And red-faced and buzzing we barrow the ice back towards Planet Coffee with smiles on our faces, each sucking a cube of ice.
We near Planet Coffee and Max turns to me and says, “OK, here we are, back at Planet Hell. In case I don’t see you because the day is going to be crazy…you know I still owe you a date?”
“I think I owe you a date. I was the one who ran off!”
“No way, definitely not. I owe you.”
“OK, so when do you want to take me on a date?”
He looks at me cheekily. “What about now?”
“Max! We can’t go now! The Planet is chaos, Alicia’s hormones are all over the place, it’s too busy. Plus, they need the ice—”
“You’re right.”
We cart the barrow to the shopfront, where Max unpacks the ice bags and begins to sling them into Planet Coffee. Strong arms slinging the crush of ice, sleeting and frothing. Already melting. All the while Alicia is moaning like a whiny cat that’s been left unfed for days: “What took you so long, guys?”
And I begin to explain that we had to get it from the Turkish shop as Marcel robotically uncarts and stacks up the bags of ice for Alicia.
Max dumps down the last bag and looks up, flustered, fingertips red raw with the glassy ice. The faces of caffeine-starved customers grind into him, trying to transport him to the coffee machine with some kind of crazed telekinesis. He calmly puts his hands on his hips.
“Come on, then, Maxy. Chop-chop.” Alicia claps her palms together but Max, instead, cackles, bites his lip with mischief, giggles and whacks me in the back of the knees with the barrow, jolting me, collapsing my bum snugly into the seat of the barrow like an armchair. Max whips the barrow up onto its wheel and pushes me out of the shop.
I scream.
“MAX!” Alicia shouts. “Stop jerking around, aliens. You’re very close to shooting back down to earth with a nasty bang and becoming earthlings. I mean it! Come on, snap, snap.” Another magic phrase that doesn’t work. Max pushes ahead, steering the wheelbarrow and me. Running, running, running, running towards the common, dodging people, dogs, buses, prams, the angry snarls of Alicia. Away, away, away…
He whizzes me around the grass, the flowers, the fountain, the picnic-makers, the bumblebees, the little birds and paddling pool. I open my arms up, I stretch my fingers out. I close my eyes. Both laughing, we slide and skid and breeze, free and wonderful. Until he tips the barrow over and I topple out and we fall onto the soft grass, laughing more, too breathless to even think about kissing. We link fingers. Giggling. The single wheel from the barrow still spinning. And then Max turns to look at me, vampire teeth and dimples and says, “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time; I really want you to be my girlfriend. Will you please think about being my girlfriend?”
The words come out before I even hear them in my head. “Thought about it. A hundred percent.”
PIE
Dove is throwing leek trimmings at the dogs. Mum’s making her famous, delicious cheese and leek pie; we’ll eat it later, slightly warm with salad.
The house smells like a cuddle.
“Gym again?” Mum asks as I scoop my hair up into a topknot.
“Yep.”
“Sure you’re not overdoing it?”
“No.”
“You’ve been every day this week.”
“Yeah, but I mix it up. I don’t do the same thing every day. Sometimes I just go to stretch.”
“I used to know somebody at the theatre who had a gym membership with three different gyms because she wanted to go so often and so the staff didn’t talk, JUST so she could work out three times a day.”
“Well, I’m not like that.”
“OK, just be careful. I know what an addictive personality you have.”
She is referring to the one time I got addicted to the blackcurrant powder dilute drink that I used to get from the vending machine at the library when I was eight. The sugar used to make my heart beat fast.
I like to feel my heart beat at the gym. I like to feel the sweat trickle down my head. Now I walk past reception and swipe my membership card and they don’t take a second glance at me and I don’t at them. It’s just normal.
Changing, I feel happy. I’m just so glad I decided to get fit now and not later in life. It’s only going to get harder to make a big life change like that. I mean, look at my dad. And if I want to eat everything I want, I guess it’s good to have balance; in fact, my happiness and enjoyment of food is basically why I work out.
