What My Best Friend Did by Lucy Dawson

those days were over!”
    “What are you talking about?” Tom said. “We went clubbing three weeks ago, when we went home for Sean’s birthday!”
    “Tom,” I said good-naturedly, “your old school friend’s birthday in a small, sweaty room on your local high street that smelled like an armpit was not clubbing.”
    “Hey! There’s nothing wrong with Images.” Tom laughed. “God, you have one trip to LA …”
    “Yeah, yeah.” I smiled and lifted a foot up and looked at it. Both of them were still throbbing. It had been a long time since I’d danced properly like that. “The other girls are really nice,” I said enthusiastically. “Especially Gretchen Bartholomew. We chatted quite a lot over dinner. The stylist is a bit of a pain though, one of those aggressive, pissed types.”
    “Sounds good,” said Tom, not really listening. “I can’t be too long, I’ve got a meeting in a minute, but I phoned that bloke about the room. It’s all settled. He’s going to call me tomorrow to confirm when he’s actually moving in.”
    I closed my eyes. “Well done,” I said.
    “I think I’m going to draw up a contract though, just to protect us. Also, if we sublet, I’m not sure how we stand on an insurance front.”
    “We’ll sort it out later, don’t worry about it.”
    “I know it’s boring, Al,” he said straightaway, “but what if we came back and he’d cleared the place out while we were at the supermarket or something?”
    Oh God. “Tom,” I yawned, twisting onto my tummy, “can we do this when I get home?”
    “Sure,” he said, slightly huffily.
    “I’m just tired, Tom.” I appeased him. “That’s all. It’s not that I don’t appreciate”—I took a deep breath—“the importance of what you’ve just said.”
    There was a slight pause. I could tell he was frowning, five thousand miles away. “You’re so patronizing sometimes,” he said eventually.
    I closed my eyes again briefly and managed to suppress a heavy sigh. I’d been having such a fun evening and now he’d totally ruined it, but in my disappointment and irritation as I felt the moment slip away from me, I realized I couldn’t be bothered to start a row. “Sorry,” I said, in the sort of voice that meant I wasn’t at all and thought he was being an arse.
    “That’s quite all right,” he said loftily, also being deliberately annoying. “Apology accepted. You’d better get some sleep. Have a safe trip. Night.”
    “Night,” I said shortly and flipped the finger at the phone as I hung up crossly. I knew he was right—we probably did have to sort out the insurance or whatever, but bloody hell, I was in LA. Didn’t I just deserve one night off?
    There was a knock at my door. “Alice? It’s me, Gretchen!”
    I opened the door to see her standing there clutching a champagne bottle and a few glasses. “Nightcap.” She grinned as she held them up. “Come on!”
    “I shouldn’t,” I said uncertainly. “Long flight tomorrow and all that.”
    She looked puzzled. “But won’t you just sleep on the plane?”
    I hesitated. And then I heard Tom’s voice in my head saying, “You’d better get some sleep.”
    “Go on!” Gretchen smiled mischievously. “You know you want to!”
    And actually, yes—I did.
    “I think she was just a little surprised,” I said, laughing, at eight the following morning in the hotel’s outdoor hot tub. I sat back in the water and tried not to get champagne or water bubbles from the jets up my nose. “As put-downs go it was pretty left-field. You’re right, I do feel better for this.” I took a sip of my bucks fizz.
    “Told you,” Gretchen said. “Hair of the very hairy dog. Cheers.” We chinked glasses and Gretchen sighed as she leaned her head back. “Well, I had to say something. She was really rude. I mean OK, that poor little makeup girl truly had nothing else to talk about, but you can’t just round on people like that. She was the stylist on another shoot I did