Beauty Sleep

by Kathryn Evans

  “What a mess.”

  “I know! Isn’t it awful?” Marsha said, glee in every word.

  “Aren’t you upset about it?”

  “No, you idiot. Who doesn’t love a drama?”

  As I handed her phone back, it vibrated in my hand. Marsha’s face dropped and she pressed the red button, ending the call without even picking it up. I must have looked shocked because she said, “What? It’s my father – he’ll only tell me what a disappointment I am. Want to come to my room and watch a film?”

  Keisha said, “We’ve got prep in twenty minutes.”

  “You have. I’ve got a pass.”

  Marsha got up and left with a flounce. I wanted to follow her. I felt myself slipping into a familiar sense of friendship. She really did remind me of Stacey – a tiny bit wild, a tiny bit angry. It was easy to picture my life here – watching movies with Marsha, hanging on the edges of her rule breaking. In fact, it was so easy I stood up to follow her. Keisha stopped me by assuming I was heading to the prep room.

  “Why not? I’ll come with you – let’s be early and we can get a head start.”

  I sighed. I really wasn’t bad-girl material. I walked to the prep room with Keisha.

  Two hours. Two whole hours of concentrated homework. TWO HOURS. We were allowed music if our headphones weren’t too loud, but I didn’t have either music or headphones. And you know what was weird? Nobody complained. They came in, plugged their tiny ear buttons in, put their phones face down on the table and worked. Solidly. For two hours.

  I hadn’t done that much homework in a week at my old school, let alone a day. And every day. I’d been set some maths, stuff I hadn’t managed to do in class – they were way ahead of me, even though I’d been okay at my school.

  I tried to focus on the work but the numbers swam in front of me. I was surrounded by the soft patter of fingers on computers, the faint trickle of music leaking from earphones, the turning of pages – the odd sigh of despair, which I suspect came from me. I wanted to slither under the table, but in that hive of brain-bashing I was forced, at least, to try.

  The clock crawled round. I got nowhere fast with the maths so I decided to have a go at my English homework. We’d been asked to write an article about why sport was good for you. I stared at the blank slate in front of me. Maybe I could write about running, about being in the cross-country team. More accurately, the round-and-round-the-school-buildings-in-the-middle-of-town team. I made some notes about why I thought it was good for me: fresh air, freedom, power, joy, speed, thinking space…

  As I wrote, the urge to actually go out and run grew and grew. They had fields here. And the sea. It’d be proper cross-country. I wondered what the rules were about doing stuff on your own. I could stay in the grounds – that would be safe, surely. Would I be strong enough? My energy levels were still pretty low. But you had to start somewhere.

  The door to the prep room opened and a tiny white girl handed a note to the teacher supervising us. She nodded at me.

  “Call for you. House office.”

  My heart tripped over itself – the only person who’d be calling was Miss Lilly. I could ask her about Alfie, about where he was.

  I gathered up my stuff and raced to the phone.

  The receptionist handed me the phone saying, “It’s Miss Lilly’s personal assistant. She said it’s urgent.”

  I put it to my ear. “Hello.”

  “Laura?”

  I didn’t recognize the voice – it didn’t sound like Annie. “Who is this?”

  “God, Lu, I can’t believe it’s you.”

  The voice on the other end of the line let out a weird little sob. A weird little sob that I would have known anywhere. The same weird little sob she’d made when we watched The Color Purple and the two sisters got separated.

  My knees gave way. I stumbled against the desk.

  The receptionist looked concerned. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded and sat in a nearby chair. Turning my face away, I whispered into the phone, “Stacey?”

  “Lu,” she sobbed, “it’s you, after all this time.”

  I didn’t know what to say. All the betrayals, everything I’d been told she’d done, it all fell away. It wasn’t like forgiveness – I can’t even explain – just, in that moment, it felt irrelevant. I just wanted her back. I just wanted my best friend back in my life.

  I burst into tears. The receptionist got up and made her way around the desk towards me.

