Best of Friends (55 page)

Roxie had been charming to her, which should have given Abby a hint of what was to come.

“Great to see you,” Roxie had said with a smile that showed off pointed canines.

Definitely some fox in there somewhere, Abby decided. Or was it vampire? One of the nastier, flesh-eating creatures, that was for sure.

The blinds were drawn in the boardroom and the tape rolled. Even though Abby knew that this was only the rough cut, and that changes would undoubtedly be made, she was still shocked by what she saw.

She’d worked so hard on the series and it was clear that Roxie had been hovering in the editing suite, determined to see that Abby was sidelined. The twins were now the stars of the show. Abby was nothing more than a guest presenter—or at least that’s what it looked like. Her scenes had been slashed to pieces so that for every minute of screen time she enjoyed, Mitzi and Linzi were given five. The dejunking segment she’d filmed was like the trailer to their feature presentation. She was devastated.

“Well, what do you think?” asked Flora nervously, as they sat around the boardroom table after viewing the footage.

“What do I think?” said Abby, enunciating every syllable slowly. “What the hell do you think I think? This used to be my show, but not anymore. Is the show going to be called
Declutter with Linzi and Mitzi
and you’ll have my name in very tiny print down the bottom of the credits as a guest presenter? Or are you going to bother with my name at all?” She stared at everyone around the table with fury. She felt so betrayed. It had all happened exactly as Mike, her agent, had said it would. She’d half hoped that hiring him would make Brian and Roxie think twice about treating her badly, because Mike Horowitz was a name to be reckoned with in the business, but apparently not. Roxie was grooming the twins for stardom and Abby now had no place in the Beech line-up.

Perhaps it was her age, but she didn’t think so. It was just that bloody Roxie hated her for some reason.

“Don’t you like it?” enquired Roxie, with a nasty glint in her eyes. “We all think it’s wonderful, don’t we?” She stared around the room, as if defying the other Beech executives to say a word. She had them exactly where she wanted them, Abby knew. Which meant that Abby was out of a job. Or soon would be. She got to her feet, glad that at least she hadn’t bothered dressing up and was wearing the cool fitted white shirt and faded jeans of a veteran TV star who really couldn’t give a shit.

“Well, we’ll have to see what Mike thinks of all of this,” she said calmly, wishing she’d got an agent years ago and then she wouldn’t be in this position now. Her contract with Beech was not precisely an industry boiler plate one and she had little comeback if the production company did decide to sideline her.

Mike had advised against any confrontational meetings with Beech over this. “I’ve spoken to Brian, he knows I’m on board, now let’s see what they do,” he said. “Brian isn’t stupid—he won’t want to ruin his relationship with you, no matter how weak your actual contract is.”

Maybe Brian was stupid, after all, Abby thought. As soon as she left, she’d phone Mike.

“Bye.” She bestowed a cool smile on everyone because she wouldn’t give any of them the satisfaction of knowing how rattled she was. Instead, she walked confidently out of the boardroom as if she hadn’t a care in the world. It was only when she got back into her Jeep that she let the anger show.

Bloody bastards, she raged, hitting the steering wheel in her temper. She’d come up with the idea for
Declutter.
It was her show. How dare they do this to her? Her fingers shook as she dialled Mike’s private line and left a message for him. She wasn’t sure what he could do in the face of this disaster, but he ought to know.

Mike somehow managed to calm her down.

“Legally, they can do this,” he said evenly. “You should never have signed that contract in the first place without proper advice, but as you did you’re stuck with it, and obviously Brian doesn’t want to renegotiate. He’s being very short-sighted, though. You have lots of talent, Abby, and just because Roxie only likes kids on TV, doesn’t mean that the viewers agree. I need to see the rough cut—they were supposed to send it to me.”

“They knew better,” said Abby bitterly.

“Don’t panic,” Mike said cheerfully. “When I’ve got you a fabulous new job with another company, Brian will be crying into his cornflakes that he didn’t appreciate Abby Barton when he had her. The plus side of your crappy contract is that they don’t have any hold over you. You can walk at any time.”

Abby wanted to ask where to, but didn’t want to appear negative. “Yeah, right,” she said. “Thanks, Mike. Somehow you make me feel better.”

