Jemma Forte - If You're Not The One

‘What I’d do with a billion quid,’ mused Ted.

Buy yourself a Sky Sports subscription hopefully, Jennifer thought to herself, smiling blankly at him.

‘Perhaps I should get in contact with Tim and ask him if I can have a thousand pounds that I could use to get the tumble dryer fixed, pay some bills and have a splurge in Whistles eh? It would be pocket money to him,’ she joked.

‘Bet you wish you’d stuck with him, eh Jen? Instead of hooking up with this here loser,’ said Ted.

Jennifer smiled and shook her head. ‘Not at all, Ted. He may be rich but he was a bit of a cold shit really.’

‘Bloody clever though,’ said Max, ‘I mean, who hasn’t been on reUNIon at some point or another? Apart from my parents, who are literally the only people I can think of.’

It always struck Jennifer as slightly strange when Max went on about how clever Tim was. It was almost as if he was proud of the fact she’d gone out with him yet she’d have preferred it if he was a little bit jealous. As it was she suspected he’d probably love to meet him, have dinner with him, be able to discuss his career with him. In fact, given the choice, these days it wouldn’t surprise her if he were to choose going to dinner with him over dinner with her.

Jennifer’s phone beeped. It was a text from Esther, saying she was round the corner at the park with Sophie and could she pop in for a cuppa.

Jennifer phoned straight away. ‘Please come round. Max and Ted are here watching footy and I would love to see you. Also, Sophie can sort my two out and give them something more interesting to do than killing each other.’

Bored rigid of the swings, Esther was round in minutes.

‘I am so glad to see you,’ said Jennifer flinging her arms round her friend as soon as she’d opened the door. ‘Hi Sophie, how are you sweetie?’ she asked her goddaughter.

‘Good,’ said Sophie.

‘Go on then, Eadie’s upstairs and ah…here’s Pol. Have you finished colouring?’

‘Yes,’ said Polly, looking delighted to have a playmate that wasn’t Eadie.

As the girls scampered upstairs Jennifer ushered Esther into the kitchen.

‘Am I glad to see you? What a dull weekend I’ve had, bloody hell.’

Esther giggled. ‘Why? What have you been up to?’

‘Ugh,’ groaned Jennifer. ‘Well, we didn’t have the kids Friday night but we managed to totally waste that window of opportunity to have some fun by doing jack shit. Then on Saturday we had Judith and boring Henry round for lunch.’

‘Oh god,’ said Esther, who had heard enough about them to imagine what that would have entailed.

‘Quite, although I did nearly give them food poisoning which added a very small frisson of excitement. Then today I thought we were going to have a nice family day but it’s ended up being a day of sport watching and beer drinking with good old Ted.’ This last bit she said in a hushed tone.

‘All sounds joyous,’ laughed Esther, slipping off her jacket. She looked great as ever, but today she also looked tired. Under all those freckles she was pale, though as ever her naturally strawberry blonde hair was shiny and brushed and no matter how tired she’d always look attractive. She’d aged really well and always dressed in a way which made other women want to know where her clothes were from. She always bothered to add accessories and put outfits together in a way that told you she hadn’t just picked up whatever was on the floor and thrown it on. Today her printed scarf and Alex Monroe gold bumblebee necklace were the items Jennifer was coveting.

‘Sounds like you need a good night out with the girls.’

‘I do,’ agreed Jennifer. ‘You know we’re going out on Tuesday don’t you? Only to the Hare and Hounds but perhaps then we can get our diaries out and arrange something proper. Something which involves cocktails and dancing. Love that scarf by the way.’

‘Thanks, it’s River Island and yeah, I do know about Tuesday, although I’m not a hundred percent sure I can come yet,’ said Esther. ‘I still need to get a sitter sorted out.’

Jennifer suspected at that point she definitely wouldn’t be coming then. Such a shame and it grated ever so slightly that she wasn’t making it a priority.

‘Tea?’

‘Yeah please.’

‘Anyway, enough of my boring weekend, how’s yours been?’

‘Not bad actually,’ said Esther, a sly grin lighting up her face.

‘Go on,’ said Jennifer getting mugs out of the cupboard, happy that her friend was round. Her proper friend. It had restored her equilibrium.

‘Well, Jason and I are pretty skint at the moment and we’ve been in loads, but on Friday my mum babysat so we went out and got hammered. I’m talking properly pissed and when we got home and Mum had gone, we ended up…’ Esther grinned and started shaking her head ‘…doing it in the hall. And then we actually did it…’ again she had to stop while she snorted with laughter at the memory ‘…in the downstairs loo.’

‘You are kidding me,’ said Jennifer, full of mixed emotions. She was deeply impressed, terribly envious and strangely proud to hear that people were still having wild sex with their husbands, even if she wasn’t.

‘I’m not,’ said Esther, giggling. ‘It was hilarious. You know the type of sex you have where afterwards you’re almost a bit embarrassed.’

‘Wish I could remember,’ said Jennifer drily, grabbing the milk out the fridge. ‘By the way, they are brilliantly quiet up there aren’t they? Thank you so much for coming round and saving our day.’

‘Pleasure,’ said Esther. ‘Thanks for saving me from hours more of pushing Sophie on the swings.’

‘No worries,’ said Jennifer dolefully, her mind still on Esther’s exploits. ‘Do you know the last time I can remember feeling faintly embarrassed after sex was probably with Tim.’

‘Really? Why? What did you do?’

Jennifer grimaced. ‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Er, well that’s where you’re completely wrong.’

Jennifer wrinkled up her nose, embarrassed ‘Let’s just say he was quite kinky and leave it there shall we?’

‘No way!’ protested Esther. ‘I’m sorry but you have to spill the beans now, Missy. If you don’t I’ll end up imagining all sorts of things that are probably far worse than the reality.’

Jennifer sighed, knowing she was beaten. ‘OK, but tell anyone this and you’re a dead woman.’

Esther pretended to pull a zip across her mouth.

‘OK, so basically, towards the end of our relationship Tim was only really up for it if I was…um, pretending to be someone else.’

Esther’s eyes widened. ‘You mean he liked role play?’

Jennifer nodded, went red and chewed on a fingernail. Liked was an understatement.

Esther laughed heartily. ‘Oh god. I think I can vaguely remember you saying something about that at the time.’

‘Hmm,’ Jennifer said, wrinkling up her nose ‘Anyway, maybe I should have just put up with his weird ways. Let me show you something.’ She hurried into the front room and returned with the Rich List.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Esther, wide-eyed once she’d been shown the relevant bit. ‘That is a sick amount of money. God, I can’t tell you how much we could do with just a little bit of that. Things are really tight at the moment to the point where we’re struggling some months to make the mortgage payments. I certainly shouldn’t have treated myself to this scarf I can tell you. I feel guilty every time I put it on. Can’t you phone Tim and ask if we can have some?’

‘I wish,’ said Jennifer.

‘That could have been you,’ said Esther.

‘Well, I don’t know about that.’

‘It could. Don’t you remember how gutted he was when you broke it off? You could be that rich.’