  Stacey said, “Lu, it’s okay. It’s going to be all right, I promise.”

  I couldn’t speak. She said, “I can’t say any more, not on the phone. I’ll find a way to get a proper message to you. Oh God, I wish I was with you. Just take care, okay? Be careful who you trust.”

  Then she hung up. I stared at the receiver. Every instinct in me had responded to the relief of having her back, like the things she’d done didn’t matter. Only they did matter, and I hadn’t asked her about any of them.

  “Is everything all right?” the receptionist asked.

  I’d almost forgotten she was there. I wondered if I should tell her it was Stacey who’d called. Would she tell Miss Lilly? Miss Lilly might think I wasn’t safe at Whitman’s if she knew Stacey had tracked me down. She definitely wouldn’t be happy about it. I said, “Yes. Thanks.”

  As I walked back to prep, the initial shock of hearing Stacey’s voice wore off. I started to wonder about what she’d said. Be careful who you trust? Was there no part of her that felt the first thing she should have said was Sorry? Wasn’t she ashamed?

  They’d all gone to dinner by the time I got back. I went to the ODR and mixed up some C-plan to take to my room. What did Stacey mean? Who was she talking about? How did she know anyone at Whitman’s? And if we were talking trust, what about what she’d done? I could almost find a way to justify her selling her story, and maybe even see what happened to Mum and Ima as an accident. But the fire? She knew we were in that building; she must have known she was putting our lives at risk.

  How dare she talk to me like none of that had happened? Anger swelled inside me, until my jaw locked tight with fury.

  I opened my slate.

  “Notitia…” I hesitated. If I said “Stacey Flowers”, would Benjie pop up in the corner of my screen to check on me? At least I had no cuff on my arm to tell him my heart was absolutely racing. I didn’t want anything to interrupt me this time, so I decided to test it out first: “Find stories about Laura Henley.”

  “Here is what I found.”

  A list of articles came up, but no Benjie. I skimmed over the ones at the top – they were all about my revival. Halfway down the page was a headline: Tragic Death of Cryo-Kids’ Two Mothers. I felt sick. The first line of the article was visible:

  Busty black-haired beauty Isabella Henley and her long-term lesbian lover, Ima McKenzie, died yesterday in a head-on collision… Click here for the rest of the article and photographs.

  I retched. There were photographs. I couldn’t read it. I took deep breaths, trying to calm down. Benjie didn’t appear, even though my heart was running on overdrive, so when I could speak without being sick, I took a risk. “Notitia, find Stacey Flowers.”

  There was still no Benjie as the list was replaced. Top of the page was an invite to find my real friends in virtual space. So not funny. I needed to know who my real friends were to do that. I scrolled down until I found a report about Stacey appearing in court. It was roughly the same date I’d seen her on telly when I was watching films with Miss Lilly. I skimmed through it.

  Stacey Flowers broke the permanent injunction against her designed to prevent all contact with Lilly Crisp of Miss Lilly Enterprises. The judge decided that, while this was a serious breach, there was no intended malice in 58-year-old Flowers’ attempts to deliver several letters by drone to Miss Crisp’s famous clinic, Blackhurst. Flowers has been given a community order and warned that if she breaks the injunction again, the court will have no choice but to return her to
prison.

  Miss Lilly declined to comment but it’s understood that she is unhappy with the judgement and is considering civil action.

  There was a picture of the woman I’d seen on the news. She was in a horrible grey suit and walking away from a court building. Her face was hidden by a slate but it had to be Stacey. I stared at it, wondering what she’d written in those letters. Maybe they’d been meant for me. It was possible, when she knew I’d been revived. Maybe she had tried to say sorry.

  “Oh God, Stacey. What a mess.”

  My brain felt like it was being carved in two with a blunt bread knife. If she’d really done those things, how could I ever forgive her? And then again, how could I not?

  Stacey was the only link I had with my past. Part of me wanted to give her a chance, to hear her side of the story. And part of me was so angry I wanted to forget she ever existed. Only she did exist and she’d called me and implied she’d get a message to me. I went back to the list of news reports.

