When Good Friends Go Bad (21 page)

'OK, fine then.' She nodded, searching for words, any words. 'And Saul's a nice guy. You'll have fun, I bet.' She tried to sound upbeat, despite a sudden unexpected tightness in her chest and a hot burning feeling in her throat. 'Couple of giddy bachelors,' she elaborated with forced cheer. 'Parties every night. Black satin sheets and mood lighting, I can just see it.'

'Actually he has a steady girlfriend,' Ollie said witheringly. 'He just proposed. And black satin sheets sounds about as tacky as it gets.' His scorn was evident. 'But yes, he's cool.'

'Won't she mind – the fiancée – having you and Chloe there?'

'If she did, I'm sure he wouldn't have asked me.' He made it sound glaringly obvious. 'Anyway I believe he stays at her flat a lot.'

Great. So Ollie would have Saul's place all to himself. When Chloe wasn't there, of course. Total privacy. How nice for him. Maybe Frances would drop round with casseroles for him the way Helen had brought them to Jen when Chloe was born.

And then another thought spawned and grew, a devil's whisper of temptation she didn't want to listen to but couldn't seem to banish. She too would be on her own. No Chloe. No Ollie. Evening and nights in an empty house. No one to see what she was doing or ask penetrating questions.

Into her weary, muddled mind swam a picture of Aiden's face, handsome, melancholy and full of concern.

'Well, then.' She blinked. 'It sounds absolutely perfect.'

Fresh from the shower, a towel wrapped around her wet hair, Meg wandered into the living room, where Mace and Zeb were hunched over a chessboard set up on the coffee table. Zeb frowned in concentration as he held his queen in the air, deliberating over where to position it.

'Who's winning?' she asked. She recognised the pieces, knew the rudiments of the game, but chess had never appealed to her. Forward thinking had never been part of her repertoire.

Zeb looked up. 'I am.'

'Maybe,' Mace said, affectionately swatting the top of his nephew's head. 'If you don't goof it up.' He gave a warning cough as Zeb tentatively touched the piece to a square.

Zeb snatched back his queen as if electrified, a relieved grin on his face.

Meg yawned, sitting down towelling her hair. 'Any messages?'

'Not a thing. All set for this big reunion tomorrow night?'

'Yes. They're going to pick me up in Georgina's car. Have you guys made plans?'

'Mace and Paula are taking me to a movie,' Zeb said. 'Then we're going for pizza.'

Well, that was good. Now she wouldn't have to worry about introducing everyone.

'Shouldn't that be Uncle Mace?' Mace joked. For once, he didn't look quite so much the harried accountant, Meg thought. He'd even relaxed enough to kick off his shoes and take off his tie.

'And Aunt Paula?' Zeb smirked.

'Sure. Why not?'

It was cute to see them together – her brother really seemed to have loosened up around his nephew's youthful energy. It was only when Paula was there, like at yesterday's strained Thanksgiving dinner, that she felt as if someone was running their fingernails down a chalk board. Meg had never met a more uptight conservative Little Miss Prim.

'Tell Mace that story, Mom,' Zeb requested. 'The one about you and Jen setting the stink bomb off in the lunch hall.'

'Oh God, don't.' Meg dropped the towel over her face. 'I have to see those people tomorrow. I don't need any reminders of my wicked ways.'

'Checkmate.' Mace moved his castle with a decisive click. 'See – that's what happens when you don't concentrate.'

'I thought you were excited?' Zeb said, starting to replace the marble chess pieces.

'I was.' Meg began plaiting her long hair into a single braid. 'But then last night I had one of those dreams where you're taking an exam and you realise you played hooky for the whole year and none of the questions make sense. And when I woke up it all came flooding back. All the bitchy things I said and did at school. All the trouble I got into.'

'It didn't seem to bother you at the time.' Mace rubbed the top of his nose where his glasses pinched. He cleared his throat, looking faintly uncomfortable. Meg pulled a face at him.

'Well, Zeb and I have news,' he announced. 'We've found Zeb a tutor. He's going to help get him up to speed. Right, buddy?' He poked Zeb with a toe.

