Not Pretty Enough

by Jaimie Admans

  “Here.” He hands me something wrapped in kitchen roll.

  “What is it?”

  “Open it and find out.”

  I pull the kitchen roll off and discover that he has brought me a piece of cake from the lunch.

  “Are you serious?”

  He shrugs. “Debs said you like cake.”

  “Everybody likes cake,” I say nonchalantly. Great, Debs, thanks. What a way to make me look like a greedy cow.

  I pick at it gingerly with my fingers. I want to shove the whole lot into my mouth because it does look like really good cake, but knowing my track record with Lloyd Layton, I’d probably end up with it spread round to my ears and stuck in my teeth or up my nose or something.

  “So,” Lloyd says. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” I mumble.

  “I’m really sorry you couldn’t make it this weekend.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “No, really. I am. The whole thing was your idea. I would never have thought of getting a basketball team together, but you did. It just seems wrong that you weren’t there to see the end result.”

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “So, what happened? Why couldn’t you come? No one said.”

  “I was grounded.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry. What did you do?”

  “Lied about being a victim of domestic violence.”

  “Oh, that. You’re still being punished for that?”

  “My mum was really mad.” I look at him for a moment. “She had every right to be, obviously.”

  “That’s taking it a bit far.”

  I shrug. “Like you’re not still mad at me. You hate me, right?”

  “No.” He puts his hand on mine across the table and I can’t help the little spark that shoots through me. “No, I don’t hate you. I’d hate you if you didn’t realise you were wrong, but no one who wasn’t sorry would have done all that you’ve done in the last few weeks. Plus a thousand quid for the charity is a nice way to say sorry.”

  I pull my hand away from him. Not that I don’t like it there, but I’m worried that if he touches me any longer, I will melt. Literally. Into a puddle on the floor. It’s taking every ounce of self-control I have not to do that.

  “So, I was wondering something,” Lloyd is saying. I look at him and try to concentrate over the buzzing in my brain. “I was wondering if you’d go out with me. On a date?”

  I wonder if this is what it feels like to hyperventilate?

  “On Saturday night,” he continues. “We could go to the movies? Or something else… It’s up to you. Whatever you want to do.”

  “Yes,” I manage eventually.

  “Yes, you’ll go on a date with me?”

  I nod.

  “Great. Do you want me to send a taxi?”

  “It’s fine, I’ll meet you at the cinema in town. What time?”

  “Seven? Eight?”

  “Seven is fine by me.”

  “Okay, great. See you on Saturday at seven, outside the cinema.”

  “Great.” I smile.

  “See ya.”

  With that, he’s gone.

  I really can’t believe this is happening. Lloyd Layton just asked me out on a date. I sit and try to process that information in my mind for a while. A date with Lloyd Layton. Me. Of all people. Of all the pretty, clever girls in this school, he chose me to ask out on a date. I’m so shocked I don’t think my legs would hold me up if I tried to stand right now.

  Oh. My. God. I have to start planning. What am I going to wear? What am I going to say? How am I going to do my make-up?

  Oh God… How am I going to get out of the house? I’m still grounded.

  I rush home from school, change into my oldest clothes, and start cleaning the garage. I have to get back into my mother’s good books before the weekend, even if it means that I have to spend an hour in the bath getting cobwebs out of my hair tonight. Lloyd Layton just asked me out, and if Lloyd Layton can ask me out then I can do anything. Even conquer my fear of spiders.

  Oh bugger, there are a lot of spiders in here.

  Okay, maybe not conquer my fear of them so much as scream and run in the other direction, but it’s the thought that counts.

  “What are you doing?” My mum asks when she gets home half an hour later.

  “Cleaning the garage,” I say. “Like you wanted me to.”

  “Okay,” she nods slowly. “What’s this in aid of?”

  “I just wanted to apologise for how I acted over the weekend. It was really immature. And the whole lying thing as well. That was so bad. I really am sorry. I swear I’ll never lie to you again.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it but what’s this really about, Chessie?”

