Shari Low - My Best Friend’s Life

She had a point. Almost thirty years of friendship, based on having absolutely nothing in common other than the fact that they were born on the same day and their mothers were distantly related. Speaking of which…

‘Hellooooooooooo, girlies.’ The sing-song shriek came from downstairs and was accompanied by a slamming door and the smell of chow mein.

Said girlies groaned. ‘How can you be related to someone who sounds like that? You know, you really have to move out of your mother’s house, Gin–it’s obscene that you still live here at your age.’

‘And is my favourite girlie still up there too?’ screeched another voice, which to the untrained ear sounded very like the first one.

Roxy sighed. ‘And how can I be related to someone who sounds like that?’

Then, louder, ‘Yes, Mum, I’ll be down in a minute.’

‘I’ve got your favourite here, sweetie–prawn crackers and crispy chicken. We thought we’d all have dinner together.’

‘Gin, do you think our mothers are having a lesbian affair? I haven’t seen them apart since about 1974. Urgh, mental image, my mother muff-diving…don’t think I can face those prawn crackers now. And I’m not buying that my mother moved in here just for the companionship.’

Gin giggled. ‘You have a sex-obsessed, twisted mind. They’re not lovers, they’re cousins.’

‘About third cousins, four times removed. I’ve met people in public toilets who are closer relations than that. But think about it. Since your dad popped his clogs and my dad popped Mrs Fleming from the fish shop, they’ve been joined at the hip. Urgh, another mental thought that I could live without.’

‘They’re cousins !’ shrieked Ginny, smacking Roxy with a threadbare, heart-shaped pink pillow, and still her perfect hair didn’t move an inch out of place.

‘There should be a law against parents having sex. Come on then, let’s go join them. But when we’re finished you have to help me update my CV and find a new job, Gin–you know I’m hopeless at that kind of stuff.’

‘And what am I, a careers officer?’ Ginny replied indignantly.

‘You work in a library! There are loads of job information advice thingies in there.’

‘There are also several editions of the Kama Sutra and a whole bloody shelf on the menopause, but I know sod all about those either.’

Objection overruled.

‘Come on, hon, please . I really need you to help me decide what I’m going to do. Maybe I should take a year out and travel a bit. Or go back to university. I only had one year left to do, before…well…before…’

‘Before you got caught giving the philosophy professor a blow job. Under a podium. During a lecture.’

‘Girlies!!!’ came another shriek from downstairs.

Ginny groaned. ‘You know, Rox, you’re right–I have to move out of here. I need to stop wearing clothes with “sweat” in the title, and I need to shred the apron strings.’

Suddenly, a rousing chorus of ‘Hey Big Spender’ filled the room.

‘Rox, either your arse is singing or that’s the naffest ringtone I’ve ever heard.’

Roxy ignored her and checked the screen.

‘Shit. Shit. Bloody shit. It’s Sam at the Seismic.’

‘What did he say when you resigned?’

‘Actually I just left a note. Couldn’t face them.’

To Ginny, this didn’t exactly come as a newsflash. It was vintage Roxy. Roxy, who couldn’t face up to life’s un-pleasantries if her Miu Miu mules depended on it. It had been the same their whole lives. Roxy couldn’t tell a boy she didn’t like him any more so she sent Ginny. Roxy never did her homework, she just copied Ginny’s. Roxy didn’t want to tell her mother she was leaving home, so she did a midnight flit. Ginny carried the bags. Crazy, impetuous, dramatic, spontaneous, endlessly fucking irritating Roxy.

But then…

Wasn’t that the same Roxy who had poured a can of Vimto down the front of Kevin Smith trousers in primary school because he’d put chewing gum in Ginny’s hair? The poor guy was probably still in therapy trying to eradicate the nightmare of spending the next ten years with the nickname Pisspants.

And wasn’t that the same Roxy who’d bought Ginny her very first box of tampons? Actually, she’d stolen them from a fifth-year prefect’s gym bag, but the thought was still there.

And that was definitely the same Roxy who had invented the care package that got Ginny through every teenage moment of doubt, insecurity or low self-esteem: two Mars Bars, a packet of Silk Cut, a bottle of Diamond White and the Dirty Dancing video.

Ginny’s face reverted to pensive-slash-wasp-chewing as she grudgingly conceded that, despite all Roxy’s faults, she was more than a friend and general irritation: she was the closest thing Ginny had ever had to a sister. One who was insanely annoying, spoilt, demanding, high maintenance, yet still managed to make Ginny laugh more than anyone else on earth. And, if she was totally honest, sometimes she admired Roxy’s spirit. At least Roxy had taken chances in life, she’d broken the mould and experienced a bit of excitement and danger–although that police caution for flashing her baps at a bus full of American tourists travelling down Farnham Hills High Street had been a jolly jape too far.

Nope, at least Roxy would never be boring, Ginny conceded dolefully.

Unlike her chum, no one would ever call Ginny spontaneous. Her life’s CV could fill one paragraph: Same job since she left school almost a decade earlier, same boyfriend for twelve years, still lives in the same village she’s lived in all her life, with her mother, in a bedroom that she hasn’t decorated since before the millennium . Ginny was so ponderous that she took two weeks to decide to order something out of a catalogue, and that was with the safety net of a money-back guarantee.

Boring? Check. Restrained? Check. Dead? It was pretty close…

Ginny pulled at a thread at the bottom of her sleeve and half the cuff unravelled. Fabulous. She hastily shoved the sleeve halfway up her arm to conceal the demise of a sweatshirt that had given her years of loyal service.

She glanced at Roxy and guessed that Roxy probably didn’t have a single thing in her wardrobe that was more than six months old. Urgh, sometimes Ginny really felt like the bland, wardrobe-challenged poor relation. But then, this was the life she’d chosen. This is what made her happy. Content. Satisfied with her lot. Condemned to a lifetime of mediocrity. Ouch, where had that come from?

It was just that sometimes…Well, just sometimes she’d like to know what it felt like to get dressed up to the nines in designer togs, in a bra and pants that weren’t matching shades of grey, in shoes that didn’t lace up and come in three different shades of boring, and spend just one day where she couldn’t predict–down to the last second–everything that would happen.

She shrugged off her melancholy. It didn’t matter if she had the odd moment of regret–she’d already chosen her path, and her ship hadn’t so much sailed as sprung a leak, capsized, and plummeted to the bottom of the local pond. And anyway, who was to say that any other life would make her happier than the one she had here with her mother, long-standing boyfriend and steady job, in the village she’d always lived in, with the same people she’d been seeing every single day of her life? This was it. And it was as good as it was going to get. Wasn’t it?

Over on the bed, Roxy was blustering into the phone. ‘But I don’t know anyone who can cover it! Okay. Okay. I understand. Okay. I’ll get back to you. Sorry, Sam.’

She snapped the phone shut.

‘Fuck.’

Ginny climbed out of the pond and rejoined the drama. ‘Problem?’