My Best Friend's Girl (34 page)

“I can’t believe you’re going away on the fourteenth,” I said, my voice quiet and measured, a far cry from the bile I wanted to scream at him.

“I was never meant to,” he said, trying to placate me. “I was hoping it would get canceled, we’ve been dancing around with dates for weeks now and I was hoping that this wouldn’t turn out to be the only time in May we were all available.”

“But you’re not available; it’s Tegan’s birthday. You’ve known about it for months. We’ve been planning her party for months. You’re not available.”

“Ryn, you remember what it was like to have a career, what extra you have to put in. I can’t say that I’ve got a child’s birthday party so I can’t make the meeting.”

Remember what it was like to have a career?
I still had a career, I was still in charge of the magazines and they were bloody good even if I did say so myself.
The extra you have to put in?
I was always putting in extra. The only other people who worked as many extra hours as I did without the glory, without the recognition and chance of promotion were other mothers who had to do it to keep their head above water. Wouldn’t I love to be working all those hours during the day, stopping to do another type of work, and then picking up all over again a few hours later because I’d get a promotion at the end of it. Or even recognition. No one went on about the magazines being a success but I’m sure there’d have been trouble if my work slipped. The board of directors would notice the quality of my work then.

Of all the things Luke said that made me want to swing for him, though, it was “a child’s birthday party.”

“A child?” I said venomously. “Since when has Tegan been ‘a child’?”

“That came out wrong.”

“Really. Well, this certainly won’t come out wrong—I’m taking back asking you to move in,” I said.

“What?”

“You called Tiga a child. We can’t live with someone who can put his job before the girl he’s been treating like his daughter for the best part of a year, then dismiss her as ‘a child.’ She thinks of you as her dad. Even though she knows Nate’s her father, you’re the one she wants to be her dad. And you see her as ‘a child.’”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Don’t care.”

“I’ll see if I can change it.”

“Don’t do us any favors, Mr. Wiseman. I can vaguely remember what it was like to have a
career
, and I remember that if you cancel meetings you don’t look professional. I wouldn’t want you to have to look uncommitted in front of your colleagues, what with you having a
career
and everything.”

He glared at me, not willing to concede he was wrong in this. “Fine!” he spat, throwing his pen across the long meeting table.

“Fine,” I stated.

I got to my feet, picked up my notepad, pen and mug of cold tea. My heart was beating at triple speed in my chest and my limbs were trembling as I walked the length of the room.

“I’ll see you tonight,” he said as I fumbled with the door handle.

“Not at my flat you won’t,” I replied without looking round. “Why don’t you go back to that flat you were so desperate to hang on to earlier and plan some more meetings.”

His reply was a heavy sigh.

I stomped down the corridor, rage pulsing in my temples. I was as angry with myself as I was with Luke. Because I understood why he’d chosen to go to the meeting. There was a time when nothing would have stopped me working. He’d always been über-ambitious. And, much as he loved Tegan, she wasn’t his daughter, wasn’t his responsibility, so he was allowed to put his career before her, before us, because, in the grand scheme of things, he only had to look after number one. That was all true, but it didn’t mean I had to like it.

chapter 43

T
egan turning six meant she was going to be an official grown-up, at least that’s what she kept telling people. “I can do lots of things when I’m six,” she’d remind me on a daily basis in the run-up to her party.

I couldn’t think of anything she couldn’t do at five that she could do at six, although my answer was always, “I know,” so as not to put a damper on her enthusiasm. The day her birthday dawned Luke wasn’t there. He was at work before he left for the meeting that I had asked him not to change on our account. The rough patch we went through before Christmas was a walk in the park compared with the preceeding three weeks. We’d been silently fighting about the Scotland trip since that meeting. Three weeks of not getting on, of him going back to his Alwoodley flat after Tegan had gone to bed, of us making love only three times because I’d discovered this huge reason to believe we weren’t Plan A with Luke. “When you get to the end of your life, I’m sure you’ll be grateful that on the day Tegan turned six you were off at a meeting,” I said to him the night before he left.

