Looking for a Hero

by Cathy Hopkins

  ‘No. How? You’re not in hospital.’

  ‘I know. Just . . .’Joe sighed.

  ‘It’s not a gift or anything. I just bought it on the way home and wanted to try it and I was about to and then you arrived and . . .’ I knew I was rambling.

  ‘Go on then, give us a bit.’

  I snapped off two sections, handed one to him and put the other piece in my mouth. We stood there chewing, but it felt like I was eating glue. I wanted Joe to go. Why is it so uncomfortable? I asked myself. We’d been getting on so well lately.

  ‘I . . .’ I began.

  Joe burst out laughing.

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  He pointed at my mouth. Oh God, I’ve smeared chocolate like a five-year-old, I thought as I walked over to the mirror above the fireplace to see the damage.

  ‘Tooth,’ said Joe.

  I hadn’t smeared it. A blob of it had stuck over one of my teeth on the top row, giving me the appearance of missing a tooth. Toothless. Like an old witch.

  Joe came and stood behind me. ‘Hmm, that’s an interesting look.’ For a second, our eyes met in the mirror and I thought he was going to pull me back to lean against him and even nuzzle into my neck and I felt my insides melt, but then we heard someone at the front door, footsteps in the hall, and Aunt Sarah came in.

  ‘Hello you two,’ she said.

  Joe stepped back, reached into his pocket, pulled out an envelope and handed it to her. ‘Mum asked me to drop this into you,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks, Joe,’ said Aunt Sarah.

  Oh God. He hadn’t even come to see me. My humiliation is now complete, I thought as I licked over my teeth with my tongue then stood there like an idiot.

  A week later and Joe hadn’t called nor had I bumped into him at school – although that wasn’t unusual as he was in the Sixth Form and they had their own common room. He wasn’t even at the scenery meeting on Saturday morning when I handed over my Bollywood designs. Harry, one of the guys on the team, said Joe’d called him and said that he couldn’t make the meeting and, although everyone loved the designs, I felt peeved that Joe hadn’t let me know that he wasn’t going to be there.

  After the meeting, I met Leela and Zahrah and we went around to Brook’s house to find Brook’s mum was busy on the Internet looking for a boyfriend on a dating website.

  ‘I’m looking for a hero,’ she’d said when we blew in from outside (it was wet and windy) and gathered around the laptop. ‘You can help.’

  ‘Have you put your photo on?’ I asked.

  She shook her head and opened a file on the computer showing some photos of herself. She was very attractive for an older lady in her forties, sophisticated with glossy dark hair like Brook’s and a slim figure. I didn’t think she’d find it hard to meet a man. We glanced over the photos and I pointed at one showing her leaning against a gate in the countryside wearing jeans and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

  ‘I like that one,’ I said. ‘You look relaxed in it.’

  Brook frowned and pointed at the screen at one of her mum in a bikini on a beach. ‘You mustn’t put that up – God only knows what response you’d get.’

  ‘I’m proud of my body, hon,’ said Mrs Holmes. ‘I work hard at it.’

  ‘Well, I don’t want you flaunting it on the Internet,’ said Brook. I laughed. She sounded so prim.

  Mrs Holmes clicked on to the part of the website that showed men’s profiles and scrolled though them as we looked on.

  ‘Ergh, not him,’ said Brook as a heavy-set man appeared on the screen. ‘Come on, Mom, think about this. I mean, one of these guys might be my new stepdad and that guy you’re checking out looks like he’d chop you into pieces, eat your liver then bury your remains under the floorboards.’

  ‘Yeah. Creepy,’ said Leela with a shudder as Mrs Holmes moved to a man with a neat white beard, close-set eyes and thin mouth.

  ‘Delete,’ said Zahrah. A chubby Elvis look-a-like was grinning at us.

  Next a pleasant-looking man with short silver hair popped up on the screen. ‘Oh, he looks nice,’ Leela and I chorused.

  ‘He’s a biologist,’ said Mrs Holmes, reading his profile. ‘Hmm, so he’s got a brain.’

  ‘You hope,’ said Zahrah.

  ‘I do,’ said Mrs Holmes. She smiled at a photo of a man in a diving suit. ‘This one sounds like a laugh. Have my own teeth and hair, don’t give up on me. I like to have fun and am looking for a lady I can do exactly that with.’

