Queenie(26)

“So, how are things with you and your boyfriend, Darcy? Are you still together?” Cassandra asked. “Sorry to play catch-up, I just haven’t seen you for a while. I hear bits and bobs through Queenie, though. What’s his name again?” Cassandra interrogated, the click of her heels echoing around us as we walked.

“Simon? Yes, he’s good! We moved in together a few months ago, and it seems to be going well! There are some issues, some troubles, but—”

“Like what?” Cassandra asked, almost greedily.

“Well, you know he’s fifteen years older than me? He’s ready for a life that I didn’t think I’d have to even start thinking about for years! Children, and mortgages, and . . .” It all came tumbling out.

“Why do you never talk to me about this?” I puffed.

“It all seems a bit trivial given what you’re going through.” Darcy smiled. “It’s okay, it’s nothing that I can’t handle.”

“How long were you together? You know, before you moved in with each other? Do you think you did it too soon?” Cassandra pressed on with the immediate and unasked-for psychoanalysis.

“Um, I think six years?” Darcy said. I nodded.

“Six years?” Cassandra repeated. “That’s a good amount of time before moving in together, isn’t it, Queenie?” I was facing ahead, concentrating on the top of the hill, but with my peripheral vision I could see Cassandra looked at me pointedly. I nodded again, swerving her dig, and tried to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth.

“Well, you know, it’s always a tricky thing, and some couples just aren’t cut out for it. But it’s no bad thing if they aren’t!” Darcy said, putting an arm around my shoulders, as if getting up the hill wasn’t hard enough. I nodded, switching to mouth breathing.

“I’m not being mean, I’m just thinking out loud,” Cassandra snipped. “Plus, along with everything else, Queenie didn’t even want to move in with Tom so soon. She told him that she wasn’t ready and he basically gave her an ultimatum. That’s not fair.” I nodded in agreement. “I don’t think she should see him again.”

“. . . Isn’t that a little bit harsh, Cassandra? They were together for three years. They’re still together, sort of. And they love each other.” Darcy clearly didn’t understand that the best way to deal with Cassandra was to let her think that she was right about everything.

“A break may as well be a breakup,” Cassandra said definitively, and Darcy was silenced by this pronouncement.

We finally got to the top of the hill, me hoping that the sweat at my temples wasn’t visible, the girls unbothered by the hike. We walked toward the entrance of the park, and through the clusters of crowds, I saw Kyazike leaning against the iron gates. We weaved our way toward her, me trying to touch as few people as possible.

“You lot took your time,” she said, blinking slowly. “It’s chappin’ out here. And you’re lucky it’s not raining anymore.” Kyazike didn’t like mud, or fireworks, or the cold, but I’d convinced her to come out and meet my other best friends, given that they’d been in a group chat for the last two months and them not knowing each other IRL was going to get weird soon. I may or may not have suggested that I wouldn’t do her hair again unless she came out with us.

“Sorry, it’s my fault! I’m Darcy, hello!” Darcy leaped toward Kyazike and hugged her tightly. “I can’t believe we’re only just meeting, I’ve heard so much about you. And spoken to you, fellow Corgi!”

Kyazike hugged her back, surprised at the physical contact. “You didn’t tell me she was so friendly, Queenie,” she said, smiling at me over Darcy’s shoulder.

“I realized earlier, you’ve met Cassandra. Remember?” I said, putting a hand on each of their shoulders when Darcy finally released Kyazike. “Last year at my twenty-fourth?”

“How do you pronounce your name again?” Cassandra asked, and I winced. Although it was better her asking rather than attempting a guess and butchering the pronunciation, I’d spoken about Kyazike enough for Cassandra to have remembered. She’d have remembered if it had been a basic name like Sarah or Rachel or something.

“Chess-keh,” Kyazike said.

“Oh, okay, like Jessica without the ic in the middle?” Cassandra asked.

“No. Like my own name. Not some Western name. Chess-keh,” she repeated. I was worried that she was going to tell Cassandra about herself, but instead she looked down at Cassandra’s feet.

“Nice shoes. Miu Miu?” Kyazike said, impressed. I exhaled.

“Yes, got them in the sale, though.” Cassandra lifted a foot and twirled it daintily.

“Always good to find some common ground!” Darcy said to them both. “Shall we go, then? Get a good space?” She charged onward through the park, and we all followed her, me in my Dr. Martens and Cassandra and Kyazike instantly further bonding when they realized that heels at a fireworks display were an incredibly bad shout, holding on to each other to make their way through the mud.



* * *



Half an hour later, having passive-aggressively bickered about the optimal place to stand that would allow us to see the fireworks and feel like we were in a crowd while observing that two of our party were in heels, we were all standing on a bit of solid path at the edge of the park waiting for things to start. As I clutched a foam cup of tepid chocolate in my hand, my motley crew of friends swigged from a bottle of Prosecco.