Chapter Six

By the time Lisa was back on her sofa she had replayed the scene with Flick over in her head many times. She and Felicity had never shared an awkward moment before, but the meeting in the supermarket had been cringeworthy. As Lisa pictured herself standing speechless opposite Flick, who couldn’t wait to get away, she could still feel the palpable shift in their relationship. Reimagining the situation she thought of all the things she could have said and – given that Felicity looked in the middle of a personal crisis – the things she should have said, as a friend. But that was it, despite the fact they had once shared everything and known each other’s most intimate secrets, they had become … strangers.

Lisa pushed the idea away. How could she and Felicity ever truly be strangers? Strangers would have reacted differently; they could have passed each other by anonymously. The encounter in the supermarket would have been a casual, momentary meeting of two people, easily put to the back of the mind and forgotten. No, Lisa knew she and Flick could never be strangers, but that meeting in the supermarket had left her in no doubt – they were no longer friends. Lisa’s heart and head hurt at the thought.

Searching for a distraction, she turned the television on. But it was no use, The X Factor still had too many contestants to hold her interest, and even the usual comedy crowd-pleasers weren’t doing it for her. And the participants on Strictly were so smiley she could barely look at them. Nothing could stop the nagging at the back of her mind: Flick Forster, Felicity Forster. Thinking about the years that had passed since they had last spoken, Lisa realised their friendship had met with such a slow demise she had barely noticed it slipping away until now, and now, well, it seemed it was too late.

Lisa looked round the living room. She was sure being back in her parents’ house, the place where she and Felicity had shared so much, was making her feel sentimental. She knew she needed to get a place of her own. Once she had finalised things in London with Ben – not that she intended to address that situation any time soon – a place of her own would be her next priority.

Sitting on her parents’ bedroom floor, rooting through a box of old photographs on a Saturday night felt like a new all-time low. Lisa had hoped it would make her feel better, that there would be some comfort in the pictures, but the reality was it all looked a lifetime ago. She and Flick were pretty much inseparable back then, together in almost every photograph. From missing teeth and their Cabbage Patch Kid phase to sharing the same hairstyles – oh Lord, those fringes – the same make-up and even the same terrible taste in clothes – surely leggings with that much pattern on were never fashionable? They had gone through it all together.

Lisa stared at their first school photograph, with thirty-two children attempting to look like an orderly class, as they grew used to wearing their new uniforms and abiding by the words of Mrs Marsh, their ever-enthusiastic teacher. Lisa noticed how both she and Felicity were grinning at each other. Not looking at the camera at all. It was typical of their relationship. Theirs was a friendship formed on collusion from the start. Since Lisa had wet herself on the first day at infant school and Flick doused her from the water tray and accepted a telling off to save her embarrassment and hide the evidence, it had been them against the world. It was supposed to stay that way; it should have stayed that way! Lisa riffled through the box, flicking through the years they had shared until an idea struck and she went downstairs.

Lisa wanted to know what Flick was up to now. She wanted to see what her life had become. She generally disliked Facebook. Ben had a profile, but she had only created one recently because her dad suggested it might be wise to have a business page – not that she had got round to that yet. But now she wanted to check out Flick’s life, firing up her laptop and heading to Facebook seemed her only option. What else was a woman to do when she wanted to spy on someone without actually making contact with them?

Lisa’s own page might as well have had tumbleweed blowing across it; no action since she had last logged on. No new friend requests – well, she hadn’t really expected Winnie or Mr Chung to be on Facebook – but nothing … really … nothing?

Typing in ‘Flick Forster’ Lisa leaned forward and waited for her face to appear in the search results. Nothing! She tried ‘Felicity Forster’, but still nothing appeared. The thought that Flick might have got married had never occurred to Lisa before. She can’t have! I’d know … wouldn’t I? Didn’t we promise to be each other’s bridesmaids? The years they hadn’t made contact stretched out in Lisa’s mind.

It had been eleven years since she left Littlehampton. When she had first gone away she and Felicity had chatted on the phone regularly, over time, contact slipped to monthly calls and sending the odd letter or postcard. Eventually, distance, and the fact they were both living different lives meant even months slipped by and turned into years. Lisa tried to remember the last time she had contacted Felicity and cringed at the memory of a hurried phone call on Flick’s twenty-first birthday. Really? Was that it? Eight years ago.

Lisa realised there was so much Flick didn’t know about her own life in that time; there was no reason the converse wouldn’t also be true. But married? Could she be? Thinking back, Lisa remembered Flick mentioning a boyfriend. Pete … Pete somebody! But without his last name she couldn’t get any further and she just couldn’t remember it. Holding her phone in her hand, she wondered if her mum would know. But, then again, she knew her parents spent so much time in France they barely kept up with the details of her life, let alone those of the people she had gone to school with.

