Six Steps to a Girl (7 page)

She made the decision for me, by reaching out for my hand and pulling me closer, into the circle of sunlight on the floor. As I started moving in time with the music she dropped my hand. But we were still moving together, only half a metre apart, staring into each other’s eyes.

I bet that sounds really hot.

In fact it was quite possibly the most terrifying experience of my life. I was nearly sick. All I could think about the whole time was when the music was going to finish and whether I could avoid collapsing before it did. The more I tried to move smoothly, the more I felt I was jerking about like a robot on speed.

At last the song was over and the DJ’s rapid chatter filled the air.

We stood still for a second, staring at each other, then Eve stepped backwards, looking slightly embarrassed. “That was great, I loved the way they sampled the original ‘Passenger’,” she said breathlessly.

The song title connected with something in my head. “Hey,” I grinned. “I think I’ve got the original. Was it Iggy Pop?”

Eve nodded.

“It’s one of the records my dad left me.”

Eve’s eyes widened. “Your dad left you vintage records?”

Thank you, Dad. Thank you, Dad.

“Yeah, from the late Seventies and early Eighties. Would you like to come back to my house and hear them?”

As soon as the words were out of my mouth I knew I’d made a terrible mistake.

Eve visibly shrank away from me. “Er, no, I’m meeting Ben later.” She glanced at her watch. “In fact I’ve gotta go now. Crap. And I hardly got any work done either.”

She bustled back to her table and cleared away her stuff. She didn’t even look at me as she said goodbye.

I walked around for about half an hour. What had I done wrong? One minute she was asking me to dance with her – the next she couldn’t get away from me fast enough.

I ended up outside Ryan’s house. I’d only been there once before and didn’t know the street number, but I recognised the iron gate, hanging off its hinges, at the end of the tiny front path.

Ryan’s mum, a tall, smiley woman with the same wide mouth as Ryan, opened the door.

“Ry – aaan,” she yelled up the stairs. “Friend for you.”

Ryan appeared on his landing a few seconds later. He looked surprised when he saw me and not, I have to say, in a good way. He trotted down the stairs towards me, clearly annoyed.

“What is it, man?” he hissed, dragging me off into a small living room where an enormous TV was blaring into empty space.

I told him.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “How did I blow it?”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “You haven’t blown it,” he said. “Though you didn’t stick to the Steps I told you to. What happened to your ‘being cool’ Angle? And why did you get so heavy? You were supposed to make her laugh, man, not terrify her into running away.”

I groaned. It was true. Practically begging Eve to come home with me was hardly acting humorous and aloof.

“It’s like I sent her into Ben’s arms.”

Ryan sighed. “It’s always so all or nothing with you. I expect she just started feeling guilty about him. Look on the bright side. At least you know she’s interested.”

“She is?”

“For God’s sake, man.” Ryan shook his head in frustration. “She asked you to
dance
with her. In the art room at school. You should have just kissed her.”

“You told me not to be pushy,” I snapped.

Ryan grinned. “You bottled it, didn’t you? There’s a time and a place, man. Situation like that, you either seize the moment, or you leave stuff unsaid. What you don’t do is invite someone back to your bedroom to listen to your records. It’s either gonna come out dorky or creepy. Anyway, I gotta go back upstairs.”

“Oh, right,” I said, bitterly. “Got some amazingly hot babe up there, have you?”

“As a matter of fact, yes.” Ryan lowered his voice, so I could only just hear him over the TV. “But my mum doesn’t know she’s there. That’s why I gotta get back.”

I noticed for the first time that Ryan’s shirt was untucked and the back of his hair was all rumpled up.

“Who is it?” I said, trying not to sound envious.

“Like I’m gonna tell
you
.” Ryan winked at me. “She’s totally Premiership, though.”

He edged towards the door.

Half-term started tomorrow, which meant it would be two weeks until I saw Eve again at Art Club. I remembered what Ben had said in the burger bar and realised, with a sickening lurch, that would be the week of her sixteenth birthday.

I wanted to ask Ryan what he thought I should do next, but knowing he had some girl upstairs waiting for him made it just too humiliating. So we walked out to the front door in silence.

