The Friends We Keep Page 7

“It’s baby fat,” said Joan. “It’s easy to get rid of at your age. When you get to my age it’s much harder.”

  “I need to stay away from the sugar. All the cakes and cookies are terrible for me. Either that, or I need someone to break my heart again.”

  “That’s the best diet ever,” agreed Joan.

  “I don’t really want anyone to break my heart,” sighed Evvie. “I seem to be drawn to losers. And no woman needs a man. I think I’m far better off on my own.”

  “True, the wrong man is a terrible thing. You’re lucky, you girls. You’re young at a time when the world is your oyster.”

  “Exactly! There’s nothing we can’t achieve. Marriage and kids are the last thing I want. I’m going to make a difference in the world.” Evvie sat up proudly.

  “You can still make a difference if you’re married with kids,” protested Maggie. “It doesn’t have to be the prison it once was.”

  “I wasn’t saying you’re wrong to want that,” said Evvie. “Of course we can have it all. Thank God!”

  “Speaking of having it all, is anyone hungry? Can I take you all out for dinner?” asked Joan. “Apparently the Dinham Arms has a lovely restaurant.”

  “Yes please!” Maggie’s eyes lit up. “What a lovely treat.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Later that day, when they were getting ready for dinner, Evvie came downstairs to find Joan tipping some pills into the palm of her hand before slipping the pill bottle discreetly back in her bag.

  “Are you okay?” said Evvie. “Do you have a headache? Can I get you anything?”

  Joan laughed and shook her head before showing Evvie the pill bottle. Dexatrim. “This is the real reason why I stay so slim,” she confessed in a conspiratorial whisper. “It completely suppresses my appetite. I was very slim when younger, but as soon as I hit forty-five I started to gain weight, so I started taking this. It’s amazing.” She paused and looked at Evvie. “Do you want to try?”

  “What will it do?”

  Joan shrugged. “You won’t feel hungry. It also has the added side effect of giving you lots of energy. You might feel a bit hyper, and you probably won’t sleep for a while, but you’re young. You don’t need to sleep. I can leave you these if you want. I have stacks of them in my bathroom because I’m terrified of running out.”

  Evvie looked at the pill bottle, excitement rising. She had no idea it was this easy, and had long fantasized about some miracle drug that would enable her to eat whatever she wanted while still losing weight.

  “Just one?” She grinned.

  “I take one in the morning and one early afternoon. This is probably completely irresponsible of me, but I know what it’s like to not feel good about yourself. Take them. You’ll love it.”

  “Cheers,” said Evvie, feeling a thrill of excitement as she popped the pill in her mouth and washed it down with a glass of water.

  ten

  - 1989 -

  Evvie was lying on one sofa in the living room, Topher lounging in the armchair opposite, both of them bemoaning the fact that they would soon graduate, that three years had passed in a flash, when Maggie walked in bearing a plate of gingersnaps.

  “Fresh out of the oven.” She placed them on the table, grabbing two before flopping on the sofa next to Evvie, putting her feet, clad in the slipper socks from her parents, now old and faded, onto Evvie’s lap.

  “Evvie? Will you have one?”

  Evvie shook her head.

  “You never eat my food anymore. What’s the matter with you?”

  “I’m training myself to eat less,” lied Evvie, who was by then taking at least three Dexatrim a day. The less she ate, the more successful a day she thought it was.

  “But how am I supposed to show you that I love you if I can’t feed you?” Maggie said with a pout as Evvie laughed and leaned forward, flinging her arms around her in a tight hug.

  “Like this,” she said. “Just as good and much less fattening.”

  “Screw the calories.” Topher reached for a handful of gingersnaps. “Are you both as depressed as me? I can’t believe it’s over. How did we get here so quickly?”

  “It’s awful,” moaned Maggie, cupping her hands around the mug of tea. “Tomorrow it’s all over. At least the two of you will be in New York and you’ll have each other. I’m going to be working in London, all by myself.”

  “Tons of people will be in London,” corrected Evvie. “Just not us. You’ll know so many people.”

