by Lindsey Kelk
Sam glanced over at me, a look of disbelief in his clear light-blue eyes.
‘You’re not serious?’ he said, speeding up the wipers.
‘Deadly serious,’ I nodded. ‘And how does the Bat signal work anyway? What if it’s daytime? Or if he’s having a bath? Or he’s on the loo? Do they just hope he’ll see people tweeting about it and get there in time? And don’t get me started on how long it must take him to get the suit on. What if he hasn’t shaved? Is he doing that while he’s driving, because that definitely isn’t safe.’
‘Batman is a sociopath,’ Sam replied, shaking his head and dismissing any of my other concerns out of hand. ‘He might be cool but he’s definitely not the best superhero ever. He hasn’t got any powers, he’s just rich.’
I didn’t say anything but at that exact moment, it was a superpower I wouldn’t turn down.
‘Superman is the best superhero,’ he insisted. ‘But my favourite is the Hulk.’
‘No one’s favourite superhero is the Hulk,’ I scoffed. ‘You’re just being awkward.’
‘He’s my favourite,’ Sam insisted, resting the bag of sweets between his thighs. We were both starving, we hadn’t eaten anything since the dodgy sandwiches Sam had brought with him to the dance studio and plastic ham sandwiches with curled up edges were no one’s idea of fine cuisine. Except for possibly Brian’s, because he had eaten nearly all of them. ‘He’s a world-class scientist, which would be entirely impressive enough on its own, he’s got a dozen doctorates in different fields of research and yet he has to go about his day, saving the world, doing all his science, all while knowing that the Hulk could reappear at any second and destroy everything. He isn’t like the others, his powers aren’t a choice, he can’t turn them on and off.’
‘Doing all his science?’ I said with a grin. ‘Wow. So eloquent.’
‘That is not the point.’ He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the windscreen wipers. ‘He’s the true hero. He didn’t ask for his abilities and he’s still trying to save the world while living with the potentially terrible consequences of his powers all day every day.’
‘Which must be a nightmare, considering he’s doing all that science. Imagine trying to pick up a test tube with those fat, green fingers,’ I said innocently. Sam grabbed a fistful of sweets and tossed them across the car. ‘Hey! Don’t waste sweets. Superman would never throw fizzy cola bottles at a woman.’
‘With great power comes great responsibility,’ Sam replied soberly. ‘I apologize.’
It wasn’t until Sam stopped the car that I realized we were home.
‘That was fast,’ I said, pulling his coat closer to me. ‘Thank you so much for everything. I’m really, really sorry about my relatives.’
‘You have nothing to apologize for,’ he said, turning off the radio. ‘As Britney once said, they’re going to try to try you but they cannot deny you.’
‘If I drop down dead in this very moment, I will die happy,’ I said, completely serious. ‘Perhaps your next book can be an oral history on Ms Britney Jean Spears.’
‘At least that might stand a chance of selling,’ he replied before rolling up the remains of the Haribo and handing them to me. ‘Here, I’d hate for you to go hungry.’
‘For your information, I happen to have half a turkey wrap in the fridge from three days ago,’ I told him, retrieving my bag from the footwell of the car. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the photo of Sam and Elaine, making the heart eyes emoji at each other in Paris. ‘Sorry salsa dancing wasn’t the thing. We can get back to work on boyfriend bootcamp on Monday.’
‘Monday,’ he echoed. ‘The rain’s not stopping.’
He was right; according to my weather app, it had set in for the night.
I began shrugging off his coat, goosebumps prickling my skin.
‘Keep it on.’ He lifted one hand from the steering wheel as if he was about to make a point. Instead he shook his head at himself and clapped it back into place. ‘You’ll get soaked otherwise.’
It was genuinely pouring down outside and the whole street was a blur of night sky and orange street lamps. It was late, it was dark, it was cold. All signs pointed to asking him up for a drink.
‘See you Monday then,’ Sam said, interrupting my awkwardly long silence and making my decision for me. ‘Thank you, Annie, I think I had a fun day.’
‘If you have to think about it, you probably didn’t,’ I replied with a wry smile. ‘Have a good rest of the weekend.’