“I’ll come round later,” Ryan said. “We can talk about Step Five then. I think it could help.”

“Whatever,” I grunted – knowing, and not caring, that I sounded ungrateful.

As I walked home I saw Tones going in the opposite direction, his arm round a short, plump, red-haired girl whose face was as covered with freckles as his was with spots.

Kirsty.

I didn’t want to cramp his style, so I just gave him a friendly wink as we passed each other. He looked like he might explode with pride.

Oh well. At least the Six Steps had worked for someone. Seeing Tones looking so happy cheered me up a bit. And Ryan was right. Eve
had
wanted to dance with me. My mind filled with how amazingly horny she’d looked, pulling me towards her in that patch of sunlight.

As soon as I got home I went up to my room, played my dad’s single of ‘The Passenger’ and let myself think about her, over and over again.

It was Friday, about eight o’clock. Chloe had just snuck in and she and Mum were having yet another row – they were averaging about three a day at the moment. I could hear them from my room, even over the music I was playing.

“How dare you speak to me like that?” Mum yelled.

“Because you’re a total bitch,” Chloe yelled back. “Nobody gets grounded for a month. Nobody. It’s totally unfair.”

I turned the volume up on Dad’s old record player as high as it would go.

I’d played all his records now. Some of them weren’t bad, though I still didn’t understand why he’d given them to me. I’d decided it wasn’t worth feeling hurt about it. After all, not having anything in common with your dad’s not such a big deal.

The music finished and the needle hissed as it flopped off the turntable. I lifted it back onto its arm. This old technology was rubbish. Imagine having to get up and down every time you wanted to put on a new track? The sound quality was the worst thing, though. It had taken me ages to get used to all the crackle and static that existed as permanent background noise under the music.

Everything was quiet downstairs. And I was starving. Hoping Chloe had flounced off to her room, I padded down to the kitchen. Mum and Uncle Matt were sitting at the kitchen table. I could hear Mum sniffing as I reached the door. Matt was patting her on the back.

“D’you want me to speak to her?”

Mum shook her head. “Maybe Luke could.”

“Me?” I said from the door.

They both looked up. Matt reddened a little and whipped his hand off Mum’s back. Mum smiled weakly at me.

“I just thought you might be able to get through to her,” she said, her voice crumpling to a whisper. “She hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you, Mum,” I said, striding to the fridge. “She’s just mad at you for grounding her for a whole month.”

“That doesn’t excuse her language and the terrible way she treats your mother.” Matt bristled.

Butt out. Nobody asked you.

I turned my back and began rummaging in the fridge.

“I was trying to talk to her about Dad’s ashes,” Mum said. “I picked them up today.”

I took out a carton of milk and turned round. My eyes fell on a small wooden box on the table between Mum and Matt.

“Is that . . . them?” I asked.

How freak-show was that? Dad’s body sitting here on our kitchen table. I stared at the box. I couldn’t connect it with Dad at all. It was just a box.

“I was asking Chloe where she thought we should scatter them,” Mum sniffed. “And . . . and she turned on me and demanded to know why she should even discuss it, if I wasn’t going to let her out of the house. As if I’d stop her being part of . . . oh . . .” Mum dissolved into tears. She put her face in her hands.

Shit.
I wanted to say something to make her feel better. But I didn’t know what. And, anyway, bloody Matt was already talking.

“It’s the attitude that gets me,” he said, patting her arm. “When I was growing up, kids had a bit of respect for their parents.” He gave me a hard stare.

I glared back.

“I pointed out to your sister,” Matt went on, not taking his eyes off me, “that I was your dad’s best friend. And that I’m here because I want to help.”

I turned back to the fridge, severely rattled. I was fed up with Matt coming round every five minutes, getting in the middle of our family business.

“. . . well, Luke? What do you think?”

I realised Mum had been talking to me again, presumably about the stupid ashes. I put back the pint of milk and straightened up.

“Honestly, Mum?” I said, walking to the door. “I think we should put Dad’s ashes on the mantelpiece in the living room.” I turned as I reached the door and stared straight at Matt. “After all, this is Dad’s house.”

