The Chocolate Run

by Dorothy Koomson

  ‘Granary Wharf ?’ Renée replied.

  ‘Oh yes, that’s classy enough for me . . . Now that I’ve been promoted!’ Martha squealed. She grabbed her bag, informed us, ‘I’m off to put me face on,’ then disappeared to the loo.

  Renée’s mobile rang and she picked it up, started talking in French.

  I scuttled over to my desk, snatched up the phone to spread my good news. I dialled 2, then stopped. Who you gonna call? I asked myself. Jen, my best friend? Or Greg, my boyfriend? Had I been going out with Sean, I would’ve called Jen, no question. She came first. I wasn’t with Sean, though, I was with Greg Walterson.

  And, as Mr Walterson had pointed out, I was always putting Jen first. Since three weekends ago when he’d asked me to move in with him, I’d been more aware of how he viewed my involvement in our relationship. He’d been quiet for most of that Saturday, not sulking quiet, more sad. We’d chatted and stuff, but when he thought I wasn’t looking he’d stare off into space, a picture of heartbreak. He hadn’t brought it up since, but it was there, always there, not being talked about.

  Since then, though, I knew that while I’d been happy to muddle along as we had been, that muddling along translated into him thinking I didn’t care as much for him as I did. My actions didn’t speak louder than words and, if he found out about this second, he’d see it as further proof that he wasn’t highly important in my life.

  Jen. The way she’d been recently, she’d probably ask me if I could do the job. But, like not resigning because of the look on Renée’s face, I couldn’t tell Greg first because if Jen ever found out I couldn’t handle the betrayal she’d feel. As things lay I was dreading the day she’d find out about me and Greg because she was going to drown in hurt and betrayal. I knew Jen, that’s how she’d feel. Better not add to it with this small thing.

  Unbidden, anger washed over me, almost dousing the flame of excitement I had burning inside me. This was a fantastic day: one of the best days of my life, and those two – my friend and my lover – had tainted it. I couldn’t enjoy the moment; I was, instead, fretting about who to call. This was what it was like with my parents. Who did I call first? Who would be pissed off that they got to hear second my degree results; that I’d got a job; that I was settling in Leeds.

  I’d known an age ago that I wasn’t going to get married. Not with my family. I couldn’t contemplate getting married without Dad2, the man who’d brought me up from ages ten to eighteen, the man who called me every weekend even if Mum didn’t, being there. It’d hurt, really hurt, that he and Eric hadn’t come to my graduation ceremony because Dad1 was there. They watched it on video, but it wasn’t the same. So, even if I did believe in marriage, I’d not be able to do it because part of my family wouldn’t be there.

  This was what Jen and Greg were doing to me again. Thirty and still, still being torn apart by two people. I didn’t like Matt, Matt didn’t like me, but I never gave Jen a hard time about putting him first. I tried to like him. I didn’t do what Jen and Greg were doing.

  I pushed down the button on the phone to cut the line, then called the one person who’d be happy for me and wouldn’t be offended when I called them. Eric. I called Eric and decided to tell Jen and Greg, or Greg and Jen (whichever) when I saw them in the pub later. That way, nobody would feel left out. My parents would have to be fretted over another time.

  chapter twenty-six

  beware the ex

  I was enveloped by the evening air as I left the building. It was the perfect evening for seeing my mates down the pub.

  Me, the newly promoted woman.

  A little shiver of excitement went through me every time I thought about that. Promoted. Temporarily, but still. I started down the road, walking in a haze of champagne and good food. We’d had a four-hour lunch break that had involved more champagne for Martha and me. Time back in the office had sobered me up a bit, though. We’d got proofs for the brochure cover and the repro house had somehow managed to cock it up. The dates, the number and the name were wrong – WLIFF, indeed. When the designer had sent it off it’d been fine but, somehow, between leaving her computer and getting back to us it’d gone horribly wrong.

