Second Hand Jane (23 page)

“Oh my God,
Harry! Cut that out!” Brianna yelled, standing up and gesticulating
for him to stop the carnage. Once he’d dropped the stick, she
turned her attention back to Jess. “Whatever you do, don’t ever
have kids,” she warned for the umpteenth time. “The stress is going
to kill me. Honestly, one day I’m worried he will grow up to be a
flasher, the next a cross-dresser, and then on days like this when
the testosterone really kicks in, a serial killer.”

Jess laughed
and gave her friend her usual response to Harry’s quirks. “He is a
gorgeous, totally normal boy, and one day all those things you just
spieled off will be funny anecdotes at his twenty-first.”

“You
think?”

“I know so.
Listen, boys will be boys and like Harry, Nick’s got a soft side,
too. I think you need to meet him and see for yourself.”

“Okay, I’m up
for that. How about you both come to our place for dinner, if it
all goes well with your date this Wednesday, that is? That way,
Pete and I can check him out properly and I promise I will try to
reserve judgement until then. I’ll put the hard word on Harry to
behave.”

“Right! You
have got yourself a deal. Dinner would be lovely and you’ll get to
see for yourself that Nick’s lovely too. Now then,” Jess said,
tucking her flyaway hair behind her ears, “all we have done is talk
about me. What’s going on with you?”

“Oh, the usual
busy, busy—you know how it is. I am heading out later this
afternoon to make placards for a protest the play group is going to
stage.” She shook her head, causing her shoulder-length brown hair
to bob up and down. “I really believe that corporate greed is the
death of communities.”

Jess didn’t
think it would go down too well were she to point out that if it
weren’t for big corporations, Pete wouldn’t have a job so instead
she gave her friend a pat on the back. “Good for you, Brie,
standing up for what you believe in.”

“Well, you just
make sure you stand up for what you believe in and don’t let
yourself be bullied by Nora or your Mum where Nick is concerned,
okay?”

It was the
second time she’d been warned about letting herself get bullied in
under two days: first by her father and now by Brianna. Was she
really that much of a pushover? Jess pondered and speaking of
pushovers. “So have you heard from Nora? The last time I spoke to
her, she was off waterskiing in the South of France.’

“What! The
South of France! Lucky madam, but she hates the sea.”

“I know she
does. She also hates mountain biking and skydiving but that hasn’t
stopped her. I swear, Brie, this Ewan is going to be the end of
her. She’ll have a bloody nervous breakdown if she keeps it up.
I’ve tried talking to her but she won’t listen.”

Brianna shook
her head. “She’s mad. I’ll have a word, so I will. I haven’t spoken
to her since last week, so I’m due to give her a call and tell her
exactly what I think about her swanning around the South of France
on a set of waterskis without telling me.”

Jess shivered.
The wind was losing its change of season chill and was feeling
decidedly wintery today.

“Come on,
you’re turning blue it’s getting so cold, and I think Harry’s
probably massacred enough sea-life for one day,” Brie said,
standing up and checking her backside for remnants of bird poo.
“Let’s head home for a cuppa.”

***

Jess
successfully whiled away the days until big date Wednesday by
throwing herself into her work, taking time off only to heed Nora’s
advice and upgrade her underwear drawer. It was ironic, really,
that the gorgeous pale green, French lace bra and briefs she had
splurged on probably cost more than the entire contents of her
wardrobe put together! She definitely drew the line at second-hand
undies, though she’d mused as she carefully snipped the tags off
and after the shock of her support knickers, Nick deserved every
penny she had spent on her new lingerie. She must remember to tell
her mother she had upgraded in that department, too, because it
might shut her up for five minutes.

Actually, she
thought, frowning, it was strange that she hadn’t heard from her
mother. She’d have put money on her ringing with a pre-date pep
talk. She’d kept expecting the phone to ring, with half of her
hoping it would be Owen with an update about Wilbur and the other
half hoping Nick would ring just to see how she was. It had,
however, remained stubbornly silent on all fronts. That was the
thing with working from home, she’d thought, shooting the phone a
nasty look; sometimes the silence got oppressive.