Ryan and Numbers arrived about half an hour later.

“I’m not stopping,” Numbers grinned. “Just wanted to let you know I’ve had twenty-five, hands-on snogs since I last saw you.”

“How interesting,” I said. “How many of them were with humans?”

Undaunted, Numbers grinned smugly. Then he turned and set off down the street.

Ryan shook his head. “Sometimes I wish I’d never met Numbers. He does my head in. Anyway, I thought we should talk.”

“Right,” I said. “Let’s go out. It’s a war zone in here.”

“OK, I just need to use your bathroom then,” Ryan said, quickly.

“Don’t you ever go at home?” I said.

But Ryan had already darted past me and was vanishing up the stairs. A few minutes later he came back down and we wandered along to the high street. There’s this open, concrete space by the Town Hall where kids hang out. Older ones at night. Younger ones early evening. I used to skateboard here a long time ago.

“Step Five,” Ryan said, “is Attention. The Steps so far have worked, haven’t they? I mean you’re making more effort with how you look – Step One. You got her to notice you back in the art room, even though you weren’t trying exactly – Step Two. You’ve found an Angle, not being all pushy with her, which was Step Three . . .” he paused, “even if you’re not solid on it. And you know you can make her laugh – Step Four. Even though you haven’t done it yet.” He threw me a frustrated glance. “Anyway, so long as you’ve been completely clear that friendship’s not an option, then Step Five’s the killer. Attention.”

“What d’you mean?” I said. “Flowers? Compliments? What?”

Ryan grinned. “That stuff’s good. Chicks lap it up, in fact. But the most important thing you gotta learn to do is Listening.”

I kicked at the edge of the pavement. Listening didn’t sound so hard. “I can do that,” I said. “No problem.”

“Actually, you’re crap at listening.”

I frowned at him. “No, I’m not.”

“How many times in the last week have you totally tuned out while people were talking to you? So that they’ve gone all: ‘Luke, Luke, are you listening to me?’. Think about it.”

I stared down at the pavement. Now Ryan put it like that, I realised he was right. It had happened with Mum earlier; with Tones the other day. And it had happened with Eve in the art room too.

“I reckon you’d have got a lot further with Eve if you’d bothered to really concentrate on her. And I don’t mean on how hot she is.”

“But how . . .?” I stopped.
How on earth am I supposed to listen to what she says, when my head’s so full of the way she looks?

“I know it’s hard.” Ryan was looking at me shrewdly. “You gotta distract yourself – forget about how horned-up you are and listen to what she’s saying, like it’s . . . like she’s about to tell you something you really want to know . . . like a football score or something.”

I screwed up my face. “Even if she’s talking rubbish?”

“Especially
then. What seems like rubbish to you could be really important to her. You can’t ever tell. Girls don’t always say what they mean. In fact, they often don’t. So you have to listen really hard – not just to what she’s saying, but the way she’s talking and how she’s looking at you. Then you’ll know when to make your move.”

It sounded totally impossible. I shook my head.

“Don’t worry.” Ryan grinned. “After a while you’ll find you can focus on what she’s saying, work out what she really means
and
still have room in your head to think about what you’d like to do with her – all at the same time.”

I stared at him. It was dark where we were standing and the open space in front of the Town Hall was totally empty.

“How do you know all this stuff, Ry?” I said.

He shrugged. “Dunno, really. I guess the main thing was . . . this girl I met. It was after some gig I went to a while back, with a couple of my older sisters. I . . . I sort of ended up with one of their friends. We hooked up for a bit. She taught me a lot . . .”

I raised my eyebrows.

Ryan grinned again. “Yeah, that. But also what works when you’re talking to someone, and how most girls think boys their age are really immature, so acting more grownup’s like this big turn-on. Then, after that, I just started watching and learning. And practising . . .” He tailed off.

“So who you practising on now?”

Ryan winked at me. “You know I can’t say.” He checked the time on his mobile. “She’s a babe, though. In fact, I gotta go. I’m meeting her later.”