Meg sat bolt upright, her hair swinging over her shoulder. She looked incredulously at Zeb, who flushed but didn't deny it.

'You gotta be kidding me?'

'He's a bright kid. And he's way behind on all the basics. He may be a whizz on the computer but he can't spell, his maths is abysmal and from what I can gather you haven't even begun to touch on science. Paula did some tests with him last night.'

That figured. Paula was a teacher. Meg should have known she had a hand in this.

'He's only nine,' she said. 'How far behind can he be?'

'Plenty. You're not doing him any favours home-schooling, you know. For one thing, how does that fit in with you working? Who takes care of him while you're at the diner?'

'He goes to a neighbour or to his friend Allie's,' Meg said impatiently, annoyed at his interfering and the implication of negligence. 'She's home-schooled too. They have a small farm. They get to feed the chickens and the pigs, grow vegetables, learn math and science in practical ways. Last year he helped Allie's dad install solar panels on the roof. Isn't that more valuable than measuring the square root of some stupid triangle?' If he could only see how free Zeb's life was. No bullies or sadistic teachers harassing him, no peers pushing drugs his way.

'Not if you ever hope to go to college. And he wants to, don't you, Zeb?'

Zeb nodded slowly. 'I guess.' He looked embarrassed. His pale face bore her freckles and his eyelashes were lush and dark. So unfair on a boy.

'This sounds like fun to you?' Meg stared hard at her son.

'I wouldn't mind doing some sums, I guess.' He squirmed. 'Ain't got nothing better to do. There's no kids here for me to play with and it's boring hanging around the house all day.'

'Let me feel your forehead.' Meg was in shock but sort of proud of the kid. 'Do you have a fever?' She placed her hand on Zeb's brow. 'Are you sure you're a Lennox? Herb would be rolling in his grave if he heard you now.'

'He couldn't,' Zeb grinned. 'Pops isn't dead.'

'No, but he might be on his way to an early grave if he hears how you're disgracing the family name.' She grabbed him in a stranglehold from behind and ruffled his hair.

'The idea behind home-schooling, in case you missed the point,' Mace had his disapproving face on again, 'is that you follow some kind of curriculum. You don't spend half the day watching movies with him and the other half goofing off at the park or ignoring him while you're glued to my computer doing God knows what.'

'That's not what we do at all,' Meg snapped, offended.

'It's what you've done since you got here. I've seen those books come out once, twice at the most. I'm surprised you-know-who hasn't put his foot down before about your unorthodox schooling methods.'

She wrapped Zeb's neck in a hug, her hair brushing against his cheek, and met Mace's eyes.

'You-know-who has known for weeks that we're here and hasn't managed so much as a goddamned phone call. So I think it's pretty clear that you-know-who is so far up his you-know-what that he couldn't care less about being any kind of you-know-what to . . .' she hesitated and shot her eyes sideways at Zeb, 'you know.'

'Yes, well.' Mace frowned. 'He doesn't have any choice, does he?'

'Apparently the asshole thinks he does.' Meg let go of Zeb and flopped on the sofa again, picking up the remote control. 'He's trying to wiggle out of the situation as fast as his stoaty little legs will take him.'

'And that's another thing. Would you please cool it on the cuss words around Paula. She doesn't appreciate it at all.'

'No shit,' said Meg, switching the television on.

'What do you think?' Jen asked as she stared woefully in the dressing-table mirror.

'Lipstick's gross. Your dress is yucky and your eyeshadow's too bright.'

'But apart from that?' Jen joked weakly.

'Come here, Mummy.'

Chloe turned on the hairdryer and scrunched and waxed her mother's hair, while Jen sat on a stool next to the bed, putty in her hands.

She was clearly enjoying it, so Jen didn't have the heart to stop her or scream 'ouch' when the pain got too much. It was some kind of divine penance for her sins.

'Do you really think my eyeshadow's too bright?' Jen never knew the correct depth of colour these days, and her make-up bag was embarrassingly outmoded.

'Not really.' Chloe shrugged, adding another great dollop of hair mousse to Jen's already crispy hair. 'But that's what Kelsey's mum says to Kelsey's big sister.'

