even the slightest bit down. They still haven’t forgiven me for using supermarket nappy-rash cream instead of the all-natural one that costs £32.50 a jar.'
'£32.50?' I repeat, astonished. 'For cream?'
Brittany nods wryly.
'Does the supermarket kind work?' I ask.
'Perfectly.'
'Then what on Earth is the point in spending £32.50 on some fancy stuff?' I exclaim. 'Who cares if it’s all natural? It’s going on him, not in him. And it’s not like he’ll spend the rest of his life having top range stuff rubbed into him – he’s not the Prince of Sheba. What do they think, he’s going to grow up emotionally scarred because his mother used the wrong brand? Or have they discovered a link between cheap nappy cream and autism now?'
To my horror, Brittany starts to cry.
Crap, I thought we were getting somewhere. Was that the wrong thing to say? How do I fix this?
I look around desperately for tissues. I see none. I grab my bag from the floor and rummage through it, turning up one rather crumpled tissue.
'Here,' I say, holding it out to her. 'Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.'
Brittany takes it and wipes her eyes. 'You didn’t,' she says, shaking her head. 'I’m not crying because I’m sad, I’m crying because I’m so glad that you understand. All this time I’ve been trying to find someone to talk to about this and you were there all along.'
This is beginning to sound like a Disney film.
'Then why were you such a bitch to me?' I ask bluntly.
'I was jealous!' Brittany exclaims. 'I still am. You have a job, I have a baby. You have a salary, I have a household fund. You live with a friend, I virtually live alone. You went to university, I went to the wedding planners. You’re free, you’re independent, you’re…'
'Broke,' I interrupt. 'Stuck in a job I despise, working for my ex-boyfriend who’s threatening to fire me, but unable to quit because I have to pay bills. Scared that I’ll never get married and will end my life alone. Bored, uninspired and jealous of what you have.'
'You are?' Brittany asks, in a small voice.
I shrug. 'Well, I was until I heard about what it’s really like,' I say. 'At least I get a few pence of my own and company during the day. And I get out of the house. But I’d still prefer to share a place with a husband rather than just a flatmate. And probably a baby too.'
'We’ve each got half of a life,' Brittany says, smiling again.
'And we both want a whole one,' I say. 'Although I think the part you lack is easier to get. I mean, finding someone to marry is so…'
'What about Will?' Brittany asks.
'What?' I ask, caught off guard.
'What about Will?' she repeats, leaning forward and putting her elbows on the table. 'You two were always so close when we were kids. I was madly jealous that you got all the fun. And every time I see you together, you still seem like you’re made for each other. I know that’s not that often, but still.'
I guess as part of the new honesty/bonding thing, I should tell her the truth.
'Things are a little…difficult between us right now,' I confess.
'Why?' Brittany asks.
I can’t help revelling for a moment in the fact that she actually seems concerned about me. I guess I didn’t realise until now that sisterly love was missing in my life.
God, that was sappy. I should start writing self-help books.
'Well, briefly,' I say, warming up to the topic, 'me and Beth had a fight, so I went to Will’s place. I kissed him and then when I woke up with him I told him it was freaky and he got weird and then we made up, but then you called and I said…I wouldn’t help and then Will and I fought and I stormed off. Will came round to see me yesterday, but Matt was there asking me out and now Will thinks tha
t I love Matt when I really love him and I have no idea what to do.'
Brittany blinks while her brain tries to decide which part to deal with first.
'You woke up with him?' she asks finally, staring at me. 'You mean…'
Why does everyone automatically assume that?
'No,' I say and I am aware that there’s a slight edge of disappointment in my voice. 'We didn’t do anything at all. Just went to sleep and woke up all curled round each other.'
Brittany’s eyebrows collide with her hairline. 'You do this with your friends a lot, do you?' she says sceptically.
'Of course not,' I say, surprised.
'In all the time you’ve known him, at least since you reached puberty, has that ever happened before?'
'Well, no,' I admit.
'I see,' Brittany says, giving me a penetrating look. 'And kissing him. Why?'
'I was just glad to see him,' I protest. 'I just sort of did it.'
'And he didn’t seem to have any objection to either the kissing or the spooning?'
'Well, he wouldn’t exactly throw me out, would he?' I say, crossing my arms. 'It didn’t mean anything. He has a girlfriend. It was just an alcohol-induced, completely innocent moment.'
Brittany’s expression is a picture. A picture that’s worth exactly two words. Yeah, right.
'Don’t you want it to mean something?' she asks, leaning her chin on one hand.
'No!' I say. 'I want to do it again and have it mean something, with a hell of a lot more going on between the kiss and the waking up and no alcohol involved, but not while he’s seeing someone else. I’m not going to knowingly be anyone’s bit on the side and I don’t want Will to be the kind of guy who would actually go for that.'
Brittany holds up her hands. 'Sounds like it’s him you need to talk to,' she says.
'I can’t,' I groan. 'He thinks I’m with Matt.'
'So, tell him you’re not.'
'But how do I do that without it sounding like it’s important that he knows?'
'It is important.'
'I know. But I can’t let him know that.'
'Why not?'
'Just because,' I snap. 'I can’t come on to someone else’s boyfriend.'
'I bet he’d dump her if he thought he could have you,' Brittany says.
The Dr Pepper Prophecies Page 22