The Shoestring Club (5 page)

Karen’s lip curls up. ‘Don’t worry, I’m leaving. Your shop is shite, Pandora. No one wants to wear stinky secondhand clothes. And you’re wrong, Jules does want Ed back. But he’s marrying Lainey and there’s nothing you or your freako family can do about it. They’re off to Paris the weekend after next to collect her wedding dress. And you can tell Jules from me, if she arrives at the ceremony and throws herself at Ed, like something out of
The Graduate
, she’ll have me to deal with. I know Lainey has invited her,’ she breaks off and sniffs. ‘Purely out of guilt if you ask me, but Jules is hardly going to turn up now, is she. She couldn’t bear to see Lainey get something she wants so badly.’

‘Get out.’ Pandora flicks Karen’s face with a silk scarf she’s grabbed from the dummy behind her.

Karen puts her hand to her face, like she’s been stung. Her eyes are wide. ‘I could sue you for that.’

‘Out!’ Pandora flicks her again. ‘And you’re lucky it’s not a belt.’

‘Jesus, Pandora, no wonder Jules is so weird.’ And with that Karen scarpers.

Seconds later Pandora walks into my cubicle, closes the curtain behind her and collapses onto the chair. ‘I saw your mad dash into the changing rooms. I guess you caught all that?’

I nod, anger pumping through my veins. I hate the whole bloody family.

‘What a wagon,’ she says. ‘As if you’d go near her sister’s poxy wedding.’

I stare at her. ‘Are you mad? I have to go now. If I don’t make an appearance everyone will think Karen’s right, that I want Ed back, that I can’t bear seeing the two of them together.’

Pandora’s eyes are soft. ‘But it’s true, isn’t it? You
do
want him back.’

I say nothing, just stare down at the floor. Of course it’s true, but I’m not admitting it to anyone, especially not Pandora.

‘I don’t want to be poor old Julia, the girl whose best friend stole her boyfriend, for the rest of my life,’ I say in a rush. ‘No, I’m going to find a really cute guy, wear a knockout dress and spend the whole night snogging the face off him in front of everyone. Then no one will feel sorry for me and I’ll be able to hold my head up high and forget all about Lainey bitch-face Anderson and Ed bastard-features Powers.’

Pandora looks doubtful. ‘Are you sure? Hearing them exchanging their vows might tip you over the edge.’

I nod vigorously. ‘Positive. It’ll be my Ed swansong. But I have to look amazing.’ An image floats in front of my eyes – me wafting into the church in the Faith Farenze dress and everyone gasping at how stunning I look. ‘And I have to wear the Farenze. I just have to.’

Pandora sighs. ‘Don’t be daft, Jules. Where are you going to find twelve hundred euro? You already owe Dad a grand from your New Zealand trip.’

Trust old elephant memory to bring that up. Ancient history. I’m hoping Dad’s forgotten all about it. ‘Please, Pandora? I’m begging you, hold the dress for me until I think of something.’

She throws her eyes to heaven. ‘You’re living in cloud cuckoo land, Jules, but I’m willing to humour you for exactly one week, otherwise it goes back on the floor. But I’m really not sure you’re strong enough for the wedding. Even in the Farenze, with Johnny Depp himself on your arm, it will still be difficult.’

‘In that dress I can cope with anything,’ I say with more confidence than I feel.

She strokes my head and for once I don’t pull away. ‘Just think it through properly, Boolie, that’s all I’m saying.’ I look at her. She hasn’t used Mum’s pet name for me – Boolie, short for Julia Boolia – for a long time. We lock eyes for a second and then I pull mine away.

‘I’ll put it on the rail in the office in case you think of something, OK?’

I smile at her. ‘Thanks, Pandora.’

While she takes the dress to the office, I sit down on the velvet-covered chair in the changing room and put my head in my hands. Seven days to come up with twelve hundred euro. Pandora’s right, I do need to think. Think, Jules, think!

When I get back from lunch Pandora is twirling in front of one of the shop’s mirrors, in the Faith Farenze.

‘What are you doing in my dress?’ I demand. ‘I have it on hold, remember?’

She sighs. ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist, Jules, I’m just trying it on.’