It wasn’t until
Tuesday morning, though, that she realised she’d been so busy
tapping away at her laptop that she hadn’t heard from Nora either.
For all she knew, she could be laid up in a French hospital with a
broken leg thanks to her ridiculous waterskiing expedition. What
kind of a friend was she? Jess chastised herself, picking the phone
up and while images of poor injured Nora swam before her eyes, she
speed-dialled her friend at work.

Nora answered
on the fifth ring. Instead of the usual harried “I am so busy” tone
she reserved for work, her voice was despondent.

“Hey, you sound
awful. What’s up?”

“Nothing. I’m
fine.”

“No, you’re
not—spill.”

“No, I’m not.”
Nora capitulated with a sniffling sound.

Jess knew
better than to try to get to the bottom of whatever the problem was
while Nora was at work. She was too much of a professional to
offload between the hours of nine and five, so she decided to take
affirmative action instead. “Right, that’s it. Nora Brennan, I am
calling a girly pow-wow. Be at my place, seven o’clock
tonight.”

“But
I’m...”

“Nope. Whatever
it is, cancel it. I’ll ring Brianna. See you then.”

Nora knew
better than to try to argue. “Oh, alright—and Jess?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks.”

“You don’t have
to thank me. That’s what friends are for.”

Jess hung up,
frowning and wondering what on earth had her normally upbeat and
in-control friend down in the doldrums. It was most unlike her to
let a man affect her the way Ewan apparently was. “Don’t let him
have packed it in with her,” she said aloud to the empty room
before tapping out Brianna’s number. Nora would be devastated if
that were the case.

Brianna was
home and the girls spent ten minutes speculating as to what could
have happened between loves young dream before agreeing that
Brianna was to be in charge of crisps and dips while Jess would get
the crackers and whip up one of her famous cheese balls, a Kiwi
party staple of old. They’d both buy wine. They had a feeling they
were going to need plenty.

***

Jess stopped
work late that afternoon in order to trot off down to Tesco’s. She
was a woman on a mission, tossing the necessary cheese ball
ingredients of both cheddar and cream cheese, salad cream, chopped
nuts and some token greenery—a bunch of chives—into her basket.
Throwing in a box of crackers, she decided that if the
circumstances were as dire as she suspected they might be, then
they could be in need of serious reinforcements so she added a
king-sized bar of chocolate to her groceries—just in case. When she
got to the wine aisle, the only special she could find worth
bothering with was an Australian sav, so muttering, “It will have
to do,” she plucked a couple of bottles off the shelf. Taking her
stash up to the checkout, she received a sympathetic smile from the
girl serving as her comfort food got stacked into a plastic bag. “I
always find Milky Bar does the trick personally,” she’d said,
waving the bar of fruit and nut chocolate under the scanner.

As Jess had
headed home to begin rolling her big cheesy ball, she thought to
herself that chocolate was indeed the universal language of
sisterhood.

***

Brianna had
organised to pick Nora, who was obviously in no fit state to drive,
up on her way over and the two women buzzed their arrival at one
minute to seven. Jess poured three generous glasses of wine while
she waited for their knock at the door. When it came, she opened it
and was shocked by her first sighting of Nora. She looked dreadful
and Jess couldn’t stop the little gasp she emitted at the sight of
her glamorous friend’s bedraggled blonde locks. She had no makeup
on, either—that was unheard of. What really got to her, though, was
the fact that Nora was in a leisure suit and on her feet was
something she never ever thought she would see her friend’s dainty
tootsies slide themselves into: Ugg boots.

Nora didn’t do
casual and Jess had had no idea she even owned a leisure suit, let
alone Ugg boots. It was then that it hit home just how bad a way
she really was in. Racing over, she wrapped her fragile friend in a
bear hug. “Did you get a park okay?” Jess asked, looking over
Nora’s shoulder to Brianna, who was bringing up the rear, laden
down with supplies.

“I’m in for the
long haul,” she replied, holding up her bottles of wine. “So I got
Pete to drop us off. He’ll pick us up on his way home from squash
around elevenish—Harry’s at my Mam’s for the night.”

The three women
trooped through to the lounge where their glasses of wine were
waiting.

