Daphne didn’t stop there with the questions. Where was he from? How long was he in London? How did he find out about the party?
I didn’t even know the answers to these basic questions. In the space of our conversation, Marco had turned from sexy and mysterious to shady and secretive. My brain was such a bag of mush last night that I didn’t think to ask any useful questions. I put all my energy into not saying anything stupid.
My romantic high slowly slipped away. What’s the point of meeting a gorgeous stranger at a New Year’s Eve party if you don’t have so much as an Instagram page to show your squad?
“It sounds like I made him up, doesn’t it?” I said.
“I know you didn’t make him up,” said Daphne, rolling her eyes. “I saw him looking at you! It’s just a shame that—”
The front door clicked and slammed. We froze.
Busted.
SIXTEEN
As soon as I heard the click of high heels against the hallway floor I knew it wasn’t Dad in his leather loafers. I never thought I’d be so relieved to see Aphrodite. She strolled into the kitchen, a fur coat hanging from her shoulders and diamonds dangling from her ears. She looked like a movie star. My friends were dazzled into silence.
Aphrodite took a bottle of water from the fridge. “I see you have company, Helen. Does Father know about this?”
I folded my arms. “He knows I had a few friends over last night, yes,” I said. I hoped that detecting lies wasn’t one of her powers.
Aphrodite’s lips curled into a cruel smile. She didn’t believe a word of it.
Noor cleared her throat and stepped over the bin bags. “Um, I just wanted to say thanks for the make-up. I really want to be a make-up artist when I grow up,” she said. “It’s dead exciting to meet a real one like you!”
Aphrodite kicked a plastic cup at her feet. “You missed something.” I glared at her, and hoped Noor wasn’t too upset at her rude dismissal.
As she walked out of the kitchen, dress trailing behind her, she turned around and looked me dead in the eye.
“My room had better be untouched, or else,” she hissed.
Once she was out of sight, I turned around. “She’s the worst,” I mouthed to the girls.
“I guess when you look like that, you don’t have to have manners,” Yasmin said.
“At least it wasn’t your dad,” Daphne said.
“I know, right?” Noor said. “I was ready to backflip out the kitchen window.”
A few hours later, my friends had left, and Dad still wasn’t home. Eros helped me to remove any traces of illicit activity in his office, and make sure Dad’s bookshelf of precious junk was in order. I put the immortal junk back where I found it, apart from the arrows – Eros was more than happy to be reunited with those (“My babies! I wondered where they went”).
“Tell me everything I missed last night,” Eros said. “I spent most of the night solving romantic woes. God, I forgot how messed up teenagers can be. It was glorious!”
“Talking of romantic woes…” I began. “I might need your help sooner rather than later.”
I told Eros everything in detail, from the moment I first saw Marco to the kiss at midnight. He was hooked on every word.
Eros held his hands to his chest and sighed deeply, like he’d just finished watching Titanic. “Helen, this is one of the most romantic things I’ve ever heard.”
“I guess. It’s just annoying that he still hasn’t emailed me.”
“Um, Helen? It’s been less than twenty-four hours,” he said. “And even if you never hear from him again, just think about the moments you’ll treasure for ever. You’ve probably had the best first kiss that any teenager in history will ever have. And I should know!”
Eros had a point: gorgeous masked stranger, fireworks at midnight and a kiss that made me fizz like a bottle of pop. This story was almost too romantic to be true.
A full day had passed since the party, and Dad was none the wiser. If Aphrodite was going to terrorize me for borrowing her dress, she would have done it by now.
But, as I went downstairs for breakfast, guess who called me up to her room?
“Helen? Upstairs, please.”
I gulped and made my way to the attic.
Aphrodite sat at her marble dressing table brushing her hair (for the hundredth time that morning, probably). “You are a fool to think I wouldn’t detect the scent of mortals the minute I stepped in the house,” she said. “Or notice that you stole a priceless dress. The audacity!”
