Adorkable (21 page)

‘OK, summer before last, Heidi and I snogged at, like, maybe three different parties and then I had a serious relationship with someone and then I was heartbroken and then there were some other girls and
then
I was with Scarlett. And now Heidi has decided that we’re meant to be and when I didn’t agree with her, she went all hysterical on me.’

‘I hate it when guys say that girls are being hysterical just
because they’re daring to have feelings and emotions about stuff,’ I pointed out, but Michael shook his head vehemently.

‘No, she was proper hysterical or she pretended to be. I even had to find a paper bag because she said she was hyperventilating and she needed something to pant into.’ Michael gave me a perplexed look. ‘I didn’t give her any encouragement so I don’t know why she thought I was.’

‘Well, objectively speaking, I s’pose you are a catch,’ I sniffed. ‘You’re fairly easy on the eye and you’re involved with stuff that people like Heidi seem to think is important and, well, you’re popular.’

‘You make it sound like those are all terrible things,’ Michael snapped. He came to a halt. ‘Look, Heidi made me feel like shit and now you’re making me feel like shit all over again. I’m sick of it. I’m going home.’

Then he went and I was left gaping at the spot on the pavement where he’d been standing. I hadn’t meant to make him feel bad about himself and anyway, he was Michael Lee. He was golden. He didn’t ever feel bad about himself because, apart from huge amounts of parental pressure, his life was perfect. He was perfect.

The idea that he might not be quite as perfect as I’d thought was suddenly the most attractive thing about him and besides, I’d tried to do a nice thing by inviting him to the aftershow and now I’d ballsed it all up.

I had no choice but to run after him. However, I was far from perfect and running was yet another item on the huge list of things that I was rubbish at. There he was, striding down the road with his big, long-legged stride and covering huge amounts
of ground while I hobbled after him but never seemed to catch up.

‘Michael!’ I was forced to shout. ‘Please don’t make me run after you. It’s so clichéd and I have heels on and my ankle hasn’t been the same since you accidentally threw me off my bike.’

That got his attention. I’d had a feeling it would. He turned round.

‘Please come to the aftershow with me,’ I wheedled, and it wasn’t even as if I was too scared to go to a club on my own: there were going to be megatons of people I knew there. But none of them went to our school and, for once, I thought it’d be cool to do something together that didn’t involve kissing or groping. ‘There’ll be free drinks and I’ll introduce you to the band, not in a wanky, “Hey, I’m with the band” kind of deal but just, y’know, because I can. Come on …’

‘Well …’

‘But I’m not begging,’ I added, just so we were clear on that point. ‘So stop sulking and get your arse over here.’

‘You really know how to make a winning argument, don’t you?’ Michael said when he reached my side.

‘I bet you wish you had me in the school debating club,’ I said as he fell into step beside me, and he stayed by my side without fidgeting or getting irritated as I had a long chat with Debbie, the girl on the door, about a hat she was knitting, and when we climbed the rickety staircase to the upstairs bar and I realised that pretty much everyone that I’d ever met in my entire life was in the room, Michael didn’t get mad that I had to stop and talk to people.

Barney
had taken months before he was properly housetrained and could make polite conversation with a total stranger and not tug at me and ask in a whiny voice how much longer I was going to be. Michael wasn’t like that at all. He could talk to anyone, even Mad Glen, who I normally avoided because he was, well, absolutely bonkers. Word was that he’d done some dodgy E back in the nineties and he also had personal hygiene issues but Michael patiently talked to him about his crackpot conspiracy theories on 9/11 and the moon landings, then switched seamlessly to chatting about football with Tom, while I talked to Tabitha about the dress I was wearing that she’d sourced for me and why I still smelt of mothballs even though I’d sprayed a whole can of Febreeze on it.

I’ll admit I was nervous when Molly and Jane from Duckie came over. I don’t think there’ll ever be a time when I’ll get used to being hugged by a woman who’s been my idol since I was eleven. I almost succeeded though.

‘Love the new look,’ Molly said, as she sat down in the empty chair next to me. ‘It’s a little bit Frenchy from
Grease
and a little, well, drag queen.’

