My Best Friend's Girl

by Dorothy Koomson

  “I hope you and Nate are very happy together,” he spat.

  “Thank you,” I replied, not rising to the bait. I got to my feet and as I did so, I decided I was finished with defending myself when it came to this. I did a bad thing in kissing Nate but not as bad as not forgiving Adele before she died. Nothing I did could be that bad. “Keep in touch with Tegan, please. She’s going to miss you.”

  “I’ll miss her. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  “Did you say bye-bye to Luke?” Tegan asked, clutching her photo album to her chest.

  I nodded, trying to smile at her. I sat in the seat he’d sat in by her bed and put my head on her lap. “I’ll miss him,” I said. And I would. In less than a year I’d lost three people I loved. First Adele, then Ted, now Luke. It was too much. Too much loss in a lifetime let alone a year.

  “Mummy Ryn, is Luke really going to ’merica?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure? Because I think he might go to heaven.”

  I turned my head to look at her. She squeezed her mouth and nose up in that way she did to emphasize something as she nodded her suspicions at me.

  “He’s not, Tiga, I promise you. He’s going to America. And it’s not your fault, I promise you that too. He had to go.”

  “OK,” she said, and patted my head. She started to stroke my hair like I was the cat she’d desperately wanted at one point.

  “It won’t be so bad with just me and you,” I said. “We’ll be all right.”

  “We’ll have fun,” she agreed.

  “We can go on holiday. Maybe to Italy where my friend Ted lives.”

  “Really?” she said excitedly. “On a plane and everything?”

  “Yeah. In the summer holidays maybe? Just the two of us.”

  “Mummy Ryn, that would be fun. And I could take lots of pictures with my new camera. And then put them in the ’bulm.”

  “Yeah.”

  She smiled to herself for a minute then sighed. “I wish Luke was coming.”

  “I do too,” I replied.

  Rat-a-tat-tat! sounded at the door. Tegan and I exchanged puzzled looks. “Come in,” I called.

  The door opened and Meg appeared in the doorway. Tegan’s face lit up.

  “Look who I found in my car,” Nate said, his face appearing in the doorway too. “I thought you might want her, Tegan. Was I right?”

  “Yes.” She laughed.

  “Good, cos I don’t think she liked it in my car.” He entered the room and handed Tegan her rag doll.

  “Mr. Nate, Luke’s gone to ’merica and he’s not coming back,” Tegan said as Nate perched on the edge of her bed. Nate’s navy blue eyes darted to me for confirmation. I nodded that it was true. He frowned slightly, asking with his eyes if it was because of the kiss. I nodded again and regret flew across his face. “Oh, that’s sad, I’ll miss him,” Nate said to Tegan. He may not have meant it but he had the good sense to sound convincing.

  “You’re not going to ’merica, are you, Mr. Nate?”

  “No, I’m not,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Nate turned his eyes on me, fixed me to the spot with a steady, intimate gaze and my mouth curled up into a smile because I knew he meant it. I knew that out of everyone in our lives, he’d never leave us.

  chapter 47

  Dearest Kamryn,

  I’ve asked Nancy to send you this a year after I die. I’m not trying to spook you out or anything, I just wanted to make contact with you, if that makes sense. And to remind you that you’re doing a wonderful job bringing up Tegan. How do I know? Because I’ve never seen you back down from a challenge yet. And this is one you’ll excel at, of that I’m certain.

  I know Tegan’s in good hands with you and that you’re in good hands with her—I’m sure you know what I mean.

  I hope that you will have found my other letter by now. If not, then I am disgusted, lady! You haven’t been through my things? Didn’t you even want to see if I had anything of yours?! Well, I did. I had that black velvet jacket I wanted from the day you bought it—and that’s where I put the other letter which explained about me and Nate and why I did what I did.

  If you have found it, then now you know and I hope you don’t still hate me. I was wrong and I’m sorry. I have learned though, that life is short, too short to bear a grudge. Too short to shut people out without listening to what they have to say first. Beautiful, sort it out with Nate before it’s too late. I never saw two people who were more suited to each other, please talk to him, let him explain. Give him the chance to make things right—I know that’s all I ever wanted.

