‘Franny, please, can’t we just put all this behind us? What we had isn’t worth throwing away over some guy. Especially not Louis. Yes, he’s supercute, but some things are more important than supercute.’
‘I told you that!’ I said indignantly. Louis had been a beautiful distraction from all the scary parts of my life, but I had to start dealing with them and God, he was dumb as a box of rocks and I really needed to put all my energy into getting my BTEC so I couldn’t be doing with any boy-shaped roadblocks. Even when they were as pretty as Louis. ‘Though I have to say I never expected Louis to be supernice as well as being supercute.’
‘Yeah, I thought he’d be quite up himself but he’s not at all,’ Alice agreed with a nervous smile like she was going to agree with everything I said until things were right between us. In which case she was going to have to do a lot of nodding and a lot of agreeing because I still wasn’t convinced that things could ever be right. Too much stuff had happened. Shit had got too real.
I didn’t begin to know how to tell Alice that but then she glanced down at the stiff white bag with the ribbon handles, gave an ear-perforating shriek and started jumping up and down even though she was wearing hoochie heels. ‘Oh! My! God! What the what? Where did you get that? Why is it bulging? What’s inside it? Franny, where have you been and what have you been doing?’
I realised that I was jumping up and down too because all that best friend DNA was still in my system and Alice was the one person who would understand how huge, how absolutely hugely major it was that ‘I totally met Martin Sanderson and I hung out with his Creative Director and she made me tea and toast and gave me fabric and this coat and I think she might help me with my fashion degree.’
I thought Alice’s eyes might pop out of their sockets. ‘Shut. Up!’
‘No, I won’t shut up! Jesus.’ I covered my face with my hands. ‘Oh my God! I can hardly believe it myself.’
And this time when we hugged, it was mutual hugging and then I took Alice’s hand and we ran down the crowded street screaming at the top of our vocal registers and bashing into anyone who got in our way.
It was the same obnoxious way we behaved back in Merrycliffe. I’d really missed it.
We came to a breathless, panting halt outside a Caffè Nero and didn’t even have an awkward stilted conversation about whether we were friends any more or if we should go to Starbucks instead. We bolted inside and Alice joined the queue while I positioned myself by a table where one middle-aged man was sitting with an empty cup. If I couldn’t get him to shift through the medium of ferocious glaring then I didn’t deserve to call myself a teenage girl.
By the time Alice turned up with a laden tray, he’d slunk off and we could spread out though we kept a tight grip on our bags because there were signs everywhere informing us that pickpockets operated in the area.
Then it was a bit awk but I knew it was my turn to meet Alice somewhere in the middle. ‘I thought I hated you and that I never wanted anything to do with you ever again, but actually I don’t know how to stop being friends with you.’
Alice smiled that slinky cat-like smile then her shoulders slumped. ‘You’ve got your new fashion friends now and you’re well in with Thee Desperadettes.’ She started to crumble her triple chocolate muffin. ‘I know I denied it at the time but that’s why I went after Louis even though I knew it would piss you off. ’Cause I knew I was going to lose you anyway, so on some level I thought I might as well make it sooner rather than later.’
‘But you haven’t lost me. I wasn’t planning on dumping you, Alice. Just because I might have new friends doesn’t make what we have together, like, less…’ It was hard to put it into words. ‘I don’t have a set amount of friendshipness to give out.’
‘But it’s always been the two of us and you might have new friends but all I have is you.’ Alice pushed away her muffin. ‘At school I have no one to hang with apart from lame boys who want to get into my pants, then when I do get to hang with you, you drag along that goth, Cora…’
‘She’s into Steampunk and her name’s Dora…’
Alice rolled her eyes. ‘Whevs. I am so lonely I could die from it.’
‘Oh, Alice.’ I put my arm round her very carefully so I didn’t put any pressure whatsoever on my coat seams. ‘You’re funny haha and funny weird and you’re excellent at doing my nails and inventing dance routines. You’d have loads of friends if you hadn’t alienated every single girl in Merrycliffe by making off with their boyfriends.’
‘Well, they can’t be very boyfriendly if they’re up for being made off with,’ Alice muttered and we’d been here before but this time we had to dig down deep enough to get to the roots.
‘What’s the point though? C’mon, you only have to look in the mirror to see that you’re hot. It’s not like you need to get with boys to prove it.’
‘Being hot is the only thing I’ve got,’ Alice said grimly. ‘It’s all right for you. You’re cool, everyone thinks so, and it’s so obvious you’re going to rule fashion when you’re grown up and you can eat what you like and never put on any weight. I always feel like your sidekick. Like the junior partner. So, if being sexy is my USP, then God, I’m going to work it.’
I would have said, even now, despite everything that had happened, that I knew Alice better than anyone. Maybe even better than I knew myself because my ability to act like a twat always took me by surprise, but this was a side of Alice I’d never seen before. ‘I didn’t know you felt like that,’ I said slowly. ‘’Cause I often thought that people treated me like I was your sidekick. Well, boys do when they trot over to ask if I’ll put a good word in. Every time we go out, I end up on my own because you’ve copped off with someone.’
