“I’m eighty. I can be naughty if I want. Now, where are those little puffy things? I like them.”
We’re all watching in fascination as Gran eats something.
“Will you stop looking? I’m not an exhibit in a zoo,” she huffs.
“Alice says that she’s never seen you eat before,” Lauren says, only visible by her two eyes peering out from a mountain of cushions.
Gran sighs. “Alice can mind her own business.”
The cushions erupt as Lauren catapults upward. “Hurray!”
“What on earth is the matter with you?” Gran asks.
Lauren capers round the garden, a blanket trailing like a cape after her. “You said Alice was real, you said Alice was real,” she repeats in triumph.
“I think it’s time for you to go to bed,” I say, but she sticks out her bottom lip mutinously.
“Let the child stay,” Gran says, “as long as someone fills up my glass.”
I should be studying. I should be checking out more responses to my post. But I decide that just for one evening, I’m better off here.
Eventually, the light fades, the conversation dulls, Lauren falls asleep and Gran complains of the cold. Dad helps her back upstairs and Mum, Cat and I start to tidy up.
A while later, in my room, I check my mail and see how my post is doing. Imogen is in a happy meltdown as she tells me about global reach and the most number of hits she’s ever had. Apparently, I have to start my own blog or YouTube account. She has a vision for me! I enjoy her enthusiasm and like the fact that so many people seem to have read and mostly liked what I wrote. But I think I’ve had enough time going viral. The clip was one false version of me; this was nearer the truth but it was still an artificial version. It was my best, most coherent and thoughtful me. But no one can be like that all the time. I just want to be Jess for a while. No drama, no diets.
Just as I’m thinking about whether to chat to Hannah, her name glows on my phone. I accept the call, and at first, all I get is a torrent of words. “Calm down, Hannah, what’s going on?”
“Oh my God, Zara is having a meltdown!”
Turns out that Matt has left. Left school, left home, left Zara and gone to London to join a boy band. A BOY BAND! Mr. Cool. Mr. I-love-your-dad’s-music-he’s-so-authentic. Just gone.
“And why’s Zara lost it? Isn’t she happy that he’s going on to great and glorious things?”
“No, cos he dumped her first and said he didn’t want to be tied down.”
I suck in my breath. “He’d better watch out. If he does become famous, then she’ll sell her story to the papers as quickly as you can say gold digger.” I think about it a bit longer. “But that’s mean though.”
Hannah’s voice gets a bit high-pitched. “It’s Zara. Don’t be nice to Zara. And don’t even think about being nice about Matt. I know you liked him but he’s left the band without a singer. Alex has gone all moody. They’ve got loads of gigs lined up but now they’ve got no singer.”
I sympathize, but really, a very different thought is in my mind. I end the call to Hannah. My fingers hover over the keyboard. This is the perfect opportunity to text Alex. I’ve been waiting for him to ask me out for coffee. I’ve been on the verge of doing it myself a thousand times. But something’s held me back. I suppose I got it so wrong with Matt that I’m scared to put my heart out there just again.
In the end, I go for a text. Sorry to hear about the loser Matt. But destiny is clearly calling you. #alexforlead Jx. I reread and reread. X or no x? Too cheesy? I tweak and retweak and then I just send.
I wait.
It’s getting late.
Surely, he’ll respond.
He’s supposed to like me.
But while my phones buzzes from time to time, Alex’s name never appears.
I am an idiot when it comes to boys. He’s not that into me at all. Not sure how much more rejection my ego can take. Time to sleep.
The moment I wake in the morning, I grab my phone. Still nothing from Alex. I swear not to look at my phone again, but I constantly check on the way to school and as much as I can in lessons without getting caught.
Lunchtime. Finally. Alex. You’re right, Matt is a loser but not so sure I believe in destiny. Could discuss over coffee after school?
