Six Steps to a Girl (11 page)

Quickly I put the whisky back in the cupboard.

Mum and Matt came into the kitchen. Mum was glowing. Matt looked slightly sheepish.

My fists unclenched. I could feel the rage in my head subsiding and the numb misery sliding back into place.

“Where’s Chloe?” Mum smiled.

Oh, crap.

“Up in her room,” I lied. “She said she had a headache.”

“I’ll go and check on her,” Mum said. Before I could say anything else, she’d vanished upstairs, leaving me alone in the kitchen with Uncle Matt.

“Just thought I should make sure your mum got home all right,” Matt said, gruffly.

I glared at him. “Where d’you take her?” I said.

He looked slightly shocked.

Yeah. I sussed you, you jerk.

The sound of Mum hammering on Chloe’s door drifted downstairs towards us. “Let me in, Chloe,” Mum was yelling.

Matt muttered something under his breath.

A minute later Mum came flying down the stairs. “Matt, I’m really worried. Luke says she’s not well and the door’s locked again. She could have collapsed, be lying there unconscious.” She gripped his arm. “Oh, God, suppose it’s drugs?”

Matt looked at her. “D’you want me to break the door down?”

“Hey, Mum,” I said quickly. “There’s no need for that. Chloe isn’t on drugs. I’m sure of it.”

“But she could be really ill in there.” Mum twisted her hands together. “Yes, Matt, I think you better had.” She and Matt headed upstairs to Chloe’s room.

I couldn’t believe it. I checked my watch. Ten-forty. Maybe I could call Chloe. If she wasn’t too far away, perhaps I could get her to come back right now and somehow sneak into the house unnoticed. I tried her number on my mobile. It went to voicemail.

I started to get worried. Suppose something had happened to Chloe? Maybe this guy she was seeing – this older man Eve reckoned she must be going out with – maybe he’d done something to her.

I went upstairs. Mum and Matt were on the landing outside Chloe’s room. Matt was squaring up against the door, his right shoulder turned towards it. He saw me. “Good, Luke. I might need your help for this.”

I swallowed. It was quarter to eleven. There was no chance Chloe was inside that room yet.

“Don’t bother breaking down the door,” I said. “She’s not there.” They both stared at me.

“What d’you mean, Luke?” Mum said, hoarsely. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Honestly. She wouldn’t tell me.”

They went ballistic.

Mostly about Chloe, of course. Though as she wasn’t there – and as I had covered up for her again – a lot of the shouting was directed at me.

By midnight, the edge had gone off Mum’s anger. In fact, she was starting to get seriously worried. She’d tried Chloe’s mobile several times. And she’d rung round all her friends. No one appeared to have any idea where she was.

“Suppose something’s happened to her, Matt.”

Matt put his arm round Mum’s shoulders. Silently I cursed Chloe for creating a situation that was going to give Matt more of a chance to wheedle his way into Mum’s life. He’d already done a big heroic number about how he couldn’t go home and leave Mum in this state.

Why not? I’m here.

But Mum was pathetically grateful.

I hadn’t told Mum anything about the “older guy” theory. But by one o’clock I was wondering if I should. Mum was standing looking out of the living-room window onto the deserted street, biting the skin round her fingernails, her face ghostly white.

“D’you think I should call the police?” she said.

“Give it a bit longer, love,” Matt said soothingly, stroking her hair.

Jesus.
He wasn’t even pretending not to be interested anymore.

“I can see her,” Mum shouted from the window. She ran into the hall and opened the door, just as Chloe sauntered up the path, a bottle of beer in her hand.

Ten seconds later we were in the middle of the worst row Mum and Chloe had ever had.

“How could you do this to me?” Mum yelled. “I can never, ever trust you again.”

“Yeah, big deal. You didn’t trust me before. You treat me like a pigging prisoner!” Chloe screamed.

“I don’t . . .”

“Yes you do. A prisoner. What d’you expect me to do?”

I watched, helplessly, as they stood, inches away from each other and completely red in the face, shouting at the tops of their voices.

“You hate me. You’ve always hated me,” Chloe shouted, tears splashing down her cheeks.

