Friday Night With The Girls: A tale that will make you laugh, cry and call your best friend!

by Shari Low

  ‘I know, but it’s just been . . .’ More tears. Only when they stopped did she tell me about how Adam had been distant, moody. How he still had time for the kids, but not for her. How they hadn’t had sex for months. How she sometimes caught him looking at her like she was a stranger he barely knew.

  ‘Do you think . . .’ I hated to ask but it had to be broached. ‘Has he met another woman?’

  ‘No!’ Her reply was emphatic. ‘He swore that he hasn’t and I believe him. You know Adam, Lou, he’s so sweet, so caring – I honestly don’t think he’d do that to us.’

  She was right. There was no way he was out on the town on the pull. Absolutely not. A memory suddenly niggled – something that Marc had told me months ago. That he’d seen . . .

  ‘Is the coast clear yet?’ Red’s head popped back in the door and Lizzy dried her face again, put on a huge smile and nodded. ‘Absolutely. We’ve now reverted to our default position of flippant humour and false bravado.’

  ‘Excellent. Although, you know if you ever need anything I’m here for you, Liz.’ Aw, so lovely. But, aware that he was straying into that dangerous minefield of female touchy feely territory, Red still looked mildly terrified.

  ‘OK, so I’ve got an idea,’ I said, more out of a need to cheer us all up than anything else. ‘I think we’re going down the wrong track with the music. I’m bringing in a Westlife CD tomorrow. Or Celine Dion. She bloody hates her.’

  Red smiled. ‘Mariah Carey. Or New Kids on the Block. Or who’s that guy with the really bad hair?’

  ‘Michael Bolton!’ Lizzy cried. ‘You’re right. That would do it. Sheer bloody outrage would make her wake up.’

  We lapsed into comfortable silence again, as I gently stroked my finger along Ginger’s arm, lost in the hypnotic motion of the movement, just wishing for change, for something . . . Beside me, Lizzy was singing the chorus of ‘Time, Love and Tenderness.’

  ‘Lou,’ Red said, a little louder than normal. Suddenly the steady beep of the heart monitor increased pace. ‘Lou, I think . . . Get a doctor! Quick, get someone!’

  He jumped up and shot to her side, his hand instinctively going to her shoulder, holding her.

  I was already at the door and had thrown it open by the time he finished speaking.

  ‘I think she’s waking up, Lou. Michael fucking Bolton, I think she’s waking up!’

  There was a flurry of activity as doctors and nurses flocked around her and we retreated outside to let them work, praying the whole time. It was a couple of hours before they let us back in again and the sight in front of us was incredible. Sure, she was pale, and skinny and her hair had taken on hedge-like proportions, but she was awake.

  ‘So,’ she murmured questioningly while staring intently at us. I was prepared for this. Maybe she wouldn’t remember us. Maybe she would be altered, confused. She might even be frustrated or angry. We had to be ready to handle whatever changes had occurred and we would do it. If the last couple of weeks had reinforced anything, it was how much we loved each other and needed to pull together, be there for each other, provide a solid support system – and many more of those touchy feely phrases that made Red and Ginger deeply uncomfortable. It was obviously something in their genetic make-up.

  OK, Ginger, hit us with it. Whatever you need, we’re here. Anything.

  ‘So,’ she repeated. ‘What did I miss?’

  Twenty-eight

  ‘Hey, how’s the patient today?’ I asked as I breezed in, carrying a huge bunch of bright yellow sunflowers that I knew would put everyone in a happy mood.

  Ginger practically growled her reply. ‘About to hunt down whoever makes the food in this place and stick their mash potato scoop where it hurts.’

  It would seem that I’d vastly overestimated the power of the sunflower. ‘So let’s see: rude, aggressive, impatient, volatile – honey, I think you’re almost back to normal.’

  Despite herself, she smiled. ‘Almost?’

  I nodded to the pink, flannelette Spandau Ballet nightgown that Moira had retrieved from the box in her loft containing Ginger’s teenage bedwear. ‘Yep, your tits aren’t hanging out of a Wonderbra yet.’

  I moved quickly to dodge the flying pillow.