Heart pounding, I’m about to answer straight away but then I remember that he’s kept me waiting for twelve hours precisely. So at the very least, I can keep him waiting for twelve minutes. But he answers. And he wants coffee. And I want coffee, too. The world suddenly goes all sparkly again.
“What are you smiling about?” Izzie slumps down next to me.
“Oh, nothing,” I say.
“What kind of nothing?”
I peer around. No Hannah. I don’t want to tell her as that might be weird. “I’m going for a coffee with Alex,” I say.
Izzie looks cross. “Alex?”
“That’s what I said.”
“But you liked Matt?”
Now it’s my turn to look cross. “I was an idiot. At the party, Alex tried to kiss me and now he wants to meet up.”
I am clearly not speaking the same language as Izzie as now she says, “What do you mean he tried to kiss you?”
Exasperated, I start to wind her up. “Well, I don’t know if you know what kissing is but when a boy and girl like each other … well, if a girl and girl like each other … hang that, two boys can do it, too …”
“Why didn’t I know this before?”
I stare at her. “Why are you being weird? I’m telling you now.”
“Okay.” But her shrug annoys me. Why do I get the feeling that she’s not telling me something? “When are you meeting him?”
“I was going to meet him after school but we’ve not sorted out the details yet.”
Now she really is cross. “But you said that you’d help me review that topic in Chemistry. You know I can’t do it and we’ve got a test tomorrow.”
I feel my date with Alex slipping away from me. “I did say that, but do we have to do it this afternoon?”
“Jesobel Jones, have we not always promised that we would not be the kind of girls who dump friends for a boyfriend?”
I nod. It’s true, we have.
“So, Alex or me?”
I sigh. “You, of course. I’ll meet him later.”
The sparkliness of the situation has been rather tarnished. But it’s true, I did promise and I keep my word. Time to text back. Anyway, I’m sure it won’t matter if it’s a bit later.
But apparently, it does. Alex is rehearsing later so he can’t make the time I suggest.
Oh well. Maybe tomorrow?
Maybe, I’ll be in touch.
And that’s it. He’s gone, and I feel strangely alone.
After studying with Izzie, I still feel strange. Yes, I’ve been a good friend. But being morally virtuous can leave you hollow, so I eat a very large slice of cake when I get home.
“Right, you’re coming running with me.” Cat appears from behind the fridge door like the Ghost of Food Past. “You’ll need to run for an hour to burn that off.”
“What if I don’t want to burn it off? What if I want to watch TV all evening?”
“Then you’ll die of heart failure.” She stares at me eating.
“Go away. You’re putting me off my food.”
“That is precisely the plan. You were doing so well. I hate to see you backsliding.”
I’ve had enough. “You leave me to eat my carb, sugar and fat festival in peace and I’ll run for thirty minutes with you.”
“Forty-five.”
“Thirty-seven and a half minutes. That’s my last offer.”
“Fine.” She starts to slouch off. “But I’ll throw in some conditioning to finish off.”
A while later, Cat and I are poundi
ng the streets again. One day I might learn to run in a pretty way, all swinging ponytail and pert bum. But not today. I’m still going for the red face and unsightly sweat marks. I read that being authentic is all the rage. I run in a very authentic way, or so I like to tell myself.
We run through the park, along the high street and then up past the church hall. It’s where Alex’s band rehearses. I think about going to say hello but then remember the sweat patches and rethink that idea very quickly. Let’s be fair, if someone is turned on by your sweat patches, it’s probably not the sign of a long and loving relationship. Or maybe …
But my silly thoughts are interrupted. Two people are standing outside the hall door framed in light. One is tall and slim and he’s very close to a girl next to him. She’s got long, black, straight, gleaming hair.
It’s Alex.
And that’s Izzie.
And then they hug, haloed in the light. And they don’t let go.
My legs keep running on while my mind tries to process this. So, that’s why she was cross with me? She likes Alex and was trying to put me off. She pulled the friend card. She made me cancel my date. Lots of words to describe her whizz round my mind and none of them are very pleasant.
