My Ideal Boyfriend Is a Croissant

by Laura Dockrill

  My legs feel light and full of water. Like jelly.

  I hope for a busy day and lots of customers.

  I go and stand next to Max. Hoping his conversation, just his company, will ground me somehow, give me a sense of purpose.

  He is making chai latte. “Cinnamon?” he asks the customer, and she shakes her head and replies, “No, thank you.”

  WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

  “You know, you can really start to think people are generally decent and then they go and do crap like that. Like when people don’t have chocolate sprinkles on their cappuccinos…Surely that’s the only real reason to get a cappuccino,” he grumbles to me as he watches her leave.

  I say nothing. I can’t even think of what to reply with. I can’t make eye contact with him. I’m nervous he’ll bring up the date that we didn’t have.

  Max continues to serve and nods towards the counter in time to Alicia’s terrible music. I look down and he’s made me a hot chocolate with a “latte art” heart on the top. And next to it, a slice of millionaire’s shortbread. And he doesn’t ask any questions at all.

  SALT

  I hear Mum crying in the bathroom. I want to knock on the door and comfort her but I don’t know how. I feel like I’ve stolen something from her. I feel guilty. I feel like I’ve let her down. I think about us like we’re characters in a doll’s house, moving around, and Dove is just frozen on the sofa bed downstairs. It’s not just the legs. It’s the way she looks, swollen and bruised, her pretty face: swollen lips and puffy eyes, her skin tattooed in a greenish camouflage of hits. It’s worrying how quiet she is, how eerily silent the house is without her pounding around and flipping off the walls. Her bedroom is empty.

  We used to have bread in our doll’s house. It was the size of my little finger, a little loaf, salt-baked. And painted. We used to take turns to lick it. I don’t even know where the doll’s house is anymore.

  I wonder if Mum would feel as sad if it was me.

  Sorry, I know that’s an ugly thing to say. And an even uglier thing to read. I’m just being honest.

  HAWAIIAN PIZZA

  Normally, I’ll eat any pizza. I’m really not fussy. Of course my favourite is from a proper wood-fired oven. Pizza made from fresh dough and a real tomato-red sauce. I like it when the whole thing is covered in white rounds of mozzarella that go all brown and bubbled and the crust chars and black charcoal-mottled black spots pop. But Dove likes that terrible pizza from the takeaway that comes in huge boxes and the cheese is orangey and the crust is so heavy it’s like a wrecking ball has knocked you in the gut. She likes Hawaiian best. So the whole pizza is covered in little plastic curls of dehydrated porky ham and triangles of tinned, luminous pineapple. The pineapple bit I get but I don’t see what ham has to do with Hawaii.

  This is why I’m happy to see those boxes now. All stacked up on the kitchen table, and twelve beaten-up trainers and all these scratched, stickered skateboards lined up by the front door. Because it means that Dove has asked for the terrible pizza. Her free-running parkour mates are here. Eating slices, drinking cans of fizzy drink and laughing. Trying to make light of the situation. A pack of grubby, spotty, greasy boys with dirty, bitten nails and smashed phone screens. Snorting and being insecure, with bent, bony postures and not knowing where to put their arms if they’re not eating or drinking.

  They take Dove out into the garden and take turns whizzing around on her lap on the patio. 2B and Not 2B are jumping around barking and trying to lick the grease off the boys’ hands. They write all over Dove’s casts with their funny tags. One of the boys, Florian, has called himself “Ghetto Gangster” and he is literally the poshest kid I know—I’ve seen his house, and his jumper costs more than my whole wardrobe put together. Maybe it’s ironic.

  “Don’t you want any pizza, BB?” Mum asks.

  I shake my head. No. I don’t feel like anything. It’s actually the first time I feel like eating anything—I think it might be that the shortbread has ignited something, but I know what those boys are like and they’ll happily keep eating all the pizza in the world until the supply dries up. And I don’t want them to look at me like I’m eating something that’s theirs. That’s something I don’t need. It’s as though people look at bigger people and assume we shouldn’t feel the need to ever get hungry because we have enough fat stored up to last us until our dying day. As if we can nibble off our sides like we’re made out of peach.