  I wandered up through town. People were out enjoying the light evening and warm air. I felt a part of them. All of them. Even though I didn’t know any of them personally, wasn’t part of their groups or families or lives, I felt like I belonged. The air was so hazy and gentle, it seemed to bind us together. I was probably smiling at people as I passed them, which would explain why I got so many odd looks. It was either my smile or I had ice cream around my mouth. I was heading for Black Prince’s Tavern. We’d managed to avoid that particular establishment since our unfortunate adventure, but not tonight. I’d been on at Greg to get Matt and Jen to meet somewhere else, but Greg had said it was Matt’s favourite pub so if he was going to convince them, he’d have to tell them what happened. (A bit of a lame excuse considering the man had talked his way into more beds in Leeds than I cared to remember, but I’d let it slide.) I smirked as I trundled down the alley towards the pub. If you thought about it, it was funny – trying to have sex with your boyfriend in public and getting caught by the police. But it was only funny now, and only to me. My humour wouldn’t stretch to laughing about it with anyone else.

  I pushed open the pub door and spotted Matt’s short blond hair and Greg’s long bluey-black hair at the same round, rickety table we always sat at. I checked the bar to see if Jen was getting a round in, but there was no sign of her among the bodies stretching over the bar, trying to get the barman’s attention.

  ‘So, the upshot is, I’m going to buy somewhere,’ Greg was saying as I approached their table. ‘I think.’

  ‘You’re a good lass, you,’ Matt said, his green eyes sizing me up from my trainered feet and down from my bobbed black hair.

  ‘I’m a what?’ I replied, slipping off my jacket and wondering why I’d got such high praise from Matt. It’s a wonder the words didn’t stick in his throat.

  ‘You’re the only girl I know who could get this one to settle down,’ Matt explained.

  ‘I’ve what?!’ I said. OK. Be calm. Don’t panic. Greg wouldn’t have told Matt about us. Would he?

  I turned to Greg, hoping my terror wasn’t plastered across my face.

  ‘I was telling him how you came out flat-hunting with me the other week and that by the time we’d looked at everything you’d put the buying somewhere idea into my head.’ Course he hadn’t told Matt, Matt wasn’t gagging, was he?

  ‘Here we go,’ Jen said, settling a tray onto the table.

  I turned to smile at her and the smile froze on my face. I wasn’t actually looking at Jen. I was looking at some creature with Jen’s voice but nothing else that was Jen-like. Not only had she lost weight and started wearing designer clothes – I was still concerned about how she could afford them with a teacher’s salary and a tight toffee of a boyfriend – she’d had her hair butchered. Her sensuous, silky blonde locks that used to tumble down over her shoulders to touch the top of her back had been hacked back to just below her cheekbones, bullied straight with a blow-dryer and shaped into a bob.

  The shortened hair emphasised her weight loss. Of which there had been more since I last saw her. Her skin was now clinging onto her cheekbones for dear life, scared as it was of sliding off along with the rest of her body. Some people were naturally thin, small framed and petite and they looked good with it. Jen wasn’t one of those people. She was naturally slender, not rake thin. Ill-thin. Added to the new and very ill-advised dusky pink lipstick, and heavily kohled eyes, she’d been transformed into a much older version of Jen. Almost as though she’d been aged on a computer. Shades of her mother came through in her look. Not only shades of her mother . . . her new look put me in mind of someone else. Possibly some teen’s sexy mother. The kind of mother other mothers inspected with snide envy at parents’ evenings because she was turning their teenage sons’ heads.

  ‘Oh, hi, Ambs
, how you doing?’ Jen smiled. Her face seemed far too small for that kind of smile.

  ‘Great. How you doing?’ My voice was stiff, almost rigid. Nobody would guess I was talking to my best friend. I didn’t recognise her and I couldn’t speak to her normally.

  Our friendship was getting more and more tenuous. Ethereal. We weren’t even like two Twix, separated before consumption, any more. We were more like Dairy Milk and Caramel. Two chocolates made by the same people, but so different you couldn’t put them together under any similar category. We contained approximately 50 per cent sugar, 25–30 per cent milk solids and 20–25 per cent cocoa solids, but there was something intrinsically different. We melted at different temperatures, we felt different, we tasted different, we were different. Now, nothing but our source linked us.

  ‘I’m doing really well,’ she replied and placed a half-pint in front of me.

