Diary of a Grace (2 page)

The Vaccines were cool and Poppy, Jesse and Dylan disappeared into the mosh pit so she stopped bugging me, which was even cooler, but I was on my own again. I wondered if I should have gone out with Jack instead, but after the gig when we were standing round outside, the boy with the freckle was suddenly in front of me. God, he was so fine.

‘Can I ring you?’ he said and gave me his mobile phone.

As I tapped in my number I realised that Marianne from college was standing three feet away with her jaw practically dragging on the ground.

I handed back the phone and the boy looked at me expectantly. ‘Don’t you want to know my name?’

I nodded.

He grinned. ‘I’m Dan,’ he said, and suddenly leant down and kissed the corner of my mouth. ‘I’ll call you,’ he promised before walking off.

I can’t stop touching the spot where his lips made contact. I never knew nodding could be so effective.

Dan hasn’t called yet but Jack finally asked me to go with him to a Halloween party. He didn’t say it was a date but it was so near to being a date that Poppy said I should just call it one. But the party was a bust, everyone was wearing a sexy costume, and Jack was acting wiggy. He kept opening his mouth to say something and then thinking better of it. I knew I shouldn’t have gone as a zombie Roller Derby girl. I don’t think Jack got it. I think he thought I looked even more of a geek than usual but at least I didn’t just parade about in a bra top, bootie shorts and a witch’s hat or cat ears like some of the girls there.

He went to get me a drink, which was when I saw Dan coming through the door. I pretended not to see him but next thing I knew he was coming over.

‘Hi,’ he said like he was really pleased to see me. ‘I’ve been psyching myself up to call you.’

Why would anyone need to psych themselves up to call me?

‘I’m not scary,’ I muttered but Dan was looking at me and frowning again.

‘Are you a zombie Roller Derby girl?’

I was back to nodding. ‘Y’know, my sister plays for the Checkerbroads, we should go next time they have a bout.’

Again with the nodding.

But then his friend called him and he disappeared and suddenly Jack was standing in front of me.

‘I know I’ve been weird,’ he announced. ‘But I’ve been thinking that we should kiss and I’ve decided that that’s what I’m going to do.’

And before I could nod or not nod, Jack pressed his lips against mine for a count of ten and then let me go.

Since we kissed, Jack seems to think we’re going out with each other. But I think that seeing a boy seems way less scary than going out with a boy. And anyway, it was less a kiss and more Jack pressing his lips against mine for a few seconds. His lips felt nice. But there has to be more to this whole boy/girl thing than
nice
.

Meanwhile Dan and I have been in a texting frenzy since the party. I can be funny and, more importantly, a girl of few words via the medium of texting. Although really I don’t approve of text speak. There’s something really depressing about people spelling badly on purpose. Something’s going to happen soon, I mean with me and Dan. I can feel it.

I was standing outside HMV waiting for Jack to stop pretending he wanted to buy something cool when really he needed an excuse to gaze dreamily at the Rihanna album when Dan texted me.

‘Roller Derby on Sat. U up for it?’ I glanced through the window to see Jack still Rihanna-watching and nibbled my lip. Were we dating? Or were we seeing each other? Or were we none of the above? And it was just to see ten girls knock the crap out of each other on skates. It wasn’t romantic or anything.

I texted back: ‘OK.’ See what I mean about the few words?

‘Meet U at the station at 7.’

Once again I texted back. ‘OK. C U there.’

‘Who you texting?’ Jack wanted to know as he came out of HMV and there was no reason why I couldn’t have told him the truth but it was easier to mutter something about Atsuko and rehearsals.

Jack kissed me at the bus-stop. He didn’t announce it beforehand this time, which was good but he doesn’t know what to do and I don’t know what to do and it’s just lips touching lips and not much else.

Dan was waiting for me outside the station. He liked my American diner waitress dress and jeans combo, said it was boss and smiled slightly. I’d forgotten about the little freckle on his chin that makes him look dangerous and vulnerable at the same time. Atsuko and Darby would definitely think he was sexy.