“I don’t hate you,” Mum yelled back. “I love you. I care about you. That’s why I punish you when you do something dangerous. It’s for your—”

“That’s pigging bollocks,” Chloe screamed. “You just want to ruin my life. Like you ruined Dad’s.”

Mum blinked. “How dare you talk like that . . . Dad would be so ashamed . . .”

“No, he wouldn’t. He loved me. He’s what made this a family. Now it’s nothing. Nothing.”

And with that Chloe turned and fled, hysterically, into her room. Mum moved to go after her, but Matt held her back.

“Don’t, love,” he said. “Leave her to calm down.”

Mum sank, weeping, into his arms.

Excellent.

Severely pissed off with my entire family, I traipsed into my room and flopped onto my bed. I thought about ringing Eve. She had to be home and on her own by now. But I was too scared to call, just in case she wasn’t.

In the end, I sat there for hours, staring at Dad’s old records. It dawned on me that I hadn’t heard the front door shut.
Jesus.
Matt wasn’t actually staying over was he? In the end I crept onto the landing. Everything was dark and quiet downstairs. Mum’s bedroom door was closed and the light inside was off.

I really didn’t want to think about that, so I went back into my room and listened to a few of Dad’s singles. I recognised a couple. Dad used to play them on CD in the house.

I remembered once finding him and Mum slow-dancing in the kitchen to one of the tracks. Dad had winked at me over her shoulder.

“Nearly lost your mum to this record, Luke,” he’d said. “Want to know how I got her back?”

At the time I’d just thought it was gross that they were smooching away in the kitchen. I hadn’t taken any notice of what he was saying.

What could he know about how I felt anyway?

I listened to the songs, still sitting on my bed.

Missing Eve.

The next day Mum got Uncle Matt to take the lock off Chloe’s door so she couldn’t shut herself in anymore. She also got him to put a lock
onto
Chloe’s window – to which Mum kept the key.

Finally, she extended Chloe’s month-long grounding – so that Chloe now had two more weeks of it – and she took Chloe’s mobile away.

But it was all pointless. In fact, the only effect of Mum’s punishments was that instead of sneaking about, Chloe simply marched in and out of the house whenever she felt like it.

Mum still shouted at her, but now Chloe just ignored her. Literally. She put this vacant look on her face, and acted as if she wasn’t even aware Mum was in the room. After a day of this Mum stopped talking to Chloe altogether. She also stopped washing her clothes and cooking her meals. It didn’t work.

Chloe simply started doing those things for herself.

I could see Mum was really miserable and I felt angry with Chloe for pushing her so hard. But I didn’t know what I could do about it. Chloe’s impossible to deal with when she gets angry. Eve said she must be unhappy underneath because of Dad. Maybe. I was sure that if Dad had been here he would have been able to sort her out. But it was way beyond me.

And at least the endless rows had stopped.

I saw Eve the day after her date with Ben. We took a bus into town and went to the movies. I was determined not to mention Ben – but after the film, we went for a coffee and Eve brought him up herself.

“I missed you last night,” she said.

“Oh?” I stirred the froth into my cappuccino.

“Ben and I went to this club. It was a great place, but loads of his football friends were there and I don’t like them so much. And Ben didn’t even want to talk to me properly.”

No, I don’t suppose he did. I expect he had other things on his mind after being away from you for a week.

Eve sighed. “He’s such a weird guy. He’s so macho on the outside, but underneath I’m sure there’s this vulnerable person he really would rather be, if he’d just let it come through.”

Jesus Christ.
“Do you mind if we don’t talk about Ben anymore?” I snapped. I pushed my coffee away and sat back in my seat.

Eve’s lip trembled. “I just wanted you to know that I missed you.”

I shook my head. Her logic was all twisted. She was making it sound like someone had forced her to be with Ben last night.

A tear trickled down Eve’s face, glistening over the tiny chicken-pox scar she has on the ridge of her cheekbone. And it suddenly struck me that she wasn’t perfect. Beautiful and sexy, yes. And kind and funny and sweet and smart.

But she was lots of negative things too. She was stupid about Ben. And annoying – with all her ridiculous questions and the way she was often late when we’d agreed to meet up. And sometimes she was even boring – going on and on about her school stuff or trying to get to the heart of some ultra-complicated emotional point she was making.

