Chapter 17
The door clicks open and footsteps sound in the hallway.
I feel as if I’m being caught somewhere I’m not supposed to be.
Almost like Fran’s walking in on Max and me in bed together or something.
Which is ludicrous. Ostensibly, I’m just a friend who’s crashing.
I’m allowed to be here. She can’t know that I inhaled Max’s clean laundry or that, this morning, in the very same hallway she’s now standing in, Max put his chin on my head.
And neither of those things is exactly incriminating anyway.
Who doesn’t like the smell of freshly washed clothes?
And what is one friend’s chin on another friend’s head, really?
The footsteps get nearer. “Hi, Fran,” I shout out, before she turns the corner into the room.
Fran springs back in shock, then doubles over laughing in relief. “Oh my God. Becky! You jumped me.”
“Surprise!” I call. It’s meant to be “lighthearted” but I’m so tense it comes across more “ax murderer.” Especially when I wave my arms around madly.
“I didn’t know you’d be here.” Fran stands up straight.
“I didn’t know you’d be here,” I reply. Again, going for “laid-back” and achieving “accusing.”
“I live here.” Fran sounds confused. “Didn’t Max tell you?”
Her words land a painful blow. She’s moved in?
Already? I thought that wouldn’t happen for ages.
If I’m really honest with myself, I don’t think I’d properly engaged with it happening at all.
At least, I did when he first told me, and then somehow the news got swallowed by the black hole of denial that lives in my brain and gobbles up anything I don’t want to acknowledge.
The same hole that blanks out the Gilmore Girls revival.
It’s a very convenient method of dealing with distressing life events. Except I did waste what felt like hours of my life watching Lorelai “do Wild,” and Fran is living in Max’s flat.
“He mentioned it.” I try to make it sound as if it isn’t major, life-altering news that I didn’t react to by leaving my own birthday party in a blur of tears and vomit. “I just thought you were away.”
“I was in Zambia,” she says. “But they had more volunteers than they thought so it was more useful for me to head up the UK team this week.”
Ha. Zambia. Not Congo. Max doesn’t even know where you were. He always knows where I am. (All right, so it’s not that hard to keep track of my movements, but still.)
“Right,” I say, like her flying around between continents and having a cool job doesn’t impress me. “Sorry to scare you. Didn’t Max tell you I was staying?”
“No,” she says. “But of course you’re always welcome. Hi, by the way.” She acknowledges Leila. “I’m Fran.”
“Hi, I’m Leila. I’m Becky’s sister.”
“Oh.” Fran falters. “Did I know you had a sister, Becky?”
“This is the first time we’ve ever met,” Leila says cheerfully. Leila and I look at each other and burst out laughing. We’re still drunk. And being around each other is still slightly absurd.
Fran’s eyebrows rise a million miles. “Oh gosh,” she responds.
She looks deeply uncomfortable. I bet Fran has siblings that she knows and likes.
I bet her parents are still together and get on and do sickening things like hold hands while driving, threatening the lives of others like old, gray deviants because they’re so in love.
I bet they all play board games as a family without having any petty arguments.
“I’ll go hang out in the bedroom. I don’t want to intrude. ”
“What? Why?” asks Leila, brandishing a bottle. “We have gin! Oh, wait. I guess it’s yours. Sorry. You have gin!” Then she remembers the bottle is empty and starts laughing. “And whoops, it’s actually gone. SORRY.”
Fran smirks. Who knew offering someone their own gin, that you already finished, could be charming? It is, though. I realize, with some surprise, I’ve warmed to Leila.
“Oh, you must have a lot of catching up to do . . .”
“We’ve been catching up all day,” Leila says. “Sit with us!”
“OK.” Fran smiles awkwardly. “I’ll just put my things down.” She disappears off into the bedroom.
I take back my positivity toward Leila. I have the urge to take off my sock and stuff it in her mouth. “What are you doing?” I hiss. “Why are you encouraging Fran to hang out with us?”
“I’m curious.” She shrugs.
Oh, she’s curious. She thinks it’s fun to mess with my life because she’s curious. I flick the side of her forehead. She frowns.
“Did you just flick me? Are you twelve?”
Fran comes back into the room. She’s put her coat away and she’s wearing straight-leg jean overalls underneath. She’s quite fashionable. I tried wearing overalls once and they just made me look like a giant baby.
She sits down on the armchair Leila was hanging upside down off a few moments ago and awkwardly smiles at us.
“So, Fran, what do you do?” Leila’s words slur and she’s putting emphasis on random words in a way that makes her sound quite mad.
“I’m a communications officer for a humanitarian aid company,” Fran says.
“What does that mean?”
“I coordinate internal communications around the projects, so I’ll tell the various volunteers what they’ll be doing, make sure staff are informed of developments. Sometimes I’ll be on-site and publish content for our website.”
“So you get to travel a lot?”
“Not for every project, but yeah.”
“Oh, cooooooool!” Leila crows. “I bet that’s amazing!”
Traitor.
“It’s pretty great,” Fran agrees.
“Did you always know you wanted to do that?!”
“No. I mean, I knew I wanted to help people and do something in the charity sector. But not a communications officer specifically.”
Ugh. She helps people. Because she’s a good person. Why don’t I have the urge to help people? I’d settle for even a glimmer of interest in anything that was a feasible career. Deciding I wanted to become a grand master after watching The Queen’s Gambit doesn’t count.
