Her Best Friend's Secret: A gripping, emotional novel about love, life and the power of friendship

by Mansell, Anna

  As they talked, Jess realised there was a time and place she felt ‘fabulous, darling’. It was at work. When she was on top of her game. When she had a client in the palm of her hand, or one of the team was confiding in her, or succeeding at something she knew she’d taught them. Matt was right, Jess was getting everything from work. Where was her balance?

  ‘So,’ said Lolly. ‘What about you, Jess? What have you been up to since we were last together?’

  Jess thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know, life’s pretty quiet. Mostly work, if I’m honest. Which is fine, I enjoy that.’ Or she had, until Jay had turned up. ‘When I got back from travelling, I went up to Manchester for a bit, worked for an ad agency up there, really learned the business, then came back down here when a young agency were starting up and have been around ever since. I mean, I guess that was about ten years ago.’

  ‘Same place?’ asked Amanda, incredulous.

  ‘Yeah, I like it. Well, liked it. It’s probably time to move on again now.’

  ‘I keep wondering that,’ chipped in Lolly, much to Jess’s relief. ‘But I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t do physio. I think that’s it for me, that’s my lot.’

  ‘You don’t have to sound so down about it,’ said Amanda.

  ‘I’m not, I just… I don’t know. Do you ever get to thinking about your life and what it is now versus what you thought it was going to be?’

  If she’d have asked that of Jess even two weeks ago, she wouldn’t have automatically thought about Jay, that much she did know.

  ‘Christ, you haven’t changed a bit.’ Amanda laughed.

  ‘What?’ Lolly looked up, surprised.

  ‘You think too much, always did.’

  ‘Do I? I don’t know if that’s true, I mean, I just like to pick things apart a bit, work out the best options. Reflection is good, isn’t it?’ The girls looked at her, grinning. ‘Kitt says I think too much too.’

  ‘Surely we all think,’ said Jess. ‘We’re grown-ups, we have to think about stuff. We have to work things out.’

  ‘Grown-ups? Speak for yourself,’ said Amanda. And Jess wondered if that was part of her problem, she was pretty much all grown up these days.

  Amanda

  Amanda couldn’t believe how relaxed she was. How great it was to be sat amongst these women. How could she have considered not coming? She still wasn’t sure she’d tell them everything, but maybe it didn’t matter. Just having them in reach was reassuring. Familiar. ‘So what did I miss, whilst you were waiting for me?’

  ‘I tell you what you did miss, that our little Lolly only went and bagged the hottest guy at school!’

  Lolly flushed with something akin to pride. ‘Hey, try being married to him, he may have been hot, but he’s still a pain in the arse.’

  ‘So who did you marry?’ asked Amanda.

  ‘Only Andrew Trevelley,’ said Jess. ‘Do you remember, he of the inexplicably short shorts and the legs to actually die for!’

  Amanda froze.

  ‘Yes, I did marry him. Except I call him Kitt. We’ve been together for about sixteen years now. Two boys. It’s… well, it’s okay. It’s nice.’

  Amanda’s mouth ran dry.

  ‘Okay? Nice?’ asked Jess.

  ‘Well, good. It’s good,’ said Lolly.

  Heart in her mouth, Amanda stood. ‘Wow, that’s… blimey. He was… shit, excuse me, I need to…’ She looked around, she couldn’t just leave. However much she wanted to, that would make things worse. ‘I need the bathroom, terrible pelvic floor, do you get that? Old age…’

  She excused herself from the table, making her way across the room to the toilets, willing herself not to pass out or crumble. She couldn’t let them know anything was wrong. Her choice of work had been a consideration in not joining the girls today, but not for this reason. Not because she thought for a single moment that the world was so incredibly small that she’d have been sleeping with one of the girl’s husbands. She wanted to run away and yet, she wanted to know Lolly’s side of things. She wanted to hear about Trev, Andrew, Kitt… whatever he wanted to be called, she wanted to know everything about him from his wife’s point of view. From the moment she sat down, she remembered how much she had adored Lolly. Her giddiness. Her lightness. She had been the baby of the group in so many ways, she’d always been vulnerable. She still had that edge, even now, and Amanda wanted to protect her, just like she had back in the day. How could it be that she was married to Andrew Trevelley? And how could Andrew Trevelley be doing this to Lolly?