“Please…I feel bad enough as it is, Ryn. I didn’t think and there’s nothing I can do now. I’m sorry.”

“Tell it to your kid. Oh, I mean, my kid. The ‘child.’”

Luke drew back and looked away, furrowing his brow and grinding his teeth together, his face pinched as though he might cry, and I knew I’d gone too far. I’d seriously wounded him. “I’m sorry,” I said, taking his hand, kissing it, “that was an awful thing to say. I know you don’t think that. Let’s call a truce, OK?”

“You’re right to be angry, I was out of order. I do think of Tegan as my kid. You know that, don’t you?”

I nodded. “Course I do.”

We kissed and made up.

Tegan took the news better than I had done. “But are you coming back the tomorrow of my birthday?” was all she asked.

“Yup, first thing.”

“OK,” she shrugged happily. “I’m going to have balloons, you know.”

We had hired the community hall down the road for the party and were having a red and yellow bouncy castle out back. We’d invited thirty children, most of them from Tegan’s class at school and a couple from her holiday playgroup.

I’d had considerable help from Mrs. Kaye when it came to organizing the party and, where Luke would have been, Nate stepped in. He took me to the supermarket the day before and we’d spent nearly two hundred pounds on party food: sausage rolls, mini sausages, mini pizzas, burgers, crisps, cakes, fizzy drinks and more white bread than I’d ever seen in my life. As a concession to healthiness, I’d bought strawberries, pears and apples to make a fruit salad. Nate had then stayed most of the night handmaking beef patties, and cutting round shapes out of the white bread to make them into burgers. The fridge was crammed with food, and he’d said he’d arrive early to help make the sandwiches.

I’d been up since five o’clock buttering bread for sandwiches by the time Tegan ran into the kitchen at seven o’clock, holding on to Meg, screaming, “It’s my party day!”

“I know!” I said and scooped her up into my arms. She felt real now. A proper human being, not the shell of a girl who’d been too scared to breathe when I’d taken her from Guildford. Her royal blue eyes looked keenly into my face and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Does Tegan want her present now or would she rather wait for her party?”

“Now!” she squealed.

We moved to the sofa and I put her down beside me. I reached down the side of the sofa and pulled out the parcel that I’d hidden there last night when Tegan had gone to bed. It was wrapped in gold paper and tied with a red bow. Ever cautious, she put down Meg and took the parcel in her little hands and stared at it in wonderment. “Is it really for me?” she asked.

“Read the tag and find out.”

“For my darling Tiga. Happy sixth birthday, love Mummy Ryn,” she read dutifully. “It is for me!” she laughed. She held on to the present as though it was a doll.

“Open it, then,” I coaxed.

“Oh yeah.” She giggled. She examined the parcel, looking for somewhere she could open it without tearing the paper. When she didn’t find it, she bit her lower lip and looked up at me in bewilderment.

“Do you want me to help you?” I asked.

She nodded.

I found where I’d taped down the thick gold paper, and peeled it back carefully so as not to distress my obsessively neat child. “There you go.”

With glee, Tegan opened up the parcel and her mouth fell open, her eyes wide. “Wow,” she said and reached into the paper’s folds and pulled out a white dress with red spots. It had a full skirt, long sleeves and a red ribbon around the middle. “It’s a dress!” she exclaimed. “It’s very pretty.”

“I thought you might want to wear it to your party.”

“Am I ’lowed? Really and truly?”

“Well, yeah. Although, I think you should see Luke’s present as well.”

I reached down and found the package Luke had wrapped and left the night before. To save time, I untaped the box-shaped parcel and gave it to her. She pulled off the paper and revealed a shoebox. She opened it and found white shoes with red spots on them. “It’s the same as my dress!” she said.

“So you can wear them today.”

“Thank you!” she said and threw her arms around my neck. “I love it, Mummy Ryn.”

