Primperfect (20 page)

‘You're welcome,' said Steve.

The sky was the kind of dim it is when day is making up its mind whether to go to bed or not. Steve felt like he had made, if not exactly a new friend, then definitely a new not-enemy. Which was almost as good, and maybe even better. It was nice to have fewer enemies, thought Steve, walking barefoot into the party like an old-timey tramp.

Steve walked back into the party. Ciara grabbed her arm. ‘OK. I have had a mad idea. And it might be too mad, and it might make you mad at me, but it might actually be good for both of us.'

‘Hmm?'

‘So, you know how you are conflicted about whether or not you like Robb?'

‘I'm fairly sure I don't like him. I just keep kissing him. I mean, he's grand. I don't mean I don't like him. I just don't …'

‘Want him?'

‘Yes.'

‘OK, so.' Ciara took a swig of pink drink from a little plastic cup like they have at children's birthday parties. ‘I think I should kiss him.'

‘So I don't kiss Syzmon. It would, like, break us up definitively. Once and for all.' She eyed Robb, who was going through the DVD shelf like he owned the place. He might have been alphabetising. He was definitely up to something.

‘Why does everyone want to kiss everyone else?' Steve wondered.

‘Because we are teenagers,' said Ciara, ‘and only get let out on occasion. Things build up.'

‘You only broke up with Syzmon a week and a half ago.'

‘I know. But I've been with him for three years, almost. Oh my God. I've only ever kissed one boy. I could like
DOUBLE
my number.' She eyed Robb again. ‘And he's quite cute.'

Steve the goblin shrugged his shoulders. ‘If you go for that sort of thing.'

‘The ridiculously hot thing?'

‘No. The dissolute-younger-son-of-an earl-who's-probably-going-to-knock-up-the-scullery-maid sort of thing.'

‘You read too much. Am I allowed to kiss him?'

‘Of course you are, but I am worried about your heart and Syzmon's. I am worried it will be a bad move.'

‘It might be.' Ciara adjusted the waistband of her skirt so it sat exactly right. ‘But if you don't move you stagnate and stagnation is death. We are like sharks, Prim. Like sharks.'

‘Um?'

‘I just want to make sure, though,' said Ciara. ‘That I won't be hurting your feelings. Because your feelings are important to me because you are my best friend in the whole world. I know Joel is your best friend, but you are my one.'

‘Oh, Ciara.'

‘So, is it OK?'

I nodded. ‘Yes, but are you sure?'

But she was already gone. Steve the goblin looked after her.

Ella grabbed Steve's arm. ‘Come out to the garden! I have news!'

The garden was obviously the place where news got told. Steve and Ella passed two other huddles, deep in conversation. Things were happening. Dynamic, world-shattering things.

‘So. I asked Caleb if he wanted to do kissing with me and he did. And we did kissing.'

‘Oh. Where?'

‘Prim! Mostly on the face and neck.'

‘No, I mean – in the garden? Where is the kissing place?'

‘We used Syzmon's parents' en-suite bathroom. It was pretty romantic. They have a skylight and little furry toilet-seat covers.'

‘Ooh!'

‘I know, right?'

‘Ciara asked me if she was allowed to kiss Robb with two bees.'

‘She's not allowed to kiss Caleb. We're back together.'

‘Really?'

‘Yes. I asked him if he would be my boyfriend until the twenty-ninth of August.'

‘So, it's like a short-term thing?'

‘Yes. I have plenty of spare time at the moment and I can help him with his ferret and we can go on lovely dates and things. And then, once school starts I'll be busier and I won't want a boyfriend any more.'

‘Right. And he was OK with that?'

‘He was. He likes having me to talk to and hang out with, and we're friends anyway, so it's like we'll just hang out way more and also do kissing.'

‘That sounds really nice.'

‘I know. I'm pretty pleased I thought of it. Anyway, Mam is coming to pick me up in half an hour. So if you want to make a sexy move on Felix, now would be the time.'

‘Ella!'

‘What?'

‘Does it not gross you out that you are basically trying to, like, pimp me to your brother?'

‘No. It would only be gross if I were, like, going to watch or something.'

‘That would be gross.'

‘Very.'

Steve and Ella took a moment to process how disgusting that would be.

‘Steve?'

‘Yes, Ella?'

‘I sometimes wish I could bring Mr Cat to parties. I wish that was, like, a normal thing to do.'

‘I used to wish the same thing about Roderick. Particularly just after Mum.'

‘Do you miss him?'

‘Yes. A lot.'

‘And her as well?'

‘Yeah. I got her diaries on my birthday and I've been reading them, but a diary isn't the same as a mother. It's smaller and full of writing instead of life.'

‘I wish your mum hadn't died.'

‘Me too.'

‘I wonder if we'd still be friends if you hadn't moved in with your dad?'

‘I think we would. I'm fairly sure. Maybe not as close, though.'

‘I like being friends with you.'

‘Me too.'

Syzmon came into the garden. He looked worried.

‘Where is Ciara?'

I was worried that Ella would tell him, but she looked down at the ground the same as me.

‘I think she was over near the DVDs?'

‘With your boyfriend?' he said hopefully.

‘Robb's not my boyfriend.'

‘Oh,' Syzmon said and if you looked up that ‘oh' in the thesaurus a lot of words for really, really sad would have been nestled in beside it.

‘Will you drink with me, my friends?' asked Syzmon.

And Ella said she didn't drink, so he went to get her a Coke instead of cider and Steve the goblin should also have switched to Coke at this point but she didn't because Syzmon brought out blue drink for her, Ciara having absconded to God-knows-where with the pink drink. We all sat down. One of the other huddles had left. The moon was coming out, the sky wasn't exactly a night sky yet, but it was definitely getting there. Days are really long, Steve the goblin thought. It feels like this day should be a night now. It feels like it should be over. But it wasn't. More things were to come. More things always came. Steve was going to be filled with things by the end of the night. Things that she would have to process slowly. More things that she wouldn't be able to process at all, because she couldn't remember them.

