‘I was! I paid forty quid for that dress from a vintage shop in Leeds!’
‘I’d never pay that much for vintage. Especially if it didn’t even fit me,’ I said, because Sage had moved closer and technically she was all up in my face and I hated when people got all up in my face. ‘You were ripped off.’
‘You. Stole. My. Dress,’ Sage growled and Matthew and Paul, who’d been unashamedly listening to every word, held up imaginary handbags and Dora tsked.
‘Ladies, please,’ she said. ‘This isn’t about blame.’
‘Good, because I’m blameless. I spent hours working on your dress even though Mrs Chatterjee completely underestimated how much time it would take so I earned twenty-five quid for, like, three days’ work, because I get piece rate. That’s, like, slave labour. Then you left the dress mouldering in the shop for over three months!’ I’d forgotten how angry I’d been about the gold brocade dress but it was all coming back to me.
‘Three months and a half-day!’
‘That’s still over three months, so you couldn’t have wanted to wear the dress that badly.’ I folded my arms. ‘The shop policy was printed very clearly on the back of your receipt.’
Sage looked at Dora imploringly like she was Judge Judy. ‘Um, well, I guess possession is nine-tenths of the law,’ Dora said. ‘Though I don’t really know what that means.’
‘What do I have to do to get my dress back?’ Sage asked sullenly.
I hadn’t even worn the dress. It was really scratchy and I’d been planning to put a lining in but I hadn’t quite figured out how to do linings. Also gold didn’t work so well with my complexion, but Sage was being such a bitch about it and acting like she had the moral high ground when she so didn’t that I was tempted to tell her that I’d been using it to line the cat’s litter tray. But we didn’t have a cat and I didn’t want to spend every day with Sage all up in my face.
‘Pay me a fair rate for the work I did,’ I said. She opened her mouth like she was about to protest, but I glared her into silence. ‘It was really good work. I had to hand-stitch the armholes in the end.’
Sage rested her chin on her chest. ‘This is why I’m doing this course; so I can alter my own vintage without being ripped off.’
‘I’m not ripping you off. If you’d picked up the dress within three months, you’d have had the benefit of my bloody good alteration skills at a fraction of what they’re worth.’ I was bored with talking about this. ‘But you didn’t and here we are and you could have just talked to me about it instead of treating me like I had really terrible BO.’
‘Well, it’s just… I’ve had nights I didn’t sleep I was so mad about the dress and I didn’t pick it up because I used to go to the grammar school in Lytham St Annes and I spend weekends at my dad’s in Leeds and the shop was never open when I was around.’ Sage scowled her hardest scowl yet. ‘When I asked my mum, she said I treated her like a lady’s maid.’
‘God, mums always say stuff like that,’ Dora remarked and Matthew and Paul agreed with her and I made similar noises, though it was the other way round with my mum. I felt more like staff than a daughter.
Finally, after some tense negotiations, we agreed that Sage would give me an extra twenty-five pounds for the dress, a fiver a week, and I would hand over the dress once payment was complete. ‘Most bloody expensive dress I’ve ever bought,’ she muttered, then she asked me if I’d made a whole item of clothing before or if I just knew how to alter things.
‘Well, I made this,’ I said, gesturing at the miniskirt I was wearing. It was nothing special. Just two pieces of denim sewn together, hemmed and…
‘Oh my God, you put a zip in? How do you even know how to do that?’
‘It’s easier than you’d think.’ Then I told them that there were videos on the internet of people doing all sorts of complicated sewing stuff and we talked about making clothes all the way back to Merrycliffe.
It was amazing. It was liberating. I was finally with people who spoke the same language as me. Who knew that when I said YSL, I meant Yves Saint Laurent. Who got the difference between being on-trend and being directional. And they were as confused about seam allowance as I was.
Alice understood me in the way that you only could when you’d been best friends with someone for as long as we had. When their face and their dreams and their secret fears were as familiar to you as your own, but I’d never had any fashion friends before and I thought that I might just have found some. Alice was going to kill me, but if I kept my college stuff separate from my Alice stuff, then maybe she never had to find out.
‘See you tomorrow then,’ Sage said and as we walked up the road from the station, Dora asked for my phone number and Matthew and Paul had already added me on Facebook.
I’d been down for so long that being up and positive felt strange but it also felt really good. It felt good for the time it took to check my phone and see that Louis had added another new friend on Facebook.
It was Alice.
11
‘I don’t know why you keep going on and on about this so-called best friends code,’ Alice said, after admitting that she’d sent Louis a Facebook friend request. Even worse, by the time I rang her to ask her what the hell she was playing at she’d written, Hey handsome, thanks for the ketchup. Must do it again some time, on Louis’s wall. ‘I should think it must be against the best friend code that you’ve just made up, to rub my nose in it that you’ve got a whole bunch of new friends who you’d rather hang out with.’
‘What new friends? What am I rubbing your nose in?’
