My Best Friend's Girl

by Dorothy Koomson

  In the kitchenette, I paused in cutting up the cake and, through the serving hatch, watched Nate. He was dressed in a V-neck blue T-shirt and dark green combats, he’d recently cut his hair, and he was looking handsome. Healthier, stronger, delicious. I’d had no inamorato moments with him, didn’t think “lover” when I looked at him but I did…I quashed that thought before it became even partially formed. It would do no one any good to start thinking like that.

  The thin boy Nate was talking to listened avidly to whatever it was Nate was saying. Nate was using lots of hand gestures and smiling lots, and the boy’s shy little face slowly unwound as he immersed himself in Nate’s tale. I wondered what he was saying. If he was telling him some adventure story that would stay with the boy into adulthood. If he knew that what he said today could, potentially, permanently influence the boy’s life. Whether—

  Nate glanced up suddenly, spearing me to the spot as our gazes collided. I wasn’t swift enough, couldn’t tear my eyes away and pretend I hadn’t been studying him. I continued to stare. Nate’s lips slid up into a smile and his eyes twinkled—in response, a treacherous streak of excitement tore through me. I tried to quash that too as I smiled back.

  “Mrs. Brannon,” a girl’s voice said beside me. When I saw who had spoken, I stifled the urge to roll my eyes.

  “I’ve told you before, Regina, I’m not Mrs. Brannon. You can call me Ryn or Tegan’s mum, not Mrs. Brannon.”

  This child, this Regina Matheson, with her short, bobbed mousy brown hair and stripe of freckles across her pig-shaped nose was everything I’d expected her to be: bossy, overbearing and arrogant. I hadn’t been surprised that her parents had ditched her at the party, running off into the afternoon, knowing they wouldn’t have her for at least three hours. Regina’s freckled nose wrinkled up as she considered what I had told her about my name. Eventually she shrugged. “There is rather a lot of junk food at this party,” she stated.

  I frowned theatrically at her. “You’re right, Regina, I hadn’t thought of that.”

  She sighed smugly. “My mum says too much junk food is bad for you.”

  “Does she? Right, well, I’m sure just this once won’t hurt.”

  “I’m sure it won’t,” she stated with another smug sigh. From Tegan that would have sounded cute, from Regina…I didn’t want to finish that train of thought.

  “There is some fruit, though, Regina. Strawberries or a fruit salad. Why don’t you have a strawberry?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Go rejoin the party, Regina, I’m sure there are lots of people who want to talk to you.”

  “OK, Mrs. Brannon,” she said and skipped off to harass someone else.

  I returned to cutting up the chocolate cake for the goodie bags and had just finished when Nate entered the kitchenette. He came to me and stood so close I felt the warmth from his body before I’d even turned to him. “Can I help you with anything?” he asked. I moved to look at him and found we were almost face to face because he’d dipped his head to my height. His navy blue eyes stared straight into mine, making the breath catch in my throat.

  “See them bags?” I said.

  He nodded, not looking at the expensive, red foil party bags lined up on the big table in front of us. I’d already stuffed them with a noisy blow toy (which every parent would hate me for), a bag of sweets, a thank-you note I’d helped Tegan to write, and a bendy straw. Now they were awaiting their cake. “These pieces of cake, cake, in those bags would be very helpful. Helpful. You need to wrap them in napkins first, though. Though.” I couldn’t speak properly, he was doing that to me. “Napkins. Cake. Bags.”

  His eyes traveled from my eyes to my lips, lingered there then moved up to my eyes again. What he was thinking was clear on his face. He moved a fraction closer. He was going to kiss me, I realized. At our daughter’s birthday party, he was going to cross the line and kiss me. Would I kiss him back? Would I slip my arms around his neck and kiss him back? Or would I push him off, remind him of my boyfriend? Nate moved slightly closer, parted his lips. “OK,” he whispered. Suddenly he pulled away, robbing me of his lust. He’d done that on purpose, I knew. He’d wanted to get me stirred up and then push me into making the next move by stepping back. It was a game he’d played a couple of times after a fight, when he needed me to prove that I desired him as much as he did me.