  ‘I think you should be very careful,’ said Zahrah. ‘You don’t know who these men are.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ said Mrs Holmes. ‘I know the rules. Always meet in a public place. Don’t give out personal details like your address or phone number.’

  ‘Or where you work,’ added Zahrah. ‘Or even the year you were born – people can use personal details like that. Fraudsters steal identities from the Web.’

  Mrs Holmes laughed. ‘Shouldn’t it be me telling you girls this? You lot are like a bunch of old women. Honestly!’

  ‘I wouldn’t look for a boy on the Net,’ said Zahrah. ‘Too many nutters out there.’

  ‘Well you’re young and meeting people all the time,’ said Mrs Holmes. ‘It’s different when you get to my age. All my friends are in couples and they’ve already introduced me to all their single friends. And it can happen. My friend at work met someone online last year and they’re very happy together.’

  ‘Aren’t there any men at your work?’ asked Leela. (Mrs Holmes runs a gallery in Mayfair that imports American art.)

  ‘Only married or gay. There aren’t any eligible ones in my world. No. I move with the times and the Internet it is,’ said Mrs Holmes. ‘It’s fun and it makes me realise that I have choice. Don’t worry Brook, I don’t have to marry any of them. Or even snog them.’

  ‘Yerghh, Mom. Too much information,’ said Brook. The screen scrolled down to a man who looked like an old woman with bouffant white hair. ‘Ohmigod, not him! Or is it a her?’

  ‘I think it’s brave that these people put themselves up to be judged like this,’ said Leela. ‘I think they must be the sort of people who have a positive attitude to life.’

  ‘Well you would, little Miss Trust Everybody,’ said Zahrah. ‘You think everyone is wonderful.’

  ‘I agree with Leela,’ said Mrs Holmes. ‘It’s brave to do something like this. So go easy on them and me. Now who’s going to make me a cup of herbal tea while I sort out the man of the moment?’

  ‘I will,’ I said, and got up to go to the kettle.

  It was fun hanging at Brook’s. She and her mum have a fabbie-dabbie place in Holland Park. It’s even posher than my aunt’s house and that’s impressive. I still thank God Aunt Sarah invited my family to stay when Mum and Dad ran out of money – I don’t think we could have afforded more than a studio flat out in the sticks. Mrs Holmes’s flat even smells expensive as she always has Jo Malone candles burning and the scent of jasmine or lily of the valley permeates the rooms. Apparently Brook’s father is mega rich, and when he and her mother divorced, Mrs Holmes got a ton of dosh in the settlement and that was when she and Brook left New York, came over here and bought this awesome flat. It’s very Manhattan chic – huge light rooms, floor to ceiling windows and white walls displaying some of the art that Brook’s mum deals with. Some of it looks to me like it was painted by a five-year-old having a tantrum, but Brook says that her mum has her finger on the pulse and buys up-and-coming artists’ work as an investment. I hope one day she’ll buy mine. Brook said that I should show her some of my drawings, but I’m not ready to. I couldn’t bear it if she hated them.

  Leaving Mrs Holmes to search the Net for Mr Right, Zahrah, Brook, Leela and I went up to Brook’s bedroom. Unlike the rest of the house, which was modern and minimal, Brook’s room looked like it belonged to a fairy princess. It even had a four-poster bed draped in white muslin with pearly sequins on it. Mucho chav, apart from the vast collection of books on the tall shelf
unit to the right of the window. It suited Brook’s romantic personality perfectly.

  Leela threw herself on the bed, propped herself up on her elbow and said, ‘I do hope your mum finds the perfect man.’

  Brook shrugged. ‘Perfect man? Who would he be?’

  ‘A Buddha with balls and a Bentley,’ I said. I’d heard my Aunt Sarah say that was the definition of her perfect man.

  Zahrah cracked up. ‘Hmm. Somehow I don’t think she’s going to find him on the Internet.’

  ‘She might,’ said Leela. ‘At least she’s looking. She hasn’t given up.’

  ‘She could Google him,’ I said. ‘Buddha with balls. See what comes up.’

  ‘Knowing Mom, she already has,’ said Brook gravely.

  ‘I think we should make a list of what we want in a boy,’ said Leela. ‘Have you got any paper?’

  ‘I have, but I’m not sure I’ve got enough. My list is going to be so long – I’m very picky,’ said Brook. She went over to a chest of drawers, rummaged around and found some paper. She handed us all a sheet and a pen.