  I was so worried about coming across something I didn’t want to see that I was super-careful which ones I read. Not careful enough though, it turned out. The next link I pulled up was an archive report on the fire at the clinic with live footage as it happened. Once I started watching, I couldn’t switch it off. The fire was horrendous – I could hardly believe it had happened to the building I knew. Smoke billowed in grey clouds against the night sky, flames licked from every window, medical staff were all over the grounds attending evacuated patients. I turned the sound on.

  “Fire crews have been on the scene since two o’clock this morning when several emergency vehicles were deployed to tackle the blaze. We can cross live now to East Grinstead police station where the suspects are being transferred.”

  “Thank you, Sarah. We believe all four suspects are from the activist group People’s Action for Animals. They waited calmly for their arrest outside the building…”

  Four people in handcuffs were being marched into the police station. They were all dressed in black but they held their heads up high and didn’t hide their faces. They looked so ordinary: two middle-aged women who could be anyone’s mum, a skinny guy, who I recognized with a jolt as the one from PAFA who Stacey had liked, and then there was a young girl with scraped-back black hair and a pale face. I leaned forward.

  It was her. Stacey with no hairspray and no eyeliner. I touched the screen.

  She looked like a child. Tears were streaming down her face.

  “What were you thinking, Stace? What made you do it?” A hot tear rolled down my cheek and plopped onto my arm.

  I didn’t want to watch any more. My anger had softened into something else, something desperately sad.

  I flicked away the video and my slate went back to the list of results. I hovered a fingertip over the link that asked me if I wanted to find my real friends, then I pinched it up.

  Notitia said, “You are not a registered user of Real World Connexions. Would you like me to use your stored data to register?”

  I stared at it for ages; my bottom lip wobbled. Could I bear to make contact after everything she’d done? Could I really forgive her? I said, “No.”

  Then, “Wait, yes.”

  Before I had time to change my mind again, Notitia said, “You are registered as Laura Henley. You are under eighteen, so you do not have access to TouchTime. All other functions are working properly. You have one contact listed. Would you like me to see if they are on Real World Connexions?”

  That contact had to be Miss Lilly.

  “No,” I said. “Notitia, find Stacey Flowers on Real World Connexions.”

  I held my breath but still no Benjie popped up to check on me. Thank God I didn’t have that cuff on any more. Notitia gave me a long list of potential Staceys.

  Stacey Flowers – definitely a man. Nope.

  Stacey Flowers with no picture – maybe.

  A blonde girl sticking out her chest and sucking in her very tiny, potentially-devoid-of-ribs stomach. Don’t think so.

  Then…me.

  Well, me and her. Next to Stacey’s name was a picture her mum had taken of us on the steps outside their flat. Stacey looked sulky, her hair was backcombed within an inch of its life and she’d got so much black eyeliner on you could barely see her actual eyes. We’d been on our way to the record shop to spy on the lad who worked there. Stace really fancied him and wasn’t interesting in stopping for a photo call.

  My finger hovered over the image.

  Notitia said, “Is this the Stacey Flowers you want to connect with?”

  After all this time, Stacey chose a picture of the two of us as the face she showed the world. Was it because she missed me and had never got over losing me? Or was it because she wanted to cash in on my fame? She’d done that once already, when she’d sold our story to the press. My head was a mess – anger pulsed side by side with love for my friend. I needed to understand why she’d done what she’d done. I needed to speak to her. I said, “Yes.”

  “We have sent your request.”

  I stared at the screen, amazed that you could find people and connect with them just like that. The future had brought things me and Stacey hadn’t even imagined – and we’d imagined our whole lives. I was going to manage Topshop and have two cats and live in my own flat with all the latest stuff – video player, fax machine, leather sofa and maybe a mobile phone. I let out a snort of laughter. The mobile phones then were as big as bricks.

  What had Stacey’s life become? I was pretty sure she hadn’t married the lead singer of The Cure. She’d always said her dream was an endless life of gigs and parties, but I knew what she really wanted was a happy family, a home, someone to love her. Did she ever find anyone who understood her like I did? Like I’d thought I did.