About to give up, Lisa pondered searching other, or at least one other, old school friend. It was something she had promised herself she wouldn’t do when she left home, but now, having seen Felicity and being in her parents’ house, she just had the urge to see what had become of him. She knew it was probably a bad idea. Would searching for Nathan Baker be too much of a wallow into the depths of the past? He was her first crush, her first love, her closest friend after Felicity and the reason she moved away.

Before she could convince herself otherwise she typed in ‘Nathan Baker’. A list of Nathan Bakers appeared, but none were her Nathan, not unless the years had been very unkind to him. Not yet ready to give up on her trudge through time now she had started, she typed in the name of Nathan’s best friend. Brett Austin’s obviously still-cheeky face appeared as the first in the list. Ah ha! Lisa leaned into the screen. Clicking on his name she was intrigued to see how he had aged. It was weird seeing people from school after a big leap of time. His face, minus a few wrinkles, was still the face she knew, but his tummy was rounder and his hair much thinner. He still didn’t look very tall, she noticed.

Sure that he and Nathan must still be friends Lisa started scrolling through his pictures. Blimey! He had visited some places, that was for sure. Brett Austin had obviously got some money from somewhere. Then she saw it, Nathan’s face beaming out from the screen. Her heart jumped and she pushed aside the thought that perhaps heading off to Europe hadn’t quite been the leave him behind and move on from him cure she had thought. Damn! He still looked good, too good as always next to Brett who had always been his sidekick, never quite growing out of the shadow of his taller, better-looking friend.

She saw the tag, Nate Baker, so it’s Nate now, is it? She tested it out, saying it aloud. She didn’t like it. Nathan suited him better. Her finger hovering over her laptop, she looked at the link. Hesitating momentarily, she bit her lip, clicked on it and went directly to his page. His pictures weren’t giving away many clues, apart from the fact that he had either become a fireman or a male stripper in a fireman’s outfit, hmmm! Either way, he looked pretty impressive in the uniform. There were some pictures of formal-looking functions in which Nathan looked every bit as good in a suit as he had at their, or rather that, prom and some of him doing some adventure-style sports: skiing, kite surfing, mountain biking. Crikey! If the pictures were anything to go by, he had turned into quite the adventurer. Clearly, Nathan hadn’t embarked on the settled-down life he once wanted. With an ache in her chest and feeling slightly depressed that both Brett Austin and Nathan Baker were living life to the max in one way or another, Lisa decided not to search any further.

About to cross it all off, she decided a little peak at Ben’s page might not hurt. She had avoided it so far, aware there was nothing truly to be gained from looking, unless he was updating his status with messages relating to how sorry he was, and the abject misery he was feeling since she left. She typed in his name. Glancing over his page, the words ‘Ben Hurst is single’ smacked her in the face. Oh, Ben! So that’s it, you really didn’t care! She recoiled from the screen. Could this night actually get any worse?

When Lisa finally woke on the sofa, having drowned her evening sorrows with too much sherry – the only alcohol she could find in the kitchen – and a slab of Dr. Oetker cooking chocolate she hoped was still in date, her head hurt and her stomach groaned. She wished she hadn’t deserted her shopping in Tesco after the shock of seeing Flick. Her choice of comfort food had not provided the lasting coma of ignorance she had hoped to achieve and she had no paracetamol. Flick’s face in the supermarket and Ben’s declaration all thudded back into her mind. Feeling a sudden surge from the stomach up, she ran to the toilet. Pretty unpleasant going in, the sherry and cooking chocolate mix was hellish coming out. Wiping her mouth and leaning back against the wall to take a breath, Lisa was pleased she felt better for the clear out, but she needed a shower. As it was already twenty to eight, she also knew it had to be a quick one. Flushing the toilet and checking her mum’s precious white pedestal was unscathed, Lisa began to strip off.

Finally refreshed, dressed and heading out the door, with five minutes to go before she was due at her first client’s house, Lisa checked her diary; ‘Kitty-Kat, Sheldon, Mr Mistoffelees and Powder Puff’ were written in for eight o’clock. Lisa couldn’t help but think how very different her diary looked compared to the old days, when appointments with her editor, professionals in the pet care and pet food industries, and luxurious lunches with Ben were the order of the day. Seeing ‘Jack’ typed in for one o’clock at least made her smile. Knowing she was assured a cup of tea with Winnie by the end of the day was always a welcome thought. About to put her phone away, it buzzed: it was a Facebook notification. Glancing down at the words ‘Nate Baker accepted your friend request’ made her stomach lurch; Oh no! What have I done?