'Knightley,' he says, running his fingers through his hair. 'Oh, Brittany. What a nice surprise.'
My head, which had sunk as I checked the sogginess of my cornflakes, snaps up. Why is Brittany calling Will?
'How’s the family?' Will’s saying. 'Good. Yes, Mel said. Yes, she is here. I’ll just pass you over.'
Will holds out the phone to me. I eye it like it’s a wasp’s nest, but take it reluctantly.
'Brittany,' I say, in the most civil tone I can muster. There may also be a touch of apprehension in my voice. I haven’t spoken to her since my outburst at our parents’ house.
'Hello, Mel,' she says.
Weird on two counts. She used my nickname and the voice that was syrupy is now…I don’t know, jammy maybe. I’m fairly fond of jam, actually.
Musn’t be taken in though. Mustn’t be caught off guard.
'I was wondering,' Brittany says, a little hesitantly. 'If you’re not too busy…'
She’s good. She sounds really awkward. I almost trust her.
Almost.
'What?' I ask, squaring my shoulders for the attack.
'I was wondering,' she says again, 'if…maybe you could help me with something.'
Unbelievable. The nerve. No apology, no mention of anything I said before. Nothing. And yet she expects me to drop everything to help her.
'No,' I say shortly. 'I don’t think so. In fact…' I smile to myself. This telling off thing gets easier the more I do it, '…in fact, I’d really prefer it if you’d just leave me alone.'
And then I hang up.
God, it feels good.
I hand the phone back to Will, flushed with triumph.
'What did she say?' he asks curiously, as he puts the phone back on the counter.
'She wanted me to help her with something,' I say scornfully. 'Can you believe that?'
Will shrugs. 'What?' he asks.
'It doesn’t matter what,' I say, a little flustered. 'The point is her asking, after all she’s done, after the way she’s treated me.'
'So you didn’t actually ask?' Will says, returning to his toast.
I stare at him. 'Of course I didn’t ask,' I say in disbelief. 'You’re completely missing the point.'
'She is your sister,' Will points out, composedly. 'Surely it couldn’t have hurt to hear her out?'
'She didn’t even try to apologise,' I protest hotly. 'Why should I?'
'Maybe she was trying to apologise,' Will says, starting to butter another piece of toast, 'but finding it hard to start. Making a small peace offering by admitting she has something she can’t fix alone.'
That is, of course, a possibility. But I don’t believe it.
What? I know her way better than Will does.
'It’s a trick,' I say resolutely. 'She’ll get me in the middle of something and then laugh at me when I can’t get out of it.'
Will says nothing.
'Well, she will,' I insist, now getting worked up. 'She’s sneaky and she loves to hurt me and I don’t see why I should make it easier for her. Give me one good reason why I should help her?'
'You’ve ‘helped’ a lot of others who didn’t want your help and didn’t exactly benefit from it,' Will says mildly. 'Maybe you could finally do some real good.'
Inside my heart is the emotional equivalent of a nuclear launch button. Will just pressed it.
'Oh, that’s right,' I choke, shoving my chair back from the table and heading for the door. 'Poor Mel, failure Mel, laughing-stock Mel who nearly gets her colleague raped and then gets thrown out by her psycho flat-mate.'
I yank on my elephant slippers and turn back towards Will.
'It’s fine,' I say. 'Laugh, enjoy it. Why not? You and Brittany can form a club to talk about how crap I am.'
Will gets up from the table and strides over to the door, as I fumble with the dead-lock chain, wiping my eyes on my sleeve, and pull the door open.
'Mel,' Will says, chasing me as I start running down the stairs. 'Mel! Come back! What the frell are you doing?'
'I’m going home,' I yell over my shoulder, as I reach the bottom. 'I’m going to go find out if I’m going to be murdered by Beth. Because right now that sounds pretty great.'
'Mel,' Will says, catching up to me and slamming the door that I’ve half-opened. 'Mel. I’m sorry, okay. I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t go home like this.'
