What did she have to lose?
‘Aha! The naughty little birthday girl,’ shouted Kira, jumping up from the table in the cafeteria and running over to Millie, who was shocked into immobility by the coffee stand. ‘Come with me, Professor X., I have something to show you.’
Millie took a step back, glancing around at the attention they were drawing, but Kira was too quick for her. She grabbed her hand and started dragging her across the crowded hall. Dr Metta, a pathologist in his mid fifties known for his foul temper, thinning hair and pot belly, got in Kira’s way at one stage and she accidently knocked his coffee all down his front. For a moment he looked like he was going to explode with rage. But before he could fully detonate, Kira had grabbed some tissues from the table next to her and dropped to her knees in front of the man, only to start rubbing his crotch. He was so shocked by the manoeuvre that he didn’t manage to get a word of protest out. By the time she was done and had risen to kiss him on the cheek, it was clear that he didn’t know whether to scream bloody murder at her or thank her profusely. He opted for a sharp exit.
Kira winked at Millie and continued to drag her to the table. Pav, Jamie, and Libby were all grinning as they approached, and Millie was too busy taking all their welcoming faces in to see what was on the table in front of her. When she did look down she was so surprised she did a double take. It was a huge, slightly misshapen black cake with a haphazardly iced white skeleton on the top, and there were a few candles stuck at varying angles in the centre. Millie tilted her head to the side in confusion, and then her eyes widened.
‘It’s an x-ray cake for Professor X.,’ Kira said, proudly sweeping her arm out towards the box. ‘I know it looks professionally made –’ Pav snorted and Kira glared at him ‘– but it was actually made by me.’ Millie stood frozen to the spot and just stared at the cake. ‘Er … we should sing!’ shouted Kira. ‘Ha –’ Pav jumped out of his chair and clamped his hand over Kira’s mouth.
‘No singing,’ he told her, and Kira rolled her eyes and made a grab for his hand.
‘Ki-Ki,’ Libby said, and all eyes turned to her. ‘No, honey. Too many people.’
Pav let his hand fall away and Kira came up to stand next to Millie, giving her a gentle shoulder bump. ‘Sorry, Prof, you know I can get a tad bit overexcited. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to understand shyness. I’m getting there, okay?’
Millie had yet to speak or even move. She could feel the atmosphere around the table shift slightly from upbeat to concerned. Even Kira’s expression was a little unsure, and that girl was never unsure about anything, ever.
‘Uh … maybe I should take the cake away until later,’ Kira said slowly, her hands reaching out to pick up the tray. Millie moved on instinct to intercept her and enclosed her wrist with one of her hands.
‘No,’ she bit out, and Kira blinked, her expression wary. Millie cleared her throat and shook her head. ‘I mean, don’t take it away. I …’ She paused for a long moment. Kira had turned towards her and was waiting for her to continue with her head cocked to the side. Millie still had her wrist enclosed in her hand. The words she needed to find refused to come to her. She couldn’t get anything past her throat, which had completely closed over. Kira was starting to frown and Millie knew she had to do something, so she used the hand at Kira’s wrist to pull her forward. And then she did something she hadn’t done in over twenty years. She initiated a hug.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered in Kira’s ear, once her arms were wrapped around her. It took Kira a shocked moment to register Millie’s intent, but once she had, Millie was squeezed so hard she couldn’t breathe for a good few seconds.
‘You’re super-welcome, Prof,’ Kira whispered back into Millie’s ear, and then started swaying their bodies from side to side. ‘By the way, my hugs go on forever and ever and ever –’
‘Ki-Ki, let her breathe now, okay?’ Pav was standing, and managed to prise Kira away from Millie so that she was able to inhale some much needed oxygen. Once free, Pav kissed the side of Millie’s head, tucked her under his arm, and then steered her to sit next to him at the other end of the table.
Kira went about cutting up the cake and offering it round to anyone who would accept a slice. Seeing as the icing was black and the cake itself was blood-red, most people politely declined, other than everyone at their table, to whom Kira made it very clear that that was not an option.
Nobody had ever made a cake for Millie. Her mother had ordered in large, tiered cakes for the birthday parties she threw (before she’d realised that her daughter was too shy to impress any of the adults she’d invited and therefore did not warrant any sort of birthday celebration – that happened when Millie was six). She didn’t think Kira would ever be able to understand how much it meant to her, and she knew she didn’t have the words to explain. But she vowed that she’d pay Kira back in some way.
