Now this is more like it. This Bethany, so well put together on the outside, is a damn pig with her diet. Bags of salad at the front give an illusion of control. But hidden at the back are slabs of chocolate – all that gorgeous shitty cheap chocolate – and I feel my mouth watering at the mere thought of devouring it.
The stash makes me think of Cesca and I wonder what she thinks of this version of her sister. I assume she thinks it’s hilarious that her Bethany puts so much effort into her appearance, who scrubs her bathroom until it shines and organizes her clothes by colour. Hell, my Cesca would be surprised at a Bethany who even hangs her clothes up at all.
I pick up the phone and pull up my recent call log, desperate to see if perhaps in this world Cesca and I are close once more. But my hope is short-lived as the only person I ever seem to call is a name I don’t even recognize – who the hell is Flick? – and it looks like Cesca and I barely contact each other.
The phone rings in my hand and I drop it like it’s burnt my flesh.Flick. The name flashes on the screen.
Should I answer it?
‘Hi?’ My voice shakes.
‘Bethany, sweetheart!’ Flick has the kind of voice that booms. ‘You haven’t forgotten, have you?’
My eyes dart round the room, searching for anything that might tell me what I’ve forgotten. ‘Err …’
‘Oh come on!’ She’s joking but I can tell there’s a hint of something there, an undercurrent of frustration. One that sends a shiver up my spine and the faint flicker of a memory, one buried deep in the long-distant past.
Surely it can’t be?Felicity Barnes-Schmitt. We shared a dormitory in the lower sixth. I was so excited to finally leave behind the bunk beds and seven to a shower of the lower years and graduate to twin rooms with an en-suite bathroom and space for a coffee machine. It was Felicity who got me hooked on caffeine all those years ago with her belief you couldn’t call yourself a grown-up unless you had a double-shot macchiato in one hand. ‘Oh come on,’ she’d said, waving a steaming mug in my direction. ‘You’ll love it.’ It’d taken me sixth months to come round to her way of thinking and now I was addicted. So, thanks, Felicity. I guess.
But this can’t possibly be Felicity Barnes-Schmitt on the end of the line. Felicity’s dad paid extra for her to have a single room in our final year of A levels, saying she needed to study more and gossip less. We didn’t stay in touch when we left. Truth be told I didn’t really keep in touch with any of those girls. I had spent years trying to fit in, trying to be one of them and not be considered ‘the charity case’. I was exhausted by the time the end of our exams rolled around, desperate to escape back to our family home in Devon. Back to Cesca who had a maths scholarship for a different boarding school and who I missed like a lost limb. Back to somewhere I could just be me.
Plus, she had always been Felicity. All four syllables enunciated properly,thank you very much. Never Flick. Never ever ever Flick. The name grates against my memory of her. Nope. It definitely isn’t her.
It definitely is her. The eleven years since I last saw her are barely visible in her smooth skin and the blonde hair ironed to a perfect sheen down her back. She pulls up outside the flat in a cherry-red sports car, looking every inch the girl I remember.
We’re going to the fashion show of a friend of hers. ‘You’ll love it,’ she’d promised me when she called earlier to check I’d remembered. Something tells me I won’t love it. Does this Bethany like this kind of thing? Or did she tell Flick that she loved it while she secretly hating the person she pretended to be?
‘Hi, Felicity,’ I say, sliding into the passenger seat, a tone of mock joviality in my voice.
‘Flick,’ she says in a way that tells me she has made this correction a hundred times before. I wonder when she moved from Felicitythank you very muchto Flick? And what prompted the change. But I guess this is something I’m meant to know and so hardly a question I can just come out with.
‘Did you think any more about Saint-Tropez?’ she asks as I click my seat belt into place.
‘Umm …’ I stall for time, hoping she’ll be clearer about the specifics – I have no idea if she’s talking about fake tan or the place in France.
‘Mummy’s new place? Next week?’ She looks at me and a frown crosses her face. Or at least I think it’s a frown, at the very least an attempt at one. Judging from the complete lack of even the faintest lines around her eyes and mouth, I’m ninety per cent sure she has Botox. I shudder at the thought, my hand creeping up to stroke my own skin. Surely I wouldn’t … I pull down the visor and look at myself in the mirror.
‘You should see Dr Abignano,’ she tells me. ‘He’ll sort those crow’s feet right out.’
I look harder, relieved to see that I have not already been indulging in this Dr Abignano’s magic cure. We aren’t even thirty for Christ’s sake. Who the hell has Botox before they even find a grey hair? I mumble something non-conclusive.
‘So Saint-Tropez?’
‘Umm. I don’t know about work,’ I say.
‘Urgh. Work work work. That’s all there ever is with you. Soooo boring.’
Well, at least this Bethany still values her career. ‘Gotta pay the bills,’ I say.
‘You need to find a rich boyfriend,’ she tells me in a way that is so matter-of-fact I can tell she sees zero issue whatsoever in getting a guy to fund her lifestyle. ‘What about that delicious Tyler?’
‘Tyler?’ I try not to splutter at the thought.
‘Just put whatever stupid shit is between the two of you to bed,’ she says. Then she cackles. ‘I mean, literally to bed. You two just need to fuck it out.’
That is the last thing we need to do.
‘Again,’ Flick adds and cackles even harder.