“What about you, Becky? How is your job hunt coming? I hear you quit recruitment.” Fran directs her attention to me. I feel hot under the spotlight.
“Errr, yeah, not bad,” I say. “Got a couple of interviews lined up.”
“Really? Where?” Leila side-eyes me.
“Errrr. The London Fire Brigade.”
. . . The London Fire Brigade?
I’ve said it now.
“Oh gosh.” Fran’s eyes widen.
“Yup,” I continue. “I guess I’ve always wanted to . . . save people’s lives, you know.”
“Oh gosh, I thought you meant support staff. So you’re going to be an actual . . . firefighter?”
“Uh, yeah.” I keep digging my hole. “Yes. I want to be on the front line, you know. I guess I’ve always been drawn to danger. Jeopardy. Peril.”
Fran is lost for words. Leila is shaking her head slowly. No one speaks, so I keep going.
“I can’t wait to risk my life by entering a burning building,”
I add.
“OK!” Leila claps her hands together. She widens her eyes at me as if to say be normal. “Who wants tequila?”
I proffer my glass and she says, “Not you. You’ve clearly had enough.”
No one asks me any more questions about my potential future career as a firefighter.
Rude.
“So where were you living before you moved in here?” Leila asks Fran, pouring her a tequila.
“Dalston,” she answers.
“Dalston?” I repeat. I always had Fran pegged for more of a Kensington kind of girl. She once accidentally pronounced “apple” like “ahpple.”
Fran nods.
“Have you always lived in London?” Leila continues.
“I actually grew up in Hong Kong.” Fran sits back, eyeing her neat tequila suspiciously. She politely takes a sip.
“Hong Kong?” I repeat.
“Yep. My mum’s company relocated her there when I was six. We moved back when I was fourteen.”
“Like . . . Hong Kong Hong Kong?” I say again.
“Yeah, I went to an international school.”
Huh. I always figured Fran probably grew up somewhere like . . . Canterbury.
“Oh,” I say.
“You guys have met before, right?” Leila jokes.
Fran laughs timidly. The fact that we’re both involved in Max’s life, but not in each other’s, hangs awkwardly in the air.
“How long have we known each other now, Becky? A year? I think I’d been dating Max around a year when we met.
Was it at Sara’s birthday, when she made us all dress as sexy politicians? ”
“Yes,” I say. I was Tantalizing Theresa May.
It was the first time Max—dressed as Devilish David Cameron—brought Fran to anything.
I got so upset I tripped over my sheaf of wheat and smacked my head into a cupboard.
“So . . . yeah. Must be about that,” I say.
Once again I’m shocked by my complete lack of timekeeping.
A year? Did I really meet Fran a whole year ago?
I feel like that only happened the other day.
“That is so Sara!” Fran laughs as if she knows Sara really well or something.
It briefly occurs to me that, after two years, I guess she might.
Then I feed the thought straight back into the jaws of my trusty denial monster.
Of course she doesn’t know Sara. Every time Max sees Sara and Co.
, we see them together. Max barely brings Fran to anything and she’s away a lot.
Up until this spontaneous and frankly reckless decision to move in, Max and Fran really weren’t all that enmeshed in each other’s lives.
“Her next one should be easier, at least,” Fran says.
“Her next one?”
“Yeah, nuns and popes. I’ve already ordered my Mother Teresa habit.” Fran laughs.
My throat closes up. Nuns and popes? What?
! How does Fran know what Sara’s next theme party is going to be?
My mind whirs. Sara didn’t say anything about it at my birthday, I don’t think?
I was so focused on the news of Max and Fran moving in together that I can’t remember.
But . . . no. No, she definitely hadn’t decided at my birthday, because Angie asked her and she said she was still thinking.
So she decided at some point between my birthday party, just under a week ago, and now?
And somehow Fran knows about it? Did they see each other?
No. Surely not, I rationalize. You’re being paranoid.
In what world would there be a group thing that Fran was invited to and I wasn’t?
This is my friendship group. We manage to get together only a few times a year.
Plus, Fran’s been away anyway. Sara must have messaged Max about it and he told Fran.
I start to breathe more easily. Of course that’s what happened.
“Right, yeah. OBVIOUSLY,” I say. “Silly me. I’m going as . . . Hildegard von Bingen.”
Fran smiles and nods. I must say, I am impressed with my own quick thinking. Any old fool knows Mother Teresa, but Hildegard? That’s next-level. I wonder if Fran is intimidated by my vast knowledge of famous nuns.
“She is, after all, one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony,” I add. “Did you know she experienced visitations from God her whole life? One she described as a fiery light of exceeding brilliance that inflamed her whole breast like a warming flame. Imagine that.”
Ha. Bet you wish you didn’t have a meaningful job now, eh, Fran? Who’s the one who has all the time in the world to sift through the cavernous depths of Wikipedia researching interesting facts about notorious medieval saints?
“That’s interesting, Becky,” Fran says.
Leila starts shaking her head at me again and her reaction helps me picture myself objectively.
My flash of smugness dies as quickly as it rose.
In the five minutes since Fran arrived I have both pretended I’m becoming a firefighter and quoted Hildegard von Bingen in an attempt to .
. . what? Impress her? Win? What exactly am I winning?
Leila asks Fran another question about herself and I try not to interject. I clearly cannot be trusted to speak. I sit quietly and observe my estranged sister making conversation with the love of my life’s girlfriend and wonder, yet again, how on earth I ended up here.