Blue Lavender Girl (6 page)

The phrase for today is
MAXIMUM EMBARRASSMENT
. I wished that the ground would open up and swallow me, even then it would just spit me out for being such an idiot. I was waltzing around the garden again this morning and suddenly Jackson appeared, right there, beside the roses. I HATE how he does that, he’s like a ghost or something. I was mortified and so angry that he had just walked around the back instead of ringing the doorbell.

‘We
do
have a doorbell you know,’ I said in a really pissy voice.

‘Yeah, I know,’ he said, ‘I’ve been ringing it for ages.’

I asked him what did he want and he laughed and said that he had decided that I’m not so tough so I could switch it off. God, that is so arrogant, like he thinks he can just do and say what he wants and I’ll be OK with it.

Then he said, ‘Look, Tia, if you want to learn to dance, I can show you.’

And because it is my goal and a goal is a thing that you make massive sacrifices for, I let him show me how to do a waltz. It was horrible at first, and I got really self-conscious about doing it right and then I was thinking what if my hands got really sweaty or if I fell over and took him with me. None of that happened, I just learned how to do some steps without looking at my feet. I was doing it all wrong before, so I suppose it’s good to know the real steps now. The first thing is that I have to hold my arms right, and be down with my knees bent for the first step and then up on my toes for the next two. Also I have to let the man decide where we are going (which would not work in real life because my dad can’t make a decision and we would end up homeless and starving if my mum wasn’t in charge).

I was wearing my big boots and he said to take them off and I was suddenly really worried in case
my socks had loads of holes in them, or smelled awful or something, but they didn’t, thank God, and after about half an hour I was too knackered to carry on so we went inside. I made some fresh iced tea the way Aunt Maisie had showed me and found a carrot for Pie, who had been in Jackson’s pocket all the time, but I had kept Jackson dancing at a bit of a distance so I hadn’t noticed. Apparently rabbits don’t get dizzy.

I remembered what he said about me being not so tough, so I asked him what he meant by that. He made me promise not to have a big reaction and then said,

‘Well, you look all dangerous with your hair in your eyes and your black clothes – not that there’s anything wrong with them, you always look stylish just it’s always dark and edgy. Then you always say something that pushes people away from knowing more about you, even if it is usually quite funny.’

‘
Very
funny,’ I corrected him.

‘You see,’ he laughed, ‘Totally defensive.’

Then I couldn’t say I wasn’t defensive because that would be defensive, so I couldn’t win.

‘So I decided,’ he continued, ‘That you are like a little yapping dog, all bark and no bite.’

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, I felt really noticed or something. For once I couldn’t think of a single smart-alec thing to say, so I drank some more iced tea and asked where Jenny was. She was pretending to be sick so she wouldn’t have to go to a community lunch that Nanny Gloria was running in the village.

‘And Bob?’

‘Back at the house, trying to have a conversation with Grandfather. I really ought to go and rescue him.’

You see, that annoys me. No-one says ‘ought’ except in
Jane Eyre
(which I haven’t read in a couple of days) and other old-fashioned-type books.

He had to go, but he taught me and my grubby socks the steps for a basic foxtrot dance in the kitchen before he left.

‘How come you know all this again?’

‘In school we have a choice between this, running laps of the grounds in the freezing cold or playing chess with the maths teacher.’

‘Got it. It’s not an all-boys school is it?’

And for this I got a well-deserved fake punch and a loud ‘NO!’

And then I was on my own again, and quite
pleased about the dancing.

Then I chilled and read a bit, and tried to make my long black dress look like something a bit more stylish by taking up the hem, but that didn’t work and now I will have to cut it even shorter and use it as a top. I should have measured it properly instead of just using the edge of a cracker box as a guideline. I didn’t let on why I didn’t show up at the tearoom until five. Didn’t want to give Jackson the pleasure of seeing me make a fool of myself again. I borrowed Aunt Maisie’s vintage white top to wear with my beaded jeans and it sort of suits me.

The others were all talking at me the same time, which made it sound like Chinese, and it took a bit of brain work to catch what they were on about. Anyway, THE NEWS: Bob’s parents are organising a formal ball (aka party for posh people) in honour of his grandfather. No-one is saying it, but I think they’re scared it might be the last time he’ll be able to enjoy a ball and know what’s going on.

Bob’s dad left this morning after Bob and Jackson had shown him what we were doing with the tearoom. Jackson said that as soon as he saw it, he got quite emotional and said how there used to be balls and parties there all the time when he and
Jackson’s mum were little. So they decided to hold the meal in the courtyard and then everyone would come across to the tearoom for the drinks and dancing part of the evening. There’s only a short time to organise it so the whole family is pulling together with Bob and Jackson doing the stuff here and the adults doing the phone stuff. It will be all long dresses and tuxedos.