We were sitting on the wall outside the sandwich shop, which was an equal distance from our two houses. It was starting to get too cold to sit on walls, but when I shivered but it was nothing to do with the chill, but more to do with Alice waving her iPhone in my face. ‘These four new friends you added on Facebook! And the hilarious in-jokes on your wall about seam allowance. I don’t even know what seam allowance is but it sounds really, really boring.’
‘It is really boring.’ I paused. Shut my eyes. Took a deep breath. ‘You can’t expect me to spend all day sharing a workroom with people and refuse to interact with them. It doesn’t mean I like you any less. What you and me have is special, so stop being so stupid.’
It was Alice’s turn to not say anything. I could see all the emotions slugging it out on her face; fear, doubt, sadness and finally she ended up at defensive, stuck out her chin and decided to stay there.
‘No, what’s stupid is that you’ve had a crush on Louis for four years, but you’ve never done anything about it and that makes Louis fair game.’
‘He’s not fair game and you know it,’ I said to her in a low voice because I didn’t trust myself to turn up my volume knob. ‘OK, maybe I’m overreacting if this is never going to go any further than you and Louis being friends on Facebook but be honest, do you want to take it further?’
Alice shook back her hair. ‘You’re being really unreasonable about this, Franny. You’ve never gone out with Louis or got off with him, or snogged him.’ She counted off on her fingers all the ways that I’d failed to connect with Louis on a meaningful level. ‘You can’t just place indefinite dibs on a guy, Franny. You’ve had years to make a move.’
‘I could hardly make a move when I was twelve, could I? That would have been wrong and gross.’
‘Yeah, but you could have made a move at any time over the last two years and you didn’t,’ Alice pointed out, like making a move on a boy was the easiest thing in the world, which it was… to her.
How could you explain your irrational but crippling fear of rejection to someone who had never been rejected? But it wasn’t just about that. It wasn’t even about me and Louis, or, God forbid, Alice and Louis. It was about me and Alice. It was about us. Our friendship.
‘You know how I feel about Louis.’ I put my hand on her arm, because I had to get through to Alice, reach out to her, remind her that this was me. ‘There’s a whole town of older
boys, why do you have to pick him?’
‘Because practically all of the boys in Merrycliffe are complete losers. Hello! Eleventh largest container port in Europe! That doesn’t exactly bring in the foxes, does it?’
‘But it’s Louis and I know you think it’s just a dumb crush and I’m just a dumb girl who hasn’t even kissed a boy…’
Alice patted my hand. ‘Of course I don’t think you’re dumb and what? You so have kissed a boy! What about that time when we pulled those lads on the exchange trip to Cracow?’
As if things weren’t bad enough, I then had to remind Alice that the boy I’d paired off with had wanted to kiss Alice, not me. Just like every other boy on the planet. Just like Louis would want to. ‘You of all people should understand how things are at home. It feels like they’re never going to get better. But then I see Louis in town and he smiles or the sun’s hitting his face and he looks amazing and for five minutes everything isn’t rubbish. Why do you have to go and ruin it?’
‘Please do not play the mentaller mum card just this once! My life isn’t exactly going the way I want it either.’ Alice tossed her hair back again. ‘It’s all right for you. You’re swanning off to college and making all your fancy new friends, but what about me? I’m stuck exactly where I am. Worse than that, I’m getting left behind.’
‘I’m not leaving you behind. I want to take you with me.’ It should have been a relief to know that Alice was having a bad dose of insecurity – that she hadn’t suddenly gone for an evil upgrade. Usually Alice was stuffed so full of confidence that I always secretly wished that she had a bit left over for me. I knew exactly what it was like to feel as if you weren’t good enough but Alice wasn’t putting a brave face on it. She was putting on her fight face and it was making it really hard for me to feel sorry for her. ‘Is that what this thing with Louis is all about? Really? Because you know…’
‘Look, what do you want to do?’ Alice asked, cutting right across what I was trying to say. ‘Are you going to go for it with Louis then?’
I knew that if I said yes, Alice would back off. I was 95 per cent sure of it. Though a couple of weeks ago I’d have been 110 per cent sure of it.
‘The thing is, I’m not sure that I’m ready to go for it,’ I admitted, because going for it felt like jumping off the highest diving board at Conley Road pool and I hated getting my face wet. ‘Why are you being like this? You’re acting like you care more about getting with Louis than our friendship.’
‘Of course I don’t, but if you’re not going to go for it, then I am!’ Alice said quickly and defiantly, like she’d lose her nerve if she didn’t get the words out as fast as possible.
I hated her a little bit then. Just a little bit. ‘What’s that meant to mean, then?’ I demanded. ‘Like, a declaration of war or something?’
Alice recoiled, like she was shocked that things had gone this far. But only for a second, then she sat up straighter and stiffened her spine. ‘Not war, not at all, but if you don’t want him, then you can’t bogart him just because someone else does.’
‘But you never stick with a guy for longer than five minutes. You know it! Are you going to risk our friendship for a week going out with Louis?’
