French Kiss

by Sarra Manning

  2nd January

  Shona and I mooched round the sales. She was still seething about Mia and Paul, but she perked up when I told her about my New Year kiss. (I wasn’t going to say anything, but it just popped out.)

  ‘Hmmm, he gave me a kiss too but there were no tongues involved,’ Shona said with a grin.

  I was just working up to a really crushing retort when we bumped into Josh, who works at The Magic Roundabout, this really cool second-hand clothes shop. He asked me if I wanted to go to the flicks with him tonight. I said OK, ’cause he’s funny and a girl can never have too many friends.

  2nd January (later)

  Oh dear. I don’t know how this happened. One minute I was thinking that Josh was gay and I could tell him stuff that I wouldn’t normally tell a boy, the next minute, he’s holding my hand and telling me that he’s seen me around town and fancied me for ages!

  Y’know how sometimes, you end up doing things that aren’t actually a good idea, just ’cause you can’t think of a reason not to do them? I snogged Josh and agreed to go on another date with him.

  Dylan is the heir to my heart; the one boy I will never, ever get enough of, but I have to face facts, it’s just not going to happen. And Josh is really good-looking. God, am I really that shallow? Besides, now that I’ve got a boyfriend, I’ll be out of bounds as far as Dylan’s concerned. Well that’s the plan…

  28th January

  Having a boyfriend really cuts into your diary time. Especially when Josh wants to see me, like, every night.

  I mean, I like Josh, he’s very sweet and we have a laugh, but he’s so clingy and he agrees with everything I say. Even when I rant about how hanging is too good for Nicole Scherzinger and how they should make death by firing squad legal, he agrees with me. And Josh loves Nicole Scherzinger. Not a point in his favour.

  He wants to have all these meaningful conversations and he’s constantly asking me, ‘What are you thinking about?’ And, y’know, a lot of the time I’m just thinking about shoes or what I’m going to have for dinner or when I’m actually going to find time to do my History of Art notes.

  It works better when we actually go and do something, like see a film or go bowling. Otherwise, we have to sit there and talk about our feelings or get off with each other. The kissing’s nice but there’s no sparkage. I miss the sparkage.

  5th February

  Is it weird of me not to have told any of my friends that me and Josh are going out? I haven’t told the ’rents because, like, that would never happen. I think Nat and Trent must know because they’re friends with him but I haven’t told Shona or Dylan.

  I’m pretty sure I was going to but I didn’t and now the longer I leave it, the harder it is. Josh and I have been seeing each other for over a month (he got me an anniversary card!) and owning up would just mean having to go into this big, garbled explanation about why I didn’t tell them sooner. There’s this little voice in my head that tells me that I haven’t told Shona or Dylan because I still have a stupid dream that Dylan will realise he can’t live without me. And that if I admit to them that I’m seeing Josh, then I have to admit it to myself. But it’s not like I’m in denial. Hey, I know that I’m going out with Josh. Josh and me are fine together.

  So why haven’t I told the others?

  11th February

  Dylan called me today. And he’s like, ‘Soooooo, Valentine’s Day on Sunday…’

  I snorted derisively, because it seemed like the right thing to do.

  There was a pause. ‘Shona and me are having an anti-Valentine’s party. We’re going to stick pins in Barbie and Ken and watch slasher movies. Only our single friends are invited, so I immediately thought of you,’ he drawled.

  ‘Ha ha.’

  It would have been a perfect opportunity to tell him about Josh but I didn’t. I’m such a coward.

  12th February

  Josh met me for lunch.

  I was just getting stuck into my pizza and wishing that Josh would unsling his arm from round my shoulder because it was making hand-to-mouth co-ordination slightly tricky when I looked out of the window and saw Dylan walking past.

  Please don’t notice me, I prayed, but of course, he had to glance in the window at the precise moment that Josh was trying to place a slobbery kiss on my cheek. Dylan narrowed his eyes and shook his head before stomping off.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ I told Josh, distractedly.

  ‘’Kay. Love you,’ he said, gazing into my eyes.

  ‘Um, yeah, me too,’ I mumbled and dashed outside, but Dylan was gone.

  I looked for him in the art block but then I bumped into Martyn and promptly forgot all about Dylan. It takes a lot to send all thoughts of Dylan flying out of my head but it’s the coolest thing! Martyn is planning a trip to Paris next month for our Photography class. Paris! Without my parents! And it would be my birthday while we’re away. Plus, it’s educational. This is going to be killer.

  13th February

  The day from hell. The ’rents think I’m too young to go to Paris on a supervised college trip with a bunch of ‘feckless art students’. Jeez, I’m going to be seventeen next month. We had a big argument about it. Cue much door slamming and flouncing out of rooms. That was just my mum. I, of course, was the epitome of restraint. We were just in the middle of part four of the row when Dylan rang and asked me to lunch.

  Now normally if Dylan asked me to meet him for lunch I’d be really excited but as I caught the bus into town I had this sick feeling of dread, like I was going to the dentist to have all my teeth filled without an anaesthetic.

