She keeps on adding all my friends; they just think she's a joke.
Back of the Class

Monday

"How was your first day?"

"Why are you so dressed up?"

"I've got a date," She said quickly. "How was your first day?"

"You've got a date?"

"How was your first day?"

"Who have you got a date with?"

"Answer my question,"

"Answer mine,"

"I asked first," He sighed, and gave in. He would have to find an apartment soon; living with his mother was killing him.

"It was great, fantastic, fab, thanks," He said quickly, rummaging around for something to eat. "So, who've you got a date with?"

"Someone from the club," She directed him towards the fridge, where she'd left some soup for him to heat up. "Did you catch up with Nikki?"

"A little bit. Which club? Ministry of Sound?"

"Nice to see your British humour is still intact. The bowling club. Just a little bit?"

"Well, we do actually have to work, amazingly enough. We went for lunch," He attempted to eat the soup cold, but even he, who could quite happily eat cold leftover Chinese or Indian, decided he'd have to make the effort to heat it up. "Since when have you gone to a bowling club?"

"A year ago when they got a woman's team together. What did you talk about?"

"This and that," He came to the conclusion that it would take a lot of effort to get any further details out of his mother about her date, and to be honest, he didn't care all that much. "By the way, she said she hadn't seen you recently?"

"She hasn't," This left him even more confused.

"But your exact words in the car were 'she's still very pretty, saw her the other day'. Therefore, you've seen her recently,"

"Oh, darling, not face to face," She did a last check of her make-up in the mirror. "On The Facebook,"

"The what?"

"The Facebook," She then proceeded to double check she had everything she needed in her purse – mobile phone, money, Rennie Chews, house keys, pepper spray. "It's a website – you make a profile, and you can add friends and then you can write on each other's walls. I thought it was going to look a bit like graffiti when Sandra explained it to me, but it's actually very neat and tidy."

"Mum, I know what Facebook is," He sighed. "I just wasn't aware you had it,"

"Sandra helped me set it up last year,"

"Why were you looking at Nikki's Facebook?"

"I added her as a friend,"

"Why?"

"Just to see what she was up to; it's not a crime, is it?"

"But you've met her three times at most," He couldn't understand the appeal of Facebook, no matter how many times people tried to persuade him to join. They would tell him that it was the easiest way to keep in touch with everybody and everything, but the way he saw it, if he wanted to interact with his friends, he would make the effort to do so face-to-face or via email or by phoning them – and, in his mind, 'liking' a piece of text that somebody had posted online, hardly constituted as keeping in touch.

"I went to her wedding," She said it in a manner that insinuated that, because of this fact, they were firm friends.

"6 years ago! And only because I took you as my date!"

"She's a lovely girl. And if you didn't want to stay in contact with her, I thought I better do."

"I did want to stay in contact Mum – we did stay in contact," She tutted at him and then reiterated her view that sending a Christmas card for the past 5 years did not count as keeping in contact. "How often do you look at her profile?"

"A couple of times a day,"

"Are you mad?"

"No,"

"Do you have nothing better to do with your time than stalk my best friend over the internet?"

"Ex-best friend," Ouch. At times, she could be the most harmless old woman you could meet, although she wouldn't take kindly to this granny-like description; but then, without any warning, she could make the most venomous comments. Harry had always thought he could see a twinkle of evil lurking behind her soft brown eyes. "And no, I don't, I'm retired. I'm going to be late for Trevor, so I better get going,"

"Have a lovely night,"

"Don't burn the house down," She was out the door before he could protest about her patronising warning. He looked down to see that the soup had begun to bubble over the pan.

As he ate, he wondered if she left her Facebook logged on the computer. It wouldn't hurt if he were to have a little peak, surely.

She did.

It was saved as her homepage, so, he concluded, it couldn't really be classed as snooping. He'd innocently turned the computer on, and there it was. He was at a loss as to how to find Nikki's page, until he noticed the search box at the top. He tried Nikki Alexander, and nothing came up. There was a Nikki Dawes though. For a brief second, he wondered who it could be, and then realised that she no longer went by her maiden name. Stupid. He'd have to get used to that; although, really, he should have already become used to it after 6 years of it being the case. He tried saying it to himself; but no matter what tone he used, it still sounded wrong. He wondered if she'd be offended if he just carried on calling her Alexander.

He clicked on the link, and was greeted by a picture of her; hair wet and messy, no make-up on, by the side of a pool, her arms wrapping a towel around a blonde haired little boy, who was perched between her legs.

And all he could think was that his mother had been right, for once.

She did look very pretty.