Cathy Hopkins - [Mates, Dates 05] (2 page)

‘OK, I’ve got four,’ I
said. ‘Number One: Hang out with you lot as much as poss. Two: You already know
now - Tony
et moi
. Three: Stop blushing.’

‘I think it’s lovely
that you blush,’ said TJ. ‘It’s really sweet.’

‘Noooo,’ I said. ‘It’s
horrible. I feel so stupid and everyone stares like I’m a kid.’

‘No one ever really
notices,’ said Izzie. ‘And Number Four?’

‘I’m going to make
T-shirts,’ I said. ‘Like those ones on sale in Camden Market. You know, the
ones with cool slogans on them.’

‘So what are yours
going to say?’ asked TJ.

‘Don’t know yet. I’m going
to start collecting good lines over the hols.’

Just then the bus
came, so all discussion was stopped while we piled on. It felt great to be
alive. School was over. The sun was shining. The evenings were light until ten
o’clock. I’d finally taken the plunge and posted my card, and I couldn’t wait
to get his reaction.

‘What’s for dinner?’ I
asked Mum when I got home.

‘Tofu burgers,
broccoli and rice,’ she said, looking up from the counter where she was
chopping onions. ‘Want to give me a hand?’

Yuck, tofu, I thought,
as I threw down my rucksack in the hall and went to join her. I wish she’d cook
normal stuff sometimes. My dad runs the local health shop, so we always eat
what he brings back. I know it’s good for you and you are what you eat, etc.,
but my secret fantasy is to come home one night and discover it’s chicken
nuggets, baked beans and chips. It’s funny because the way we eat is
Izzie’s
fantasy. She loves health food, tofu and soya and quinoa. Sometimes I think we
got the wrong parents. Izzie would love to live here; in fact, she almost does,
as she comes round so often. Me on the other hand, I like living here, but I’d
love to have supper at Nesta’s. Her dad’s Italian and does the most amazing
pasta dishes, and her mum’s from the Caribbean and her spicy fish and peas is
to die for. Amazingly, Nesta is as thin as a rake. I think if I lived at her
house, I’d be enormous, so maybe it’s a good thing I have strange parents who
make peculiar meals.

Suddenly I thought of
a good resolution for the holidays.

‘Mum, how about this
summer, I cook supper a few nights?’

‘Sounds good to me,’
replied Mum, grinning.

‘Can I get the
ingredients as well?’

‘Sure,’ said Mum.

Just at that moment,
the phone rang. ‘Whatever I want?’ I asked as I went into the hall and picked
up the receiver.

It was Tony.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘What
you doing later?’

‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘Nothing for six whole weeks. We broke up today.’

I decided not to say
anything about the card. I wanted it to be a surprise when he opened it in the
morning.

‘Fancy meeting up?’ he
asked. ‘I wanted to talk to you about something.’

‘What?’

‘Not on the phone.
I’ll meet you at Raj’s in Highgate, say, in half an hour.’

‘Hold on, I’ll just
ask Mum,’ I said, putting my hand over the receiver. ‘Can I go out for a bit?
Promise I won’t be late. I’ll wash up when I get back.’

‘How can I refuse when
you put it like that?’ Mum called back. ‘I’ll put your supper in the oven for
you.’

‘See you in half an
hour,’ I said to Tony.

I put the phone down
feeling a rush of anticipation. I knew what he wanted to say. He feels the same
way I do and wants to make it definite, I thought, as I dashed upstairs and
changed into my jeans and a T-shirt. A slick of lip-gloss, a squirt of the
Angel perfume the girls got me for my birthday, then I ran out and caught the
bus up to Highgate. I felt so excited. As I sat on the bus, I decided that I’d
let him say what he wanted to say and I’d be cool about it, like, ‘Oh, I’ll
have to think about it’. Then tomorrow, he’ll get my card and realise that I
wanted the same thing as him all along. It was all working out so perfectly.