In Dunmore, she’d got stuck at the traffic lights outside the travel agents’. Giant posters of people having a good time on holiday shimmered into view when she turned her head. What the hell, a holiday might not be the answer but it would certainly help. She definitely needed to get away and, after suffering through both her exams and her parents’ break-up, poor Jess could do with one too.

At home, there was no sign of Jess. This was nothing new. Jess had been practically living at Steph’s house for the past month of the holidays. Or at least, that’s what Jess had said. She’d told Abby she couldn’t see much of Oliver as he was working long hours in his summer job in his father’s market garden business. He was also doing occasional shifts in the mineral water plant, he explained to Abby, so he could afford to pay to insure himself on his mother’s car.

Abby knew that the plant ran twenty-four hours a day, so that a student trying to make money could indeed be worked off his feet. Nobody could say that Oliver lacked the work ethic, which was good. She also felt that Oliver was a decent lad who cared about Jess, but that didn’t stop her worrying. She’d tried asking politely for Jess to ring her every day and explain exactly where she was, but when that hadn’t worked, Abby had put her foot down and insisted that Jess phone in several times a day.

“If you don’t call me, I’ll phone Oliver and then Steph, and I’ll keep harassing you until I know you’re safe, right?” Abby had said fiercely. She hadn’t wanted to fight with Jess, not after all that had happened, but she worried so much about her daughter. So, Jess was sixteen and Oliver was a nice lad. That didn’t mean anything nowadays.

On impulse, she phoned Jess’s mobile phone but got the busy signal. Oh well, she’d try again later.

Abby went to the fridge and poured herself a glass of cool white wine. She knew she was drinking far more than she used to when she and Tom were together. Then, they shared a bottle of wine a couple of nights a week. Now, she had at least two glasses of wine alone every single evening. She couldn’t help it. What else was going to help her get through the bleak misery?

Taking the icy glass to the kitchen table, she sat down and started to study the brochures. She didn’t want to look at the one for America. That had been where the Barton family had planned to go before it all went wrong, before Jay. She and Tom had been talking about a trip across the States for years. It was their dream family holiday, the one they were going to take if they won the lottery.

Tom had the itinerary planned: they’d fly to New York, see the sights, then rent a car and meander their way down south and across the country until they ran out of time or money, whichever came first. Abby had a longing to visit San Francisco but Tom had a childhood dream of seeing the Grand Canyon.

“It’s a place you have to see before you die,” he’d told Abby. “Wouldn’t that be a fabulous trip? You, me and Jess, driving around seeing everything, living the American dream …”

Abby could remember how he’d looked at her when he was telling her all of this, that intense light in his dark eyes. That was the man she’d fallen in love with. She never saw that light in his eyes anymore. Now, when he came to pick up Jess, his face was bleak and his eyes looked sad and somehow diminished. She had done that to him. She’d turned him from a vibrant, passionate person into a shell of a man who had lost his wife to another. Abby threw the American brochure onto the floor. She’d look at it later.

Maybe somewhere in Europe would be good. Yeah, Europe sounded like a good idea. Not France, of course. Remember the Rhône.

Spain, then. They’d never gone to Spain. She began riffling through the pages of the “Discover Spain” brochure, feeling her spirits lift. There were beautiful villas in the mountains, fantastic apartments down in the south, and elegant hotels in the great cities where you could wander through art galleries and admire Spanish architecture all day. But perhaps Jess would be bored with that. Abby wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure what Jess liked at all anymore. That was another problem.

And what if Jess didn’t want to go on holiday with her mother? When Abby had been a child, family holidays didn’t exist. Not for her family, anyway. The Costellos had never gone abroad; they were lucky to have food on the table, never mind the funds to whisk everyone off on a plane for a week in a hotel. And now, when Abby finally had the money to take them all somewhere exotic, she had no family left. Her mother was long dead: she’d followed her husband into the grave within a year. Abby had always thought that was the final tragedy of her mother’s life: when she’d finally been free of the drunkard who’d never properly provided for her or her two children, she’d become ill and died. Even in death, Frank Costello had had the last laugh.

