by Mel Sparke
“Too right,” Ollie called after her, quickly wiping down the coffee-ringed, stainless-steel counter top before slamming down another tray on to it. “Three o’clock can’t come fast enough!”
It was still only midday and, so far this Sunday, work had been hectic. Ollie wasn’t handling it too well; the combination of a café full of clamouring customers after a late night gigging at Winstead College was getting on top of him.
None of his other friends had turned up this morning, he noticed-their regular spot in the window booth was occupied by a family with small, noisy children - and Ollie desperately envied the others their lie-ins.
“What have you got planned when you knock off?” asked Anna, swooping back with her now empty tray. She knew that Ollie rarely slowed down. If he wasn’t beavering away in the End or Nick’s record shop next door, he’d be helping at his parents’ pub, working on music with the band, or up to his armpits in oil trying to get his broken-down Vespa to work. Somehow, he always managed plenty of time for Kerry in among it all-luckily for her.
“Nothing!” grinned Ollie. “Sweet, lying-flat-on-my-back nothing!”
“Ooh, I could do with a bit of that too, considering what time I finally got in from the college party last night,” Anna laughed, slipping around the counter and heading back towards the kitchen.
She hesitated in the doorway as if a thought had just crossed her mind.
“By the way, have you noticed?” she whispered to him.
“What?” Ollie asked, panicking that he’d messed up an order. His brain was so mushy today, he wouldn’t have been surprised if someone who’d been expecting eggs and sausage was sitting with a plate of toasted dishcloth in front of them.
“Don’t look, but the table nearest the door-it’s your little fan.”
Ollie looked at Anna blankly as he tried to get his fluff-filled brain into gear.
“You know-her!” Anna whispered, eyes wide. “What does Matt call her? Stalker Girl!”
Ollie’s eyes rolled over reluctantly towards the door, but he was relieved to see that the table was empty. Although at the back of his mind, he was dimly aware of hearing the bell above the door tinkle as it opened. Or closed…
“No one there now,” he shrugged. “Are you sure it was her, Anna? You’re as tired as I am, remember.”
“Yes-I recognised the little nose stud,” said Anna, squinting out into the street to see if she could spot the girl walking away. “Oh well, doesn’t look like she’s so interested in you any more…”
“Phew,” sighed Ollie.
The last customer was still flicking through a Sunday paper, eating an apple pie, and seemed in no hurry to leave. But Nick didn’t mind. He’d flipped over the ‘Closed’ sign ten minutes early to dissuade any latecomers and was sitting slumped on a stool at the counter with a steaming mug of tea in front of him.
Ollie stood with his elbows on the counter, staring off into the middle distance. Both of them were too tired to think about tidying up yet; a short breather was called for first.
“That was nice of you to let Anna knock off early” Ollie mumbled.
“Well, let’s face it, Ol,” said Nick with a yawn. “She was out as late as us last night, but she worked twice as hard as either of us today.”
“True…” nodded Ollie. “Good night though, wasn’t it?”
“Yep, you played a blinder,” Nick nodded. “Eva thought so too.”
Ollie’s heart immediately sank-he’d forgotten all about Nick and his dubious date. After sticking his head round the dressing room door the previous night, Nick had vanished with ‘Eva’.
“Nick…?”
Ollie’s toes curled at the thought of what he was about to get into.
“Yeah?” said Nick absently, scratching the dark stubble on his chin.
“Who exactly is this… Eva woman?”
“Eva? What-you’ve never seen her down at the Railway Tavern before?”
God, it’s worse than I thought, Ollie groaned inside. He’s been out with her before…
“Er, no.”
“You must have seen her-with Derek?”
“What, Derek goes out with her too?” Ollie winced. This was getting worse and worse. His uncle not only phoned up girls from an escort agency, but shared them with the manager of the Railway Tavern as well?
Jeez-what’s he going to do next? Ollie worried. Introduce me to his new girlfriend, Miss Whiplash, and tell me he got her number off a card left in a phone box?