Lenka is slouched over the desk, gazing at Pandora admiringly. ‘You look a million dollars,’ Lenka says. ‘The colour really suits you.’ She walks towards Pandora and pulls at the front of the dress. ‘But maybe a padded bra, yes? Or chicken fillets?’ Lenka thinks you’re not properly dressed unless you’re showing a cleavage worthy of Dolly Parton. As soon as she’s saved up the money, or can cajole her latest boyfriend into paying for it, she’s straight off for a boob job.

‘It’s irrelevant,’ Pandora says glumly, slapping Lenka’s hand away. ‘Someone like Sissy will end up owning it. Besides, I’d have nothing to wear it to.’ She runs her fingers over the chiffon. ‘But it is stunning,’ she adds wistfully.

‘When Jules buys the dress, you can borrow it, Pandora,’ Lenka says brightly. ‘Is good idea, yes?’

Pandora smiles in an annoyingly condescending way. ‘Like that’s going to happen. I’m just humouring her, Lenka. There’s no way she’ll come up with the money in a week.’

I scowl at my sister. Great to see she has so much faith in me. After a brief show of sisterly support, I guess it’s back to business as usual in the Schuster household.

Six o’clock, closing time can’t come quickly enough. Because the more I think about it, the more convinced I become that I have to have the Faith Farenze. It’s not rational or logical, I just have this feeling in the pit of my stomach that if the dress is mine not only will I be able to attend the wedding with my head held high, but my whole life will change, will be magically transformed overnight, like Cinderella’s. The dress will hang in my wardrobe, no, on the wall, like a valuable Impressionist painting, so I can gaze at it all the time; and the very same day I’ll win the lotto, meaning I’ll never have to get up early for work ever again. Then I’ll meet Prince Charming, or else I’ll manage to convince Ed that Lainey is all wrong for him and that he should marry me instead.

As soon as the final customers have left – there are always one or two stragglers – I leave Pandora and Bird to close up, grab my bike and cycle home slowly, feeling completely out of energy. Once inside the house, I dump my bag on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. It’s strangely quiet. Then I remember that Dad’s away working in Kilkenny, and Iris is staying overnight with one of her little friends. Iris is Pandora’s eight-year-old daughter, very bright and a right little chatterbox. And as Pandora and Bird are off to some sort of boring choral thing tonight, I have the place to myself for a change – perfect. Once Jamie arrives I’ll crack open a bottle of wine, grab some beers for him and we can settle down on the sofa in the living room. After a few drinks we’ll be able to talk about the past without any recrimination or regrets, clear the air properly. I feel warm just thinking about it. Now that Jamie’s back everything will be different, I just know it.

I wander into the living room and slump down on the sofa to wait for him. I switch on the telly and flick through the programmes I’ve saved on the Sky box.
America’s Next Top Model
, that will do, nice and mindless, and the idiocy of some of the girls always makes me laugh. They make walking up and down a room without falling over your own two feet sound as difficult as brain surgery sometimes. I sit back and start watching.

Every few minutes I check the time, wondering when Jamie will appear. I miss having someone to confide in so much at times it physically stings. Before the whole Ed and Lainey debacle, I talked to Lainey several times a day, especially when I was feeling a bit low. She understood me better than anyone, always knew exactly what to say to make me feel better. In turn I was able to cheer her up when one of her sisters – Karen usually – had been teasing her or picking on her. Lainey is the quietest of the sisters and the most easy-going, but sometimes this means they take advantage of her good nature. I used to pull them up on this, but she has nobody to stick up for her now. I hope they aren’t bossing her around too much. I shouldn’t care, not after everything that’s happened, but she was part of my life for so many years it’s hard not to worry about her, even now.

It’s amazing we ever became close. She’s the polar opposite of me – calm, patient, always sees things through. At school she always handed in her essays and projects on time and made sure I remembered too. While I was off travelling, Lainey was plodding through her accountancy exams, steady as she goes.

