The Last Time I Saw You Read Free Page A

away from our dreary middle-class repression. There was an instant confidence about her, like she could read it all in a heartbeat and know exactly where to put herself. She wore a stretchy, red Lycra minidress, offset by a pair of black woolly tights that rescued her from looking like she’d just come from a night out clubbing. Her black hair—dyed? Couldn’t quite tell—was cut into a complicated layered bob, held fast by a thick coating of hairspray, the volume speaking of hours spent with her head upside down blasting it with a dryer. She was skinny—the way the Lycra hugged her jutting hip bones advertised the fact—but there was a soft padding around her bottom, the final frontier that she was yet to overcome. Her eyes were a bright blue, constantly roving around, intelligence-gathering. They’d alighted on me, and I gathered my parka closer around me, embarrassed by my ill-fitting jeans and warm green sweater: I’d just thought north equals cold, whereas Sally, she’d constructed a look, each component part balanced on top of the last, like an elaborate game of Jenga.
    You couldn’t keep your eyes off the ultimate effect—she was magnetic, compelling—but it was more attractive than pretty: prettiness suggests a softness that Sally rarely surrendered to. I was probably prettier, in a quiet way that I was yet to even really notice; my blondy-brown hair was thick and long, but I had no idea how to style it, so it simply hung there like a rug on a washing line, my makeup collection consisted of a few cheap bits and bobs from Boots, so my hazel eyes never got emphasized, and I was scared of lipstick because it always ended up painting my teeth. As for my perfectly decent body—permanently encased by baggy knitwear, it never got a look-in. No wonder Sally was mapping me so carefully withher eyes: she always knew when someone was ripe for transformation. Transformation or corruption? Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.
    “Very kind, but I’ve got it under control,” said Dad, dropping the cases a little too heavily to convince. He was transfixed, his eyes locked on her. “Jeremy Berrington,” he added, sticking out his hand.
    “Sally Atkins,” she said, leaning forward to kiss him on the cheek at the exact same moment. She was mocking him, but so very subtly that he couldn’t quite catch it.
    She unsettled me, the way she exposed us with a few light brushstrokes. “I’m Olivia, and I think that’s my room,” I said, pointing to the door.
    “I’ll come find you later, yeah? Few of us were gonna head down to the bar. Tryouts,” she added, with a naughty laugh.
    “Absolutely. I think we might head out for supper, but if I’m here then count me in.” I hated the way I sounded, like a pastiche of the geeky grammar school girl that I was, more me than me.
    “Come on, Mom and Dad, you know it makes sense,” she said, voice a lilting tease.
    I looked at them, imagined the awkwardness of dinner, our glasses chinking in a celebratory toast with too much undertow to ever ring true. Mom was smiling at her, taken by her cheek.
    “I’ll see how it goes,” I conceded.
    “You do that,” she said, tenacious. She held my gaze, grinned at me, and suddenly it felt imperative that I grabbed the opportunity with both hands, that I didn’t miss my moment. A girl like that wouldn’t hang around—my friendship window would slam shut and I’d be left shivering in the cold.
    Dad deposited my suitcases in my bare matchbox of a room, and we all stood there for a second.
    “Nice girl,” he said, and I waited for the inevitable postscript. “Quite a strong flavor.”
    “I like her,” I said, defensive.
    “She’s a live wire, but she’s quite right. Livvy needs to dive right in, like an otter heading upstream.”
    Mom’s ridiculous analogy clinched it. Soon I was hugging them goodbye, unable to look as the Volvo made a heavy left turn around the corner. I looked up at my unprepossessing new home