  I met Dylan outside Rhythm Records (where he works part-time) and he barely said hello. In fact, what came out of his mouth was definitely more of a grunt than any recognisable word.

  We walked to the Arts Centre café in silence and it wasn’t one of those companionable silences that we’re normally so good at. It was spiky.

  ‘So, what’s up?’ I asked after Dylan had sat and played with his pasta for fifteen minutes.

  ‘Nothing.’ Dylan was never usually that snippy with me.

  ‘OK,’ I said very warily because I had a feeling we were about to get into an argument and I really didn’t want to go there.

  Dylan looked up from his pasta and pesto and flared his nostrils. ‘How’s Josh?’ Too late, looked like I was going to get one.

  Then it was my turn to stare at my penne pollo e funghi like it was about to impart the secrets of the universe. ‘I was going to tell you but, um, there was never a good moment,’ I muttered.

  Dylan pushed his plate away. ‘How long’s it been going on?’

  ‘About six weeks. Not that it’s any of your business.’ I’d changed my mind about having an argument. He didn’t want me so he didn’t have the right to get all narked just because someone else did.

  ‘He looks like he failed the auditions for One Direction,’ Dylan suddenly spat out. ‘I thought you had better taste.’

  ‘Just ’cause he…’ I was going to say something bitchy about Dylan but I thought better of it. This was Dylan and… it was Dylan and I couldn’t bear for him to be angry with me.

  I reached across the table and touched his hand. He didn’t touch me back but he didn’t pull away either.

  ‘Oh D, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Josh, but please let’s not fall out. Please.’

  For a second, I thought he was going to get hissy at me again but he turned my hand over and stroked the back of my knuckles.

  ‘You’re right,’ Dylan said smoothly. ‘But I still think he’s a loser.’

  I pulled a face at him. ‘Whatever. Anyway have you heard about this Paris trip?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m not going.’

  ‘Why not? It’ll be fun. Educational fun, what’s not to like?’ We were still holding hands. I don’t even know if Dylan realised that he was still stroking the backs of my fingers.

  ‘Can’t afford it,’ he said shortly, dropping my hand and picking up his fork. Dylan never talke
d about his family and stuff but Shona had told me that Dylan had to pay his own way.

  I decided to change the subject. ‘So am I allowed to come to your anti-Valentine’s party or what?’

  14th February

  It sucks when Valentine’s Day is on a Sunday and there’s no post. But there were two cards waiting for me when I finally emerged from my bed.

  One of them was from Josh. How did I know? He’d signed his name, that’s how, and the soft focus, dew-dripping rose was just soooo Josh.

  He’d also got me one of those hideous teddy bears that have ‘I love you’ written on their stomachs.

  The other card was home-made and unsigned and featured a cartoon of me as a superhero complete with lightning flashes, and underneath the words ‘She’s Electric’.

  It could only be from Dylan, couldn’t it?

  26th February

  I got woken up at the crack of dawn by the doorbell.

  Mum had already gone to work so I had to stagger out of bed and stomp down the stairs, swearing each step of the way, to find Shona leaning on the bell.

  ‘Sorry, did I wake you up?’ asked Shona, not sounding at all repentant. ‘It’s so cool, they’ve opened up places on the French trip to the entire college and I’m going!’

  ‘Great,’ I mumbled, though it was great, especially as I’d worn the ’rents down through the medium of nagging and my place was guaranteed, deposit paid. ‘Now go away. I’m having a lie-in.’

  ‘There’s no time for that,’ Shona snorted. ‘We have to plan what we’re going to wear!’

  Before I kicked her out, I promised to meet up with her in the college canteen later.

  When I managed to make it into college a couple of hours later, Dylan was hanging out with Shona. As I walked towards them, he looked me up and down. It made me feel all hot and bothered in a way that Josh’s kisses never did. Getting to their table seemed to take forever and I was painfully aware of every bit of me. Of how lanky my limbs were and the spot on my top where I’d tried to cover up some nail varnish spillage by sewing a tiny flower patch on it.

  When I pulled out a chair, Dylan raised his eyebrows at me like I’d asked him a question and he wanted me to repeat it but I just screwed up my face in a fair approximation of a smile and tried not to look at him. Some days it’s like that – he’s just too much.

  Shona couldn’t stop talking about Paris. I think she’s desperate for anything that will take her mind off the fact that Paul and Mia are still an item. But Dylan was like, ‘Can’t you shut up about the bloody French trip? It’s getting so boring.’

  Then he asked me if I’d been on any good dates lately, and when I blushed and began stammering about ten-pin bowling, he started laughing. Sometimes I really hate Dylan.

  7th March

  Latest news on the Paris trip is that Mia’s going. Shona is practically vibrating about it. I swear to God, I thought she was going to literally levitate when she told me. And I had Josh on the phone first thing this morning asking if he could come. And he doesn’t even go to our college. I was trying really hard to be supportive of Shona but by lunchtime she was doing my head in, so I pretended I had to run some ’rent-type errands. I was sitting in the park, chucking bits of the chicken sandwich I’d abandoned at the ducks, when I saw Dylan on the other side of the pond. I didn’t think he’d seen me but he waved.