She was brilliant at keeping in touch – always dropping me newsy emails about her course and what all her sisters were up to. There’s five of them in total and they’re all pretty close. There’s Karen of course, at thirty she’s the eldest, with a ‘going places’ barrister husband and two straight-out-of-a-Ralph Lauren-catalogue children; Tilly, twenty-nine, who runs her own company, Hot Cakes, making bespoke cakes and cupcakes with logos on them for things like launches and festivals. Tilly’s married to a banker but doesn’t have children as yet; she’s too busy building up her company. Then there’s Kia, who’s twenty-seven, single and great fun, a physio and probably my favourite of the clan apart from Lainey, who at twenty-four like me slots in next; and finally, Chloe, who at twenty-one is the baby of the family and is about to start her first job as a primary school teacher. If I ever felt lonely or sad, sitting in the Andersons’ kitchen with the bread maker almost permanently on the go and the daily cries of ‘who nicked my black tights/earphones/charger?’ always managed to banish my woes and make me feel part of something bigger than myself.

Lainey and I met on the very first day of senior school and bonded over our mutual passion for Robbie Williams and Keanu Reeves – but only in black leather in the Matrix films. Over the years she weathered many storms with me, including the many Ed Powers hurricanes and tornadoes. I never once considered her lack of boyfriends strange – she always said she was waiting for the perfect man and, knowing what Lainey was like and how much patience she had, I believed her. It never occurred to me that Ed was her very own Robbie/Keanu.

I’ve never admitted how kicked in the head, crucified and utterly stupid and blind I feel about the whole damn Ed and Lainey thing to anyone, not to Pandora and certainly not to Bird – and believe me, they’ve tried to drag it out of me. It’s all too overwhelming. I’m afraid if I start digging around, letting every-thing come bubbling up to the surface, I’ll start crying and I won’t be able to stop, ever. Or I’ll work myself into such a state, I’ll slip up and say something I’ll regret, let the past slither out and spread around my feet like an ugly oil slick.

I’m hoping talking to Jamie will be different. He’ll understand when to push and when to just listen. He’ll understand because he knows – everything. He knows what it’s like to blame yourself when things go belly up. Because he’s been there too. But right now it looks as if he’s stood me up.

I sit there for a few minutes, staring into space, feeling itchy with anger and disappointment, before pushing myself off the sofa and marching through the kitchen and into the pantry. I grab one of Dad’s bottles of wine and a glass, stomp back into the living room, pour myself a large drink, and settle back in front of the telly, grumpy to my bones. As one of the models talks about her brush with breast cancer, I try to zone out, to think about something else, anything, but my mind is determined to rake up old memories today.

I was eight, and Pandora was fourteen when Mum and Dad sat us down in the living room and told us the news. Our beautiful, vibrant, clever Mum had breast cancer, Dad said, but we weren’t to be worrying, the doctors had caught it nice and early and there was every chance that with treatment she’d be absolutely fine.

‘Of course I will,’ Mum had said brightly, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. ‘I’m not going anywhere. And that’s a promise, girls.’ But there was sadness behind her big china-blue eyes. Mum looked like a model but had a razor-sharp mind, which confused people no end. When she opened her rosebud mouth, they always expected her to witter on about shopping or shoes, but she was more interested in the details of the latest budget. As Economics Editor at RTÉ, she was on the telly and radio almost every day, presenting her carefully researched news pieces on the current state of the nation. Mum was invincible, or so I thought.

It was the ‘every chance’ that got me; I didn’t say anything at the time of course, didn’t want to say it out loud, make my worries real. But even at eight I knew ‘every chance’ meant there was also a possibility that she wouldn’t make it, that she would in fact die.

Later that night I crept into Pandora’s bed. She was also wide awake. ‘Is Mum really going to be OK?’ I whispered.

‘I don’t know, Boolie. But you know Mum, she’s pretty determined.’

I fell asleep there, warm and comforted beside my big sister.

And Mum fought it all the way, until eventually, after a gruelling operation, and an intense bout of chemotherapy and radiotherapy she was given the all-clear. And life slowly went back to normal. Until almost a year later when Mum started getting crippling headaches and was rushed into hospital. Eventually, after a lot of tests, the doctors found cancer cells in her spine. This time the diagnosis was not so good.

Mum insisted on telling us herself. Dad and Bird brought us into her hospital room and then Dad left. I don’t think he could bear to stay.