F is for Frances.

A is for Apple

'You want to make a crumble?'
'An apple one?'
'Yeah. It's all I've got anyway.'
Frances looks at her friend Heather as they stand in Heather's narrow kitchen together. They are practically face to face; a student kitchen is unforgiving, especially when half of the space is taken up by 2 overflowing bins that are bringing in the flies. Frances jumps down off the counter she was sitting on and begins rooting through the cupboards for the supplies. Though she's only a guest, Heather has told her to make herself at home, despite the fact that five other people live here. Still; it doesn't bother Frances. At least she gets somewhere to go away from her mother.
'Remember when we made that rhubarb crumble and it was disgusting?'
Heather turned round and smiled at Frances recalling the memory. 'Yeah. That was gross. We didn't add enough sugar.'
'We didn't have enough sugar.' Frances jumped back onto the counter, accepting the fact she had no idea where anything was, and watched as Heather neatly laid it out on the side.
One pan. One mixing bowl. 12 apples. Some flour. Some sugar. Some butter.
'I think this is everything.' Heather was a keen baker. She had insisted on keeping the hobby when she moved to university and had spent hours arranging her packing cubes in a way that would accommodate all her baking items, including the 140 set of piping tips. She had only ever used 3, and had come to terms with the idea she'd always be a baker, never a decorator.
'I think 12 apples is too much.'
'No. It's perfect. They boil down. So, they'll shrink. I think.'
Frances accepted Heather's explanation and looked around the kitchen. It had been 2 months since Heather had moved and Frances was still yet to meet a single one of her flatmates. 'They keep to themselves', Heather said, and yet Frances had heard them many times stomping up and down the hallway then swiftly going back to their rooms when they found the kitchen occupied from the slither of light under the fire door. She had briefly met one; Dylan, a girl 2 years older than Heather and her, and the pair had smiled and shyly waved, and then Frances hadn't seen her since, despite Heather and Dylan now being on more than friendly terms.
'When will you introduce me to your flatmates?'
Heather shrugged and continued peeling the apples that looked old and worn. 'When the time is right, I guess.'
'It's been 2 months.'
'I hardly see them. They keep to themselves. And we're all busy. With uni.'
Heather was studying microbiology on the advice of her overbearing father; Dylan was studying fine art (apparently), and Frances wasn't a student, not at all; she was never one for academics, and she resigned herself to working in low paid jobs since the age of 16.
'I don't think you'd like them anyway. They aren't your type of people.'

The crumble steamed up the one window in the kitchen. For £400 a month in rent for one single bed, a desk and a narrow kitchen, Frances thought Heather was a mug, but Heather didn't have to worry about that; her dad was paying the rent, a privilege that comes with being the oldest daughter of a rich family, and the first one to go to university. She also got a monthly spending allowance and yet if she went over it, she saw no issues in asking for more. Heather was happy to be a stereotypical middle-class woman if it meant she still got to enjoy a drunken night out every other day.
Frances took a fork and stabbed at the burnt layer of crumble; she blew on it, laughing as the steam spread across the dirty tiles, and passionately 'mm' as the crumble went into her mouth. Heather laughed, and quickly stopped, when Dylan entered the kitchen. She stood with a smile on her face, and then quickly apologised for her presence.
'Sorry. I didn't realise anyone was in here. I just need some water.' She shook her empty water bottle and moved over to the sink, careful not to touch neither Heather nor Frances on her way over. The three stood in silence as the water barrelled down into the plastic; Frances held the crumble in her mouth out of the worry of eating too loudly, and Heather just simply smiled; her and Dylan had become almost best friends in the past month or so, but there was something about having her childhood best friend in the room with her university best friend that made things weird. She didn't like it, and she wanted nothing more than for the ground to swallow her up.

Dylan turned on her heels and went to leave. Before she did, she smiled at Frances, who in turn smiled back, quickly rubbing the stray bit of crumble off her mouth. Heather hid a giggle and smiled too at Dylan, saying, 'I'll catch you later.'
'She seems nice.'
'We didn't say a word.'
'I know. She just seems nice.' Frances rubbed her sweetened lips with a tea-towel and threw it back down with disgust when her nostrils were filled with the stench of damp. 'Is that your new friend?'
'Yeah. She's the only one I really talk to.'
'Hm. You should introduce me properly next time.'
'Yeah. Maybe.'