'That's for school. This is different.'

'But you're going to school.' She began backcombing at great speed. Tears of pain sprang to Jen's eyes.

'As a grown-up, yes.'

'And you've got tangles. You never used to have tangles.'

'I'm growing out my hair. Thought I'd try a new look. You hate this dress then?'

'It's super-dull. Why are you getting dressed so early? It's not even four. Daddy and I aren't going to Nanny's for ages.'

'Because my friend's picking me up at five. Ashport's a long way away.' She was excited, she realised. Who would be there? Would she recognise anyone? Would they recognise her? Twenty years was a long time, twenty-two years for Jen. But biggest question of them all – would she finally reconnect with Rowan?

'Won't Nanny think it strange – you not coming? And you won't get to see Prince. Or Rebel.'

'Another time,' Jen croaked, suddenly overcome, recalling how inconsolable Ollie's mother had been when she heard their divorce plans. His parents were always so supportive of her and Ollie, never minding that their twenty-year-old son ended up married to a knocked-up woman eight years his senior. His dad had died of a heart attack a few years back and soon Jen feared she'd lose his mother too, along with Ollie's friends and those shared ones in Islington whom she'd have no cause to meet up with any more, or who'd decided to take his side even though no sides had been asked for. You lost so much more than a husband when your marriage ended.

'Right, now,' Chloe said, standing up and opening her mother's wardrobe. 'What dress to wear? Hmm.'

Fifty miles away Georgina was putting the final touches to her make-up, hand shaking as she swept liquid eyeliner across her dark lashes. She was so overcome with dread that she wasn't even sure that she still wanted to go.

Their return to Ashport Comp was summoning memories of the past all too clearly, specifically those of Aiden and Jennifer. They'd been so sweet as a couple, always holding hands, larking about, laughing. When did Aiden ever laugh like that with her? Was it unrealistic to yearn for that kind of closeness with the man you'd married?

He'd come back whistling and happy from Jennifer's house after he'd returned her mobile. Oh, she wasn't stupid, she'd seen the way his admiring eyes followed Jen around a room. And there was definitely an atmosphere when she came home last Sunday to find them alone in the kitchen. Georgina knew the signs. A millisecond too long of eye contact, a prolonged holding of hand in greeting, a tendency to mention their name a little too much.

That was the problem with Jennifer. She was oblivious to how attractive men found her. For all their talk about Rowan's great beauty, really Jennifer was a doll herself, always had been despite that tomboy veneer. Great cheekbones, that gorgeous ash-blond hair with those sultry brown eyes, her petite figure, that vulnerable yet spunky character – men were always drawn to her.

Georgina sighed heavily as she tried to rub off an excess of blusher. She knew she had to trust them. She couldn't keep her husband under lock and key or always in sight. It was only natural he and Jennifer would have things to talk about.

It wouldn't have seemed so difficult to live with if she just felt closer to Aiden herself. When was the last time he had wanted to go out for a romantic dinner? Or had a meaningful conversation with her that didn't revolve around work? She shook her head, reminding herself it was a two-way thing, but wishing all this hadn't been stirred up by Nutmeg's reappearance. She checked her watch. Too late now to back out, she thought, as she hurriedly applied a sheer coat of lipstick and reached for her bag.

'You're going for the full works then?' Aiden asked as she walked into the kitchen looking for her mobile.

She grimaced. Why couldn't he say she looked stunning or simply nice?

'I thought a bit of an effort might be called for,' she said haughtily.

'Mmm.' He wandered round the kitchen, clearly at a loss as to what to do with himself, glowering and glum. Funny, any other time she'd have had to drag him, moody and resentful, to a function like this, and now he was sulking because he'd been excluded.

Maybe she'd been an absolute fool letting Jennifer back in her life again. Asking for trouble, her mother had said, when Georgina had mentioned recent events. Like waving a bottle of whisky at an alcoholic. And why had she? Only because she'd felt so desperately lonely, so in need of a friend.

But what if the remedy proved worse than the disease?

She wrapped a red velvet hooded cape around her shoulders. Dramatic but definitely Christmassy, and Georgina had the height and the presence to pull it off. She'd brave it out tonight, she thought. But if Rowan didn't show, maybe it was time to call off this charade.