  I wished I’d said goodbye properly. The last conversation we’d had, my head had been throbbing so much I couldn’t see. She’d held my hand and joked that I was just trying to get Record Shop Boy to feel sorry for me. Then she’d whispered, “Don’t leave me, Lu.”

  My heart turned inside out remembering.

  How would I have felt if it had been me left behind? Devastated. Absolutely lost. Who knows how I’d have reacted? What I’d have done.

  I was so confused.

  I put YouTube on and, very quietly, played “The Lovecats”, wondering what I was going to say when she accepted my request. I didn’t doubt for a second that she would.

  I glanced out of the window. It was dusk and the waves wore glints of moonlight. I opened the window, careful not to let it get caught by the wind. A cool, soft-salted breeze freshened the air. I lay down for a second, but after the night of thunder I was exhausted and I fell asleep, dreaming of the beach, and of Stacey, and of a life that felt like yesterday but was decades ago.

  I woke with a start to find the sun already up and an image spinning over my slate. She’d responded.

  Stacey Flowers has accepted your request.

  A page of posts loaded, all about us. Birthday wishes. Christmas wishes. A lifetime of remembering our friendship. An envelope hovered over the page. I pinched it open.

  Lu, I’m not sure this is safe. They say it’s encrypted but I’ve learned to be careful. I can’t resist though. It’s you, it’s really you after all this time. It was so good to hear your voice – I can’t even tell you.

  There was a break and then:

  Are you okay? I’ve missed you so much – I’ve practically built a career out of trying to find out what really happened to you. I am SO happy. No, that’s the wrong word – relieved, overjoyed, I can’t believe you’re alive. Really, actually alive. Message me. Don’t mention any names though. Missed you so much, S xxx

  What did she mean, what really happened to me? The whole world knew what really happened to me. Someone banged on my door. I quickly typed:

  I can’t talk now. I’ll message later. There are things I need to understand. Laura.

  Marsha stuck her head around my door. “Breakfast, sleepyhead. D
idn’t you set your alarm?”

  I shook my head. “Give me a couple of minutes.”

  “What are you doing?” She peered at my slate.

  I stood in front of it. “Nothing. Homework. I had to finish my English. I was writing about running.”

  Don’t ask me why I lied. Stacey’s paranoia must have rubbed off a bit.

  “Why running?”

  “I don’t know. I just like it. It makes me feel good.”

  “Makes you feel knackered, more like.”

  As we walked to the kitchen I said, “Would they let me run around the playing field, do you think? The one that goes down to the sea?”

  Keisha appeared and said, “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Escape,” drawled Marsha, yawning widely. “She wants to run away from you.”

  Keisha said, “You were talking to Yuri late, weren’t you, Marsha?”

  She said “Yuri” in a strange way – I couldn’t quite work out what she was getting at.

  “Oh do shut up.” Marsha slumped at the table. “Someone make me tea.”

  Keisha made tea for everyone. As Marsha revived, and the kettle boiled for the second time, I asked again, “So can you? Just go running?”

  Keisha said, “I should think so. Check with Madam but they’ll probably be pleased.”

  “Oh yes,” Marsha said. “They’ll wee themselves to have someone vaguely sporty in the house.”

  “WHO’S SPORTY?” boomed Suki, who’d just bounced into the room. “Oh, you? Netball girl. Why didn’t you show up for try-outs?”

  I’d forgotten all about them, that’s why.

  “Sorry, first day and all, I didn’t know where to go.”

  “Not to worry, always the weekend.”

  “Actually, I was asking about running.”

  “Running? Runner, are you? Oh well, can’t see anyone objecting as long as you don’t miss prep. Or try-outs. Right, who’s coming to the dining room for porridge?”

  Later, as we headed to our form room, Keisha juggled with a massive pile of books. She looked like she might keel over backwards and be squashed under them, so I said, “Here, let me help.”