  We watch Dove laughing outside, listen to her voice screeching. The boys crowd round her like she’s a queen.

  “They feel so responsible,” Mum says. “They feel like it’s their fault.”

  “It’s not their fault,” I grumble, knowing how stubborn and determined Dove is. She would only have jumped if she wanted to.

  “No, I know it’s not; they all do it. Hopefully it will make them think twice when they’re out there doing that parkour business….It’s been quite a wake-up call for them all. It’s just a shame it’s my little girl who’s had to be the scare.” Mum rubs her eyes. “I was certain they were just hopping off bloody brick walls and climbing trees…you know? I thought it was so much better for her to be in the outdoors, running free with the boys than, you know…on the bloody internet getting involved in all that gossipy vain rubbish or being groomed by some murderer online. I thought the worst thing that would happen would be a few scabby knees….I never…” She shakes her head again, holds her chest. “I wouldn’t have let her do it if I thought it was dangerous, if she was doing anything that kids haven’t been doing for years.”

  She strokes my hair. “She’s lucky to have a big sister like you. She looks up to you so much, you know that, don’t you?”

  I know. I want to say, “IT WAS MY FAULT. I TOLD HER TO BE BRAVE.”

  But I’m not even brave enough to say that.

  How dare I tell Dove to be brave? I’m not even brave enough to go to the gym.

  “Anyway…” Mum breaks my thoughts. “Don’t you get your GCSE results this week?”

  And that’s it. I text Cam: Hey…you busy?

  POPCORN

  I meet Cam at the Odeon.

  “Salt or sweet? Salt or sweet? Now, THAT’S the question.”

  “You sound like my dad,” I reply spikily.

  “I know, isn’t that the point? What’s up with you? We always say that.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “Salt or sweet?”

  “What?”

  “Popcorn, you fruitcake.”

  “I don’t like fruitcake.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Sorry. Whatever. I’ll have whatever you’re having.”

  “Well, I haven’t had dinner because SOMEBODY gave me five seconds to get ready, so I’m starving; I’m literally blowing all my money here. I’m getting a large one and Maltesers and Minstrels and whatever that blue drink is saying for itself. Have you ever had these nacho things? The sauce looks a bit orange.” Cam looks up at the menu. The whole cinema smells of popcorn. Of warm lights and apprehension. We come to cinemas to go somewhere else. To sit in the chair and rocket off to somewhere new.

  You know, the reason you have popcorn in the cinema is because it’s a quiet snack to eat. Crisps and stuff are too loud and crunchy, so that’s why we have popcorn.

  “Exam results Thursday,” Cam says.

  “I’m not gonna get mine.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not going to get them.”

  “Don’t be weird.”

  “It’s not weird; loads of people don’t collect their results. Think of all the kids that go skiing in France or whatever and aren’t there.”

  “Yeah, but those kids probably know they’ve done all right; they probably have extra tuition and all that crap.”

  “A girl in my class, Ruby, it’s her birthday on exam results day—think she’
s going to go into school to collect her GCSE results? Errr. No. She’s not.”

  “Well, she might want to if she’s done well,” Cam says bluntly.

  Rude. I know that comment was a bullet aimed for me.

  “Yeah, maybe. Just don’t see why anybody would want to go into school on their birthday.”

  “They’ll post the results to your house. You can’t just avoid them.”

  “Let them post them, then.” I know I’m being nasty and difficult. I don’t know why I can’t shake this mood off.

  Cam studies the menu again. “I’m starving,” she moans. “I had a chewing gum on the way here and it’s tricked my belly into thinking a steak and chips is about to land in there.” I say nothing. “I didn’t have time to put on mascara either; I look like a blind mole.”

  “No you don’t,” I offer, trying to be normal and nice.

  “I do. Bloody hay fever, can’t even wear my contact lenses. I have to wear my glasses in the cinema like a total geek.”