Safely under the porch, I watched him drive away before fumbling for my keys. It had, by all rights, been a terrible day. I’d hated the dance class, been mortified by my family and I felt sick when I thought about how much trouble I was going to be in with my sister … And yet I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had so much fun.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sunday, 15 July: Nineteen Days to Go
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Sundays used to be reserved for one of three things: hangovers, Sunday lunches (which led to hangovers) or lying on the settee in last night’s pyjamas and revelling in every single filthy second of the night before. And yet here I was, fully dressed, stone-cold sober and armed with the company accounts. I had failed.
‘Needs must when the devil shits in your teapot,’ Miranda announced happily as we waited for the kettle to boil in my tiny kitchen. Even on a Sunday, even in her comfies, she looked super stylish. I was wearing jogging bottoms and a cropped black T-shirt I’d shrunk in the tumble dryer. Miranda arrived wearing neon pink leggings, white leather hightops and a little black T-shirt that was cropped on purpose. ‘If we get through this quick enough, we can go for a drink after.’
‘You can’t just go for a drink on a Sunday,’ I complained, popping two teabags into the teapot. ‘You have to go out for Sunday lunch and then get drunk, it’s the law. I think it’s in the bible.’
‘Ahh, Deuteronomy,’ she said as she checked her bloodshot eyes in her powder compact. ‘A classic. Now this is less likely to stand the test of time. Annie, what is this doing here?’
I looked over to see her holding Sam’s book, a flyer for the local Indian restaurant poking out of the top as a bookmark.
‘Just trying to understand my subject,’ I said, snatching it out of her hands and placing it carefully on the coffee table. ‘I know it starts off dry but when you get into it, there’s some really interesting stuff.’
Mir stretched out a hand and pressed it against my forehead. ‘Are you feeling OK?’ she asked.
‘Get off.’ I pushed her away. ‘Maybe I’ve been spending too much time with him.’
‘You think?’ she replied. ‘Jesus, Annie, crack open a copy of Take a Break like a normal person, before I start worrying about you.’
The kettle clicked and I smiled at my best friend. I looked out the window as I poured the boiling water into the teapot, ignoring the drops of boiling water that splashed back and stung my skin. It was threatening to rain again. Another glorious British summer’s day.
‘Two sugars,’ Miranda called, draped across my loveseat. Her head was propped up at one end while her legs hung over the other, almost touching the floor. ‘I had one too many last night.’
‘Where did you go?’ I asked. One sugar always meant two, two sugars always meant three but none always, always meant none.
‘Just to the King’s Head,’ she said in a suspiciously high voice. ‘With Martin.’
‘How interesting,’ I replied, turning to see her covering her bright red face with a cushion. ‘Now tell me, will we be going with something traditionally awful for my bridesmaid dress or are you planning to mix it up a bit?’
‘Oh, cock off,’ she said, resting the cushion on the top of her pulled-back curls. ‘I went into the office to get my computer in the afternoon and he was there.’
‘Just hanging around the office on his own on a weekend with nothing to do? Definitely not a red flag or in any way creepy,’ I replied. Miranda fixed me with an unimp
ressed pout. ‘Please go on.’
‘We went for a drink,’ she continued, a red rash I recognized climbing up her throat as she spoke. ‘And some more drinks. Then there might have been a smidge of touchy-feely stuff. That was all, nothing you couldn’t watch on TV with your dad in the room.’
‘Your family is very different to mine,’ I said as I rummaged for clean mugs. ‘My dad couldn’t even sit through the Hollyoaks omnibus the last time I stayed over at his house for the weekend.’
‘And how old were you then?’
‘Fourteen, but that’s not the point.’ I retrieved the milk and, in spite of myself, was desperate to get to the dirty details. ‘Did you get the bone or not?’
‘I did not get the bone,’ she said, leaning backwards over the loveseat, flashing me an upside-down smile. ‘But I was made aware of what bone is on the table, so to speak.’