“Huh?” grunted Nick, furrowing his brow so much that his bushy eyebrows practically met in the middle. “What are you on about? Eva’s Derek’s wife. They both came along to your gig last night with a mate of theirs who runs the Balinard Hotel. He’s looking for a band to do functions.”
“But you disappeared…” said Ollie lamely.
“Yes-to talk business with them.”
“But you never said…”
“Ol, I didn’t know Derek was bringing this geezer down last night till he arrived with him, and I didn’t want to mention anything to you lads until I got the chance to talk to him and see if he’s up for it!”
“And is he?” said Ollie, suddenly excited by the idea of the band getting more bookings.
“Well, yeah, he is.”
“But why didn’t you say anything today?” Ollie queried, now wide awake.
“‘Cause a) this place has been a madhouse from the minute we opened up, and b) he’s not talking specifics until I go for a meeting with him tomorrow. OK?”
“OK!” grinned Ollie.
“And hold on a minute, sunshine,” said Nick, narrowing his eyes at his nephew. “Let’s rewind a bit here. What did you mean about Derek ‘going out with Eva too’? Did you think I was seeing her or something?”
“Uh…” muttered Ollie, shuffling in his Nikes. “Well, kind of. I thought she was from that, urn, escort agency place…”
“What escort agency place?” asked Nick, looking totally mystified.
“The one you’ve got that flyer for! The one you keep trying to get everyone interested in!” waffled Ollie, feeling his cheeks going pink.
Nick let his head slip back on his shoulders and let out a low groan.
“Ollie, you idiot,” he sighed, bringing his gaze back down towards his nephew. “Derek knows someone in the printing game; I got a sample of the sort of flyers he does and a price off him.”
“Flyers…” Ollie repeated, the truth finally sinking in.
“Yes,” growled Nick. “You guys told me you’re interested in getting flyers done for the band, so I sussed it out for you. And what do I get in return? You write me off as being some sleazebag who uses a dodgy escort agency!”
Ollie could see how irritated Nick was. Drastic action was needed.
“Only joking, Nick,” he laughed unconvincingly. “Just a wind-up. ‘Course I knew what you meant! Anyway, I’d better go and empty the bins out the back…”
He’d never moved so fast, shooting through the kitchen, grabbing the bulging black bag out of the plastic bin and slamming open the door to the yard in one fell swoop.
Wait till I tell the others! Ollie winced as he heaved the bag into the square wheelie bin. There we were, thinking the worst of poor old Nick when—
“Hey, Ol,” came his uncle’s voice from the kitchen’s back door. “I’ve just had a weird message for you on the phone-some girl said to meet your girlfriend in the Plaza when you finish work…”
“Meet Kerry?” asked Ollie, perplexed. Kerry and her folks were supposed to be off doing some family visit somewhere today.
“I guess… But it wasn’t her.”
“So who was it that called?”
“Dunno. Didn’t recognise the voice. And then they just hung up,” replied Nick, leaning in the doorway.
“Didn’t you ask?”
“No, I was in a rush. That guy was leaving and I was trying to lock up behind him.”
“Didn’t you do 1471?”
“
Why would I do that? Listen Ol…” Nick frowned at him, “don’t give me a hard time-you’ve done enough of that today so far, mate.”
Running back inside the café, Ollie picked up the phone, dialled quickly and listened to the recorded message. “…The caller withheld their number.”
Ollie’s head was spinning. He’d only just solved one mystery and now here was another.
“Nah, she’s definitely gone off to see her Auntie Wotsit,” Sonja yawned down the phone at Ollie. “I spoke to her earlier, before she and her folks headed off.”
She soon perked up though when Ollie explained about the mystery call.
“Gawd - what are you going to do, Ol?”
“I’m going to buzz the others first to see if they know anything,” he replied, moving out of the way of Nick’s mopping. “And then I’m just going to head down to the Plaza anyway. I mean, maybe something happened; maybe she decided not to go to her auntie’s after all…”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t make sense, Ol - and it still doesn’t explain who the message came from,” Sonja reasoned.