I think about food when I’m working out. When I’m standing in front of the mirror, lifting a dumbbell, pushing a medicine ball, squatting and pressing, I’m imagining I’m a mushroom bubbling in a sauce. I imagine I’m a hot skewer of kebab being carved off a knife. Today, I’ll think about Mum’s pie. I love pastry. Pastry that is thick, wet, water-based…flaky pastry, puff pastry. I like all pies too. I wish we had sweet pie shops here like they do in America. Cherry pie and an iced tea and red shiny lips and red nails.
I like to feel my legs. I like to pound. I like to pace. I like to race myself and see if I can go harder. I like to grunt sometimes and snarl as my muscles flex and flip and turn inside my skin. Even though I can’t see them, I feel them, building, bulging, bursting, clenching. And with every bad, tired moment comes a newfound wave of power. And when I attempt to do sit-ups at the gym my fat sticks to the mat and makes flumpy fart noises. Air presses out as my skin suckers my back. People stare but I just put my headphones in and smile. And if I still feel self-conscious or weak—
All it takes is another woman from across the room to smile back and I keep at it.
And if there’s no woman to smile at, well, then I just have to smile at my own sweaty cherry-faced tomato dummy grin smiling right back in the mirror.
When I get home Mum, Dove and I eat the pie at the kitchen counter. We forget about the salad and just eat it out of the pie tin, taking turns to scratch the hardened molten lava of cheesy, creamy sauce that’s got stuck around the outside of the pan. Sword-fighting our forks like tusks.
Mum and I wash Dove and sing Christmas songs, even though it isn’t Christmas and Dove says we are gonna get bad luck but we don’t care.
And we sleep well.
BBQ
Dad’s turned up, uninvited, with BBQ food. Bags bursting with sausages, burgers, buns and posh crisps.
“Bill, what’s all this?”
“Food! For a barbeque!” Dad opens up his hands, delighted.
“We don’t even have barbeque coals. The thing hasn’t been washed for months; it’s probably all rusty and covered in black bits.”
“I’ll clean it up in no time. Come on, Lucy, it’ll be nice.”
Mum rolls her eyes and Dad nudges me in the side. He’s obviously delegated me as his win-back-Mum wing(wo)man.
“You should have worn the sausages round your neck, like a Tony Soprano necklace, then she would have found you irresistible.”
“You’re right; it’s too late now, isn’t it? Too obvious? Bit try-hard?”
“A bit, yeah.” I nod.
“What’s all this, then?” Dove comes into the garden. “You all right, Dad?”
“Dad’s making an impromptu barbeque.”
“Trying,” Dad says as he looks at the trays of the BBQ as if looking under a car.
“You better have got those yellow Post-it Note cheese squares.”
“Course I didn’t. I’m trying to make it up to your mum, not put her off me forever. I got proper cheese. Expensive cheese.”
Dove rolls her eyes. I can see why. It doesn’t melt the same as the cheap stuff.
Two hours later we have a roaring fire and equally roaring bellies. We weren’t even hungry until the idea of the BBQ was planted in our brains; now we’re starving and we have to wait until the coals go all s
ilver and ashy until we can cook anything.
“Isn’t this the life?” Dad says from his chair. He has sunglasses on even though the sun is going down and it’s getting a bit chilly. His legs are way too spread, his hairy chicken-drumstick thighs bouncing open and shut, his stupid sandals showing off his bruised big toes. He is sipping a beer. The fire does smell good. Popping and cracking into the sky.
Mum comes out with a tray of chicken she’s cooked in the oven, with the dogs slobbering after her. She’s also made coleslaw with apple instead of cabbage and even knocked up a potato salad.
“Finally!” Dove zombie huffs. “I’m starving.”
“Don’t eat too much; you’re gonna want some real barbeque action in a minute!” Dad grunts in a “Texan” accent.
“I wanted it two hours ago,” Dove says, biting into a piece of chicken. “And this one doesn’t give you all black bits on your teeth.”
* * *
—
We finish eating. The plates pile up, smears of oil harden; the coal from the fire is now snowflake white and crumbling under the breeze.