  ‘Now,’ said Leela. ‘We each have to write a list.’

  ‘Bossy boots,’ said Zahrah and she settled herself next to Leela on the bed while Brook and I flopped on to the two white velvet beanbags on the floor by the window. ‘I don’t want a boy’

  ‘You will one day,’ said Leela. ‘So it’s good to be ready. OK. Start with looks.’

  ‘Nice-looking,’ I said.

  ‘Be specific,’ said Leela. ‘Nice-looking how?’

  I had to think. ‘Um —’

  ‘I want someone like the heroes in the movies. A prince on a white horse who would whisk me away to his castle,’ Brook started.

  ‘Get real,’ said Zahrah. ‘You can’t even ride a bike never mind a horse. You’d fall off the back. Sounds like you’ve watched too many Disney films, girl.’

  ‘So? There’s nothing wrong with having a dream.’

  ‘OK,’ said Leela. ‘You don’t have to say out loud what you want. Just write for a few moments.

  ‘You sound like a teacher at exam time,’ said Brook. ‘No talking. No conferring.’

  I didn’t mind. I liked doing things like this. It was the sort of list that Erin and I used to write when I lived in Ireland. We were all quiet for a few minutes as we scribbled away.

  ‘Right,’ said Leela. ‘Time’s up. Brook, you go first.’

  ‘OK. My perfect boy will be nice-looking, and sorry if that makes me shallow but I like beautiful things and beautiful people. It’s because I’m a Pisces and we’re romantic with high expectations.’

  Zahrah sighed. ‘Good-looking boys can be so dull, like they’ve never had to make any effort because people just fall at their feet.’

  ‘Not so. Or else it would be the same for beautiful girls,’ said Leela. ‘And being one myself, I should know. No one could call me dull.’

  I laughed but I got what Zahrah was saying. I’d briefly dated Callum Hesketh in September and he was the school boy-babe. It was true – he was totally in love with himself. Joe seemed to be the exception. He was good-looking but he didn’t seem self-obsessed.

  ‘So what else?’ asked Leela.

  ‘I think it’s important that a boy is generous too,’ said Brook. ‘I hate tightness.’

  Yeah,’ we all agreed.

  ‘GSOH. Good sense of humour, very important,’ said Brook, ‘but someone who knows how to be romantic. I don’t want some yob who treats me like a doormat and thinks that I am there to be his slave or bit of arm candy’

  Zahrah laughed. ‘You are such a princess, Brook Holmes.’

  ‘No I’m not. I just want to be treated well. I want the best.’

  ‘Picasso said that women are either goddesses or doormats,’ I said, remembering a line that I’d read about the famous artist who was apparently a bit of a lover boy himself.

  ‘Then we must be goddesses,’ said Leela. ‘I don’t want anyone wiping their feet on me.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Zahrah.

  ‘So what do you want then, Miss Picky?’ Brook asked.

  ‘God. Obvi, isn’t it?’ Zahrah shrugged. ‘Someone I can have a decent conversation with – who has a brain.’

  ‘Yeah, but if he’s plug ugly I bet you wouldn’t want to snog him,’ said Brook.

  ‘Beauty’s only skin deep,’ said Zahrah. ‘Bet I would want to snog him if he was sensitive and intelligent.’

  ‘OK. What about Tim Cole at school?’ asked Leela. ‘He’s brainy and intelligent.’

  Zahrah wrinkled her nose as if to say no thanks.

  ‘See,’ said Leela. You don’t want to snog him because he’s a geek.’

  Zahrah rolled her eyes. ‘No. It’s not that. I don’t want to snog him because there’s no chemistry. And he only comes up to my knees! Give me a break.’

  ‘What about you, India Jane? What’s your perfect boy like?’ asked Brook.

  ‘Er . . .’

  ‘Joe Donahue,’ said Leela and sighed. ‘And I don’t blame you. He is lush.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Brook dreamily. ‘So what’s happening there? You had the date at the art gallery, then what?’

  ‘Zilch,’ I said. ‘Although he did hold my hand at the gallery but. . . it’s his A-level year so maybe he’s studying.’

  Zahrah shook her head. ‘Don’t kid yourself, girl. He’s a boy, isn’t he? Believe me, if he’s interested, he’ll be in touch, even if he’s in the middle of exams. And you’ve got your mock GCSEs coming up next term, but it hasn’t put you off thinking about him.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘I disagree, Zahrah. That might be the case but maybe you have to help things along a little, India,’ said Leela. ‘Sometimes boys can be dopey when it comes to making a move and sometimes they can be plain lazy.’