  “But it won’t be the same,” she grumbled. “Who’s going to protect me if drunken rugby players attack me in a pub?” Pouting, Maggie looked at Topher as they all remembered that night soon after they’d first arrived, the night that had them vowing to always have one another’s backs.

  “First of all, that’s not going to happen. Second of all, you’re more than capable of looking after yourself, and thirdly, if you need me, phone me and I’ll fly over.”

  “You won’t fly over, although I appreciate the thought. Both of you are about to walk into the most glamorous jobs in the world, and I’m going into corporate PR. Could it be any more dull?”

  “Corporate PR with a subsidized flat in Westbourne Grove. Not too shabby,” laughed Evvie. “You’ll be fine. You always said you only wanted to work until you found a husband and settled down to have children. Once you find roommates you’ll start having fun.”

  “You’re right. But I still want my work to be fun. And the roommates. Naomi said she’s going to move to London, so she might move in with me. Apparently she knows a boy who will be there too.”

  “Is he gay?” asked Topher. “Are we really that easily replaced?”

  Evvie looked at Topher. “I thought you were asexual.”

  “Ah, yes. I was. I think I just hadn’t found myself yet.”

  “And now you know you’re gay?” Maggie narrowed her eyes. “What’s been going on that we don’t know about?”

  “You know that very handsome second year who played the Page in Antigone?”

  “You did not!” Evvie clapped. “Daniel? The picture of innocence?”

  “Oh, he’s not innocent, let me tell you. He seduced me.”

  “And?”

  Topher shrugged. “I may not be driven by my sexual desires, but it turns out I’m not asexual after all.”

  “I thought you didn’t like to be touched,” said Evvie, confused.

  “That’s what I always thought too. I think it’s that I don’t like to be touched unless it’s on my terms. I have to be in control, otherwise it just . . .” He shuddered. “Anyway. It was definitely on my terms and”—he grinned—“it was really rather lovely.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” pouted Maggie.

  Topher shrugged. “You were in the midst of your Evil Ben recuperation. It was all you were talking about. Speaking of whom, I saw him today.”

  Maggie sat up. “Evil Ben?”

  “Oh no,” said Evvie. “Don’t tell me we’re going to start this up again.”

  It felt like ages since Evil Ben finished his postgrad studies and left the university, and Maggie hadn’t spoken about him for the longest time. Every now and then she brought him up, saying he would always be the one who got away, but they had no idea where he was, and no way of getting in touch (thank goodness, Evvie always thought). Maggie definitely deserved better than him, at least as far as Evvie was concerned.

  “Where did you see him?” Evvie could see that the very mention of his name had brought a flush to Maggie’s cheeks.

  Topher frowned as he looked at Maggie. “I wouldn’t have brought it up if I thought it would still have this effect on you. I saw him park an old green Triumph Spitfire by the King’s Head, and then he and someone else went in.”

  “A Triumph Spitfire?” asked Evvie.

  “Cool old s
ports car. I went over to see what it was once they’d gone.”

  “Who was he with?” asked Maggie. “A man or a woman?”

  “Man.”

  “Oh, please can we go.” Maggie looked from Topher to Evvie. “This can be my graduation gift from you.”

  “What graduation gift?”

  “The one I forgot to tell you about. Please? I just want to see him again, if nothing else just to have closure.”

  “You had closure,” said Evvie. “Remember? He didn’t remember anything about the passionate garden snog you had, or he did remember, and he pretended not to. Either way, that seems to be pretty closed to me.”

  “Do you have any idea how British you sound when you say the word ‘snog’?” Maggie started laughing. “You’re coming, aren’t you?” She stood up and grinned at them, knowing they would come, because that was what friendship was about. “I’m just going to put some makeup on. Be ready in five.”

  Maggie had pulled on her baggy jeans, and slipped her feet into boots. She was tall already, at five feet nine inches, and normally would have worn her beloved heels, but Evil Ben was only a shade taller than her, and she didn’t want to intimidate him.