I fidgeted uncomfortably, because she was right. I did think I could get away with it.
“I hope you don’t have any plans today,” she said. “Because you and I are going to be very busy.”
Oh gosh. Whatever she had planned would be a lot worse than the mountain of French homework I’d left until the last minute.
“Well, tomorrow I’m back at school, so I need to finish my—”
Aphrodite lifted her palm to silence me. “Helen, please. I’m asking nicely but you do not have any say in the matter,” she said. “Unless you want me to tell Father about your … misdemeanours?”
I shook my head. She was blackmailing me! Furious as I was, there was nothing I could do about it. Not unless I wanted to deal with traffic-light hair again.
“Wise choice. I’ve seen Father’s temper reduce grown men to quivering wrecks. Now, sit.”
My heart raced while I imagined the terrible punishments she had lined up for me. After all, that cockatoo thing she did with my hair? That was for fun.
“Let me fetch my tools,” she muttered before leaving the room.
TOOLS?! Even Aphrodite must know that you can’t go around torturing people for stealing dresses (priceless vintage or not).
She came back in the room with several boxes full of tubs, creams and cloths. Aphrodite was not planning on harming me. But honestly? What I spent all day doing should be reviewed by the UN Convention of Torture.
Aphrodite needed me to test out a skincare line she’s been working on for the past few months. That explained why she was always out of the house, then. As she’s not allowed to test it on rabbits and puppies, I had to be the guinea pig.
“I have centuries of beauty expertise, Helen. And it’s going to waste!” she said, rubbing gloopy white lotion on my face.
While Aphrodite droned on about the ingredients, I checked my email inbox for the fiftieth time that day. Still no word from Marco.
“This product will blitz blackheads, zap zits and make your skin glow like you’ve spent a week in a Swiss spa,” she said. “That’s if I’ve cracked the formula.”
“If?!”
“Honestly, the world has never seen a product like this. And once the formula is perfect, every man, woman and child on the globe will kill to get their hands on this stuff. Imagine it! One product that will cure any skin ailment. It’ll make me fabulously wealthy of course, but I’m not in it for the money. Everyone will have no choice but to recognize my beautifying powers. Once again, I’ll be the world’s most famous beautician.”
“Isn’t that getting a bit close to breaking the rules?”
Aphrodite waved her hands dismissively. “Don’t you see, Helen? The rules are there to protect mortals from harm,” she said. “But I’ll be using my powers to help them.”
She stood back. “The lotion appears to be taking well to your skin. But do let me know if you experience any itching, burning, redness, flakiness, scales, that sort of thing.”
Crap. There was a very real chance I’d start my first school day of the new year with an allergic reaction.
That wasn’t all Aphrodite had in store for me. She planned on going global with this wonder cream and needed my help to do it.
I spent the rest of the day downloading video-editing software, setting up a webcam and creating a YouTube channel. Which she totally could have done by herself if she wasn’t giving herself a manicure.
Aphrodite clapped with delight once the page was
all set up. “I’m going to call it Aphrodite’s Beauty Parlour. I simply can’t wait to get started.”
“I simply don’t care. Can I go now?”
“You may. Oh, and Helen?” she added as I got up to escape. “This is our little secret. I’d like to keep this project quiet until it’s ready to dazzle.”
Whatever. Like I’d be promoting her silly videos for her anyway.
I groaned as the alarm clock beeped on my phone. I’d gotten used to lie-ins over the last couple of weeks. Getting up early again was going to be a struggle. I pulled the duvet over my head (so warm! So cocoon-like!) and allowed myself a little extra time in bed.
So much had changed since pre-Christmas. I’d thrown my first house party, had my first kiss and was waiting for my first potential boyfriend to email me back – although with every minute that went by that seemed less and less likely.
Would my new air of maturity be obvious to everyone else at school? Dad hadn’t noticed, but I’d have to turn into a scarecrow before he’d notice anything different about me.
