Tell Me Everything by Sarah Salway Page A

with my new life in place I felt like an older, more sensible version. I even felt smug, sitting on her bench, safe in the bubble of my new worldly wisdom, confident that I'd found that other way out of an uncertain future that Jessica had been searching for.
    I went to the park one Thursday morning to find the bin had been moved, just how I wanted it. The concrete patch it had stood on still remained, but they'd cut the grass carefully around it.
    “It's much better, isn't it?” I told Jessica. “I think I know who arranged this. Tim. But we won't say anything. Not if he doesn't want us to. We'll get more flowers, surround you with beautiful things.” I was thinking of asking Tim to build an arch over the bench so I could grow honeysuckle through it, extending the bed all round the outside and planting spring bulbs for next year, bringing in pots of lilies to hide the rough concrete. “Nothing funeral-like though,” I whispered. “Just somewhere we can both enjoy.”
    Afterward I was walking back to the stationery shop, pausingacross the road from the salon so I could wave at Miranda, when a hand touched my arm. I jumped.
    “Molly! Molly Drayton, isn't it?” I glared up—and then down—to see a small guy in a basketball top standing in front of me, looking pleased with himself. “I thought it was you. Haven't seen you since school.”
    “Joe,” I said dully, recognizing him. He'd been an occasional member of one of the gangs who used to stand outside my door and anger my father so. “What are you doing here?”
    “This is a coincidence,” he said. “I'm only here because my orthodontist is stuck out in the back of beyond. I suppose the rents are cheaper, but this area always feels like the land of the living dead.” He checked himself then, rubbed his finger over his perfectly straight teeth. “Don't tell me you live here now?”
    I nodded, and he looked embarrassed for about a second before continuing. “Anyway, what are you doing back in town? I heard you went to London with your mother. I hadn't heard you'd seen anyone from school. I don't blame you, mind. St. Mary's is such a dump, although I will admit it was different in sixth form. I ended up being head boy for my sins.”
    “That must have been nice,” I said.
    “I've just been trekking through Asia for the last month. It was wild, you know.” I looked at the colored bracelets on his tanned arms and nodded as if I did know. “All being well, I've got a place at Oxford for September anyway,” he said. “Reading English.”
    “That's nice,” I repeated.
    “And what about you? Any ideas? Art was always your subject, wasn't it?”
    “It was nice,” I said. I'd turned into a goldfish, opening and shutting my mouth with nothing of any substance coming out. It wasn't that I couldn't think what to say, it was just that I couldn't slot back into being the particular Molly Drayton he thought Iwas. I didn't want to. “Anyway, I must go. Things to do and all that, you know.”
    “You can't just go like that. It's been ages. Don't you want to know how everybody is?”
    “Of course,” I lied.
    “Go on. Ask me any name and I'll tell you what they're doing. I keep up with everyone. It's kind of my thing.”
    I stared at him. Didn't he ever stop talking?
    “Leanne,” I said.
    He paused. “Can't remember her,” he said eventually. “Was she in your year, or mine?”
    “Mine,” I said. “Anyway, I did hear something about how she's gone to France. I think she's in show business or something. It sounded very exciting anyway.”
    He laughed, the kind of condescending laugh I suddenly remembered the kids at school always used when they felt they'd been caught out. “Leanne. I think I'm remembering something about her now. And you? What are you up to?”
    I imagined him in the pub later, with all the others. Sitting round the table, talking and laughing, just how I'd used to envy them. “Guess who I bumped into today,” he'd say. “Molly