‘But I always leave with you,’ Alice protested, but it wasn’t with her usual gusto.
‘Anyways, we’re sixteen, we don’t have to have everything figured out. Yeah, I know what I want but I still don’t know if I’ll get it.’ I couldn’t help but look down at the cardboard bag with Martin Sanderson’s name on it.
‘Yeah, you will.’ Alice pursed her lips extra tight and didn’t even notice the boys queuing up to order coffee, who were staring at her longingly. ‘About your hair…’
I held up a hand to my head. ‘What about my hair?’ I was still cross about it and I couldn’t see that changing any time soon.
‘I didn’t do it on purpose. Well, I don’t think I did. Maybe it was five per cent on purpose but, like, subconsciously. I’d spoken to my mum the week before about wanting to be a hairdresser. Properly. Going to college and everything and she just laughed and said that I couldn’t even master doing a chignon on the practice head in the salon. Even Dad said that it wasn’t such a great career and I should concentrate on Business Studies,’ Alice recalled bitterly. ‘I wanted to prove that I did have what it took. I’ve watched other people cutting hair all my life and I started out genuinely thinking I’d do this amazing job. I could see exactly the way your hair was going to be but when I started cutting it, it all went wrong. I really am sorry, Franny.’
‘Well, it’s not so bad now that it’s grown out.’ I ran a hand through my hair again. ‘I quite like it now. Looks OK when I tie it back with a scarf.’
‘Yeah, I thought that was a good look for you.’ Alice sighed. ‘I was going to do the hair, that was the plan. You were going to be the famous fashion designer and I was going to be the famous hair person. And the really sick thing is that the only other thing I’m really good at besides being sexy is Business Studies.’ She pulled a disgusted face. ‘I have a knack for figures and I totally get supply and demand and why it’s important to have brand extensions. It’s not exactly cool, is it?’
‘But if I do ever get to be a famous fashion designer then I’m totally going to need a Business Manager,’ I said very carefully because this really wasn’t about me.
Alice smiled just as carefully. ‘Yeah? That’s true. I suppose that would make being good at Business Studies sort of c
ool. So, the hair thing – are you going to let it go?’
‘Yeah, but only because the bald spot has grown out now, otherwise I wouldn’t be so sure.’ I guessed we were well on the way to becoming best friends again. Though being best friends with Alice didn’t feel like a choice I had, we just were, even now. Er, even though she was suddenly giving me evils.
‘What? What have I done?’
‘OK, while we’re sorting out stuff: you turning up at The Wow with Raj was really harsh, Franny. Really, really harsh.’
I couldn’t see why it was that harsh. ‘You two hating each other is really old news. I mean, you went out with him for a week or something…’
‘I saw him for nearly two months actually,’ Alice informed me snottily as she folded her arms. I didn’t remember them going out for that long. Nearly two months for Alice was like three years for any other girl. ‘I only broke up with him because of you. I chose you over him.’
‘What did I do?’ I asked again, because I’d never shown any interest in Raj as anything other than a mate and my employers’ son, who could be a laugh when he wasn’t pretending he was gangsta. ‘I have never, ever fancied him. Ugh! As if! It would be like perving on my own brother.’
‘That’s exactly why I broke up with Raj!’ Alice pointed an accusatory finger at my expression of sheer revulsion. ‘You kept telling me I could do better than someone who called me his “ho” but he only did that as a joke and I called him a “ho” too. And you moaned on about how awkward it was that I was sucking face with Raj when you worked for his parents and how you never got to see me on my own and you were already sad about Shuv leaving home and all that stuff with your mum and I hated that I’d made you even sadder so I told Raj he was a crap snog and I dumped him.’
‘Oh,’ I said, because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. ‘Oh. I never realised. I’m sorry.’
‘Well, it’s OK. I’m kind of over it now,’ Alice said but her cheeks were red and she was wearing a pretty definite scowl.
‘You really aren’t over it though, are you?’ Alice had completely blindsided me. ‘I really don’t remember you going out for that long.’
‘Well, Franny, it’s because I might have all the boys but you have all the feelings. There’s no room for me to go through difficult stuff because your stuff is always more difficult than mine,’ Alice said. She looked guilty but also determined, like she had to say this no matter how painful it was and I had to listen to it. ‘I know that the situation with your mum is the pits and I really don’t think you’re like her, I just said that because I was furious with you, but even before you got all your new college mates I felt like I was halfway to losing you.’
‘I didn’t know any of this,’ I insisted but was that the honest truth? Even as I said it, I was rewinding key scenes from the last two years. Alice was in most of them but I was somewhere else; either worrying about my mum or designing a dress in my head that would distract me from the knotty feeling in my stomach for an hour at least. ‘I wish I could say that I’d change. That things will be different and I won’t get so absorbed in my own problems, but she needs to change for me to be able to do that.’