  What the hell is going on? My sensibilities screamed at me as my eyes took in the squat drinking implement. We’d agreed a long time ago that women who drank halves might as well check in their right to vote too. It smacked of those times when women couldn’t get served pints in pubs, and when barmen would serve women a pint in two glasses – which had actually happened to us a couple of times when we were in college. I bad-temperedly picked up my half and glanced at Jen. She was drinking what looked suspiciously like a gin and tonic. Don’t blame me if you start sobbing into your glass, I almost said. We’d also agreed any woman who drank G&T was clearly looking to spend the rest of the night crying because some guy had chucked her when she was fourteen.

  Bloody hell, I thought as I sipped my mini pint. I have no idea who this woman is.

  ‘Guess who I saw the other day?’ Jen said about an hour later.

  ‘Hitler,’ Matt said.

  ‘Xena Warrior Princess,’ I offered.

  ‘Halle Berry,’ Greg contributed.

  Jen rolled her eyes and sighed in her usual irritation. We always did that when she said that, and it always riled her. Didn’t stop us, though.

  ‘Sean,’ she said. A trio of blank faces greeted her. ‘Sean!’ she repeated, as if emphasising the word a bit more would make it any clearer. She tutted, sighed, rolled her eyes. ‘Sean, Amber’s ex, Sean.’

  ‘Ohhhh!’ the three of us said, finally getting it. Then we reacted thus:

  Matt (Mr Selfish Gene) lost interest and stared into his pint.

  Greg (Mr New Boyfriend) became all interest and stared into his pint.

  I (hadn’t seen Sean since we split up) felt my entire being leave my body as I wondered if Jen was about to land me in it with Greg by telling them why I’d really finished with Sean.

  ‘How is he?’ I said, aiming for a tone of little interest. Little interest, not total disinterest, which Greg would see as me faking it.

  ‘Fine. Great. Looking rather sexy, actually.’

  This sparked Matt’s interest, this did involve him. ‘Oh?’ he said.

  ‘Chill out,’ Jen reassured him. ‘He’s not my type.’

  Matt glanced across the table at Greg, who I hadn’t felt move since we’d found out it wasn’t Sean Connery Jen had seen. ‘You all right, mate?’ Matt asked.

  Greg glanced up, noticed we were all looking at him, pulled a smile across his face. ‘Yeah, fine.’

  ‘Anyway,’ Jen continued, ‘Sean lives a few streets down from me and Matt now.’ Great, not only did I have to look out for muggers and rapists in Alwoodley, I’d now have to beware the ex, too.

  ‘Of course, he was asking after you, Amber.’

  ‘Really,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, come on, girl, show a bit of enthusiasm, this man was the love of your life.’ Thanks, Jen. ‘He asked if you were seeing anyone, so I lied, said you were seeing a friend of Matt’s. Didn’t want him thinking you were the sad single type.’

  Heat rose in me. ‘I’m not the sad single type. And, anyway, I don’t care if he thinks I am.’

  Jen pulled a little face ‘Well, he doesn’t, thanks to me. Even now he’s still into you. His eyes lit up when he was talking about you. Then he started saying he still couldn’t understand why you backed out of marrying him.’

  Matt sprayed a not very fine mist of beer across the table; Greg froze.

  ‘You almost got married?’ Matt said, swiping a sleeve across his mouth to mop up the beer he’d wasted.

  I said nothing, seeing as I couldn’t move. Or breathe. Or believe we were talking about this. We didn’t talk about it in private, let alone in the bloody pub.

  ‘Yeah. Didn’t you know?’ Jen said.

  ‘No!’ Matt said. ‘Did you?’ he asked Greg.

  Slowly, deliberately, Greg shook his head.

  ‘Neither of you knew?’ Jen asked, incredulous.

  ‘No, Jen, neither of them knew,’ I said through clenched teeth. ‘That’ll be because I said to you, “Don’t tell anyone.”’

  Jen’s eyes widened and her mouth formed a silent ‘O’ of understanding.

  ‘So how close did you come to doing the deed? Did you pick out rings? Or a dress?’ Quite obscurely, this was from Matt.

  ‘She had the ring, we made an appointment to see dresses, then she and Sean finished and she didn’t explain why.’ Quite annoyingly, this answer was from Jen.

  ‘Must we talk about this,’ I said flatly.

