Karen had been Stevie’s best friend since even before infants’ school. She was petite, dark-haired, pretty, great fun to be with and she told it like it was. No flattery or falsehoods from her. If Stevie looked like poo in a dress, Karen told her. If Stevie inherited two hundred and sixty-three thousand pounds and didn’t know what to do with it, Karen would have an opinion on that, too.
‘You lucky, lucky, lucky cow,’ Karen said, taking a large slug of wine.
Stevie waited with bated breath for the advice which would change her life. Instead, all she got was another chorus of “lucky, lucky, cow”, and an “I hate you” to finish it off.
‘What am I going to do with it?’ Stevie whined.
‘Oh, come on! I can’t believe you haven’t got any ideas of your own. You’re young, free, pretty – go spend! Enjoy!’
‘That’s what the solicitor told me,’ Stevie said gloomily.
‘If it’s going to cause you this much grief, give it all to your mum. She probably doesn’t deserve it, but she has had to put up with you living back at home.’
‘It’s not my fault I got run over by a bus, then lost my job and my boyfriend!’ Stevie protested, her cheeks turning pink with indignation.
Stevie saw Karen bite her lip to prevent herself from laughing and she narrowed her eyes at her friend. Finishing her drink, Stevie fished in her jeans pocket.
‘Fancy another?’ she asked. ‘I guess the drinks are on me.’
‘Too right, they are.’ Karen handed her glass to Stevie. ‘Make mine a large one.’
While Stevie waited for her pint to be poured (no fancy wine for her), she stared at the contents of her purse, feeling like one of those businessmen who were rich on paper but didn’t have a penny to his name. She scraped together the ten pounds fifty the barman was holding his hand out for, counting the change into his waiting palm. If she and Karen stayed for another round, she’d have to ask if he’d take a debit card. Then she’d have the anxious wait to see if her bank would accept the transaction because Peggy’s funds hadn’t gone in yet.
‘You might want to get your hair done for starters,’ Karen suggested when Stevie returned with the drinks.
‘Why? What’s wrong with it?’
‘You haven’t had it cut since you were about twelve.’
‘I like it long.’
‘You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, as my mum says.’
Stevie bent down, rooted around in her gigantic bag and came up with a band and proceeded to comb her fingers through her hair until she’d brought it under some control. ‘Better?’ she asked, turning her head this way and that to showcase her ponytail.
Karen huffed. ‘Haircut.’
‘But—’
‘No buts. You should get it cut to about there.’ Karen poked Stevie in the chest, just above her boob.
‘Ow!’
‘And have some highlights or lowlights, or something, put in so it doesn’t look so carroty.’
‘Carroty,’ Stevie repeated, deadpan. OK, so she’d been called “carrot-top” all through school, but the colour had toned down a bit since then. Hadn’t it?
‘And invest in some decent straighteners,’ Karen added. ‘You’d be surprised how much sexier you’d look without the fr— curls.’
‘You were about to say “frizz”, weren’t you?’ Stevie demanded, and Karen blushed.
‘Look, chicken, I’m only saying this now because you have the money to do something about it. It costs a fortune to look this good.’ Karen tossed her shiny dark tresses, and Stevie had an urge to find a pair of scissors. ‘You couldn’t afford it before. Hell, you could hardly afford to pay the rent with that good-for-nothing boyfriend sponging off you all the time. Treat yourself. You’re worth it.’
Stevie knew Karen was only trying to help, but it did rankle a bit that she was only now telling her that her hair was a mess. She could have said something sooner and not let her waltz around thinking she looked OK.
‘Anything else?’ she asked, through gritted teeth.
‘Now you come to mention it, how about some new clothes? You’ve got a gorgeous figure. You should show it off more.’
‘There’s never really been much opportunity,’ Stevie protested. ‘I’m usually in chef’s whites.’
‘Look at you – curves in all the right places, and plenty of them. It’s criminal to keep them covered up.’ Karen pointedly looked Stevie up and down.