Brianna sat down and kicked her boots off
before tucking her legs up under herself and reaching for her glass
while Nora collapsed down on to the settee and knocked her drink
back in two gulps. Then, spying the cheese ball, she dived into it,
scooping big chunks onto the artfully arranged crackers and
shovelling them in her mouth as though they were on a conveyer
belt. Brianna and Jess exchanged glances that asked
where had their
friend the Dukan Diet Queen disappeared to
?

At last she
stopped eating long enough to hold her glass out for a refill.
“God, that’s better. Your cheese balls really are the biz, Jess. I
needed that.”

Jess preened as
she got up to get another bottle out of the fridge. “I’ve always
maintained that there really are healing properties in a cheese
ball. I think it must be the cheddar or maybe it’s down to the
cream cheese.”

“Or maybe it’s
just down to all the horrific calories,” Brianna said, snorting
before she carried on with her crisp fest.

With their
glasses topped up, Jess and Brianna tussled over the crisps and
dip. The cheese ball was out of bounds—poor Nora needed it more
than they did. Supping their drinks, they listened while Nora
filled them in as to what had got her knickers in such a knot.

“Ewan wants us
to…to do a b-b-b-” She sounded like a five-year-old sounding out
her letters.

“Wants you to
do what, Nora?” Brianna and Jess chimed patiently, both bewildered
and each hoping she wasn’t going to reveal some new sex act they
hadn’t heard of.

“He wants us to
do a b-b-bungee jump together off the top of Liberty Hall.”

Jess and
Brianna looked at each other, shocked Nora was referring to
Dublin’s tallest building. “And I can’t do it!” Nora wailed.

“Right, enough
is enough!” Jess stated, getting up from her armchair perch to
shove another loaded cracker in her friend’s gob. It had an instant
calming effect.

“You need to
tell Ewan the truth. You can’t keep pretending to be someone you
are not and Nora, face it—you are not an adrenaline junkie.”

“Why can’t I
keep pretending? I managed to pull off the mountain bike ride,
skydiving and waterskiing, so surely that qualifies me? I just need
to find a way to fight the fear.” Nora’s expression was
petulant.

Brianna
interjected, “Feck fight the fear! It qualifies you as an idiot,
yes, because you were absolutely terrified doing all of those
things and think about it. Where will it end? He’ll have you
white-water rafting down the Amazon, or swimming with great whites
if you’re not careful or, or…”

“Or leaping off
tall buildings with a piece of elastic tied round your legs,” Jess
finished.

“I know, I
know. My nerves are shot and look.” She held out her trembling
hands and both women looked in shock at Nora’s chewed
fingernails.

“Nora Brennan,
listen to me. This is not you. You are not a nail-biter. You get
your nails done once a week, for goodness’ sake! I aspire to have
nails like yours.” Jess paused to gaze briefly at her own short
clipped nails. Long nails were hopeless when you earned your money
tapping out articles on a laptop. Her face took on a puzzled
expression. “What I don’t get, though, is how come you managed to
skydive and all that other stuff but you can’t do a bungee jump?
What’s so scary about that by comparison? Not that I’m encouraging
you or anything.” She popped a handful of dip-laden crisps in her
mouth. “Yum. Brie, that feta and spinach dip is divine.”

“Yeah, it is,
isn’t it? Marks had a special on, so I grabbed a couple.”

“Excuse me,
you’re supposed to be helping me sort my life out, not talking
about bloody supermarket specials.”

“Sorry.” Both
women were contrite.

Mollified, Nora
answered Jess’s question. “I was naïve when I did the skydive. I
had no idea what I was in for or how terrifying it would be. As for
mountain biking,” she shrugged, “anyone can ride a bike; I just
pretended I was doing a spin class. Being flown to the South of
France in a private plane helped take the edge off the
waterskiing.” Her blue eyes filled with fear. “But there is
absolutely no fecking way I can throw myself off a building with
nothing but a pair of pantyhose holding me up—not even if I popped
a couple of Valium first!”

“Then tell Ewan
the truth for your own sake, or you’re going to give yourself a
nervous breakdown.”

“Okay, okay.”
Nora held up both hands in defeat. “You’re right, I know and I
will—I promise but he’s in the States for the next two weeks
filming.”