  ‘Yeah!’ Matt said. He was suddenly and inexplicably excited. ‘It’s like, suddenly, Amber has hidden depths.’ Look who’s talking. ‘I knew you weren’t as anti-settling down as you made out, and now I’ve got the proof.’

  ‘You’ve spent time wondering if I’m into settling down?’ I asked, surprised that I didn’t leave Matt’s mind the second I left his company.

  ‘Yeah, course. Me and Peck even talk about it sometimes. We’ve all come close to it, except you. Except now I know you have.’

  ‘I didn’t come close to it.’

  ‘But you said yes to him and that’s as good as.’

  ‘I did not say yes to him. I didn’t even say I’d think about it. If you must know, he had to prise open my fingers to put the ring box into my hand because I was so shocked I couldn’t move or speak. I never wore the ring. I was so freaked out that I didn’t tell anyone And didn’t want my blabbermouth friend telling anyone either.’

  As I spoke, Greg’s feelings emanated from him loud and clear. To put it mildly, he was not happy. To put it more realistically anger and jealousy instead of blood flowed through them there veins of his. He was definitely going to leave me this time.

  ‘So, were you going for the meringue or the pavlova in wedding dresses?’ Matt asked.

  Jen smirked.

  ‘You seem to know an awful lot about the wedding business, Matt, something you want to tell us?’ I asked. ‘Or Jen, got any more announcements? Any secrets you want to share with the group? Come on, don’t be shy.’

  As a person they clammed up. Matt got to his feet. ‘Right, my round,’ he said. He must be feeling guilty about something to be willingly reaching into his pocket.

  ‘Not for me, mate,’ Greg said, standing. ‘I’m off to see a woman about a dog.’

  ‘Your mystery lady, eh?’ Jen said.

  Greg half shrugged, half raised his eyebrows. ‘Actually, she’s not my mystery lady any more, she’s my girlfriend.’

  ‘Things must be going well,’ Matt commented.

  ‘Yup, and you know why?’ Greg said. ‘Because she’s totally honest with me. Your relationship’s nothing if it’s not based on honesty. See ya.’ And he left.

  He’d left the three of us sat there, but I knew he’d walked out on me. AGAIN.

  chapter twenty-seven

  lady in waiting

  I never thought Greg would find out about me and Sean – that’s why I’d left out the small detail of Sean’s proposal.

  And he’d never have found out if Jen wasn’t being a complete and utter stick of carob. Not even a real chocolate. That hideous substitute that nobody could ever pretend was good enough to compa
re to chocolate.

  I’d sworn her to secrecy. She’d promised we’d never talk about it, not with anyone else, not with each other. And now look what she’d done. Only Sean, Jen and I were meant to know. I didn’t go running my mouth off in front of Matt and Greg about her pregnancy scare because I understood that it was the kind of thing that you didn’t share. Or drag up in the pub. Jen was an alien to me. The old Jen would never do anything like that. Ever. The new Jen felt no way about calling me fat and bringing up my secrets in the pub.

  I was going to have to deal with this at some point. I was going to have to do more than say Jen was an alien, a stick of carob, someone I didn’t particularly like. It wasn’t going to sort itself out. I was going to have to address the issue of why our friendship had changed. Maybe even have it out with her. Ice trickled down my spine. Have it out with Jen? Shout at her? I was more confident, I’d almost stood up to my mum, but Jen? No way. I had to do something, though. Something.

  However, Jen wasn’t the most pressing problem in my life. Greg was.

  I turned into my road. Brownberrie Walk, my road. My home. The place where Greg was waiting to chuck me.

  From a few yards down the end of my road I saw him sitting on the wall outside my flat. He must’ve been there for at least half an hour because I’d stayed that long after him in the pub.

  Greg was hitting his heels against the brickwork of the wall when I arrived in front of him. He didn’t say anything, just looked up, held my gaze, then looked down again.

  ‘I, erm, suppose you should come up,’ I whispered. I cleared my throat and repeated the sentence.

  I found my keys and, with trembling hands, opened the doors to my flat. I was scared. Scared of Greg. Of what he was feeling. Of how pissed off he was. If he was angry enough to leave.

  He entered the flat, went straight to the sofa and sat down.

  ‘Tea?’ I asked from the corridor.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, without tearing his eyes away from the off TV.