“There’s one more present for you to open right now.” I pulled another parcel, smaller than our other packages from the side of the sofa, and repeated the opening procedure. “To Tiga, with love from Nate.” She gasped with delight. “Mr. Nate brought me a present!” She eagerly opened it and then squinted at the contents in a confused manner. He’d bought her a small silk bag that matched her dress and shoes.

“It’s a bag, so you can carry things in it today.”

“It’s very pretty,” she decided.

“Yes, and you’ll look very pretty with it.”

“I wish my mummy could see me.” She scrunched up her face and nodded at me. But, instead of looking sad, she seemed fine. As though she’d resigned herself to the fact that her mother wasn’t going to be at the party, had come to accept the reality of the situation.

“So do I. But, I do have something from your mummy.”

Tegan’s already wide eyes widened even more. “She sent it from heaven?” she gasped.

“No, sweetpea, she gave it to me before she went to heaven.”

I’d known she was ready to get this, she seemed so much more settled than when we’d arrived in Leeds, but still I had toyed with the idea of opening it and reading it first. I just wanted to check that it wasn’t anything upsetting, then realized that Adele wouldn’t put anything that would hurt her daughter. And anyway, the white envelope wasn’t for me, it was for Tegan. I took the card from my dressing gown pocket and handed it over. Her little fingers received the envelope and, biting her lower lip, she stared at the white square before she sought my guidance.

“Shall I open it?” she asked.

“If you want to, baby.”

She opened it carefully and just as cautiously pulled out the card. On the front was a blond princess with a pink crown and a huge number six on her pink dress. “Happy Sixth Birthday” the front declared. Tegan opened it.

My darling Tegan,

Happy Birthday.

I’m sorry I can’t be there with you today but I’ll always love you.

Never forget that, OK? Mummy loves you.

I’m sure you’ll have a fabulous time today.

Have a dance for me.

I hope you’re being good for Kamryn.

Love, Mummy.

A smile lit up her face as she turned to me. “My mummy loves me,” she stated. “She said so. In my birthday card.”

“I know.”

Her smile grew. “You are Kamryn, aren’t you, Mummy Ryn?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Am I being good for you?”

“You’re being more than good for me, you’re being perfect for me.”

“So my mummy will be pleased.” Again, the kind of logic I never expected from a six-year-old. I leaned forward and took her in my arms. I frequently had a need to hug Tegan these days. She’d be minding her own business, watching television or drawing or reading, and she would find herself swamped by one of my hugs. Unexpected and unsolicited. I couldn’t help myself, I just needed to remind myself that she existed, that she was touchable. Our roles had been reversed these past few weeks. After Adele died, Tegan always needed to have me around, so I could ground her with a touch or a look. Now I needed to know she was always going to be there. I needed to be reassured that she was real and that she wasn’t going to do what Adele had done and leave me. There was a limited time, too, before she’d squirm out of my hold, too grown-up and cool to be hugged by me. Right now she accepted my cuddles without question or resistance.

“Right, baby,” I said releasing her, “we’ve got a lot to do before your party. Let’s have your bath, and then you can have breakfast before Mr. Nate, I mean Nate, arrives to make sandwiches? Does that sound OK to you?”

She nodded and, still holding the card in one hand, she scooped up Meg. Tegan was going to carry the card around with her all day, as it turned out. She would only forget about it much, much later in the day.

chapter 44

T
egan beamed at her princess cake.

She’d been grinning for most of the day and she showed no signs of stopping. With every present, she grinned; with every kind word, she grinned; with every game, she grinned. But her biggest smile of the party so far was reserved for the cake. The six candles reflected in her royal blue eyes as I set down in front of her the large square chocolate cake with pink icing and a picture of a princess on top. Everyone crowded round and sang “Happy Birthday” to her. She paused to make a wish before blowing out the candles in one huge puff. After the candles, she opened her mountain of presents. My parents had bought her a digital camera, my sister’s children had sent her the complete set of Roald Dahl books. My younger brother’s two children had both sent her Disney DVDs and my older brother’s children had bought her a karate suit.