  Amanda stared at herself in the mirror. She felt old. She felt stupid. She felt pretty vulnerable herself. She felt like the worst woman in the world and she’d never felt like that because of her job before. She didn’t relish the fact that some of her clients were married, but she’d long since made a choice not to judge because nobody knows what’s going on behind closed doors. But Lolly? Surely Lolly wasn’t a bad person to be married to. How could he be anything other than wildly smug? She’s smart and funny and gorgeous.

  Shit.

  She pulled her phone out, dialling Karenza. She’d know what to do. Except her phone rang out and Amanda wanted to cry. Maybe she could get Pete to call her, give her an excuse to leave. Maybe she could just tell them she felt unwell.

  But she didn’t, well, she felt sick, sick to her bones, but she wasn’t unwell. And whatever was going on here, she could not just pretend it wasn’t happening. Nor could she let on. She was going to have to pretend. She was going to have to see this through. She was going to have to speak to Trev later, when she was alone.

  She looked down at her hands, old and dry. She looked back up to the mirror, her eyes dark and afraid. Would they notice if she never left the bathroom? Someone tried the door, making her jump. She flushed the loo as if to prove she’d just used it, then washed her hands, splashing her face with lukewarm water. She had to stick this out. However much she was desperate to run away, she couldn’t just leave. She loved Lolly and she was not about to break her heart. Amanda shook off the fear and fair strutted back through the room to their table, her heart thumping.

  Jess

  ‘God knows what my husband thinks about half the time,’ said Lolly as Amanda sat down, looking white as a sheet. Was she okay? Lolly chirruped on. ‘I mean, we’ve been married forever, we have kids. Our conversations are usually built around who’s picking who up and what to have for tea.’

  ‘Ahhh, don’t you do date nights?’ asked Amanda, which made Jess shudder, she hated date nights. She hated it even more when people tagged them on Facebook. Did that mean the two concerned were going home to have sex that night and did she really want that mental image of Mick and Sally from three doors down?

  ‘Date nights? Christ, we should be so lucky!’

  Amanda raised her eyebrows.

  ‘This is why I never got married,’ said Jess.

  ‘I mean, we do okay. We manage. In between the kids and work and arguing about whose turn it is to take the bin out.’

  ‘Sexy,’ said Jess.

  ‘I guess you don’t live with anyone then, Jess?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Nah.’ Jess shook her head. ‘I just… never found anyone I wanted to move in with, you know? I like my independence too much. I like my life.’ She paused, looking down at her drink. ‘I never fancied making compromises.’

  Emily laughed to herself. ‘Why do you think I’m back in Cornwall?’ she said, uncharacteristically.

  Amanda took a sip of her wine, and Jess noticed her hand shook. Was she nervous? She didn’t appear it when she arrived. Amanda didn’t used to be the nervous type, far from it. Was she as suddenly overwhelmed as Jess felt, now they sat together like this?

  ‘Was it good to get away from Cornwall? When you first left, I mean. It happened so suddenly, I don’t think any of us saw it coming,’ said Lolly, making Jess look up sharply.

  ‘It was sudden to me too. Dad just came home one day to say he had this opportunity in L.A. and we had to g
o. Within two weeks, we’d left home. We’d left everything I knew and we were in this new, stiflingly hot country, and I was in a new school without any friends. I hated it.’

  ‘Ahhh, Emily!’ said Lolly, reaching out to hold her hand.

  ‘It took a while to settle in,’ Emily went on. ‘I think I pretty much hated it until I joined a theatre group, outside of school. I felt like I made friends there, not friends like you lot, but people I could at least hang out with. Have fun with. And that’s when the work opportunities started opening up, so then it got exciting. Working on stage, meeting brilliant, creative people. I think, after a while, I stopped giving home a second thought.’

  ‘So what’s changed?’ asked Lolly.

  ‘I don’t know… I’ve done it for so long. It’s been fun. A lot of fun. It’s been glamorous at times. The parties, you know. The dresses. The travel. I just…’ Emily’s voice faltered. ‘I think maybe I’m done with it.’