“I know, I know… But what else can I do?”
But the hasty dial-around to the others drew a complete blank. Now, as he hurried to the Plaza, Ollie could feel his heart pummelling at a rate of knots.
Coming to a halt dead in the middle of the shopping centre, he put his hands on his hips and gazed all around him. There were a few Sunday shoppers about, though not many; a handful of people sat in the Plaza’s café, a few more in Burger King. It was a cold Sunday in the middle of February and not many people had been tempted out. There weren’t exactly crowds galore that could hide Kerry from view.
Panting, Ollie sat down on a seat for a second and tried to get things straight in his mind. He’d pretended to Nick that the misunderstanding about the escort ad was just a wind-up. Well, now it looked like he was being well and truly wound up by someone… But who?
Ollie couldn’t handle mysteries: he liked things to be straightforward. So now, he decided, his phone call must’ve been the work of kids. Well, it made sense, didn’t it? Crank calls were what kids sometimes did for kicks. He’d been guilty of it himself when he was younger.
A wild thought suddenly struck him: could Sunny be the culprit? Then he dismissed the idea-Maya’s little sister and her giggly mates hadn’t even been in the café today, so she wouldn’t know Ollie was working the Sunday shift.
Kerry’s at her aunt’s and I should be home sticking my head under the shower, he told himself, standing up to go.
He didn’t spot the dark-haired girl in the café window, watching him intently as he walked away.
CHAPTER 9
PRESENT TENSE
Sunita’s eyes skimmed over the envelope she held in her hands. Then, with a deft flick of her wrist, she flung it over the breakfast table at Maya.
“For you…” she sniffed haughtily, then slithered around the back of Maya’s chair, pretending to busy herself at the sink.
Maya glanced down blankly at what the Monday morning post had brought her. Her mind wasn’t on it; her mind wasn’t on the uneaten breakfast in front of her either. The only thing her mind was on was how ridiculous it was to keep thinking about what happened on Saturday night. Especially since nothing happened.
“Anything interesting?” asked Nina Joshi, breezing into the kitchen and seeing the envelope in her daughter’s hands.
“Um, I don’t know…” Maya shook her head.
Slipping her finger under the paper flap, she tore open the envelope and stared at the card in front of her.
“A Valentine! How exciting!” smiled her mother, leaning over to look at the delicate fabric heart stuck to the front of it, while pulling on her jacket. “Any idea who it’s from, Maya?”
“No,” said Maya, numbly opening it up.
“You don’t know it yet, but I’m the one…,” came Sunny’s voice over her shoulder, reading out the message inside.
Maya snapped the card closed. She didn’t know who it was from, but she didn’t want her sly little sister gawping at it.
“Does that give you any clues?” asked her mother with a gentle smile.
“No,” Maya repeated.
She’d have said no even if the sender’s identity was crystal clear; from everything they’d said as she was growing up, the concept of boyfriends was definitely frowned upon by her parents. At least while studying and exams came first. From her mum’s reaction today, a silly, sweet Valentine was on the right side of Boyland. Any further and there could be problems.
She genuinely didn’t have a clue who could have sent it. But she knew who she wished it was from…
“Awww…” cooed Cat, Sonja and Maya as they gazed at the contents of the unwrapped parcel on the Formica tabletop.
“And look at this! It’s so sweet!”
Kerry held up a ring box, then snapped the lid back to reveal a single Loveheart sweet inside, with the message ‘I love you’ on it.
“Isn’t that gorgeous? How long must it have taken Ollie to shop for all of this stuff, never mind wrap it all up!” Sonja gasped, holding up a silver ankle chain decorated with tiny hearts.
The girls had cooed endlessly over Ollie’s many silly and slushy Valentine gifts for Kerry: a rose petal bath ball; a heart-shaped pencil sharpener; two heart-shaped hair clips made of shiny red stones; even little biscuit cutters that spelt out the word ‘love’.
