Something Good (10 page)

V
eronica stood in Max's bedroom doorway. “Don't you think it went well?” she asked.

She was naked. Her entire body looked oiled, or possibly varnished. What kind of stuff did she slather all over herself? Max wondered. He shifted position in bed. “It was okay,” he said.

“Only
okay?
” She sashayed toward him, tugged back the duvet playfully and slithered in beside him. It was roasting in here. Sweat was prickling Max's entire body; he'd have to adjust the central heating. He hoped she wouldn't notice how clammy he was. “Well?” Veronica prompted him.

“It's weird, hosting a party,” Max said, tugging the duvet back up. “You can't relax when you're worried about everyone having a good time.”

“Aren't you silly?” she teased him. “Of course everyone had a good time. They're not strangers, are they? They're our friends.”

They lay on their sides, facing each other but not touching. Max glanced up at the ripped paper shade. It was crazy, really. He'd spent thousands on the kitchen—way more than he'd intended, with Veronica helping him to choose units; he had to admit she had impeccable taste. All that expense and effort and he hadn't got around to replacing a lampshade. He hadn't even intended for this big room to be his bedroom until Veronica had waltzed in and insisted that he couldn't let it “go to waste,” as she'd put it. “They're
your
friends,” he said. “It's not as if I really know them.”

“Don't you like meeting new people?” She reached out and whirled a finger across his chest.

“Of course I do. I'd just have liked some of my friends to be there. Andy, Pete, Gary—friends from the shop and my cycling club.”

“I don't believe in mixing different groups,” Veronica said. “It can be awkward, you know? Throwing people together from different, um, backgrounds.”

“You mean my friends are common?” Max felt irked, although he couldn't fully pinpoint why.

The chest-whirling stopped. “Of course not. I'm sure they're absolutely lovely. I'd love to meet them—why don't we ask them round for a little drinks party sometime?”

“Maybe,” Max said warily. Housewarming parties, drinks parties: these social gatherings weren't his scene at all. As for that food—the miniature sausage and mash and all that—what was that all about? What had he been thinking, blowing all that money on caterers and their stupid miniature food? What was wrong with crisps, for God's sake? He'd liked to know what the guys from the club would have made of those mounds of spaghetti.

Yet maybe this was what people expected at parties. Max was out of touch; he couldn't remember the last time he'd been to one. He'd certainly never been to a do with Jane and his new girlfriend in the same room. He'd wanted Jane to come, yet when she'd arrived in that lovely purple skirt and those sexy high shoes, he knew he'd made a mistake. He wasn't used to seeing her dressed up like that. The whole scenario had unnerved him.

“You know it's important to me,” Veronica murmured, “to network and find an investor. It's not just my job, Max. It's my
life
.”

He nodded and reached out to stroke her hair. “I know it is.” He'd been wrong to dismiss her as a flaky airhead. These past few weeks she'd worked into the night, sourcing suppliers and researching obscure aphrodisiacs. He'd popped round to see her one evening. Zoë had sent him upstairs to her office. There'd been a little jar of reddish powder on her desk; its label had read Yohimbe Bark. “Try it,” Veronica had said, dipping her finger into the jar and offering it for him to lick. He'd felt ludicrous, sucking her finger like that. The powder had tasted like soil.

“Anyway,” Veronica added, “Jane and Hannah were there.”

And I barely spoke to them,
Max thought. An image of Jane looking marooned in his living room flashed into his mind. “Perhaps,” he said, “I'm not a party person.”

“
I
think you are,” she murmured, her hand traveling south now, sending ripples right through him. “You were fantastic, Max. Everyone had fun. I'm sure Simon or Tony will be able to tie down an investor.” She flashed her teeth at him. “That is, if I want them to.”

“What do you mean?”

Her hand hovered between his legs. “I've been mulling things over. You're thinking of opening another shop, aren't you? Looking at premises and whatnot?”

“Uh-huh…”

“Why not save yourself all the hassle and stress?”

“I don't follow,” Max said.

“Invest in my range instead. I've come up with a name, did I tell you? I'd been thinking Veronica Fox Loving Foods but it hardly trips off the tongue, does it?”

Her fingers fluttered around his groin. “No,” Max croaked.

“So I've come up with FoxLove. Capital L in the middle. Don't you think it's perfect?”

Max swallowed and nodded.

