Drama Girl

by Carmen Reid

  ‘The sitting room is on your right – half the party is going on in there. The kitchen is on your left; the other half is happening there. Give me your coats – I’ll go pile them in the bedroom. I don’t think anyone’s partying in there . . . not yet anyway.’

  Gina gave a tense smile. She didn’t think that deserved the laugh he was obviously expecting.

  ‘Some friends of ours are coming up in a minute,’ she told Max. ‘Luella, Finn’s sister, Min and her boyfriend, Greg. I hope that’s OK?’

  ‘The more the merrier,’ Max said airily.

  Gina slipped her green coat off her shoulders and passed it to him, noticing his appreciative look at her cream dress and boots.

  But before he could comment, Amy’s silky parka was off and she was standing there in her amazing glittery blue dress and shiny leggings.

  ‘Wow!’ Max grinned. ‘That is a fantastic dress. You look far too amazing for this party. Both of you,’ he corrected himself gallantly. ‘You both look far too brilliant for my humble flat party.’

  ‘Oh, get away!’ Amy said, and gave him a friendly pat on the arm.

  She stole a glance through the open sitting-room door to check if Finn was in there. No point going in and standing around awkwardly, unsure if she knew anyone or not.

  But then Finn, all six foot three of him, complete with gangly legs and arms, was in the hallway, astonishment across his face. ‘Amy! Amy! You’re here – you look unbelievable!’

  Before she could even think about being shy, Finn put his long arms around her and was kissing her on the mouth.

  It happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly . . . And what with the buzz and nerves of seeing him again, Amy felt completely dizzy and breathless.

  Gina, now stranded in the hallway with the kissing couple because Max had disappeared to look after his guests, wasn’t quite sure where to look. She decided to be brave and venture into the kitchen.

  She pushed open the door and saw several teenagers sitting round a small table chatting animatedly. Just as she was about to blush, mumble and back out again, a boy jumped up, and to her surprise called out, ‘The Yank! It’s the Yank, my friends, all the way from California.’

  Her heart sank. It was bloody Charlie bloody Fotheringham. How had she managed to forget that Charlie always seemed to turn up whenever Finn was around? Just like a toad from under a rock, she couldn’t help thinking. He was such a sleaze-ball, always trying to sneak a feel or a quick snog. And why, oh, why did he always have to refer to her as ‘the Yank’? It was just so rude.

  But he’d come up to her now, giving her a slurpy kiss on the cheek and slipping an arm around her. When his hand dropped down to her butt, she quickly moved forward so that it just fell to his side.

  ‘A glass of wine?’ he suggested.

  His face was too close to Gina’s, way too close – she could smell his sour wine-laced breath and see how the dark red sediment had stained his teeth and sat in dark lines in the cracks of his dry lips.

  ‘I think I’ll have a Coke or an OJ please,’ she replied.

  ‘OJ! Do you hear that? That is too cute,’ Charlie teased.

  Gina could have kicked herself, she really could. Or at least, she could have kicked him.

  ‘It’s cooooold,’ Min complained.

  Although she had been going to school in Scotland for four years now, she still wasn’t used to the cold here. It was never, ever this freezing in South Africa! There, you wouldn’t think twice about stepping out for the evening in a flimsy dress and nice shoes, but here? Brrrrr . . . She pulled her jacket around her tightly and tried not to let her teeth chatter.

  Then, in the distance, she saw two boys coming along the pavement towards them. They were both wearing long coats and seemed to be chatting to each other.

  Min looked closely, but they were still too far away and it was too dark for her to see if one of them was Greg.

  One of the boys waved, and he and his friend started jogging towards them.

  ‘Hi!’ he called out, and Min recognized him as Dermot.

  ‘Hi!’ she replied.

  As they passed under a streetlamp, she saw that he was with Greg.

  ‘I found him wandering helplessly, so I befriended him,’ Dermot teased. ‘Where’s Gina?’

  ‘Already gone in with Amy. The advance party,’ Min told him, hyper-aware of Greg, but not daring to look at him yet.

  ‘I was not wandering helplessly,’ Greg insisted.

  Min’s eyes found Greg’s. ‘Hi,’ she repeated with a generous smile, just for him.

  ‘Hello there – are we all brave enough to go in then?’ he asked.

