Ibiza Summer (5 page)

unlight streamed in through the window the next morning, giving the bedroom a soft glow and making me feel instantly
alive and happy. I rubbed my eyes and looked at my phone, which I’d placed on the little table next to my bed so that it was close and I would hear it immediately if it beeped.
If
it
beeped. There were no messages.

It’s early,
I thought to myself.
Don’t stress, Izzy, don’t stress.
But I knew the only thing on my mind that day would be him and the fact that he’d said
he’d call.

It was pointless staying in bed. I was too full of nervous excitement, so I got up and padded quietly over to the doors that led to the balcony, so as not to wake Ellie, who was asleep in the
bed next to me. I squinted as I stepped out on to the cool tiled floor. The sunlight was bright and the sky already blue and cloudless. I leaned over the balcony and took in a lungful of air as I
yawned.

Although the apartment actually belonged to a friend of Narinda’s family, she had not, as you might have thought, pulled rank and nabbed the best bedroom for herself. Instead we had tossed
a coin to see who was going to sleep where and it transpired that I would be sharing with Ellie. I couldn’t help but think that Ellie felt like she’d drawn the short straw. She had come
on holiday to be with her friends, gossip about men and life and people they knew and stuff – not share a room with her little sister with whom, genetics aside, she had little in common with
these days.

I wasn’t entirely sure why Ellie had invited me to Ibiza in the first place. I knew it was on the pretext of it being my birthday soon and that this was sort of like her present to me, but
I felt sure Mum had played a big part in goading her into bringing me.

I had always thought Ellie was the coolest since I was little. She taught me how to French skip, ride a bicycle and to apply mascara for the first time. My mum delights in reminding me of this
one time when I was seven years old – I cried for three days solid because Ellie had gone to stay with a family friend for a long weekend. According to Jackson family legend, for that’s
what this story had now become, I had insisted on wearing a T-shirt that belonged to Ellie in protest at being kept from her – even sleeping in it and refusing to take it off until she had
safely returned. I doted on her.

Then when Dad died it was as if I’d lost a sister as well. Ellie was seventeen at the time and had found a new state of independence, namely in the form of a clapped-out old Citroën
2CV car that Mum and Dad had bought for her on her seventeenth birthday. When she wasn’t zipping off with her friends, she was hidden behind her bedroom door, studying or spending hours
putting on make-up with her mates just to go to the cinema.

It wasn’t that she was ever horrible to me; it was just that as her life progressed into adulthood and – as I was now beginning to experience – the complications that this
brought with it, she sort of forgot I was there, and I could only watch her breeze in and out of our house, always doing something and going somewhere fabulous, none of which involved me.

Rejected, I found myself coming up with elaborate ways to get her attention; I’d paint her pictures and make her collages out of pop-star photos that I found in magazines to try and
impress her (hey, I was only eleven at the time, OK?) and if that didn’t work I’d steal something from her bedroom so that she would
have
to talk to me, because being shouted at
was preferable to being ignored. Sometimes I would sneak into her bedroom when she wasn’t around and snoop about. Back then, Ellie’s room was a place of forbidden pleasure and delight
for me. The make-up and bottles of perfume that cluttered the small dressing table with the mirror; the pop-star posters adorning every inch of wall space; and, best of all, her underwear drawer
filled with bras and expensive-looking lingerie (that probably weren’t that expensive at all looking back). Ellie’s room hinted at what life would one day be like for me, and this
filled me with apprehension and excitement. The conversations I would have, the boys I would kiss, how I would sympathise with my girlfriends when they’d been cruelly dumped (clearly a
predicament that would never happen to me) and how I would cheer them up by giving them a makeover.

Naturally, none of what I was feeling went unnoticed by our beady-eyed, annoyingly astute mum. ‘As you get older,’ Mum had said, putting a comforting arm round my shoulders,
‘you will catch up with her. And one day, when you’re much older, you’ll be best friends again,’ she had reassured me, softly.

Now, on my first holiday alone with my sister – in Ibiza no less – I wanted to feel as though I’d finally arrived at that catch-up point. I knew this was my opportunity to show
Ellie how much I had changed and who I had become. I wanted her to see that I could be clever and witty too, ‘one of the girls’, a bona fide member of the ‘Ellie Jackson Hip Girl
Squad’ who had earned her rightful stripes. Only I didn’t feel like that at all. I was simply Ellie’s little sister, Izzy, and nothing had changed.

I relaxed on to one of the sun loungers on the balcony and found myself inadvertently smiling. The previous night’s events were still running through my head and I
wondered if it was too early to call Willow. I was desperate to tell her all about last night: the villa, the people, the music and – and Rex.
Oh God
,
Rex.
Just thinking about
him made my skin tingle all over.

I had felt different since our meeting, lighter and more positive somehow. It was as if I was suddenly full of energy and vitality, high on life. Perhaps this was how you felt when you fell in
love – but you can’t fall in love after just five minutes of conversation with someone, can you?

