Free The Way It Never Was by Lucy Austin Page B

doubt prompting a collective sigh of relief from the world’s male population. Scary Linda is a permanent fixture on my couch, forcing me to do much of my telly watching, sitting on a dining chair.
    Today, Linda is jogging on the spot, dressed in a dark blue lycra running top, red in the face, and sporting a very short pair of cycling shorts hugging her nether-regions, along with luminescent trainers that look like they’ve never had an outing before. Her blonde hair scraped back and her oval face dripping with sweat, she is wearing those sunglasses that you only ever see people wear for Olympic speed cycling. Combined, it’s a striking mishmash, but if that weren’t enough, she also sports the ultimate fitness accessory guaranteed to lose those stubborn remaining pounds – a very large tyre connected to her waist by a rope. No wonder she can barely run.
    ‘Hi Kate! She’s looking good no?’ she pants, pointing towards the picture of Claire that is boring into my skull. Despite thinking that it’s taking marketing to a whole new level, I find myself nodding in agreement.
    ‘She certainly stands out from the crowd,’ I say. Well , she would wouldn’t she , with the skin the colour of mahogany and piercing blue contact lenses .
    ‘Anyhow, how are you?’ she disconnects her car tyre, as though settling in for a nice long chat.
    ‘Oh, err, okay, lots going on,’ I reply, mesmerised by that fitness accessory lying there on the floor looking like it should be helping a car move and not this sweating girl.
    I wonder what she knows, as to this day Linda’s still best friends with Claire. I decide to be guarded, concentrating hard on ensuring that what I say by way of explanation is not a lie but still gives nothing away. Besides, she doesn’t want me to elaborate, as she is a nice girl and is just being polite.
    Like her best friend, I always find myself closely studying Linda’s nails, a hangover from when I was a teen, when her nails were so long that she would get one of us to do up her shirt after gym class. I was the complete opposite, used to wear horrible tasting varnish to try and avoid nibbling at my bitten down stubs. And sure, she might be looking very plain but those talons are still as glamorous as they ever were, better still, she’s upgraded them from iridescent pink to encrusted rhinestones and diamonds – fake I presume and courtesy of Claire.
    ‘I was saying to Claire the other day, I think the last time we all went out together properly was a year ago, for your birthday, you know the same night Stan started going out with your friend.’ Scary Linda’s right. I’ve not hung out with them in a social setting, for good reason: They never include me.
    ‘Yes, it’s been ages hasn’t it?’ I manage to sound upbeat. ‘Though I still see you at the flat don’t I?’ I say, delivering the understatement of the century, as it would appear we are her chosen destination for every second of her downtime.
    Linda then launches into a detailed account about the minutiae of her day. ‘God, I can’t remember when I last had a free hour since I’ve been seeing Dave.’ Here we go, another one who’s decided that her life as a career woman was a slight blip, and being in a couple is what truly matters, because she worked so damn hard to get a boyfriend and doesn’t want to go back. I am clearly the only person she has properly spoken to all day because I hear it all – her niece’s school play, her having to fire someone for cancelling a customer booking by mistake – and why she’s running around lugging a tyre (as she’s got a boyfriend now). Then she goes into the damp treatment she is having done in her front lounge, the fennel she’s experimenting with in her dinner tonight, and did I know that Dave had a near miss with a piece of scaffolding flying through the window in a local restaurant due to the windy weather? Blimey, I think, Linda must have been jealous to not own that near death