  ‘Course,’ Niffy answered casually, and pressed the bell. ‘Finn’s sister and co.,’ she barked into the intercom.

  ‘What’s up with her?’ Dermot whispered to Min.

  ‘Big storm brewing – you know . . .’ Min checked that Niffy was ahead of them and out of earshot before whispering back, ‘The Amy-Niffy-Finn love-triangle.’

  ‘Ah,’ Dermot said – he’d obviously heard something about it from Gina.

  As Min climbed the stairs, she couldn’t help noticing that Greg was a few paces behind her – no chance of exchanging a word, or even brushing against him.

  They’d smiled hello. Smiled! Not even a handshake! At least if they’d shaken hands they would have touched. Was there ever going to be any kissing? How did you even go about getting it started? Maybe, like Niffy had said, if it didn’t happen on date one, it just wasn’t going to happen.

  Charlie Fotheringham was at the door of the flat, playing the host. He boomed a hello, and then leered at them. ‘Min, I remember you – you’re looking very foxy . . . Niffy, of course . . . mwah, mwah.’ She was kissed on both cheeks. Greg and Dermot were acknowledged – Greg with a nod; Dermot with raised eyebrows and obvious disapproval.

  Dermot and Charlie had come across each other in the café before – with unhappy results.

  ‘Oh yes, you’re the waiter who dates the Yank,’ Charlie said snootily.

  ‘Something like that,’ Dermot managed, muttering, ‘And you’re the prat who winds everyone up,’ so only Niffy and Greg could hear.

  ‘What?’ Charlie demanded, suspecting he’d been insulted.

  ‘Nothing, your lordship,’ Dermot replied innocently.

  ‘Well, in you come – we’ll not ask you to fetch our drinks, just this once.’

  ‘You are too kind.’ Dermot forced himself to button his lip and not add any further insults. He would quite like to smack Charlie some time, he thought, but he didn’t exactly want to start a fight in this chi-chi little hallway.

  Jeez! Look at this place. This was half a million pounds worth of prime Georgian property – and it was somebody’s student flat!

  ‘Dermot!’

  Dermot’s mind was taken off the stunning injustices of the world by the sight of Gina, in the kitchen doorway, glowingly pretty in a perfect cream-coloured dress. He had to look her over approvingly before moving in for a hello kiss.

  ‘You look great. I love your boots,’ he told her.

  ‘Ooooh, the boots – all I ever hear is how everybody loves the boots,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘We do. We also love the tasty tanned legs inside them.’

  ‘You are too cute,’ she told him. ‘Way too cute.’

  And he was too, in his blue denim shirt and rumpled chinos . . . his startlingly blue eyes fixed on hers . . . and, best of all, his ready smile. He was always smiling, teasing or joking. That was what she liked most about him. Unlike the other boys she’d met in Scotland – from Craigiefield and St Lennox – Dermot never took himself too seriously.

  ‘Let’s skip out of here and go somewhere else together,’ Dermot said against her ear, his lip brushing the bottom of her earlobe and making the hairs on her neck stand up.

  ‘I can’t – not right now,’ she replied. ‘I need to keep an eye on Niffy. I’m worried that she and Amy might have a big fight and I want to try and stop
them having some hideous scene they’re going to totally regret – in fact’ – Gina shrugged herself out of Dermot’s arms – ‘where is Niff? Has she gone into the sitting room?’

  Gina went in and looked around, trying to establish what was going on.

  Finn and Amy were entangled on a small white sofa – that was pretty obvious. Everyone else in the room was doing their best to ignore them. Min and Greg were sitting on another small sofa talking to each other, their chins both very seriously propped up on their hands.

  As both sofas were occupied, the rest of the guests were standing around chatting, holding glasses of wine or juice or cans of beer.

  Then Gina saw Niffy. At first glance it looked as if she was talking to Charlie as she sipped at a large glass of red wine. But really, Gina saw, she wasn’t paying the slightest attention to him; she was just standing beside him, nodding as if she was listening. All her focus was on her brother and his new girlfriend and their incredible enthusiasm for each other, which was on plain view for all to see.

  ‘Hi, Niffy.’ Gina decided to go over and try and distract her. She had Dermot’s hand in hers and pulled him along too, although a cosy chat with Charlie was just about the last thing on his mind.