  He took half the cake on its chopping board with him to the other side of the table. He washed his hands before starting to wrap up the chocolate squares in the white napkins. “This is weird,” he said, as though he hadn’t been about to seduce me. “Me and you, kids, not going crazy.”

  “They’ve started to grow on me,” I replied, matching his normal tone. I wasn’t going to let him know how much his game had affected me.

  “Me too.”

  “I saw. You and that boy seemed to be getting on pretty well.”

  “He reminded me of me when I was that age: shy, terrified of the other kids—especially the girls.”

  “It’s nice to see you relaxed again, Nate. You seem a lot better.”

  “I am. Thanks to you and Tegan and Luke. The past few weeks have really helped…I’m not so…You know, about Adele. I feel guilty though.”

  “About?”

  “You’re the one I was meant to be looking after, you lost your best mate and all I did was fall apart on you.”

  “We helped each other. And you know I’d do almost anything for you, mate.”

  “Do you think this is what it would have been like if we had decided to have children?”

  “No, Nate. If we’d had kids they’d have been evil and the church would assign a special hit squad to rid the earth of them.”

  “They’d be cute,” Nate protested. “Big eyes, shiny black hair, mocha skin, big smile…”

  “Are you broody?” I asked. He’d obviously thought about this. “There’s no shame in it if you are.”

  He thought about it. “No.” He shuddered. “No, not at all. It’s something that crosses my mind nowadays. I wouldn’t actually want one. I mean, anymore.”

  “Me neither. I love Tegan, couldn’t live without her, but I’m not wanting to do it again.”

  “What about Luke?” Nate asked as he paused in folding a napkin around a piece of cake and watched me in that unnerving way of his. “Is he all right with that? I get the impression he wants lots of kids.”

  “Maybe he does,” I said. Of course he did. That was our elephant in the corner. We hadn’t talked about it directly, but I knew he wanted to be a dad; he knew that I’d finished with all that when I acquired Tegan. A discussion about more children would end with…It would end. Everything.

  “Do you love him, Kam?”

  I glanced up. No one had called me Kam in so long, I’d actually forgotten that I’d once been called it. I nodded.

  “I do.”

  “More than you love me?”

  “My feelings for you are past tense, Nate.”

  “You’re lying, to me and yourself.”

  “We’re getting married, Luke and I. We talked about it a few weeks ago.”

  Nate shrugged, unmoved and unbothered. “Don’t care. You’re still lying to me and yourself.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “I’m not saying you don’t love him, I think you’re torn—you want us both. You’re not very good at hiding your feelings, so he knows as well. I’m surprised he hasn’t said something. Or has he? Is that why he proposed, because he suspects you’re not sure of your feelings?”

  I went back to wrapping the cake pieces in their neat, napkin envelopes, ignoring what he was saying.

  “I love you, Kam.”

  My hands started to shake as I moved a piece of cake to the napkin in front of me. I hated this about Nate, his freedom with emotions—mine and his. His ability to simply say what he felt without thought for what it might do to me.

  “I’m not going to put pressure on you. I just want you to k
now that. And I want you to be honest with yourself.”

  I stared at the tabletop. What I felt was my business. If I was lying to myself that was my business too. I didn’t have to admit to anything. And what was there to admit to? That I fancied him? Well, obviously, he was gorgeous. That when Luke pissed me off, Nate was who I wanted? Every woman did that—before Nate walked back into my life I would fantasize about being with Jamie Foxx or Keanu Reeves. It wasn’t fair for Nate to accuse me of this. Especially since I knew Luke thought the same. The pair of them assumed they knew what I felt and when I corrected them, they never truly accepted what I said. I searched for a way to tell Nate he was wrong. To let him know that yes, I fancied him, but Luke was my lover.

  “Mrs. Brannon,” Regina Matheson began, tugging at my skirt.

  I ignored her. And decided to keep ignoring her until she got it right. “Mrs. Brannon.” She tugged harder.

  I continued to bag up cake pieces without acknowledging her existence.