I wandered bleary-eyed into the bathroom and hopped into the shower. Then I remembered. The lotion on my face! My skin wasn’t burning and it appeared to be flake-free. I wiped the condensation off the bathroom mirror and looked back at my reflection.
My skin was fine. More than fine, actually. It looked great. Maybe Aphrodite was on to something with her wonder lotion? Or maybe kissing was good for my complexion?
My friends at school noticed it, too.
“Seriously, Helen, what have you used on your face?” Noor said in the lunch queue. “Foundation? Powder? What?!”
“Nothing new. Just a good night’s sleep, I guess?”
There was no point in telling them about Aphrodite’s lotion. They’d only want to try it, and Aphrodite had sworn me into secrecy.
“Must be the glow of luuurve,” Yasmin said.
It had been three days since the party and Marco still hadn’t emailed me back. Like I needed to be reminded.
“Have you heard back from Mystery Marco?” Daphne asked.
“Believe me, you would all be the first to know if I did,” I said.
“Hey!” said Noor. “Positive vibes only. I’m sure he’s planning the perfect response. Probably composing a poem and all sorts.”
We spent lunch discussing the reasons why Marco hadn’t emailed back (did he lose his notebook with my email address? No Wi-Fi? Or maybe it’s customary to leave several days between messages where he’s from?).
“Aww, Hels,” Daphne said. “I didn’t realize you were sick on the first day back!”
Sick, me? That hadn’t happened before.
“Your nose is all red around the nostrils. Do you have a cold, hun?” Yasmin asked.
Then it clicked. Didn’t Aphrodite say that redness was a potential side effect of her wonder cream?
“Oh, yeah! You know, I was feeling a bit bunged up this morning. Let me get some tissues,” I said, before leaving the canteen to run to the loo.
This was no ordinary sore nose. By the time I made it to the girls’ toilets, the redness had intensified and spread. My nose was strawberry red! And not the sort of red you get when you have a cold. I mean the sort of red that hurts to look at, it’s so bright and intense. With this schnozz, I could give Rudolph a run for his money. I stared in horror at my reflection. How the heck was I going to fix this?!
I could tell the school nurse I felt sick and go home early. But then they would call Dad to pick me up. He’d find out I was Aphrodite’s guinea pig and she’d tell him about the party. So skiving was out.
In the end, I grabbed a handful of tissue and pretended I had a runny nose for the rest of the afternoon. I kept my hand clamped over my nose until home time, then legged it home straight after school. Not only was it incredibly embarrassing, but I needed to keep a lid on any immortal weirdness coming from my family. It seemed like I cared more about that than Aphrodite did.
I stayed in my room until she came home, getting angrier by the minute. Maria knocked on my door to check up on me, but I lied and said I had a headache.
The minute I heard Aphrodite walk up to the attic, I burst out of my room and into the corridor.
“Look what you’ve done to my face!”
Aphrodite recoiled. “Goodness, Helen. Your nose looks … jolly!”
“Yes! I have a clown nose now and it’s entirely your fault!” I was shrieking now but I didn’t care.
“This really throws a spanner in the works,” Aphrodite muttered to herself. “It’ll delay launch by at least a few days.”
I couldn’t believe it. All she cared about was her stupid cream, and not the fact she’d ruined my face.
“Forget about your launch! How are you going to fix this?”
Aphrodite pinched my nose playfully, like she was talking to a toddler. “Calm down. It’s already fixed.”
I looked in the bathroom mirror, and she was right. My nose was once again brown and freckly.
“You’re welcome, Helen,” she said sarcastically. If Aphrodite was waiting for me to thank her, she’d be waiting for a long time.
“Back to the drawing board I go,” she muttered.
SEVENTEEN
All week my body was in school, going through the motions from lesson to lesson. But my head? That was stuck in Marco Land. I’d been doing that a lot. I spent my lessons imagining, in intense detail, what Marco was up to right that moment. Maybe he was visiting an art gallery or heading to the gym (he had a great physique under that winter coat – or at least he did in my head).
