Growing Up Twice (47 page)
Authors: Rowan Coleman
That’s where Rosie and Selin are. On stage singing backing vocals. I’m certain I haven’t taken any hallucinogenic drugs.
‘Josh, what’s going on? Have I ended up in an episode of
Ally McBeal
?’ I ask him warily. He backs his chair away from me an inch. Coco waves a fantastically manicured hand at me.
‘Because tonight, ladies and gentlemen, the birthday girl is going to sing to you herself!’ My jaw drops and I stare at Coco in horror. She smiles in return.
‘I give you Jenny and the Jennettes!’ The crowd erupts with laughter and applause. My jaw drops to my cleavage and I grip my champagne glass like a drowning woman at a life-jacket. Coco hands me her microphone before I can think to refuse it.
‘Go on, honey, get up there,’ she says with an encouraging smile and a Sheffield accent. I look back at the stage. Rose and Selin have made up a little dance to go with their singing. Selin waves at me and winks, crooking her little finger to beckon me on stage.
‘I am actually going to kill you,’ I say to Josh, jumping when I realise I’m talking into the microphone. The crowd cheers with delight. Josh’s grin is bigger than the Cheshire Cat’s, and his very obvious pleasure makes it hard to be really angry with him. That and the sudden paralysing fear that has gripped my chest.
‘I just wanted you to have the chance to do
all
of the things you said you were going to do by the time you’re thirty. I wanted you to be able to start tomorrow knowing how far you’ve come, to be ready to start a fresh page. With me. So here we are. Go on, your mates are up there waiting for you. You know you can do it.
I
know you can do it.’
I hold the microphone away from my mouth and lean in to him.
‘I
am
going to kill you, but this is the sweetest, most incredible thing that anyone has ever done for me, so I have to warn you, probably right after I’ve embarrassed myself and killed you, I’m very likely to totally fall for you and you’ll never get rid of me.’
His brown eyes hold mine for a second.
‘Warning heeded and ignored. I fell for you a long time ago. Now go!’
I down any dregs of champagne I find and stand up to encouraging applause.
‘Thank God,’ Rosie’s voice comes over the speakers. ‘I thought I was going to go into labour stood here.’
The audience laughs and claps again. I say into the microphone, ‘You won’t be laughing after you’ve heard this. Sorry, Aretha.’
I give the girls the finger as I get on stage, but I’m laughing all the same. I can’t believe I’m about to do this. Jake the Lung catches my eye, asking if I’m ready.
Well, it’s now or never. I’m ready, I nod at him. I take a deep breath and think about the future.
‘R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Find out what it means to me.’
With thanks to Kate Elton and Lizzy Kremer for all their help, support, inspiration and spelling corrections.
Also to my dear friends Jenny Mathews and Rosie Woolley who graciously lent me their names when I couldn’t think of any for two of the characters, and on whom neither namesake is based!
Especial love and thanks to Erol for his unwavering support and belief in me, and last but in no way least to my daughter Lily who grew at more or less the same rate as the book and was born just after its completion. She has made growing up wonderful.
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781473527355
Published by Arrow Books in 2002
5 7 9 10 8 6 4
Copyright © Rowan Coleman 2002
Rowan Coleman has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
First published in the United Kingdom in 2002 by Century
Arrow Books
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780099427681