She saw car headlights sweep across the window. Aiden didn't even look up as she marched grandly past him.

'That'll be Max,' she said, picking up her handbag.

The inside of the car was silent when its sleek shape pulled smoothly to a stop in front of the school entrance, the three former pupils lost in their own memories and thoughts. Meg shook herself, jumped out and held the door for Jen just as Max was opening the door for Georgina, the picture of efficiency and dignity with his iron-grey hair and military posture.

All the lights were on in the ground floor of the building, the upper windows dark and lifeless except for a classroom here or there. People, large and small, streamed in from the car park and through the gates as a muffled repetitive bass echoed across the playground.

In the main entrance a huge banner proclaimed 'Ashport Comprehensive remembers Isobel Benjamin' in large letters. A crowd of almost-forty-year-olds, done up to the nines, laughed and chattered their way down the locker-lined corridors, few bearing any resemblance to the fresh-faced teenagers of their youth.

Jen swallowed, suddenly anxious. After more than two decades would Rowan recognise her, and more importantly, would she recognise Rowan? Georgina looked so pale Jen guessed she was wondering the same thing.

Meg grabbed each of them by the elbow and linked their arms,
Wizard of Oz
-style, as the tide pushed them towards the gymnasium. 'Come on, mateys,' she grinned, 'I've got a feeling this is gonna be a whole lotta fun.'

Jen squinted warily at the man approaching in the greeny-brown corduroy jacket as she stood with her food-filled paper plate by the buffet table. Since arriving she'd had several strangers greeting her as if she were a long-lost best mate, laughing uproariously at things she'd done, recounting long-winded stories that failed to register even a faint distant clang. Gratifying though it was to discover she wasn't the nonentity she'd always imagined, it was also slightly worrying to have forgotten her own exploits when they were apparently etched on others' psyches.

Nor did it help that every former classmate asked about Aiden or had some story about the two of them. They'd apparently made quite an impression. 'Lip-locked' one had said. 'Snogging yourselves senseless' someone else had winked. It had become so uncomfortable that Georgina had walked away. Thinking of running after her, Jen had decided against it. Shortly after that Meg had drifted off, and she hadn't seen either of them for almost an hour.

But now, faced with the man in the cord jacket, despite the additional crow's feet and grey peppering the mousy brown hair, something lit a spark in Jen's beleaguered brain, further fuelled by cowboy boots peeking below his jeans, the merest hint of stubble and the shortest of short ponytails.

'Jen Bedlow?'

'Mr Dugan?'

'Tom, please.' He chuckled and pushed his long fringe from his eyes. 'Mr Dugan makes me feel ancient.'

'Tom.' He still had the charming voice, puppy-dog eyes, warm open manner. The young English teacher had been one of the most popular members of staff at Ashport Comprehensive. Friendly and laid-back, he was still able to fire his pupils' imaginations, spicing up lessons by moonwalking past the blackboard or showing films in the auditorium like Derek Jarman's
The Tempest,
which was one of their coursebooks that year. He was quirky, too, fond of belting out folk songs as he strummed a bashed-up old guitar during his lunch breaks.

Jen resisted the urge to sing a bar or two of 'Riding on Your Donkey', one of his old favourites, and instead flashed him a smile.

'Hide me, quick!' He ducked behind a large movable screen disguising a hoarde of stacked chairs.

'Why? Who is it?' Jen gazed around, astonished by his suddenly odd behaviour.

'Linda Petroski,' he whispered hoarsely from his hiding place. 'She's been wittering in my ear for the last twenty minutes. Keeps making inane jokes about the crappy songs I was forced to sing.'

'How hilarious is that?' Jen threw her eyebrows towards the heavens. 'You can come out now. It's safe. You didn't rate those songs, then?' she added as he emerged.

'Hell no.' He breathed a sigh of relief as he gazed at Linda's receding figure disappearing into the throng, clutching a bunch of glittery red balloons. 'Give me U2 or Dire Straits any day. But when I joined the school Risley thrust this ancient scoutmaster's songbook at me. "Get out there, Tom," he boomed. "Stop the kids beating each other up and strum them a tune, Tom." '

'So you soothed the savages.' Jen scooped up some cream cheese with a wedge of cucumber and popped it into her mouth. 'Top marks to you.'