Whatever he was up to, it wasn’t emailing me.
But then, five days later, when I was daydreaming in an I.T. class about our fifth date together (this would be the one where he declared his passionate love for me), I noticed it.
An email from Marco! But it had the subject line “Sorry.” Oh god. Was he about to tell me that this whole thing was a terrible mistake and he never wanted to see me again? Why else would his first email to me be so negative? How could he do this, we haven’t even—
I stopped my thoughts from racing away like a freight train. Just open the email, Helen.
Somehow I managed to hold it together while Miss Anderson droned on about databases. Noor, who was sitting next to me, must have sensed my internal panic. She sent an email to my school address:
FROM: [email protected]
TO: [email protected]
Everything OK? You’ve gone bright red! N x
FROM: [email protected]
TO: [email protected]
Got an email from Marco!! Should I read it? X
FROM: [email protected]
TO: [email protected]
!!!!! YES !!!!
I couldn’t bring myself to open the email in the lesson. Who starts an email with “sorry” unless they have something dreadful to say? I’d burst into tears, and everyone would think I was upset about databases.
Seeing as I.T. was the last lesson of the day, I decided to wait twenty minutes and read it with Daphne and Yasmin there too. After school, we all met in the usual place by the gates, and I told them what happened.
“Let’s go to Cafe Gio’s and read it over hot chocolate with whipped cream,” said Daphne with a decisive nod.
Uh-oh. Daphne only suggested hot chocolate with whipped cream when one of us was in serious need of comforting. The pit in my stomach became a little deeper. I almost didn’t want to read the email.
“Crap! I promised Mum I’d be home to watch my little brother after school. She’s gone to visit my aunty and won’t be back until late,” Noor said. “Come to mine instead?”
“Fine, but let’s hurry up. I want to see what it says!” Yasmin said.
After what seemed like several years (and several flights of stairs), we made it to Noor’s flat. The dark skies and cold seemed like the perfect setting for disappointment, which added to my ne
rvousness. Was I about to read a humiliating email in front of my friends?
Noor let us into her flat and hustled us to her bedroom. Her little brother sat on the living room floor, glued to his video game. “Hasan, I’ll be in my room with my mates. Stay where you are and try not to do anything dumb, yeah?” I heard Noor say.
She came back with armfuls of snacks and dumped them on the bed. “I thought we might need supplies.”
With Daphne’s arm around my shoulder and a packet of crisps on my lap, I read out the email.
Dear Helen, it started. My heart nearly beat out of its chest. I’m so sorry for only contacting you now, several days after our night under the stars. I must admit I was in two minds about emailing you. You see, you left in such a hurry that I wasn’t sure if you wanted to hear from me again.
The thing is, I haven’t stopped thinking about you. I’d love nothing more than to get to know you. If you feel even slightly the same, please give me a call on the number below and we’ll take it from there. Marco x
“Awwwwwww,” the girls said in unison.
Every cell in my body quivered and swooned. I felt like I could dissolve.
I haven’t stopped thinking about you.
His words expanded in my head like a party balloon, pushing out thoughts of anything else.
“Wow, this boy knows his way around a keyboard,” Yasmin said approvingly.
“I know, right? Who knew he’d be this poetic! It’s so dreamy,” Daphne said, sighing.
“Babes? Earth to Helen, can you read me?” Noor said, clicking her fingers in front of my face.
“Huh?”
“Oh god, we’ve lost her,” Daphne said, giggling. “Yas just asked what you’re going to say? In your reply?”
After agonizing and deleting at least twenty different attempts, I read out my reply:
“Hey, nice to hear from you. How have you been? I’ll give you a call sometime this week. Helen x”
I was proud of the message. It struck a balance between being interested and nonchalant. The girls murmured their approval.
“I think it’s cool that he gave you his number,” Yasmin said.
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