‘As long as I know which table it is so I can wipe it down with Dettol, that’s fine,’ I replied, watching as Miranda illustrated her point by pulling her hands further and further apart. ‘Leave it out, I haven’t had breakfast and I’m already queasy.’
‘The one that got away,’ she said with a sigh. ‘For now.’
‘You know I’m not against the idea of Martin,’ I told her, attempting to sugar-coat my feelings to the appropriate BFF degree. ‘But if he likes you, he should bloody well man up and be with you properly. We’re not kids, he’s almost forty, for god’s sake.’
Miranda leant forwards and pulled off her shoes and socks; she’d always been a barefoot person and I had swept the floor accordingly.
‘There’s no rush, I’m playing the long game, Annie Higgins,’ she insisted, balling up her socks and throwing them in the general direction of her bright blue backpack. ‘If you build it, they will come.’
‘I can’t work out if that’s dirty or not,’ I said, kicking her socks closer to her bag before she left them behind and I added them to my excessive Miranda Johansson sock collection. I had it on good authority that it was the largest in Europe.
‘It is,’ she replied. ‘It definitely is.’
‘We had such very different Saturdays.’ I coiled my hair into a knot on the top of my head, feeling around the kitchen counter for a hair elastic and finding one immediately. They were everywhere in my house, I was more or less keeping Boots in business. ‘You actually got off with a boy and I had to endure the sight of my father dressed up as John Travolta.’
‘Grease Travolta? Or Pulp Fiction Travolta?’
‘Hairspray John Travolta dressed up as Saturday Night Fever John Travolta,’ I said, shuddering at the memory. ‘It wasn’t something any daughter ever needs to see.’
‘You don’t seem as though you’re in the best mood ever,’ Miranda asked. ‘Last night was that bad?’
Before I answered, I retrieved the biscuit tin from the cupboard above the microwave. If I couldn’t drink, I could at least eat.
‘Last night was confusing,’ I replied, thinking back to the barrage of text messages I still hadn’t answered. WTF from Rebecca; That dress needs to be dry cleaned from Gina; You owe Mummy an apology from Sharon; and best of all, a Thanks for coming darling girl, best birthday gift of all from my dad. The entire thing had passed him by.
‘Confusing how? Did you push your horrible cousin in the pool? Again?’
Best to just rip off the plaster in one go, I decided.
‘I went to a salsa class with Sam then he drove me to the party then he came in with me, then we were talking to my family and naturally they were awful but then he told them they were awful and then we danced and then he told me I could leave so we left and he brought me home and now—’ I blurted out. ‘Two sugars, you said?’
Miranda’s eyes grew so wide, I thought they might fall out of her face. Instead, she looked over at the red Puffa jacket on the floor by my chair.
‘Is this his?’ she demanded loudly before immediately lowering her voice to barely a whisper. ‘Is this his? Is he here? Did he stay over?’
‘Yes, no and of course not,’ I replied, turning the teapot and pouring the tea. Bit weak but I was desperate for a brew. ‘I would never.’
She squeezed her mouth into a very unbecoming thin line.
‘Because we shaved him down and it turns out he’s the missing link between all the Hemsworth brothers? Yeah, I can completely see how that would turn you off.’
‘Hot or not,’ I said, spooning sugar into Mir’s mug. ‘Some of us don’t go out with people we work with. And really, Mir, could you see me going out with an actual historian? Not to mention the fact he doesn’t understand the first thing about what we do – and nor does he care.’
‘I didn’t think actual historians existed,’ she said as she held her hands out for her tea. ‘I thought it was a job they made up for films, like snake charmers or the man who stands around while they’re drilling for oil and says “she’s gonna blow”.’
‘I worry about you sometimes,’ I said, settling down beside her on the settee, biscuit barrel in hand. I stared into the middle distance, thinking about Sam ‘snake-hips’ Page as I nibbled on a Hobnob and smiled. ‘It was just a very weird day.’
‘And absolutely nothing untoward went on?’ Mir asked, raising one perfect eyebrow.
‘Absolutely nothing,’ I confirmed.
Apart from how I’d sat up until three a.m. reading his ridiculous book. Apart from the way I’d then laid awake, thinking about the look on his face when I got out of the car. And the way I’d shivered when he touched the bare skin on the back of my neck.