  It was a bad idea coming out. I am obviously finding it hard to be social. Wish I’d never called her. All of this pretending-nothing-has-happened-to-Dove business in fake old cinema land. But what am I expected to do? Bring it up with everyone ALL the time? I hate sci-fi films anyway. Idiot actors running around in metal chutes and pipes talking to one another in too-fast sentences of invented spaceish jargon that means absolutely nothing. I find it really hard to forget they’re on a set. When we see a shot of space I just know they’re filming this whole scene on some tinfoiled corridor in a studio in Swindon. Why am I so miserable today?

  “Salty and sweet, please.”

  “I thought you hated sci-fi?”

  “I wanted to get out of the house.”

  “Ah, nice. I want to come visit Dove. When can I visit her?”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  “So you keep saying. Does she not want visitors?”

  “She does,” I snap. Cam looks offended. Confused, she says, “I’ll stop asking. Just let her know I’d like to see her whenever she’s ready.”

  “She would love to see you.”

  “I was thinking she could come tonight? She loves films, she could’ve come to the cinema with us?”

  “Cam, Dove can’t just come to the cinema!”

  “Why not?”

  “Isn’t it obvious…? She can’t come to the cinema….She’s…” I can’t really think of a reason why she couldn’t come to the cinema, actually. I’m talking like somebody I hate. I feel like the staff behind the counter is staring at me, shovelling popcorn into pop-up cardboard boxes and staring. Camille won’t hand over her card to them until I’ve explained why Dove can’t come to the cinema. A queue forms; I blush. “Well, maybe she could….The accident’s really changed her. She’s different now….She’s…I don’t know…she’s changed.”

  “I’m not being rude to you, B, honestly I’m not, you know I love you, but do you think it might be you that doesn’t want visitors? Do you think it might be that the accident changed you?”

  “What?” I feel a lump in my throat, my insides falling out. “What do you mean?”

  “Just because Dove is in a wheelchair for a bit doesn’t mean she doesn’t want to laugh or cry or enjoy a movie, that she doesn’t want to do stuff like go out. She’s not in a prison.”

  “I didn’t say she was.” I feel myself boiling up. “She looks like a monster. Like a different person—it’s scary. And heartbreaking. Look, you have no idea how it feels to have this happen to you.”

  “B, that’s the whole point. It HASN’T happened to you; it’s happened to your sister. Your sister and, yes, that means you’re going through stuff too, I know. But how many times have you moaned when people say rude stuff behind your back and you say…Just because I’m fat doesn’t mean I don’t have ears? Right? It’s like you think just cos Dove’s had an accident she doesn’t have ears, a heart, a brain, feelings…like she doesn’t want to live. It’s a real bummer, I get that, six months is a long time to be in a chair, especially for someone like Dove, but she’s gonna be all right because…bones mend.” Her words cut into me and she doesn’t stop there either. “Yeah, so you’re right, it hasn’t happened to me, I get that, but if it was me…No, actually, if you were being YOU in this situation, how you’d normally be, you’d be marching her round everywhere you went, bloody scratching her itchy legs with a whatever that thing is that you flip bacon with and helping her and demanding she saw the world as she did before, not hiding her away, acting like the world is over because of a wheelchair!” She shakes her head at me. “You’re being selfish.”

  I want to throw the popcorn at her. And her stupid blue drink. And the ugly nachos. I hate Cam. She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t get it at all. I am so embarrassed and humiliated. Everybody is staring at me. I flush red; my ears tingle; my eyes fill, fast, with tears.

  “I’m going home,” I mutter, and turn away, expecting Cam to run after me and grab me and say “don’t go” like she normally would, but instead:

  “Oh, course you’re going home. Course you are,” she barks across the foyer. “Fine. Be a coward. Be a defensive coward like always! Don’t bring your sister to the cinema, don’t collect your exam results….” She is screaming; she never minds screaming in public. She’s shaking now. “LEAVING SCHOOL IS THE BIGGEST MISTAKE YOU’VE EVER MADE! YOU’VE GOT SOME SERIOUS GROWING UP TO DO, BLUEBELLE!!”

