‘No, you don’t,’ Michael said grumpily as he made a token effort to free himself. He wasn’t even trying. ‘I do have some mystery.’
‘You don’t. You really don’t.’ I gasped slightly because now Michael was trying to break free from my puny hold. ‘You have zero mystery. Besides, mystery is totes overrated.’
Sure, Michael might have had a few issues courtesy of his control freak mum and his insane need to be liked by everyone, but he was pretty much an open book. Not even a book with a lot of long words.
‘You’re such a bitch sometimes,’ Michael grunted as he flipped us so he was on top and I was squirming on the bottom. ‘You don’t know everything. Like, you don’t even know what I’m thinking right now.’
But I did. He was holding me down with his body and I was wriggling to get free and it was suddenly very obvious exactly what he was thinking about. I didn’t need to say anything; I just smiled knowingly. And, yes, I knew exactly what the next words out of his mouth were going to be.
‘Well, apart from that, I bet you don’t know what I’m thinking about.’
‘How much you’d like to kill me at this particular point in time and how did you ever get mixed up with a mixed-up girl like me blah blah bloody blah,’ I said in a singsong voice.
He kissed me then and his kisses chased the last of my blues away and he’d been solid and dependable and rock-like and utterly boyfriend-able during the evening’s awfulness with added bits of awful. Instead of winding Michael up, I should have been thinking of ways to repay his kindness.
Then Michael stopped holding me down and just held me and his kisses got sweeter and fiercer and it was all I could do to kiss him just as fiercely and payback was going to be impossible until, as Michael tore his mouth away from mine so he could get some air, I had my best idea ever.
‘Come to New York with me!’ I panted. ‘My treat!’
‘What?’ He tried to kiss me again, but I warded him off. ‘Come on, give me another kiss.’
‘No kisses right now. I’m serious. I’m speaking at a conference in New York in a fortnight and you’re so coming with me.’
Michael shook his head. ‘I am so not coming with you. New York in two weeks’ time? Are you freaking crazy?’
‘Never been saner. Come to New York! It will be fun!’
I was laughing. Michael was laughing too, even as he shook his head. ‘No!’
‘Yes!’
‘No!’
‘Yes! You know that secretly you want to.’
‘No! Never! Not in a million years. Now shut up and kiss me or go home.’
I kissed him, but we weren’t done with the conversation. I knew that within twenty-four hours, Michael would come round to my way of thinking. People always did.
24
‘Michael, you’re coming to New York. End of. I swapped my business class seat on Virgin Atlantic for two premium economy ones. Does my sacrifice mean nothing? Does it? What kind of unfeeling brute are you?’
I thought Jeane was being her usual melodramatic self when she’d claimed that she’d badgered her parents into getting a divorce but after five days of being badgered, pestered and nagged, I was beginning to believe her.
I’d told Jeane that there was no way, not even if the Rapture was imminent, that my parents would let me go to New York with her for the weekend. Never even mind taking the Friday off school – I might just as well ask if I could go to the moon. I had to ask my parents’ permission before I took something from the fridge.
Of course when I’d told Jeane this, after paraphrasing so I didn’t sound like a complete loser, she’d looked appalled.
‘For God’s sake, why can’t you just lie to them like a normal teenager? I’ll tell you what to say. It’s not rocket science, Michael.’
I’d often wondered how Jeane managed to run her dork empire when her life was so chaotic and disorganised until she emailed me a bullet-pointed action plan.
Your New York Checklist
Tell your parents that you’re going to look at a university over that weekend. You must have an older friend who managed to get on to a degree course. Pretend you’re going to stay with him. Have checked your timetable, you hardly have anything on Friday – just Comp Sci and Maths. Quelle boring.
I also need to register you for the conference. TBH, most of the other speakers will probably be deathly dull. But I won’t be deathly dull, I promise. I will do exciting things via the medium of PowerPoint and video.