'Thanks, I'm sure. Mmm, what have we here?' He found himself a plate and surveyed the typical cold buffet laid out on trestle tables. 'Quite a spread.' He dipped a carrot baton into a tub of guacamole. 'Someone's worked hard.'

'Rumour has it they were going to do proper school dinners, shepherd's pie, rhubarb crumble and all that jazz, but there was no way of reheating it properly.'

The conversation having dried up between mouthfuls of food, Jen gazed around, searching for familiar faces. There had to be at least a hundred and fifty people here, but she was struggling to spot anyone she actually wanted to talk to.

'I'm surprised you even knew who I am,' she finally said. 'Or did someone split?'

'Well your name badge certainly helps,' Dugan admitted with a broad grin. 'But I've a memory for faces. You were the girl who sneaked the fake vomit into the staff toilet.'

'You remember that!' She almost choked on the breadstick she'd just taken a bite out of. 'Fuck me . . . oh, God, sorry, I mean . . .'

'Hey, relax. As an adult, you're allowed to swear in my presence. I won't give you a detention.' He laughed, his gaze scanning her like a credit-card reader, flashing up 'Approved'.

'An adult? Could have fooled me.' Jen shook her head. This was so weird. Back at school, bantering with one of her favourite teachers – considered quite a heart-throb in his day, though admittedly competition was slim – as an equal. 'I feel about twelve years old, although admittedly it doesn't tally with all these old codgers with beer bellies, balding heads and comb-overs who claim they're from my class. And the men look even worse,' she quipped.

Dugan smiled.

'You're the first teacher I've recognised tonight,' she told him. 'Mind you, I left after the fifth year. Moved away and got some crummy job.'

'Shame.' He leant his hand against a post next to her right ear. 'I had you pegged for sixth form, maybe even university if you ever stopped larking about long enough to study. You were one of the brightest. And your three friends were equally lively. The frisky four, they called you in the staffroom.'

'They did?' She grinned, pleased. 'Well, I don't know if you heard, but we left under a bit of a cloud. We burned down a barn – accidentally, of course.'

He laughed again. 'A vandal, hey? Well, I'm glad I dropped in. I didn't think wild horses could drag me back here, but I was in the area and curiosity got the better of me. Did you come with anyone?'

'Georgina and Meg. We were really hoping Rowan would be here too, but no joy so far.'

'Oh yes, Rowan Howard.' He sipped at his plastic glass of beer. 'The little Welsh girl. Is she supposed to meet you here, then?'

'No. You see, we've not seen her since we all left school. It's a long story, but basically we're trying to track her down but we're running out of leads, and the reunion was our last hope. Which reminds me, I'm supposed to be on a mission. Listen, do me a favour, Tom.' She chucked her plate in a black bin bag. 'If you hear anything, or anyone mentions Rowan's whereabouts, come and let me know.'

'Sure will. Have fun.' He smiled again, no longer the authority figure but an attractive mature man. With his trim figure and full head of hair, he'd actually aged better than most of the pupils he'd taught

She waved back over her shoulder.

And he had a kind smile.

Meg stood outside the school gates, well away from the huddled group who were cursing the world conspiracy against smokers with blue shivering lips. It was dark, save for a security light about a hundred yards away.

She dug in her purse for a Benson and Hedges packet, extricating a lone roll-up, the last of the small amount of grass she'd wheedled out of one of Herb's old pot-dealing cronies.

Curious to think that to her Oregon pals, tobacco users were a step away from suicidal murderers, alcohol drinkers almost as bad, yet smoking marijuana was A-OK, practically guaranteed you were one of the good guys.

It was two years since she'd touched unhealthy, carcinogenic nicotine, yet all it took was a glass of wine to have her longing for a plain old 'fag'. Addictions die hard.