  Evvie, on the other hand, loved her platform heels, teamed with her baggy jeans and a man’s shirt, half tucked in. She had topped this off with a fedora, jauntily perched, which on anyone else might have looked bizarre, but on Evvie looked impossibly cool, particularly since she had shed all the weight she had gained and was now positively skinny.

  An old high school friend sent her the pills from New York, and they worked so well, she had been recruited by a modeling agency the last time she was on the King’s Road in London and had done some work already. After graduation she would be going home to New York, but this time to model, living in a shared apartment downtown.

  Modeling was never what she saw herself doing, and she felt simultaneously incredulous, and embarrassed, knowing that people would presume she wasn’t clever enough to do anything else. If she felt she was going to be judged, rather than tell people she would be modeling, she said she would be working in the fashion industry, praying they wouldn’t ask anything else. But modeling was a means to an end. Evvie knew that if she was one of the lucky ones, she had the capability to make more money than at any other job. And money would give her the freedom to do what she wanted. She wanted to start charities helping women and children who didn’t have access to education. She wanted to make it easier for women like her grandmother and mother, raised in Kingston, only getting out by sheer luck and happenstance.

  Her future depended on modeling, and modeling depended on staying unnaturally thin. When Maggie expressed worry about her jutting collarbones, Evvie would nod and say she definitely wasn’t going to lose any more weight. At night, she would lie in bed feeling the bones on her chest, and smiling to herself.

  No one knew about the pills. Maggie had once seen her taking them, but Evvie said they were painkillers for period cramps. She didn’t sleep well on them, always up until the early hours, and there were times when her heart would race in a way that seemed worrying, but being this thin was worth any price. Whenever she thought about stopping them, the thought would be immediately pushed aside by the fear of gaining weight.

  Evvie looked at herself in the mirror as they were leaving, and removed the fedora. There was no reason to dress up for Evil Ben.

  eleven

  - 1989 -

  Topher pushed open the door to the pub, followed by the girls, Maggie scouring the room until she saw Evil Ben standing at the bar with his friend. They were both clearly on their second, or perhaps third, pint. When they spotted him, Evil Ben had his head thrown back with laughter at something his friend had said, but hearing the door open he had turned, still smiling, and his gaze rested on Maggie.

  Topher nudged her sharply. “Oh my God, he’s smiling at you. Smile back!” he commanded, in a very loud stage whisper.

  Maggie smiled, in a wobbly sort of way, then turned her back. “Oh God,” she murmured. “I have no idea what to say. Now I’m embarrassed. We shouldn’t have come.”

  “We can’t leave now,” said Evvie. “And at least he’s smiling. That’s actually the first time I’ve ever seen him smile.”

  “I’m going over there.” Topher marched off toward Evil Ben before any of them could stop him.

  “Get drinks!” Evvie called out after him. “Pints of shandy all around please!”

  “Shandy?” Maggie wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Really? Can’t I have a gin and tonic?”

  “No. You can’t. It’s much too grown-up, and you said you’d cook a farewell dinner for us tonight. The last thing we need is for you to get shit-faced. Also”—she peered at her friend meaningfully—“the last thing you need is to disappear on us and spend the night with Evil Ben.”

  “I would never do that,” said Maggie.

  “Good. Because you’re an amazing cook and we want this dinner to be special. So, no going off with men, and no drinking the hard stuff until later.”

  “Fair point.” They found a table on the side and sat waiting for Topher to bring their drinks, watching as he chatted casually with Evil Ben.

  “What do you think they’re saying?” Maggie leaned in, not taking her eyes off Ben and Topher.

  “I don’t know, but they look like they’re getting on like a house on fire.”

  “Oh my God!” said Maggie. “What if Evil Ben’s gay?”

  “Don’t be daft,” said Evvie. “He wouldn’t have snogged you, even when drunk. Plus, didn’t he have a girlfriend for a while when we were in our first year? Remember her?”

