Cross Her Heart(3)
‘It’s so lovely to be able to welcome our new team members at last,’ she starts. ‘It’s wonderful to have Emily, Julia and Stacey joining us and I hope you’ll be very happy working here.’
The three young things, tanned and fully made up, beam at her and then exchange sideways happy glances with each other. I hope they’ll all stay as friendly with each other as they are today. I met Marilyn on my first day here, and I can’t imagine my life without her. Colleague and best friend rolled into one. She suffocates my loneliness.
‘Also, I owe a big debt of thanks to Toby, Marilyn and Lisa for holding the fort so well in this transition period. Marilyn and Lisa are senior staff here. If you have any problems, don’t hesitate to ask them for advice – they probably know more about the day-to-day running of this agency than I do.’
Marilyn smiles as curious eyes fall on us, whereas I look down at my feet and wish their gaze away. If only I had Marilyn’s poise and confidence. She takes everything in her stride.
‘Anyway, there will be cakes in the kitchen later and drinks in the Green Man on the corner after work for those who want to come along – which I hope will be all of you.’
She disappears back into her office and our little cluster fragments. I glance at the clock. Still a while before Simon gets here and the importance of this meeting kicks in, all thoughts of ridiculous attraction evaporating. My stomach churns and I take a couple of deep breaths. I can do this, I tell myself, only half-believing it. I have to do this. The commission alone is worth this anxiety and I’m bound to get a better annual bonus on the back of it. Maybe even a pay rise. I need to save for Ava potentially going to university. I don’t want her starting her adult life with baggage and I’m determined to help. I’ll protect her from the world however I can.
I have to. I know how terrible it can be out there.
3
AVA
The cafeteria is like the changing room at the pool, hot and moist, and the windows are misted up as the summer rain pelts at the glass outside. I don’t mind the rain so much. Ange does because her carefully straightened hair starts to frizz as soon as the first drop falls, but unless the sun is properly baking, I prefer spending our lunchtimes indoors. It’s how I always spent them before, when I used to hang out with Caz and Melanie, which feels like a lifetime ago now. It’s the only thing I really miss about them. Angela is more of an outdoor girl so we have lunch on the benches normally. Not in this downpour though. Today we’re safely inside with everyone else.
‘So, what do you reckon?’ she says. ‘For Saturday? Crash at Jodie’s? We could go to the pub first and then make a punch or something. See if anyone else is around?’ One thick black eyebrow, filled in with pencil, wriggles like a slug on her olive face as she tries to raise it suggestively. If I did mine like that I’d end up rubbing brown all over my face. Angela is way better with make-up and clothes than me. When she’s all dressed up she looks about twenty. I just look about twenty stone. I’m the ugly duckling of our group, I know it. Please God, let me one day turn into a swan.
‘Yeah, sounds good,’ I say. ‘If the others can come.’
Angela’s fingers fly over the keypad of her phone, and I know mine will buzz in a minute once she’s sent out the message to our MyBitches WhatsApp group. Lizzie came up with the name. We are each other’s bitches after all, she’d said, and we’d laughed. She was right. I can’t believe I’ve only been at Larkrise Swimmers for a year. I’ve only known these girls for about ten months. It feels like we’ve been friends forever. Well, I kind of knew Angela before because we’re in the same school, but we’ve never been in any of the same sets so she was only a face in a crowd, like I was to her. Now look at us. MyBitches. It still makes me smile. But I think I prefer The Fabulous Four, as our coach calls us. We’re his winners. We may compete as solo swimmers but we drive each other to be the best. We clicked right away, from the first morning practice, like jigsaw pieces slotting into place around each other, coming together to make a brilliant picture and put Larkrise on the competitive map.
We’re different ages, and in a lot of ways, it’s better. Gives us more to talk about. Me and Ange are the only ones at King Edward’s Grammar, Lizzie is in sixth form at Harris Academy, Arse Academy as it’s known, the shithole school in the middle of town, and Jodie is a first year at Allerton Uni. She’s nearly twenty-two and competes with the adults but she’s one of us really and she doesn’t seem to care we’re younger than her. She trains with us because her lectures clash with the adult sessions and she says she prefers mornings. She doesn’t stay in halls but at her mum’s house here in Elleston and so she hasn’t really got into uni life. She helps us with our techniques and she’s pretty cool. She never makes me feel like I’m way younger than her. Not that five years is that much younger, but the sixth formers at KEGS make you feel like they’re thirty or something, constantly looking down at us.
‘Lizzie’s in,’ Ange mutters, focused on her phone, as if I can’t read my own pinging matching messages. ‘Jodie says her mum’s not back this weekend. She’ll double-check but she’s pretty sure.’
Another bonus to having a friend at uni – much more relaxed parenting. Jodie’s mum does interior design or something for big posh houses, and she has a boyfriend in Paris where she’s currently living while she works on some project. It all sounds very glamorous, but more importantly means she’s hardly ever home. I’ve never met her and Jodie pretty much has the place to herself.