“Jess?” Cat says.
“What?” I shoot back.
“Is something the matter?”
“No.” I just keep running.
“Only, you look like something’s bothering you.”
“I just keep realizing how stupid I am on a daily basis.”
“Oh,” is all Cat manages.
“Yes, oh.”
She slows down a bit. “Is it the kind of nothing that might feel better by binge-watching a TV show and eating carbs?”
“It wouldn’t hurt,” I admit and we head for home.
But I know that whatever I watch, all I’ll see for the rest of the night is Izzie in Alex’s arms.
Exactly where I want to be.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
Observation #65:
From watching most films, it seems that being a girl means that you can’t save the world. You just make the world look a bit prettier.
Cat does her best to cheer me up and it’s great to see how she’s almost become human. But she just doesn’t get it.
“Alex is okay but you could do better,” she offers as she nibbles on a stick of cucumber. She still hasn’t quite got the concept of comfort eating. We’re watching Netflix with cucumber, carrot sticks and pepper crudités. Oh yes, and that well-known blowout food — cress.
“I don’t want to ‘do better.’ I like him.”
“You liked Matt,” she points out.
“I know! I was an idiot.”
“Shame though, especially now he’s going to be rich and famous. Maybe I should go after him.”
Is she being deliberately annoying? I consider choking her to death with cress but decide that we don’t have enough. “Knock yourself out. Anyway, he’s just joined a boy band. They’ve not even got a single out yet.”
“Yes, but have you seen their page?” She finds it on her phone and shows me. A moody shot of Matt looking gorgeously airbrushed pouts at me, flanked by a group of clones. Now I look at him and all I can see is how perfect a boy-band doll he would make.
“He’s dead to me.” I snap a carrot stick to make a point. “He’s all yours.”
She sniffs. “I’m not touching Zara Lovechild’s leftovers. No, I have a number of options to pursue.”
This momentarily perks me up. “Oh, have you met someone?”
Cat stares at me with disdain. “There are always options …” She doesn’t say “for girls like me” but she might as well have. I ignore the slur.
“But which one makes your heart beat faster?”
She laughs. “God, you’re such a romantic. I’ll see. Probably the one who’s most photogenic. I’ll go for the one with the best cheekbones.”
“Cheekbones?”
“Cheekbones.”
I sigh. “Sod this, I’m getting some hummus.”
“It’s fatty and it makes your breath smell.”
“One, I don’t care. And two, I don’t care.” With that, I stomp off and take myself off to eat bread, butter and hummus in bed. I may die of overeating tonight, but at least I’ll die happy and safe from any marauding vampires.
I don’t sleep well that night and end up getting up and doing three hours of studying in the middle of the night. So, things really are that bad. What am I going to say to Izzie at school? What will she tell me? Or will we just be very British and pretend that nothing is going on at all …
I get up late and get to school later so I don’t have to meet her in form time. I’m leaving school soon, so there’s not much that they can do to me now. The receptionist tuts at me as I stroll through the door at 9:05 but I remain strangely unaffected by this. Suddenly the school — which has been my world for five years — seems very small, and all the adults vaguely ridiculous.
I avoid Izzie until lunchtime. I get there early, select the least evil option available and wait for the gang to slowly materialize. Izzie slumps down, moaning about science again. “Jess, can you help me with this homework?”
“Sorry,” I say, “I’m busy tonight.”
“Oh.” She’s clearly a bit taken aback. “Okay. Another time then.”
“Sure.” So restrained. What I really want to say is, Why are you such a bitch? Why did you hug the boy that you knew I liked? #snake. But I don’t. I just manage, “I’m off to the library then.” I know she’s staring at me as I go. But I don’t care.
Later on she texts me, r u ok?
Yup.