  Maggie did remember, because she was a redhead like herself. Maybe he likes redheads, she had thought at the time; maybe one day he will break up with her, and then he will notice me. Maybe that’s why we snogged that time, she thought now. Maybe he’ll remember that I’m his type after all.

  Topher came back to the table, expertly carrying three pints against his chest.

  “Well?” Evvie couldn’t wait. “What did you say? What did he say? What were you talking about?”

  “He was actually really nice,” Topher said. “I introduced myself and said I was part of the Evil Ben fan club, and that all three of us were up for it if he wanted to take his pick.”

  “Nooooo!” Maggie’s eyes widened in horror as she shrank back.

  “Of course I didn’t say that. I just said that we had all seen him around for so long and he had rescued us a hundred years ago, and we never even had the opportunity to thank him properly. It seemed weird that other than you, Maggie, we had never really spoken to him, and that includes Evvie, who worked with him! Given that none of us would ever see him again, I invited him to join us for a drink. He’s apparently up here to see some old friends.”

  “He’s joining us for a drink? Are you serious?” Maggie whispered, not knowing whether to laugh in delight or throw up as Evil Ben and his friend both picked up their pints and made their way toward them. “I feel a bit sick.” She looked at him, surprised that he still had the same effect on her, still made her heart flutter, even after all this time. “Oh God. What am I supposed to say to him?”

  “Be your charming self,” whispered Topher.

  “I can’t believe you did this for Maggie,” said Evvie under her breath, raising her glass to Topher. “I have a whole new level of respect for you, even though there’s no one I’d less want to have a drink with.” She sighed, looking away.

  Topher bowed his head. “I aim to please.”

  “Hi,” said Evil Ben, pulling a stool over and sitting down. “Thanks for inviting me to join you. It’s nice to see some familiar faces.” He looked at Maggie then, who blushed.

  His friend sat next to him and smiled at the girls, the smile clearly lingering on Evvie. “I’m Rich Keogh.”

  “We all feel like we know you,
even though we never really did. Well, most of us.” Topher shot Maggie a look, the color of her cheeks deepening. “Obviously, you were our knight in shining armor when we first arrived, when Evvie worked here. And I know Maggie ran into you a couple of times. So what brought you back to town after all this time? And how’s the work at the research lab in Hertfordshire? Sorry . . .” He trailed off. “I guess I should have warned you that you were about to be subjected to an interrogation.”

  “Poor Evil Ben,” said Evvie, laughing. “Leave him alone.”

  Evil Ben raised an eyebrow.

  “Evil Ben?” His friend Rich sputtered with laughter as he took a sip of beer.

  “That’s what we call you because you never smile,” said Topher, who was doing the talking for all of them. “We’d all smile at you when we used to see you, but it seemed like you just scowled at us.”

  “And you were a complete dick when I worked here,” said Evvie.

  “You are a scowler,” laughed his friend Rich. “And, mate, you can be a bit of a dick.”

  Ben looked at Evvie then. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I was pissed off that we’d taken on another bartender in the main bar. That was supposed to be my job and they relegated me to the side bar for a pretty face.”

  “So you were an asshole to me? Nice.”

  “I’m sorry. It wasn’t about you.”

  “He wasn’t all bad.” Maggie made eyes at Evvie. “He did rescue us that night.”

  “I did,” he said. “And yet you still gave me the moniker Evil Ben?”

  “It had a nice ring to it.” Topher shrugged. “What can we say?”

  “Evil Ben. I think I quite like it. Maybe I should add that to my CV.” He took a sip of his beer before grinning at Rich. “They’re right, it does have a nice ring to it.”

  “So, Evil Ben. If you’re in Hertfordshire at a research lab, what are you doing back here?” Maggie leaned forward, emboldened by the drink, by the fact that she still felt the same way about him, and that this might be her last chance to do anything about it. She rested her elbows on the table, knowing that if his eyes dropped, he might get a look at her cleavage. Normally this was the last thing Maggie would do. Evvie was the one who tended to dress in the sexy stuff. Maggie was most comfortable in her jeans and T-shirt, not a hint of cleavage in sight.