  “Nothing.” I shake my head innocently.

  “Oh, come on. I know you better than that.”

  “Okay, there’s a new Owen Wilson film on at the cinema on Saturday night and Debs is going to see it, and I really want to go too.”

  My mum considers this for a moment. “Okay, if you finish the garage before then and don’t get behind on your homework, then I think you’ve suffered enough.”

  “Thank you so much,” I scream.

  I go to hug her but she pushes me away. “Yuck, you’re not getting that grime all over my uniform.”

  “Okay, there’s just one more thing… Can you get rid of that spider for me? It’s really big.”

  I know I lied to my mother again, but desperate times call for desperate measures. She’d never let me go out with a boy after all this, and I can’t chance anything going wrong here. Nothing is going to wreck this date with Lloyd Layton. This is it. My whole year amounts to this moment. When you put it like that it sounds kind of pathetic, but different people want different things out of life. Some people want great exam results or to get into a good university, some people want a Porsche, and some people want a date with Lloyd Layton.

  I go over to Debs’ house three hours before the date to get ready, so I have plenty of time to change and my mum won’t see my outfit or make-up. Trying to make Debs realise that Ewan likes her is a great way to distract me from obsessing over tonight with Lloyd. Not that anything can really distract me from obsessing. This is Lloyd Layton after all. I don’t even remember what it was like not to have a crush on him.

  CHAPTER 32

  I get to the cinema at a quarter to seven. I figure this is just the right time not to seem too nonchalant about it, but also not to look too desperate and like I’ve been preparing all day.

  The universe must be on my side for once because it’s not raining, and it’s not especially windy. It’s quite cold, but it usually is in early December, and I borrowed a plain black jacket from Debs.

  The outfit I finally decided on is black trousers with a pink and black asymmetrical top that Debs said makes me look thinner, and a couple of matching pink butterflies clipping my straightened hair back. I’m wearing trainers on my feet, because they give off the casual vibe, even though I’m anything but casual on the inside.

  My make-up is understated. Debs assured me that less is more, and I’ve been so wound up since Lloyd asked me out that I didn’t really have time to think for myself. I just have a smudge of grey eyeshadow on, plus liner, a little blusher and clear lip gloss. The miracle of them all though, is that my skin is relatively normal. You know, no monster zits, no rashes, in fact it’s so normal that I only needed a little bit of foundation to make it look okay. I really think the cosmos is rewarding me for how hard I’ve worked this year.

  It’s almost seven now, and my feet are aching already, and it is way colder than I thought at first. I’m huddled inside Debs’ jacket as much as I can. I want to look tall and slim when Lloyd gets here. I want his first impression of me to be that I have good posture, not that I’m hunched down inside my jacket or sitting behind the wall over there that looks very inviting as it might keep the wind off a bit.

  I can’t believe he’s late for our first date. I can’t belie
ve I was dumb enough not to get his phone number or give him mine. It’s only a quarter past seven, so I’ve been here for half an hour, mainly playing over the reasons for his lateness. I know he’s probably just busy doing something good like fundraising, but what if he’s gone to the wrong cinema or something? Okay, I know there’s only one cinema in this town, and he would have had to go into Cardiff itself to find another one, but it’s a possibility. Or maybe his taxi broke down or was in an accident or something. Oh God, what if he’s badly injured and is in hospital, and I’m standing here cursing him for being late.

  Oh God, what if it’s worse than hospital? What if he was actually here? What if he came here at seven, took one look at me and ran away? Maybe he’s watching me right now. Maybe he wants to see how I act when I’m alone. I immediately stand up straighter and start innocently looking around to see if I can catch him.

  But I don’t think that’s it.

  I wonder if we made the time clear enough. When he actually asked me out, he asked what time and it was like, ‘Seven? Eight?’ What if I didn’t make the seven clear enough and he thinks it’s eight?

