Diary of a Crush: French Kiss (10 page)

We were meant to be meeting in the foyer at ten to go to the Louvre, but hardly anybody was there. I finally managed to hook up with Nat and Trent who made room for me on one of the sofas.

‘What’s going on?’

Trent nudged me playfully. ‘Exactly what we were going to ask you.’

‘Yeah, what was that scene with you and Dylan at breakfast?’ added Nat.

‘Huh! He’s gone down with a severe case of boy disease,’ I snorted. ‘I think it could be fatal this time. Anyway, where is everyone?’

Nat squeezed his eyes tight and stretched like he does when he’s got juicy gossip. ‘
Weeellllll
, Shona and Paul have disappeared off the face of the earth, Mia’s gone back to bed in a strop, Dylan and Simon have decided to make their own way to the Louvre even though the only thing they can say in French is something very, very rude and half the boys in the Foundation class have realised that we’re in the middle of the red-light area and gone to a strip show.’

‘I know about
that
,’ I said witheringly, so neither of them thought that I was completely clueless when it came to information gathering. ‘I just saw them go into a club called The Pink Pussycat.’

‘Boys are
so
sad,’ commented Trent.

‘I couldn’t agree more,’ I said sourly.

The day wasn’t a dead loss. The six of us who were still around and Martyn (Tania, thank the Lord, had gone to meet some of her hippy friends) went to a proper French café for cappuccinos and then braved the Metro. My A-level French made me the star of the hour. Everyone was dead impressed as I approached the ticket office and recited, ‘
Excusez-moi, monsieur, je voudrais sept billets Louvre, s’il vous plaît
.’

Outside the Louvre was this weird glass pyramid thingy that I wanted to take pictures of, so Nat and Trent waited patiently while I fiddled around with my camera and evil-eyed any inconsiderate people who had the audacity to walk across my line of vision.

Once we actually got inside, we decided to kick it free style. Following a tour guide round and listening to them blithering on about ‘the textural qualities of Van Gogh’s later work’ is the exact opposite of fun. Instead, Nat, Trent and me spent half an hour pretending that I was a stinking rich jetsetter who wanted to buy some pictures to go in my New York penthouse and Nat was my personal assistant and Trent was this really oily gallery owner who had to suck up to me ’cause I was so shockingly, obscenely wealthy. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I’m nearly seventeen, I can be very immature.

The most famous painting in the Louvre is the Mona Lisa but when we got to it; actually not so much. It’s really small and dark and it’s covered in bullet-proof glass which makes the light reflect on the picture so you can’t get a proper look at it.

The three of us stood in a line in front of the picture and tried to see if her eyes really did follow you around like they were supposed to.

‘And this is one of our most legendary exhibits, madam,’ said Trent. ‘Does madam care for it?’

I wrinkled my nose.

‘I don’t think madam does care for it,’ said Nat.

I pulled a face. ‘It doesn’t match my colour scheme. Have you got something that’s a bit less green?’

‘Oh yes, madam and I really aren’t feeling the green,’ chimed in Nat.

Eventually we got bored playing and Nat and Trent went off to find some statue of a naked bloke so I wandered about on my own. I didn’t really rate the pictures that much. They were all dark and gloomy or full of chubby-faced cherubs and topless women.

I was just watching some art boy (not one of ours) who was working on an amazing reproduction of one of the Old Masters when I felt a pair of hands creep round my waist and someone kiss the back of my neck. I knew it was Dylan. All my insides turned to mush.

I turned around and he cupped my face and gave me the lightest kiss on the mouth. It was the merest whisper. A prelude to a kiss. The art boy winked at me as Dylan took my hand and started pulling me through all these inter-connecting rooms but everything was a blur around me. The only thing I was sure of was Dylan’s hand clasped in mine. It was right that we didn’t speak. Speaking would have ruined the spell that seemed to have woven itself around us when he’d come up behind me.

We ended up in this small anteroom off the main drag. There was no-one else in it, apart from a security guard who was asleep in his chair. Dylan and I looked deep into each other’s eyes and for a moment there were no secrets or lies or Mia or Josh between us. We were just Dylan and Edie and we were the only people left in the world.