The Martin Sanderson high was fading now, almost gone, and reality had me firmly back in its icy clutches. A reality where I’d go back to Merrycliffe because I didn’t have much choice and it would be like the argument had never happened. Dad would go away for weeks and weeks and Mum would get worse and worse and I couldn’t just ignore it if it seemed like she was going to top herself or something. ‘I have to go to college now, Mum, please try not to kill yourself for the next few hours.’
‘Maybe things will be better,’ Alice suggested weakly. ‘Your dad keeps calling me. Have you blocked his number too? By the way, you need to stop doing that. It’s so passive-aggressive.’
I flushed. ‘Well, yeah. What has he said to you?’
‘Now that he’s established that technically I’m with you, he keeps ringing to speak to you. Says it’s urgent and I could hardly tell him that we’d said loads of evil things to each other and that you’d run off on your own, even though it was your first time in London and we manage to get completely lost whenever we go to Blackpool. I had to keep saying you were in the loo.’
‘Did he sound angry?’ I couldn’t help but cringe.
Alice shook her head. ‘More like he’s worried about you being violated by the rock group you said you were running away with. Somehow, I can’t imagine Thee Desperadoes violating anything except a Ginster’s pasty.’
‘True that.’ I hoped our friendship wasn’t like the crumbled muffin debris scattered over our napkins. That our AliceandFrannyness could become whole again. Maybe different to how it had been but still there. ‘Alice, I’m sorry for not seeing that we were starting to fall apart. I can’t promise that everything will get fixed, but I still love you. Do you still love me?’
‘Of course I do,’ she said right away, like she didn’t even have to think about it. Then she did think about it. ‘But not in a lezzy way.’
I shook my head. ‘Goes without saying.’
It was time to leave Caffè Nero because we were both hungry for something a bit more substantial than a triple chocolate muffin that had been mashed beyond repair.
We gathered up our stuff and left, just in time to bump into Thee Desperadettes.
‘Franny B!’ they all pretty much said in unison. ‘Where have you been?’
I wasn’t sure they’d appreciate the amazingness that was my afternoon with Jamie or EVEN believe that I’d hung out in the flat above Martin Sanderson’s shop. Besides, it was cool to share a secret with Alice again. ‘I went to Notting Hill on the bus. Two pounds forty! Can you believe it?’
They couldn’t. They also couldn’t believe Alice and I were hanging out together of our own free will. I pushed her forward. Alice was wearing her bitchface, which transformed into a pout when I poked her in the ribs and glared at her. ‘OK, I’m swearing off boys who are already going out with someone,’ she said sulkily. ‘Though any boy who dumps his girlfriend without a second thought isn’t worth washing our hair for. Right?’
Alice logic was hard to deny. ‘We’re friends again,’ I said, and I hoped that might seal the deal though Thee Desperadettes, particularly Bethany, didn’t seem that convinced. ‘Not only does she have mad boy-whispering skillz, but Alice once made me laugh so hard that I wet myself.’
‘I did,’ Alice said. ‘Though one time Franny baked some banana cupcakes that made me vom so we’re pretty even when it comes to bodily fluids.’
‘She doesn’t bite when you get to know her,’ I said to Lexy because Lexy was the unofficial leader of Thee Desperadettes. Once you got Lexy on side, the rest usually followed, although Bethany was giving Alice side eye like it would be a long, long time before she rolled out the welcome mat.
Lexy nodded coolly at Alice like she was on probation, then turned to me. ‘We wanted to get some tea but we went to a fish and chip shop ’cause everywhere else was quite scary and they wanted eleven fifty for haddock and chips. The haddock was the size of a fish finger.’
‘Eleven fifty!’ Kirsten and Bethany echoed.
‘I did some research this week for places to go in Camden and there’s this chain called Wagamama. It does noodles and Japanese stuff but it doesn’t seem too fancy. Bit spendy though,’ I said, pulling out my BlackBerry. ‘It’s on Jamestown Street. Where’s that?’
When we got to Wagamama, we discovered it was communal dining, but there were six of us sitting on one large table so it wasn’t that communal, especially when Lexy got a text from the boys, who wanted to meet up and get some tea as well.
Louis! That was the one thing me and Alice still had to sort out and now I remembered the way I’d angrily removed his comforting hand. Yeah, I was reliving the scene in the minibus in a slo-mo action replay, including the bit when Louis had told me that I wasn’t sexy.
It was all right now because I was in a girlspace. Girl
s knew when there was stuff you didn’t want to talk about but I’d learned very quickly over the last few weeks that despite what Francis had said, boys weren’t as evolved as us. Or Louis wasn’t.
But what Louis might think of me didn’t seem as important as what Francis must have thought as he heard me screech horrible things at Alice. Then I’d run away and brought all this drama when he really needed a stress-free weekend in London away from all the horrors of home.
My stomach was doing the knotty thing again and suddenly the plan to have a bowl of teriyaki salmon ramen, which came with something described as a tea-stained egg, wasn’t such a great idea. Not when I felt like I might hurl.
‘So, what happened after I left?’ I hissed at Alice, who was having a slightly stilted conversation with Kirsten. ‘What did the boys say?’
The Worst Girlfriend in the World Page 25
