Diary of a Crush: Kiss and Make Up (17 page)

I’d had a really horrible evening at rehearsal when I’d had to tell Poppy that I was still with Carter. She’d looked at me as if I’d just spewed green ectoplasm out of my stomach.

‘But how can you, Edie?’ she’d kept asking me. ‘After what happened with him and me?’

‘We cleared all that up,’ I’d said. ‘And even if it was true, I don’t care ’cause it’s brought us closer together.’

‘What do you mean
if
it was true?’ Darby had chimed in. ‘Do you think Poppy would lie about something like that?’

Then Darby, Poppy and Atsuko spent the rest of the rehearsal muttering about toxic boys, and girls who were too dumb to see through them. I think they were trying to tell me something but, quite frankly, I didn’t want to hear it.

Of course, Dylan could immediately sniff out that my life had suddenly got really good and wanted to do everything in his power to spoil it. He spent the entire week trying to corner me in the café kitchen and telling me that we had to talk but I can’t be bothered to go through a painful post-mortem on our hopeless attempts to be friends. It always ends up with us snogging. But now I’m finally happy with Carter, I don’t need to find comfort in Dylan’s arms. I mean, it isn’t fair on Dylan or on Carter. And now that I’ve made the decision to be with Carter, properly, I feel more relaxed than I’ve been in ages. I haven’t actually told Carter about what happened between me and Dylan at the barbecue – I mean, there didn’t seem to be much point. Not when things are going so well. What he didn’t know, he couldn’t get huffy about.

The only other blot on my otherwise blemish-free landscape is the thought of going to the pigging festival and Shona, who’s still pregnant, still not sure what to do about it, and taking her frustrations out on me.

‘Could you be any more in denial?’ she’d said contemptuously when she’d heard on the vine that Carter and I had been seen engaged in a passionate PDA in the Odeon foyer.

‘He’s bad news, Edie. How can you not see it?’

‘That was before,’ I insisted. ‘I think he comes out with those snarky comments because really he’s shy.’

Shona just snorted and pointed out that if any other girl had tried that kind of remark in my hearing I’d have had her for breakfast.

All these negative remarks are making me even more determined
not
to go to the festival. I just want to be shot of my virginity. I think Carter and I should just stay in Manchester and er,
consummate
our relationship away from the disapproving comments of our so-called friends. But Carter has this romantic notion that my first time should be underneath the stars amid lots of grass and probably some slug-type creepy crawlies as well. And so here I am sitting on my bed with a backpack on the floor and a bunch of condoms in my bag, getting ready to spend many, many hours in the café van as we drive to the festival. Ho hum.

I’m writing this under cover of my sleeping bag (oh my God, I can’t believe I’m
in
a sleeping bag), illuminated by a dicky flashlight, which is why my handwriting is doing strange fandangos all over the page.

The journey here was a total disaster. Honestly. The first thing was Veronique and Dylan having the mother of all arguments. I mean, it had a plot and a subplot and several walk-on parts and I’m beginning to realise what all that cryptic speak was about earlier this year when he nearly split up with her.

They were the last to arrive as we packed our gear into the van outside the café. Dylan’s battered little Mini roared up and he’d uncurled himself from the driver’s seat and stood there tapping his feet impatiently while Veronique scrambled over to his side of the car to get out. (It’s been nearly two years and he still hasn’t got his passenger door fixed.)

‘Thanks for helping me,’ she snarled at him. ‘Get my stuff out of your stinking car.’

I looked at Carter but he didn’t seem to find anything particularly wrong and carried on hauling bags into the van.

‘Get it yourself,’ Dylan was saying between gritted teeth but he got her gear out of the boot anyway. As he gathered the bags in one hand so he could slam the boot shut with the other, he dropped a small vanity case which burst open, spilling out all of Veronique’s pots and potions and make-up.

If I thought Carter had gone ballistic in the garden the other day, it was nothing on Veronique’s reaction when she saw her Clinique compact get run over. She was like a creature possessed. She flew at Dylan, slapping him and screaming obscenities at the top of her voice. That was freaky in the extreme, but what was even freakier was other people’s reactions. Me and Poppy, Grace, Atsuko, Darby and the Rhythm Records boys all looked horrified but Shona and Paul just rolled their eyes while Simon muttered, ‘Here we go again,’ under his breath.