He was already
upstairs at Raj’s when I arrived. He was settled in the corner seat reading one
of the ancient books they keep stacked on the shelves there. He looked up and
smiled as I walked in and, as always when I see him, my stomach did a double
flip.

‘Had your hair cut,’ I
said.

‘It’s called a French
crop. Like it?’

I nodded. Not many
boys can take their hair that short,

I thought. You have to
have good features and the right-shaped head. Of course, Tony had both. Good
looks run in his family. Nesta is easily the best-looking girl in our school
and Tony is probably the best-looking at his. Dark, with sleepy brown eyes and
long lashes.

‘Take a pew,’ he
smiled, as I slid in behind the table. I smiled back. We always said that when
we went there, as the chairs are all old church pews.

‘Want some tea or
something cold?’

‘A Coke would be
good,’ I said, as I looked around. I was glad he’d chosen this place to meet.
It’s TJ’s favourite place as well as mine. She says she always feels as though
she’s in a novel from another era when she comes here as the decor is kind of
Bohemian. It’s different from all the other cafes in the area - it has its own
character, with the pews and heavy wooden tables and bookshelves heaving with
interesting books.

‘What you reading?’ I
asked.

Tony pointed at the
bookshelves. ‘Oh, some ancient history book. They have a weird collection here,
a real mixture, from cookery to Dickens. All the books look about a hundred
years old.’

I nodded. ‘Like the
nick-nacks,’ I said, pointing to a chipped statue of an Indian Maharaja on the
corner unit above Tony’s head. It had been plonked next to a statue of the
Buddha. ‘In fact, it’s a bit like our living room at home with all sorts of
junk that doesn’t really go together.’

‘Yeah,’ said Tony,
indicating two brass trumpets that were hanging from the ceiling. ‘It is a bit
mad. But I think that’s why I like it.’

We spent a few minutes
chatting about all the strange ornaments we could see — the Russian dolls and
toy ostrich on one shelf, brass flamingos and ceramic elephants on another, the
old sepia photographs on the wall mixed in with some framed ink sketches. I
felt so comfortable sitting there with him that I thought it would be difficult
not to spill the beans about my card and my Decision.

‘So, you had something
you wanted to say?’ I finally asked.

‘Er, yeah,’ said Tony,
as the boy behind the counter left his computer and came to take our order.
‘But first, tell me how you are? Broken-up, huh?’

I nodded. ‘Best
feeling in the world.’

‘So what you going to
do with the holidays?’

I knew it. He was
going to ask if I’d go out with him.

‘Oh, no definite
plans,’ I said, looking into his eyes in what I imagined was a meaningful way.
‘Got any ideas?’

Tony shrugged. ‘Not
really. That is, um, Lucy… How can I put this…?’

I longed to reach out
and take his hand, tell him that I knew what he wanted to say and that I felt
the same. But

Nesta had trained me well.
Stay cool. Don’t be too easy.

Tony took a deep
breath. ‘Thing is, Luce, well, we’ve been on and off for ages now and I wanted
to get things straight between us. It’s not fair on you and it’s not fair on
me. We’ve got the holidays ahead of us and it’s like a new chapter, for both of
us, so… so, what I think is that, er… maybe we should make a clean slate of
it.’

‘Clean slate? What are
you saying?’ I didn’t understand.

‘Well, it’s not like
we’re boyfriend and girlfriend, are we? We never really have been.’

‘No. No, course not.
‘Was he going to ask me if I
would
be now?

‘And I was thinking,’
Tony continued, ‘what if, say, you meet someone this holiday or I meet someone?
It’s kind of confusing. Our situation, that is… me and you. Well, we’re not
free and we’re not really committed.’

‘No, we’re not.’

‘So, what do you
think?’ he asked.

‘I’m not sure I
understand,’ I said. ‘Are you saying you want to be committed or that you want
to meet someone else?’

Tony shifted
awkwardly. That I want to be free,‘ he said finally.

‘You’re dumping me?’ I
blurted.