Tonight's shindig wasn't bad, better than she'd dared hope, with everyone avid to see who'd married who, who'd dumped who, who had the fancy job or failed to live up to their early promise. Some women had gone the whole hog, pulling out their favourite eighties outfits which only made you glad that particular decade was long buried. Meg had dressed simply in a red chiffon button-down maxi dress that skimmed the top of her fringed black suede boots – and thankfully, she thought, pulling it tighter around her shoulders, a decently warm shawl.

Farting Frank, the unofficial host, had asked her to dance as soon as he saw her. And though she'd never liked the guy, she could hardly refuse, all things considered. But then she had to spend the whole of 'Isn't She Lovely' fighting off his clammy hands.

Meg took another drag of her joint and scanned the lonely car park, using every visualisation and manifestation technique she knew to bring Rowan here tonight. She closed her eyes, imagining Rowan leaving a house, getting into her car and finally arriving to find Meg waiting at the kerb. It was so real in her mind, she was almost surprised to find it wasn't true when she opened her eyes and scanned along the empty walkway. Half the night she'd been hallucinating – without any chemical assistance – that everyone with long dark hair was Rowan. She'd even tapped on the shoulders of a few females the right height, apologising when they turned round to look at her in surprise. Hey, someone had to be making an effort, what with Georgina skulking in a corner and Jen too engrossed in socialising to remember their search.

If they gave up now, where would that leave her? She was fairly certain their briefly rekindled friendship would soon fizzle out, but she was anxious to pretend otherwise for as long as possible. She owed it to Zeb to secure his future. Oh yes, of course she believed in kismet, destiny and all that crap, but in Meg's experience sometimes the universe needed a good hefty nudge to cough up with its bountiful abundance.

It had certainly bestowed plentifully on Georgina, and even Jen seemed comfortably provided for up till now, a lady of leisure for so many years. Was Rowan too living in luxury somewhere, she wondered. Or struggling to make ends meet like Meg? She couldn't wait to discover what she'd been up to all this time. What would she look like? Was she still sweet, still slightly goofy? Why had she let them down that night at the Marlow Arms? OK, maybe she wasn't really considering her as an adoptive mother for Zeb, but more and more she found she really did want to see the Welsh girl again.

She and Rowan had both been outsiders with their 'funny' accents, Meg with her American twang, Rowan with her alien Welsh inflection. It had created a special bond between them. They were constantly teased and laughed at, even by teachers seeking an easy way to ingratiate themselves with the class, nicknamed 'Yank' and 'Taffy', mocked in the dining hall for Meg's tofu wraps and Rowan's home-made table-top-thick brown-bread sandwiches. Rowan's mom was home-grown organic long before it was trendy. She kept bees, kneaded her own bread, fed herself and her daughter from her small vegetable garden and thought that McDonald's was the Devil's work. Not so different really from Meg's Auntie Sunbeam's commune, although bible-bashing Ma Howard would surely have them burned in hell for all that free and easy sex.

Her doobie was scorching her fingers now. She took one last drag, dropped it on to the floor and ground it into the icy concrete.

Of course, Meg surmised as she turned on her heel and began to walk back along the path, no question Jen was her best bud in lots of ways. She was gutsier than Rowan and had always been way cooler. But when Jen was wrapped up with her precious nags, the Welsh girl would drop everything to hang out with Meg. She could stop by her house, any time any day, and Rowan would be out of that door in seconds, pulling on her anorak with a 'Bye, Mam'.

And it was Rowan who had come through for her that year they were streamed for their final exams. Meg's test results were so bad she was moved down. As if anyone could study for some dumb-ass test with Clover's band rehearsing in the living room till four a.m. and Herb sending Meg scurrying between the kitchen and the makeshift studio for cold beer, Rizlas and a candy-store array of drugs.

Still, Meg had been crushed. To be torn away from her friends, branded a dunce and stuck with the losers in the bottom set had hurt. She didn't know how she could ever face the next term alone. Until Rowan, who'd been sick on the test day, saved her ass. She'd sat the same test the following week and had been put down to the same class. Only Meg suspected that she'd flunked the thing on purpose, given they'd all filled her in on the questions to expect.

Yeah, quite a pal, Rowan.

A better friend than Meg any day.