All About the Hype (7 page)

‘Miles can play guitar, too. Did you know that?’ He gives me a sideways look.

‘I didn’t. But none of you play the keyboard?’

‘Not well. You still wanna learn?’ he asks.

‘If you guys think it’d be a good idea,’ I say. It was Johnny who’d suggested it.

He flashes me a grin. ‘Definitely.’

I stay there like that, watching him with a flutter in my stomach as he sings along to the rest of the song, and then another track comes on, and another, and my eyelids begin to feel heavy. The
next thing I know, he’s unclicking my seatbelt.

‘Where are we?’ I ask, jolting awake.

‘Hotel.’

I look out of the window to see the upside-down, red-and-white sign of The Standard, the super-cool hotel where my friends are staying.

Jack brushes his thumb along the side of my face. ‘You OK?’ he asks softly, staring into my eyes.

I nod sleepily. ‘Tired.’ I jolt again. ‘Where’s the bus?’

‘Right in front of us,’ he says. ‘I caught it up.’

‘Top marks.’

He gives me a small smile. I gather my things together and turn back to him before exiting the car. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

He glowers as he looks past me to the bus, and Tom, I presume.

I lean forward to give him a quick peck, but, as I’m about to draw away, he takes my face in his hands and deepens the kiss.

‘I told you I don’t need reminding,’ I murmur against his mouth as my insides turn into a mushy mess.

‘Not worth the risk,’ he replies, letting me go with a smirk.

I get out of the car to find Stu frowning at me, and my friends looking tactfully away. So they all saw that. My face burns and I feel slightly sick as I walk towards them.

I was trying not to rub Jack in Tom’s face, and I’ve just failed miserably.

‘Straight to bed, guys,’ Stu says slightly sternly, as we all walk into the hotel lobby together.

Half of my friends have moved on to college so they really must be knackered if they’re following their ex-teacher’s orders without so much as a roll of their eyes. I cast an
apologetic look in Tom’s direction, my heart clenching as I realise he’s angry and upset. He doesn’t meet my eyes as I call out goodnight and we file into our respective
bedrooms.

I’m sharing with Libby, and Lou, who uses the bathroom first, while I kick off my shoes and flop down on the bed. Libby comes to lie beside me, offering me a small smile.

‘You did it,’ she says quietly. ‘It’s after midnight.’

I smile at her, and then suddenly everything goes blurry and all I can see of my oldest friend is a cloud of ginger hair framing her kind face.

‘Oh, Jessie,’ she says, taking my hand and cuddling me to her as I burst into tears again.

We lie with our heads on one pillow, our foreheads pressed together, and it occurs to me with painful clarity that the last time we did this was on the night of my mum’s funeral. Libby is
my dearest friend in the whole world, and she and her entire family had been at the church that day, but Marilyn and Libby had sat up at the very front with Stu and me. I’d begged for Libby
to be allowed to come and stay at my house that night. She’d slept in my bed and held me, just like she’s doing now. I don’t know how I ever grew apart from her, how I could ever
have pushed her away, but I did. I’m so glad she’s here now, because no one else knows what I’ve been through as well as she does.

‘I love you, Libby,’ I say in a small voice.

‘I love you, too, Jessie,’ she whispers, and I can hear from her tone that she’s also crying. ‘Now try to get some sleep.’

Tom is leaving to catch a bus to San Francisco after breakfast, and I’m gutted at how quickly my time with him has slipped away. I ask if we can talk in private before he
goes.

He nods reluctantly and we head upstairs to the rooftop. There’s a swimming pool up here and a bar, too, plus several big, red, pod-like things with mattresses inside them.

‘Shall we sit in there?’ I point at one of the pods and lead the way, gasping with surprise when I climb in and the mattress wobbles beneath me.

‘A waterbed!’ Tom exclaims, as he enters the pod through another entrance. We both try to crawl across the bed to the edges, but we give up and collapse onto our stomachs,
laughing.

Somehow we manage to turn onto our backs. We continue to chuckle and it breaks the ice. Eventually we fall silent and lie side by side, looking out at the view of downtown’s nearby
skyscrapers piercing the dreary morning sky. The sun is hidden behind thick grey cloud today.

Now that we’re here, I don’t know what to say, other than that I’m sorry, and I’ve already said that a hundred times.

I reach over and take his hand, giving it a squeeze. A moment later, he squeezes it back.