After the cake most of the children ran back to the bouncy castle and swings outside. Tegan went with them while I took the cake into the hall’s kitchenette to cut it up for the goodie bags. This party was going well—during the last two hours only a couple of children had cried, and most of the food sat in uneaten heaps on paper plates rather than being stamped into the parquet floors inside or the neatly cut grass outside. And no one had wounded themselves. That was a perfect party as far as I was concerned. The two parents who had stayed for the party followed the children outside, leaving only me in the kitchenette, while Nate, the fourth adult, sat in the hall, talking to a young lad who hadn’t really joined in with the others.

Nate had made himself indispensable. He had been on bouncy castle duty when we’d first arrived, overseeing its inflation, then making sure that no kids ended up on it with their shoes on. When one of the other mums took over, he went round picking up rubbish and dumping it into black trash bags. He’d whizzed back to the flat a few times to grab things I’d forgotten, like the camera and some of Tegan’s birthday presents. He’d then made a mercy dash back for the candles for the cake. No one who saw how useful he had been would guess that he didn’t like being around children, didn’t understand them and didn’t know how to relate to them.

In the kitchenette, I paused in cutting up the cake and, through the serving hatch, watched Nate. He was dressed in a V-neck blue T-shirt and dark green combats, he’d recently cut his hair, and he was looking handsome. Healthier, stronger,
delicious
. I’d had no
inamorato
moments with him, didn’t think “lover” when I looked at him but I did…I quashed that thought before it became even partially formed. It would do no one any good to start thinking like that.

The thin boy Nate was talking to listened avidly to whatever it was Nate was saying. Nate was using lots of hand gestures and smiling lots, and the boy’s shy little face slowly unwound as he immersed himself in Nate’s tale. I wondered what he was saying. If he was telling him some adventure story that would stay with the boy into adulthood. If he knew that what he said today could, potentially, permanently influence the boy’s life. Whether—

Nate glanced up suddenly, spearing me to the spot as our gazes collided. I wasn’t swift enough, couldn’t tear my eyes away and pretend I hadn’t been studying him. I continued to stare. Nate’s lips slid up into a smile and his eyes twinkled—in response, a treacherous streak of excitement tore through me. I tried to quash that too as I smiled back.

“Mrs. Brannon,” a girl’s voice said beside me. When I saw who had spoken, I stifled the urge to roll my eyes.

“I’ve told you before, Regina, I’m not Mrs. Brannon. You can call me Ryn or Tegan’s mum, not Mrs. Brannon.”

This child, this Regina Matheson, with her short, bobbed mousy brown hair and stripe of freckles across her pig-shaped nose was everything I’d expected her to be: bossy, overbearing and arrogant. I hadn’t been surprised that her parents had ditched her at the party, running off into the afternoon, knowing they wouldn’t have her for at least three hours. Regina’s freckled nose wrinkled up as she considered what I had told her about my name. Eventually she shrugged. “There is rather a lot of junk food at this party,” she stated.

I frowned theatrically at her. “You’re right, Regina, I hadn’t thought of that.”

She sighed smugly. “My mum says too much junk food is bad for you.”

“Does she? Right, well, I’m sure just this once won’t hurt.”

“I’m sure it won’t,” she stated with another smug sigh. From Tegan that would have sounded cute, from Regina…I didn’t want to finish that train of thought.

“There is some fruit, though, Regina. Strawberries or a fruit salad. Why don’t you have a strawberry?”

“I suppose.”

“Go rejoin the party, Regina, I’m sure there are lots of people who want to talk to you.”

“OK, Mrs. Brannon,” she said and skipped off to harass someone else.

I returned to cutting up the chocolate cake for the goodie bags and had just finished when Nate entered the kitchenette. He came to me and stood so close I felt the warmth from his body before I’d even turned to him. “Can I help you with anything?” he asked. I moved to look at him and found we were almost face to face because he’d dipped his head to my height. His navy blue eyes stared straight into mine, making the breath catch in my throat.

“See them bags?” I said.

