The Late Blossoming of Frankie Green Read online

  Feeling pleased as punch for speaking out, Letty stuck out a firm hand to show she was prepared to put it behind them.

  For a moment, he sized her up, looking from her hand to her face. Then he shook her palm and she couldn’t believe she’d done it!

  She hid her smile, instead channelling her best Dragons’ Den Deborah Meaden impression, nodding with gravity before gathering her mac and bag and getting out of there before she did a victory wiggle on the pavement.

  All the way home, she imagined she was Beyoncé, doing it for all the ladies who’d been taken for fools. By the time she got home, she was the star of a blockbuster and head of her own multi-national empire. Well, she could dream.

  The reality was that she’d managed to wrestle back her professionalism from Ross.

  Now this was a change for good, she thought, kicking off her heels into the hall. What a difference twenty-four-hours made: last night she’d snotted mascara all over her pillow because she was a victim. But now, she was on top. He could obviously see that she had inner steel: forget Beyoncé, she was actually Madonna in a metal bra.

  It was the most empowering thing she’d ever done. Letitia Cox was no pushover!

  If it had been that easy to sort him out, then she could take control elsewhere too. Get Ross to sign off the PR qualification, sort out her finances and never fall for a waster ever again.

  Letty wanted to celebrate. She picked up her phone and wondered who to call first.

  But neither Em nor Frankie picked up. This was the downside of being single, not having someone special to share things with.

  Hey-ho. She’d just have to have a party herself with some vino.

  She wasn’t going to let anything spoil the start of her new life.

  The Next Day…

  Em

  What if this was a sign? Em wondered as the orderly showed her to the waiting room. That fainting yesterday and spending the night in the University Hospital of Wales was a warning of trouble ahead. She self-consciously pulled her suit jacket tighter over her draughty gown as she pondered it: what if she wasn’t doing the right thing having the baby?

  Then again, it could all be out of her hands, she thought, finding a seat beneath a torn magazine. The nurse had said on her evening rounds that while there had been no bleeding, only a scan in the morning would show if the baby was unharmed. Getting to this point had been the most horrific wait: she’d hardly slept, her mind going over everything.

  She had come to at 9pm last night, wondering a) why there were lots of people in her bedroom and b) why she was attached to a drip. When she realized she was in a ward, she saw a mental slideshow of Alice in Wonderland snapshots of her collapse: being carried through the supermarket, talking to Simon Brown in the ambulance about her first dog Einstein, having a light shined in her eyes and then a blankness.

  It turned out she’d suffered concussion plus dehydration, brought on by hormones which could induce fainting. She’d apparently managed to tell the doctor she was pregnant just before she passed out. The lady in the bed next to her had said her ‘lovely friend’ – Simon Brown – had sat with her all evening. He’d left a card for her, some kind of humorous thing which she didn’t get. Already having committed the words to her memory, she read through them again in her mind.

  To Emerald (I never knew that was your proper name!), it said in his neat and contained handwriting, I stayed as long as I could before they chucked me out. I hope you’re feeling better. Work asked me to tell you to take as long as you need. Make sure you do – I’ll send you a box set to watch. You told me not to contact anyone, in fact you were quite adamant about it, so I didn’t.

  Hey, great news about the baby, by the way! Your fella’s a lucky chap. Lovely to see you, although sorry was in these circumstances. Catch you later, Kevin Costner x

  There in that card had been everything she liked about him – he was considerate, gentle, thorough, discreet, amusing and concise. But what would he think of her now? That she’d wasted no time meeting someone else, that he meant nothing to her. It was such a mess – he knew about the baby but, really, he knew nothing at all.

  Em blew out of her cheeks, full of despair at being signed off for a week when she needed to be on top form at work. Would this wreck her chances of promotion? She knew it shouldn’t but not everyone was as objective as they should be. And if she was going to be a single parent then being fit for the job, keeping her income going, was vital. Not that either mattered to her at this moment, she realized, because all she cared about now was finding out about the baby. If her fears were confirmed, the fears which had eaten away at her in the longest, darkest hours of the night, then she wouldn’t even get the chance to be a mother. Tears welled up again – she had never cried as much in her whole life than in the last twelve hours.

