THE BRIGHT SIDE RUNNING CLUB

“Okay, okay, you two lovebirds, break it up,” Joss says. “There are children present. Honestly, you’re just as soppy as you were twenty years ago. You coming outside?” she asks me, in a meaningful way. A meaning not lost on Tom.

“Good idea to get some fresh air. I’ll put Bea to bed,” Tom says, letting me go and nodding to our youngest, who is heading for the cozy window seat with Pooch. Joss grabs three glasses of champagne and my arm, and we head for the back door. “Have fun. I’ll distract the teens,” Tom calls after us, and winks at me.

***

Outside, Scout joins me and Joss as we sit on the stone wall outside the kitchen. The huge garden is bathed in silvery shadows, and the stars twinkle in the black sky. Inside, through the steamed-up window, we can see Scout’s husband, Mart, lining up tequila shots. It’s going to be a long night.

“So a new year,” Joss says, lighting one of her thin menthol ciga- rettes. “What are we all going to change? Apart from the no smoking— which starts at daybreak.”

Scout and I laugh. She and I have known each other since our school days, but we became proper friends only when we both wound up at the same uni and she, Joss, and I were in halls together. The three of us became inseparable friends, and we shared a flat in Ladbroke Grove when we graduated, partying together through the midnineties. Scout and I stopped clubbing and smoking years ago when we got mar- ried and had babies, but Joss remains an eternal twenty-five-year-old. Every New Year, she swears she’s going to give it up, but she never does. I don’t mind, though, because it means I can still bum the occa- sional party cigarette off her. I check through the window to make sure that Tom really has distracted the teenagers. I can’t risk being caught by Tilly.

“You know me, I hate change,” I say as she hands the cigarette to me. I take a drag, squinting through the unfamiliar smoke. “And any- way, everything is just fine and dandy.”

“Now that you’re going to be Brightmouth’s retailer of the year,” Joss says in an excited voice. She’s referring back to the speech Tom gave over dinner, saying how proud he was that Wishwells, my shop, had been nominated for the award.

“Yes, well,” I say, handing the cigarette to Scout. “I haven’t actually won yet, but it’s good to be recognized for what we’ve achieved.”

“You’ll win it,” Joss says confidently, and I smile at her unwavering faith.

“What about you, Scouty? You happy living the dream?” I ask.

Scout left a high-flying city job five years ago and moved up here to this lovely patch of Suffolk to start a new life as a farmer. You’d never know from looking at her. She’s small, with a blonde bob, and she looks lovely tonight in her ancient Karen Millen velvet dress. She blows a stream of smoke out thoughtfully.

“It’s good, I think,” she says. “But if I’m honest, it gets lonely sometimes with just the alpacas for company. I don’t get to meet new people.” It’s true that she’s isolated up here, and I worry about her. Mart still commutes to London, so he’s away three nights a week, and her twin boys are in boarding school during term time.

“Oh, they’re overrated,” Joss says, though for a second I’m not sure if she’s referring to people or the alpacas. She works in a London PR agency and has to schmooze for a living. “Right, K? New friends?” She pulls a face. “Who has time for those?”

I nod and laugh in agreement. I already have a host of gorgeous women in my life—friends I’ve known for twenty years or even longer, like these two. Then there’s the staff in the shop, not to mention my suppliers and all my regular customers. My days are full of people. I don’t have room for anyone new.

“I get a lot of time alone to reflect,” Scout says, taking another drag and blowing a smoke ring toward the stars. She’s the only one of us who could ever do that.

“Uh-oh,” Joss jokes, pulling a face at me. “About what?”

“Well . . . don’t you ever wonder if this is it? The peak point of our lives?”

“And it’s all downhill from here?” I exclaim. “Don’t say that.” “But we’re all around halfway through.”
“We’re not even fifty. We’re going to be marching up mountains when we’re ninety,” I remind her. “Don’t start talking like this is the beginning of the end.”

“Exactly. We’ve still got it, right?” Joss says, and pulls a pout, look- ing at her reflection in the window, leaning forward to plump up her cleavage in her low-cut leather dress.

“Don’t you ever want to do something big—that makes a differ- ence?” Scout asks, handing the cigarette back to Joss. “You know . . . don’t you ever think about your legacy?”

“Your legacy will be a string of heartbroken toy boys,” I tease Joss.