When we got to the Roller Derby bout Dan paid for my ticket and my bottle of water and when we sat down, he put an arm round my shoulders. As he absently stroked my arm with the tips of his fingers I wondered if maybe he’d got me confused with someone else, but then the bout started and it was really exciting and I stopped worrying because Dan was too busy shouting and punching the air each time the Checkerbroads scored.

Then outside the venue he took my hand and asked me what I thought about the bout.

That’s the great thing about going to see something – there’s stuff to talk about afterwards as you share a squidgy sofa in Caffé Nero.

After we’d discussed the Roller Derby and the band and comics and whether sarcasm is an attractive trait, I realised that Dan was staring at my mouth really intently. I wondered whether I had a coffee ’tache and tried to surreptitiously poke at my upper lip and then Dan was leaning in and kissing me.

It was then I realised I’d never really been kissed before. Not properly. Because when Dan gently coaxed my mouth open so he could slide his tongue inside and pulled me closer to him so he could cradle my face in his hands, I didn’t know what to do. So I just copied him. It seemed to work because these two girls at the table next to us told us to go book a room.

Dan walked me to the minicab office and every time we came to an empty shop doorway, he’d pull me in and ravish my mouth again and I felt all tingly.
And
he said I was ‘hot’. Me! Hot! It was wonderful!!!!

I’m so down. Dan hasn’t rung or texted me or anything.

Dan still AWOL. What did I do wrong?

It looks like I’m never going to hear from Dan again so I agreed to go to a club with Jack who I’ve sort of been avoiding lately. We had a good time though we didn’t really talk or anything and Jack won’t dance. I don’t mind dancing. Dancing is way easier than having to make conversation.

Then when it came to the lip pressing part of the evening, I decided to practise my new technique. Jack seemed thrown by the whole tongue thing but he quickly got the hang of it. It was much, much, much better than before.

‘Where did you learn that?’ Jack asked suspiciously when we came up for air but I couldn’t tell him, so I just shrugged and reached up to kiss him again because there was definite sparkage.

If Dan isn’t going to call and the whole Jack situation has suddenly become thrilling then it’s all worked out OK. Hasn’t it?

Mum wanted me to come straight home tonight to talk about Christmas. (Like, what’s to talk about? It’s Christmas!) But Jack and I walked home together and ended up in a clinch outside Smith’s. I was dimly aware of a furious hooting but I thought it was a random road rage incident until my mum suddenly slapped me and Jack upside our heads and dragged me carwards. She says a) that she brought me up much better than that and b) I’m grounded for a month. My life sucks!

I can’t believe Mum hasn’t relented. I’ve seen Jesse and Poppy practically doing it in the kitchen when they’re meant to be cooking dinner and nobody batted an eyelid.

I take back all the mean things I’ve said about Poppy. She’s managed to get the grounding revoked.

‘It’s Christmas, Mum,’ she yelled, when she came round to get her washing done. ‘You can’t ground her. I mean, it’s inhumane.’

I was starting to have warm, fuzzy thoughts about Poppy but she ruined it by adding, ‘We’re booked to play a gig on New Year’s Eve. How am I meant to explain to the promoter that the guitarist has been sent to her room until January?’

Anyway, it worked. Although Jack is banned from coming within a mile of me and I have to wash up after Christmas lunch but that I can deal with.

I’ve just eaten my body weight in Quality Street at Edie’s ‘anti-Christmas party’. She reckoned that post-Turkey, nothing decent ever happens and invited everyone round for Twister (oooh, I have bad memories of her Twister mat) and Death Metal charades.

It was weird. Edie and Dylan seem slightly separate from us these days. I mean, they’re still super-lovely but Edie is distant, like her mind is somewhere else and all Dylan’s energy is focussed on getting out of Manchester and being with Edie.