“You could be part of it,” she continued. “We could be partners—as well as other things of course.” She giggled. “You could invest in
me
.”

With that, she started kissing his chest, her soft lips traveling down and down until she'd slithered right under the duvet and the only word Max could utter was, “Yes.”

J
ane was astounded at how seamlessly Zoë had slotted into Hannah's life. She had never known her to fling herself into a friendship with such abandon; at least not since she'd been scooped up by Amy and Rachel at five years old. The two of them were upstairs in Hannah's room now, snorting with laughter. Jane was relieved that she'd remembered how to enjoy herself. It was almost like having the old Hannah back.

Three weeks had passed since the party when she'd finally returned from Veronica's house with startling blue shadow smeared over her lids and smelling distinctly of grapefruit. Jane had been perturbed about the two of them arranging to meet again—it felt too close, too entwined—but had given herself a stern, silent talking to. What did it matter that Zoë happened to be Veronica's daughter? It was time Jane accepted that she and Max had moved on. Look at his life now: granite worktops, cashmere knitwear, not to mention new girlfriend. These were extremely adult, moving-on things. Being cool about Hannah and Zoë's friendship would, Jane felt, prove her to be equally grown-up, even if she didn't own a curvaceous fridge.

Since that night, Zoë had given Hannah several gifts: a bottle of chocolate truffle bath deluxe bath foam, a Bourjois blusher, a packet of powdery leaves to sweep over her face and blot shine. Hannah had started to look very matte. She had also—encouraged, Jane suspected, by Zoë—allowed her plum wash-in color to fade out.

Zoë appeared to be the font of all knowledge in terms of maintaining one's appearance. “You really should use toe separators,” Jane had heard her announce in the bathroom that morning, in the way that a doctor might retort, “You really must stop smoking.” Jane had stifled a laugh. Of course she was ridiculous—Jane had never met anyone so desperately shallow—but the girl was likeable and charming beyond her years. “Thanks, Jane, that was a delicious lunch,” she'd said that day, when it had been hastily assembled from odds and sods from the fridge.

Zoë had stayed over last night. Jane had become accustomed to her trotting around in her jean-and-sandal ensembles, and those flimsy tops that looked like they'd been constructed from scarves tacked loosely together. She had warmed to the girl, in the way that you might become fond of a friend's exotic pet that you were looking after while they were on holiday. You might not want one for yourself, but would enjoy its novelty value for a limited period.

 

“God,” Sally exclaimed. “That girl sounds awful. Completely vacuous and self-obsessed. What the hell does Hannah see in her?”

“Zoë's just a normal sixteen year-old,” Jane insisted. “It sounds as if her mum's loaded. I'm sure most girls would blow loads of money on clothes and makeup given the chance.” When the girls had headed out to the shops, Jane met Sally at a new branch of Bella Pizza in the Roman Road. Their pizzas weren't remotely
bella
. Jane's was heaped with fibrous tinned tuna and Sally's appeared to have been smeared with a thin layer of ketchup.

“Hannah's not like that,” Sally pointed out.

“I'm not trying to stick up for Zoë and put down Hannah….”

“I know you're not,” Sally interrupted. “It just sounds unhealthy, the amount of time they're spending together. It's almost as if Hannah's been
seduced
.”

Jane hacked at her unyielding pizza. “If she didn't like Zoë she wouldn't hang out with her. Anyway, as least she's cheered up. You know, she actually talks to me these days? A few weeks ago she'd hardly look at me. Max was right—it's been good for her to find a new friend.”

Sally sighed, apparently deciding to change tack. “So it's still on with Max and that Vanessa?”

“Veronica.”

“Think it's serious?” Sally asked.

“It's looking that way.” Jane avoided Sally's penetrating gaze.

“And what about Hannah's other friends? She hasn't ditched them for this bimbo idiot, has she?”

Jane paused. She'd already been accosted by Donna, Amy's mum, in the Indian grocer's. “How's Hannah these days?” she'd asked tersely. Jane had felt her neck go hot as she'd babbled that Hannah had been terribly busy. She'd realized, as she'd escaped from the shop, that Hannah had subtly let Amy go even before Zoë—a process that had been no more significant than a tree shedding a leaf.

“Girls' friendships are fickle,” Jane told Sally. “I've asked her to call Amy but I can't keep nagging. She'll get in touch when she feels like it.”

Sally frowned as she reached for her purse. “And you don't mind Zoë hanging about at your house?”