(Steve spent the best part of the day after the party sending texts to people along the lines of ‘So … what was
YOUR
favourite memory of me from last night? Because I seem to have lost quite a few of mine.')

But back to the evening, or the young night maybe? Steve the goblin didn't have a watch. Almost ten, perhaps. She hadn't asked anyone for the time during the course of the night, because if the time was important, someone would probably have told her what it was. He, I mean. Steve is a boy's name. Maybe if you are a goblin, it could be a girl's name. Maybe goblin gender is more fluid. Don't be silly, goblins aren't real. Except for Steve, of course.

After a bit of talking about generic summer things, Ella had to go outside to her mum and Syzmon pounced. Steve had known that the pounce would happen. Because, were he in Syzmon's lily-white runners, he would have pounced.

‘Did you know?' asked Syzmon, and if he had been an earl or a sexy Viking it would have been at the point in the novel where a window was behind him and a storm outside was reflecting his feelings and his shirt would have been rumpled and his eyes wild. His eyes were a bit wilder that normal, but Syzmon has very gentle eyes, so it wasn't, like, intimidating or anything. The sad thing is, though, that the ladies in romance novels would usually get back together with their Viking. But Steve didn't think that Ciara would get back with Syzmon. At least not until she was a famous milliner with plenty of stability and time.

‘I did not know,' I said. ‘She rang me after and I was really surprised. I didn't see it coming.'

‘Me neither.' He took a long swig of his drink. ‘It is hard. I see her and I want to touch her and look at her and I am not allowed to. It is very hard.'

‘I know. I mean, I haven't had a relationship as long as you and Ciara, or anything at all important really. But I find it awkward being around Kevin. It is like, normally, you just are you. The normal level of yourself and it is fine. But when confronted by a certain type of person, you find yourself trying to act normal instead of actually being normal. And it is hard.'

‘She misses me,' said Syzmon and his eyes were sad.

‘I know she misses you.'

‘Then why can't we get back together?'

Oh, Syzmon
, thought Steve the goblin.
You do NOT want to go next nor near your parents' en-suite for the foreseeable future.

Steve patted Syzmon's back in an inadequately comforting manner. ‘It'll be OK.'

‘No. It won't. I mean, it won't. Did she tell you why she broke up with me?'

‘Because she would have to eventually and this was easier?'

‘Yes. Isn't that the stupidest thing you have ever heard? I mean, I did not tell her that I thought that she was stupid. Because she gets enough of that at home. But, really? I mean, really? I am her best friend. In the whole world, I am her best friend. And she breaks up with me because she is scared that some day she will have to. That is not good enough. Not good enough at all.'

‘No,' said Steve, because it kind of wasn't.

‘Could you talk to her for me? Ask her why?'

‘The why she told you is why, Syzmon. There is no deeper reason. She didn't do it lightly. She was really upset.'

‘I know she was. But she didn't have to be. I don't have to be feeling any of this. But it's up to her to fix it and I can't make her and it is very hard. I hoped tonight. I shaved my goatee off. I bought new runners.'

He had bought new runners. They shone through the dusk like sporty beacons. I didn't know what to say. So I offered Syzmon blue drink. He was not a fan.

‘It tastes like those horrible iced-pops that come in the plastic tube. The blue kind.'

‘Mr Freezes?' asked Steve.

‘Yes.'

‘I LOVE blue Mr Freezes.' Steve was enthusiastic about Mr Freezes.

‘Then there is no hope for you,' said Syzmon, cracking open another can of cider.

‘There probably isn't much hope for anyone,' said Steve. ‘The world is a dark and terrible place. But there is blue drink and sometimes there are pirate shanties.'

‘What is a shanty?'

‘It's like a song. But piratey. They feature rum a lot. And graves. And Davey Jones's locker'

Steve missed Joel a little. She felt all of her secrets bubbling up inside of her, waiting to spill out, and she wasn't sure she wanted them to. Steve looked at Felix, from across the room, the way a stalker would. At his white throat and the black collar of his T-shirt.
Could I spill my secrets all over you?
Steve thought.
It would feel nice but you would hate me after. Or not hate me, but know how weird I was and, like, avoid me.
Steve was a realistic goblin. She had been very sensible, apart from the binge drinking.

The devil cornered Steve upon the stairs. How Steve got from the garden to the stairs is kind of a mystery. The first blank patch in a night that's dipped in bleach.

‘Your friend Ciara is trying to score your boyfriend,' stated the devil.

‘He's not my boyfriend,' said Steve

‘Oh,' said Robb. ‘I kind of hoped I was'

Steve smiled at Robb, and then almost fell over.

‘If you were my boyfriend, then you wouldn't be kissing Ciara,' she explained.

Robb's bottom lip did that thing where it tenses as though offended. ‘I'm not.'

‘If you were my boyfriend, then I wouldn't fancy other boys,' Steve offered in what she hoped was an arch manner.

‘That's not a thing that happens. You don't, like, flick a switch and stop fancying people just because you're going out with someone. I fancy other people. I fancy her a bit,' said Robb, pointing at the devil.

‘No you don't. She is the actual devil. I punched her in her devil face before. And I'd do it again.'

The devil began to weave her way downstairs.

‘Really?'

‘In a heartbeat. I'm really good at punching people now. Dad gave me lessons. I used to do kissing with Kevin, you know.'

‘I didn't know. Kevin with the shell necklace and the girlfriend with the laugh?' Robb said ‘shell necklace' the way some people say ‘boob job'.