Читать книгу Gemini Rising - Tanya Byrne, Holly Bourne, Eleanor Wood - Страница 10

‘Oh my eff gee! So, do you think they were taking the piss in Drama this afternoon or do you think they’re just total freaks?’

‘I thought you didn’t care, Shimmi?’ I raise an eyebrow at her and receive an elevated middle finger in return.

‘I don’t know,’ Nathalie says, biting her lip. ‘I couldn’t figure it out at all. It was like, just whenever I’d think they were being genuine, they’d look at each other like it was a game or something. I think they’re trouble.’

‘Ha! Chance’d be a fine thing at St Tedious’s.’ Shimmi looks delighted at the thought.

‘I don’t think that’s fair.’ I decide to speak up for once. ‘I liked them. They don’t know how it works in a school like ours. So they were just being themselves. They didn’t bother hiding their feelings like we all do – I thought it was pretty cool, actually.’

‘Yeah, well, you would. Hippie!’

Shimmi chucks a cushion at me that smacks me round my left ear. We’re at Nathalie’s house which, to be accurate, is more like a mansion, on account of her parents being mega-rich and her uncle owning Harrods or something. No joke. It’s behind massive electric gates and down a long driveway that has its own roundabout with a fountain, and inside it’s all gold and marble and Persian rugs and priceless vases – it has more in common with the British Museum than it does with my house.

Nathalie’s mum, who can be a bit scary but we all actually really like, invariably goes out on weekend nights, and her dad’s always away for work; so we’re left with the housekeeper, who spends most of her time Skyping with her boyfriend in Switzerland and couldn’t care less what we do. That’s why Shimmi and I come over here on a Friday night pretty regularly. Sometimes there’s a party on or we go to a gig, or into town to try to get into a pub that isn’t the hallowed A-Group territory of The Crown, but we’re not exactly party monsters.

MTV is blaring – Shimmi is so obsessed with Beyoncé, and wanting to be exactly like her, that Nathalie and I couldn’t get a look in even if we wanted to watch something else. Luckily, we don’t. I might prefer guitar bands and girls with keyboards and synths, but I’m not exactly immune to the lure of wanting to look like Alexa Chung or Natasha Khan.

Nathalie’s mum left us out a couple of Bacardi Breezers each – bless her and her retro ways – and we’ve commandeered everything that looked most exciting from the fridge. We’ll probably order a pizza later anyway, even though I’m already nearly stuffed.

‘So, Sorana,’ Shimmi says, slyly changing the subject, ‘isn’t Josh coming over to your house tomorrow night?’

‘Oh yeah, it’s a totally hot date. Me and Josh and both of our families… Anyway, he might not even come – his mum said he might have some rugby party or something.’

‘Whatever. I would do literally anything to get Josh Green in my house on a Saturday night. And I mean anything.’

‘Urgh, Shim! Stop doing your sexy face about Josh!’

‘Besides,’ Nathalie speaks up, giving Shimmi a sideways look, ‘it’s not like any of us stands a chance, is it? Not unless we suddenly turn into leggy blondes and become friends with Amie Bellairs.’

As this sad-but-true fact has always existed, Nathalie sounds surprisingly vexed about it. So, I might as well take a deep breath and drop a bombshell.

‘Yeah, when I saw him at Easter, he told me he’d got drunk and kissed Lexy White at some house party…’

The gasps that follow this revelation are hardly unexpected, and I cover my face with a pillow as I prepare for the onslaught.

‘Lexy White? That skanky bleached-blonde halfwit?’ Shimmi is indignant. ‘How could he?’

Nathalie just sounds bruised: ‘But Easter was weeks ago. Why didn’t you tell us, Sorana?’

I weigh it up and decide that I might as well be honest. ‘I didn’t tell anyone because, at the time, I was so upset about it. You know, that was when I was completely crushed-out on Josh, and it was like he was rubbing my nose in it – I just didn’t want to talk about it.’

‘Urgh, I don’t blame you,’ Nathalie mutters.

‘Anyway, I’m totally over it now so I don’t care.’ And I really am over Josh. I’m sure I was only ever in love with him in the first place because he’s practically the only boy I know in my age bracket.