  “Mrs. Brannon,” Regina said again.

  “What is it?” I snapped, finally turning to her. I was about to say, “And I’m not Mrs. anything,” when I noticed the anxiety on her face.

  “Tegan’s turning blue,” she stated.

  “What—” I threw aside the cake in my hand and ran out of the kitchenette across the hall and toward the doors that opened out to the back of the hall. I ran, but felt I wasn’t moving. That everything was in slow motion. Beside the bouncy castle, all the children, silent and solemn, stood in a circle, staring at a spot on the ground. As I got nearer I saw at the center of the circle was a parent who was crouched down beside Tegan and was calling, “Tegan, can you hear me?”

  Tegan lay on her back on the ground. Still. Still and perfect. Her pretty white and red spotted dress was crease-free, her legs stretching out from the hem of her big skirts ending with her red and white spotted shoes. Her bunches with their red ribbons were in perfect symmetry on either side of her head. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was gently parted, but she was indeed turning blue. Bluer by the second. She was so still. Adele. The memory of the last time I saw her settled like a vulture in my mind. Adele had been this still the last time I saw her. Still and cold and dead.

  I shoved aside the woman by Tegan as I dropped to my knees. I pressed my ear to her chest, listening. Thud. Soft, faint, but confirmation that her heart was still beating. But she wasn’t breathing.

  “Nate! Get an ambulance!” I screeched.

  “It’s on its way,” he replied from somewhere near me.

  “Did she choke?” I asked the assembled group of children as I gently tipped Tegan’s head back and opened her mouth.

  “She put a strawberry in her mouth,” Regina said, pointing. I glanced to the side and there was a strawberry, perfect, untouched. She hadn’t taken a bite, hadn’t choked, that meant she was allergic. When you had an allergic reaction you needed antihistamines and adrenaline to keep your heart beating. I knew that much. I had to keep her heart beating and get her breathing.

  I blew into her mouth, then moved to her chest and pushed carefully, didn’t want to break her ribs. Five counts, five gentle pushes. Then back to her mouth, blow. Nate dropped beside me to her chest, he was going to start chest compressions but I shook my head at him. I had to do this. I had the rhythm going. I had to bring her back to life. I went back to her chest. Five counts. Back to her mouth. No movement and she wasn’t breathing. Back to her mouth, blow. Back to her chest. After the final push, I put my head to her chest. Thud. Again, small and gentle. Her heart was still beating. Back to her mouth, back to her chest.

  The sound of children crying, asking what was going on cut into my thoughts. Then I heard them being rounded up, being ushered away. I blew into Tegan’s mouth again, not daring to notice how cold her lips were. How the blue of her skin was deepening with every passing second. I just had to keep going. To keep trying to bring her back. I heard Nate’s voice, he was talking.

  I breathed into her mouth again and then Nate’s strong arms hooked around my chest and hoisted me away from her. I almost fought him, almost screamed that I wasn’t going to stop, when two green-clad paramedics took my place. The first paramedic, a wiry man in his late forties, placed an oxygen mask over Tegan’s face, covering her pretty visage with the ugly plastic. The other, a plump woman in her thirties, measured clear liquid into a syringe.

  “Don’t hurt her!” I shouted. “She’s only little, don’t hurt her!”

  Nate’s arms clamped around me, held me back to stop me from interfering. He held me close, whispering something into my ear. I knew it was comfort, reassurance, but none of it sunk in. I was fixated on the needle, and I flinched as the woman injected the contents of the syringe into Tegan’s thigh. Nothing happened. She didn’t suddenly sit up, fighting for air. She didn’t move a fraction to let us know she was OK. She didn’t even flinch when the paramedic injected her. She lay motionless on the ground. As though horrified by Tegan’s lack of reaction, Nate’s arms slackened around me and his reassurance faltered. My knees buckled and I landed in a heap on the ground.

