My Best Friend's Girl (15 page)

Her blond head poked out of a classroom at the end of the corridor. Her face lit up and she grinned with sudden delight as she saw me, then the smile evaporated and her face slunk downward into sullen disappointment. I ran to her, threw myself to my knees and then scooped her up.

“I’m sorry,” I said into her hair, grateful that I had the chance to hold her again, that her small form was safe in my arms. “I’m so, so sorry.” Tegan stayed silent and motionless in my embrace.

Maya, the teaching assistant who had been there the day that we’d first visited the school, emerged from the classroom. “She thought something had happened to you,” Maya explained. “Especially when we couldn’t get you on your mobile.”

“The battery’s flat. I’m so sorry. I got caught up at work. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I didn’t realize the time until it was really late. I’m sorry.” I pulled Tegan away, looked her full in the face. “I’m so sorry, Tiga.”

Maya bobbed down to our height, stroked Tegan’s hair. “We were all right, weren’t we, Tegan? We drew some pictures.”

“I’m sorry I’ve taken up your time as well,” I said to Maya.

“These things happen,” Maya replied, adding with her tone:
But it’d better not happen again.

“OK, Tiga, come on, let’s go home. We’ll have a pizza and watch a DVD. Does that sound like a good idea?”

She nodded automatically, as though she didn’t care either way. Maya handed me Tegan’s pink and lilac schoolbag, then stood as I did.

“Thank you for taking care of her,” I said.

“She was no trouble.”

Tegan gave me her hand and smiled at Maya, who said goodbye, and we started down the corridor. Before I opened the door, I stopped and took her in my arms again. “Tegan, I’m so sorry. I did a terrible thing tonight and I promise, promise,
promise
it won’t happen again. OK?”

She nodded but didn’t speak.

I gazed into her five-year-old face, her blue eyes strained with sadness and fear. I’d done that. I’d terrified her. Made her think she’d been abandoned. “I promise you, I won’t do this to you ever again.”

Silence. Silence like that day I took her from Guildford, when she didn’t know if she could trust me. She was scared of me again. Wondered if I would let her down, if I would walk away and leave her, especially after she’d made me double-promise for ever and ever that I would come back every evening. Tegan wasn’t sure if I’d be there when she needed me. Nor if this part of her life was going to unravel like the life she had with her mum. And all because I wasn’t used to letting anyone know what my plans were. It’d been so long since I’d had to check in with anyone about what I was doing, I hadn’t even thought…That had to change because this certainly couldn’t happen again.

I pressed a kiss on Tegan’s forehead, stood up and we began the journey home.

chapter 17

I
am sorry, all right?” I said to Tegan, as I shook cornflakes into a white bowl and placed it in front of her. “It won’t happen again.” She said nothing, simply stared at her breakfast and waited for me to splash on milk. Once I did, she picked up her spoon, shoveled cereal into her mouth and chewed as though I didn’t exist.

She was five and already an expert at the cold shoulder. I’d been subjected to her stubborn jawline and haughty silence for more than fourteen hours now. Indignation, hurt, anger were all conveyed by her muteness. I was sorry. I hadn’t slept last night because of my guilt, but I couldn’t get that across to Tegan. Nothing I said seemed to convey how sorry I was, and that it wouldn’t happen again. I couldn’t stand another hour of this silence, let alone the rest of the weekend.
What if she never forgives me?
I wondered as I watched her eat.
We’d live in this atmosphere for the next fifteen years or so. Years
.

“Look,” I pulled up a chair beside her, “I’m sorry. I’m truly, truly sorry. It won’t happen again—I promise. I…I’m sorry. You see, there’s this nasty man at my work called Luke who doesn’t like me. That’s all right because I don’t like him either, but I’ve got to work with him. He’s my new boss. So I’m f—filled with dread.”

Tegan nonchalantly spooned milk and orange-yellow flakes into her mouth. “I had to go for dinner with him and he’s awful. So arrogant. He’s horrible.”

“Like a monster?” she asked, finally acknowledging me. I was obviously speaking her language.

An image of Luke with hairy eyebrows, talons for hands and huge drooling fangs flashed across my mind. “Yeah, exactly like a monster.”

“Oh,” she said and nodded with some sympathy for my predicament.

A knock at the front door made us both jump. We looked at each other, wondering who that could be. We’d had no visitors since Tegan moved in, especially not someone who didn’t buzz beforehand. The person knocked again and I hurried to answer it.

Luke, tall and imposing, stood outside my flat. He’d poured himself into a pair of loose-fitting blue jeans and a white T-shirt that skimmed over his muscular chest. His D&G sunglasses were hooked into the neck of his T-shirt.

“Luke! Oh f-f—damn!” I’d all but forgotten that I’d left him sitting in a restaurant having ordered an expensive meal.

