thought there was something off about her,’ she said darkly, which was a very similar riff to what Lauren and Allison had had to say about Susie, though they’d liked her well enough when the four of them had gone out all those times to drink the bars of central London dry. It had taken them twenty-four hours to get over the initial shock that Susie would violate the first and most important rule of the best-friend code, and now Susie was dead to them. ‘Don’t get me wrong, she was a real laugh, but strip away the designer clothes and the fake posh accent and all you’re left with is a girl with fake boobs who looks like she doesn’t wipe her minny after she pees,’ had been Allison’s savage character assassination of Hope’s former friend, while Lauren had announced that from now on she was going to stop secretly calling her ‘Shmoozie’ and call her ‘Floozie’ instead.
‘You only met her once,’ Hope reminded Elaine, and again she wondered why in all her rage at Jack, she still couldn’t manage more than annoyance at Susie’s actions. OK, she didn’t want to go down the same slut-shaming road as Lauren and Allison, but it took two people to drunkenly snog, so really Susie deserved just as much fury as Jack.
‘She has a very unfortunate manner,’ Elaine said, frowning like she was picturing the time that she’d bumped into Hope and Susie in Wagamama’s in Camden, and Susie hadn’t looked up from her BlackBerry but had just waved vaguely in Elaine’s direction. Then when she had finally finished tweeting, she’d told a very off-colour joke about the Japanese-style fish rolls. ‘Yes, she’s funny and glamorous and she has a way with her, but I got the impression that there wasn’t much to her. All surface, no depth.’
There hadn’t been so much as an apologetic text message from Susie, and though she knew that she shouldn’t, Hope missed her. Yes, despite the wickedness Susie had wrought, when you spoke to someone at least three times a day, constantly had texts and tweets winging back and forth, and shared pictures of animals in freaky outfits on Facebook, to have them suddenly gone from your life left a huge aching gap that felt as if it could never be filled. Talking of which …
‘I need to get over myself, don’t I?’ Hope asked tentatively, because even Lauren and Allison had told her that she only had a week’s cooling-off period before she had to let it go once and for all. ‘I mean, it was just one measly kiss. Jack swore on all his Beatles vinyl that it was nothing more than that.’
‘You’ve been going out since you were five, right?’
‘Well, since I was thirteen, but I’ve known him all my life.’
Elaine nodded. ‘And this is his first misdemeanour?’
‘Yeah, apart from the big fight in Barcelona about not getting engaged and the usual minor domestic squabbles. Like, he always yells at me for leaving the fridge door open for longer than ten seconds at a time, and he always breaks into my chocolate stash so that when I go to get an emergency bag of Maltesers, they’re all gone. Oh God, and there was this one time that he used an entire tub of my really expensive cleanser to get acrylic paint off his hands. I could have killed him.’ Even as she recited this list of Jack’s crimes, it occurred to Hope that it was a very short list, and that apart from his recent infidelity, Jack had always been an exemplary boyfriend. ‘And he has been really, really sweet the last couple of days,’ Hope added. ‘Or at least on his very best behaviour.’
It was true. He’d surprised her with breakfast in bed that morning, even though he’d had to get up before eight to present her with two pieces of toast and jam and the least brown banana from the fruit bowl. And he’d come home on Monday night with a huge bouquet of flowers and goodies purloined from the
Skirt
beauty cupboard – it didn’t erase the memory of him and Susie, but he was trying to make things all
‘You only met her once,’ Hope reminded Elaine, and again she wondered why in all her rage at Jack, she still couldn’t manage more than annoyance at Susie’s actions. OK, she didn’t want to go down the same slut-shaming road as Lauren and Allison, but it took two people to drunkenly snog, so really Susie deserved just as much fury as Jack.
‘She has a very unfortunate manner,’ Elaine said, frowning like she was picturing the time that she’d bumped into Hope and Susie in Wagamama’s in Camden, and Susie hadn’t looked up from her BlackBerry but had just waved vaguely in Elaine’s direction. Then when she had finally finished tweeting, she’d told a very off-colour joke about the Japanese-style fish rolls. ‘Yes, she’s funny and glamorous and she has a way with her, but I got the impression that there wasn’t much to her. All surface, no depth.’
There hadn’t been so much as an apologetic text message from Susie, and though she knew that she shouldn’t, Hope missed her. Yes, despite the wickedness Susie had wrought, when you spoke to someone at least three times a day, constantly had texts and tweets winging back and forth, and shared pictures of animals in freaky outfits on Facebook, to have them suddenly gone from your life left a huge aching gap that felt as if it could never be filled. Talking of which …
‘I need to get over myself, don’t I?’ Hope asked tentatively, because even Lauren and Allison had told her that she only had a week’s cooling-off period before she had to let it go once and for all. ‘I mean, it was just one measly kiss. Jack swore on all his Beatles vinyl that it was nothing more than that.’
‘You’ve been going out since you were five, right?’
‘Well, since I was thirteen, but I’ve known him all my life.’
Elaine nodded. ‘And this is his first misdemeanour?’
‘Yeah, apart from the big fight in Barcelona about not getting engaged and the usual minor domestic squabbles. Like, he always yells at me for leaving the fridge door open for longer than ten seconds at a time, and he always breaks into my chocolate stash so that when I go to get an emergency bag of Maltesers, they’re all gone. Oh God, and there was this one time that he used an entire tub of my really expensive cleanser to get acrylic paint off his hands. I could have killed him.’ Even as she recited this list of Jack’s crimes, it occurred to Hope that it was a very short list, and that apart from his recent infidelity, Jack had always been an exemplary boyfriend. ‘And he has been really, really sweet the last couple of days,’ Hope added. ‘Or at least on his very best behaviour.’
It was true. He’d surprised her with breakfast in bed that morning, even though he’d had to get up before eight to present her with two pieces of toast and jam and the least brown banana from the fruit bowl. And he’d come home on Monday night with a huge bouquet of flowers and goodies purloined from the
Skirt
beauty cupboard – it didn’t erase the memory of him and Susie, but he was trying to make things all
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