Millie was good at working out what people needed, and she was good at getting it for them. Last year she’d had a pair of Louboutin boots anonymously delivered to Eleanor’s office at work after seeing the longing on El’s face when she’d been trying them on as Millie arrived for one of her fittings. El had been embarrassed to be caught checking out the merchandise for herself in work hours, and had shoved the boots to the side, but not before Millie had noted the size. Eleanor had asked her about it but Millie feigned ignorance.
Don had been talking about how Irene had been bugging him to get her a new oven for months. The second time Millie was invited to dinner there, she took a small tape-measure and mapped out the space for said oven whilst Don and Irene were in the dining room. She had a new one delivered and installed the next week. Irene had thought it was Don; Don hadn’t known what to think, and when he asked Millie she kept her mouth shut.
Then of course there was Libby’s ‘bursary’: nobody other than Pav knew about that, and that was the way Millie wanted to keep it.
So somehow she knew she’d pay Kira back. And for now she was going to eat blood-red sponge with a terrifying amount of food dye involved, and she was going to love every minute.
‘Hey, Prof,’ Kira said through a mouthful of cake before she swallowed it down (not any easy feat without a fair amount of water – Millie suspected that a few essential ingredients like, say, butter had been forgotten in the cake-making process), ‘whatcha gonna do about that big deal of a conference thingy? Isn’t it in a couple of months?’
Millie’s gaze flew up to Kira and then over to Pav, who shrugged and gave her a sheepish smile.
‘Sorry, Mils. I might have let slip about the conference. But it is a big deal, you know. You should at least consider it.’
For some reason the fact that Pav had discussed the conference with Kira didn’t sit well with Millie. She felt herself stiffen and took a deep breath to force her body to relax. This is what having friends is like, she told herself. They talk to each other about you. They care about what you do. There was nothing there to make her feel uneasy. She just wasn’t used to this kind of attention. She forced a smile.
‘I can’t speak at a conference,’ she said. ‘I mean, you saw what happened when I …’ Pav’s arm slipped around her back and gave her a squeeze, and Libby gave her a soft look from across the table.
‘But we can get round that,’ Kira said, bouncing on her seat in excitement. ‘I mean, we could do some coaching and some practice. Work on some techniques to handle the stress of it and calm that big brain of yours down.’
‘Kira, I don’t think that –’
‘Just try it?’ Kira wheedled. ‘You know that everyone needs to hear about the results, and you know it needs to come from the person that’s developed it. Come on, the practice’ll be fun. We can do that instead of book group for the next three weeks. What about your psychologist mate? You think he might be able to help?’
‘I … Anwar’s not –’ She was cut off before she could explain that Anwar wasn’t her friend, he was her therapist.
‘Why not try it, Mils?’ Pav asked, giving her another squeeze. ‘You might regret letting the opportunity slip through your fingers. Plus, don’t you want to rock up to that conference and show all those smug bastards what real change looks like? Shake things up a bit.’
‘I know it needs to be presented,’ Millie muttered. ‘Anwar’s agreed to go and I was actually going to ask Dr Carver if he would mind –’
‘Ugh! Millie you can’t let that pompous arse take all the credit for your work.’
‘He wouldn’t be, he’d just be presenting the –’
‘Millie, you know he’d take the credit.’
Millie looked away from Pav’s furious eyes. Yes, she did know that, but she didn’t actually care. It was never about the acknowledgment. The last thing Millie could ever be accused of was being a glory hunter. She glanced around the table. Everyone was watching her. After the cake and the fuss they’d made she felt a little bad disappointing them, reminding them of her limits.
‘I … I’ve had therapy with Anwar,’ she told them as she stared down into her lap and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I have a lot of cognitive behavioural therapy. That’s the reason I set up the study: because I know how powerful it can be. In some ways it’s been indispensible, but it only goes so far. It’s really helped me but it can’t work miracles …’
‘But you didn’t have us then,’ said Kira, her voice strong and confident.
‘Kira’s right, Millie,’ Libby said, her voice quieter but no less firm. ‘You might find you make more progress with extra support behind you.’
Millie bit her lip. Could she change more than she had? The idea of living more normally was tempting. What did she have to lose?
‘Okay,’ she said eventually.
‘Yeah, baby!’ Kira shouted, punching the air and drawing a fair few curious glances from beyond their table. ‘This is gonna be fun. We’re going to public-speak the crap out of you by the end of the month.’
Millie let out a small giggle at Kira’s theatrics, earning her another shoulder squeeze and kiss to her temple from Pav. A shiver went down her spine as she looked up at him, and she smiled. The worry about why he’d discussed the conference with the others was forgotten.
For now.