The Worst Girlfriend in the World (13 page)

‘Because practically all of the boys in Merrycliffe are complete losers. Hello! Eleventh largest container port in Europe! That doesn’t exactly bring in the foxes, does it?’

‘But it’s
Louis
and I know you think it’s just a dumb crush and I’m just a dumb girl who hasn’t even kissed a boy…’

Alice patted my hand. ‘Of course I don’t think you’re dumb and
what
? You
so
have kissed a boy! What about that time when we pulled those lads on the exchange trip to Cracow?’

As if things weren’t bad enough, I then had to remind Alice that the boy I’d paired off with had wanted to kiss Alice, not me. Just like every other boy on the planet. Just like Louis would want to. ‘You of all people should understand how things are at home. It feels like they’re never going to get better. But then I see Louis in town and he smiles or the sun’s hitting his face and he looks amazing and for five minutes everything isn’t rubbish. Why do you have to go and ruin it?’

‘Please do not play the mentaller mum card just this once! My life isn’t exactly going the way I want it either.’ Alice tossed her hair back again. ‘It’s all right for you. You’re swanning off to college and making all your fancy new friends, but what about me? I’m stuck exactly where I am. Worse than that, I’m getting left behind.’

‘I’m not leaving you behind. I want to take you with me.’ It should have been a relief to know that Alice was having a bad dose of insecurity – that she hadn’t suddenly gone for an evil upgrade. Usually Alice was stuffed so full of confidence that I always secretly wished that she had a bit left over for me. I knew exactly what it was like to feel as if you weren’t good enough but Alice wasn’t putting a brave face on it. She was putting on her fight face and it was making it really hard for me to feel sorry for her. ‘Is that what this thing with Louis is all about? Really? Because you know…’

‘Look, what do you want to do?’ Alice asked, cutting right across what I was trying to say. ‘Are you going to go for it with Louis then?’

I knew that if I said yes, Alice would back off. I was 95 per cent sure of it. Though a couple of weeks ago I’d have been 110 per cent sure of it.

‘The thing is, I’m not sure that I’m ready to go for it,’ I admitted, because going for it felt like jumping off the highest diving board at Conley Road pool and I hated getting my face wet. ‘Why are you being like this? You’re acting like you care more about getting with Louis than our friendship.’

‘Of course I don’t, but if you’re not going to go for it, then I am!’ Alice said quickly and defiantly, like she’d lose her nerve if she didn’t get the words out as fast as possible.

I hated her a little bit then. Just a little bit. ‘What’s that meant to mean, then?’ I demanded. ‘Like, a declaration of war or something?’

Alice recoiled, like she was shocked that things had gone this far. But only for a second, then she sat up straighter and stiffened her spine. ‘Not war, not at all, but if you don’t want him, then you can’t bogart him just because someone else does.’

‘But you never stick with a guy for longer than five minutes. You know it! Are you going to risk our friendship for a week going out with Louis?’

‘It might not be a week. Maybe the fact that guys bore me is because you were right and I was aiming too young.’ Alice had some colossal nerve; throwing my own words back at me. I looked at her. She refused to meet my eye. ‘Louis is older and he’s in a band and he’s been to London. And he’s really fit and he’s totally been flirting with me and if our friendship is strong enough to survive you having all these new friends, then it can survive me hanging out with Louis.’

‘You have nothing in common with him,’ I snapped. ‘Nothing!’

‘And you do, I suppose?’

I had loads of things in common with Louis. Or, to be more accurate, I had a list of things that was a bit pathetic when I catalogued them in my head; we both liked the same pasty from the very sandwich shop that I was sitting outside. We both ran to the dance floor whenever they played the Beatles at The Wow. And before he started bleaching it, our hair was almost the exact same shade of mousy blond and actually, yeah, it was a really sad list, but I wasn’t going to tell Alice that. That was a first too, because we told each other everything.

Her chin was still jutting out the way it did when she argued with her mum or was telling me about the argument that she’d just had with her mum. As if I was against her too. Alice hated it when things didn’t go her way.

