3: Chocolate Box Girls: Summer's Dream (4 page)

4

The party goes on till past midnight, beneath the stars and the fairy lights strung through the trees. I dance with Skye and Cherry and Coco. I dance with Tia and Millie and the little cousins who are hyper and giggling from too many cupcakes and too much lemonade punch. I waltz with the Yorkshire aunts and boogie with Mum’s art school friends and jig with Paddy’s musician mates. Last of all, I slow-dance with Aaron and he holds me close, closer than I really want to be held, and tells me I am the prettiest girl he has ever dated.

It makes my heart race, although whether from happiness or panic I can’t quite tell. Aaron has had a few girlfriends in the past, and there’s even a rumour that a girl from the high school called Marisa McKenna is crushing on him. Marisa
wears her skirts so short it sometimes looks like she’s forgotten to put one on at all, but when I asked Aaron about her, he laughed and told me that the only girl he wanted was me.

‘Are you and Aaron in love?’ my twin asks later, as we snuggle down in our beds, music and laughter still drifting up from the garden below. ‘What’s it like, Summer? Honestly?’

I frown in the darkness. I like Aaron a lot, of course – who wouldn’t? I’m just not sure I love him. Not true love, like Mum and Paddy have.

‘I don’t know,’ I tell Skye. ‘It’s early days.’

‘It’s been four months,’ Skye points out. ‘You must have some idea. Does he make your heart beat faster? Does he make you melt inside? Do you lie awake, tossing and turning, thinking about him?’

‘You make it sound like some kind of sickness,’ I say. ‘It’s complicated … Aaron’s been out with lots of girls. I worry that he’ll move on, find someone he likes better …’

Someone who’s better at the kissing and cuddling stuff, who doesn’t flinch away when he pulls them close. In real life, kissing isn’t as dreamy as the magazines make out. You worry about whether your noses will bump, whether your
teeth will clash, whether the pasta sauce you had for tea is making your breath smell of onions. You feel awkward, anxious, slightly bored … at least I do.

‘He won’t,’ Skye says. ‘He’s mad about you, anyone can see that!’

I sigh in the darkness. ‘Maybe.’

‘D’you think a boy will feel that way about me some day?’ Skye asks softly.

‘Of course!’

It’s only later, when Skye’s breathing has slowed into sleep, that I think to wonder if she has a particular boy in mind.

The next day, the house is filled with sleepy relatives and art school friends with hangovers and sticky-up hair, clearing up slowly, gathering bottles and cans for the recycling centre, stacking and unstacking the dishwasher a dozen times. We find a stiletto shoe floating in the fish pond, a bottle of whisky hidden in the flower bed and the best man asleep in the gypsy caravan wearing nothing but a pair of polka-dot boxer shorts, mirrored sunglasses and a trilby hat.

‘Great party,’ Paddy grins. ‘What I can remember of it anyhow!’

‘Aren’t you two supposed to be on honeymoon?’ I tease, mopping the kitchen floor. ‘It’s traditional, you know!’

‘And miss our own wedding party?’ Paddy retorts. ‘No chance!’

‘No money, more like,’ Mum says. ‘Besides, we’ve you girls to look after, and the B&B and the chocolate business to run!’

‘I may have something up my sleeve for once the school holidays start,’ Paddy hints, and Mum says she won’t hold her breath because most likely it will be a day trip to Minehead, and everyone laughs.

Morning slides into afternoon, and people begin to pack up and head for home. By evening, all our guests are gone except for Grandma Kate and Jules, and it feels like the house is ours again.

I take time out to run through some ballet exercises in my bedroom because I missed yesterday’s lesson and I get restless and edgy if I don’t practise. I love the way my body feels as it spins and stretches, strong and light and powerful. I love the way the music fills my head, my heart. Dancing
is like a cleaner, simpler version of life. I know the rules. I don’t have to worry about unflattering dresses or boyfriends who want to dance too close.