I have passive aggressive down to a T. I refuse to bring up the real subject because then it will make it real. If I just pretend it never happened, I can manage to keep going a bit. No boys, no drama from now on. I will study, make gorgeous food and occasionally vent at the world via brilliantly written and observed posts, which may or may not go viral. It’s a good plan but my heart is not in it.
I turn my phone off and walk home on my own. For all my good grades, I’ve been a fool twice. I think I’m so clever and that I’m a good judge of character, but I just keep making one bad decision after another. I spend the rest of the night studying. At least I’m good at that.
*
There’s a party at Dom's on Saturday. Hannah and Izzie want to get ready together but I say I’m busy and I’ll see them there. I don’t want to go. Get over yourself, Jess, I say to myself. You’re a teenager, it’s Saturday night and you’re going to a party full of your friends. Which bit of this is not okay? But another part of me would rather be watching reruns of MasterChef on TV, laughing when they get their technique wrong.
I arrive on my own. Dom’s family lives in one of these little but incredibly expensive terraced houses that all look the same — everything inside is white, shiny or requires sunglasses before viewing properly. Dom hugs me and then I follow him down to the super-cool basement where there’s a very shiny kitchen (which I would KILL to have), a chill-out area and those fold-out doors into the garden. The one advantage of living around here is that I get to hang out in very nice houses, though these generally show me how shabby my own house is. Not that I’m jealous.
I help myself to a drink and chat to Sana and Bex, who are standing next to the stereo, at that stage when their feet are tapping but they’re not full-on dancing. We put on our favorite track and start to dance properly. I’ve forgotten how much fun it is to dance with your friends.
We dance for ages. I can feel my thigh, leg and stomach muscles from Cat’s punishing workout. But it’s not a bad pain. I just feel like I’ve used my body for a change. But what I’m trying to say is I need a rest. I back out of the gaggle of girls who are now busting their moves and take some time out. I find myself standing next t
o Dom.
“Happy birthday,” I say. “Good party.” We look at the large group of teenagers, all drinking, chatting, laughing and dancing.
“Yeah.” He nods happily. “This is good. Times like this I feel it’s okay being us.”
Just then my heart does a leap and then a somersault. A familiar tall figure has walked in.
Alex.
My eyes flicker over his profile and, as his eyes turn to me, I listen intently to Dom but find it hard to concentrate because I’m too aware that Alex is in the room.
I don’t look at him. But I can just feel that he’s there. I want to look, to see what he’s up to. But then I don’t want to appear interested. God, this is confusing.
“Jess, are you listening to me?” Dom says with a smile.
“Yeah, I’m just … hungry!” I say. When in doubt, mention food! I’m not actually hungry, but somehow people always expect me to talk about food, so it’s an easy excuse.
I allow myself a quick glance around the room.
Alex is talking to Izzie. They’re standing slightly away from everyone else. I can’t see his face but I can see hers. And she’s happy. Like she’s standing in a spotlight.
I think I’m going to be sick. You know how I said I’m not jealous? Forget that.
I am.
Inside, I’m dying a thousand small deaths, but on the outside, I’m discussing the fact that Dom’s mum forgot to buy him a cake. The C-word gets my attention.
“No cake?” I say, shocked.
“No cake,” he repeats sadly. “She said she’ll get me one tomorrow.”
“You mean,” I say, “you’re having a party, and we have no cake? This is an emergency.”
Dom is clearly finding all this funny.
“Well, you’re the cake girl. You could do something about it.”
And at that moment, I nod my head. Yes, I could feel sorry for myself. Or, I could save the party and distract myself by doing what I do best.
Jess Jones, Queen of Cakes, to the rescue.
I start rummaging through cupboards and generally making myself busy. I mean, it does start a burst of laughing and general comments like “Jess, what are you doing?” When I point out the terrible situation we are in — a party with no cake — people accept that, yes, something needs to be done and, yes, I am the girl for the job. It might look a bit odd, making a cake at a party, but I am among friends. Who accept my weirdness. That is why they are called friends. End of.
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