‘Don’t eat the lilo,’ I warn her. ‘The heat’s gone to your brain.’
‘It’s just a lot, isn’t it?’
‘It’s definitely a lot,’ I say, as a bead of sweat drips from my eyebrow onto my eyelashes and into my eyes.
While we’re closing up for the day, I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket and I slip it out to see a text from Cal.
Hey! I thought I would have heard from you by now, hope you’re doing OK?
I’m a bit taken aback. Is this normal? I haven’t really had an ongoing thing with a guy before … I’m still not sure of the rules of engagement – you know, whether to text first, how keen to be, how fast to move. See, this would be Daisy’s area of expertise. She’d know the answer. But maybe those things aren’t actually important. Maybe I should just do what I want. Do what I feel. Is it weird that, as much as I mega fancy him, I haven’t really worried about texting him? I text him back, apologizing for not having been in touch and asking if he wants to do something tomorrow night, although the thought of doing anything in this heat other than flopping in the shade like a dog nearly makes me delete the message.
‘It’s hot, isn’t it?’ I say to Cassie lamely, putting my phone away. Of course it’s hot. It’s a heatwave.
‘Yeah. It’s too hot. I want to jump in the sea right this minute.’
‘Me too. More than anything in the whole world, I think.’
Cassie looks at me out of the corner of her eye, like a thought is brewing inside her brain. ‘You know … we could?’
I look at her with an expression of confusion. ‘But we don’t have any stuff with us? No swimsuits, no towels?’
‘So what?! We can’t let that stop us! We can go in in our underwear, no one will know the difference anyway? And in this heat, we’ll dry off quick as you know it if we just lie on the beach for a bit,’ she says eagerly.
‘Covered in sand?’
‘Obviously it’ll look entirely bizarre, but we do have a whole roll of bin liners here which we could take to lie on.’
‘Baking my salty body on a pile of binbags is not how I envisaged spending this evening, if I’m honest,’ I say, stalling for time.
‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’ Cassie pleads.
‘You know sense of adventure is your domain.’
‘Yes but also this is low-risk adventure.’
Through my uncertainty, I grin at Cassie, knowing what she’s contrasting this with. ‘You mean it’s not like when you decided it was essential for us to take up skateboarding because you never saw any girls at the skate park in Hook Green?’
‘I knew your wrist wasn’t broken!’
‘It was sprained though!’
‘A skateboarding career cut short, is all I’m saying.’
‘You could have gone back without me!’
‘Yeah but it wouldn’t have been fun without you, so …’ She trails off, keeping her tone casual, but it pings a little glow inside me. ‘Anyway, a quick post-work swim is today’s new thing. I’ve just decided it. I make the rules around here.’
It’s not like I haven’t been swimming with Cassie before. It’s just part of normal life when you live by the sea. But something’s making me hold back, even though I want to feel that cool water against my skin more than anything. I would normally wear a swimsuit rather than a bikini, so the thought of being out there in bra and knickers makes me feel exposed. But then again, swimming in my underwear in broad daylight isn’t a bad way to push myself out of my comfort zone, is it? And surely the town won’t explode if people see my body as it really is? I nibble my lip and think about the divide between the life I’m living and the life I could be living.
Cassie squints at me. ‘This isn’t a body thing, is it?’
‘No!’ I protest.
‘Because I can’t imagine what reason you’d have for not wanting to come for a swim after a hard day’s toil in this dumb temperature.’
‘OK, fine, maybe I am feeling a bit weird at the moment … those guys heckling me and throwing stuff at me when I was jogging, and then, ugh, seeing Molly who just made me feel so … different from her, like I was an alien or something …’ I flush with shame at actually voicing some vulnerability instead of keeping it all inside.
‘We’ve been through this before, my dude,’ Cassie says, patiently. ‘You have got to stop letting other people’s shitty opinions and behaviour affect the way you feel about yourself. You know you’re cute. You know there’s nothing wrong with your body. And then some random loser comes along and destabilizes your self-worth? Nuh-uh.’ Cassie shakes her head definitively.