‘Shall we start on this month’s expenses?’ I suggested.
Miranda clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth.
‘You took him to your dad’s party though?’
‘He gave me a lift. The salsa workshop made me late.’
‘And he lent you his coat?’
‘It was cold and raining and he is a gentleman.’
‘Annie!’ She leaned forward and clapped her hands right in front of my face. ‘Wake up and smell the seduction. There’s being a gentleman and there’s trying to get into someone’s knickers – the two are not mutually exclusive.’
‘My knickers are the last thing on his mind,’ I insisted. ‘You’ve got such a mega horn for Martin, you can’t think about anything else. Have you forgotten the part where I’m helping him win back his girlfriend?’
‘The girlfriend who is clearly already getting it on with her dance partner?’ Miranda asked, holding out her little finger as she sipped her tea.
‘That’s until she sees my masterpiece,’ I reminded her. ‘I’m helping him because he’s helping us. Or at least he is in theory. If we can find him another seventeen thousand Instagram followers.’
I thought back to the post I’d put up earlier that morning. A fascinating little factoid about how Roman Emperor Gaius made his horse a senator. So far, only fifty-two likes. Sometimes I couldn’t understand what was wrong with people. Our initial bump was beginning to wear off and things were slowing down. I didn’t like it in the slightest.
‘You’ll get it.’ Miranda dismissed my concerns with a wave that turned into a swan dive into the biscuit tin. ‘You always get it. He ought to be kissing your perfect bottom for helping him so much. If you’re into that kind of thing, obviously. Have we ever discussed that?’
‘No and we’re not discussing it now,’ I said, tapping my foot against the laminate floor.
‘Well, just because you’re not into him, doesn’t mean he’s not into you,’ she said, dipping a Hobnob in her tea. ‘Bet you any money.’
‘We’ve made enough bets lately,’ I replied. ‘And if we don’t win that one, we’re going to be completely buggered.’
‘We’ll still be up a financial creek when I’ve finished asking all my questions,’ she curled up on the settee, her gaze locked on me over the rim of her mug. ‘Do you like him, yes or no?’
‘Like him, yes,’ I replied. ‘Like him like him, of course not
. He’s thinks he’s right about everything, he’s obsessed with the past, he has the social graces of a goat and he likes pineapple on pizza. Why in the world would I be interested in someone like that?’
She raised her eyebrows and looked down at the floor.
‘He hasn’t even got a telly!’ I exclaimed.
‘Right, fine, I’m convinced,’ Miranda said, dunking her second biscuit. ‘Imagine not having a telly.’
‘I can’t and I won’t,’ I replied, turning my open laptop to face her. ‘Now, on to the fun stuff. How did we spend this much in June?’
‘It turns out running a business is expensive.’ Miranda groaned at the negative figure at the bottom of the spreadsheet on my computer. ‘We’re doing everything right. We’re signing new clients, we’re winning accounts. Why are we still in the red?’
‘Because people hate parting with their cash?’ I suggested. ‘Almost everyone owes us money, look how many payments are overdue.’
‘We’re doing everything right,’ she insisted before chugging her tea. ‘It will work out.’
‘I really hope you’re right,’ I said, staring at the numbers until they stopped making sense. Not that they’d made an awful lot of sense in the first place. ‘I’m starting to panic.’
Mir fixed me with a soft smile.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Oh, Annie, what are we going to do with you?’ she said, getting up to refill the kettle.
‘Me?’
‘You don’t even realize it yet.’ She shook her head as she turned the tap. ‘And to think he doesn’t have a telly.’
‘Just because you can’t think about anything other than getting some doesn’t mean the rest of us are the same,’ I replied as my cheeks heated up. ‘Can we get back to the accounts, please?’
‘Whatever you say,’ she said, flashing me a thumbs up. ‘Whatever you say, babe.’
Never start a business with your best friend. It gets altogether far too messy every time you want to kill them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Wednesday, 18 July: Sixteen Days to Go
Laptop, iPad, business cards, Tic-Tacs.