Dylan was trying to hold Veronique off without actually hurting her and kept on telling her to calm down but she seemed to get more and more worked up.

‘You make me sick. I hate you,’ she screeched. Dylan eventually managed to push her away and keep her at arm’s length.

‘I don’t need this,’ he said quietly but forcefully. ‘Just stop it.’ Veronique went still for a moment and he finally let go of her and started to head towards the rest of us.

Then Veronique went for him again. ‘Don’t you dare walk away from me!’ she shouted, her hand raised to slap Dylan round the face when Carter was suddenly in front of her and tugging at her arm.

‘Come on, Ronnie,’ he said in that voice he used with me when I was being completely unreasonable. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

They disappeared down the street and Dylan let out a deep breath, his shoulders drooping.

‘She’s been a complete ’mare ever since she got up,’ he muttered at Shona who rushed over to see if he was all right. The rest of us were still standing there gawping. The sight of Dylan standing surrounded by his friends, who were all trying to console him, but looking utterly alone really got to me. When I thought about it, he was the one that didn’t smile any more. Not properly. Not with that smirk and raised eyebrow that had used to make me come over all unnecessary. But I told myself it was useless to think of Dylan as anything other than an acquaintance, I was with Carter now. And eventually the sight of Dylan and the way his jeans always hung low on his hips and the way his chocolate-brown hair always begged for me to tousle it wouldn’t affect me any more. I just had to wean myself off him.

So anyway, we didn’t exactly set off in the best of spirits and things went steadily downhill.

Poppy insisted that she wasn’t going to sit in the back of the van, giving me and Carter a pointed look, and squeezed up front with Shona and Paul, who was driving. Oh, and Grace, who seemed to be more surgically welded to her sister’s side than ever before, wedged herself between Poppy and the door. Atsuko declined Simon’s attempts to persuade her to sit on his lap so she wouldn’t keep banging herself on bags every time Paul changed lanes, while Darby was happily ensconced between Will and Robbie, and Dylan and Veronique were sitting away from everybody else (well as far away as you can get in the back of a dilapidated Transit van) looking like they’d just had a ferocious row. Which, actually, yeah!

The atmosphere in the van just got worse and worse. We argued about what music we were going to listen to, which service station to stop at and who got to sit next to the open window and we’d only been driving for an hour.

‘We could play “I went to the festival”…’ I suggested brightly, only to have my idea shot down with varying degrees of savagery. Dylan just gave me a filthy look and I knew he was remembering the time we’d gone to Paris and spent practically the whole journey saying stuff, like, ‘I went to the festival and I took articles of clothing belonging to Paul Daniels, brine shrimp…’ Those had been happier days.

Carter wrapped his arms tighter around my waist. ‘Well,
I
thought it was a good idea,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘I can’t wait to get you alone in a tent.’

Although I kissed his cheek and smiled at him, I wondered why the thought of losing my virginity with the boy I was really into made me feel like I was about to go into hospital for open-heart surgery.

Dylan had been watching me and Carter with narrowed eyes when all of a sudden he turned to the still-fuming Veronique and stroked her cheek lightly.

‘I’m sorry, Ronnie,’ I could hear him say. ‘It was my fault. I should have remembered to set the alarm clock.’

Veronique gave him a look that would have turned weaker men to stone and shifted half an inch away from him.

‘Oh, come on,’ Dylan continued softly. ‘I’ll do anything to make it up to you.’

Veronique began to look interested. ‘Anything?’ she enquired with that cat-like smile I hated so much.

‘Anything you want,’ Dylan promised.

‘Hmmm, what about that new pair of shoes we saw in Office?’ she said. ‘The snakeskin ones with the pink trim.’

‘I’ll buy them as soon as we get back,’ Dylan said and Veronique gave a little cry of happiness and flung herself at him. I looked at Dylan with contempt. Since when did he get so sappy? Whenever he’d been on the business-end of one of
my
hissy fits, he’d just smirked and teased me out of it. I could have doubled the contents of my wardrobe if I’d just been a bit more of a princess. As Veronique was planting little kisses over every bit of Dylan that she could reach, he caught my eye and then deliberately captured Veronique’s mouth in a long, passionate kiss.