  ‘Emerald Good-Fellow, please,’ said a woman in green scrubs whose outfit complemented the grotesque pea-coloured walls.

  ‘You by yourself, love?’ she said, guiding her into a room and shutting the door.

  Em nodded. She’d had no battery left on her phone to call anyone last night. But it didn’t matter – Mum and Dad were away at some festival in Eastern Europe, Floyd was at his company’s London HQ, the girls would only fuss. And the father, well the less said about him the better. Other people would only complicate things.

  ‘Well, you’re with me. I’m Bethan. The sonographer. Take off your jacket, hop up on the bed, lift your top and brace yourself because the gel is cold.’

  How could there be life in there? Em wondered as the gel plopped out icily onto her belly. To the naked eye, there was no way of telling she was pregnant. Women like me, she thought, we are a whole secret army, hiding a secret, the biggest there could be, before we become visibly expectant. Yet to each of us, our secret is our everything: how could people not see it in the glow of our eyes and in the ridges of our fingertips? But there was also a wonder, a physical squeeze, of having that knowledge to yourself before it it became public property. And it could all be taken away from her, Em thought, with dread in the dimly-lit room.

  Within seconds, the gel was rolled warm by a probe, piece of ultrasonic equipment which looked like a microphone.

  She shut her eyes and waited, fearing the crackling would go on and on.

  ‘It takes a while to get ready, don’t worry,’ the sonographer said. ‘And the lights aren’t broken, we just need it darker than normal so we can see the monitor more clearly.’

  Her words were meant to be reassuring but until Em knew everything was okay then nothing could calm her nerves. Suddenly, out of nowhere came a very loud and very fast repetitive thud. The sound seemed to wrap itself around her, fill her ears and her heart. The baby! It was alive.

  Bethan caught her open-mouthed gaze and smiled. ‘If you look at the screen then you’ll see baby any second…’

  Em turned her head towards the monitor.

  ‘…now! There! Safe as houses. And that’s a lovely strong pulse.’

  A tiny thing was bouncing around on the screen. Even though it was a grainy image, Em could make out a skull and some little blobs for arms and legs. How was this even possible? That there was a person jigging about inside of her yet she couldn’t feel a thing.

  ‘I’d say eleven weeks, eleven plus one actually… and, I’m just double-double-checking everything, but baby is absolutely fine. So… congratulations!’

  Em was so overwhelmed she began spouting from her Googling. ‘At eleven weeks, it measures four centimetres long. The bones of the face are formed now. The eyelids are closed, and won’t open for a few months yet. The earbuds look more like ears as they grow,’ she said, as tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘It is no longer an embryo but a foetus,’ she said, mopping her belly with a tissue and getting off the bed. ‘The major organs are formed and its tail has gone.’

  ‘Wow, you have been reading up!’ the sonographer said. ‘Baby must have been very much wanted.’

  ‘Actually, it wasn’t,’ she
said, floating with happiness knowing now she wanted this baby more than anything, that she’d bring Frankie up to speed and make a start on feathering her nest, ‘but it is now.’

  Thursday Night: Lesson One

  Frankie

  ‘Frankie? Where are you?’ Floyd said out of the darkness.

  There was a patting which she presumed was him searching for her on the bed with his hands.

  ‘I’m just making sure no light can get in,’ she said, scanning the room for the slightest chink. For about the millionth time in her rigorous preparation, which she wasn’t about to mention. It wasn’t just for her own benefit – she didn’t want Leonardo to creep in and see anything either.

  ‘But it’s like the dark side of the moon in here!’ he said. She could hear the humour in his voice, but this was important.

  ‘I’m just making sure. The last thing I want is for the blanket on the rail to drop off.’

  ‘Good point. Then there would only be a pair of thick curtains plus a pulled-down blind to protect you from daylight. This might be a good time to tell me if you’re a vampire.’