I look up at him, my eyes streaming, and I sniff. 'You were always the one person I thought I could count on to be on my side,' I choke, 'but I guess even that isn’t true anymore. So fine. I’ll get out of your life and you won’t have to bother with your screw-up friend anymore. Have a nice life. I hope you figure out whatever’s on your mind.'
Will looks as if I’ve slapped him, so I grab the opportunity to yank the door open and get outside. Then I start to run. As fast as I can. Until my lungs start to burn and, when I look up to see where I am, I realise I’m home.
Where lurks the evil within.
Chapter 25
It’s sort of the reverse of Christmas morning when I was little. Then I tried to creep downstairs from my bedroom without my parents hearing. Now I’m trying to creep upstairs to the flat without Beth hearing. I have Will’s spare key in my pocket, so if I’m really quiet…
I forget about the creaky stair and it makes an agonisingly loud noise. I freeze, one foot in the air, like I’m in some stupid movie trying to break into a museum to steal a rare diamond or something.
No alarms go off, no burly security guards appear out of nowhere to arrest me (shame) and no terrifying monster appears at the top of the stairs. So, very, very slowly, I proceed.
Even the door seems to make an almighty clunk as I unlock it. It suddenly occurs to me that Beth could have the chain on, thus rendering my key useless, unless I suddenly turn myself into flubber and squeeze through the keyhole or something. But she doesn’t seem to have thought of that.
I think I’m safe.
I push open the door and tiptoe inside.
'Hello,' Beth says. She’s sitting on the sofa.
I very nearly dart outside, slam the door behind me and scuttle back down the stairs into the street.
But then what would I do? Where would I go?
'Hello,' I reply, still holding onto the door. Worst case scenario, I could use it as a shield.
She looks perfectly calm. Like normal Beth, except she must be pretty hungover. But after her dual-personality thing, I’m a little sceptical.
'Come a little closer.'
Said the spider to the fly.
I take a step the length of an ant.
'Seriously,' Beth says. 'Come here. I won’t bite.'
I move towards her slowly, body poised for the fight or flight reaction.
I perch gingerly on the edge of the sofa, the furthest possible distance away from Beth. Then, with the odd sense of calmness that seems to accompany certain death, I turn to her.
'I’m sorry.'
Weird, that didn’t sound like my voice.
Which could be because it wasn’t.
Beth is apologising to me.
'Ummm…that’s okay,' I say awkwardly, feeling rather wrong-footed. This wasn’t quite what I pictured.
'Really,' Beth says. She sounds sincere. 'I think I need to explain a few things.'
I shift the tiniest bit closer. 'Uh…okay,' I say. And wait.
Beth takes a deep breath. 'I’m an alcoholic,' she says.
What?
No, scrap that. I mean WHAT?
She can’t be serious.
'I’m also an ex-drug-addict,' Beth continues.
Huh?
'I’ve had sex with over a hundred men.'
I don’t even think I’ve met a hundred men.
'And at one point I thought I had HIV.'
I just…don’t know what to say.
'Uh…okay,' I say again, just the slightest bit mind-blown.
'Obviously I need to elaborate on that a little,' Beth says composedly, like we’re d
iscussing the best colour carpet to buy.
'Uh huh,' I say, nodding insanely. A couple of years and I might understand what she’s telling me. A couple more and I might believe it.
'You know that my parents are divorced?'
I nod.
'Well,' Beth says, her hands folded neatly in her lap. 'When that happened, I went a little off the rails. I was already part of a group, of which Patrick was one, who were party people. We drank too much, we experimented with drugs, we very nearly got ourselves expelled. With me so far?'
I nod again. I’m with the words, I’m just having the tiniest bit of difficulty believing that she’s talking about herself.
'We were young and we were stupid,' Beth continues, looking down at her hands. 'We thought it was all good fun and that all the horror stories in the news had nothing to do with us. We didn’t take it seriously at all. Then my father left and I crossed the line. I started drinking alone at home instead of just when I was out with my friends. I stopped having the odd cannabis cigarette and got into harder stuff. I started sleeping around, with men twice my age. Total strangers. Eventually my mother pulled me out of school and sent me to a clinic to be dried out.'
