Chapter 11 #2
Tom reaches up and unclips the giant pink bear. It’s even bigger than it looked – ridiculous, the kind of thing that exists purely to be won at fetes and regretted for the rest of eternity.
He looks at Brynn.
Then he looks at me.
Then he holds it out to me.
There’s a stab in my chest. Not the Peter kind of stab – not the sharp grief-fold from earlier. A different kind. Warmer. Less familiar. I don’t have a category for it.
‘What?’ I say.
‘It matches your café.’
‘It’s pink.’
‘The Lavender Café. Pink and purple. Same family.’
‘That’s not how colours work.’
‘Take the bear, Nina.’
I take the bear. It’s so large I can barely see over it. It smells like sawdust and polyester and the particular optimism of cheap fairground prizes. Somewhere to my left, Jude makes a sound that might be outrage or might be laughter.
‘Incredible,’ he says. ‘Absolutely incredible. I spend twenty minutes and four pounds trying to win this for Brynn, and Tom does it in thirty seconds and gives it to someone else.’
‘I don’t want it,’ Brynn chimes in. ‘It’s a health hazard. Nina can have it.’
‘Nina doesn’t want it either,’ I say, struggling to see around its enormous pink head. ‘Nina has no idea what to do with it.’
‘Put it in the café,’ Tom says. ‘Mascot. Tourist attraction. Conversation starter.’
‘It’ll give children nightmares.’
‘Children love nightmares. It’s character-building.’
Jude is staring at us. Then he catches Brynn’s eye, and an unspoken conversation passes between them – and Jude makes a gagging motion so exaggerated it’s almost theatrical.
‘What?’ Tom says.
‘Nothing. Absolutely nothing.’ Jude throws his hands up. ‘I’m getting a burger. Brynn, do you want a burger? Let’s get burgers. Let’s leave these two with their bear.’
‘It’s not our bear—’ I start.
But they’re already walking away, Jude’s arm slung over Brynn’s shoulders, and I catch the tail end of something Jude says – ‘… eleven years, Brynn, eleven years…’ – before they’re swallowed by the crowd.
Tom doesn’t seem to have heard. Or if he has, he doesn’t show it. He’s looking at me – or looking at the bear, it’s hard to tell, since the bear is between us like a fuzzy pink wall.
‘You didn’t have to do that,’ I say.
‘Jude was going to be there all day. I was performing a public service.’
‘You could have given it to him. For Brynn.’
‘Brynn didn’t want it.’
‘Neither do I.’
‘And yet you’re holding it.’
I am holding it. I’m holding this ridiculous, oversized, bright pink teddy bear that Tom Darcy just won for me in front of half the village, and there’s sand on his cheek and his hair is catching the sun and I want to reach across this stupid bear and brush the sand away with my thumb.
I don’t.
I haven’t reached out and touched Tom’s face in years of friendship, not since our disastrous date in sixth form. I don’t know where the impulse came from. I’m going to put it away and forget about it.
‘It’s going to clash with everything in the café,’ I say.
‘Probably.’
‘The tourists will take photos with it.’
‘Almost certainly.’
‘Dot will have opinions.’
‘Dot always has opinions.’
‘I’m going to name it something stupid. Something really embarrassing.’
‘I’d expect nothing less.’
He’s smiling – that quiet, private smile, the one that makes me feel like I’m being let in on something – and the afternoon sun is behind him, turning his hair gold at the edges, and I realise I’m staring.
Not looking. Staring. At Tom Darcy. Who is my friend.
Who has always been my friend. Who is standing in front of me in shorts with sand on his face, and I am holding a bear and staring at him like I’ve never seen him before.
‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘For the bear. For the public service.’
‘Anytime.’
‘I mean it.’ I adjust the bear, which is slowly consuming me. ‘You’re my—’
The word stalls. For the second time. The same word, the same catch, that strange new friction in a sentence that used to be smooth.
Favourite. It’s right there. It’s the word I’ve been saying for weeks, easily, naturally – you’re my favourite person, Tom Darcy – and now it keeps getting stuck, which is becoming an embarrassing issue.
It happened in the pub the other night, it’s happening again now, like a curse I can’t break.
‘—best friend,’ I finish. ‘You know that. Right?’
A flicker moves across his face. There and gone, so fast I almost miss it – like a light being switched off and on.
‘I know,’ he says. ‘Yeah.’
He turns to the next child waiting for the coconut shy. I take my bear and go.
Mum finds me at the stall an hour later, restocking cups, the bear wedged into a corner where it’s already attracted a small crowd of fascinated toddlers.
‘So,’ she says, settling back into her chair.
‘So.’
‘Tom Darcy won you a bear. That’s kind of romantic, Nina.’ She’s got a calculating look on her face.
‘Tom won a bear and gave it to me because Brynn didn’t want it. It’s not romantic. It’s logistics.’
‘Hmm.’
‘That’s a very loaded “hmm”, Mum.’
‘It’s a factual “hmm”. He’s lovely, isn’t he? Tom. He’s always been lovely.’
‘He is lovely. He’s a lovely friend.’