  He was right. She was being a bit obsessive. But she couldn’t help it. The darkness was a cover for her inexperience; if she couldn’t make him out, then he wouldn’t notice her face of fear or her pathetic boobs or her whatsit, which by now she was convinced was abnormal. ‘I don’t want you to see me, that’s all.’

  She heard a deep sigh from the direction of the mattress, which she approached millimetre by millimetre so she didn’t trip up. What a great start that would be if she fell face-first on his thing.

  ‘Don’t roll your eyes at me!’ she said. ‘Are you rolling your eyes at me?’

  ‘Jesus Christ, are you wearing night-vision goggles or something? This reminds me of the Blair Witch Project.’

  If she wasn’t in this situation, she would have laughed at that, she thought. But she was and it was so not funny. Far from it, the complete opposite in fact. It had been from his arrival. A warm-up cuppa, as he’d put it, didn’t calm her down at all. He seemed to be taking it all in his stride, which was lucky, because if he hadn’t said they should drink it upstairs ‘to get in the mood’ then they’d still be chatting in the kitchen. Feeling around for the duvet, she finally found it and sat on the edge, at the opposite end to Floyd. ‘I’m on the bed now,’ she announced, staring blindly into the black.

  ‘Excellent. That’s a good start. What with both of us being on the bed.’

  ‘I’d really appreciate it if you were a bit more understanding.’

  ‘Sorry. I’m just trying to put you at ease.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Right. Okay.’

  ‘So, how do you want to do this then? Because we can just go at your speed or I can start things or whatever…’

  This was the bit she’d been dreading. The seconds before they actually touched. It was the most excruciating, bum-clenching, toe-curlingly awkward moment of her entire life. Her heart was going like the clappers and she had sat on her hands to stop them trembling. ‘Um, I dunno. Oh God. Well, I’ve got three positions in my head and I don’t know whether to tell you what they are or to just get on with it.’

  ‘It’s up to you.’

  Frankie gulped. ‘Right, well, I’ll just do them then.’

  ‘Okeydokes.’

  There was a silence. She could hear his breathing and then the muted sound of the duvet rustling.

  ‘Can I just ask a question, Floyd?’

  ‘Sure!’

  ‘When shall we take our clothes off?’

  She heard air shoot out of his nostrils in three bursts.

  ‘Are you laughing at me?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘totally. I thought we could take our clothes off after we’ve had sex.’

  Thank God he couldn’t see her blush. This was utterly mortifying. She cleared her throat and tried to pull herself together. ‘Okay, okay, I know I’m being ridiculous,’ she said, taking a deep breath, ‘I’m sorry. Right, I’m, er, coming over now.’

  Frankie edged towards him, reciting in her head the order of her moves: on top, turn around then on all fours. Sit, twist, bend. That’s all she had to remember. Her fingers slowly slid across the cover as she sought him out. She was getting closer, she could sense him, so she began to grope the air. She came into contact with something wet and immediately recoiled.

  ‘Ow!’ he said. ‘You’ve just poked me in the eye!’

  ‘Oh, shingles, sorry, are you okay?’ she whispered. ‘Oh God, this isn’t going very well.’ She stood up and fumbled blindly over to the wall and switched on the light. Leonardo was sat absolutely still like an Old Bailey judge on her dressing table – oh no, he’d witnessed the whole shambles.

  ‘Argh!’ Floyd shouted, covering his eyes. ‘You could’ve warned me you were so ugly.’

  Frankie had had enough. ‘Look, the point of this is that you teach me. There doesn’t seem to be much of that going on. All you do is crack jokes.’

  Floyd pulled an offended face then turned his mouth down as he scratched his beard. ‘Do you know something? You’re absolutely right. I’m not being very instructive, am I?’

  He thought for a minute while Frankie crossed her arms, waiting for him to take charge. And then an idea came to him. He leapt up, pointed both forefingers at her and announced: ‘By jove, I’ve got it!’