You can’t take liquid in large quantities in your hand luggage so you’ll have to put your hair gunk in your suitcase. Or better yet see if you can manage without it for a weekend. I’m not sure that strange cockscomb thing usually seen on middle-aged lesbians is going to cut it in New York. Just saying …
I need your passport deets for the ticket. Also what kind of meal do you want? I thought I’d mix things up and go for the kosher option.
You need to log on to this website and fill in a US visa waiver form NOW. It has to be done at LEAST three days before you enter the States, otherwise you’ll either be put on the first plane back to London (can you say ‘expensive’?) or be arrested at gunpoint, possibly with the assistance of some snarly dogs, and detained in an illegal aliens prison-type place (which would be a major bummer).
You also need to call your mobile phone company and get them to turn off your voicemail. Also, turn off international roaming on your phone otherwise it’ll cost you ££££££s. Don’t worry, I’ll remind you at half-hour intervals until you do it.
I’m sure there was other stuff you need to do. I’ll get back to you.
Now it was eight days until Jeane jetted to New York and she’d redoubled her efforts. Her efforts had been pretty nonstop anyway so redoubling them meant there wasn’t a spare moment when she shut up about bloody New bloody York.
‘Don’t you want me to go because I actually want to go, not because you’ve nagged me into going?’ I asked Jeane.
We were in the stationery cupboard tucked away at the back of the upper school basement. I don’t know where Jeane had got the key from and I also never knew that the school had so many hidden spots where we could sneak away for a kiss and a cuddle. It was only ever a kiss and a cuddle (and maybe a little unbuttoning) on school premises, but today Jeane had lured me to the cupboard under false pretences.
We’d only had ten minutes of kissing before she pushed me away and started on her New York nagathon.
Now she swung herself up on a broken filing cabinet and gave me a stern look. ‘I don’t care what makes you go to New York, as long as you go. Why are you being such a drag about this? It’s so boring.’
‘If I’m so boring then you won’t want me tagging along for three days.’
‘I didn’t say you were boring, I said the situation was boring, and technically it would be four days, but that’s all right. Just tell your parents that you’re coming back from seeing your old football-playing friend at his place of higher learning really early on Monday morning and you’ll go straight to school.’ She tilted her chin defiantly. She never tilted her chin in any other way. ‘Really, what could be simpler than that?’
‘Open heart surgery would be simpler. Have you met my mother?’
Jeane grumbled something under her breath and pouted. Some girls broke your heart when they pouted but Jeane just looked bad-tempered and sulky. ‘We both know that you’re going to give in eventually sooner or later and it would be much more convenient for me if it was sooner.’
I took a step towards the door. ‘One more word about New York and I’m out of here.’
‘But secretly you’d love to go to New York with me, wouldn’t you? Just admit it.’
This time I took three steps towards the door. ‘I’ve had enough of this.’
‘OK! OK! I promise I won’t talk about you-know-what for a whole ten minutes.’
‘You can’t go ten seconds without talking about it.’
I turned round to see her pouting again
. ‘I can if you’re kissing me.’
And when she put it like that, and there was still a good half hour before afternoon lessons and I’d already bolted down my lunch, kissing Jeane was much more fun than storming off in a huff.
Sat on top of the filing cabinet, Jeane was taller than me for once, which made for an interesting adjustment as I had to stretch to reach her mouth and she wrapped her legs, adorned in red and blue striped tights, around my chest to pull me in closer. I didn’t even care that one of the drawer handles was digging into my stomach.
‘You’re such a pretty boy,’ Jeane whispered and I should have been offended and pulling away because, Christ, no boy wants to be called pretty, but she sounded, I don’t know, wistful and like she was completely down with the whole pretty thing, so I let it go just this once.
Jeane shivered when I kissed her mouth. Then I kissed a path along her cheek, pausing to nip her earlobe before I started kissing her neck. She always smelt so good, of figs and vanilla and baby lotion, particularly this spot where her pulse thundered away and she was extra ticklish so it always made her squirm and giggle.