Spoiled, my mum called her, so did Siobhan and even Alice’s dad, who was the one who did most of the spoiling. Alice was so used to just snatching anything and anyone that took her fancy. She knew that she could always rely on her looks and her big blue eyes. And that she could get any boy she wanted just by thrusting out her tits and licking her lips.

Alice might be sexy, but I was way cooler than her and maybe it was time I started working that. I’d been trailing in Alice’s shadow for too long. I hadn’t expected Louis to friend me back on Facebook but he had. And Dora and Matthew and Paul and even Sage were on the way to becoming my friends. I had things going for me and it was about time that Alice realised that. Hell, it was time that I realised that.

‘Me and Louis have tons in common.’ I didn’t recognise the sound of my own voice. It was chippy and hard. ‘And so, yeah, I’m going for it.’

‘No! You already said that you weren’t.’ Alice jumped off the wall so she could stand there with her hands on her hips. ‘I said that I’m going for it.’

I was fed up with people thinking that what I wanted wasn’t important. ‘Well, we’re both going for it then, I suppose.’

‘Fine!’

‘Fine!’ I snapped back, though if either of us were thinking clearly we’d have known it was not fine. ‘You’re on.’

‘You’re
so
on!’

The next morning I really felt like skipping college. Only the thought of Dad telling me in his sad voice that he was disappointed with my commitment to retaking my GCSEs and making something of myself had me packing my bag, slapping on some heavy-duty concealer and wearing my mint-green skinny jeans so at least my legs looked bright and cheerful.

I’d hardly slept at all. I kept thinking about how, for one moment yesterday afternoon, everything had been great, anything had seemed possible. Dad was back. Mum was taking her pills and functioning. I had all I needed to make a killer dress. I was making new friends. I was connecting with Louis. And then I’d fought with Alice and now nothing felt right in my world.

All night I’d replayed the argument we’d had, working it around and around like an aching tooth that you keep worrying with your tongue even though you know that makes it hurt even more.

It wasn’t until it had started getting light outside that I came to the realisation that if I had to choose between Alice and Louis, I’d choose Alice every time. I would. Even if Louis was coming round every day and phoning me all the time and pledging his eternal love, even constant Louis kisses, couldn’t compare to hanging out with Alice. Louis would never make me laugh so hard that the diet Coke I was drinking spurted out of my nostrils. Even if I went out with Louis for five years. I couldn’t imagine ever being so comfortable with him I’d let him see me without make-up or in the grungy pyjamas I always wore when I had period pain.

But I still didn’t see why I couldn’t have them both. If my friendship meant as much to Alice as hers did to me, she’d let me have Louis because whatever she said, I did have first dibs on him.

I was so late getting downstairs that there was only time to grunt ‘Good morning’ at Mum and Dad as I grabbed a banana, then I opened the front door and there was Alice.

‘Oh…’ She should have been on her way to school. ‘Um, hi.’

Alice bit her lip. It was a very unAlice gesture. ‘Look, Franny… I didn’t sleep, like, at all last night,’ she burst out. ‘I couldn’t bear it if we stopped being friends. Really couldn’t bear it. I know I sound like some awful song on Heart FM but you’re the best thing that ever happened to me.’

Whatever angry thoughts I still had about Alice went… like they’d never existed. ‘Well, same here. We are too good to fall out over a boy.’

Alice nodded vigorously as we fell into step and started walking up towards the town. ‘Right. Not just any boy but Louis Allen! He doesn’t deserve either of us really.’

‘I know. If only he wasn’t so pretty.’ I couldn’t help my wistful sigh.

‘Yeah,’ Alice agreed. It sounded as if she’d finally come to her senses because I totally had prior claim on Louis. ‘So, I couldn’t sleep and I think if we’re going to both have a crack at him, we should keep it civilised.’

‘Say what?’ I nearly walked into the road on the red man. Alice yanked me back. ‘I thought… you said… What do you mean, keep it civilised?’

‘That we have some rules so things don’t get out of hand,’ Alice explained. She came to a stop outside the one coffee shop that did coffee in fancy cardboard cups with the little cuffs to stop your hands getting burned. ‘Shall we work on them now? I’ve a free first period.’

