Goodbye Ruby Tuesday Read Online Free PDF Page B

doubting you any more. You give up the fight.
    Evie knew they could do this, and she wasn’t quite ready to give up the fight for Ruby’s dream. Yes, that was selfish, but there it was. She brushed her hair, covered up the dark circles under her eyes with some foundation and started walking into town. All around, the high street seemed to be back to normal, as if they hadn’t buried a superstar yesterday. Evie pounded down the street, noting the pound shops that seemed to have multiplied, the chicken shops and empty shop fronts. Badgeley was not a town that was improving any time soon, and the desperate need to escape was burning away inside her.
    She marched into the Banner, the only decent hotel in town, and saw Mollie and Chelsea already sitting with coffees in the restaurant. Mollie’s eyes looked red, and Chelsea’s mouth was a thin line. Something had happened.
    ‘Anyone else’s heads pounding this morning?’ Evie asked as she slid into a seat next to Mollie.
    ‘You have no idea,’ Chelsea said carefully, looking at Mollie, ‘I haven’t eaten a fry up in about four years, and that’s exactly what I’m after today.’
    She looked a little less intimidating today, Evie noted, her hair was softer, make-up was more natural and she was wearing jeans. If she’d put on some more eyeliner and some massive hoop earrings from Argos, she might have looked something like the girl they’d known.
    ‘How about you Molls, fry up?’ Evie tried to get Mollie to look up, but she tapped her fingers on the table.
    ‘Yeah, sure… whatever.’
    ‘What did she do now?’ Evie asked, straightforward. Mollie’s head whipped up. ‘Your mum?’
    Mollie’s hands clenched on the table, her whole body tense. The waiter arrived to take their order, and they waited until he disappeared before talking.
    ‘I got home last night, and not only was she drunk as usual, but she was smoking weed in the living room. With my baby girl upstairs. Esme said she came downstairs because something smelled funny and she thought the flat was on fire.’
    ‘Is she okay?’ Chelsea asked.
    ‘Oh yeah, she’s fine,’ Mollie said bitterly, ‘it was only when this morning she mentioned that Nanny was dancing around and tried to make her smoke some of her funny cigarette that I lost my shit. I can’t stay there any more, I can’t! I’m out for one night, one night in years, and she can’t act like a normal human being.’
    ‘Oh Molls,’ Evie clasped her hand, and Mollie looked up.
    ‘I think I can do this. If you have a plan, if you think we can make Ruby’s dream work, we’ll come with you. Six months to make the place viable, make it make money. I can’t stay in Badgeley. I can’t live here and die here and know I never did anything with my life.’
    ‘For real?!’ Evie’s face threatened to crack with the power of her smile.
    ‘It’s got to be planned Evie, I’m talking military precision. I’m not leaving till we’ve got an income and a home lined up,’ Mollie said seriously. ‘At least it’s the summer so I’ll have ages to register Ez with a new school…’
    Chelsea looked back and forth between them, silent as the food was put down in front of them. Suddenly her stomach numbed. They were going to do this? Without her?
    ‘Isn’t that a bit of a one-eighty from last night?’ Chelsea said. ‘Maybe you should think about it, there’s no rush, is there?’
    Evie frowned at her, and Mollie shrugged, ‘It’s been ten years. Things happen when they’re meant to.’
    Evie cleared her throat, finishing buttering her toast before she shared her latest realisation.
    ‘I may have done something… well, not
bad
, not
really
, but…’
    ‘Evie.’ She looked up to find her two old friends staring at her with exactly the same look they’d given her at seventeen when they found her sucking face with that guy who used to sell cigarettes in the pub.
    She huffed, holding up her hands, ‘I called Evelyn on the way here. The