Now and Then Friends Read Online Free Page B

and it made Claire think of Rachel.
    For a second she pictured Rachel as she’d been in primary school, six inches taller than the tallest boy, with her flaming hair and freckles and reckless, brassy confidence. Why Rachel had chosen to take Claire, an overdressed shadow, as her best friend, Claire had no idea. But she’d been grateful. She’d been overwhelmingly grateful.
    â€œI’m going to call you every day,” Andrew said, and Claire made a murmuring noise of agreement. “And I want you to answer your phone. Your mobile’s turned off, you know.”
    â€œI’m aware.” With a sigh of resignation she slid her phone out of the deep pocket of her fleece and powered it up.
    â€œWhat are you going to do up there, Claire?” Andrew asked. “Hartley-by-the-Sea is . . .”
    â€œHome.”
    â€œIt hasn’t been home for years. And it’s in the middle of nowhere.”
    â€œThe edge of nowhere, maybe,” Claire answered. “Considering it’s on the sea.”
    â€œYou know what I mean.”
    â€œYes, I do, but I told you already I don’t want to go to London, and I don’t have anywhere else to go.”
    â€œYou could come here, to Minneapolis—”
    â€œNo, thanks.” Andrew worked as a civil engineer, traveling around the world, building bridges and canals and dams, living in corporateflats and eating takeaway. Claire had no intention of being on the periphery of his transient life.
    â€œBut what are you going to
do,
Claire?”
    â€œMaybe I’ll get a job,” Claire answered before she’d really thought such a possibility through. Hartley-by-the-Sea didn’t have many jobs, and she was qualified for basically nothing. A third in art history, a couple of positions where she’d been meant to look decorative and not much else. But it would be nice to feel useful. Productive.
    â€œA job? Doing what? Checkout at Tesco?”
    â€œWhy not?” Claire returned. “It’s a decent job.”
    â€œYou’re better than that.”
    â€œYou sound like a snob.”
    â€œFine,” Andrew conceded. “But I’m ringing tomorrow.”
    â€œFine.”
    â€œAnd turn your mobile on, for goodness’ sake.”
    â€œI already did,” Claire told him, and hung up. She had five voice mails from her mother. Resolutely, she deleted them all. She didn’t need to hear Marie West’s histrionics about how she should have come to London, and she couldn’t face an actual conversation with her mother yet. Hugh, unsurprisingly, hadn’t called. Claire wondered if he ever would.
    She gazed around the huge kitchen and wondered when any of her family had last been there. She opened the fridge, and the gleaming, empty expanse seemed to mock her.
    She needed food, and since she didn’t have a car, she’d have to get it at the poky village shop.
    At least it would get her out of the house and the silent accusation every spotless carpet and plumped-up pillow was making.
    She went upstairs for her socks and shoes and then grabbed her coat and keys before heading out into a brisk March day. After three years in Portugal, she’d forgotten how chilly Cumbria was. Her parents’ house was at the end of a long private drive at the top of thevillage, with a view of the winding high street and its cluster of terraced houses, the beach a wide expanse of smooth beige sand in the distance, the sea glinting on the horizon, gray-blue and ruffled with white. If she turned she could see the sloping fields, dotted with sheep, that led to the dark, jagged gray-green humps of the distant fells.
    It was a stunning sight in every direction, and for a few moments Claire simply stood there, taking it all in. She’d never looked back on her years in Hartley-by-the-Sea with anything close to affection, but in that moment she was glad to be there. She was grateful to be free.
    She