  Niffy turned and gave a sour little smile. ‘Finn hasn’t looked at me once!’ she said in disbelief. ‘He can’t unstick his lips from Amy’s face for long enough to even say hello. To me! His one and only bloody sibling.’ She brought the wine glass up to her lips and took a recklessly large gulp.

  ‘So you brought your little waiter friend along?’ Charlie said to Gina.

  ‘Yeah . . . get over it,’ she snapped straight back at him.

  Dermot had the sense to stand back and say nothing, although he could feel his fingernails squeeze into his palms. If this guy did anything rude or stupid – or even slightly irritating – Dermot would hit him. He really would.

  Gina moved so that she was blocking Niffy’s view of the Amy-and-Finn snogathon. ‘So’ – she racked her brain for some topic of conversation, however bizarre – ‘it looks like Greg and Min are getting on really well.’

  ‘Not as well as some people,’ came Niffy’s snarled reply.

  Gina elbowed Dermot in the ribs, hoping to spur him into action. Surely if anyone could make a joke of this and take Niffy’s mind off it, it had to be him.

  ‘Has anyone seen any snacks?’ Dermot asked. ‘I know you like a good snack, Niffy, and to be honest I’m quite partial to a little cheesy cocktail nibble myself. What I’d really like to see’ – he scanned the room – ‘is a big plate of nachos – but you know, I’d settle for a handful of peanuts . . . or even a Twiglet in a snack emergency. But it’s not much of a snack, is it, really, a Twiglet? I mean, Marmite? Who in their right mind likes Marmite?’

  ‘I bloody well do,’ came Charlie’s response, and he squared himself up to Dermot, as if preparing to actually fight for the right to like Marmite.

  ‘Ah well,’ Dermot began, ‘I did say who in their right—’

  Gina knew what was coming.

  Holy cow!

  There was going to be a fight! But not the Niffy and Amy one she’d expected: Dermot and Charlie were going to have a punch-up right here in the middle of Max’s sister’s gorgeous little Parisian-chic sitting room.

  ‘Finn!’ she squeaked in desperation in the direction of the sofa and the snogathon. ‘Hi! How are you? Come and talk to us. Charlie wants a word.’

  Without even turning his head, Finn continued to tickle Amy’s tonsils with his tongue – or whatever it was he was doing down there – but he did hold out his hand and show two fingers. Maybe that was meant to say Just give me two seconds, or maybe two minutes . . . or two hours.

  Whatever was meant, it had an inflammatory effect on Niffy. She screamed – she actually let out a blood-curdling shriek – then stepped towards Finn and Amy and launched her entire glass of wine at them.

  Except that Gina had jumped forward to try and stop her.

  For a split second, an arc of red wine just seemed to hang there in mid-air before it splattered at high velocity right over the entire front of Gina’s beautiful cream dress. Any droplets not immediately soaked up by the soft pale wool landed on the white sofa and the caramel sisal below, where they were instantly sucked up, never, ever to be removed.

  ‘Not in my right mind, eh?’ Charlie growled, and punched Dermot hard on the cheek.

  Stunned though he undoubtedly was, Dermot didn’t have the slightest hesitation in balling up his fist and punching Charlie straight back.

  Before Gina could even gasp in horror at her utterly ruined dress, she was gasping at the sight of Charlie and Dermot wrestling with one another in the middle of the room.

  ‘Boys! Boys!’ Max tried to intervene. ‘Not in here! Calm down. Cut it out right now. This has to stop! Right. Now!’

  Another boy got up and helped to pull the pair apart. They stood glaring at each other, both rubbing at the bruises springing up on their faces.

  ‘Gina!’ Min was the first to rush over to her friend’s side. ‘Gina, your beautiful dress.’

  ‘White wine,’ Niffy instructed. ‘If you spill red wine over something, you need to chuck white wine straight over it. Has anyone got some?’

  ‘Not even “sorry”!’ Gina stormed at Niffy. ‘You’re not even going to apologize before you start throwing something else at me?’

  Niffy had the decency to look slightly sheepish. ‘Erm . . . I’m sorry.’