‘You’re so cute when you’re like this,’ I told her and she dug her knees into my ribs.
‘Piss off. I am not cute. Cute is not what I aim for.’
‘Tough. You’re cute. Deal with it.’
‘Oh, shut up and kiss me.’
I was just shutting up and kissing her when I thought I heard something outside, but I’d just succeeded in undoing the third button on Jeane’s dress so I wasn’t really paying attention, especially as she was wriggling to get even closer to me.
But I was definitely paying attention when the door handle rattled and I heard Barney say, ‘Sometimes she hides out in here. She has a secret stash of Haribo tucked away in a box of A3 paper. Oh! Door’s unlocked.’
Jeane and I were still pulling away from each other as Barney, closely followed by Scarlett, burst into the cupboard and they both said, ‘What the …?’ in perfect unison, which would have been funny if Jeane didn’t still have her legs wrapped round me and her dress unbuttoned and my hoodie and jumper were slung over a broken fan.
It was the most awful silence I’d ever known. It felt as if it lasted for centuries, but it was only about a minute until Jeane had done up her dress, folded her arms and said, ‘Well, this is awkward.’
Barney looked at me, then he looked at Jeane, then he looked at me again. ‘What is going on? I mean, why? Like, you two? This is so weird.’
‘It’s not that weird,’ I snapped as I retrieved my jumper and pulled it over my head because Scarlett had averted her eyes and I wasn’t sure if it was because she’d seen me and Jeane pretty much having sex with most of our clothes on or she was still as disturbed by my body as she had been when we were dating. ‘We go to the same school and we live in the same area and we’re kinda the same age. We have loads in common.’
‘We have nothing in common,’ Jeane piped up and crushed that little bit of my ego that had remained intact despite her best efforts to destroy it. ‘Michael thinks I’m a bossy, badly dressed freakazoid and I think he’s just a pretty face and not much substance. What we’re doing doesn’t mean anything and if either of you tell anyone about this …’ She paused. ‘You know how I’ve made you cry twice in English, Scar?’
Scarlett nodded. She still hadn’t regained the power of speech and my ego was now officially dead, no hope of a cure. Jeane was such a bitch.
‘Well, I can make you cry like that every day for the rest of your school career,’ Jeane continued. ‘I don’t want to but I will if I hear any talk that links me and Michael. If I even hear us mentioned in the same sentence. Got it?’
‘Like anyone would ever believe it,’ Scarlett gasped. ‘I saw it with my own eyes, and my brain … I can’t deal with this.’
None of us could deal with it. Barney was glaring at Jeane because she’d been mean to Scarlett. Scarlett was glaring at Jeane because she’d just been threatened and I was glaring at Jeane because she had zero respect for me. And have I mentioned the fact that she was a bitch?
Jeane wasn’t glaring at anyone. She swung her legs and seemed as if she was deep in thought. Suddenly she looked up, yelped, then jumped down from her perch.
‘Barnster, you’re a genius!’ she exclaimed as she dropped to her knees and started rummaging among the dusty boxes. ‘I’d totes forgotten I had some Haribo tucked away in here. I missed lunch and I’m ravenous.’ She pulled out a bag of sweets. ‘Though what I was thinking when I bought Milky Mix, I don’t know. Not Haribo’s finest moment.’
It was classic Jeane. Create a diversion. Go off on a tangent. Be kooky. That way everyone forgot why they were mad at her – Scarlett was actually digging into the bag of Milky Mix that Jeane proffered.
I started to laugh. Jeane drove me mad and there were lots of times that I didn’t like her very much but she was the one part of my life that never went to plan and I knew then that I would go to New York with her, not because she’d worn me down but because it would be fun. Jeane was really good at making me have fun.
‘I don’t know why you’re laughing,’ Barney grumbled, because he was still mad at Jeane. ‘None of this is funny.’
