Cathy Hopkins - [Mates, Dates 05] (15 page)

‘And Lai. Same with
him. Knowing what it’s like to have an almighty crush on someone who doesn’t
reciprocate, maybe he’ll go easier on the girls that fancy
him
in
future. He’s had his fair share of girls queuing up for him in the past, and
I’ve seen him act a bit ruthless with one or two of them.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ I
said. ‘I’ve seen him give girls the brush-off before and I thought he was being
horrible, but now I feel like I misjudged him in a way. I thought he was an
unfeeling rat, but really all he was trying to do was prove to himself that he
was fanciable, because he felt insecure.’

‘Exactly,’ said Mum.
‘All these experiences, they’re all part of life’s rich tapestry.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I
guess. But why can’t it all be perfect? And everyone be happy. I hate seeing
people feeling blue.’

Mum squeezed my hand. ‘And
that’s what makes you Lucy. You may feel mean that you finished with Daniel,
but it shows that you have a heart and that’s what’s most important. You care
about people even if you can’t change the situation. You ought to hear some of
the stories some of my clients tell me about their relationships.
Heartbreaking, some of them, and all I can do is listen and let them know that
I’m there for them. That’s all you can do with Nesta. And Lai.’ ‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘And Lai.’

I met TJ, Izzie and
Nesta at Ruby’s for dinner later that evening.

‘Oh no,’ said TJ. ‘Now
I’m the odd one out. Izzie’s going to finish with Ben and you’ve finished with
Daniel. I’m the only one with a boyfriend.’

Nesta grinned. ‘Give
it time.’

‘Cynic,’ said Izzie,
punching her arm. ‘Take no notice, TJ. You and Steve are lovely together. And
at least he likes doing loads of different things.’

‘Yeah,’ said TJ. ‘And
we both have days when we do our own thing. He’s not like… he has to be with me
all the time.’

‘That’s the secret,’ I
said as I looked at the menu. ‘I mean, I know I haven’t had many relationships,
but I’m learning already. It’s like, all of us did the same thing, except TJ of
course. We all went into couple bubbles and cut ourselves off from each other
and the rest of the world like nothing else existed.’

Nesta sighed. ‘Yeah,
but you can’t help it when you’re really into someone.’

‘But there has to be
balance,’ I said. ‘You see the boy, but you still see your mates. You do some
stuff with the boy, some stuff with your mates and some stuff alone.’

‘I guess,’ said Nesta.

‘Come on,’ I said.
‘Let’s be positive. Let’s celebrate our newfound freedom and order something to
eat. All this dumping and being dumped, I’m starving.’

TJ and I ordered a big
bowl of potato wedges with sour cream and chilli. Nesta ordered a hot chicken
satay baguette and Izzie had a veg and halioumi kebab.

‘Here’s to the rest of
the holidays,’ said Nesta after the waitress had taken our orders.

‘Yeah and here’s to
being single.’ I smiled. ‘It’s so weird. I used to be, like, oh it’s so rotten
because I haven’t got a boyfriend, and now I feel good about it. Like I’m free,
no one to tell me what to do or who I can or can’t see. Never again.’

‘Oh no,’ said Nesta,
as a particularly good-looking boy came through the door and checked her out.
‘You must
never
say never. Not all boys are like Daniel, Lucy. He was
very possessive. I’m glad you stood up to him in the end.’

‘OK,’ I laughed. ‘I’ll
never say never, then. But I do say, here’s to mates. Look how everything’s
changed since the beginning of the hols, but here we all are, still together.
Boys may come in our lives…’

‘Oh, I hope so,’
interrupted Nesta as the boy who’d eyed her up sat at the next table. ‘Look out
boys, Nesta’s back in town.’

‘As I was saying,’ I
continued. ‘Boys may come
and
go in our lives. Sometimes we’ll have
boyfriends, sometimes we won’t, but we’ll always have each other. So I say,
here’s to mates.’

‘Arr, she’s
so
sweet,’ teased Izzie. ‘Little bear.’