  It’s over, I realized as the paramedics exchanged concerned looks. She’s gone.

  chapter 45

  I wandered blindly along the hospital corridors, aware of nothing, feeling nothing. I was numb. Physically and mentally numb. I stopped and rested against a wall, trying to hold myself together until Nate’s denim-jacketed arms slipped around me and pulled me toward his body. I allowed myself to be swallowed up by him, for him to engulf me in his arms, hold me against his chest and shush me. Without realizing it I’d been quietly whimpering as I wandered the corridors.

  “Babe,” Nate whispered in my ear.

  “Sh…I…I thought, I thought she was going—” My voice dissolved. I put my arms around Nate and clung to him. He was solid, dependable, the rock I needed at a time like this.

  “Shhhh,” he hushed, “it’s OK. She’s OK. It’ll all be OK.”

  “But it nearly wasn’t,” I whispered. She almost died. Tegan, my baby, almost died. A few more minutes and they wouldn’t have been able to get her lungs working nor her heart beating properly. My body and mind quailed every time I thought how close I came to losing her. That she had been at death’s door. She was sleeping now, and breathing on her own. But her fragile little body lying in that bed, hooked up to a heart monitor, reminded me of Adele’s final days of lying in a hospital bed, connected to machines.

  Nate gently pulled me away from him and looked down at my face. “It’s OK,” he reiterated.

  “Thank God you were here,” I said. “I couldn’t have handled this on my own.”

  “Yes, you could,” he replied. “I don’t think you give yourself enough credit for what you do. She’s a lovely girl because of you. You know, even me, the person who doesn’t like kids knows that.”

  “Flatterer,” I said with a small laugh.

  He smiled at me, stroked a lock of my hair away from my face.

  “I hate to say it, but if ever there was a case for eating junk food, this is it—you’ve never heard of anyone being allergic to a burger, have you?” Nate said, succeeding in making me laugh a little more. The beam on his face deepened into a look of affection and concern. “Hey,” he said,

  “how about tomorrow I sign those papers, so you can start the adoption process for real? I know you asked me to do it weeks ago but I kind of put it out of my mind. I’ll do it tomorrow. Or even tonight, when I drop you home from the hospital.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. I don’t know why I’ve been delaying for so long. Guilt, I suppose, because I shouldn’t really give her up, but she’s more your child than mine. Even from the day she was born you were like her second parent.”

  “Oi, are you saying I’m butch?”

  He stroked away the lock of hair that had fallen back onto my forehead again. “Course not, gorgeous. I’m saying that you’re going to get Tegan like you wanted.”

  “Thank you,
” I said and pressed my lips against his, in gratitude. There were better ways to say thank you, I knew that, but I didn’t care. I had an abundance of emotion—relief, fear, love, lust, anger—surging through my veins. They swirled together, creating a dangerous cocktail of recklessness that made me kiss Nate. I didn’t care about anything at that moment. I just wanted to kiss him because he’d supported me in one of the scariest chapters of my life. Because he was going to give me what I wanted by signing the papers. Because the one person who should have been there wasn’t.

  As our lips touched, another emotion overrode all the others: shame. It wasn’t Luke’s fault he wasn’t here. He had to work and he didn’t know what was going on. If he did, he would be here. Of course he would. I pulled away from Nate, wishing I hadn’t started this.

  Nate stared at me for a few seconds, confused as to why I’d kissed him then pulled away almost immediately. Slowly he raised his hand and stroked his thumb across my cheek. All resistance to him faded with that touch and when Nate pushed his lips onto mine, I let myself glide into it. I allowed his tongue to part my lips and slip inside me. I let his hand caress the small of my back and the other hand bury itself in my hair. Kissing him was so familiar. Easy. Simple. It opened up my memories to a time when I was happy. When I was a different woman. I loved this man once upon a time. I loved him now. But not like I loved Luke. Luke. His face elbowed its way into my head and I pushed Nate away. I really couldn’t do this to him.

  “I can’t do this, I’m with Luke.”

  Instead of replying, Nate rubbed his thumb over my mouth, caressing in the impression his lips had made—it was the erotic move he’d used on me the first time we’d slept together. I jerked my head away before I fell for it and kissed him again.