I nodded happily. ‘Not quite what I was going for, but I can deal.’

Molly fluffed up her honey-blonde hair. ‘I miss dyeing my hair crazy colours but I don’t miss my towels and pillowcases being stained pink. Anyway, wouldn’t go down too well at work.’ When she wasn’t setting the world on fire through the medium of song or organising rock ’n’ roll summer camps, Molly worked in a museum. ‘I’ll just have to live vicariously through you.’

‘Even
when I was going through my little old lady phase?’

‘Yeah, that was an odd one.’ Molly looked around then her gaze settled on Michael, sitting on the other side of me still talking to Tom about football, and stayed there. ‘Oooh! Hello! This isn’t Barney.’

Michael looked up and his eyes widened fractionally before he smiled. ‘Nope, I wasn’t Barney last time I checked. I’m Michael.’

‘I’m Molly,’ she tugged Jane over by her sleeve, ‘and this is Jane. Jane, this is Michael, his status is yet to be determined.’

‘He’s my friend,’ I said vaguely.

Jane smiled slyly and nudged me. ‘Is he your special friend, Jeane?’

Michael and I looked at each other. I’m not sure what I was conveying through my eyes, possibly it was: ‘Make me look like a tool in front of either of these women and I will kill you.’ My telepathic skills weren’t always that effective but he smiled again. ‘Aren’t all friends special?’

‘Well, yeah, but some of them are more special than others,’ Jane noted. ‘Just how special are you?’

‘Oh, Jane, we’re all rare and unique snowflakes in our own way,’ I said quickly. ‘Stop trying to embarrass us.’

Jane thought about it. She was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen in real life. Like nineteen-forties-Hollywood-siren beautiful, which she totally played up with her Marcel-Waved hair and perfect winged liquid eyeliner, so it only seemed right that she was in a band. I knew that during the daylight hours she was a counsellor for youths with alcohol and substance addiction, but I didn’t like to think of that side of Jane. When
I did think about it, I had a fuzzy notion that she probably just intimidated the youths into not ever binge drinking or scarfing huge amounts of class-As again under pain of death. She was that type of person; a pretty bloody awesome type of person.

‘OK,’ she decided. ‘As we’re probably going to have to book a room at the Jeane Hilton, I’ll stop teasing. So, what did you think of the show?’

She knew what I thought of the show because I’d been watching from the side of the stage and jumping up and down and squealing all the way through the set. Basically, this was Michael’s real test. He was going to try and bluff his way through a review of the show and Molly and Jane would know, because people in bands have a sixth sense about that kind of thing, and it would reflect very badly on me. Normally I didn’t care what people thought of me but this was Jane and Molly, my two honorary badass older sisters, so actually I did care very much.

I held my breath as they both stared at Michael. I could almost hear the gears in his brain shifting.

‘Well, I didn’t get to see much of the show,’ he admitted, to my surprise. ‘You were about halfway through the opening number when I got dragged into a drama that lasted for the whole set and both encores.’ His shoulders slumped. ‘What I could hear over the crying and the shrieking sounded good, though. Really good. I mean, I love the CDs but bands always sound better live.’ Michael rubbed his chin. ‘Apart from Justin Bieber, he’s always going to sound shit, isn’t he?’

It was exactly the right thing to say and neither Molly nor Jane seemed to mind that Michael had missed witnessing them
in all their splendour. Instead Jane called over their friend Kitty who looked just like Justin Bieber, then we talked to her and two hours passed in a blur of drinking and chatting and at one stage Michael even danced with me to old skool hip hop. It wasn’t any kind of dancing that could actually be defined as dancing but at least he tried. Barney and just about every other straight boy I knew would rather have an enema than be seen dancing.

At precisely two o’clock, the lights came on and I had to prise the soles of my shoes off the sticky floor and think about going home. Michael had barely touched me all evening, but once he’d pulled on his leather jacket, he took my hand and then he held it. My hand tucked into his like it belonged there. Again, totes bizarre, but kinda nice. My hands were cold but his were warm and I’d forgotten my gloves so it worked out very well.