  Remember that first day we met? You were so instantly nice to me. Yeah, you were prickly and acted like you didn’t give a crap about anything but you’d betrayed yourself, Ms. Matika. I knew we were going to be friends because rather than follow through with not wanting to come for a drink with me, you did. And you were just lovely—although not in the traditional sense. You just, I don’t know, it was like you couldn’t help yourself. No one has ever treated me like that before or since. No one has ever taken to me instantly and stuck with me. Thank you for that. I never said it, but thanks for being my friend. Thanks for being you.

  Oh, I’m rambling…I’m sorry. I miss that most of all with you. We used to talk for hours about nothing, didn’t we? I never had that with anyone else after you moved to Leeds. No one would tolerate it apart from Tegan and, well, she had no clue what I was on about most of the time.

  I’ll go now, beautiful. I just wanted to say goodbye properly, I suppose.

  I’m pretty sure we won’t have had the chance and I wanted to say it. Good. Bye. Not bitter bye, or unhappy bye. Goodbye.

  All my love, forever.

  Adele x

  “are you going to be mummy ryn’s boyfriend?”

  chapter 48

  Luke!” Tegan exclaims with delight in her voice and, no doubt, on her face.

  I don’t look up from the newspaper I’m reading; instead I reach out and pick up my mug of tea and take a sip. We’re in a café about ten minutes from our flat. It’s a haven for parents at the weekend because you come here, have a coffee, read papers, have a meal, and the owners of the place, for a small fee, will take your child downstairs and teach them to cook. Pizza, fairy cake, trifles, chocolate mousse, all sorts of easy things that give you a couple of hours’ quiet time. They’re making pizza today—in about five minutes the supervisors will come up and get the children and right about then you’ll see parents’ shoulders relax and tension fly off their faces, and we’ll smile conspiratorially at each other like prisoners let out on day release. We love our kids but time apart is good too.

  I don’t look up after Tegan’s exclamation because she’s always doing it. It’s been sixteen months since Luke left and in the early days I did it too. I thought I’d see him, and would go to call out to him, but then I’d realize it wasn’t him, and feel stupid. It’d been like that when Adele died too. Even though in my head I’d know it couldn’t be her, I’d get a flash of her walking down the street, standing at a bus stop, queuing in a supermarket, and would then have to stop myself calling out to her.

  “All right, T.”

  His voice is deep and smooth, and my heart flits over a couple of beats in response. I keep my head lowered even though I hear Tegan scramble up onto her feet on the chair, then scuffle sounds as, I presume, she wraps herself around him. It’s Sunday, I’ve no makeup on, my hair is barely combed, my skin is still sleep saggy. Oh well, he’s seen me looking worse, I decide. I sit back in the chair and then raise my head. I have to smile because Tegan has wrapped her arms around his neck, and her long legs are curled around his torso.

  “All right, Ryn,” Luke says.

  “All right, Luke,” I reply.

  He hasn’t changed much. He’s still tall and muscular, no spare pounds on his frame. His head is almost shaved, his eyes are still that striking orange-hazel in his golden brown skin. The only difference f
rom the last time I saw him and now is that he’s regrown his ridiculous beard around his lips and along his jawline.

  “I don’t like your beard,” Tegan informs him.

  “Why thank you, madam.” He’s talking to Tegan but staring at me, probably thinking I haven’t changed much. My hair is still layered with a sweeping fringe, the dark circles under my eyes have faded a little since I’ve become used to surviving on less sleep. I haven’t lost weight or put any on. I’m virtually the same.

  Tegan lifts herself away from him so she can have a better look at his beard, then raises her hand to her face, rubs her cheek. “It’s itchy. That’s not very nice, is it, to make Tegan’s face itchy?”

  Luke draws his eyes away from me and back to Tegan. “It’s gone.” He has that American twang to his voice again. “The second I get the chance I’ll shave it off.”

  “OK,” she says. “Are you going to be Mummy Ryn’s boyfriend again?”

  “All right, Tiga, it’s pizza time, isn’t it?” I stand, move around the table to take Tegan out of Luke’s arms.