Then we were both reaching for each other and Dylan had backed me against the wall and he was kissing me hard. Harder than he’d ever kissed me before. But I was kissing him back with just as much fervour. His hands were under my denim jacket and I wasn’t even freaking out about where they were going. I was aware of so many things. Of the sleeping security guard. Of the hum of the lights and the faint whirr of the air conditioning. Of Dylan’s heart beating really fast. And the feel of his body as he pressed me against the wall. Of the way I was standing on tiptoe so he could reach my mouth. And especially of the way our mouths clung together and the feel of his tongue against mine and the faint scrape of his teeth as he nibbled my bottom lip.

When we came up for air, I carried on leaning back against the wall so I didn’t fall over. One of Dylan’s hands was still inside my jacket as he stroked the curve of my waist and kissed my ear and my neck and the little knobbly bits between my collar bones. We still didn’t speak. Then we were kissing again and his hands were in my hair and I was clutching greedy handfuls of his leather jacket. We broke off again as we both became aware of the sound of voices getting nearer. I took in a couple of deep lungfuls of air. Dylan was all flushed and breathing hard like he’d run a marathon. He looked like he was going to say something but just as a group of tourists arrived in our little room he bent his head, stole one last swift kiss and sauntered away.

I felt completely dazed. So dazed, that when Nat and Trent found me I was sat dreamy-faced on a bench.

‘What’s up with you?’ asked Nat.

‘Yeah, you look really weird,’ added Trent peering at my face.

I tried to act normally but I was completely spaced out. All I could do was gingerly prod my lips, which felt all tingly and sore from where they’d been melded onto Dylan’s mouth.

On the Metro back to the hotel, I still didn’t speak. I just kept re-playing the whole thing back in my head from when Dylan had come up behind me to that last, devastating kiss he’d pressed onto me before exiting stage right.

Shona was waiting for me in the foyer. I’d been planning on having a long, soaky bath so I could go over the kissing a few more hundred times but Shona was, like, you outside, now.

‘What’s your damage?’ I protested as she pulled me bodily around the revolving door and out into the street.

‘The walls have ears,’ she said cryptically.

‘What?’

‘It’s not official or anything but Paul and I are… on,’ she informed me smugly.

‘Define “on”,’ I said, smiling vaguely at Martyn as he passed us on the street.

Shona’s mouth twisted. ‘Back together. Exclusively. No more skanky maybe girlfriends lurking in the background.’ And the way she fisted her hands against her sides told me more than her throwaway tone. I was confused because last night Paul had seemed quite happy to be sucking face with his skanky maybe girlfriend. ‘So how did you manage that?’

‘I sat him down and told him that I was done moping around after him. That I was over him and I’d moved on…’

‘Which isn’t even remotely true,’ I pointed out.

She pulled a face at me. ‘I hate it when you start being all perceptive, so cut it out right now.’

‘And then what happened?’ I wanted to know.

‘Well, he didn’t say anything for a while and then he squinched up his face like he was in pain and said that he didn’t want me to move on because he wasn’t ready to move on.’ She rolled her eyes like it was no big deal but I knew it was. I’d seen her face whenever Paul and Mia were in the same room and she looked like her whole world had turned to broken biscuit.

I leaned against the wall and gave her a look to let her know I was on to her. ‘And then?’ I prompted.

‘I just told him that if he was going to be my boyfriend then I wasn’t going to stand for any more of his nonsense. It was quite easy really.’

I was still having trouble understanding all this.

‘But I thought you’d split up…’

‘Nah, we were just taking a break,’ explained Shona impatiently. ‘It was all going really quickly. It’s not like you and Dylan. Within two days of Dylan introducing me and Paul we were having a serious thing. And I needed more time to think things through.’

‘Before you slept with him, you mean,’ I interrupted.

Shona shrugged. ‘Well, it’s a big step to take. I wanted to be really sure about Paul before I made that kind of commitment. And he has got a lot of stuff to make up to me before we get to that step again.’

‘I guess that makes sense. He doesn’t deserve to get your goodies right away,’ I said. ‘So, what about Mia?’

‘What about her?’ snapped Shona. ‘She’s history, she just doesn’t know that she’s history. Yet.’

‘But I thought she and Paul…’

‘Well, you thought wrong, hon,’ Shona said in a kinder voice. ‘Paul and I were only meant to be having a bit of a breather and, next thing I know, Mia’s telling everyone that we’ve split up because Paul’s in love with her! She can’t resist other girls’ boyfriends. I mean, she never fancied Dylan until he started going out with Lilah.’