“Honestly,” Jane insisted, “she keeps Hannah occupied. She's really no trouble at all.”

H
annah and Zoë stepped out of the chemists and into the bright winter sun. The sky was an impossible blue smudged with flimsy clouds, and their breath came out in pale puffs. Across the street, two men who'd been washing the deli's windows started waving and whistling. Despite her burning face, Hannah felt a whirl of delight in her stomach. Before she'd met Zoë, men had never acknowledged her presence. They weren't looking at
her,
of course—Zoë was the stunning one, the one strangers gawped at—but she was still registering on the periphery.

Hannah strode away from the shop, stopping when Zoë failed to follow her. “Come on,” she said, “let's get something to drink.”

Zoë smiled. She pulled her hand from her pocket and uncoiled the fingers. “Look,” she said.

“What is it?” Hannah frowned at the golden tube.

“A lipstick, dummy.” Zoë removed its lid. It was an expensive brand: a slick column of candy pink.

“Did you just buy it?”

“No.” Zoë's voice dropped to a whisper. “I took it.”

“You mean stole it? From in there?”

“Shhh!”

“You
shoplifted
it?” Hannah glanced anxiously back at the shop. Its windows were crammed with Christmas trees and tinsel; a gaudy, festive mess.

“Uh-huh,” Zoë said.

“What if somebody saw? God, Zoë!” Hannah started to march away, pushing between harassed-looking shoppers laden with bulging carrier bags.

“No one saw,” Zoë insisted, hurrying after her. “They never do. It's easy, Han. I can't understand why everyone doesn't do it.”

They ducked into a bakery, bought Cokes and sat at a tiny speckled Formica table in the café area at the back. It felt warm and safe with its comforting cake smells and the raucous hiss from the coffee machine. Hannah stared at Zoë across the table. “How long have you been doing this?” she asked.

“Long as I can remember. Started with tiny things—the odd blusher, eye shadow—then bigger stuff.”

“Like what?”

“You know that makeup set I've got with all the drawers and the twenty-four eye shadows and magnifying mirror?”

Hannah's hand shot to her mouth. “Bloody hell.”

“
And
my ceramic straightening irons,” Zoë added smugly.

Hannah started to snigger. She thought she'd really got to know Zoë over these past few weeks. She'd told Hannah about the pathetic, pimply boys at her school, and how rumor had spread that she was easy—“only because of my looks, Han”—when she was really anything but. She wasn't intending to let any of those acne-faced twerps anywhere near her. “You've got to respect yourself,” she'd asserted, “or no one else will.”

Now Zoë was telling her that she habitually nicked makeup and God knows what else. “One time,” she carried on merrily, “I nicked this life-sized plastic head with its own makeup. You know the ones that little girls put lipstick on and style the hair? I didn't know what to do with it so I went to Vicky Park and left it on a bench. Some little kid would've come along and taken it home. It would've made someone's day.” Put like that, shoplifting seemed almost like a charitable act.

“Don't you think it's wrong?” Hannah asked. “I mean, don't you ever feel guilty?”

“Why would I?” Zoë scoffed. “I'm not stealing from
people
. I'm only taking stuff from massive corporations that won't miss the odd little thing. They budget for it, Han. Natural wastage, they call it. When you think about the terrible crimes that go on, no one's bothered about someone nicking the odd tester bottle of perfume.”

Hannah couldn't help feeling a tweak of admiration. Zoë just kept on surprising her. “What about those powder leaf things you gave me?” she asked, swigging her Coke.

“Stolen goods, my dear,” Zoë drawled.

“And the chocolate bubbles?”

“Ditto.”

“God. I'll feel weird every time I have a bath.”

Zoë laughed and fished her phone from her bag to read an incoming text. “Just Mum,” she muttered, “wanting me to pick up her precious silver dress from the dry cleaners on my way home.”

Hannah rolled her eyes dramatically, as if her own mother was equally prone to asking her to collect designer attire. “Want me to show you how it's done sometime?” Zoë asked.

“What, nicking stuff?”

“Keep your voice down. Yeah, if you want to. I'm not forcing you though. Not pressurizing you.”

“You'd better not,” Hannah said. She finished her Coke and linked arms with Zoë as they sauntered out of the bakery. “I'll do something for you though,” she added.

“What?” Zoë grinned.

“I'll visit you in jail.”