  “O-OK,” she says reluctantly. “But it’s not fair.” Standing on the chair she stares me in the eye as she makes this declaration. “I want to talk to Luke as well. He’s my friend too.”

  Tegan is unrecognizable from the girl I moved up to Leeds with over two years ago; this lass has no worries about telling me what she thinks, or protesting over some perceived injustice. We often have involved disagreements over when she’s going to bed and what she can and can’t wear. (The infamous pink bikini top argument had raged for two days and isn’t resolved—she still wants one and I still won’t let her have one.)

  “You can talk to Luke,” I say, keeping eye contact. “You just have to go make pizza first. Afterward, you can come back and talk to him. OK?”

  “O-OK,” she replies, realizing that she’s not winning this round. “Don’t even like pizza,” she adds in a mutter.

  “What did you say?” I ask as I help her down onto the floor.

  She looks at me, knowing that if she repeats that untruth she’ll never get to eat pizza in my presence again. No more making it downstairs here or ordering it in. Tegan has worked out that I rarely shout, I’d never hit her but I will take her at her word—and there’d be no reasoning with me if she lies about something just to win an argument. “Nothing,” she replies.

  “Do you want to go down on your own or shall I come with you?”

  “Come with me,” she says, slipping her hand in mine.

  “See you later, Luke.” Holding hands we descend the wooden stairs into the huge basement kitchen. Tegan goes to the hooks where they’ve hung out small aprons and picks out a red one.

  “I like red,” she reminds me as I tie the strings around her middle.

  “I know,” I say, and kiss her forehead.

  As I’m about to stand she throws her arms around me, not caring that it’s not cool. “Thank you, Mummy Ryn,” she says and kisses my cheek. I don’t know what for. She often does that, randomly kisses and thanks me, and because I like it, I don’t question it. “You’re my bestest friend,” she whispers in my ear. “Apart from Matilda and Crystal and Ingrid. And Luke.”

  “You’re my bestest friend too,” I reply. She kisses my cheek again.

  I climb the steps, my heart somewhere near my throat. I thought I’d never see Luke again. I’d resigned myself to a life of hearing what he was up to through his letters and e-mails to Tegan. I never dared hope I’d get to sit opposite him again.

  When I return to the café area he is sitting in Tegan’s chair, his long legs stretched out under the table. That’s how Nate sits too. It was only when Luke had gone that I noticed how similar they are. Mannerisms, ways of speaking, sense of humor.

  “Well, she’s grown up,” he says as I take my seat opposite him.

  “But she’s also become a little girl again, not having so much to worry about that isn’t seven-year-old stuff, which is nice to see.”

  The waiter approaches, sets down a large mug of coffee in front of Luke. “Café mocha, easy on the coffee, heavy on the chocolate, right?” the guy says.

  “That’s right, mate,” Luke says with a laugh. “Glad you remember.”

  When the waiter has retreated, I ask. “Have you been here before?”

  “Erm, a few times…I, erm, come here most weekends. I used to come hoping to get a glimpse of you and T while I got up the courage to talk to you. Sometimes she saw me.”

  So, she wasn’t imagining it; it turns out, Luke has been stalking us. “When did you get back from the States?” I ask, ignoring how unsettling that is.

  His eyes dart to my left hand then dart away again, frowning at what he sees.

  “About three months ago. The job didn’t work out…” He leaves the sentence unfinished because I know something he knows I know. He made sure I knew, in an attempt at revenge, I guess.

  “Did your wife come back with you?” I ask.

  Luke married Nicole six months after he left Leeds. We got the news and photos in the office a few days after the wedding. I’d walked into the office I shared with Betsy and saw the picture open on her computer screen. She’d slapped her hands on the screen to try to hide it, but it was too late. The image of Luke’s handsome face, grinning with happiness as he held his bride, his Nicole, in his arms, was scorched into my memory. I’d made the right noises to Betsy about being pleased for him and brazened it out the whole day. I threw up in the bathroom before I left and cried into a pillow in the middle of the night when I was alone.

  “No, she’s still in New York,” he reveals. “She’s staying there too. My marriage didn’t exactly work out either.”