‘Lilah? That girl who runs the college magazine?’ My heart sank. Lilah was blonde, gorgeous and really, really smart.

‘Hey, remember to breathe, now she’s going out with the guy in that stupid band we saw a few weeks ago. What are they called? The Swimsuits…’

‘Bikini Dust,’ I muttered. ‘So was Dylan really into her?’

Shona rolled her eyes. ‘I wish I hadn’t said anything. It was over ages ago and he couldn’t have been that into her or he wouldn’t have started fooling around with Mia.’

I felt slightly better. ‘I don’t know what they all see in her.’

‘She’s got big tits and she puts out,’ Shona said with a wicked smile.

‘Shona!’

‘Well, it’s true,’ she grinned. ‘So are you cool about me and Paul?’

I nodded.

‘And you’re not going to go up to our room and get depressed about Lilah?’

I shook my head.

‘And are you going to tell me where you got that shocking lovebite from?’

‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ I shrieked before running back into the hotel.

Mia was in the room, sifting through her clothes. Sometimes I think that if you added up all the hours that girls spend looking through their wardrobes each year, you’d have enough time to find a solution to global warming.

I was still hell bent on getting in the bath and I didn’t really want to have anything to do with Mia and I guess she felt the same way too, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. I mean, she was like the poster girl for low self-esteem, hence the constantly chasing after boys, like their approval was the only important thing in her world. And she didn’t know that Paul was about to dump her and, when I thought about it, I realised that she didn’t really have any friends. Then she looked up and sneered at me and I stopped feeling sorry for her.

When I got out of the bath and wandered into the bedroom with a towel wrapped round me, I was a bit freaked out to see Shona, Nat and Trent perched on the bed.

‘You took your time, kid,’ said Shona mock-indignantly, almost knocking me into the wall as she rushed into the bathroom.

‘We’re going to a club after dinner,’ Nat informed me. ‘Martyn says that he doesn’t care what we get up to as long as we don’t get arrested by the gendarmerie.’

‘I’m never going to get into a club,’ I moaned. ‘I can’t even pass for eighteen.’

Nat and Trent thought differently. I swear to God, when I’m rich and famous, I’m going to employ them as my stylists. Half an hour later, I was wearing Shona’s long, silky black Chinese dress with the slits up the side, my hair was twisted and pinned up and the glitter on my face made me look all eyes and cheekbones.

‘Edie, you are
not
wearing your Converses,’ protested Trent. ‘I forbid it.’

‘No, the Converses are OK,’ insisted Nat. ‘Any other footwear would just be too much.’

‘Thank you,’ I said pointedly as I pulled on my pink sneakers. ‘Don’t start arguing,’ I added warningly to Trent.

‘Dylan is gonna lose it when he sees you,’ exclaimed Shona gleefully, emerging from the bathroom. ‘He won’t know where to put himself.’

I paused midway through applying another coat of Cherry Bomb lip-stain.

‘I’m not dressing up like this for Dylan,’ I protested. ‘It’s so I can get into a nightclub.’

‘Yeah, right!’

‘Whatever!’

‘Yuh-ha!’

Sometimes I violently dislike my friends.

Martyn had booked the longest table in the world in this poky French restaurant. I loved it. The walls were covered in leopard skin and had little gold cherubs and red fairylights strung everywhere. Sort of like a distressed fairy grotto.

Shona was trying to subtly organise the seating (which meant that she told Simon to get up off his arse ‘or I’ll kill you’) so Dylan and I were sitting next to each other and her and Paul were opposite. There was one hairy moment when it looked like Mia was going to foul things up but just as she was about to plant her butt in my seat, Martyn called her over and wanted to know why she’d spent the morning in bed instead of soaking up the Parisian culture.

Although the table was long, there were a lot of us and it was a bit of a squash. I could feel Dylan looking at me but I felt inexplicably shy and awkward, probably because last time I’d seen him he’d been kissing me into the wall. It might also have had something to do with his leg pressing against me. I re-adjusted the slit in my dress so I wasn’t flashing a large amount of thigh and then started rearranging my cutlery. I always fidget like mad when I get nervous. Luckily, Nat was sitting on the other side of me.