‘But what if that’s just … not true? I … like, really admire the way you don’t think about your body at all. And I want that for myself, but it’s hard, you know? It feels like no matter what I think, I still have to share a planet with people who are so negative about bodies that are different.’ What I don’t say is that sometimes those people are your own twin sister.
‘It’s hard, I get that! I was a scrawny, skinny little kid and now I am the … voluptuous giantess you see before you today!’ Cassie says, throwing her arms wide like her soft, curvy body is the centre of the universe. ‘It’s not like I couldn’t be that skinny little chicken if I tried. I just don’t feel like I have to. And it didn’t come out of nowhere for me – I don’t think anyone’s born with confidence – or if you are, it gets beaten out of you pretty quickly. You just have to, like, relentlessly do the work. Relentlessly believe in your right to look however you want to look. Or however you do look, whether you want to or not! Just standing firm.’
I let her words sink in. It sounds so good. It sounds like a place I want to live in permanently, not just visit. ‘God … it’s tough, isn’t it?’
‘It is! But you’re tougher. We both are.’ She rests her hands on my shoulders and looks me in the eyes. I want to look away but I force myself not to. ‘As your best friend it is my responsibility, no, my extreme joy to remind you that you are the cutest in the whole world, and no amount of terrible men or boring girls can change that.’
‘I guess …’
‘I don’t want you to feel pressured – you know I’m gonna go swimming whether you come or not, right?’ Cassie shrugs, dropping her hands to her sides. I can still feel their warm pressure on my shoulders. ‘I just want to have fun with you! Make the most of the time we have left this summer, right?’
This hits me right in the stomach. ‘Oh, go on then,’ I concede quickly.
‘Excellent. You won’t regret it. But first, we need sustenance for our aquatic adventure,’ says Cassie. We stop at the seafood hut and buy little polystyrene cups of cockles, which we drench in vinegar and prepare to eat with the poky toothpicks, and my old friend the seafood man undercharges us.
‘It’s been a scorcher today, hasn’t it?’
‘You’re telling us! If you ever want to take a break while our stand is up, come over and we’ll do you a deal,’ I say to him before we head for the sea.
‘But not on weekends,’ Cassie interjects quickly. ‘I’d get in so much trouble if Graham grassed me up to my parents for giving people discounts.’
‘You know he would.’ I roll my eyes.
‘That’s very kind of you, girls. Ordinarily I wouldn’t, but since it’s Palmer’s, I’ll find that hard to resist!’ The warmth I feel towards him is familiar – the complete opposite of the raw ball of fury I felt at that poster earlier today. This town has hope yet.
We wander off to sit on the sea wall and eat our cockles, feeling smug in the knowledge that we work at the finest ice-cream stand in Weston Bay.
Out of nowhere, Cassie grabs my arm. ‘Mate!’
‘What?!’ I ask, trying not to topple off the wall.
Cassie’s pointing wildly to the right of where we’re sitting. ‘The floats are still there! It’s a sign! Come on …’ She hops down and holds out a hand for me to hop down after her. I feel ridiculous and ungainly but I do it anyway.
; ‘This is perfect! Perfect!’ Cassie picks up the foam noodle and nudges the lilo towards me with her foot.
‘I’ll agree, it does seem like a sign,’ I say, hoisting it under my arm.
We slide our shoes off and continue down towards the sea in our bare feet, first on the clattering, shifting pebbles, and then the sand, almost unbearably hot against the soles of our feet after baking under the blazing sun all day. When we reach the shore, we stand with our toes in the shallow water for a moment, basking in the tingling pleasure-pain of the cold, before Cassie turns to me and says, ‘Ready?’
‘Let’s do it,’ I say, and start pulling my T-shirt off over my head. I roll it into a sausage shape, slip off my culottes and roll them around the T-shirt before depositing both onto the sand, making sure my house keys and phone don’t fall out, because, being me, I obviously can’t fully switch off my impulse for caution even in spontaneous moments of fun. Cassie tears her clothes off, throwing her jumpsuit and the contents of her pockets down in a less orderly but far more indentifiably Cassie heap than mine, and we run, splashing and screaming, into the glittering sea, dragging our floats behind us.