‘Yeah, but still…’ Shimmi won’t let it lie ‘I can’t believe that bitch Lexy White. Her and her friends think they’re so great. One day, those girls are totally going to get what’s coming to them…’

It’s never going to happen, but it makes us feel better. So, after talking about boys, bands, and – let’s face it: mostly – bitching about our much cooler classmates, we settle down to the serious business of the evening. Ever since we stayed up late to watch Psycho and The Birds with my mum’s boyfriend Pete at my house a couple of months ago, we’ve been obsessed with really old, creepy horror films.

We drag our sleeping bags down to the sitting room, switch off the lights and crack open the Häagen-Dazs, and watch at least two, sometimes three, scary movies. We all scream out loud at regular intervals, make a big show of clutching each other dramatically, but then refuse to admit it when none of us wants to go up to the bathroom on our own afterwards.

Sometimes I think I wouldn’t actually want to go to The Crown on a Friday night, like the A Group do every week without fail, even if I didn’t look like a skinny twelve year old and probably won’t be allowed in until I am actually eighteen. What, and miss all this?

‘Hey,’ Shimmi says, her eyes gleaming in the dark, ‘maybe the Johansson twins are like those freaky girls in The Shining!’

‘Nah,’ I interrupt. ‘Definitely Village of the Damned!’

‘“Come and play with us, for ever and ever and ever and ever and…”‘ Shimmi intones in a spooky voice, until Nathalie actually looks like she’s going to wee herself with fear.

Then we all burst into hysterical laughter, and we can’t stop.

Even though it’s totally worth it, waking up at Nathalie’s is always rubbish – it’s freezing in her enormo-house first thing in the morning. Nathalie and Shimmi are both still fast asleep. I switch off the TV, which has been on silent all night, and pad quietly into the kitchen to ring my mum. Unlike Shimmi, who’d move into Nathalie’s house and be adopted by her parents if she was allowed, I like staying over at Nathalie’s, but then I like to go home and be in my own house.

Usually someone in my household is up and about, and prepared to give me a lift on a Saturday morning. Unfortunately, I am still a way off driving, and even further off a shiny car of my own like a large proportion of my classmates are automatically given on their seventeenth birthdays. Daisy answers the phone; of course my mum’s there but still asleep, so Daisy and Pete will come and get me. The two of them are already up and watching cartoons, apparently.

Almost no sooner than I’ve changed into day clothes and packed my little overnight bag – actually an ancient old-lady vanity case that I found in Oxfam last year – I hear Pete’s crazy sports car growling up the driveway and I slip out through the ludicrously grand electric gates. Nathalie and Shimmi are used to this disappearing act, so I don’t have to wake them up.

‘Morning, Sorana, you dirty stop-out.’

Pete always says this and thinks it’s funny. He’s sweet, and tries really, really hard to get on with Daisy and me, so I don’t hold it against him.

There are only two seats in Pete’s car, so Daisy squashes up on my lap – she loves going fast, so wouldn’t have missed this early morning ride for all the chocolate in the world.

‘Don’t tell your mum,’ Pete says automatically.

Mum hates Pete’s car, and especially hates Daisy and me going in it when Pete breaks the speed limit, which we encourage him to do as much as possible. We take a slight detour to stop at Krispy Kreme on the way home; Pete gives Daisy the money to run in and get a mixed dozen to share for breakfast. Yep, Saturdays at my house are all right.

By the time we get home my mum is up, still wearing her dressing gown and singing along with Radio Two in the kitchen. Basically, it’s no wonder Pete’s so desperate for the seal of approval from Daisy and me, because my mum is stupidly pretty and really quite cool for a mum. She looks like me, but somehow really beautiful in a way that I’m most definitely not. This would give me hopes of improving with time, if not for the fact that I’ve seen photos of my mum when she was my age – sadly, she was already a full-blown hottie.

I make myself the world’s weakest coffee and pretend to enjoy it in between scarfing down bites of chocolate-cream doughnut. Mum’s already demolished an apple-cinnamon when she sits down and reaches across me for a second one.

‘How was Nathalie’s?’