Abby kept in contact with her sister, Viv, who now lived in Australia and had neither the time nor the inclination to come home. But they weren’t close. Their upbringing hadn’t been the sort to foster closeness.

Now Abby’s family were Jess and Tom. Or had been Jess and Tom. It was unthinkable to ask Tom to go on holiday with her, and Jess might not want to.

Sitting at her kitchen table, in a beautiful house she’d worked so hard to afford, Abby Barton burst into tears. What had it all been for?

Three miles up the road, Jess Barton was busy cleaning out the dog kennels in Dunmore Animal Refuge. It was a filthy job and most of the other volunteers at the refuge hated it, but Jess never minded. She loved the animals so much and she wanted to do whatever she could to help Jean, who ran the place. Dressed in threadbare old denims with a too-big stockman’s coat over her clothes to protect her from the dirt, Jess shovelled and scrubbed until she was sweating. There was something very satisfying about cleaning up after the animals. It was such a simple task. There were no emotions involved. Nobody asked you how you were feeling or were you upset or worried when you were shovelling out dog shit. Nobody was surreptitiously watching you to see if you were upset about the break-up of your parents. No, you just brushed and shovelled and scrubbed until you were sick of the smell of dog poo and the place was clean.

And afterwards, Jean would come out of the house with a tray of home-made coconut biscuits and cans of Coke. Jess loved the Coke breaks. They were so much fun, chatting to Jean and Olga, who worked full time in the centre, and hearing about the plans to rehome some animals, and discussing which ones needed to see the vet the next day. Listening to Jean and Olga, Jess didn’t feel like a secondary-school student anymore, she felt like an ordinary working person with opinions people were interested in.

Jess was good with the dogs and had noticed before anyone else that Lady, a nervy half-greyhound, was lame. She’d been in charge of Lady when the vet came, and holding the quivering, skinny body, Jess had felt as if she’d found her vocation in life.

It was so different from home. Jess could remember when home had been full of fun. But it wasn’t like that now that Dad had left. The house was too big for just Jess and Mum, and they rattled around in it, lonely and miserable, each one pretending to the other that everything was OK. But it wasn’t.

When Dad phoned, it was worse. If Mum picked up the phone, she instantly handed it over to Jess as if the receiver was red hot.

“How are you, Jess?” Dad would say each time, and Jess could tell he was on edge in case she cried or something.

“Fine, just fine,” Jess said breezily. “I’ve been reading a review of a great new film. We could see it on Saturday.”

“I’d love that,” Dad would reply with relief.

They saw loads of films now, and yet they’d never gone to one together when Dad lived at home. But sitting in the dark of a cinema, with all emotion safely confined to the big screen, was easier than going for drives or long walks. Walking or in the car, Dad wanted to talk and Jess desperately didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to talk to her mother, either, despite Mum’s best efforts. If they talked, Jess wouldn’t be able to stop herself asking why: “Why did you split up? Why couldn’t you have tried harder?” And that would be stupid, she knew.

Oliver was the only person she could confide in, and even then, she could hardly tell him everything, not like she would have been able to do with Steph.

Steph was so tied up with Zach that she didn’t seem to realise what was going on in Jess’s life anymore. They were still friends—God yes, they’d always be friends. But it was different. Now that Zach was on the scene, Steph had changed. She was slightly more grown up, not as willing to talk about all sorts of rubbish with her one-time best friend. And Jess missed that. They didn’t see as much of each other as they used to, although Jess hadn’t told Mum that. Mum would go mental if she thought Jess and Oliver spent hours together when he wasn’t working. Mum seemed to think that everyone with the normal complement of teenage hormones thought of nothing but sex, so Jess found it easier to say she was with Steph.

She did think about going all the way with Oliver, though. Not that he’d asked her or anything. He wasn’t like that. It was there, hovering in the background, but somehow Jess knew Oliver wasn’t the sort of guy to push her.

He was great to talk to about most things but she couldn’t really spill her guts out to him, how she could hear Mum crying at night when she thought nobody was listening or how Dad never seemed to pay attention to the films they saw, but just sat staring blankly at the screen, his mind a million miles away.