Just Between Us

‘I might be,’ hedged Joan, who was sure something was wrong with Holly and was determined to get it out of her. ‘What’s up?’ she inquired. ‘You look like you’ve had a shit day, too.’

‘No, why do you think that?’ asked Holly.

‘Your mouth is all droopy and you look like you might cry any minute,’ Joan pointed out. ‘So either you’re depressed or you’ve aged very badly in the twenty-four hours since I last saw you, in which case I recommend Botox. What happened, and tell me all about last night’s reunion? Did you look a million dollars and did you thump any of the horrible old bitches who used to ignore you?’

‘Are you hungry?’ asked Holly, only asking the question to avoid having to answer others. Joan was always hungry. Kenny said she had a tapeworm inside her.

‘Yes, and what’s wrong?’

Holly moved away from the counter which separated the tiny kitchenette from the sitting room. With her back to Joan, she lit up another cigarette. Joan was always nagging her to stop but Holly needed the crutch of smoking, and anyway, if she stopped, she’d just balloon up into a fat girl again. And then she’d be anti-social and fat…

She stifled a sniff but Joan heard.

‘Holly, what’s wrong?’ said Joan again in a gentle voice.

Faced with her friend’s kindness, the whole story came tumbling out: how Holly had felt good because everything had gone well at the reunion, but then how stupid she’d felt for lying about a boyfriend. And then, how utterly hurt she’d been by what Pia had said.

‘Stupid bitch!’ raged Joan, threatening death, destruction and the reorganisation of Pia’s facial features. ‘I don’t know why you didn’t go back and hit her. Did you mention this to Bunny?’ Joan and Bunny were on the same wavelength. Both were tough, unafraid of anyone and fiercely protective of Holly.

‘No,’ said Holly miserably. ‘I couldn’t tell her. I am a mess, Joan. Pia was right.’

Like many sensitive people, all it took was one push and she was down.

‘You’re not a mess,’ screeched Joan furiously.

‘When I lied to the people at the reunion, the boyfriend I invented was gay! I can’t even lie like normal people.’

‘Kenny is cute,’ Joan pointed out.

‘It wasn’t Kenny, I’m dating Xavier.’

Joan grinned. ‘Mr Throw-Pillow-Bottom Lip. Holly, love, you have to lie at school reunions.’ She decided that Holly needed cheering up before her morale could be boosted. ‘What else are you supposed to say? Everyone has a fantastic life according to what they say when they meet old enemies. Did you ever hear of anyone at a reunion who said: “I got thrown out of college, was busted for drugs and avoided a jail sentence by doing eight zillion hours of community service, plus I live in a squat, have never had sex and my job involves spending all day saying ‘would you like fries with that?’”

Holly burst out laughing. ‘Compared with that, I have a fantastic life and I don’t know why I bothered lying.’

‘I do,’ Joan said, ‘you lied, and it was only a teeny, weensy lie, by the way, for the same reason everyone lies – because we’re all basically insecure and we want people to think we’re wildly successful. Am I right or am I right?’

‘Right,’ Holly replied hesitantly. ‘But that makes me a very shallow person if I give in to that sort of thinking.’

‘Everyone does it.’ Joan was matter of fact. ‘My sister tells people her husband is in the merchandise relocation business when he drives a truck, and my mother tells my grandmother that I dress like this because we have to wear strange clothes in college. It’s easier than telling my grandmother to eff off because she’s an interfering old cow.’

‘That’s different,’ Holly said. ‘I lied because it was easier than admitting that I’m hopeless with men and just can’t talk to them. I lied so that all the girls I was in school with wouldn’t look at me the way Pia looks at me. She said there was no point in them fixing me up with a man because it would be a waste of time.’ Holly looked so downcast that Joan’s blood began to come to the boil again. Pia was so dead. ‘We’ll just have to find a fabulously hunky boyfriend for you then, someone who can race into the children’s department just before closing and ravage you on top of the Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer pyjamas, and that would show dopey Slut Face Pia.’

‘I can’t speak from experience but I daresay that type of behaviour would get me fired,’ Holly pointed out.

‘But at least the girls would know you had a hunky boyfriend.’