“Yep, that’s the effect I like to have on a woman—especially one who enjoyed my company so much she ran out of a restaurant.” In his arms he carried a red coat; from the missing button on the sleeve, it looked very much like my red coat.

Before I could start to explain, Tegan appeared beside me, linked her arms around my right thigh and stared up at Luke.

“Who’s this?” Luke asked, crouching down to Tegan’s height.

“This is Tegan,” I replied. “Tegan, this is Luke from my work.”

Luke smiled, a genuine friendly smile, one that was yet to be aimed at me. Tegan had that effect on adults. They would look at her and grin because her eyes were an unusual blue, her skin was a perfect butter-white, her lips were a cotton candy pink. People looked at Tegan and smiled because they couldn’t help themselves. “Pleased to meet you, Tegan.”

Tegan blinked back at him, studied his face, his close-cut hair, strong features and hazel eyes. Then she turned her head up to me, a slight frown knitting her forehead. “He doesn’t look like a monster, Mummy Ryn,” she informed me. Luke turned his face up to me too and raised a questioning eyebrow; I glanced away, my whole body burning with shame.

“You left so suddenly last night, I just wanted to check you were OK,” Luke said, standing up and towering over me again. “I tried your mobile but it was off, so I asked your friend Betsy for your address. I hope you don’t mind. Oh, and I thought I’d return this.”

I relieved him of the red raincoat I’d forgotten in my haste to leave the restaurant last night. “Thanks, and yes, we’re fine.”

“We’re going to the zoo,” Tegan piped up, her eyes fixed on Luke.

“Are you?” Luke asked her.

“Yeah, are we?” I said.

“You said we could go to the zoo,” Tegan accused.

“Yes, sometime. Not today.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Luke said.

“Mummy Ryn,” Tegan said, “Luke can drive us to the zoo in his car.”

“No, he can’t,” I replied quickly.

“Why can’t I?” Luke asked indignantly.

“You might not even have a car.”

“How do you think I got here?”

“I’m sure you’ve got better things to do on a Saturday than drive us to the zoo.”

“Nothing that can’t wait.”

I had to do this, didn’t I? I had to let her have her way on this because I’d terrified her last night. A day looking at animals was the least I could do. “Thanks, Luke, a lift to the zoo would be great,” I managed through gritted teeth.

“What’s your favorite animal, Luke?” Tegan asked happily.

“Elephants,” he said, his eyes lingering on me for a moment longer than was strictly polite.

“Will there be elephants at the zoo, Mummy Ryn?”

“I suppose so.”

“You can see the elephants, Luke,” she said with a giggle, although she was still clinging to my leg, using me as a human shield.

“I’m sure Luke’s got better things to do than come around the zoo with us,” I repeated, not holding out much hope.

“Like I said, nothing that can’t wait.”

This munchkin had well and truly screwed me. I reminded myself never to upset her again. “You’d better come in while we get ready,” I conceded.

As expected of a sunny Saturday during the summer holidays, the zoo had hordes of people flocking toward it—and it wasn’t even midday when Luke pulled up into the overflow car park.

Visitors weaved around each other everywhere, making odd patterns as they followed the paths around the animal enclosures. Tegan, who I’d dressed in loose pink trousers with lilac butterflies, a matching pink T-shirt and pink sandals, skipped happily along between me and Luke, holding my hand. Every inch of exposed skin on her body had been slathered in sunblock. Her hair was in a high ponytail around the base of which I’d twisted a red silk flower. She’d been beside herself with happiness at it and kept running to the mirror in my bedroom to check it out—she had no idea that it was a way for me to instantly spot her if we got separated in a crowd.

Tegan had done most of the talking during the ninety-minute drive, asking Luke questions about the zoo. I was silent in the front seat, trying not to slump into a sulk at having to spend the day with this idiot. Luke and I spoke when we absolutely had to, which was only when I asked him to stop so I could buy some drinks and to thank him when we got out of the car.

Fluffy pink cotton candy was installed in Tegan’s hand and she flitted away into a world of her own, staring at the creatures behind glass and high fences.

“I take it she’s the reason you left so suddenly last night,” Luke murmured as we rested our bodies against the glass wall separating us from the chasm that surrounded the lions’ den.

“Yup,” I replied.

He checked that Tegan wasn’t listening and leaned toward me, pressing his body against mine so he could whisper by my ear, “You forgot her?”

I nodded and he jerked his body away in disgust. “I take it you haven’t been doing this very long.”

I moved my head to look him squarely in the face. I’d already been shamed by a five-year-old, he couldn’t make me feel any worse. “You take right,” I said.

He returned my gaze, steady and straight. With the laughter of children, the conversations of adults, the cries of babies, the sounds of animals as a backdrop, our mutual dislike grew. The seeds had been planted yesterday afternoon, had been watered in the evening, and were now sprouting roots while strong green shoots pushed up through the earth. A few more hours and this feeling between us would blossom into an orchard of full-on hatred.

