My Best Friend’s Life - Shari Low

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Challenges/Development Needs:

      Ginny continues to lack confidence and finds it difficult to assert herself, especially in the presence of authority or stronger characters. As a consequence of this, she can occasionally be easily led–as witnessed by the smoking incident earlier in the year.

      Shyness also continues to be a challenge, and this often prevents Ginny from participating in class or group discussions or projects.

      It is hoped that as Ginny matures her confidence will improve, allowing her interpersonal skills to develop to the same level as her intellectual abilities.

      

      Signed:

      Ginny. Day One, Sunday, 9 p.m.

      It was hard to tell what was thumping louder: the wheels of the train, Ginny’s heart or the adrenaline that was making her toes tingle. Actually, the latter two may have been caused by the fact that she was wearing Roxy’s Gina boots and they were a size and a half too small. But bugger it, she was done with playing it safe, being sensible and pitching camp in her comfort zone–now, for war, hostage situations, life and fabulous footwear, she was adopting the motto of the fearless: Who Dares Wins.

      As long as the blisters didn’t turn septic and kill her first.

      And anyway, she was hardly going to start her windswept glamorous month in the UK’s metropolis in a pair of Hush Puppies that she had fished from the Shoerite sale bin.

      She spotted the middle-aged woman in the beige padded mac sitting across from her, eyeing up her faux leopardskin trolley-case: flashy, trashy, and guaranteed to make Jackie Collins weak at the knees with lust. She’d had to prise Roxy’s fingers off it one by one. It was one thing taking her job, her flat and her life, but apparently her luggage was connected to her soul by an invisible umbilical cord and could only be freed by two hours of persuasion, vast amounts of grovelling and the promise of a blood donation should Roxy ever require it.

      This furry suitcase on wheels was the personification of the new Ginny: bold, outrageous, completely out of character with its environment. Her stomach flipped with a surge of excitement, an emotion that up until that afternoon she’d thought twenty-seven years in Farnham Hills had knocked out of her. Ten miles from Chipping Sodbury, almost two hours west of London by train, population 3,453, Farnham Hills should have an official disclaimer at the village gates.

      WARNING: Residence in this area can induce feelings of intense lethargy, boredom and, in extreme cases, a sudden and irrevocable fusion of the buttocks to the nearest couch.

      Ginny grinned and a giggle escaped her as she allowed herself a moment of self-congratulation. She felt bold! She felt fearless!

      The woman opposite, however, just felt mildly disturbed that Ginny was laughing for no evident reason and hatched a plan to pretend to disembark at the next station then jump back on into another carriage. But Ginny was oblivious, too busy revelling in the astonishment that she had finally plucked up the motivation for a long-overdue break from monotony. She was on a mission to walk on the wild side–although she might want to shop for comfortable footwear first. Never in her life had she behaved in such an irresponsible manner, and she was determined that nothing or no one was going to stop her. Ginny Wallis was finally going to start living!

      ‘S’cuse me, dear, is this your phone under there?’

      The woman across from her was bent over, peering under Ginny’s seat, her support tights fraying under the strain.

      Her congratulatory contemplation interrupted, Ginny got down on her knees and fished under her seat for the stray ringing device. She checked the phone, then the screen–Darren. So much for her new, independent life. She hadn’t gone three miles from home and she’d already lost her phone, and only a timely intervention by the dual forces of a disapproving stranger and her boyfriend of twelve years had delivered it back to her. Maybe Roxy was right–maybe years of suburban institutionalisation had rendered her unsafe to leave home without a responsible adult.

      She took the call.

      ‘Hi babes, it’s me. I’m just on my way over–I was going to bring a DVD–are you in the mood for Scarface or Armageddon?’

      Ginny pondered the question. Brutal violence in the gutter of humanity or a global cremation? Somewhere deep inside her, her new happy-go-lucky gene was clutching its heart and screaming for a paramedic.

      Suddenly Ginny realised that she couldn’t breathe, and not just because Roxy’s shocking pink Wonderbra was so tight and uncomfortably bosom-levitating that she could rest her chin on her cleavage. Who was she kidding with the whole ‘walk on the wild side’ nonsense? Ginny wasn’t wild, she was sensible. Conservative. Cautious. She was the woman who wouldn’t go out after dark without a mobile phone, a first-aid kit and pepper spray. This whole thing was ridiculous. She wasn’t some flighty eighteen-year-old, she was a grown woman who should know better. Suddenly, she could think of nothing she wanted more than to get off the train and head back home for a familiar night of companionship, affection and violent DVDs. She could just put this whole thing down to friendship-induced diminished responsibility. People would understand–Roxy had been driving everyone nuts for years. But…

      But what about excitement? What about adventure? She put her hand up her back and surreptitiously unhooked her bra, allowing her breasts to deflate and her lungs to regain their normal capacity.

      She inhaled deeply: breathe, breathe, breathe. Okay, here goes.

      ‘Actually, Darren, something’s come up. Can we give tonight a miss?’

      There was a deafening silence as his brain tried to compute this information. In Ginny’s life, nothing ever just cropped up. It was like saying the world was flat or Nicole Ritchie had a high-grade Bakewell tart habit.

      He was stuttering now.

      ‘Sure, babes, so tomorrow night?’

      ‘Can’t.’

      ‘Tuesday?’

      Ginny squeezed her eyes shut. She was going to have to tell him. She was a grown bloody woman. She could do this. She could.

      ‘I’m, erm, working. You know. At work. My work. Work. Working. Shit!’

      Okay, maybe she couldn’t.

       ‘What?’

      ‘Okay! But don’t be pissed off. It’s just that I’m doing a favour for Roxy…’

      ‘Are you on a train?’ he blurted.

      ‘And she’s on a penis embargo…’

      Exit one fellow traveller, bustling off at speed with suitcase in tow and a backwards, disapproving glare.

      ‘…so I’m filling in for her at work for a month. Just a month. No biggie. And it’s not as if I’m miles away–only a couple of hours. We can still catch up on my days off. And…’

      There was a deafening noise as the 10.30 p.m. express to Bristol sped past them in the other direction. She wasn’t sure if he’d hung up or the signal had dipped out. A sudden creeping feeling of nausea rose from her stomach. And she hadn’t even been to the buffet car.

      Was she being crazy? Why was she risking upsetting the one thing in her life that was truly outstanding?

      Darren. Darren and Ginny. Ginny and Darren.

      It sounded so right, like the perfect couple. Or the kind of act that wears coordinating costumes and gets nil points at the Eurovision Song Contest.

      They’d met at school. Two pubescent, hormonal souls intrinsically linked by inherent geekdom and the

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