I pulled my phone out of my robe pocket – it was coming everywhere with me today – and pressed Willow’s number. I knew it was early to call, but being the gossip freak that she
is, I figured she’d be so blown away by all my news that she’d soon forget it was only eight a.m.

‘Wils?’

‘Euuurggh . . .’ there was a groaning sound as she picked up the phone.

‘Wils, it’s me – Izzy.’ I found myself whispering so as not to wake Ellie.

‘Iz – is that you?’ Her voiced sounded croaky, like voices tend to do first thing in the morning. ‘Oh my God, Iz, babes!’ I heard a muffled noise like she was
scrabbling around for something. ‘Jeez, Iz! It’s seven in the morning!’

‘Wils, look, I’m sorry, shall I call you back? I totally forgot about the time difference and everything.’

‘I’m awake now, you cow!’ she said, and I imagined her sitting up in bed, not a hair out of place as usual. ‘So, come on then, how’s the party capital of the earth?
Been clubbing yet? Is it, like, full of dead-fit boys? Tell all, I’m
dying
here!’ She made a fake choking sound as if she was being strangled.

‘We went to a private pool party at a huge villa last night,’ I blathered excitedly, realising in my awestruck state that I had forgotten to take some pictures on my phone and send
them to her. ‘It was just the coolest thing
ever.
Everyone there looked so amazing and the music was brilliant – some of the best DJs in Ibiza were playing. And there was this
huge great swimming pool in the middle of it all, and later on in the night people stripped down to their underwear and bikinis – can you believe it? – and just dived in. It was crazy,
and we didn’t come home until three a.m. and —’

‘Slow down!’ Willow shrieked. ‘I’m lost already!’

It felt weird talking to Willow like this because, as a general rule, it was her who always had the amazing stories to tell. It was like our roles had been reversed, and I sensed that she felt
odd about this too.

‘So what are your plans today then?’ she sighed. ‘Slink around the pool, get a tan, and watch lots of fit lads playing volleyball on the beach?’

‘Got to fit in with Ellie and that, I suppose. But I definitely hope to make it to the beach.’

Oh God. The beach. Would he really phone me?

‘Must be bloody brilliant not having any parents around,’ she mused.

There was a slight pause and then she said quietly: ‘Joe and I are back on.’

This was not good news and I felt my heart sink. Since Wils had discovered about this girl Joe had been texting behind her back and dumped him, she had sworn she would rather sit
my
exams
as well as her own before she would ever get back with him. But Joe knew which buttons to press to get back in her good books. He’d give her his sad eyes and promise he would treat her better
and gradually he’d chip away at her until she would cave in. Willow was really just a big softy at heart.

‘That’s cool,’ I said, although I knew she could probably tell I didn’t really mean it. I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d have ever got back with him if
I’d have still been at home. Perhaps I could’ve talked her out of it, counteracted his ‘I’ll never mess you around again’ speech by reminding her of all the times
he’d let her down and put her second. I felt as though by not being there, to support her in her moments of weakness, I had let her down.

‘Maybe it’ll be different this time round,’ I said optimistically, wanting to be happy for her.

‘Yeah, maybe,’ she said, unconvincingly. ‘Anyway, you’ve got to keep me updated on the holiday. I want to know
everything
that happens, especially boy-wise,’
she demanded.

‘That reminds me,’ I said, sensing now was the right time to tell her about
him.

But all of a sudden my phone made this strange bleeping noise.

‘Wils —’
beep, beep, beep
‘I think I’m in lo—’ I said, as the line went dead.

llie was stretched out on a sun lounger, looking typically gorgeous, as Louisa rubbed sun lotion on to her back.

‘We’re staying here for a while and then maybe heading off to the beach,’ Ellie said, pushing her sunglasses back off of her face and squinting up at me. ‘Fancy
coming?’

The midday sun was beating down hard and the tiles felt hot under my feet.

‘I need to find a shop that sells phone credit,’ I replied, ignoring her earlier question – not out of rudeness, but because I wanted to keep my options open in case Rex had
other plans. ‘Can I get you guys anything while I’m there?’

‘I think the shop down the road sells phone credit,’ piped up Charlotte, who was carefully rubbing oil on to her long legs and adjusting her colourful headscarf.

‘Thanks,’ I said as I pulled on an old T-shirt and quickly wrapped a sarong around my waist. I
had
to get to the shops. What if he texted me or left a message and I
couldn’t retrieve it because I had no credit? This was a total disaster. He might think I was blanking him.

I skipped down the steps and on to the main street towards the local parade of shops.

San Antonio, where we were staying, was buzzing with people on their way to or from the beach; groups of girls looking tanned and sexy in their minuscule bikinis and shorts hung outside the
cafés that littered the main drag, and guys on mopeds sped past beeping at them and waving.

I didn’t want to go too far as I was worried I might not be able to find my way back to the apartment, so I walked up a bit towards the shop that was selling crazy lilos in the shape of
crocodiles and bananas.