“So have you told Dad your news?” Mum asks, picking at some cold chicken.
“No, not yet.”
“Go on…what news?” Dad’s interested, even though I know he’s trying hard not to take it personally that he’s always the last to find out about everything.
“That BB’s got a BOY—” I launch up, chicken bone rolling to the ground to be snuffled up by one of the dogs, and slam Dove’s ginormous mouth shut with my hand.
“That Planet Coffee is going to take me on as an apprentice.”
“So what does that mean?”
“It’s twelve months. I get paid. Not much, but still…and I can still do my other shifts too. It’s a barista apprenticeship.”
Dad looks for Mum’s reaction. Mum looks at me proudly, smiles and says, “She sorted it herself…and she’s been keeping the diary from the doctors. And going to the gym…so…I can’t really argue with that.”
“That’s very good, Bluebelle, very good indeed.” Dad nods. “And your A-plus in art.” Dad shakes his head, like he’s about to cry. “My baby girl, all grown up. I remember when you only just started nursery and now you’re finishing school. I can’t believe how proud I am of you girls.”
“I wouldn’t be too proud, Dad,” Dove says. “One of us has broken both her legs jumping off a building and the other is leaving school to learn how to make cappuccinos.”
And we all crack up laughing.
Dad finishes his beer and is feeling rather pleased with himself. To impress Mum, he shows us some of the stage fighting he’s been teaching the students at his summer school. He teaches Dove and I how to slap and punch each other round the face without actually making contact. I have to stomp my foot at the same time to look like I’ve broken Dove’s nose. It’s funny. Especially as Dad is well drunk and keeps slurring his words and tripping up when his sandal slides off. Mum is laughing, beer in hand. Dad does some karate for us and some other really strange physical theatre.
“Do a roundhouse kick, Dad!” Dove orders, and Dad begins spinning round in a circle and flapping his feet out. Dad is wobbling drunkenly all over the place on the decking. Knocking over the plants and falling into a thorny bush.
“Watch my lavender!” Mum warns.
“You try now, BB!” Dove says.
“I can’t!” I say. “But I can show you some of the yoga I’ve been learning?”
“Ahhh, yoga. Namaste. I have an inner yogi in me,” Dad says wistfully. “The lovely relaxing bit after all that action—what a perfect way to end a blissful evening in paradise.” He looks at Mum for a sign of romantic gesture. He gets a side smile and a raise of the brows. I wouldn’t start counting his hens too soon if I were him. The dog farts to add to the mood.
“So this is Warrior.” I show him.
“Yes, yes, I know all about Warrior.”
“There’s one really hard one my teacher taught me but I can’t do it.”
“Which one?”
“The Crow Pose?”
“Aghhhh, the good old Crow, no problem, remind me….”
Mum laughs, all flirty. Awwright, Mum. Calm down.
I squat down to the decking, spreading my hands. Then with elbows wedged in between my inner thighs I try to lift my feet off the ground, tipping my head forward…I hold it for half a second before losing my nerve and dropping back down.
“That’s serious!” Dove laughs, impressed. “You can almost do it.” Even though I definitely can’t.
“Nah!” Dad waves me off. “It’s a piddle. Say no more!”
He squats down. I hear his bony knees crick and he finds his balance and, using his hands, tips up. His grey hair floats up like a toupee; I see his bald patch like a little shiny moon twinkling on his skull. He looks old. Different from the frozen photograph I’ve captured of him in my mind. Mum watches, hand over mouth, trying not to laugh at Dad in his camo shorts and tropical shirt as he pouts his mouth and closes his eyes as though he is meditating. I can’t even begin to imagine the photograph Mum has of him in HER mind. It must be a completely different person altogether. Do we hold on to the person we love as the person we see before us today or is it the moment we decided we loved them?
Dad suddenly, drunkenly, FOOLISHLY, tips forward, makes the pose and holds the position and we all whoop, impressed, until he gets too cocky and…
BAM!
His face hits the ground. He’s tipped too far forward too quickly. SO drunk he couldn’t think fast enough to put his feet out to brace himself.