  And as I run down the stairs of the Odeon I notice the accessibility badges everywhere: the chairlifts, the wide automatic doors, the ramp at the entrance. Things I never noticed until they apply to my family. I am so ignorant. I didn’t like hearing Cam because Cam is right. She loves Dove too.

  I’m making this all about myself and of course Dove can go to the stupid cinema.

  She can do anything she likes.

  * * *

  —

  My breath gets tight. Short. I have to over-breathe. In. Out. In. I scramble out of the cinema, down the steps, sliding. I think I see a couple of girls from my old school. NOT now. Can’t handle the small talk. I hide in the alley.

  “Was that Bluebelle?” I hear one of them say.

  “No, really?” the other one replies.

  “Her sister nearly died, you know?”

  “No way, how?”

  “Jumped off a building apparently.”

  “What? Why? Tryna kill herself?”

  “Dunno, but…Bluebelle’s not coming back to school.”

  “No way. Lucky. How’d you know?”

  “My mum’s friends with Miss Scott, in’t she?”

  “Ah, she probably works at the cinema now!”

  “Ha! Probably. Free popcorn.”

  “I reckon she’s pregnant.”

  “No!”

  “Yeah, that’s why she can’t come back.”

  “She’s not pregnant, Maliha. She’s just fat.”

  I feel my insides clatter to the ground like a broken vase; I’m ashamed. My breathing is tight. I am fumbling wildly for my Ventolin. All blurry. I panic. Cheeks out and in. Puff. Chest tight. My fingers rummaging for my inhaler. I can’t just barge into them like I normally would. With my head against the bricks I try to concentrate on breathing but my chest is so heavy and my head is everywhere. DOVE. The accident. Over and over. Her fall. Her fear. Her face. Her legs. Her body. Smashed. Be brave. Be brave, I said. I told her to be brave….Mum. Dad. Coffee. Alicia. Glaring. Max. Puff. Puff. Puff. Breathe. Breathe. Over-breathe. And again. And again. I cry into the darkness. Trying to calm down.

  I am alone and there’s not enough air for me.

  TIGER’S MILK

  Dove’s sleeping on the sofa. I try not to disturb her while I make tea, gently pouring hot water on top of the tea bag, watching the triangle balloon beneath and the brown leaves whip up like a tree in a storm. T
he water, tinted immediately, a lagoon; the tea bag, a sleeping sea monster, waiting to surface.

  Milk brings on a silent storm of rain and thunder and swirling skies. I spin the spoon quietly, not allowing even a tinkle. Mustn’t wake my sleeping sister.

  You know the tea we drink from tea bags is the leftover rubbish bits from excellent tea?

  We basically drink ashtray tea.

  I think about making a cup of tea for Dove but what if she wakes up and wants to talk; what if she needs the toilet and I get it wrong and don’t know how to do it? Mum says the base of her back is all scabby like she’s been burnt. I don’t want to see it.

  And then I notice 2B and Not 2B’s baskets are empty. Their black fleecy blankets are speckled in silvery white dog hair, topped with their chewed grubby rubber rings and soft toys. The daily massacre of dog-toy fluffy organs, dissected and floating across the floorboards like passing clouds. Dogs know how to just be themselves, be confident and secure in being simply animals. Know how to care when no words are needed. Just by being there…The two dumbest, clumsiest dogs in the world have better social intelligence than me.

  Mostly, as I said, a cup of tea can fix everything. Even a lemon and ginger or a fresh mint. A hot chocolate can often do the trick. But it’s the fridge that reminds me: in Mum’s handwriting, magnets holding it to the front on a small scrap of paper, is the recipe.

  Sometimes…when we need to heal and feel ourselves again, when we need a mug of warm comfort, when nothing else will do…it has to be Tiger’s Milk. It’s something my mum has always made us when we’re feeling down or not ourselves. You measure out the cups of milk and warm it nicely, then you add the spices: ground nutmeg, ground ginger and a stick of cinnamon. Once the milk is simmering away you turn the heat off and add a big dollop of honey for sweetness. On the top, I place a fork and shake some extra cinnamon; that’s what gives the milk the stripes.