Page 47 of So Thrilled For You

Simmons: We don’t think you started the fire.

Nicole: Brilliant. Also, duh. Of course I didn’t. So why am I here?

Simmons: Because we think you could be covering for someone.

Nicole: Excuse me?

Simmons: You didn’t know the firework was planted there, but several other people did. [Silence] Who are you protecting, Nicole?

Nicole: No one.

Simmons: Who knew about the firework, Nicole? And why would you cover for them?

Nicole: Why would I cover for someone who burned down my family home and almost killed me in the process?

Simmons: I don’t know, Nicole, that’s why I’m asking you. [Silence] We received a phone call yesterday from an eyewitness. A cyclist said he saw the figure of a woman standing on top of the valley, watching the fire burn. Do you know who that was, Nicole?

Nicole: It could have been anyone.

Simmons: Or it could’ve been the person you’re protecting, watching their handiwork.

Nicki

Phoebe’s a riptide and I’m in her pull again. No matter how distracted I am by everyone telling me how much I’m glowing, and better get some sleep while you still can, and when are you due again, I’m only focused on her. My eyes are scanning the glass house for her, needing to know her exact location. I view myself through her gaze, imagining what she sees and how she interprets it. My tasteful maternity dungarees bought new from the tasteful maternity dress store. My swollen stomach bulging with my heteronormative decisions made at the stereotypical age. This Instagram clusterfuck of a baby shower we’re attending. Honestly, Charlotte’s just put us into ‘teams’ again, and I’m pretending to care what Keanu Reeves looked like as a baby when all I want to do is make eye-contact with her, share a moment, get back to who we were again.

It’s been well over a year since I’ve seen her. She seems exactly the same. And yet, here I am, everything changed and about to change even more. She’s on a team across from me on the other sofas, caught in the middle of a huddle of women, all being passive aggressive about who gets to hold the pen, pointing at their sheet and whispering loudly, ‘I think that one is Taylor Swift.’ I watch Phoebe glaze over, drumming her slim fingers on the coffee table, not even looking at the sheet but, instead, around at the cornucopia of baby shower paraphernalia strewn about the place. The balloons, the stork decorations, that damn peony wall that’s releasingsuch a sweet stench I’m almost choking with my supersonic pregnancy sense of smell. Then, what I’ve wanted, her eyes find mine. Immediately I wish they hadn’t as she’s so penetrating, so unafraid of holding eye contact. The room fades to muted tones, as she raises one perfect eyebrow and asks me, without saying anything:

What happened to you, Nicki?

What happened to us?

The room dissolves further and I’m back there, waiting with her for the night bus. It was another Tuesday Is The New Friday. Another night of clicking at the bartender for more shots, of complaining about our colleagues, the new Meta algorithm, the state of my marriage, how the last tube is always too early because fucking hell I’ve missed it again. Our weekly ritual. I could already taste the halloumi kebab we’d order at the place around the corner from hers on the walk home. My shoes were hurting so I was leant on the bus stop bench, dangling them off my feet, laughing at one of her jokes, when Phoebe leant over and kissed me.

‘Phoebe, no,’ I’d said, pushing her away.

Phoebe hadn’t moved her face though. She held it so close her freckles blurred.

‘Nicki.’ She’d whispered my name, her breath hot on my face, smelling sweet from the cocktails we’d been sipping at a cool place I’d never known existed without her. Yet another night of her patiently listening as I endlessly complained about how I worried I’d settled down too soon, how I was too young to feel so bored, how I loved Matt but I worried I wasn’t in love with him anymore. Then her cutting me off.‘Why are you whinging when you could be dancing?’ Dragging me fromour booth, and spinning me onto the tiny dance floor, where I could actually feel the shackles of my life drop onto the sticky floorboards. Phoebe’s breath smelt delicious. When Matt drank, the sweetness of his breath repelled me. We never had drunk sex as I couldn’t stand the reek of him – the beer sweating out of his pores, the bleary red eyes, the stink of hops on his tongue. We didn’t have much sex anyway, and everyone says to get drunk to help things along, but don’t they realise what drunk men smell like? And how shit and selfish men get in bed after a few too many? Matt could semi-regularly make me come but only if he dutifully followed the gentle foreplay and exact paint-by-numbers positioning I needed to get off. But, after three pints, he’d ignore all this knowledge and try to have porn sex with me. Always pushing me into doggy, always slamming into me, muttering filth, like ‘I know you like it like this,’ when he knows I don’t. When men are drunk, they have the sex they want. That’s what Matt smells like after three pints – bad sex. Phoebe smelt like peonies, cradling my face as she knelt on the filthy East London pavement in front of me – eyes uncertain and full of lust. It took a moment to comprehend what had just happened. I could still taste her on my lips and it was like Parma Violets. I should’ve been shocked and disgusted. Annoyed at her, for taking a punt when I’m so clearly not interested. I should’ve felt deceived, even, that maybe our friendship was something she was using to try and ‘turn’ me or whatever, but, in the seconds after the shock wore off, I didn’t feel any of those things at all.

All I felt was,OK, wow, I need to kiss you back.

Three night buses had stopped and lurched away again before we broke apart, panting, and then laughing in thatdelicious delirium you share after kissing someone for the first time. It had been over a decade since I’d had a first kiss. I’d forgotten how heady and frothy it was, to break that barrier with someone, knowing there was no coming back from it. For a moment or two, I floated on the euphoria of the sensation, and on the surprise turn this night had taken. Then, as Phoebe raised her eyebrow and leant in towards me, reality struck like a gavel in a courtroom, and I pushed her away.

‘Hang on, what just happened?’

She laughed. ‘We kissed, Nicki. Finally.’ Phoebe leant in again, her sweet lips brushing mine and I responded again, pulling her into me, my hand skimming her back. Wow, it felt good. Amazing. Natural. And, yes, long overdue. Phoebe let out a moan and I joined her and went to stroke her chest, like how I do when I kiss Matt, though, of course, she had breasts, and, as I touched them – their softness, their not-maleness – something soured in my throat. I pulled back again, shaking my head.

‘No no no.’

Phoebe, not getting it, laughed against and leaned in again. ‘Yes yes yes,’ she said.

‘What the fuck? Stop it. How dare you?’ My voice slurred, while my drunk brain tried to catch up. Phoebe was my friend. Friend. A lesbian friend, yes, but I wasn’t gay. I was straight. Hadn’t ever thought of women that way. Hadn’t even kissed a girl as a dare, or to get boys off when I was younger so they could watch. Rage charged in, joining the mess. And, umm, I was fucking married! I’d just cheated on my husband. It was easier to be angry at Phoebe than disgusted at myself. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ I’d shouted, pushing her again,this time so hard she fell back onto the pavement. A group of drunk men outside the chicken shop cheered as she fell. She looked up at me, baffled and humiliated, and I couldn’t take it. I’d stood up and started striding off in some random direction, letting the unknown streets of the city swallow me and what I’d done, while Phoebe scrabbled to run after me.

‘Nicki? Nicki! Come on. Where are you going?’

‘Away from you,’ I called back, arms crossed, walking as fast as I could in my stupid work heels, past neon doorways to thudding music. ‘How dare you kiss me!’

‘You kissed me too. Please, we need to talk about this.’

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