‘Hey you two, go book a room,’ said Will, loudly.

They came up for air and I turned my head away but not before I’d seen Veronique throw a satisfied glance at Carter who continued to squeeze me tightly. It was like my own private version of hell.

After we’d been travelling for three hours and I was thinking if I had to listen to Will’s iPod and
The Best Trance Album In The World
…
Ever
one more time I was going to rip my ears off, Paul stopped the van.

As he opened the big, sliding door and let us out I could see that we weren’t in a service station car park about to pig-out on fast food. Instead we had stopped in a small village, complete with cricket pitch and duck pond and coachloads of American tourists, who were looking at us as if we’d just landed from Mars.

‘Where’s the nearest Caffè Nero?’ Darby asked on behalf of us all but Paul and Shona just grinned.

‘There’s a little tea shop on the other side of the duck pond,’ Shona said. ‘But first we thought we’d take in the sheep-throwing contest?’

‘There’s a what with who and huh?’ I asked in a very blonde way.

‘Yeah, we saw a sign,’ Paul grinned. ‘Sheep-throwing! Had to check it out.’

What happened next was the freakiest thing yet. Grace stamped on Paul’s foot, yelled something about cruelty to animals and stormed off in the direction of a nearby field/paddock type arrangement where there was bunting and crowds and other things that suggested that sheep were being thrown. Poppy ran after Grace, and Atsuko and Darby ran after Poppy, Paul hopped up and down and made over-the-top ‘ow’ grimaces and I collapsed on the ground and laughed and laughed at the look on his face. Carter gave me an amused glance and told me to get up but by then I was curled in a ball with tears streaming down my face.

‘Paul’s face…’ I kept trying to say while Paul flushed and grumbled that it wasn’t
that
funny.

‘Actually it was, honey,’ insisted Shona. ‘I never thought I’d hear that little pixie speak, let alone inflict GBH.’

‘Dylan!’ barked Veronique, sounding less than impressed. ‘I’m getting a hunger headache, can we find something to eat in this godforsaken hellhole?’ And she flounced off in the direction of a Ye Olde Tea Shoppe.

‘Anything you say, sweetness,’ Dylan bit out as he followed her, earning him a sharp glare from Carter.

‘C’mon, Edieson Lighthouse,’ said Shona pulling me to my feet. And it had been so long since she used her pet name for me (something to do with an old hippy band called Edison Lighthouse) that even though Carter was making ‘let’s slope off’ motions at me, I linked arms with Shona and went off to investigate the sheep-throwing.

Grace had staged a one-woman protest by the time we got there and was being recorded for posterity on the tourists’ camcorders.

‘You’re cruel!’ she was shouting at some hapless farmer who had a distressed sheep on the end of a lead.

‘Grace, you’re upsetting the animals,’ Poppy said, trying to calm her down. ‘They’re not really throwing the sheep. Are you?’ she added anxiously at a tweedy-looking bloke who seemed to be in charge.

‘My dear, it’s more of a sheep jumping event. There are no sheep being thrown,’ he insisted. ‘It’s all under the supervision of the local vet. We’ve been holding this tournament for over 300 years and I’ve never…’

‘See Grace, nothing to get excited about,’ I said soothingly. ‘Sheep like jumping. I’m sure I’ve seen some sheep-jumping videos on YouTube.’

Grace looked at me questioningly. ‘Do you really think so?’

‘Yes,’ I said, managing to keep a straight face. ‘Can we please go and get something to eat now, preferably nothing sheep-related?’

‘Oh, OK,’ Grace conceded, taking the hand I held out towards her. ‘But if I find out you’ve been throwing sheep I’m reporting you to the RSPCA,’ she hissed at Mr Tweed, before I could drag her away.

Once we’d tried to fill up on cucumber sarnies from Ye Olde Tea Shoppe and watched to make sure that the sheep weren’t being thrown, it was time to get back in the van, which had heated up to furnace-like temperatures.

It wasn’t too long before tempers were getting frayed again. Veronique and Dylan had had another row while we’d been doing the sheep thing so they were snarling at each other, Shona kept sniping at Will who’d produced some egg ’n’ mayo sandwiches from his backpack ’cause the smell was making her feel sick and Atsuko and Darby had had a blazing domestic about whether Simon Cowell was gay.