He nodded, not looking at the expensive, red foil party bags lined up on the big table in front of us. I’d already stuffed them with a noisy blow toy (which every parent would hate me for), a bag of sweets, a thank-you note I’d helped Tegan to write, and a bendy straw. Now they were awaiting their cake. “These pieces of cake, cake, in those bags would be very helpful. Helpful. You need to wrap them in napkins first, though. Though.” I couldn’t speak properly, he was doing that to me. “Napkins. Cake. Bags.”

His eyes traveled from my eyes to my lips, lingered there then moved up to my eyes again. What he was thinking was clear on his face. He moved a fraction closer. He was going to kiss me, I realized. At our daughter’s birthday party, he was going to cross the line and kiss me. Would I kiss him back? Would I slip my arms around his neck and kiss him back? Or would I push him off, remind him of my boyfriend? Nate moved slightly closer, parted his lips. “OK,” he whispered. Suddenly he pulled away, robbing me of his lust. He’d done that on purpose, I knew. He’d wanted to get me stirred up and then push me into making the next move by stepping back. It was a game he’d played a couple of times after a fight, when he needed me to prove that I desired him as much as he did me.

He took half the cake on its chopping board with him to the other side of the table. He washed his hands before starting to wrap up the chocolate squares in the white napkins. “This is weird,” he said, as though he hadn’t been about to seduce me. “Me and you, kids, not going crazy.”

“They’ve started to grow on me,” I replied, matching his normal tone. I wasn’t going to let him know how much his game had affected me.

“Me too.”

“I saw. You and that boy seemed to be getting on pretty well.”

“He reminded me of me when I was that age: shy, terrified of the other kids—especially the girls.”

“It’s nice to see you relaxed again, Nate. You seem a lot better.”

“I am. Thanks to you and Tegan and Luke. The past few weeks have really helped…I’m not so…You know, about Adele. I feel guilty though.”

“About?”

“You’re the one I was meant to be looking after, you lost your best mate and all I did was fall apart on you.”

“We helped each other. And you know I’d do almost anything for you, mate.”

“Do you think this is what it would have been like if we had decided to have children?”

“No, Nate. If we’d had kids they’d have been evil and the church would assign a special hit squad to rid the earth of them.”

“They’d be cute,” Nate protested. “Big eyes, shiny black hair, mocha skin, big smile…”

“Are you broody?” I asked. He’d obviously thought about this. “There’s no shame in it if you are.”

He thought about it. “No.” He shuddered. “No, not at all. It’s something that crosses my mind nowadays. I wouldn’t actually want one. I mean, anymore.”

“Me neither. I love Tegan, couldn’t live without her, but I’m not wanting to do it again.”

“What about Luke?” Nate asked as he paused in folding a napkin around a piece of cake and watched me in that unnerving way of his. “Is he all right with that? I get the impression he wants lots of kids.”

“Maybe he does,” I said. Of course he did. That was our elephant in the corner. We hadn’t talked about it directly, but I knew he wanted to be a dad; he knew that I’d finished with all that when I acquired Tegan. A discussion about more children would end with…It would end. Everything.

“Do you love him, Kam?”

I glanced up. No one had called me Kam in so long, I’d actually forgotten that I’d once been called it. I nodded.

“I do.”

“More than you love me?”

“My feelings for you are past tense, Nate.”

“You’re lying, to me and yourself.”

“We’re getting married, Luke and I. We talked about it a few weeks ago.”

Nate shrugged, unmoved and unbothered. “Don’t care. You’re still lying to me and yourself.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“I’m not saying you don’t love him, I think you’re torn—you want us both. You’re not very good at hiding your feelings, so he knows as well. I’m surprised he hasn’t said something. Or has he? Is that why he proposed, because he suspects you’re not sure of your feelings?”

I went back to wrapping the cake pieces in their neat, napkin envelopes, ignoring what he was saying.

“I love you, Kam.”

My hands started to shake as I moved a piece of cake to the napkin in front of me. I hated this about Nate, his freedom with emotions—mine and his. His ability to simply say what he felt without thought for what it might do to me.

“I’m not going to put pressure on you. I just want you to know that. And I want you to be honest with yourself.”

