A Week With Ray Summers

Five

  “This is the best sleepover ever,” Ray exclaimed.

 And it kind of was. We watched Mean Girls and ordered pizza. We put on face masks and painted each other’s nails. Then we got a Sharpie and drew fake moustaches and unibrows on everyone in the last issue of Magnify. All the while, we were drinking expensive champagne and giggling and drinking more until neither of us could see straight.

 It wasn’t like we did anything special. It was just so good to feel like a kid again. Or at least ten years younger. At twenty five, it felt like an awkward in between stage. I didn’t feel old, but I felt mature. Or like I should try to be. I felt like I couldn’t do things like Ray and I were doing. Or at least not sober, and that was one thing we certainly weren’t. But even if I’d wanted to do those things, I wouldn’t have anyone to do them with. Ed and Emma were fun, but they’d outgrown Mean Girls years ago, and I couldn’t even begin to understand that. They didn’t want to paint nails or wear face masks either. That was something for doing home alone before a night out (especially for Ed. As a white straight male, he was incapable of admitting he liked to pamper himself, of course.)

 But Ray was more than willing to let herself go a little. It was like she was on one of those rope swings. Where you spin the swing round and round, making the two ropes holding you up intertwine. And then you let go and lean back and it feels dizzy and exhilarating as you spin and spin back to where you started. And when I was watching her right then, I knew I was seeing the real Ray. The Ray I saw on the street busking. The Ray that smiled so beautifully. Ray was snorting and trying to catch her breath after I made some lame joke. And she was smiling and I wanted to take a photograph because I knew a smile like that was going to be few and far between for her after that night. She shook her head, her champagne sloshing around her glass.

 “I mean, literally, the best sleepover ever,” she continued, smiling “I haven’t had this much fun in ages.”

 “Me neither,” I admitted. I collapsed back on to a pillow and Ray joined me, both of us staring up at the ceiling.

 “You were gonna tell me about Jamie,” she pointed out. I put a hand behind my head, closing my eyes to try and get my brain straight.

 “I was,” I murmured.

 “Tell me how you met. I’ll bet it was romantic.”

 I laughed “Far from it,” I said “I was a bit of a blip in Jamie’s plan. He had a girlfriend.”

 “Did you know that?”

 “Kinda,” I admitted.

 “You bloody minx! Seductive little minx!”

 “Not my proudest moment,” I said, hoping Ray wasn’t thinking badly of me. I turned onto my front and propped my head on my elbow “But he wasn’t happy. On that day I met him, I could just…I could tell. And, I mean, happy people don’t cheat on their partners, right?”

 “Right.”

 “So he came up to me at this party. And he was pretty drunk. Like, as drunk as we are.”

 “Very then,” Ray giggled. I giggled too.

 “Yup. Very drunk. And he’s never been like that again. Jamie’s very…sensible. He doesn’t do drinking, really. He doesn’t smoke. He’s very…composed. Anyway, that night, he was all over me. And I’d never met him before, and he seemed exciting, and new, and I loved it. And I wasn’t going to say no to him when he asked me back to his place. He lived in a flat, then. His roommate wasn’t in. And um…yeah. We…we…”

 “Made love,” Ray said dreamily. Then she rolled her eyes.

 “Please. We’re not twelve,” I said, grinning “We slept together. Jamie had mentioned something about a girlfriend on our way there, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t expecting a happily ever after or anything. It was a one night stand. And I wanted to keep it that way.”