Free Local Girl Missing by Claire Douglas Page B

to call on it?’
    ‘Not sure, but people can phone me from their home phones, can’t they?’
    ‘Don’t ask me, I haven’t got a clue how they work,’ I laughed. She dropped the phone back in her bag and linked her arm through mine again as we continued to walk. We reached the sea wall and sat overlooking the beach. The town felt loud to me; the shrieks of children paddling in the water, the screeching of seagulls swarming around for food, the grating music of the arcades behind us, the whoosh of the waves lapping at the shore, the indecipherable chatter, the tinkling tune from the big wheel further up the beach, erected especially for the summer. It was enough to give anyone a headache. I sometimes longed for the peaceful, green fields of Warwickshire. It made me all the more determined to get out of this place permanently.
    ‘Do you like my new nail varnish?’ asked Frankie. She had taken off her flip-flops and was stretching hertoes, which were painted a deep lilac. ‘It’s called Dolly Mixture. It’s cool, isn’t it?’
    I knew I had to tell her there and then.
    ‘I got off with Leon last night,’ I blurted. Next to me I felt her stiffen – even her toes seemed to freeze mid-stretch.
    She turned to me, her cat’s eyes narrowed, her nostrils flared. ‘You got off with Leon? When? How?’
    So I explained. About the note, about our meeting up at the old pier. ‘He lives two streets away from me too, isn’t that amazing?’
    She pulled a face. ‘Not really. This is a small town.’
    ‘Well, yes, I know … but –’
    ‘You don’t know what he’s like,’ she interrupted, her voice cold. She twisted a strand of hair around her finger and pulled hard. It’s a habit that I’d forgotten about. At school she used to do it when she was stressed.
    Her instant dismissiveness grated. ‘I think I do,’ I replied.
    ‘Why? Because you spent a few hours with him last night?’
    Yes, actually, I wanted to say but didn’t. ‘He seems like a good bloke,’ I said instead.
    ‘Have you shagged him?’
    I bristled. ‘That’s none of your business.’
    Of course I haven’t shagged him – what, on the first date? – but I didn’t want to tell her that.
    Her eyes widened. ‘We used to tell each other everything.’ Her voice was reedy, petulant. ‘Remember whenyou lost your virginity to James Forrester? I was the first person you told.’
    I opened my mouth to explain that three years had passed since we’d last confided in each other about our sex lives, that I was no longer the geeky, bespectacled girl with braces and bad hair who used to hang on her every word, that I was my own person now, that I had stepped out of her shadow, moved away to university, made a life for myself without her help. But she looked so down that I closed it again. And was I lying to myself? All through that last year of sixth form and the three years at university it felt like a part of me was missing. I hate to admit it, but having Frankie by my side makes me feel more confident, as though I can do anything. I know that if she’d been at uni with me I would have had much more fun, taken risks that I didn’t dare to without her there.
    ‘I wanted to tell you –’
    ‘So, you don’t care about what happened to me?’
    ‘But what did happen to you?’ My voice was high with exasperation. ‘It’s not like he assaulted you, is it? He fancied you, you turned him down, he was a bit persistent. So what?’ I hate confrontation, especially with Frankie.
    ‘So what?’ she said in a pale imitation of my voice. She swivelled her body so that she was facing the boulevard and jumped down off the wall, thrusting her feet back into her flip-flops. She hoisted the bag further up her arm so that it sat in the crook of her elbow. ‘Well, if you think that’s OK then fine. But remember, I’ve warned you about him.’
    I turned to face her, swinging my legs over the wall. ‘Thanks, but I’m a big girl. I can look after myself,’ I