“Mummy Ryn,” Tegan said, tugging my hand, forcing me to break the confrontational eyelock with Luke.

“Yes, gorgeous?” I said. She’d finished the cotton candy and the only evidence that it’d ever existed were the small fluffs of pink at the top of the stick in her hand. Not a speck of it was on her mouth or face, no bits stuck to her top.

“Can we go see the monkeys?”

“Absolutely,” I replied.

We set off for the monkey enclosure on the far side of the zoo, around the winding stone path and to the left.

“About work,” Luke said as we walked.

“Hmm-huh?” I replied.

“Do you mind if we talk now, seeing as our conversation was cut short last night?”

“Course not,” I mumbled. Actually, I did mind. I minded very much. This was Tegan time, but I couldn’t say that. I had to prove to my new boss that a child hadn’t slowed me down, that I was efficient and capable.

“You and Ted had a very close working relationship…” Luke stopped, allowing the statement to hang in the air, a big black stain of accusation I was expected to be desperate to scrub away.

“Yes, we did,” I replied without shame.

“I see.” He was unimpressed because my reply had, apparently, confirmed his suspicions.

“Of course, most people thought we were at it at every given opportunity,” I whispered so Tegan wouldn’t hear. Luke’s eyes fixed for long seconds on my face. “Some people even suggested that I’d slept my way to a position I had before I even moved up here.”

“I never accused you of anything,” Luke defended.

“I never said you did.”

“I’m simply concerned that the marketing department won’t work as well now that Ted has gone.”

“You mean you’d heard the snide remarks about how Ted carried me in this position, then presumed I’d done the deed to get my job.”

We stopped at the chimpanzee enclosure and Tegan’s eyes almost doubled in size, her face taken over by wonderment. “Monkeys,” she breathed.

“With you being head of all the marketing departments in our company, I’d have expected that you’d go out of your way to get on with your second in command, not judge them before you’ve even met them,” I continued in hushed tones.

“If you’d been around to meet maybe I wouldn’t have had to rely on third-hand stories and gossip about your morals to make my assessment,” he hissed back.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I admitted.

Surprised, he narrowed his eyes, trying to decipher the slight in what I’d said. There wasn’t one. He was right, but I wasn’t going to use Adele as a sick note.

“You want to know the worst part about the rumors? Ted is, and always has been, devoted to his wife,” I said. I gave Luke a long up and down look. “He’s a decent man.”

Luke tried to force me into another eyelock and was greeted with an “oh, puhl-ease!” expression. Ignoring him, I crouched down beside Tegan.

The chimpanzee enclosure was filled with trees, their thick, sturdy branches reaching out to the sky. To one side sat a cavelike hut. Five chimpanzees sat in the branches of the trees; two pairs, and one on its own. The pairs were engrossed with grooming each other, searching through their partners’ thick black fur for nits. The fifth sat still, staring into space.

“A baby monkey.” Tegan pointed. I followed her finger to the hut area where a female chimp cradled a baby chimp in her arms. The mother gazed down at the baby and I fancied that I saw a smile on her simian face.

“That’s her mummy, isn’t it?” Tegan said.

“Yes, sweetheart,” I replied. Everything started closing in on me. I was aware of everything: the pungent aroma of animals; the stickiness of the day; the clamminess of my skin…All of it crowding in on me. I was drowning, being submerged in a reminder of my best friend and what had happened to her. Her gray, emaciated body in a hospital bed. That she was gone now, the spark of the woman I knew extinguished.

“Her mummy hasn’t gone to heaven to be with Jesus and the angels, has she?” Tegan murmured, her voice low and matter-of-fact.

“No, sweetie, she hasn’t.”

Her little shoulders rose as she inhaled, then her shoulders fell as she expelled air in a deep exhalation. Her eyes glazed over as though she was calculating something. I wished she would talk to me; tell me what she was feeling. The intense agony of being suffocated by the reminder of Adele’s death I’d just felt was probably nothing compared with what she felt. I wanted her to tell me, to let me know how she felt. If she was hurt or angry or sad or in pain. She might not be able to articulate all her feelings, but if she tried…Like it was easy for me. When was the last time I spontaneously shared an emotion?

“Can we see the snakes?” Tegan asked, coming out of her reverie.

“Do we have to?” I whined.

“Yes,” she replied, “I like snakes.”

How and when she’d seen enough snakes to make an informed decision, I didn’t know. “OK,” I said, standing up, “we can see the snakes.” I looked down at the leaflet in my hand and mentally plotted a course to the reptile kingdom from our current position.

“I’ll get the ice cream,” a man said right beside me. I started a little before I realized he was with us, that it was Luke who had spoken.

“Mummy Ryn wants chocolate ice cream,” Tegan told him. “She likes chocolate.”