  ‘Finally!’ she said, irritably tapping her right foot. Because she was approaching the point of throwing in the towel.

  ‘So the plan is this: you are freaking out about this, maybe we don’t have to actually have the sex? How about we perform these positions with our clothes on – just think of it as a game of Twister.’

  Frankie couldn’t believe the relief that overcame her at this apparent solution. She beamed and nodded frantically: what a brilliant approach! It was entirely educational and she didn’t have to strip off.

  ‘Perfect!’ she said, clapping her hands.

  ‘Oh. Right. No offence taken,’ Floyd said, looking disappointed.

  Meanwhile…

  Letty

  What a bonkers week it’s been, Letty thought, as she left work and made a beeline for some therapy of the retail kind. Click-clacking her way through town to Cardiff’s mammoth St David’s shopping centre, she needed a hit to help her get to grips with it.

  For, everything she’d known about her friends and herself had been turned on its head in a matter of days.

  Take Em, who was the queen of self-control and hard work. Now she was not only up the duff, but on bed-rest.

  Then there was Frankie: the only woman in the world who could make the Virgin Mary blush had got herself a sex teacher.

  And as for Letty, well, she’d gone from being a mistress to a sister doing it for herself. All of it, it was so unlikely. Things were changing and she swung from feeling empowered to uncertain.

  Nothing more had been said by Ross at work about his behaviour: he was acting as normal, yet he still hadn’t signed off her day-release course. And Lance, well, what a surprise, he’d dropped her like he apparently dropped his flies. She knew because she’d checked every possible social media channel he was on – from his Facebook page to his Instagram work-out shots – and their ever-so-chummy updates showed he was alive and well. He was deliberately not contacting her.

  She needed a fix of happiness: only shoes could do that.

  And she knew exactly which ones – a pair of sandals on sale at Vivienne Westwood.

  As she entered the resplendent store, beneath its regal golden sign, Letty felt majestic by association. She went straight to a punky assistant, in bondage trousers of course, and asked to try on her heart’s desire.

  A minute later and she was on the catwalk of the polished wooden floor, parading up and down, feeling completely kick-arse. The size fives were sublime: from the front, four brass-tone buckles on black calf leather fastening straps exposed just enough skin and toe. From behind, the flash of the signature orb on each twelve-centimetre heel.
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  Versatile, they were businesslike by day but gave a hint of dominatrix by night. It was as if these shoes had been made for her. Timeless. A work of flaming art. The mark of a new start.

  And when they did all of that, they were a snip at £275, reduced from £550. She needed them: if she was going to progress in work and love then she had to project the person she was going to be. Strong, self-assured and confident.

  Handing over her credit card, the one which hadn’t maxed out, she fought the urge to pay her respects with a curtsey to the overhanging pink neon sign which spelled out Vivienne Westwood’s name.

  The buzz of the buy and its life-changing meaning lasted all the way home on the number twenty-five bus, right up to her doorstep. Her excited fingers fumbled with the keys, which fell from her hand. She leant down to retrieve them; she was going to get changed, go for a run and then have a healthy tea.

  At least she was until she saw two black swooshy trainers walk up behind her.

  And then all of her intentions and projections dropped like a stage curtain because it was Lance. The person she had no feelings for whatsoever. In opposite land. Suddenly, the ache she’d anaesthetized returned harder and deeper than before: telling yourself you were doing the right thing was like two paracetamol every four hours. It only masked how much she missed him.

  Letty got up and looked around, her heart reaching towards him, trying to claw back her happy.

  ‘I’ve done it,’ he said, simply. ‘We can be together.’

  She tried to take it in: he was smiling and he had a holdall with him.

  ‘Thought I could stay over, if that’s okay?’

  She felt her gob drop and her bottom lip quiver and she was only bloody speechless. She hadn’t actually believed he’d do it. He wasn’t serious about her. That’s how she’d dealt with losing him. Except he bloody well was. Now it was all topsy-turvy because apparently he was handing to her what she’d always wanted.