‘Are you sure about him?’ he asks quietly.

‘No,’ I reply honestly.

He turns his head to look at me. I try to roll onto my side to face him, but the movement makes me feel queasy.

‘Urgh,’ I say, pulling a face.

He looks momentarily amused, but his expression soon grows sombre.

‘Why?’ he asks, and I think he means: why Jack? ‘I know he’s good-looking and everything, but I get the feeling he’d go for anything in a skirt.’

I shake my head, my stomach lurching, now for reasons other than the heaving surface we’re lying on. ‘That’s not true.’ Although it might be – sort of.
‘He’s not like that with me.’

‘Isn’t he?’ Tom challenges.

‘I don’t think so…’ I reply. ‘He’s different when we’re alone.’

‘It shouldn’t matter if you’re alone or not,’ he says. ‘I barely even saw him speak to you last night, apart from when you were in his car.’

He looks thoroughly sickened at the reminder. My heart twists because I really regret kissing Jack like that in full view of everyone. It just sort of happened. Jack does that to me – he
makes me act without thinking. OK, so
he
kissed
me
, but I could have stopped it from turning into a full-blown snog.

‘He couldn’t cosy up to me at the party because no one else knows that we’re together.’

‘So Lou said. To me it just sounds like he doesn’t give enough of a shit about you to rock the boat with his mates.’ He rakes his fingers through his brown hair and rests his
head on his hand, staring dismally up at the roof of the pod.

‘That’s not true,’ I try to convince him. ‘He
does
care about me. You don’t know him. You should have seen how he was with me in the car last
night.’

‘I
saw
how he was with you in the car last night,’ he reminds me with disgust.

‘I meant before that, when I was crying,’ I say quickly. ‘He does care about me, Tom. I know you don’t believe it but he does.’

‘So that’s it, then? Is he your boyfriend now? I mean, have you well and truly moved on?’

I swallow. ‘Yes,’ I tell him truthfully, although I’m still not sure about the boyfriend part. ‘And you should move on, too.’

He sighs heavily.

‘I still hope we can be friends,’ I say quietly.

‘I said I’d try,’ he states flatly.

‘I’m glad you came,’ I reiterate gently, wishing I could touch him, but knowing I should keep my distance.

‘I’m glad, too,’ he says eventually. ‘Despite having to see that total dick in person.’

I decide not to annoy him further by jumping to Jack’s defence.

‘Good luck with your dad today,’ I say.

‘Thanks,’ he mumbles, sitting up and causing the mattress to wobble violently. ‘Christ,’ he says, clutching his hand to his stomach. ‘This thing is making me want
to hurl.’

I laugh and sit up, too. ‘I guess we’d better join the others for breakfast. Can I call you next week? Find out how it all went?’

He pauses for a moment before nodding. ‘Yeah, OK.’

We go through the rigmarole of climbing out of the pod again, but, once we’re standing in front of each other, the smiles slip from our faces.

‘I still care about you,’ I blurt, my eyes welling up with tears.

‘I care about you, too,’ he mumbles. And then he pulls me in for a hug, crushing the air out of my lungs as he squeezes me once – hard – before letting me go.

Later that afternoon, I find myself sitting outside on the bench on our terrace, resting my elbows on the stone table in front of me as I gaze down at the city. My friends have
all left now, and Stu, too, and there’s still a deep sadness in the pit of my stomach – a knot that I haven’t been able to unravel all weekend.

Meg came home a couple of hours ago and now she and the boys are inside with Johnny.

I walked in on her hugging my dad earlier. She looked like she was comforting him. I presume he’s told her that I bailed out of my own birthday party, the one that he so painstakingly
arranged.

I take a deep breath and let it out loudly. I feel so drained, I can’t believe I have any tears left in me, but suddenly my eyes are stinging with a fresh onslaught. I tense at the sound
of the living-room doors sliding open and hurriedly dry my eyes with the sleeve of my jumper before Barney or Phoenix can see me. But, when I cast a look over my shoulder, I see that it’s
only Johnny.

‘Hey,’ he says heavily, as he approaches. He slides onto the bench beside me. ‘You OK?’

I take another deep, shaky breath.

‘Stupid question,’ he answers before I can respond. To my surprise, he reaches over and places his hand on top of mine. ‘I know I fucked up,’ he says in a low voice, and
I note with alarm that his hand is shaking. ‘And I’m sorry.’