It occurred to me that Michael and I had never been out on a Saturday night together because that was what regular couples did and whatever we were it certainly wasn’t regular.

‘Don’t take this the wrong way,’ I said, which showed that I was maybe a little bit tipsy because normally I wasn’t bothered if he did take things the wrong way, ‘but don’t you have a curfew? I mean, most people living with their parents do.’

Michael gave me a bit of eyebrow action at the suggestion that he was still completely parent-whipped, but I’d met his mother and she was a woman who’d have no patience with her beloved son arriving home at all hours.

‘Not so much on Saturday nights.’ Michael looked at his watch – he was the only person I knew who wore one. ‘Though
if they weren’t in Devon, I think coming home at past two would really be pushing it.’

‘Even at the start of half-term?’

‘But, Jeane, it’s my crucial A-level year,’ he said in a highpitched voice that
did
sound a bit like Kathy Lee. ‘You need at least eight hours’ sleep every night and don’t forget to let the cat out.’

‘So, um, do you want to share a cab or come back to mine for a bit?’ I asked hesitantly, because I’d been so busy lately that we hadn’t had a chance to get together. And by get together I really meant kissing each other until breathing became an issue.

Michael squeezed my hand a little tighter. I squeezed him back. ‘I really do need to let the cat out, but you could come back to my house. It’s clean, for one thing …’

I stopped squeezing and scowled. ‘My place is clean. I spent
hours
this morning tidying up and I even vacuumed and did the recycling without Gustav and Harry coming round and standing over me.’

‘Yeah, but did your place have a supermarket delivery in the last twelve hours and a dad who went to Chinatown yesterday and came home with two boxes of cakes?’

‘Well, no,’ I admitted. ‘No, it didn’t.’

‘So, come back to mine. For cake and, y’know, whatever.’

It sounded like a plan. A plan whereby I’d stuff my face with cake, then get down to a whole lot of whatever. ‘Fine,’ I said, pulling him towards the exit. ‘Let’s try and find a cab.’

I
couldn’t believe I was holding hands with Jeane in public, on a street corner, at nearly 2.30 in the morning, and that she was coming back to my house that was free of parents and annoying little sisters.

As Jeane peered up and down the road for a vacant black cab, the streetlight caught the angles in her face and she looked almost beautiful. Well, no, not beautiful, but exotic. Like she was a bird of paradise or a rare flower that didn’t belong on a damp, grey London street on a damp, grey London night.

‘Hey, take a picture, it lasts longer,’ she said when she caught me staring at her but she didn’t sound like she minded.

There were no cabs to be found and just as we were about to walk up to the main road, someone called Jeane’s name and we turned round to see Molly and Jane and a couple of randoms hurrying towards us.

‘So, we’re all right to sleep at yours then?’ Molly asked as
she drew level and Jeane went from holding my hand to not holding my hand and stepping away from me. ‘You don’t mind?’

‘Of course I don’t,’ Jeane said and I didn’t know why I suddenly felt furious. Compared with coming back to mine for Chinese buns and a grope and grind session, hanging out with Molly Montgomery was always going to be the better deal. Always. ‘And before you start bitching, it’s beyond clean. My dad’s coming to London for a visit so I’ve been up to my elbows in hot soapy water for most of the day.’

‘I’m glad to hear that because last time I stayed at yours, I swear I got scabies,’ Jane said with a shudder.

Molly smacked her. ‘You great fat liar,’ she gasped. ‘You were allergic to that body lotion that smelt like Toilet Duck.’

‘I still say it was scabies,’ Jane insisted. ‘I hope you remembered to vacuum the sofa as well as the floor.’

‘Any more backchat and you can sleep in your van,’ Jeane said. ‘And I guess we can stop looking for a cab,’ she added to me.

I nodded. There wasn’t much else I could do. It wasn’t the end of the world that she was heading home with her cool friends and I was going back to an empty house on my own. Her kisses were pretty good but I could live without them.