  ‘I guess the high life grows tiresome,’ said Jess, keeping her feelings in check.

  ‘It looks so glamorous though.’ Lolly looked off dreamily. ‘Where were you living?’

  ‘New York, by the time I left. We had this amazing apartment in Manhattan. I loved it. I miss the apartment, that much I can say.’

  ‘We?’ asked Lolly.

  Emily shifted in her seat. ‘We. I was living with someone.’

  The girls went quiet. Once upon a time they’d have jumped on this, Amanda often first up, she’d have dragged out every last detail with lascivious joy but seemed distracted. Not entirely with the group. Had someone said something to upset her? ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘Life’s complicated,’ said Jess.

  ‘You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to,’ said Lolly. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything.’

  Emily looked into her tea. Amanda gazed, glassy-eyed. Lolly’s cheeks flushed and Jess wondered if this had all been a terrible mistake.

  Emily

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ said Lolly, carefully.

  She did. She realised. She actually did. But what if this catch up was a one-off? Did any of them remember their pact to be friends for life on the last day she saw them? A pact she couldn’t uphold because she’d been so far away, so lonely, so jealous of what she imagined they’d all be doing without her. She felt like they could help her get her head straight. With Jess’s stability and Lolly’s care and Amanda’s fire, they were the perfect combination of brilliant women and she wanted to tell them every last detail. It didn’t matter that they’d spent so long out of touch, suddenly they were everything that had the potential to be right in her life and she needed them, now more than ever.

  ‘I do, though I don’t know if I can put any of it into words.’

  So far, nobody had really asked about why she’d come home. Even Betty hadn’t asked. Mac didn’t seem too interested. Yet these three, sat, eyes wide, waiting. Lolly sipped her drink.

  ‘Jackson was my agent. To begin with. I signed with him when I was about twenty-one, I think, we didn’t get together until years later, on my thirtieth birthday. But professionally, we’d been together for years. It worked, we were a team. He got the work, I delivered it. We were inseparable for a long time before it got personal. By the time it happened, everybody said they’d been waiting. That we were destined to be together. We were really good together, strong.’

  ‘A New York power couple, I just knew it.’ Lolly sighed, dreamily.

  ‘I don’t know about that, but we were doing okay.’

  ‘So what changed?’ asked Amanda.

  Emily reached her hand down to her belly. ‘Everything.’ She paused. ‘Nothing,’ she reasoned. ‘Him… maybe me,’ she added. Emily noticed Jess smile to herself. ‘What?’

  ‘I remember you always had that ability to sum everything up yet say nothing at all.’ Amanda nodded agreement, which made Emily feel exposed. ‘It’s not a criticism,’ Jess said, reaching her hand out to Emily’s for just a moment. ‘It just made me smile. It makes me wonder if we’re all still basically the same. I wonder if circumstances have changed, but we haven’t.’

  Emily thought about just how much she had changed from being a kid to an actor to now, back here. Her thoughts were no longer consumed with career and numbers and being seen in the right place at the right time in the right gown. She wasn’t even sure if they were her thoughts or Jackson’s. All she knew was that her current thoughts were all about the moment, the now. The now that led to a new tomorrow for which she wasn’t sure she was entirely prepared for. But was it that everything had changed? Or was it that everything had gone back to the way it had been before life intervened?

  She looked at the women sat around her, brilliant and fierce and waiting for her to speak. ‘What were all your dreams?’ she asked. ‘When we were kids. What did you want to do?’

  ‘I wanted to marry Tom Cruise,’ said Jess. Amanda recoiled. ‘Yeah, that was before I realised the whole Scientology thing.’

  ‘And the not living to get married thing!’ said Amanda.

  ‘Yeah, that too.’

  ‘Is it bad that that’s exactly what I wanted to do?’ asked Lolly.

  ‘What? Marry Tom Cruise?’

  ‘No, no. I was more a Leonardo DiCaprio kind of girl. But get married, that’s what I wanted to do. Get married and have children.’

  Jess shook her head. ‘That’s not bad. If it’s what you wanted,’ she said. ‘As opposed to you thinking that was all you were good for.’