I dance until my muscles ache, until the smell of roast chicken wafts up the stairs and Mum calls me down to eat. Everyone is sitting round the kitchen table, even Honey, who vanished from the party early on yesterday and escaped the clean-up duties today by hiding out in her room.

‘Well,’ Paddy says as he carves the chicken. ‘What a weekend! You’ve made me the happiest man alive, Charlotte, and girls … Kate, Jules … well, thanks, all of you, for making Cherry and me so welcome here. I guess we’re a proper family now.’

Honey snorts her disgust, but I nudge her underneath the table and she bites her tongue.

‘So … Minehead for the honeymoon, is it?’ Grandma Kate grins.

‘I don’t care,’ Mum shrugs. ‘I’d be happy anywhere with Paddy.’

‘Good,’ Paddy says. ‘Because Kate and Jules have a surprise for you …’

‘A surprise?’ Mum echoes. ‘What kind of a surprise?’

‘We want to send you on honeymoon,’ Grandma Kate says. ‘You deserve it after all the hard work you’ve put in on the B&B and the chocolate business. We want to give you a holiday to remember, something special … It’s our wedding present to you both. We talked to Paddy and between us we’ve arranged it all …’

‘Arranged what?’ Mum says.

Grandma Kate pushes a thick white envelope across the table, and Mum opens it, frowning. There are two tickets, a sheaf of printed itineraries and a glossy holiday brochure inside.

For Peru.

Mum’s eyes brim with tears. ‘I – I don’t understand! Three weeks in Peru? It’s wonderful, but we can’t accept. Mum, Jules, you can’t possibly … and besides, we can’t leave the girls … or the business … and don’t forget the film crew are using Tanglewood as a base this summer! I don’t see how we can do it!’

‘It’s all planned,’ Jules says. ‘Paddy has hired an assistant for the chocolate business and Kate will come over and look after the girls while you’re away …’

‘The film crew will be here, yes,’ Grandma Kate adds.
‘But they’ll be pretty self-sufficient, and the B&B would have to be closed anyway while they’re at Tanglewood. Come on, Charlotte … you’ve always dreamt of going to Peru!’

‘Well, yes,’ Mum whispers. ‘I’d love to go, of course. I’ve always wanted to, and Paddy and I have talked about it too, because of the chocolate business …’

‘We pay more to get ethically sourced cocoa beans,’ Paddy says. ‘But this could be our chance to take it further … support a small family plantation, fairly traded, organic. All that, and the trip of a lifetime too!’

‘Well, yes,’ Mum says. ‘But …’

Paddy puts an arm round her shoulders. ‘No buts,’ he says. ‘It’s all sorted. We fly out the first weekend of the school holidays. Kate will be here, and the kids are old enough to be responsible, behave well and help out if they’re needed. Right, girls?’

‘Right!’ Skye agrees. ‘We’ll be fine, won’t we?’

‘Fine,’ I chime in, but actually I am not sure just how fine I will be if Mum and Paddy vanish off to Peru for three weeks. It sounds like a brilliant honeymoon and it’s really generous of Grandma Kate and Jules, but I can’t help wishing they’d asked us how we’d feel about it first.

I push my dinner away, half eaten. I already have a dad who lives on the other side of the world – I am not sure I want Mum disappearing too, even if it is only for three weeks. I can’t say that, though – it would sound horribly mean and selfish.

Besides, it looks like I’m the only one with doubts.

‘Wow,’ Honey is saying. ‘Mum, look, I haven’t made things easy for you lately … I probably haven’t been as welcoming to Paddy or Cherry as I could have been …’

Cherry’s eyes widen. This is the understatement of the year, or possibly the century.

‘I suppose I’m trying to say sorry,’ Honey says brightly. ‘I’ve been a pain, but that’s all over now. We’ll be fine while you go on honeymoon – you have to go, Mum, you know that, yeah? When will you ever get another chance like this?’

‘Exactly,’ Grandma Kate says.