Cassie bobs elegantly on her foam noodle while I do the hard physical labour of trying to get onto a lilo in the water. Finally I succeed and we rock harmoniously on the cool, blue water. We gossip about people from college, we talk about our plans for the future – the holidays we’ll take together, the trips Cassie will take to Leeds when she can – we cackle and we shriek with delight.
‘I’m coming in,’ I say, shimmying off my purloined lilo. The cold of the water is thrilling again.
‘I’m kind of done with this li’l guy, too,’ says Cassie. ‘Bless you, noodle, you served me well.’
‘Let’s put them back on the sand for someone else to nick.’
‘Circle of life,’ says Cassie as we trudge, dripping, out of the sea. I hope this doesn’t mean we’re done. For all I was resistant to the idea, now that I’m here I’m loving the feeling of the water and the sun on my skin and the fact that I’m spending proper time with Cassie. ‘Hey, you can go if you want, but I’m going to go back in,’ she says.
‘I have nowhere else to be,’ I say, and we walk arm in arm back into the sea.
We swim out a little in a very unathletic breaststroke, keeping our heads above the water but splashing the sparkling, cool ocean on our faces. It feels like pure heaven to be there with my best friend, bobbing in the sea, with the sun low in the sky. No responsibilities. We float on our backs like starfish, closing our eyes and letting the salt water keep us afloat. I open one eye against the glare of the sun and think about how fun it would be to paint the sky from this perspective, a whole canvas of sky. Maybe that can be my next project.
Letting the waves rock me gently, my body supported by the water, I revel in the fact that I don’t feel any animosity towards it. My body never lets me down. It does everything I need it to do. And with Cassie on my team, I feel like I can take on all of the rubbish that other people project onto me. All their assumptions and expectations. It strikes me that even when we were close, I never dreamed of doing this with Molly. It makes me wish everybody had a Cassie. Someone they can be completely themselves with, someone who brings out the best in them and helps them manage their insecurities.
As we float, our hands brush against each other and the jolt of surprise it gives me makes me stand up. I head out a bit further so I have a good excuse to pretend I haven’t heard Cassie when she calls to me, ‘Are you alright, Lily?’
When she repeats herself, I shout, ‘What was that?’
‘Actually, nothing, it’s alright,’ she replies. She doggypaddles over to me. ‘This is the good shit, isn’t it? Aren’t I a genius for suggesting it?’
‘You are indeed a genius. This is just what I needed. Thank you.’ We’re bobbing in the water a little way out from the shore, where we can only just about stand up, our heads emerging from the surface of the sea.
Without saying anything, she puts her arms around me. She rests her head on my shoulder and wraps me up in a hug and I just stand there, a lump in my throat.
‘I’ll miss you,’ she says finally. I feel a tear slide down my damp cheek. When she pulls away, I submerge myself in the water and open my eyes, reappearing only to complain about the stinging.
We splash around in the water before returning to the sand in the fading light, weirdly exhausted after having done little more than float and bob. We lie, ridiculously, on our black bin liners until we’ve dried off enough to put our clothes back on, beating the sand out of them before we can wear them. We sit on the beach and chat long enough to see the sun go down. My chest feels heavy but I don’t know how to express the reasons why, and if I did I don’t know that I would want to.
CHAPTER SEVEN
New things I have done so far this week:
Watched a film in Korean. Cal’s recommendation, but felt extremely cultured.
Nicked Daisy’s liquid eyeliner and attempted my first-ever elegant cat-eye. Instead ended up with very avant-garde black horns on each eye. Maybe next time.
Made a whole lasagne including my own béchamel sauce. Not bad. OK, so Daisy did help me with that one but I’m still going to own it.
Cassie’s big suggestion: went shopping for uni stuff. It made me feel a bit sick. But I bought a new duvet cover to show I’m committed.