OK, the best bit is that ME AND JENNY ARE INVITED!!!! The second best bit is that the four of us are in charge of decorating the tearoom. I have not been this into something in
years
!! The third best bit is that it will not be anything like the party my mum and dad had four years ago when I had to wear a corduroy dress and hand out swirled cream-cheese on ritz crackers with chives sprinkled over. At least I hope not. Corduroy should be illegal.

We went down to the Gate Lodge so I could call Aunt Maisie and tell her not to expect me back for dinner. She gets that it’s a cool thing about this party and said to just ask if there was anything she could do. I told her yes, she could NOT tell my parents, and make sure they don’t visit on the night of the party. She laughed and said, ‘Done deal, little one.’

Jenny, Bob, Jackson and I, then spent the whole
evening around the kitchen table in the Gate Lodge planning and eating quiches and salad, and these amazing apple puff pastry things, which were so good that I asked Nanny Gloria for the recipe.

Jenny and Bob loved all each other’s ideas immediately, so me and Jackson had to fight pretty hard to keep things fair and realistic. Jackson is taking it pretty well the way Jenny is so besotted with Bob, and the way Bob seems to be equally into her. Maybe Jackson’s not as crazy about her as I first thought.

Apparently even Mr Walsh is thrilled about the party, which is completely amazing, even spooky.

I now hate my clothes.

I know I say I hate everything, but I really
do
hate my clothes. They are more stylish than the clothes most girls I know wear, but compared to Jenny and Aunt Maisie I feel really dull and unimaginative. Black stuff doesn’t seem to work outside the city.

I said this to Aunt Maisie just now at breakfast because she doesn’t judge me. My mother would say, ‘Well, at last you are seeing some sense’, and I’d want to take back whatever I had just said. I probably will go back to liking that stuff again, it’s just that people here don’t dress like that.

Aunt Maisie came in while I was writing the stuff just above this, and we drove for an hour to get to the nearest big town. We bought me four outfits, which we can make eight or more outfits from by swapping the pieces around. There is a pink dress (NOT pastel pink), a blue dress, a white skirt, cream trousers, four different tops, two cardigans, a little jumper, and three pairs of shoes that are the size of my feet, unlike my usual boots, which are the size of a small family car. The new outfits look
really
fashionable and amazing, but I am a little bit afraid they will make my brain seize-up and make me all ordinary. No, they are too cool to make me ordinary, they might make people say things though, like Jackson might think that I did it because of what he said. Well, I’ll just have to show him that it doesn’t make any difference what I wear, I am still my own person and I do what I want.

We got so much stuff including earrings and bracelets and underwear. It cost a fortune and I felt bad about that but Aunt Maisie said it is my wedding present, just a few years early (more than ‘a few’, I hope! I have no plans to get married until I’m at least thirty). Next week we are going back to find a party
dress, which I guess is to celebrate my university graduation! Aunt Maisie is SO COOL. I wish she was my mother.

I am completely excited! I have been trying them all on in different combinations and I look so different. Now the thing is that my hair looks like it’s just hanging there because, well, it’s just hanging there. Jenny is good at doing stuff with her hair so she’s coming over now to help me with that. I’m going to wear one of the outfits later this afternoon (I think the white skirt and the white and pink sleeveless top) when we meet Jackson and Bob in the village to buy more paint.

Bob didn’t notice the new look because he’s only met me a couple of times, but Jackson was staring at me like I had a turnip for a head.

‘Wow,’ was what he eventually came out with, which was pretty cool. I mean not that I care what he thinks, it’s just nice when anyone has a good reaction to you.

‘Say anything, and you’re dead,’ I snarled.

Which wasn’t the ladylike effect I’m going for, but if
he had laughed I would’ve had to have gone home and never left the house again.

‘Can I say, “Wow”, again?’

‘No,’ I said with my teeth gritted, but he made me laugh.

We bought some gold paint to add a bit of something to the tearoom chairs, and some more lavender and some white to finish the walls and woodwork.

Jackson paid, and the boys carried all the bags. Normally I would have insisted on carrying one to show I wasn’t all weak and helpless, but somehow my new outfit made me not want to carry anything. I guess that’s how princesses feel. When I am older I will employ someone to carry things so I won’t have to – books, bags, plates, suitcases. Or just get married, which is pretty much the same.

We were headed out and saw this man on the street opposite, leaving a building, slamming the door behind him like he was a huffy kid.

‘Isn’t that the Park manager?’ asked Bob.

It was Mr Walsh, coming out of a small, deserted-looking warehouse on the other side of the road. Jenny said it used to be the storage warehouse for an oil merchants, from before the farmers around
started to get deliveries straight to their own farms from the suppliers.

‘The estate owns some property in the village, but not that building,’ Jackson said.

He looked at me like he knew I’d be up for it and said, ‘Let’s see what’s inside.’

‘Good idea,’ I said and we headed out the door.

Bob and Jenny thought we were being silly (which coming from them is a bit rich!), and wanted to get back to the tearoom. So we went inside, while they kept watch. Jackson gave Pie to Jenny to make sure he wouldn’t escape inside the warehouse.