I exchange glances with Skye. We’ve waited forever for Honey to sweeten up a little … but now that it’s actually happening I can’t help wondering if it’s for real. My big sister knows how to turn on the charm when she wants to, and Mum and Grandma Kate fall for it every time. Me, I’m not so sure.

The conversation turns to passports and packing and cocoa plantations in Peru. I wish I could be excited too, but instead, I feel anxious, uncertain, adrift.

‘
Yesss
,’ my big sister whispers under her breath. ‘Three weeks of freedom. This is going to be the best summer holiday ever …’

I have a bad feeling about this … a very bad feeling indeed.

5

Learning to dance en pointe is tough. It takes years and years to build up the strength, years of discipline and exercise. Even now, I try to do 100 relevés every day to keep my feet and ankles strong. Miss Elise calls them ‘killers’ and I know exactly why.

It takes sheer stamina to make pointe work look so light, so easy, so free. The first few times I tried it, my toes blistered and bled and my toenails were bruised black and blue. I didn’t complain, though – ballerinas don’t.

I am running through my barre work in the empty senior studio when the door creaks open and my friend Jodie walks in. Jodie lives out on the other side of Minehead and goes to school in a different town. When it comes to dance, Jodie
is good. She is the only person I know who takes dance as seriously as I do.

Once upon a time we both shared the same dreams of going to the Royal Ballet School, but of course those dreams didn’t come to anything. For me it was because I arrived late and flustered and danced badly, but for Jodie it was crueller still. The panel said that Jodie had natural grace and talent, but that her body shape wasn’t quite right for a professional dancer.

‘What does that even mean?’ Jodie had asked me later, her face stained with tears. ‘Do I have an extra head or something?’

Jodie looked fine to me. She wasn’t too tall or too small, too fat or too thin. Her posture was good, her muscles strong. I wiped her tears and told her to forget it, but it turned out those experts knew more than we did. As Jodie slid into puberty, her body changed – her boobs are big, her tummy rounded, her legs strong and solid. In everyday clothes, she looks stunning, curvy and soft and sweet. The panel were right, though. She doesn’t look like a dancer.

We stopped talking about our ballerina dreams, but mine didn’t go away and I’m pretty sure Jodie’s didn’t either. The
two of us aren’t even in the same class these days – Miss Elise moved me up a grade in January to dance with the seniors, so I’m surprised and pleased to see Jodie now.

‘Hey,’ I grin. ‘What’s up? I didn’t expect to see you here!’

Jodie smiles. ‘Miss Elise has asked me to dance with the senior class today. I think she invited some Grade Six students along too … someone told me she had a friend coming in to observe, and she wants to impress her.’

‘Oh! I wish she’d told us!’ I frown. ‘I could have prepared a little more. I hate it when she springs things on us like that. Who is this friend? D’you think it might be someone to take over Miss Laura’s class when she goes off on maternity leave?’

‘No idea,’ Jodie shrugs. ‘I’m so nervous, though, dancing with the seniors – I thought I’d do some warm-ups first. If I can impress Miss Elise, she might move me up, like she did with you. She says I’m just about ready to dance en pointe!’

‘Brilliant!’ I say. ‘I hope she does – that would be so cool!’

‘Does it hurt?’ she asks. ‘Pointe work?’

‘A little bit, at first,’ I shrug. ‘It’s worth it, though. And after a while, it doesn’t hurt any more.’

Jodie nods. She positions herself at the bar and runs through her exercises, and by the time the others begin coming through for class the two of us have been working together for a good half an hour, companionable, focused, content.

As Jodie predicts, a couple of Grade Six students and even one from Grade Five turn up, and Miss Elise’s visitor turns out to be a slim, graceful older woman, greying hair scraped back into a ballerina bun.

‘This is my very dear friend Sylvie,’ Miss Elise tells us. ‘She’s a dance teacher too, and I wanted her to observe one of our classes. I know you will dance your very best for her!’