  ‘Any word on when you’re getting out of here? I think Ike is desperate to get you home.’

  ‘Hopefully the weekend. The sight of these four walls is driving me insane.’

  Three weeks and four days she’d been in hospital and staff, her family and everyone within 100 feet had been informed in no uncertain terms that she was going a little stir crazy. Ginger didn’t do solitary. She didn’t do hospital food. And she didn’t do . . .

  ‘Urgh, I need a drink.’

  . . . teetotal.

  ‘What?’ I froze for a second while I processed this latest little nugget of information, then gently placed the sunflowers on the table and turned to face her. ‘Are you kidding me?’

  Without a scrap of make-up on, her ivory skin looked almost alabaster and for a moment I got a flashback of the girl who used to hang out of my bedroom window with her menthol cigarette dangling from her bottom lip, vodka and fresh orange in hand, thinking she was the coolest chick ever. If this was a movie scene, I’d pine for the sweet, un-jaded child of yesteryear. But the reality was that Ginger had never been sweet or un-jaded. She’d been born fierce and argumentative and I had a hunch that was why no one had ever said what I was about to say now.

  ‘Ginger, you have got to cut back on the booze. I’m sorry, honey, but come on, you would never have fallen if you hadn’t been completely pissed.’

  Her Spandau Ballet nightgown inflated as indignation made her sit up straighter and take a deep breath.

  ‘Pardon?’

  Oh God, she had hurt and anger written all over her face. This wasn’t going to end well. But I’d done a whole lot of thinking during all those hours that I’d sat by her bedside and I’d come to a realisation that horrified me. It was time to share it, because if something like this happened again for the same reasons I’d never forgive myself.

  ‘Ginger, I’m sorry – and I’m only saying this because I really care about you – but I can’t remember a single night out that we’ve ever had that you haven’t been pissed. Every night, every special occasion, every birthday, every Christmas . . . It has to stop.’

  I was crying now. And not just because I was terrified that each word could be my last because I could see from her expression that she was about to unleash the wrath of Ginge.

  ‘Lou is right.’ The voice came from the doorway and we both turned to see Red standing there clutching two buckets from KFC. ‘She is. Don’t look at me like that, sis. You can kill me, but if you do I’m taking the chicken down with me.’

  It was the perfect thing to say to diffuse the situation and although I’m sure a SWAT tactical team would have advised against it, I dived towards the source of danger and clutched the one arm that wasn’t in bandages.

  ‘Look, I’m not going to give you some big lecture, but just think about it OK?’

  It must have been a trick of the light but I was sure I could see tears welling up in her eyes. She immediately switched attention to Red. Or rather, to the package he was carrying. ‘Eight pieces and fries?’

  He nodded as he pulled her bed table over and ceremoniously put one the buckets in the middle, before producing a can of Irn-Bru from his pocket. Scotland’s other national drink. If we were a tribe, this was the potion that we truly believed could cure everything from hangovers to broken hearts.

  She withdrew her good arm. ‘I hear what you’re saying, Lou, but I’m fine, honestly.’ Her gaze locked on to mine and I could see that she’d listened. I also knew to quit while I was ahead because if she was backed into a corner or a confrontation, she’d come out fighting. I’d raised the subject, now it was time to leave her to think about what I’d said.

  The vase of sunflowers had been arranged and half a chicken drumstick had been devoured before she sat back and h
it us with her most infectious smile. I said a silent prayer of thanks that she hadn’t gone down the fury and retribution route.

  ‘So since we’re on the subject of home truths and long-term issues . . .’ she started. Her stare was levelled directly at me and my heart sank. Bloody spoke too soon. OK, what was it? The fact that I’d stolen a tenner from my mother’s purse when I was nine? The uncomfortable truth that I’d once shagged Marc in a toilet on board the Glasgow to London shuttle? My secret fear of clowns?

  Just as I was about to tell her to get it out and put me out of my misery, her eyes went to Red.

  ‘Are you ever going to tell Lou your little secret?’

  I swear his face turned redder than his hair, which you would think would be quite disturbing in a ‘too long in a sauna’ kind of way, but it actually looked endearingly cute.