The hinges were broken, so although the door was padlocked we could push our way in.

It was a small enough room for a warehouse, and there were a few large oil barrels and some building equipment, hammers and rope and a lever thing. I was hoping for a trap door or some stolen goods, but it was all quite boring really and we felt a bit nothing when we told the others what was in there.

Jackson saw my pissed-off look and whispered right into my ear, ‘It could still be important Tia, we might be able to work out what he’s up to.’

Once we got back to the tearoom there wasn’t much of a chance for any of us to talk because we
had so much grafting to get done. I didn’t have to be careful not to get paint and dirt on my new clothes because Bob had brought along some of his old shirts for us to wear as overalls and they reached mine and Jenny’s knees which made the guys start calling us ‘the elves’. Once all the walls were done (two in lavender, two in white, with white on the window frames) we voted to leave the chairs for another day as it’s such a big job. Instead we stripped the old paint from a long wooden sign where you could just about make out the words ‘The New Park Tearoom’. Bob said that was the name they had given it in its last year of life, to try and attract some customers.

Jenny had the idea of renaming the tearoom. We all agreed to that, but wanted to take ideas from everyone because we were worried that with her in charge of the name it might end up being called ‘Fluffy Singsong Tearoom’ or something like that.

In fact Jenny suggested, ‘The Cosy Tea Corner’, which was quite reasonable, but a bit ‘cottagey’ for such a grand building.

Bob suggested something in Latin, just to show off that he knew Latin, and Jenny thought that was a better idea than hers.

Jackson suggested ‘The Last Waltz Tearoom’, which I thought was the best and I expected the others to vote for that. So I was
really
surprised when my suggestion of ‘The Blue Lavender Tea Palace’, led to a big ‘YES!’ from all of them. Naming tearooms, another thing I don’t exactly suck at. The lettering will have to be done really well so Bob and Jenny have volunteered to work on a stencil for it in Nanny Gloria’s house tomorrow morning. Bob is a bit of a showoff, but not badly enough that you wouldn’t want to hang out with him. He’s also way goofier even than Jackson, but he and Jenny are so sweet together. I hope he gets it together and kisses her soon.

Jackson pulled me aside and whispered in my ear (again, a lot of that going on with him lately!), asking me to meet him in the courtyard at ten o’clock tonight for more dancing.

I was so surprised or something that I forgot to answer, so he said, ‘We only have two weeks until the party and I’ll need you to dance with me so I don’t have to waltz with all my great aunties and the women who do charity work with Bob’s mother.’

‘I’m sure they dance beautifully,’ I said.

‘They lead,’ he said.

So I agreed to meet him at the courtyard at ten tonight, purely a charitable thing to benefit him, and because I have a goal to reach.

God this was a long day!! Usually I don’t do this much in a week!

When I got back I had some oil on my new skirt (which must have come from the oil barrels in the warehouse) and was really upset, but luckily Aunt Maisie had a bottle of stuff that soon shifted it.

I told her that we had a meeting at the Big House and she said she wasn’t happy about me being out that late, so I had to promise to be back by midnight. I put a cardigan over the white outfit. I’m now really confused because I love the new stuff but I don’t feel that it’s really me, and the old stuff isn’t me either. So I can feel self-conscious but stylish and fun in the new stuff, or depressed and comfortable in the old stuff. I love the new clothes it’s just that my personality hasn’t grown into them yet.

When I was cycling over to the Park just before ten I remembered that they lock the gates at night, but this time Jackson was standing there with a key and he showed me that a spare was kept behind a nearby wooden post so now I can always get in. I thanked him and threatened to murder them all in their beds,
which made him laugh. I left my bike leaning against the wall of the Gate Lodge we ran through the Park in the pitch darkness all the way to the courtyard. Now that I think of it, I don’t know why we ran, it was just kind of exciting to be doing something in secret in the dark.

He got straight to it and taught me how to do a whole foxtrot. He had turned on the lights of the sitting room, which gave us enough light to see how badly I was doing. I kept stepping when I should be bouncing, and bouncing when I should be stepping, and going back on my left foot twice instead of backwards and then forwards. Then he produced a portable sound system from behind a pillar, which made me nervous about someone hearing us.

‘Grandfather is the only one around and he’s not likely to hear,’ Jackson reminded me.

‘And Bob?’

‘Not here.’

‘Where’s he gone to? There’s nowhere to go around here.’

‘I meant sleeping, he sleeps like a log.’

But Jackson is a really bad liar, he went totally red. Bob must have been with Jenny.

It felt
fantastic
dancing to real music rather than
just music in my head. I stepped on Jackson’s toes a lot, but these new shoes are a lot less clumpy, in fact they are rather dainty. The only problem is that I am not. Still, I’m getting better.

I caught sight of the time on Jackson’s watch and it was ten to midnight. I said I had to run and he laughed and called me Cinderella and ran back with me to the gates. I grabbed my bike and cycled off and didn’t catch what he said as I left.