‘You know, palatial. The usual. How was your evening?’

‘You know, sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll. The usual.’

‘Ha ha, very funny. The sad thing is your night probably was more rock ‘n’ roll than mine!’

‘Well, we did have a kitchen dance party to Santigold – so let’s call it a draw. Now, what are you doing today?’

‘Um, dunno?’

My mum rolls her eyes, grins and fake-throttles me out of what she calls my ‘clichéd teenage ennui’.

‘Well, I’m taking Daisy into town for summer school sandals, if you want to come with us? I got paid yesterday; make the most of it. If you find something you like, we’ll call it an early birthday present. Not long to go now.’

I’d better jump at this chance while I can. Despite my protestations to the contrary round at Nathalie’s house last night, I’m keeping all of my fingers and toes crossed that Josh will blow off his rugby party and turn up at my house later.

My heart leaps a tiny bit as I watch the Greens’ massive Range Rover pull up outside our house, from the safety of my bedroom with the overhead light switched off. If they came in ‘the beast’ rather than Tina’s little yellow Mini, this must mean the whole family is in attendance…

There’s Tina – my mum’s best friend – and her husband Greg, followed by Tristan, Josh’s little brother, leaping out of the back ninja-style. And that’s it. The car does that annoying double-beep and locking sound behind them, just to rub it in.

I’m not so much heartbroken as a bit blah. Especially when I add up all those hours of wasted time – washing, blow-drying and straightening my hair; painstakingly applying liquid eyeliner; painting my nails and toenails a new shade of navy blue that I bought in town today; trying on three different outfits before settling on leggings, flat sandals and a short shift dress in sixties fabric that I bought on Etsy. Not to mention wasting some of the last precious drops of my Marc Jacobs perfume that I’m trying to eke out until my birthday, when I might get enough cash to buy some more.

‘Sorana!’ my mum’s voice inevitably drifts up the stairs.

‘Oh my God!’ I hear when I am only halfway down into the hall. ‘Sorana, you look more like your mother every time I see you. Only much younger and taller and thinner, obviously – damn you. Lucy, your daughter is getting far too beautiful.’

I’d be flattered if Tina didn’t say this sort of thing to everyone. She’s my mum’s best friend – they used to work together. She’s about ten years older than my mum but she’s immensely cool, with a loud voice and hair that changes colour every week. It’s currently pillar-box red, with a quiff at the front. Josh finds her mortifying and I don’t blame him, but she takes it with the sort of good humour that annoys him even more – Tina’s awesome, but I’m quite glad she’s not my mother.

‘Josh is following in his own car,’ she adds. ‘I hope you don’t mind him having such bad manners – he’s just going to pop in for some food and then he’s got a party to whizz off to later. You know what these teenagers are like.’

‘Only too well.’ Mum shoots me a smile as she says it. ‘Now, what are you drinking?’

Daisy and Tristan – who are roughly the same age, just as Josh and I are – have already disappeared to play on the Wii. I pour myself a glass of wine, and then I have to try not to react when I hear the doorbell ring. Instead, I choke on my drink and do a weird half-cough/half-hiccup type thing and fiddle with the buckle on my shoe like the meaning of life is stuck in it somewhere.

‘Sorana!’ Pete shouts, wearing oven gloves and poking his head out from the kitchen. ‘Can you get the door, please?’

‘Yeah, all right, calm down.’ I immediately feel bad for snapping at Pete, who is never anything but totally easy-going. ‘I mean, yeah, OK, just a minute…’

Deep breath. Gather.

‘Oh, hey, Josh – how are you doing?’

‘Not bad, not bad. How are we?’

Josh casually kisses me on the cheek before walking straight past me and heading into the kitchen, where he falls into instant conversation with Pete and Greg. Assessing him objectively from afar, I do kind of wonder what I ever saw in Josh. It’s not as if we have anything in common, except for our families and age. I mean, he’s wearing a rugby shirt, board shorts and flip-flops even though it’s raining outside.

‘And what the hell did you do to your hair, kid?’ Pete asks out loud. ‘Didn’t have you down as the punk-rocker type, Joshua.’