  ‘Meet you halfway,’ he shouted. The irony of his words was not lost on me.

  It was very romantic. We sat on a bench under the weeping willow, hidden from the rest of the world. Dylan was, God, just being utterly adorable. I’d forgotten what it was like to be on the receiving end of his sultry looks. He has to practise them in front of the mirror. There can be no other explanation. This little half-smile plays along his lips, his eyes glint and his voice drops to a conspiratorial whisper. It makes me feel all unnecessary.

  When I asked him if he minded not going to Paris Dylan just shrugged and said Paris was just like Manchester but with French people. And I was like, ‘Yeah and the Eiffel Tower,’ and even though it was the feeblest joke in the world, he laughed.

  9th March

  Weird! I bumped into Dylan ambling down my road, even though he lives on the other side of town. For one moment my heart leapt at the thought that he’d come to see me and to hell with having to go forty-five minutes out of his way. That little illusion lasted the five seconds it took Dylan to say: ‘What are you doing here?’

  I huffed indignantly, ‘I live here, remember.’

  Dylan was acting very strangely (even for him). In fact, he was being positively shifty, shuffling his feet, tugging at his Trash shirt and refusing to look at me. I was just about to walk off when he suddenly blurted out that he was painting a portrait of this woman’s cat to get some extra money and did I want to go with him?

  Turns out the woman was Mrs Williams across the road. Her cat, Henry, is fat and mean and not a quarter as nice as Pudding. I had to hold the spiteful little bastard still while Dylan made sketches. I nearly got scratched to death, but it was almost worth it to see Dylan being well-behaved. When Mrs Williams asked if we ‘were courting’, he joked that she was the only woman in his life. He’s such a flirt. I liked watching him work though. He was completely focussed on the sketches, staring intently at me and the furiously wriggling Henry and then glancing down at his pad. When Dylan concentrates his forehead scrunches up and the tip of his tongue pokes out of the corner of his mouth. It’s very guh-making.

  It would have been easy to fool myself that all that attention was for me and only for me. But it wasn’t. It was for a bad-tempered, overweight ginger cat. Ho hum.

  It was dark when we finally left. Mrs Williams had force fed us so much home-made Madeira cake (which, actually, yum) that I felt kinda queasy. I was wondering what I should do; whether I should invite Dylan back for tea ’cause it was late. But then he’d have to sit down in front of the suspicious and over-protective gaze of my father, who had once said (in a not very jokey way) that he didn’t plan on letting me date until I was at least thirty.

  I was deep in thought about how to prolong this unexpected Dylan contact without having to formally introduce him to either of my primary care givers when he suddenly flinched. ‘I’ve got an eyelash in my eye,’ he groaned.

  He pulled me under a lamp-post and squinted down at me. ‘Can you see it?’

  Then we had to do the whole ‘pull your eyelid down, look up, look down, look at the tree’ thing until I said, ‘Yeah, hold still,’ and ’cause it was an emergency, I licked the corner of a tissue and tried to gently ease the lash out. It worked first time and then I realised how close we were standing. I think Dylan did too ’cause he lowered his head like he was about to kiss me. Our lips were nearly touching – all I had to do was move my mouth a couple of millimetres and we’d be kissing.

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he drawled, kissing me on the forehead like I was five and loping off.

  Aaaaaaaaargh!

  10th March

  I realised while I was walking to college that the extra money Dylan was getting for painting Henry could pay for the Paris trip. But when I asked him, he practically bit my head off. In fact, he said that he would bite my head off and flush it down the nearest toilet if I mentioned the words ‘French’ and ‘trip’ ever again in his hearing.

  ‘He’s acting weird,’ I moaned at Shona.

  ‘He is weird,’ she replied sagely.

  I decided to avoid Dylan for the rest of the day but when I came out of my English class he was lurking in the corridor.

  ‘So, d’you reckon I need to pack my nicest hoodie?’ he asked me, following me to my locker.

  ‘What are you going on about?’ I said in my most withering voice.

  ‘I’m asking for some sartorial advice on what to wear in Paris, of course,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that I’m going, didn’t I?’

  I glared at him. ‘I really hate you!’

  ‘Sure you do,
Edie,’ Dylan purred. ‘Anyway have to go. Shopping to do and stuff.’

  I was going to kill him before we got to Paris. Fact.

  But, big squeeeeeee!, Dylan’s coming to Paris with me (and forty-eight other people). Yay!

  15th March

  This time on Saturday I’ll be on my way to la ville de Paris. That is, if my mother actually lets me leave the house. She’s stressing-out in a major way. It’s not like it’s the first time that I’ve been away without her and Dad to remind me to do my coat up or check if I’ve got credit on my phone. I was like, ‘You weren’t this bad when I went to Brownie camp.’