‘Little
bear’
,
chorused TJ and Nesta, then laughed.

‘Naff off,
dorkbrains,’ I said. ‘But it’s true, mates always have each other. I say we
celebrate properly. I’ll ask my mum if we can have a party on Friday. A
no-boyfriends-allowed party. You can only come if you’re single.’

Nesta’s face dropped.
‘No boys? Are you sure?’

‘Yes Nesta, I’m sure.
Everyone’s so different when there are boys around. Let’s have a night off from
them. We can invite some of the girls from school.’

‘Yeah,’ said Izzie.
‘It’ll be brilliant to spend some time with just the girls.’

‘That’s settled,
then,’ I said. ‘Til ask Mum.’

C h a p t e r
 
1 8

Party
Time

Contents
-
Prev

Mum couldn’t believe
it when at last I fulfilled my promise to cook for the family. She agreed to
let me have the party, so I phoned around and found out everyone’s favourite
comfort food in times of Relationship Trouble. Then I did a practice run the
night before to make sure I had it perfected.

Party menu:

Doritos and salsa dips

Oven chips

Pizza Sausages

Chocolate bars

 
Ice cream (assorted, loads)

‘This cooking lark is
quite simple, really,’ I said, as I took the oven chips out of the oven and put
them on the table.

‘Er,’ said Mum, ‘it is
when you buy ready-to-serve stuff like this.’

‘Yeah,’ said Steve.
‘For your information, potatoes actually come in their own skin and you have to
peel them.’

‘Ha ha,’ I said. ‘But
oven chips were big in the popularity stakes and I can’t say you seem that
bothered, seeing as you’ve just eaten three at once.’

‘I think you lot had
better get boyfriends again quick,’ said Dad, helping himself, ‘or else we’re
all going to be as fat as pigs.’

‘Mum, can Lucy cook
every night from now on?’ asked Lai through a mouthful of chips and ketchup.

‘No,’ said Mum. ‘All
this pre-packaged stuff may taste great, but it isn’t too healthy. You know
what I say - you are what you eat.’

‘In that case, you’re
a Nettuno
pizza
,’ I laughed as I noticed that she’d cleared her plate
and had even gone for a second helping.

The girls and I all
got dressed at my house on the night of the party and we took ages doing each
other’s nails and make-up. We decided to get dressed up even though there
weren’t going to be boys there. We did it for ourselves, just for the fun of
it, as sometimes getting dressed up is the best part of any party. It felt
great just to hang out with the girls again and Nesta seemed to be in better
spirits, despite her recent dumping. For the first time in weeks I felt myself
again. Calm inside, on an even keel instead of on the rollercoaster of
emotions. Being single is OK, I decided, as I watched Nesta rolling about on
the floor, zipping herself into an impossibly tight pair of jeans, especially
when you have such good mates.

I’d thought very
carefully about what to do on the Big Night. I wanted everyone to have loads of
fun with lots to do. I hate those boring parties where everyone stands around
in cliques just talking and watching each other. My plan was:- a bit of
dancing, a video to watch while we ate
(Bridget Jones’s Diary
, of
course), then games and maybe some more dancing.

When everyone was
ready, I thought I’d better break a bit of news about the party that I hadn’t
already told them. I had invited a boy.

‘Um, just one thing
before we go downstairs,’ I said. ‘You know this is a singles’ party?’

The girls all nodded.

‘Well, single doesn’t
necessarily mean all female, does it?’

‘No,’ said Nesta,
looking at me suspiciously.

‘I have invited
one
boy,’ I said. ‘Only one.’

‘Tony,’ said Nesta.
‘Oh, Lucy…’

‘No, not Tony.’ I grinned.

‘Oh, not
Daniel
,’
exclaimed Izzie. ‘I can’t believe you’ve got back with him.’

I shook my head. ‘No…’

Just at that moment,
there was a knock, and the bedroom door opened. The girls all burst out
laughing. A vision of girlie loveliness appeared in the doorway wearing my
inflatable bra over his T-shirt and one of Mum’s hippie wigs from the
dressing-up box.