‘I’d also be jobless.’

‘Just an idea.’ Joan twiddled a bit of spiky hair thoughtfully.

Holly stabbed out her cigarette and went back to stirring her sauce miserably.

‘Enough already,’ said Joan, changing the conversation. ‘Was everyone at the reunion impressed with your outfit?’

Holly grinned for the first time all day. ‘We’re talking eyes popping out of heads. They couldn’t believe it was chubby little Holly Miller.’

‘That’s what I call a result. I can’t imagine you as a chubby kid,’ Joan added. ‘You are so not fat.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Holly mumbled. ‘But I was and I still don’t feel different, Joan. I still feel like the old me.’

Joan regarded her grimly. ‘The problem isn’t other people, Holly,’ she pronounced, ‘it’s you. It’s in your head.’

The doorbell rang again, a long insistent ring made by somebody keeping an impatient finger on the bell. Only Kenny rang like that. The word ‘impatient’ failed hopelessly to convey the notion of how much in a hurry Kenny always was.

‘Don’t mention this to Kenny,’ begged Holly as she went to open the door. She couldn’t cope with the two of them giving out to her all evening for being a neurotic wimp.

‘Hello sweeties. Is there enough din dins for me?’ inquired Kenny, once he’d hugged Holly and examined the contents of the saucepan bubbling on the stove.

In contrast to Joan’s fashion college rig-out, Kenny was beautifully dressed in a charcoal shirt that clung snugly to his slim torso and a pair of elegant grey trousers that looked as though they had been made for him. Gucci and Hugo Boss respectively. Kenny loved labels and could identify any item of clothing at fifty paces. A senior salesman at an exclusive menswear boutique, Kenny was branching out into working as a stylist. His dream was to stop working in the shop altogether and freelance.

Holly thought he could work either side of the camera. He had cropped dark hair with a Richard Gere-esque sprinkling of early grey, and a handsome face with dark stubble. Kenny couldn’t cross the road without women looking admiringly at him. Joan’s favourite method of teasing him was to sigh and say, ‘Isn’t it a waste you’re gay. Why don’t we give it a go? I’m sure all you need is the love of a good woman.’

Kenny’s answer to this was to roll his eyes theatrically and shudder: ‘Don’t go there.’

Holly hunted in the freezer for more pasta. ‘There’s enough dinner for everyone,’ she said.

‘Goody.’ Kenny bounced onto the couch beside Joan and the two of them looked happily up at Holly, with eager hungry expressions on their faces. They reminded Holly of two kids expectantly watching Mummy cooking. The three of them were certainly a little family unit, she thought ruefully. Although they took turns being Mummy, because there was always one of them in some trauma. Kenny was plunged into gloom roughly every month because his love life never ran smoothly and there was always some gorgeous hunk of a man who wasn’t returning his phone calls. Joan’s traumatic incidents involved her finances – she spent all her grant on clothes, regularly ran out of rent money and scattered IOUs around like confetti. Holly’s problem was herself, which was handy in that it didn’t involve outside influences.

‘I thought you guys were going out?’ Holly said.

‘Change of plans,’ Kenny said.

‘Is there anything good on the telly tonight?’ Joan asked, searching in vain for the TV guide.

‘Nothing good on a Friday, except Sex and the City on satellite,’ Kenny said instantly. Kenny loved TV and read the listings in the paper first, followed by his horoscope, and then the headlines.

From the kitchenette, Holly grinned. She might not know what a wild existence with lots of men was like personally, but she could watch it on TV thanks to the Sex and the City girls. She began to grate some Parmesan reggiano, letting the day’s events seep out of her system, while Kenny and Joan argued over the television. What would she do without them?

Ten minutes later, dinner was on the table, served on Holly’s auction-house Italian china with the pastel fruit designs. None of it matched, but it was exquisite.

Joan began mopping up sauce messily with a heavily-buttered roll while Kenny fastidiously dipped slivers of unbuttered bread into his.

‘Wonderful,’ he said. ‘Holly, you are talented.’

Holly beamed.

‘You’ve got to forget what happened today,’ he continued, having heard a whispered version of the story from Joan while Holly was busy in the kitchen.