So it was meant to be anti-Christmas but Darby suddenly produced a sprig of mistletoe and though Jack was visiting his grand-’rents in Chester there seemed to be no shortage of boys who came at me with their lips puckered. Dylan gave me an uncle-style peck on the cheek but there were Jesse’s bandmates and Will and Rob from the record shop and Atsuko’s brother. I realised that the way a boy kisses is as individual as the way he does his hair. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. And you don’t have to be absolutely crushing on a boy to enjoy the kissing. It was, like, a major revelation.

We saw in the New Year live on stage, which was cool ’cause last year I had to persuade Mum to even let me stay up. All this silver glitter dropped down on us and Jesse leapt on stage to snog Poppy. I had to make do with hugging Darby, and Edie who was doing a special guest spot. After we finished I could see Jack waiting outside the dressing room for me and I knew that he’d pull me into the darkened alcove behind the stage so we could get gropey for a couple of hours. But it seemed like a waste, you know? There were all these other boys with equally effective lips and hands.

I knew what to do, I mean, I’d seen Darby and Atsuko in action enough times. You just go over to a boy you like and smile mysteriously and ask if you can have a sip of his drink. The first boy told me to go and buy my own and the second boy tried to stick his tongue down my throat within two seconds but the third boy (who looked a bit like Fazer from NDubz) smiled back and handed me his glass. I didn’t know his name, I didn’t need to. I sat on his lap and took baby sips of his drink while he traced circles on my back with the tip of his finger. Then I took little baby sips of his mouth and still he made patterns on my back. I felt spangly and light-headed and it was all because of what his mouth was doing with my mouth. When he drew back, we smiled at each other and I stood up and walked away. It was so easy.

As I was re-applying my lip gloss in the Ladies, Edie cornered me.

‘I thought you and Jack were seeing each other,’ she said accusingly.

I shrugged. ‘Mum thinks he’s a bad influence.’

Edie raised her eyebrows at the idea that Jack could ever be a bad influence on someone.

‘Who was that boy you were kissing?’ she demanded.

I smiled dreamily. ‘Oh Edie, he was just a random boy. Haven’t you ever wanted to just kiss someone and not have to do all that awkward talking stuff?’

Edie shook her head. ‘You can’t go round kissing stray boys. Kisses always have consequences. Always,’ she warned darkly.

Jack and I still see each other at college and sometimes I let him kiss me but mostly I’ve been hanging out a lot with Darby and Atsuko. They’ve been teaching me stuff. Like using serum on my hair so it’s not such a wild mess and that on-stage clothes and college clothes should be the same thing. And, most importantly, how to kiss boys and get away with it. No muss, no fuss.

Mum lifted her Jack ban and made me invite him round for dinner. I think she thinks we’re ‘dating’. She just doesn’t get that we’re only hanging out. Then she made a big deal about letting him go up to my room so we could listen to music but we had to keep the door open. It was so lame. Except only hanging out with Jack was not lame. He helped me with my Sociology coursework and he was wearing his Abercrombie hoodie and for a few minutes I thought that maybe we should see each other in an exclusive, proper way but then he ruined it.

‘Do you like Rihanna, Gracie?’ he suddenly asked. ‘I mean she is a really good singer, isn’t she?’

‘You only think that ’cause she’s sexy,’ I snapped. ‘If I suddenly said I liked Justin Bieber because he writes really insightful songs, you’d call me a teenybopper.’

Then he got all huffy and left.

After rehearsal I went clubbing with Darby and Atsuko. ’Cept when you go out with them you pretty much have to fend for yourself after five minutes ’cause they’re usually glomming on random guys. I bumped into a boy who had been at Edie’s anti- Christmas party. We were slouching against a pillar kinda nuzzling each other when I felt someone looming over me. It was very distracting. I glanced up to see Dylan looking absolutely furious. The boy I was nuzzling opened his mouth to say something, thought better of it and sidled off. Dylan grabbed my wrist and dragged me into the corridor by the loos.

‘What the hell do you think you were doing?’ he began angrily. ‘What about Jack?’

I shrugged. ‘Jack and I are just friends,’ I said in a tiny voice ’cause Dylan was being all thin-lipped and flary nostrils and it was scary.