  Lolly looked thoughtful.

  ‘And you’ve done that, right?’ As the words came out, Emily felt a pang of envy that she wasn’t expecting.

  ‘I have. Yes.’

  ‘How’s that working out for you?’ asked Amanda.

  ‘It’s… it’s fine. It’s okay. It’s good.’

  ‘You’re really selling it to us,’ said Jess.

  ‘Well, you know. It’s hard.’

  Emily watched Lolly carefully. ‘What bit’s hard?’

  ‘All of it. Sometimes!’ Lolly joked. ‘I don’t know, being married is hard sometimes. Being a mum is the hardest.’ Amanda nodded her agreement. ‘And yet I’d do it all over again,’ she said, quietly.

  Amanda took a sip of wine. ‘Would you?’

  ‘Yes. God. A million per cent, yes.’

  ‘Do you want more kids then?’ asked Jess.

  Lolly looked down into her glass before draining it of the wine. ‘You girls always could unpick me,’ she said, with a half laugh. Jess noticed the empty glass and motioned to the waiter for another. ‘I’d love more. I really would. Just…’ she paused, pushing the empty glass away from her. She looked at the girls, her eyes falling on Emily last and Emily wondered if she could sense something. If she knew. Her voice lowered, ‘I feel bad saying it. I have children. This shouldn’t even be a thing, but…’ Lolly fiddled with the stem on her empty wine glass. ‘I just really want a girl.’

  There was a beat. A moment for them to hear what she said. Before Amanda reached out her hand to Lolly’s. Emily kept hers on her belly. It felt unfamiliar. Swollen. It felt loaded.

  ‘I hate myself for saying it,’ said Lolly, apologetically. ‘I mean, people just want healthy babies, right? They don’t care. Some people are desperate. Some babies need homes. I know all that, and I get it, but I can’t help it…’ She sighed, looking out of the window. Emily followed her gaze to the grey sky above them. ‘I do want another baby. But only if it’s a girl.’

  The waiter delivered the wine.

  ‘Why a girl specifically?’ asked Emily.

  ‘I want what Jo and Mum had. What I missed out on.’ Emily noticed Lolly shifting in her seat, biting down on her bottom lip, her eyes glistening. ‘I want what they had. I want it for me. I want the bond of mother and daughter. I want to watch a mini me grow up into her own person. I want to help her become her best self.’

  The girls had rarely talked about Lolly’s mum not being there when they were
kids. None of them really having the emotional strength to know what to say, or when. Emily wasn’t sure she was any better equipped now.

  Lolly

  Lolly sat back, taking a moment to see these women before her. These women who had meant so much to her, to each other, back when they were kids. Women she’d been so out of touch with. Women with their own stories, their own lives, their own history. Did they all see the same thing – a group of friends who’d drifted? Had they thought about her as she’d so often thought about them? And was it fair of her to suddenly have this overwhelming feeling that she needed these women in her life? They’d barely been back together five minutes, she wanted to give a good impression, she wanted them to like her. She wanted to pretend she wasn’t ultimately a flawed human being, but she also wanted to tell them everything; which would contradict the ‘she’ she was presenting. Did everyone do that? Present the person they wanted others to see? She couldn’t imagine it of Emily, who sat there so composed. Or Amanda, all life and mischief, she hadn’t changed a bit.

  ‘I felt it, when I had the boys. I felt that joy of new parenthood, I did. But I felt loss too,’ said Lolly. ‘Is that awful?’ The girls all rallied with nos. It’s not awful. You can’t help how you feel, but their words did nothing to appease her. She’d never said it outright to anyone, not even Kitt. She hadn’t dared because she didn’t want to be judged. She knew she was being selfish… at least, that’s what she felt. Did the girls think it of her? Despite what they said? Would they go back to their friends or partners and tell them what she said? Would they pick apart the morality of it all? ‘And it’s silly, because parenting without your mum on hand, that’s the worst, the hardest thing.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without my mum there,’ agreed Amanda.

  Lolly smiled, sadly. ‘I miss her,’ she said. ‘Which is stupid, impossible even. I was a baby. I barely remember her, never mind remember what she ever did for me as a mother.’