  Yeah, that must be it.

  I give him until nine, and then start walking back to Debs’ house. It’s well and truly dark and well and truly raining by now. I’m freezing, soaked through to the skin, and a mixture of incredibly pissed off and incredibly upset.

  “What happened?” Debs asks after she takes one look at me.

  “He didn’t show up,” I say. “All that preparation and he didn’t even turn up.”

  “Maybe he was busy? He didn’t have your phone number, so how could he have let you know? I bet he’ll be there apologising first thing on Monday morning and begging you for another date.”

  I shrug. I’m so cold and wet that I don’t really care if Lloyd Layton wants another date or wants to go and play in traffic.

  “At least you know he likes you.” Debs hands me a towel.

  “Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe it was just some big wind up. A joke. Or maybe he got to the cinema tonight and saw me waiting outside and realised what a mistake he’d made and ran away sharpish.”

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You look really nice. At least… you did.”

  I glance down at my dripping wet outfit and have to agree with her. I certainly could have looked worse when the evening started. However, now the mascara has run down my face and my hair is a dripping mass of rats’ tails, the look is ruined.

  I change into the t-shirt and jeans I was wearing when I left the house in order to avoid suspicion from my mother and work on getting my hair dry.

  “It was probably a genuine mistake.” Debs tries to reassure me again as I get ready to go home. “He probably got caught up in something and had no way of letting you know.”

  I shrug, feeling utterly dejected.

  What an anticlimax. I waited all year for a date with a boy who doesn’t even have the decency to turn up. Couldn’t he have at least called the cinema and told them to go and look outside for a girl waiting and tell her not to waste her time? That would have been the gentlemanly thing to do, wouldn’t it?

  Debs and I find Lloyd in his usual spot under the archway on Monday morning.

  “Oi,” I say, still too riled up to be nervous of speaking to him.

  “Hey.” He actually has the nerve to smile.

  “So, what happened Saturday night?” I ask.

  “Huh?”

  “We had a date, remember?”

  “Oh, right.” Lloyd regards me for a moment. “Yeah. Oops, sorry.”

  “Oops, sorry? You stood me up and that’s all you can say?”

  He shrugs. “Didn’t realise it was that important.”

  Argh. What is it with boys? If you arrange a date then it is a date, not an ‘oops, sorry, it wasn’t that important’.

  “Did you ever intend to come? Was it just some sort of payback or revenge thing?”

  “Look, Chessie,” he snaps. “It wasn’t payback. Believe it or not, you’re not that important to me. I was doing something Saturday night, I didn’t realise you’d take the whole thing as a date and get all girly about it.”

  “Girly?” I am seething. “Girly? There is nothing wrong with being angry that you stood me up when you are the one who asked me out, you’re the one who said it was a date in the first place.”

  He shrugs.

  Why didn’t I notice Lloyd Layton was this irritating before?

  “You know what? I deserve better than this. Thank you for showing me what a jerk you are before I wasted any more time on you.” I spin around and stalk away with Debs running to catch up with me.

  “Women,” I hear Lloyd muttering under his breath as we leave.

  “You were so good.” Debs walks beside me.

  “Thanks,” I say. “That felt brilliant.”

  “Yeah, you really showed him.”

  “I can’t believe what a prat he is. Why did I waste so much time fancying him?”

  “That, I’ll never know.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Is it true what they say about how you’ll find something when you stop looking for it?

  I don’t care about Lloyd Layton anymore, I really don’t. Suddenly it’s like the universe has combined to ensure that we are thrown together at every opportunity.

  I don’t think I’ve ever been more surprised in my life when Mrs Reid, our RE teacher, starts giving us a lecture about always sitting next to the same people and sticking with the same partners on dual projects, so as it’s nearly the end of the year, she’s going to shake things up a bit. She wants us all to work in pairs on a project about ancient churches in Wales, and she’s going to choose the pairs randomly because we always pick the same partners ourselves.

