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Amber watches them go before looking back at me. Amusement dances in her brown eyes. “Does he always do this?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Good,” she says. “I’d hate to think I was being singled out.” She takes another sip of her drink. “So, football coach? On a Sunday? Tell me more.”
“It’s a charity-run programme for kids from deprived backgrounds, trying to give them more access to physical activity.” I take a sip of my drink. “It mainly involves a lot of cones. But yeah, the rest of the time I’m a secondary school teacher.”
“I teach too,” Amber smiles, brown eyes bright. “I’m a yoga instructor. I love it, though everyone thinks yoga is peaceful and sometimes it feels more like crowd control with softer lighting.”
I laugh. “That actually sounds weirdly similar to teaching Year 8s.”
“What subject do you teach?” she asks.
“The best subject obviously.”
She raises an eyebrow.
“History,” I clarify.
“I loved history at GCSE,” she says. “It was probably the only essay subject I was ever good at.”
“That’s because history is objectively superior.”
She laughs, but not in a way that makes me want to make another joke. And I hate that I know, I just know, that at this moment Claire would start teasing me or ask me to rank dead monarchs.
James reappears, giving me an unsubtle thumbs up behind Amber’s back before sitting at the table. We all spend the next hour chatting, and it’s fine. But even though the conversation’s easy I can’t stop thinking about how much I’d rather be having a difficult conversation with Claire.
As James and I sit on the bus home I look down at Amber’s number on my phone. I don’t have a reason not to text her… but I don’t want to. It doesn’t seem fair to text one girl when all you’re doing is thinking about another.
Chapter 16
Claire
My mother’s version of a barbecue involves linen napkins, three separate salads and an instruction to “dress nicely”. Oh and printed invites too, can’t forget those.
She’s showing off her newly redecorated garden, and luckily the September weather is holding firm. Though knowing her, she probably willed the weather into being sunny for her “end-of-summer soirée”.
I stand in the corner with a glass of rosé, watching my father argue with the barbecue. Smoke curls into the warm evening air while Mum rearranges platters that already looked fine ten seconds ago. I can see from her expression that she wants everything to be perfect. Some of the women here are on a school board she wants to join, though I can’t remember the name.
Looking around, I instinctively start trying to work out where I’d be most useful. Sometimes I think I became good at reading rooms before I learnt to understand myself. It’s easier to become whatever version of yourself makes everyone else comfortable.
I’m just about to go and speak to someone when Sophia distracts me.
“It’s not a real barbecue unless something catches fire,” she mutters, reaching for another halloumi skewer from the serving board.
“Mum would simply perish if a sausage got even slightly over-charred,” I say, putting on an accent.
Sophia snorts into her drink just as Alexander crosses the patio towards my father, because yes, my mum invited the boy she set me up with only two weeks ago to the garden party. So even if the first date hadn’t worked out there would’ve been a second regardless of what I wanted.
“Need a hand?” Alexander asks, rolling up the sleeves of his pale blue linen shirt.
Within seconds he’s listening attentively to a long explanation about charcoal distribution, nodding at appropriate moments. Dad relaxes beside him, handing over the tongs.
“See?” Sophia says, watching them. “Mum’s going to adopt him by dessert.”
“Girls,” Mum hisses as she approaches us. “You can’t always just talk to each other. Go and talk to the other guests. Alexander has been doing a great job, he was just chatting to Mrs Ambrose.”
I smooth a hand over my dress. Suddenly I’m aware of everything at once; the chip in the nail polish on my thumb, the fact I’ve been talking too loudly with Sophia, the ridiculous wedge sandals Mum said suited my outfit but that I’m constantly worried about tripping in.