  Oooh, this was obviously going to be good. Ginger’s wicked smile and his uncomfortable squirm combined to give this the promise of a spectacular piece of gossip or scandal. I folded my arms and looked at him expectantly, glad that for once the heat wasn’t directed at me.

  ‘Shut up,’ he told her, his voice uncommonly low and thick with warning.

  ‘Why? Not the right moment? I could give you a quick chorus of “Endless Love” if that will help set the mood.’

  Her raucous cackle made it obvious that she was loving every second of this.

  Ginger inhaled dramatically, tossed her hair back in the divaesque fashion of Diana Ross and let rip with ‘My lov –’ The perfectly pitched notes rang out and Red snapped.

  ‘OK! Enough! Fine.’

  I felt sorry for him, I did. But the compassion was being battered to death by an insatiable curiosity as to what the big secret was.

  ‘The thing is . . . The thing . . . It’s just that . . .’

  Bloody hell, he couldn’t even look either of us in the eye. I’d never seen him like this before. Red was normally the most laid-back guy you could ever meet, the antithesis of his sister and proof that – other than in the area of the hair follicle – genetics meant nothing.

  ‘OK, so the thing is . . . it’s . . .’

  It’s what? What?

  Ginger looked at her bucket, back to Red, then back to her bucket again. ‘Would you hurry up? My chicken’s getting cold. Och, never mind, I’ll do it. You men are bloody hopeless.’

  ‘Ginger, don’t . . .’

  ‘What my big hunk of inarticulate brother is trying to say,’ she told me, ‘is that he’s totally had a thing for you for years. Now can someone open my Irn-Bru because I can’t do it with only one bloody hand?’

  ‘You have a “thing” for me? What kind of “thing”? And can you put the bucket down because I can’t have this conversation when you’re holding chicken.’

  ‘Give me the bloody chicken!’ Ginger demanded.

  Red put it down on her wheelie table and then took a step towards me.

  Ginger sighed. ‘I can’t look. Honestly, how is someone in their sickbed supposed to eat when this kind of mush is going on?’

  ‘Ginger, shut up or I’m having the doctor put you back in a coma,’ I warned.

  ‘The thing is . . . I kind of . . . love you.’

  ‘You do? Since when?’ My heart was actually hammering now. Hammering. Like in the romcoms, right at the end when there’s a big fat happy ending.

  ‘Since I changed your tyre that night. You were wearing a white top and it was raining and . . .’

  I racked my brain. Tyre. When? Then, in a retrotastic, shoulder-padded flashback, it came to me . . .

  ‘Oh my God, we were eighteen!’ My hands flew to my face as the memories returned. That was the night I caught Charlie at the airport with another girl, crashed my car and my heart. ‘That was one of the worst nights of my life.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  ‘I don’t mean you. That was the night that . . . oh, bloody hell let’s not go there. Were you ever going to do anything about it?’

  ‘Erm, sure. One day. And, Ginger, shut up, we can hear you groaning,’ he said, his voice full of nervous anxiety.

  ‘You’ve seriously been in love with me since we were eighteen? Ginger, did you know about this?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said while masticating a chicken wing. ‘I’d never have been able to keep that quiet. I just realised because he’s been like a pathetic poodle, hanging on your every word since I woke up.’

  ‘Sis, you’re not helping my case here,’ Red told her.

  ‘Sorry,’ she replied. ‘I’ll just stick to my lunch. You two carry on.’

  ‘So, do you think we can maybe try this out? Us? Would that work?’ he asked.

  I didn’t even have to think about it because I’d realised a few home truths in the last couple of weeks too. I’d been a workaholic for far too long. I loved every single thing about my salon. It was who I was. It was my life. But it was time to start making room for other stuff too. I had to devote more time to my friends and family. It was time to find a balance between my work and my personal life. Sure, I’d contemplated it and made token gestures over the years, but now I had to do something about making personal stuff a priority. And Red?

  That was one priority I didn’t even have to think twice about adopting because somewhere in the last month I’d realised that he was the single, most incredible guy I’d ever known.

  ‘I definitely think we could try it out,’ I told him as I leaned over to kiss him.

  ‘Nurse!’ came a voice from the bed. ‘Do you have anything for spontaneous gagging?’