  ‘So what do you suggest?’ I asked.

  ‘You need a plan to get together with him. You could hang around outside his house and accidentally on purpose bump into him – like oh, Joe! I didn’t know you lived around here.’

  ‘Been there, done that when my mate Erin was over,’ I said. ‘I felt like a stalker when he caught us hanging around his house. I’m sure he knew what we were up to.’

  ‘I think he should come to you. I don’t think you should be making plans,’ said Brook.

  ‘God helps those who help themselves,’ said Leela. ‘So try something else, India. You’re both in the scenery group, aren’t you?’

  I nodded. ‘But it’s sorted and everyone knows what they’re doing.’

  ‘Then you need to make an excuse to talk about some minor detail with him,’ said Leela. ‘Call him and ask for his advice. Boys love that. It makes them feel big and clever. ‘Course they’re not and we all know that but, hey, you have to play the game.’

  Zahrah did one of her sucking air through her teeth noises. ‘You girls. When are you going to get it? If it’s meant to be with a boy, you don’t have to play games. India, don’t listen to them. If Joe’s into you, he’ll get in touch. That’s how it is with boys. Really, really. Just be yourself and let him come to you.’

  ‘Exactly’ said Brook.

  Leela picked up a cushion from behind her head and chucked it at Zahrah. ‘You think you’re keeping it real. But, boy, if anyone’s the romantic here, it’s you. Boys aren’t mind readers -they can’t see what’s in front of them. They need a helping hand.’

  Zahrah shook her head. ‘Not if it’s real.’

  ‘Have you got his number?’ Leela asked.

  I nodded. I had it on my phone and also in my memory.

  ‘So call him,’ she continued. ‘Now.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Zahrah cautioned.

  ‘I think Zahrah’s right,’ I replied. ‘I don’t want to appear desperate. I don’t think we’re at that stage yet when I can call him like —’

  ‘Make it happen,’ said Leela.

  ‘If you’re the honey and he’s the bee, he’ll find you,’ said Zahrah.

  �
�What do you think, Brook?’ I asked.

  ‘Only you can decide,’ she replied.

  ‘Rubbish,’ said Leela. ‘Where’s your phone?’

  I pointed at my jacket. Leela got up from the bed and pulled out my phone, and stood over me until I dialled Joe’s number. I prayed that he wasn’t there – having a conversation with an audience of three listening in is not exactly in my comfort zone. Unluckily he was there and picked up.

  ‘Hey India Jane.’

  ‘Oh . . . Hi.’

  Brook began swooning and clutching her heart. Leela started writhing about on the cushions as if she had ants in her pants. Zahrah looked at me with disapproval.

  After a few moments’ silence, Joe asked ‘So what can I do for you?’

  ‘Yes. Oh. I need to talk through something about the scenery.’

  ‘Oh yeah. Sorry about this morning had a . . . a thing to do. I heard it went well though. Tim called me. But you wanted to talk to me, OK, shoot.’

  ‘Yes, I . . . er, need your advice about the opening night, er . . . run a few things past you seeing as I’m new to it and you’ve done it a few times before.’

  Leela put her thumb and index finger together to form the sign of approval. Zahrah rolled her eyes up to the ceiling. Brook nodded and motioned in circles with her hand as if to say go on, go on.

  ‘Oh. OK. When then? At school?’

  ‘No, not at school,’ I blurted as my mind did a quick scan of romantic places to meet in Notting Hill.

  ‘OK. Not at school. How about next weekend then? Where? Shall I come to your place?’

  ‘Nooooo. I mean . . . no, too many people. I mean . . . you know, family, they’re very nosy. Our house is like a railway station at the weekend. Um. How about. . . er . . . how about. . . today at Ruby Red’s café down near Portobello Road.’

  ‘Today? When?’

  ‘Um, later?’ I said.

  Leela looked shocked, shook her head and fell back against the cushions. I quickly realised that I sounded too eager. It was so hard getting the balance right. Cool, but not too cool. Interested but not over eager.

  ‘I mean . . . not later today, I’m busy, oh yes, so busy busy busy like a bee that’s me. I mean, how about . . . OK, tomorrow?’