  “I was surprised at how quickly you got married, but then it was to Nicole. I suppose it was easy to pick up where you left off.”

  “Not that easy as it turns out, she wasn’t…How’s Nate?”

  Our eyes meet, he searches mine for a hint of what I’m about to say. “He’s fine. Better than fine, actually, he’s great. He moved to Leeds, to be nearer to…Well, to be nearer. He and Tegan are good mates too, she even lets him pick her up from school a couple of times a week so I can work a little later.” I’m still not marketing director of Angeles and I never will be, I’ve accepted that now. For as long as Tegan needs me around I have to put my career second. “It’s funny how she bosses him around and they cook like you two used to—creating a huge mess as they go.”

  Luke inhales, stiffens his upper lip as he asks in a tight voice, “Does she call him ‘Daddy’ now, then?”

  I reach out, cover his hand with mine. “As far as Tegan’s concerned, her only ‘daddy’ is you.”

  “Really? Still?”

  “Just cos you left, doesn’t mean she stopped talking or thinking about you. She’s asked me more than once why you didn’t want to be her daddy.”

  “What did you say?”

  “That if you were around, you probably would do. Nate knows that too. He wouldn’t try to take your place.”

  “He’s her father.”

  “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean he wants to be her dad. He likes Tegan, he cares for her, he just doesn’t love her like you did. But, he’ll always take responsibility for her. Luke, he’s a good guy. You and him could be…Could have been friends if you’d given him a chance. He always liked you for how much you cared about Tegan, you know. He’s always wanted what’s best for her, and if that means letting someone else be her parent, then that’s what he’ll do. He signed away all rights to her.”

  “Really and truly?”

  “That day I kissed him, he said that’s what he’d do and he did it. You wouldn’t believe the amount of grief he went through when his parents found out, but he didn’t back down, he just wants what’s best for Tegan. And he’s sticking around forever—as her father, not her daddy. He’ll do anything for her. Luke, take it from me, Nate’s a good person.”

  “Are you and him…?”

  “No.”

 
; “Why not? I’d have thought you’d have…”

  “Been engaged and married before your plane took off? No, me and Nate couldn’t get back together, too much has happened, we’ve changed too much.”

  “So you didn’t even…?”

  “I’m not a saint, Luke,” I reply. “Much as I pretend I am.”

  It was two months after Luke’s departure that Nate and I made love. And, on and off, for a year, we carried on doing so, always stopping before we started a full-blown relationship. Then we’d be tempted again and fall back into it. Recently we’d stopped altogether, had gone cold turkey because we admitted that we were actually in a relationship. And we weren’t free to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Boy had “cheat” hanging over his head and Girl came with a child. Nate liked, possibly even loved, Tegan but didn’t want her full-time, I’d forgiven and understood about Adele, but I hadn’t forgotten. Those things would always keep us apart. Besides, “Nate’s got a girlfriend now. They’ve been together three months and it’s looking long-term.”

  “Do you mind?”

  “Not as much as I used to, believe me.” I’d broken down in tears in front of Nate when he told me, but managed to stop myself from asking him to finish with her. I had to let him go, I accepted. We both had to move on, and he’d been brave enough to take the first step toward that. “It’s good to see him happy.”

  “I mind that you mind,” Luke states.

  I’ll ignore the fact that you got married, shall I? “Nate and I could never get back together. I mean, I hold my hands up, I fancied him, I still felt stuff for him but I had this amazing boyfriend.”

  The old me loved Nate more than anything, he was everything to me; the me who’d been bringing up Tegan loved Luke, and the life—the family—we’d created, more. That had shocked me when I realized that. I loved Nate, but I loved the weekends of Luke, Tegan and I cleaning the flat, of trips to the park, of tickle-fighting Luke while Tegan kept score, of sitting in front of the TV and listening to Luke and Tegan discuss the finer points of drawing with felt-tip, more. More than anything else in my life, I loved my hodgepodge little family. “I had this amazing boyfriend who I adored. And even though I was tempted by this other guy, the only man for me was my boyfriend. And despite the fact that he went off and married someone else, I didn’t stop loving him.”