‘Hi,’ said Lai. ‘I’m
Lalita.’

‘He’s an honorary girl
for the night,’ I explained. I knew it would be a fantasy come true for him to
be alone in a house full of girls and I really wanted to cheer him up. I
thought it might help him get over his unrequited love for Nesta.

He wiggled into the
room, sat on the bed and crossed his legs gracefully. ‘So,’ he pouted, splaying
out his fingers, ‘what do you think? Pink nail polish or purple?’

Half an hour later
some of the guests began to arrive. Gabby, Jade, Mo and Candice from school;
Amy, who lives next door to Izzie and has just bust up with her boyfriend; and
TJ’s second cousin who’s never had a boyfriend and was very happy to come and
celebrate being single.

‘Music for
singletons,’ said Amy, showing us her rucksack full of CDs. She put a CD in the
player and soon we were all dancing away to ‘Survivor’ by Destiny’s Child, then
we sang ‘All by Myself by Celine Dion at the top of our voices. After a good
bop to more CDs, Izzie, Lai and I served the food and we all sat on the floor
in the living room to watch
Bridget Jones
. I felt so relaxed to be
there just with mates. I could tell everyone felt the same. Not having to worry
about what was going to happen or how things were going to turn out. What this
boy said or didn’t say, who that boy was dancing with and who he wanted to
snog. No expectations, no disappointments.

‘So what games shall
we play?’ asked Izzie as the credits rolled after the movie.

‘We could play Spin
the Bottle, but with forfeits instead of snogging,’ I said. ‘Whoever spins the
bottle has to set the forfeit, and whoever the bottle points at has to do it.’

Everyone seemed keen to
give it a go, so Nesta found a bottle and got things started. We all sat
cross-legged in a circle and began. It was hysterical, as everyone seemed to
take it as an opportunity to make their friends act really stupid. Izzie made
TJ do an impersonation of Madonna, so when it was TJ’s turn, she asked Izzie to
do an impression of drunk snake. Candice asked Nesta to do a cartwheel and
Nesta asked Candice to run out into the garden and sing ‘God Save the Queen’ at
the top of her voice.

I already had an idea
for when it came to my turn. I spun the bottle slowly to my left, and just as
planned, it stopped at Nesta.

‘So Nesta,’ I said.
‘All those complaints about no boys at the party… As your friend, I had to
listen to what you really wanted so your forfeit is… to snog my brother Lai in
the hall.’

Nesta looked over at
Lai, who was holding his breath. She raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you think he could
take it?’ she asked.

‘I’ll take the
chance,’ he said.

He looked like all his
Christmases had come at once when she stood up, took his hand and led him out
of the room.

After a few minutes he
came back in and had to go and lie down on the sofa to recover. I swear there
were stars and planets coming out of his head.

‘So what about you and
Tony now?’ asked TJ as we cleared some of the dishes back into the kitchen.

I shrugged. He had
phoned in the morning, probably hoping to get an invite to-our party. It was
weird, because at the end of the call, he sounded uncertain, then asked if
maybe we could pick up where we left off at the beginning of the holidays. I
told TJ about it.

‘So what did you say?’

‘I said I couldn’t. I
mean, to pick up where we were at the beginning of the holidays? All that
uncertainty? No thanks. Amazing, huh? A few weeks ago I would have leapt at the
chance, but so much has happened since then - since my letter to him, since
Daniel. I feel I need some time out to think about things… to reassess what I
want. To go back to where I was at the beginning of summer, to the ups and
downs and wondering what was happening with Tony…? If I said, “OK, let’s get
back together,” how long would it last? I know what he’s like. He gets bored
and then where would that leave me? Back on the rollercoaster. I’m not sure I
want to go through all that again. Not yet.’

‘Sounds like a very
wise decision,’ said TJ. ‘No hurry.’

‘No, no hurry,’ I
said. ‘We can be friends for sure, but I just don’t want a commitment
relationship.’