I wondered if Barney still had a thing for Jeane, but he probably didn’t because he grabbed Scarlett’s hand and started walking her to the door. ‘If you make Scar feel even a bit sad, there’s going to be trouble,’ he warned in a very un-Barney-like way.
‘It’s OK, Barns, I can look after myself,’ Scarlett said, which was patently not true. ‘Anyway, I’m not going to say anything. Not because I’m scared but because I don’t want to think about what I’ve just seen ever again.’
And with that they were gone and it was just Jeane and me left. She was doggedly chewing on her Haribo, which were no substitute for a lunchtime sandwich, and she held up her hand to indicate that she wanted to speak once she was done masticating.
‘I don’t think you’re just a pretty face,’ she said eventually. ‘I know there’s more to you than that but I could hardly tell Barney and Scarlett that. It would make things even more complicated. It’s best they think it’s just to do with our hormones.’
‘Oh, so I do have some substance then, do I?’ I asked, because this was as close as Jeane would ever get to an apology and I was determined to drag it out for as long as possible.
‘I just said so, didn’t I?’ She held up a thumb and a forefinger, a tiny gap between them. ‘About this much, I reckon.’
‘At least I have style,’ I said teasingly. ‘And by the way, Pippi Longstocking called, she wants her DNA back.’
Jeane put her hand to her heart and pulled a face. ‘Ouch. First, I don’t look anything like Pippi fricking Longstocking and, hello! The guy who buys all his clothes from shops that pipe out foul-smelling perfume and don’t do real people sizes is dissing my dress sense? I don’t think so.’
‘Sorry that my clothes cause you so much pain. Probably best if we keep on pretending that we don’t know each other in New York – that way if we bump into someone you know, I won’t cause you any embarrassment.’
‘Oh, I’ll just say that you’re my special-needs cousin or something,’ Jeane assured me, and I waited while she rewound what I just said, played it back and then went all googly-eyed and gormless.
Jeane Smith. Speechless. God, I was good.
She pointed at herself, then at me, with one shaking finger.
‘Yes, Jeane. You and me go to New York together,’ I said slowly and loudly as if she wasn’t very bright and English wasn’t her first language. Her facial expression, caught somewhere between glee and a scowl, was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen and I started laughing again.
I laughed until she stamped on my foot.
25
I’d half wondered if he’d back out at the last moment or confess everything to his parents, but, at 2 p.m. on Friday, Michael was sitting next to me on the Virgin flight from Heathrow to JFK, and,
once they’d done the safety announcement and we were taxiing down the runway, he turned to me with a grin that made my heart genuinely skip a beat, though normally my heart doesn’t do stupid stuff like that.
‘Oh my God! I’m going to New York,’ he said. ‘It didn’t seem real before but now we’re about to take off, I’m getting proper excited.’
‘Hallelujah,’ I said. ‘Because mostly you’ve been stressed out about the whole thing.’
‘Yeah, well, you’ve been making me stressed out. Even after I said I was coming you still kept sending me those checklists.’ Michael pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his jeans pocket. ‘I could have worked out how many pairs of socks I needed for four days all by myself, you know.’
He had a point but I was used to my peer group being as flaky as a bag of sliced almonds. ‘I can’t help it. I micro-manage and then that way when something goes wrong I know that it wasn’t my fault.’
‘You call it micro-managing, I call it being really, really bossy.’
‘Potato, potarto, my friend.’ I hoped that he wasn’t going to be like this in New York, picking at me the whole time, but then Michael nudged my arm and gave me another of his pretty smiles.
‘Anyway, I’m trying to say thanks for all this. Like, for asking me to come with you, and we’ll have to find a sweetshop so I can repay you in candy. It’s the very least I can do.’
‘You don’t have to do that,’ I said quickly, although I was already mentally adding Dylan’s Candy Bar to the detailed itinerary I’d already compiled. ‘The trip was my thank you for helping me to deal with all that family crap of mine.’
‘Well, whatever …’