‘You didn’t,’ I begin to protest.

‘I did, and I’m sorry,’ he says again.

‘But I
loved
having my friends here,’ I insist.

‘I know. And I should have stuck to that. I don’t know what I was thinking when I planned that party last night.’ He sniffs. ‘I guess I was trying to take your mind off
everything, but that wasn’t what you needed. I should’ve known better.’ He brushes at his eyes and I’m astonished when it dawns on me that he’s actually crying.
‘I’ve been there myself,’ he adds. ‘I know what it’s like.’

Johnny lost his own mum to cancer when he was just thirteen. ‘The firsts are the worst, the seconds are bad, but it does get easier,’ he promises, in a choked voice.

A river of tears trek down my face as he takes his hand away from mine and wraps his arm round my shoulders, pulling me close to his side.

‘I’m so sorry, Jess,’ he whispers against the top of my head. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t know better.’

I want to tell him that it’s OK, but I’m crying too hard.

This weekend I’ve turned to Stu, to Jack, to Libby and to Tom when I’ve sought comfort, but this time it’s my real dad who comes through for me. He’s warm, strong and
solid and I feel a lot better once my tears begin to dry up. He still holds me, though, rocking me, for a long time afterwards.

‘I don’t know how you feel about this,’ he says, still close to tears. ‘But could we look at your photo albums together? I’m guessing you brought them back with you
after Christmas?’

The knot inside my stomach pulls tighter.

Johnny asked once before if he could see some pictures of my mum – Candy, the one-time rock chick who fell for him when he was in Fence. He confided that he’d started to fall for
her, too, but he pushed her away and she ran for the hills. Neither of them knew that she was already pregnant with me.

I don’t know how different my life would be right now if she’d told him about me at the time, instead of keeping her secret from everyone, bar Stu, her then best friend and
ex-boyfriend. She was terrified that if she did come clean, she might lose me.

I nod, knowing that, however painful it’s going to be, I need to immerse myself in my memories – at least for today.

Barney and Phoenix are nowhere to be seen when we go inside, and I’m grateful to Meg for keeping them occupied. Knowing her, she counselled Johnny to come outside to speak to me. I
shouldn’t blame him for being a bit hopeless. There’s still a lot we’re getting used to – both of us. This is a journey we’re on together.

In my bedroom I go to my wardrobe and pull out the albums I brought back to LA with me, and return to my bed where Johnny is waiting. We sit side by side, turning the pages.

‘This is in the park near our home,’ I say, tracing my fingers across the first two photos of Mum. It’s the middle of winter and she’s wearing a thick coat, her dark hair
partly covered up with a chunky purple hat. The rest of her hair flows down across her shoulders. She’s smiling straight at the camera in one photograph and looking off to her right in
another.

Johnny stares at the pictures with a strange expression on his face, a mixture of fascination and sadness.

I turn the page, trying to swallow the lump in my throat and giving up as more tears stream down my face.

‘And this is us in Windsor.’ We’re standing arm in arm with Windsor Castle behind us, smiling at Stu, who’s taking the shot. We’d gone there for a day trip –
I was only about twelve.

A couple of pages later, I gulp back a sob at the sight of my thirteen-year-old self lying across Mum’s lap on the sofa. I’m fast asleep, but she’s smiling up at Stu with
shining eyes, her hand resting gently on my face.

She always had cold hands
…

Johnny wraps his arm round me as we both break down. ‘She loved you so much,’ he says, between sobs.

‘I know,’ I gasp.

‘I’m so sorry you lost her. So, so sorry.’

He gathers me against his chest and holds me tight while I cry.

Somehow we make it through both of the photo albums and afterwards I feel oddly free, lighter, like the knot in my stomach is starting to unravel.

What’s more, I feel closer to Johnny than I ever have.

‘Are you hungry?’ he asks gently. ‘I think Eddie’s left pizza in the fridge.’

The mention of Eddie makes me remember something else.

‘Chocolate cake!’ I exclaim. ‘Is there any left?’

‘Are you kidding?’ he asks with a wry grin. ‘There’s a mountain of it. We’ll be eating it for weeks.’

‘Thank you for asking him to make it,’ I finally think to say. ‘It looked amazing.’

‘I’m glad you liked it,’ he replies downheartedly.