I stared at the tabletop. What I felt was my business. If I was lying to myself that was my business too. I didn’t have to admit to anything. And what was there to admit to? That I fancied him? Well, obviously, he was gorgeous. That when Luke pissed me off, Nate was who I wanted? Every woman did that—before Nate walked back into my life I would fantasize about being with Jamie Foxx or Keanu Reeves. It wasn’t fair for Nate to accuse me of this. Especially since I knew Luke thought the same. The pair of them assumed they knew what I felt and when I corrected them, they never truly accepted what I said. I searched for a way to tell Nate he was wrong. To let him know that yes, I fancied him, but Luke was my lover.

“Mrs. Brannon,” Regina Matheson began, tugging at my skirt.

I ignored her. And decided to keep ignoring her until she got it right. “Mrs. Brannon.” She tugged harder.

I continued to bag up cake pieces without acknowledging her existence.

“Mrs. Brannon,” Regina said again.

“What is it?” I snapped, finally turning to her. I was about to say, “And I’m not Mrs. anything,” when I noticed the anxiety on her face.

“Tegan’s turning blue,” she stated.

“What—” I threw aside the cake in my hand and ran out of the kitchenette across the hall and toward the doors that opened out to the back of the hall. I ran, but felt I wasn’t moving. That everything was in slow motion. Beside the bouncy castle, all the children, silent and solemn, stood in a circle, staring at a spot on the ground. As I got nearer I saw at the center of the circle was a parent who was crouched down beside Tegan and was calling, “Tegan, can you hear me?”

Tegan lay on her back on the ground. Still. Still and perfect. Her pretty white and red spotted dress was crease-free, her legs stretching out from the hem of her big skirts ending with her red and white spotted shoes. Her bunches with their red ribbons were in perfect symmetry on either side of her head. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was gently parted, but she was indeed turning blue. Bluer by the second. She was so still. Adele. The memory of the last time I saw her settled like a vulture in my mind. Adele had been this still the last time I saw her. Still and cold and dead.

I shoved aside the woman by Tegan as I dropped to my knees. I pressed my ear to her chest, listening.
Thud
. Soft, faint, but confirmation that her heart was still beating. But she wasn’t breathing.

“Nate! Get an ambulance!” I screeched.

“It’s on its way,” he replied from somewhere near me.

“Did she choke?” I asked the assembled group of children as I gently tipped Tegan’s head back and opened her mouth.

“She put a strawberry in her mouth,” Regina said, pointing. I glanced to the side and there was a strawberry, perfect, untouched. She hadn’t taken a bite, hadn’t choked, that meant she was allergic. When you had an allergic reaction you needed antihistamines and adrenaline to keep your heart beating. I knew that much. I had to keep her heart beating and get her breathing.

I blew into her mouth, then moved to her chest and pushed carefully, didn’t want to break her ribs. Five counts, five gentle pushes. Then back to her mouth, blow. Nate dropped beside me to her chest, he was going to start chest compressions but I shook my head at him. I had to do this. I had the rhythm going. I had to bring her back to life. I went back to her chest. Five counts. Back to her mouth. No movement and she wasn’t breathing. Back to her mouth, blow. Back to her chest. After the final push, I put my head to her chest.
Thud
. Again, small and gentle. Her heart was still beating. Back to her mouth, back to her chest.

The sound of children crying, asking what was going on cut into my thoughts. Then I heard them being rounded up, being ushered away. I blew into Tegan’s mouth again, not daring to notice how cold her lips were. How the blue of her skin was deepening with every passing second. I just had to keep going. To keep trying to bring her back. I heard Nate’s voice, he was talking.

I breathed into her mouth again and then Nate’s strong arms hooked around my chest and hoisted me away from her. I almost fought him, almost screamed that I wasn’t going to stop, when two green-clad paramedics took my place. The first paramedic, a wiry man in his late forties, placed an oxygen mask over Tegan’s face, covering her pretty visage with the ugly plastic. The other, a plump woman in her thirties, measured clear liquid into a syringe.