I nod some more. It sounds like we're talking about some celebrity gone off the rails. I could believe it if we were.
'When I got cleaned up I cut all ties,' Beth says earnestly. 'I stopped seeing all my old friends. Fortunately my home was in Yorkshire and school was in Scotland, so it wasn’t too hard. Until Patrick showed up only my mother even knew I was in Surrey.'
'And that’s,' I clear my throat, 'that’s why you didn’t want to see Patrick.'
'Exactly,' Beth says. 'And why ‘exciting’ men aren’t the kind I go for. I’ve seen the ugly side of that lifestyle and I’m not going back to it.'
'What made you stop?' I ask dumbly.
Beth pauses. 'Family,' she says.
I really don’t know how to deal with all this.
'What…happened last night?' I ask hesitantly.
Do I want to know?
'Well, I went to meet you at the restaurant,' Beth says lightly, 'and I found Patrick instead. Which seemed like quite a coincidence.'
I clear my throat. 'Sorry,' I mutter. 'It seemed like a good idea at the time.'
'I expect it did,' Beth says calmly. 'Anyway, he was there with a few of his friends and against my better judgement I agreed to stay for one drink. In all honesty, you weren't entirely wrong about Patrick. He has many good qualities and he was very welcoming.'
She purses her lips. 'I asked for an orange juice,' she says, 'and he brought back a vodka and orange. I can't tell you if he did it deliberately. Most likely he just assumed that was what I meant. I thought it tasted a bit odd, but unfortunately I was distracted and didn't realise why. After that it gets a bit hazy.'
She smiles wryly. 'On balance,' she says. 'I think perhaps I should stay on the wagon after this.'
I nod in agreement before I realise she's trying to make a joke.
Beth looks at her watch. 'I have to go to work now,' she says, as if this whole conversation never happened. 'I’ll see you later.'
'Okay,' I say. It’s about all I’m capable of.
Beth?
**
The whole weekend I keep stopping suddenly in the middle of doing things and thinking ‘Beth?’ I just cannot get my head round this.
And when I’m not thinking about Beth, I’m thinking about Will.
NY Alien says:
‘You kissed Will?! Fantastic!’
Confused!!! says:
‘Not fantastic. I kissed him, woke up next to him, told him it was freaky, made him go weird, then sorted it out only to blow up at him and storm out of his flat. I don’t think we’re even speaking anymore.’
NY Alien says:
‘May I respectfully point out that you’ve done that more than a few times before?’
Confused!!! says:
‘I know, but this is different.’
NY Alien says:
‘Don’t tell me, because when he kissed you, you went all gooey inside?’
Confused!!! says:
‘YES! So what do I do about it?’
NY Alien says:
‘Depends. What do you want to do?’
Confused!!! says:
‘I don’t know. That’s the whole point.’
NY Alien says:
‘Do you want to kiss him again?’
Confused!!! says:
‘No. Yes. Maybe.’
NY Alien says:
‘LOL. Do you still want to be friends with him?’
Confused!!! says:
‘Of course I do.’
NY Alien says:
‘Do you want to be more?’
Confused!!! says:
‘More?'
NY Alien says:
‘Yes, more. As in do-you-want-to-be-his-girlfriend?’
Confused!!! says:
‘He already has a girlfriend.’
NY Alien says:
‘You’re avoiding the question.’
Confused!!! says:
‘I know.’
NY Alien says:
‘Well, do you?’
Confused!!! says:
‘It’s too weird to actually say it.’
NY Alien says:
‘And that, ladies and gentlemen, was a yes! After twenty-five years, Mel has finally realised her true feelings for her best friend. Tune in for next week’s exciting episode and find out if those feelings are returned.’
Is she serious?