‘No. No, course not,
how can I dump you when we were never going out properly?’

‘But…’

He reached for my
hand, but I snatched it away. I felt hurt. Confused.

‘Look, Lucy, it’s not
as though I haven’t asked you out in the past, but you always put me off.’

‘I didn’t know how I
felt then,’ I blustered. ‘It wasn’t that I was putting you off, but…’

‘I’m not dumping you.
I’m getting it straight, so we both know where we are. We can still be
friends.’

Friends
? I knew exactly what the ‘We can
still be friends’ line meant. It means, that’s it.
Finite
. The end. I
didn’t want to
befriends
with him. I didn’t want to hear about him
being
more
than friends with anyone else. I looked across at his wide sensuous
mouth. No more snogging that mouth. I felt the back of my eyes sting. I was
going to burst into tears, but I didn’t want to do it there. For him to see how
upset I was. ’Got to go,‘ I said, getting up.

‘But what about your
Coke?’ I heard him call as I reached the door and stumbled down the stairs.

‘You have it,’ I
muttered over my shoulder. I only had one thought in my head as I rushed home.
Got to phone Nesta and get her to catch the postman tomorrow morning before
Tony sees that stupid stupid
stupid
card.

C h a p t e r
 
2

Gooseberry
Fool

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I called Nesta the
minute I got home.

‘She’s not here,’ said
Mrs Williams. ‘Do you want to leave a message?’

‘Um, no thanks,’ I
said. I knew Tony might see it when he got home, so leaving a message was
definitely a no-no.

I quickly dialled her
mobile. Murphy’s Law. Nesta who
always
has it switched on, had it
switched off.

I left a message on
voice mail. ‘Nesta this is
urgent. You must
intercept that card I sent
Tony. Whatever happens, he mustn’t get it. Call me ASAP.’

Then I texted the same
message. Then I emailed it. It would be all right as long as he didn’t read the
card. But if he
did
… The thought made me feel queasy. All that stuff
about how we had something special. Oh, arrghhhh. And wanting to make a go of
it. Double arrrghhh.

I lay on the bed and
groaned.

Mum popped her head
around the door. ‘Are you going to come and have your supper, love? I saved
some for you.’

I shook my head. ‘Not
hungry.’

Mum looked at me with
concern. ‘You OK?’

I shook my head then
nodded. ‘I’m fine, just not hungry yet. I’ll heat it up later. Promise.’ I
didn’t want to talk about it. I was too embarrassed. Dumped. I’d been dumped
and we weren’t even having a proper relationship. How sad is that? I needed to
talk to Izzie. Wise old Izzie, she always knows the right thing to say.

Luckily, Mum knew
better than to push it. She’s good at knowing when to leave me alone. I guess
it’s partly because she works as a counsellor and is used to dealing with
people that are freaked out but can’t talk about it. She’s always saying that
you can’t force people to open up when they’re not ready.

‘Come down when you
want. No hurry,’ she said and shut the door.

When she’d gone, I
dialled Izzie’s number.

‘Isobel is round at
Ben’s,’ said the lodger. He’s not really the lodger. He’s Izzie’s stepfather.
She didn’t get on with him in the beginning, so she nicknamed him ‘the lodger’

to help her cope. They
get on better now, but the nickname stuck.

I tried Izzie’s
mobile. Also switched off. What is the point of having a mobile if you don’t
keep it turned on? It’s so annoying. I keep mine turned on all the time. Except
in the cinema, of course. It’s maddening when one of them goes off in the
middle of a film.

My mobile rang. At
last, I thought, as I picked it up. Must be Izzie or Nesta.

‘Hey Lucy.’ It was
Tony’s voice.

I panicked. I didn’t
know what to say. He was the last person I wanted to talk to.

‘Lucy, are you there?’

I hung up. I felt like
someone was strangling me. I didn’t want Tony to know how upset I was and I
didn’t know how to play it. Not until I’d talked to one of the girls.