‘It might not be a week. Maybe the fact that guys bore me is because you were right and I was aiming too young.’ Alice had some colossal nerve; throwing my own words back at me. I looked at her. She refused to meet my eye. ‘Louis is older and he’s in a band and he’s been to London. And he’s really fit and he’s totally been flirting with me and if our friendship is strong enough to survive you having all these new friends, then it can survive me hanging out with Louis.’
‘You have nothing in common with him,’ I snapped. ‘Nothing!’
‘And you do, I suppose?’
I had loads of things in common with Louis. Or, to be more accurate, I had a list of things that was a bit pathetic when I catalogued them in my head; we both liked the same pasty from the very sandwich shop that I was sitting outside. We both ran to the dance floor whenever they played the Beatles at The Wow. And before he started bleaching it, our hair was almost the exact same shade of mousy blond and actually, yeah, it was a really sad list, but I wasn’t going to tell Alice that. That was a first too, because we told each other everything.
Her chin was still jutting out the way it did when she argued with her mum or was telling me about the argument that she’d just had with her mum. As if I was against her too. Alice hated it when things didn’t go her way.
Spoiled, my mum called her, so did Siobhan and even Alice’s dad, who was the one who did most of the spoiling. Alice was so used to just snatching anything and anyone that took her fancy. She knew that she could always rely on her looks and her big blue eyes. And that she could get any boy she wanted just by thrusting out her tits and licking her lips.
Alice might be sexy, but I was way cooler than her and maybe it was time I started working that. I’d been trailing in Alice’s shadow for too long. I hadn’t expected Louis to friend me back on Facebook but he had. And Dora and Matthew and Paul and even Sage were on the way to becoming my friends. I had things going for me and it was about time that Alice realised that. Hell, it was time that I realised that.
‘Me and Louis have tons in common.’ I didn’t recognise the sound of my own voice. It was chippy and hard. ‘And so, yeah, I’m going for it.’
‘No! You already said that you weren’t.’ Alice jumped off the wall so she could stand there with her hands on her hips. ‘I said that I’m going for it.’
I was fed up with people thinking that what I wanted wasn’t important. ‘Well, we’re both going for it then, I suppose.’
‘Fine!’
‘Fine!’ I snapped back, though if either of us were thinking clearly we’d have known it was not fine. ‘You’re on.’
‘You’re so on!’
The next morning I really felt like skipping college. Only the thought of Dad telling me in his sad voice that he was disappointed with my commitment to retaking my GCSEs and making something of myself had me packing my bag, slapping on some heavy-duty concealer and wearing my mint-green skinny jeans so at least my legs looked bright and cheerful.
I’d hardly slept at all. I kept thinking about how, for one moment yesterday afternoon, everything had been great, anything had seemed possible. Dad was back. Mum was taking her pills and functioning. I had all I needed to make a killer dress. I was making new friends. I was connecting with Louis. And then I’d fought with Alice and now nothing felt right in my world.
All night I’d replayed the argument we’d had, working it around and around like an aching tooth that you keep worrying with your tongue even though you know that makes it hurt even more.
It wasn’t until it had started getting light outside that I came to the realisation that if I had to choose between Alice and Louis, I’d choose Alice every time. I would. Even if Louis was coming round every day and phoning me all the time and pledging his eternal love, even constant Louis kisses, couldn’t compare to hanging out with Alice. Louis would never make me laugh so hard that the diet Coke I was drinking spurted out of my nostrils. Even if I went out with Louis for five years. I couldn’t imagine ever being so comfortable with him I’d let him see me without make-up or in the grungy pyjamas I always wore when I had period pain.
But I still didn’t see why I couldn’t have them both. If my friendship meant as much to Alice as hers did to me, she’d let me have Louis because whatever she said, I did have first dibs on him.
I was so late getting downstairs that there was only time to grunt ‘Good morning’ at Mum and Dad as I grabbed a banana, then I opened the front door and there was Alice.
‘Oh…’ She should have been on her way to school. ‘Um, hi.’
Alice bit her lip. It was a very unAlice gesture. ‘Look, Franny… I didn’t sleep, like, at all last night,’ she burst out. ‘I couldn’t bear it if we stopped being friends. Really couldn’t bear it. I know I sound like s
ome awful song on Heart FM but you’re the best thing that ever happened to me.’
Whatever angry thoughts I still had about Alice went… like they’d never existed. ‘Well, same here. We are too good to fall out over a boy.’
Alice nodded vigorously as we fell into step and started walking up towards the town. ‘Right. Not just any boy but Louis Allen! He doesn’t deserve either of us really.’
‘I know. If only he wasn’t so pretty.’ I couldn’t help my wistful sigh.
‘Yeah,’ Alice agreed. It sounded as if she’d finally come to her senses because I totally had prior claim on Louis. ‘So, I couldn’t sleep and I think if we’re going to both have a crack at him, we should keep it civilised.’