‘Don’t even ask,’ Josh groans, gesturing to his hair – which is usually a sort of dark biscuityginger – and trying to hide the fact that he’s obviously rather pleased with himself. ‘We were on this school trip to Vienna, and of course I fell asleep on the back seat of the coach, and some of the guys attacked me with this girl’s Sun-In or something. At least I kept my eyebrows, I suppose.’

Josh goes to a school that is way posher than mine, but somehow much more normal. It’s a boys’ school but they let girls in for sixth form – and imagine how lucky those girls are. It’s in the countryside, only about an hour away, but Josh boards during the week because he actually likes it.

Despite this, he somehow manages to know absolutely everyone our age in this town, and is kind of universally beloved. When they’re not hanging out at The Crown – where Josh sometimes goes on a Friday night, too – Amie Bellairs and co sometimes deign to go to house parties held by boys from Josh’s school. Somehow he manages to be the guy who all the parents love, while always having a stash of weed on him and being the drunkest at parties.

‘I swear, this boy’ll be the death of me,’ faux-laments Greg, ruffling Josh’s hair affectionately and handing him a beer.

‘Come on! Sit down, let’s eat!’

The cries begin reverberating around the house as the younger kids thunder down the stairs, more drinks are poured and we all pile in around the kitchen table – kitchen rather than dining room because it’s just the Greens and we’ve been having these kind of chaotic, casual family dinners since the days when Josh and I used to smear food on our faces and then get thrown in the bath together. OK, great – that’s just put a weird picture in my mind that I can’t get rid of as I slide into my seat…

‘So, Sorana,’ Tina asks, as soon as we’ve all got loaded plates of lasagne in front of us, and the salad bowl and garlic bread are doing the rounds, ‘it’s your birthday coming up soon, isn’t it? The big one-seven. What are you up to? Are you going to be out partying?’

‘Um, Trouble Every Day are playing at the Arts Centre. I’m going with my friend Shimmi.’

An all-ages local gig at the Arts Centre may not sound like the most amazing thing to be doing to celebrate my seventeenth birthday – but it’s my favourite band of all time, playing a small venue about ten minutes’ walk from my house and, even though it’s still a few weeks away, I could not be more excited.

‘Oh, that chubby girl Shimmi Miah?’ Josh says through a mouthful of food. ‘The one whose parents own the curry house? Sam O’Shaughnessy told me that she… Actually, never mind – I’ll tell you later.’

That’s another funny thing about Josh – he’s kind of a gossip. I know he probably won’t tell me later; because it gets him in his parents’ good books, he always makes out that we’re much closer than we really are.

‘Much too salacious for us elderly folk.’ Pete grins. ‘So, what’s this party you’re running off to tonight, Josh?’

‘Just this girl Alice Pincott, who’s going out with my mate Dan.’ Josh shrugs. ‘Her parents are away and she’s having this big house party. She’s got a pool; it should be quite good.’

‘Alice Pincott,’ my mum echoes. ‘Isn’t she in your class at school, Sorana?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, are you going?’

‘No.’

‘Why don’t you go along with Josh?’ Tina suggests. ‘It sounds like you’ll probably know some of the girls there.’

‘Um, I’m not sure…’

‘Sorana’s way too cool for my rugby mates and their dollybird girlfriends – aren’t you, Sorana?’ Josh cuts in, giving me a nudge and a grin. ‘There’s no way she’d want to go. She’ll be too busy reading Sylvia Plaque or something.’

‘Sylvia Plath,’ I correct half-heartedly.

‘Yeah, whatever. Actually, on that note,’ Josh goes on, wolfing his lasagne in record time, ‘I’d better go. It’s nearly nine, and I said I’d give Sam and Gilly a lift. Thanks for the food, Lucy and Pete. See you, Sorana. Mum and Dad – don’t wait up. Be good, kids.’

It’s only after the door has slammed behind him and I’ve heard Josh’s car pull away that it occurs to me. I thought he was being so nice by saving me back there and not making me look like a total reject. But, actually, it would have been nice if he’d asked me if I wanted to go with him. I’d have said no but, just for once, I’d really like to be asked.