The funny thing is, knowing all that only made me want her more.

I smiled at her. “ ’S OK,” I said. “I missed you too.”

Looking back, I can see something changed between us at that moment. I stopped being constantly terrified she was about to dump me. I even found myself forgetting she was older – almost sixteen. It just didn’t seem important anymore. I still felt massively jealous that evening, when she went off to be with Ben, but I decided it was crazy to stay in by myself again, so I called Ryan to see what he was doing.

As I suspected he had a party all lined up – and seemed quite happy for me to tag along. There were quite a few people from school there. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about my dad dying – or at least it didn’t seem to be such a big deal anymore. I didn’t feel everyone was looking at me and thinking: hey, there’s Luke with the Dead Dad. In fact, I found myself actually enjoying hanging out with my mates again.

I mean, I would have liked Eve to be there too. But things with her were so intense. What with the powerful way I felt and the whole thing she had going with Ben – it was kind of nice to take a breather.

“So I guess you don’t need to know the Sixth and final Step for getting a girl,” Ryan said when he saw me. “You’ve obviously already got her.”

I frowned. I hadn’t told anyone I’d been seeing Eve. We avoided everywhere we might see people we knew. I’d hardly spoken to anyone else for a week. How did Ryan know about us?

Ryan gave me his lopsided grin. “It’s all over your face,” he said. “You’ve been maxing out all half-term, haven’t you?”

“Sssh, it’s supposed to be a secret.” I grimaced. “She’s still with her stupid boyfriend. Doesn’t want him finding out.” A horribly graphic image of Eve and Ben snogging forced its way into my head. I shuddered.

“Ah,” Ryan said, looking at me thoughtfully. “Well in that case, the Sixth Step might come in handy. It sounds different from the other Steps, but it’s all part of the Masterplan.”

I rolled my eyes.
God.
If bullshitting was a GCSE subject, Ryan would already have an A*. “Spit it out, Ry,” I snapped.

“OK,” he said. “Basically, Step Six is where you go hardcore. You’ve spent all your time so far focusing on Eve, showing her you’re interested, making her laugh, listening. Now you gotta make it clear that you could walk away if you wanted to.”

I frowned. “Like being aloof, again?”

Ryan shook his head. “This is different. This is all about saying ‘I may be sensitive and stuff, but I’m still a bloke and I’ve got my pride and I won’t put up with any crap’.” He paused. “For instance, you should make it clear you won’t put up with her still seeing Ben, as you obviously hate it so much.”

“Right.” I could feel my face reddening as my temper rose. What did Ryan know about it? Eve had been going out with Ben before she met me. I could hardly demand she dumped him, could I?

I looked round the room, trying to find some way of changing the subject. It was filling up with a crowd of girls I’d never seen before. Some of them were pretty hot. One girl with long, black hair was giving Ryan this hard, sexy stare.

I nudged him. “What you gonna do about
her
?”

He grinned at me, then gazed across the room at the girl. They looked at each other for a few seconds, then Ryan smiled and beckoned her over. “She’ll be here in less than a minute,” he said confidently. “And she’ll bring a friend.”

I laughed, but Ryan was right. Thirty seconds later the girl sauntered up to us, a shorter, red-cheeked girl beside her.

“Hi,” said Ryan. He raised his eyebrows and smiled.

The dark-haired girl started talking to him as if me and the other girl weren’t there. Ryan flirted right back at her. Then the girl said she was going to get a drink. We all watched her as she crossed the room. She turned at the door and stared straight at Ryan. Then she walked out.

“See you later, man.” Without looking at me, Ryan strolled out after the girl.

I turned to her friend. She was smiling shyly up at me. She looked nice. She was even quite pretty. But she wasn’t Eve. I considered getting off with her for about ten seconds. Why shouldn’t I?

It was probably what Eve was doing right now.

Then my phone rang. It was a text from Eve.
i miss u.

“Sorry,” I said to the girl. “Gotta go.”

I walked round for a bit, chatting to some people I knew. I kept an eye out for Ryan, but I didn’t see him anywhere. He was probably happily snogging the dark-haired girl in some corner.

I left him to it and went home.