Confused!!! says:
‘I can’t tell Will. Not in a million years. He’s not even single, for one thing.’
NY Alien says:
‘I bet he’d break up with her in a heartbeat if he thought he could have you.’
Yeah right, because I’m every man’s idea of the perfect woman.
Confused!!! says:
‘Susan, this is doomed. He doesn’t fancy me. I’m more like his little sister.’
I flash back to waking up with him. Will doesn’t have a sister, but if he did I'm pretty sure he wouldn't spoon with her.
Confused!!! says:
‘Well, not exactly, but it’s platonic. That I’m sure about. I’ll just have to spend my life being his kind and supportive friend, giving way to whatever lucky bitch becomes Mrs Knightley, holding my love forever inside me.’
NY Alien says:
‘Man, that sounds depressing.’
Confused!!! says:
‘I know.
Despondently, I look around. Still no Cynthia. A pile of inputting very nearly interfering with the ceiling fans. One solitary Twix between me and desperation.
Confused!!! says:
‘I have to get back to work and practise being resigned to the trials in my life.’
NY Alien says:
‘So do I actually. My boss’ll go mad if he finds me playing on Messenger while I’m supposed to be working.’
Huh?
Confused!!! says:
‘You’re your own boss.’
NY Alien says:
‘That’s just how I like to talk. Too used to working for someone else, I guess.’
Confused!!! says:
‘Right. I think your boss wants you to eat chocolate. Talk to you later.’
I shut down Messenger and stare into space.
Well, I’ve sort of made it official. I’m in love with Will.
There’s just a few things I’m not clear about. When did this happen? How did this happen?
And, most importantly, what on Earth do I do next?
**
A few hours later, the ceiling scraper pile has diminished very slightly and the prospect of another fifty years on the planet living with an unrequited love as well as the rest of my rather less than inspired life has not exactly enhanced my mood. There must be people out there who do this, but how?
My phone rings and I leap up like the chair is suddenly covered in upturned
drawing pins. Crap, what if it’s Will? What do I say?
Trembling, I pick up the receiver.
'Hello,' I say. 'Melanie Parker.'
There’s a short silence, during which I conclude that it’s either Will or I’ve acquired myself a stalker.
'Should hope so too,' a gruff voice says. 'Wouldn’t like to think one of my girls was skiving.'
It’s my dad. I feel a rush of relief.
There's a first time for everything.
'We just thought we’d call to see how you were,' Mum chimes in suddenly, making me jump. She must be listening in on the kitchen phone.
How am I? So many possible answers, most of which are probably better left unsaid.
'I’m fine,' I say, twirling the telephone cord around my finger.
'We…uh…have some news for you,' Dad says. He sounds weird. Almost like he’s…nervous.
'What?' I ask. There may be the tiniest hint of suspicion in my voice.
'Well,' Dad clears his throat. 'What…what with one thing and another – the state of the property market and all that – we’ve…had a rethink. Which is to say, we…uh…'
'We’re not moving,' Mum says warmly. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her finish one of Dad’s sentences before.
'Really? You’re not?' I ask, feeling a flush of warmth like someone’s just turned on my own personal central heating.
'I thought…that is, we both thought…that perhaps we’d been a little hasty.’
We? It was his idea alone and he knows it.
I’m not going to remind him of that though. I don’t want to ruin it.
'There are certain advantages to staying here,' Dad offers uncomfortably.
'Say it,' my mum prompts him gently.
Dad clears his throat loudly. It’s not the most pleasant of sounds.
'We thought that perhaps…we should spend a little more time with you,' he says slowly. 'Maybe we haven’t kept in touch as much as we should have. Might…get to know you a little better.'
'Just me?' I ask. 'Even though I haven’t given you any grandchildren, or a rich son-in-law or anything?'
Maybe I have a few trust issues surfacing.
'We…uh…' Dad pauses like he’s checking his notes. 'We respect your choices as an adult and release you from any obligation to act according to our wishes for you.'
The Dr Pepper Prophecies Page 20