Stevie glanced at her jeans and baggy sweatshirt. ‘These were the only clean things I could find.’
‘Precisely! Ergo, you need new clothes.’
‘Ergo? Eh? Aunt Peg warned me not to fritter it away,’ Stevie said.
‘Spending some on yourself isn’t frittering. It’s an investment in your future.’
‘What future?’ She lived from day to day, just glad to get through the hours between breakfast and bed without any major mishap, and had little thought for the future, although she did have dreams to own her own restaurant one day and to be famous on TV, like Corky Middleton.
‘Your—’ Karen stopped and gasped. ‘I’ve got an idea!’
Stevie looked anything but impressed.
‘Don’t you want to hear what it is?’ Karen demanded.
‘Go on, then. If you must,’ came the ungracious reply.
Karen ignored Stevie’s tone of voice. ‘Why don’t you get your own place?’ she cried, with the air of someone who had just pulled a rabbit out of a hat and shouted, ‘Ta da!’
‘What? Move out of Mum’s? I intend to, but not right now, not until I get another job, and anyway I get my washing and ironing done, sometimes; I don’t have to pay much rent; I—’
‘Shut up a minute,’ Karen interrupted. ‘I mean, run your own restaurant.’
‘Oh yeah, and what mug is going to let me do that? You’ve got to work your way up the ladder and I’m only about halfway there. And it doesn’t look like I’ll get much further,’ she added. Then she said brightly, ‘There’s always McDonald’s. Do you want fries with that?’ she chirped.
Karen shook her head in exasperation and leaned forward. ‘That’s. What. You. Use. The. Money. For,’ she stated, very, very slowly as if talking to a small child.
The penny finally dropped.
‘Oh? Oh! I see what you mean. Yes! Yes, I could, couldn’t I? Oh. No. No, I couldn’t. It would take much more than two hundred and sixty-three thousand to get a restaurant up and running, not to mention I’ve got no business experience, and I’d be dreadful at all that hiring and firing stuff, and where would it be? I couldn’t afford a shed in London, and I would have to spend lots of time practising main courses and things, because for ages now I’ve mostly done pastry work and…’
‘Shush,’ Karen said, firmly.
Stevie did as she was told for once.
‘Think smaller,’ Karen instructed, then sat back expectantly.
‘What do you mean “smaller”? Fish and chip shop? Mobile burger van? Café? Tea shop? Tea shop… Tea shop! That’s it!’ Stevie leapt to her feet, her eyes shining, and flung out her arms.
‘Yes! Yes!’ she cried, twirling around in sudden inspiration, unaware the whole pub was silent and motionless, staring at her curiously. Karen barely had the chance to respond to a comment from the table next to theirs (‘Is she having some kind of fit?’) before the inevitable happened and Stevie knocked a pint glass out of the hand of a man standing behind her, who had been happily minding his own business. She sent it sailing a good ten feet, arcing into the air and spraying everyone beneath with pale golden liquid.
‘Oh, goodness. Sorry, sorry.’ Stevie fished around in her bag and pulled a length of loo roll out, oblivious to the irritated expression on the face of the man whose drink she had sent into low orbit. She dabbed ineffectually at his wet head with the, by now, extremely soggy bit of tissue.
‘Come on. It’s time we left.’ Karen grabbed her by the upper arm and dragged her through the door, Stevie profusely apologising all the while, and deposited her out on to the street.
Stevie fell silent and stared at Karen. Karen stared impassively back.
‘So, was it a good idea?’ Karen asked eventually.
‘It might be. I’m not sure,’ Stevie replied, biting her lip, then she grinned impishly. ‘Yeah. It’s brilliant.’
Karen gave her a playful smack across the head. ‘Come on. You’ve got some planning to do.’ She strode off up the road.
Stevie followed behind, dancing along the pavement, full of excitement, and trying not to step on the cracks. Just in case. Because she still had the unfortunate task of telling her mother and her sister about her inheritance – and their lack of one. And she still wasn’t looking forward to it one bit.