  Finn and Amy had finally stopped snogging, and Amy stood up to help assess the dress damage. Her chin, Niffy noticed, looked very red – scraped and scratched by Finn’s stubble – and her lips were puffy. Her dress strap had fallen down over one shoulder and her carefully combed and straightened hair was all over the place.

  ‘Hi, Lou,’ Finn said – but he didn’t get up: he knew he would need to calm down quite a lot before he risked doing that.

  However, Niffy didn’t understand this – she thought he was adding insult to injury by not coming over to give her a hug and a kiss. She didn’t reply; she just turned her attention to Gina once again.

  ‘Salt?’ Min was suggesting. ‘Salt absorbs wine . . . If you take the dress off, we could try covering it in salt.’

  ‘No!’ Gina protested. ‘I don’t want anyone to put anything else on it.’ She sounded almost as upset as she felt.

  ‘What about if we rinse it out in cold water?’ Amy asked. ‘That shouldn’t do it any harm, and it would be better than letting the wine dry.’

  ‘Noooo!’ Gina wailed in protest, a wave of distress washing over her. ‘What will I wear? I can’t sit here in a soaking wet dress. I want to go back to the boarding house.’

  That was when everyone realized they couldn’t go anywhere – and they would have to do something about Gina’s dress because otherwise they were going to be caught out. They couldn’t go back early because that would suggest they weren’t at a dinner party at Willow’s house, and if they were having dinner at Willow’s house and Gina had been covered in red wine, Willow would have lent her a new outfit.

  ‘We can’t go back yet,’ Amy said firmly. ‘We’d have far too much explaining to do to the Neb. She might even take it upon herself to phone Willow’s mother and ask why we were given red wine anyway.’

  ‘Oh no . . . I don’t want to stay here,’ Gina wailed.

  Dermot came to stand beside her. ‘Well, that makes two of us then. Shall we go? Find a bite to eat? Hook up with these guys later? I’m sure if you button your coat up over that tiny little spill there, it won’t show too much. Or just say it’s the fashion . . . new Jackson Pollock splatter style.’ He tried to jolly Gina along, but she wasn’t smiling.

  ‘I think you should go,’ Charlie called over to Dermot from the far side of the room.

  ‘Delighted,’ Dermot replied, and gave a low and mocking bow. He took Gina by the hand, and together they retrieved her coat and bag; then, full of relief, they headed out of the flat.

&nbs
p; At which point Niffy walked straight up to her brother and said, ‘You can’t trust her. I’ve found out that she’s still seeing Jason.’

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  ‘LOVELY FRIENDS, LOVELY party – you must invite me again,’ Dermot teased as he and Gina sat down at a tiny wooden table in the cute diner he’d steered her towards.

  ‘Those boys aren’t my friends, you know that,’ Gina protested immediately. ‘And anyway, I’ve never met any of your friends – maybe they’re much worse.’

  Dermot picked up the menu and studied it closely. Then, peeping over the top, he said, ‘Maybe I haven’t got any.’

  ‘Don’t joke!’ Gina told him off. ‘I should meet your friends. I bet they’re dying to meet me, or . . .’ She paused. ‘Have you not told them anything about your Californian . . . girlfriend?’ She said the word as quickly and as lightly as she could, because it still felt new and slightly risky.

  ‘No, no,’ Dermot said, reaching across the table to hold her hand. ‘Not told them one thing about my gorgeous, tanned, blonde Californian girlfriend. Not a word . . . Of course I have!’ he added when he saw the worried look on her face. ‘Don’t be getting all jealous on me again. There is no Scarlett, remember – except in your head . . . and on the St Jude’s stage of course. Why do I not have a ticket to that yet?’

  The thought of Dermot coming to St Jude’s and actually watching the play was so embarrassing that Gina blushed from her neck right up to the roots of her hair.

  ‘Whoa!’ Dermot told her, and began to fan her hot cheeks with his hand.

  ‘It’s not a school play, open to parents and friends,’ Gina explained. ‘It’s just a house drama competition. So only pupils get to watch.’

  ‘Shame!’

  ‘No . . . not really.’ Gina shook her head and giggled a little, now that the blush was dying down.

  ‘What would I have found out about you and me? I wonder,’ Dermot asked, his face once again hidden by the menu. Putting on a high, girlie voice, he added, ‘She’s crazy about you, Dermot, totally crazy—’