“AHHH!” he yells, and he looks up and his nose is bleeding and he has cut the bridge of it, all bloody, and his lip has already swollen and his forehead is grazed and covered in black grit and his chin is scabbed and his eyes are already swelling. “OH. OH. NO. My face, my face…” He wants to touch it. “Is it bad? Is it bad?”
“No. No!” We lie to him. Sitting him down as Mum scuttles over, reassuring him.
“Come on, old man, let’s get you cleaned up,” Mum says as she leads him indoors. Dad apologising to Mum, desperately trying to remind her how good he was at yoga back in the day. The dogs follow, of course; they love the drama.
Poor Dad.
Dove and I leave Mum and Dad to it. We can see them in the amber glow of the kitchen from the darkness outside. Dad on the kitchen table and Mum dabbing his head. Dad’s making Mum laugh, although I honestly can’t say if it’s intentional.
“B, want to see what I’ve learnt?”
“Sure.”
And suddenly, Dove whips her chair up onto one wheel and spins around on the decking in a pirouette.
“What the hell was that?”
“I dunno. Does it look cool?”
“It looks amazing!” I hug her. “So cool!”
“I’m gonna learn more. I’ve been watching these videos. I’m also going to try out for a basketball team.”
“Dove, that’s brilliant news.”
“Tell you what is brilliant news…” Dove glances over at the back window where Mum and Dad are hugging. I scrinch my nose up at them—they can be a bit cute.
“Really, really wish we had marshmallows,” Dove sighs. “Always forget about how much I love them.”
Ooh, sorry…What did we eat?…OK…well, the fairy lights shine a teary dream canopy over the orange flames and cindered coals, so we weren’t entirely sure when things were cooked. I guess cooking with fire makes you feel so animalistic and caveman you can almost trick yourself into thinking you are able to stomach pretty much anything.
But I’ll go with chicken. Moist and chargrilled on the outside, sausages that were herby and delicious, bread and cheese and coleslaw.
And you’re probably gonna tell me that most of that is bad for me, but I just don’t ca
re.
MARSHMALLOW
“Let me just squeeze past your bot-bot.” Alicia double-taps my side. “If you just breathe in for me there, babycakes…,” Alicia says as she unnecessarily inches past me to sit down. Exaggerating my size. I don’t take it personally. I’m over it.
“Bluebelle, there’s something I have to confess to you, doll face. A little bit of…not-so-good news…”
“OK…”
I watch a couple sharing an electric skateboard whizz over the zebra crossing towards the park. So annoying.
“I’ve had a call from head office…” There is no head office; it’s basically a forty-five-year-old stoner called Daerren (yes with an a and an e) who lies on his couch with his iPad all day. “…and they”—that’ll be Daerren—“are, regrettably, as I suspected, worried about committing to the apprenticeship. It’s not something that we—they—as a small independent coffee house can take on. It’s a big responsibility and, well…even though I’ve tried to convince them”—Daerren—“it also didn’t look great that you’ve not really been here much; there’s lots of blanks in the rota, which doesn’t look too pro, and when they asked why you weren’t here a lot I obviously had to explain about your sister’s illness and—”
“Not an illness,” I interrupt.
“Sorry, beb, not illness, you know what I mean.”
“No I don’t. Not really. She had an accident.”
“Errr…O…K, moody pants.” Alicia looks put out. “I wouldn’t be going round acting like that, giving it the biggun after your little stunt with Maxy boy. You’re lucky I didn’t tell them about that or you both would’ve been fired on the spotty-spot-spot.”
I stay silent.
“And I didn’t dob on you. ‘Thank you, Alicia.’ ‘You’re welcome,’” she says to herself through gritted teeth as though she’s being nice, even though she’s being snide. “And you should be thanking me anyway because I’ve made sure you can keep your job after I leave. I had a lovely chat with HR”—HR? Give it a rest, that’ll be Daerren’s cat—“and we all agreed that. Perhaps you could speak with the new manager and he’ll give you some more shifts?”
My Ideal Boyfriend Is a Croissant Page 26