  Imagine my surprise when Mrs Reid yells out, “Francesca Clemenfield and Lloyd Layton.”

  I can do this. I can work on a project with Lloyd Layton, even though I’m still mad at him.

  But here’s the thing about Lloyd Layton — he’s so cute. I know he’s an annoying, disrespectful rat, but he has these sparkly blue eyes that twinkle throughout RE, and a cute smile that he flashes in my direction whenever I look over at him. By the time he comes over at the end of the class, I’m drooling over him just as pathetically as I always was. But I swear I’m not going to try to attract him or win him over or anything like that. I’ve given up. I got my wish, I got a date with him, and he didn’t show up for it. That says it all really.

  Perhaps it’s his turn to make things up to me. I put a lot of energy and effort into getting him to like me, he could have at least had the decency to show up for our date, so maybe this is a chance for him to show me that he’s sorry, and I can be a mature adult about it and give him a second chance. I don’t want the whole year to have been a waste, after all.

  “So, dumb project or what?” he says.

  I nod. Personally, I don’t give a damn about ancient churches, but Mrs Reid obviously does because she seemed to get quite excited about this project. Or maybe she knew that Lloyd and I have some issues to work out and she knew she was doing us both a big favour.

  But I think it’s more likely that she’s just abnormally excited about churches.

  “So, know any ancient churches we can research?” I ask him as we walk up to the cafeteria.

  “I do, actually. There’s this old ruin thing not far from where I live. We could go there to take some pictures, and then you could come back to my house and we’ll get all the boring stuff off the internet and print it out. What do you think?”

  What do I think?

  I’ve just been invited to Lloyd Layton’s house, and he expects me to think?

  “Sounds great,” I say calmly.

  “How about the weekend? Saturday?”

  “Fine.”

  “You know where I live, right? Because I met you that one time in the summer with your uncle.”

  Oh great, I’m so glad he remembers that.

  “Yeah.” I nod, hoping he
doesn’t notice that I’m blushing at the memory of that particular day.

  “Okay, cool. How about I meet you in Cardiff and we’ll go from there?”

  “Great,” I say again.

  “Come and find me on Friday and we’ll make some arrangements, okay?”

  I nod.

  “Okay, see ya.”

  “Hey, you are going to actually turn up this time, right?”

  At least he has the decency to look guilty.

  “I’ll be there, Chessie.”

  That’s something, at least.

  By the weekend we’ve arranged to meet outside McDonalds in Cardiff city centre at eleven in the morning.

  My mother hasn’t even complained that I will be going down there on my own because, as long as I’m not shopping, she approves of the fact I’m willing to work extra hard for school projects.

  If only she knew.

  It’s not like I’m working that hard. I just need a little primping and preening. I would have done it anyway, even if I didn’t have a date with Lloyd Layton.

  Probably.

  Eyebrows need to be plucked, legs need to be waxed, face and hair masks are absolute necessities, as is a full French manicure, pedicure, new make-up, tummy-tuck knickers and a push up bra. My mother thinks I just filled out a bit more. Is it even possible for DD cups to fill out more?

  Okay, I might be trying to impress him a little. But I never thought I’d get the chance to do this again. I know he stood me up on our ‘official’ date, but that’s just because I wasn’t important to him. If I were, say his girlfriend, then I’d be important to him, and he’d never forget about me again.

  It’s nearly a year since the first time he spoke to me in technology class. A whole year has passed, and something has got to give. This is it. This is the last chance. If Lloyd isn’t interested in me after today, then I really do have to give up. Mrs Reid put us together for a reason. It can’t just be coincidental that after all this time we suddenly get thrown together on a crappy project. In all the time that I’ve been trying to get Lloyd Layton’s attention, we were never made to work together on anything, and almost as soon as I give up on him, here we are. It’s like fate telling me there is still hope. There is still a chance, and this is my time to take it.