Ever since our little swimming expedition earlier in the week, it’s felt as if we’re quieter than usual, although I can’t exactly put my finger on why. A thin layer of awkwardness, of distance, has worked its way into our friendship. But today that distance feels oddly peaceful rather than tense or confrontational. Maybe peace and distance are what I need right now. We have an unusually busy morning which keeps us distracted, serving a steady stream of customers. A quiet moment gives Cassie a chance to dash to the pub nearby that lets us use their toilet, since we’re kind of out here on our own.
I bend down to check we have enough napkins in the cupboard under the stand, and when I emerge Cal is standing right in front of me, as if he’s appeared from a puff of smoke. He’s wearing a polo shirt and trousers which I realize is his work uniform. No Daisy-at-the-garden-centre vibes here – he still manages to look like he picked it out himself this morning.
‘I thought I might find you here.’ He smiles. It’s such a good smile it almost takes my breath away. I’m caught by surprise. Not just that he’s there, but also by how much I’m drawn to him – he’s gorgeous. He’s genuine. He’s … nice.
‘Oh!’ I say. Seeing him tonight and seeing him right now with zero warning or preparation are two very different things. And in this uncontrolled environment, there’s nothing to stop Daisy from coming by for an ice cream and wanting to know why I’m chatting casually to the guy I know very well is her current target. ‘Hi!’
‘All alone?’
‘Cassie’s gone to use the toilet at the pub, so yeah, all on my own right now! Did you want some ice cream?’
‘Yeah, why not,’ he says with a shrug. ‘I mostly just came by to see you, but who can resist ice cream in this weather?’
I blush. The thought of a guy like Cal going out of his way to see me at work is most certainly out of my comfort zone.
‘What’s your flavour?’ I ask.
He peruses the flavours on offer under the glass case with great seriousness. ‘Blood-orange sorbet,’ he finally decides.
I prepare two perfect scoops in a cone and hand it over to him.
‘Are you allowed to step round the wrong side of your stand?’ Cal asks.
‘Uhhh … I guess?’ I reply, not really understanding.
‘Otherwise I’ll come round there,’ he says.
‘OK?’
He steps round the side of the stand, holding his ice cream off to one side with one hand and placing the other around my waist. He pulls me in close and kisses me, the peak of my stupid baseball cap knocking against his forehead. In one movement he smoothly lifts it of
f my head and pushes a fallen lock of hair behind my ear, seemingly undisturbed by the fact my hair is all matted and sweaty.
‘Ohhh, so this is what you get up to when I go to the loo!’ Cassie’s back, and, instinctively, I take a step back from Cal.
‘Not every time, I assure you,’ I say, rolling my eyes and ignoring whatever strange feeling is going on in my stomach.
‘Hi, Cal,’ she says.
‘Hi, Cassie, nice to see you again. I just dropped by to pick up a cone on the way to work. It may only be a short shift today but I still need my fuel, right?’
‘Right you are,’ says Cassie, as Cal makes a start on his ice cream. He really makes eating a blood-orange sorbet look good. ‘Hey, aren’t you two going out tonight?’
‘Yeah, we are, but I couldn’t wait that long,’ he replies. I smile, even though I’m more than a little confused about how someone can just be so straightforward. It’s like he knows what he wants and he doesn’t play games and just makes it clear what he’s doing. I guess I can’t really relate to being so sure of anything.
‘Cute,’ Cassie says, coming back round to our side of the stand.
‘Well, I’ve paid my flying visit. I’d better hit the road. See what chaos your boy Jack’s been wreaking with the matinees,’ Cal says, winking at Cassie. He gives me a quick kiss before leaving.
It’s only when Cal’s disappeared into the distance that I notice Cassie seems distracted, nibbling on her nails. ‘What’s up?’ I ask her. ‘Are you alright?’
She takes her fingers out of her mouth and runs the nails against her thumb. ‘I broke a nail while I was away.’
‘God, I thought you were going to tell me it was something serious like a paper cut.’ I laugh. But Cassie doesn’t smile.
‘Yeah …’ Cassie begins, and I can tell there’s more to it than that, and she’s turning over in her brain whether it’s worth sharing the rest.
‘OK … You can tell me, you know,’ I reassure her. Even though it’s irrational, I’m struck with the paranoid thought that it’s something I’ve done.
Melt My Heart Page 8
