The Spark - Jules Wake Page 0,57

‘If I can pass for late twenties, I’m going to milk it for as long as I can.’

‘I bet you milk the “I’m so disappointed” line as well,’ I said, looking at her pretty, angelic babyface.

‘Too bloody right,’ she said, lifting a large glass of wine and toasting me with it. ‘Works a treat. Especially with my lot. I teach the reception class. It’s like trying to manage meerkats. What, miss? Where? Oh look.’ With her quick jerky head movements turning this way and that, she did a very passable impression of a distracted meerkat. ‘Love ’em to bits but trying to keep them on task is a virtual impossibility. The I’m-very-disappointed look comes out at least once an hour; luckily they’ve got such short attention spans, it works every time.’

Erin and I laughed and then Jen lowered her voice. ‘So Jess, what do you do and where’ve you appeared from?’

‘And what did you do with Victoria?’ asked Erin, looking around the pub as if she might pop up at any moment.

‘That’s Sam’s story,’ I said, without so much as a twitch. The ghost of girlfriend past was starting to irritate me.

‘Erin. What have I told you about boundaries?’ said Jen in what was clearly her teacher voice.

‘Just askin’,’ said Erin, holding her hands up in surrender before going in again. ‘So how long have you been seeing each other? And how did you meet?’ she asked.

‘Don’t forget inside leg measurement,’ Jen groaned, lightly tapping Erin’s knuckles with her glittery nails. ‘Give the poor girl a chance. If you interrogate her too much, she might not come back. And we like her … we think.’ Jen cocked her head. ‘You look nice. Nicer than…’ She clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘Pretend you didn’t hear that, but we didn’t warm to Victoria.’

Erin snorted. ‘Since when did you swallow a diplomacy tablet, Jen Warren? I distinctly recall the words,’ she held up her hands in cute speech marks, ‘“stick-insect strumpet with a snotty attitude”, and wasn’t it you that came up with the famous phrase, “her nose is so stuck up in the air she’s probably sniffing St Peter’s armpits”?’

Unable to help myself, I snorted out loud at that one, before quickly adding, ‘I think I should probably be blocking my ears and not listening to this.’

‘Have you met her?’ asked Erin.

‘Sort of?’ I admitted cagily, shifting in my seat, not really wanting to get into the whole Victoria-crashing-our-first-date story.

‘Was she a bitch?’ asked Jen candidly, when I didn’t elaborate.

Eek, I didn’t want to be drawn into this, I slid a quick hunted glance over to the bar, but Sam didn’t look as if he’d even been served yet.

Jen patted me on the arm. ‘Don’t fret, pet. You have to be nice. You’re the new girlfriend and you’ve just met us. That’s the law.’ She turned to Erin. ‘We, on the other hand, can tell it like it is. You probably think we’re being unkind, but,’ she paused and pulled a childish face, ‘truth is, she never made much effort with us. Whenever she and Sam came out with us, which was not that often, she made it quite clear she was doing Sam a massive favour and the whole time made it obvious she couldn’t wait to get away. She was so rolling her eyes under her breath.’

Erin rolled hers at the mangled images. ‘Sorry to say, but Jen is right. It’s Sam I felt sorry for. He always defended her. Said she was quite insecure really.’

‘Insecure my arse! She was a spoiled princess.’

Erin glared at Jen. ‘Whatever happened to the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree?’

‘They’re children! She’s a grown woman.’

‘With wounds,’ Erin insisted. ‘My cousin was at school with her. By all accounts, her parents had a vile divorce when she was fifteen and both wanted custody. They competed big time for her – ski holidays, trips to the Bahamas, designer handbags, open cheque book for Jack Wills, Hollister and Abercrombie and Fitch. Seriously, she got everything she wanted, and then after a couple of years, the court awarded joint custody, so she lived one week with her dad and the next with her mother. But the money splurging didn’t stop; if anything, the stakes got even higher. They still tried to outdo each other. And then … one by one her parents remarried … and she became second fiddle. She’s been desperate for approval ever since.’

Jen held a hand up. ‘Yeah, yeah, poor Victoria, but it