‘I don’t,’ I said, because I had my English catch-up class and even if I had had a free period, I needed time to process this. Also, these rules. She’d had all night to come up with rules. I’d had one minute.

‘Can’t you bunk it?’ Alice asked. ‘This is important.’

‘So are my retakes,’ I said, hoisting my bag more firmly on to my shoulder. Alice pulled a face like she was bored with hearing about my GCSE retakes – not as bored as I was of studying for them. ‘What about lunch?’

‘I have Politics right after lunch. I can’t be late back.’

‘Can’t you bunk that?’ I asked, because Politics wasn’t that important in the grand scheme of things.

‘Well, not really.’ Alice looked torn. ‘Though I haven’t done the reading on the Corn Laws. OK, yeah. Let’s meet back here at one.’

In my
Designers I Have Met And Liked
notebook were what Alice and I called our Rules of Engagement. ‘Though I’m not expecting either of us to get engaged to him,’ she’d said before we got down to business.

No pretending to like crap bands just because he does.

No laughing at his jokes like a saphead, unless he tells a really funny joke and laughing is inevitable.

No private messaging. That includes using technology to send pictures of your body parts.

No flashing of said body parts in a real-life situation.

No nudity. (This should really go without saying, but it has to be said.)

No sexual contact, including grinding up against him on the dance floor of The Wow or anywhere else for that matter.

No dirty talk.

No getting him drunk.

No getting yourself so drunk that shoving a tongue down Louis’s throat seems like an acceptable tactic.

No offering to cut his hair for free or make him an item of clothing.

No slagging each other off or running each other down to Louis.

When one of us gets him, the other one has to back off immediately with no hard feelings and no pass-agg tweeting.

The winner is declared when Louis changes his Facebook status to: ‘In a relationship with _____ ______’ (insert the victor’s name.)

‘The important thing is that we’re not going to fall out over this,’ I’d said once we’d finished. ‘It’s just a bit of healthy competition, right?’

‘Right,’ Alice had said. ‘It might even get you to take the training wheels off, Franny. Then no man will be safe from your charms.’

‘I’m not interested in anyone but Louis,’ I insisted, as we got to the corner where Alice went left and I went right. ‘But if some other foxy boy catches your eye in the meantime, feel free to go for it.’

‘Well, if Ryan Gosling decides to relocate to Merrycliffe then you can have Louis. I’ll even arrange to have him gift-wrapped,’ Alice decided and I never expected that we’d both be giggling as we went our separate ways.

Drawing up the rules had taken all of our lunch hour and a little bit of flouncing and I was really late back for yet another tutorial on how to follow a dressmaking pattern, but I muttered something about women’s problems and needing a chemist and Barbara let it go.

‘You all right?’ asked Sage, as I hauled myself up on my stool. She was perched on Paul’s workbench and leafing through one of Barbara’s big binders full of patterns. ‘I’ve got some paracetamol in my bag if you’ve got period pain.’

The other thing I’d decided during my long, dark night of the soul was that I’d been kind of unreasonable about Sage’s gold dress. It
had
only been half a day and it wasn’t her fault Mrs Chatterjee had undercharged her. Besides, the dress was wicked itchy so I’d given her back the frock that morning.

‘But we agreed I’d give you the first five pounds on Monday,’ she’d said.

‘Just have the dress.’ I’d shoved it at her so she had no choice but to take it.

‘At least let me buy you lunch,’ she’d insisted, but Alice and I had a prior arrangement so Sage had said we’d take a rain check.

Now she was rooting in her big slouchy tote that proclaimed the legend
My other bag’s a Birkin
and pulled out a Crunchie. ‘I always need huge amounts of chocolate when Aunt Flo’s in town.’

‘Aunt Flo isn’t due for another week,’ I whispered because Barbara kept glancing over in our direction to see if we were engrossed in the finer points of pattern reading. ‘I just took a long lunch.’

Barbara really was looking over at us now so we both shut up and gave our patterns our full attention. I was meant to be working out seam allowance, but my mind was on other things. It was on Louis. Or rather it was on Alice, who was the immovable object blocking my path to Louis.