  We left the hospital and headed to the car park, both of us suddenly too stunned to speak. He fancied me? Really? So much for my perception skills. I’d honestly had no idea. When we reached the car park, he walked me to my car and I suddenly got a completely pubescent dose of nerves. What did we do now? Was he already regretting what he’d said? Had Ginger forced a hand he wouldn’t otherwise have played?

  Don’t say anything, I warned myself. Do. Not. Speak.

  The sight in front of me was such a paradox. On the outside, butch West of Scotland male. Handsome, incredibly wide shoulders, flat abs, wearing a T-shirt, black jeans and boots. His style hadn’t changed very much in the last decade – only the cut of the jeans and the style of the boots had altered in line with fashion trends and income. Gone were the flares and the drainpipes of the last couple of decades, now he wore biker boots and straight-legged denims with a subtle Armani insignia on the back. I’d noticed. But back to my point. The outside was all macho, together, man of the moment, but on the inside I still saw Red, Ginger’s big brother, the teenager who covered for us when we were kids in trouble and who was far too cool to want anything to do with us screaming adolescents.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ I blurted. So much for the whole ‘do not speak’ resolution.

  ‘Yeah.’ Did I mention that he’d always been a man of few words?

  ‘So why didn’t you say anything before?’

  He shrugged. ‘I was kinda busy. And far away.’

  ‘But you’re here now,’ I stated the obvious. Where did that come from? He lived hundreds of miles away. There was a good chance Ginger would kill me and feast on my organs. It didn’t work on any level. And yet . . .

  ‘I am,’ he agreed, moving now towards me. Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh bloody crapness. I could run. I could laugh and claim that I was joking. We’d laugh. He’d say goodbye. I’d go back to seeing him at weddings, funerals and prolonged comas. Or I could . . .

  Twenty-nine

  ‘I almost got married here once,’ I told Red, as we sat in a tiny wooden boat in the middle of the lake in Central Park. I tried to ignore the swirling feeling in my stomach. I was sure I’d heard an old tale that you couldn’t get seasick as long as you could see land. They’d lied. I was feeling decidedly dodgy despite the fact that I could see land, dozens of tourists, and 350 revellers celebrating a bar mitzvah in the Boathouse Restaurant to our left. Red had no clue what a bad idea it was to be lyin
g with his head on my lap, potentially in direct line of fire.

  Red removed the hat that was shielding his face from the sun and looked up at me. ‘So what happened?’

  ‘I jumped out of the cab at St Patrick’s Cathedral and hid in an Armenian pizza restaurant.’

  ‘That’s crazy,’ he laughed.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’d no idea that Armenians specialised in pizza.’

  I snatched the hat and pushed it back down over his face, then stretched my neck back and soaked up the sun. Cheeky bugger boyfriend and possible vomit situation aside, this was bliss. Bliss. And so, so different from the last time I was here.

  Only three months into Red’s new job at the Daily World, he’d been sent to New York to cover Tartan Week, a celebration of all things Scottish culminating in a parade that saw hundreds of pipers march through the streets. I’d been thrilled when he asked me to tag along. To be honest, my giddy highlight of the trip so far was getting a look at Sean Connery as he kicked off the ceremonies. Although, I was only now getting over my disappointment that Red refused my request for a mantra of ‘shaken not stirred’ in bed that night.

  Yep, in bed. Me. And Ginger’s big brother. I still wasn’t anywhere even close to getting used to it and neither was Ginger, who – despite igniting the fire – claimed the very thought of me and her brother together still made her retch.

  Thinking about that first night outside the hospital still brought on the most delicious hormonal surge. From the moment he’d kissed me it was a done deal for both of us. He’d quit his job the following week, secured a new position with the company’s sister newspaper in Glasgow, and moved in with me at Mouthwash Towers. I’m not sure we even discussed any of it in advance, but every single thing about it just felt, well, right. Perfect. And not in a Mills and Boon way, but in a comfortable, no pressure, be exactly who you are kind of way. I never had to dress up and go out. Or pretend to like things that I didn’t. Or act brave when I was terrified. Red just let me be. No demands, no stress, just . . . bliss.