My Best Friend Has Issues by Laura Marney

Author:Laura Marney [Laura Marney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908643070
Publisher: Saraband
Published: 2012-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 27

Lisa and Lauren got off the bus jiggling and giggling. Chloe insisted we met them at the station. It was polite, she said. I wanted them to be blown away by how amazingly thin and fabulous I looked and spent hours drying my hair straight and doing my make-up. I was hoping Chloe might do me another of her makeovers but she was too busy planning the evening.

She couldn’t find the restaurant in the phone book so she went down there when the place opened just to be sure of getting a table. I thought she’d book Taxidermista, a place on Plaza Real. I’d seen the queues standing outside for hours but she said, ‘no, better than that.’ She went around the corner and booked Caracol, an old-fashioned tourist trap restaurant. A place with a rotisserie full of flaming chickens for a window. You couldn’t pass by on the narrow street without getting your face scorched.

By the time she’d come back she’d laid out a full itinerary. ‘I’m thinking: we’ll walk them down to Barceloneta for a couple bottles of fizz at Champaneria, back up to Gotic, bottle of panther’s milk at Josep’s, then the restaurant, then Plaza Real, then that sleazy drag queen disco, Cangrejo. And I think last stop, the beach. They’re gonna love it. Whaddaya think?’

She was obviously very pleased with herself.

‘Good plan,’ I said without enthusiasm.

‘Look at you!’ Lisa and Lauren squealed in unison as they got off the bus and threw their arms around me.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Lauren, ‘but you look amazing!’

Lisa agreed, giggling, ‘You’ve lost tons of weight, you used to be huge. I can’t believe it, you look amazing!’

After this, the subject of my transformation was dropped. They hadn’t slimmed down, if anything they’d both put on more weight. My life and my body had changed almost beyond recognition but it wasn’t mentioned again. I was a one-minute wonder.

Lisa and Lauren wasted no time bringing me up to speed with their love lives. Due to their acceptance into Clancy’s they’d both recently disposed of their hymens. Lauren, for three and a half weeks, even had a boyfriend. I prepared my sympathetic face, sure that she was about to tell us she’d been humped and dumped, but no. She had chucked him because she felt she was too young to get tied down.

‘It’s like this,’ Lauren sagely explained, ‘why run a car when there’s so many taxis?’

She threw her head back and laughed. ‘I’m sorry,’ she added, ‘but I’ve been taking plenty of taxis!’

I laughed too and said, ‘You’re right, Lauren, why run a car when you’ve become the town bike?’

We all laughed, Lauren more than anyone. I wasn’t sure if she took it as an insult or a compliment. I didn’t care how she took it.

In the restaurant Chloe went to great and unsubtle lengths to flatter Lisa and Lauren: how lovely their Scottish accents were (she’d never mentioned mine), how funny they were when they described their crazy nights out at Clancy’s.

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