Joe found it hard to join in. It wasn’t that he felt jealous of Kerry and Ollie and their show of affection; somehow the car accident had put that all into perspective for him, and that old, agonising longing for Kerry just wasn’t there any more. It was just that the whole lovey-dovey gift thing and the girly cooing made him feel a bit…
Icky, was the word that came to mind.
The sight of Ollie walking down the road filled him with relief. Even if the expression on his best mate’s face didn’t look exactly like that of a boy in a romantic mood.
“Ollie! Thank you!” smiled Kerry, wrapping her arms around her boyfriend as he slid into the seat next to her. “But you didn’t have to post it-I thought we were just going to swap presents when we saw each other!”
With that, Kerry bent down and pulled a card and gift-wrapped present from her bag.
“Ah…” muttered Ollie, pursing up his face as if he’d just sucked mighty hard on a lemon.
“Ah, what?” Sonja, quizzed him.
“Then I guess this…” Ollie pulled a clip-framed picture out of an opened brown envelope, “…isn’t from you…”
The girls and Joe all stared at the hand-made collage held together behind the glass. There were lots of musical elements to it: torn strips of old-fashioned sheet music were stuck to the backing paper; headlines like ‘best singer in the world’ and ‘star attraction’ had been ripped out of music magazines and stuck on too. But the central image-framed by a red tissue paper heart-was a Polaroid snapshot of Ollie holding on to a mike stand; a mike stand with pink roses wrapped round it.
“Where did you get this?” asked Kerry, feeling herself shudder, even though the End was cosy and warm.
“It was outside the front door at home this morning, just propped up against the wall,” said Ollie.
“Look-there’re even real pink rose petals dotted about inside the frame,” Cat pointed out. “The same as…”
“…those roses on the mike stand,” Maya finished off the sentence for her.
“I tell you,” Ollie shook his head, his face as white as a sheet, “this is really doing my head in. First, no one owns up to sticking those stupid flowers on stage on Saturday; then there’s that wild goose chase to the Plaza to meet ‘my girlfriend’ yesterday, and now this. What’s happening? Is there some weird configuration going on in my star sign or something?”
“More like some weird little fan getting obsessive about you,” said Cat matter-of-factly. “Some psycho groupie wanting to get her claws into you.”
“Aw, come on, Cat-that’s a bi
t far-fetched,” Ollie protested.
But he realised from the others’ silence that they agreed with her.
“Cat could be right, Ol,” Joe nodded. “Stalker Girl was at the gig on Saturday night-she could have stuck the flowers on your stand if she’d got to the hall early enough.”
“And she was in here yesterday morning,” Anna chipped in. The others hadn’t noticed her wander over from wiping tables when Ollie dragged the picture out. “She could have heard us speaking about what you were going to do come closing time.”
“This Polaroid was taken at Saturday’s gig,” said Sonja tapping the picture. “And these petals match the roses from there. Yep-I’d say Stalker Girl’s your girl.”
“Nah - it’s just too mad,” Ollie shook his head, giving Kerry’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “I’m sure all this stuff isn’t connected. There’s got to be some other explanation.”
“Oh, yeah-like what?” Cat dared him.
Ollie said nothing; he hadn’t a clue. Only a really, really bad feeling…
CHAPTER 10
DEVELOPING FEELINGS
Maya was in deep denial. She didn’t have feelings for Alex, or at least that’s what she kept telling herself.
It’s all Cat’s fault, she fumed. If she hadn’t put the stupid idea of finding ‘someone special’ at the party into my head… if she hadn’t forced me to go and get that ridiculous tarot card reading done in the first place…
But mostly, Maya was infuriated with herself for letting Saturday night’s non-event affect her like it had. She and Alex had been cleaning up the broken glass; their fingers had touched for half a millisecond; they both went back to chatting to people at the party; and Maya left about an hour later.
So why am I finding it so difficult to make eyecontact with him tonight? she chastised herself. And why do I get the feeling that he’s avoiding me?
“Whoah there!” said Billy, coming up behind her and snatching her hands.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she snapped, uncomfortable at finding her friend’s arms wrapped around her and his chest pressed against her back.