Don't You Forget About Me

by Liz Tipping

  “I tell you what will be a cool thing. Me getting my hands on Molly Ringwald’s cardigan.”

  “What’s it like then, this cardigan?” Stubbs smiled. I could tell he found the idea of me bidding for Molly Ringwald’s cardigan amusing.

  “It’s blue, like a kind of turquoisey colour, and it has embroidered flowers on it. It’s lovely, it is.”

  He burst out laughing. “When are you ever going to wear anything like that? I’ve never seen you in anything other than black and white. Or grey if you’re feeling adventurous.”

  “I’m going to wear it to the ball, after you’ve helped me channel my inner Molly Ringwald,” I said indignantly.

  “It’s just I’ve never seen you wear anything like that. You are always so…” He waved his hand up and down, gesturing towards my clothes. “You know…”

  “No, I don’t know. I’m always so what?” I asked.

  Boring was probably what he meant. I looked down at my boot-cut trousers and my grey top. I never wore bright colours. I always thought they made you stand out and draw unnecessary attention to yourself.

  “Oh what? Seriously? Hampton Street?” said Stubbs. He stood still in the middle of the pavement, much to the annoyance of the people walking directly behind him. “Is this where we’re going? A night out at the Wetherspoons? This is your plan to help me ask April out? What are you going to do, pour Peroni down my neck until I have enough Dutch courage to call her and ask her?”

  “No,” I said, pulling him by the hand and forcing him to walk forward again away from the pub. “Though that’s not entirely a bad idea.”

  “Cara, will you just tell me where we are going, please? I’m not sure about this, you know. It all seems a bit desperate. I could just ask her out you know.”

  I linked my arm with his. “I’m not telling you until we get there because you’ll only moan. You’ll just have to wait and see.” I took him over the canal and through the industrial estate, shaking my head at his questions, not giving anything away until we arrived.

  “Ta-dah!” I said, spinning around and presenting him with the best idea anyone had come up with ever. I pointed to the huge warehouse and it’s neon signs.

  “Laser quest? Seriously, Cara? Sod this, let’s go to the Wetherspoons instead. Much better idea.”

  “No not the laser quest – here.” I pointed again. “The ice rink!”

  “That’s even worse,” he said. He slumped and zipped up his hoody as if just looking at the ice rink had made him colder. He put his hands in the pockets of his jeans. I could see him scanning the ice skaters through the doorway.

  “Come on,” I said. “It will be brilliant. Ice skating is so romantic. It always is in the films, when they go ice skating in Central Park. It is literally the most romantic thing you can do.”

  “Well, maybe in New York at Christmas, but it’s hardly a romantic thing to do in Worcestershire inside in spring,” he said.

  “April and her friends always went ice skating at school. It was like, their thing, and we missed out on it because we could never afford it. When you ask her out, you can take her here as a lovely nostalgic date. She’ll love it. Honestly, I think it’s genius. Don’t you think it’s genius?”

  “So you are going to teach me to ice skate?”

  “Yep.”

  “And you know how to ice skate?

  I shrugged.

  “Cara? Please tell me you’ve been ice skating before.”

  “Well, no, but…” I said, dragging him again to the benches where people were changing into their skates. How hard could it be?

  “You’re going to teach me how to ice skate, even though you’ve never done it before?”

  “I can roller skate,” I offered. “Anyway, it’s not about that, it’s about you never really asking anyone on a date.”

  “I don’t think roller skating is the same,” he said as we joined the queue to get the skates.

  “I used to watch Dancing on Ice. And I’ve been bowling as well,” I said.

  “What’s bowling got to do with anything?” he said, struggling out of his boots.

  “It’s a thing where you have to let other people look after your shoes for an hour or so and you wear someone else’s. So, it’s kind of the same!

  He didn’t look too impressed and even less so when he was handed the tatty skates, which he held up and scrutinised. We walked over the rubber flooring to a bench, our socks becoming soggy from the slushy ice that had collected and melted from the blades on people’s boots. We struggled for some time with the intricate lacing system and then were ready to stand. I stood up fairly confidently, as did Stubbs.

  “Ready then?” he said.

  “Yep,” I said, even though I wasn’t.

  “Let’s go then,” he said.

  “You first.”

  “After you,” he said, grinning.

  I lifted one foot slightly above the ground and placed it in front, turned my body a quarter turn, then my feet a half turn and stepped sideways towards the ice rink. Growing in confidence, I took bigger sidesteps as I got closer, desperate to get the barrier. Stubbs walked a lot more confidently next to me.

  “This is a bloody terrible place to take someone on a date, Cara. She’s going to think I’m a right muppet if I ask her to go ice skating. That’s assuming she says yes. It’s like something you do when you’re fifteen.”

  “It’s not something we did when we were fifteen is it? Besides, like I said it’s romantic,” I insisted, as I clung to the sides, psyching myself up to actually do this.

  “I fail to see what’s romantic about increasing your chances of getting a verruca while trying to remain upright on two metal blades. Hey, steady there,” he said, offering his hand as I tentatively stepped onto the ice.

  “It is romantic,” I said, trying to get my legs to listen to what I was telling them to do. I used the barrier to haul myself along as seasoned skaters flew past, spraying ice up against us.

  “We’ll get the hang of it in a minute,” I said, shuffling along a bit further. “Soon you’ll have moves to rival Torvill and Dean and April Webster won’t be able to refuse you.”

  “Yeah, right,” he said, but then he let go of the barrier and began to shuffle along next to me without holding on. My legs were still sliding off in different directions. At least Stubbs’s were straight.

  I let go of the barrier and copied what Stubbs was doing and we both shuffled along, staying near to the edge with Stubbs describing to me what he thought all the former inhabitants of his ice skates were like and how many verrucas they were now passing on to him. After one shuffle round the rink, we stopped for a rest and observed a few of the youngsters and how they did it.

  “See what they’re doing?” Stubbs said. He leant an elbow on my shoulder and pointed out some teenagers who were whizzing around confidently. “Their legs go out to the sides, not forwards. Come on, let’s give it a go.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Here,” he said, taking my hand. He was right. We copied the ones who looked like they knew what they were doing and instead of moving our feet forwards, we pointed them out to the sides. I surprised myself by how much further we moved with each stroke. I felt like I was going a little too fast, which was worrying as I don’t think either of us knew how to stop. I gripped Stubbs’s hand at first. As my confidence improved I let go but immediately I felt unsteady and took his hand again.

  I tried to balance myself with my other hand but someone hurtled past me. I spun round and I found myself in the path of an oncoming skater. Initially I froze but then when my legs started to move out from under me, I performed a strange and desperate running on the spot thing, both legs slid out in front of me so quickly I was sure I was a goner until Stubbs hooked me under the armpits and pulled me up.

  “Sorry, Stubbs,” I said. “I really thought this would be fun.”

  “It is fun,” he said and smiled at me, eyes crinkling at the corners, so I knew it wasn’t his sarcast
ic style. “It’s just of no use to me whatsoever when it comes to asking April out, and I haven’t exactly learned a lot.”

  “But she always went ice skating when we were at school. So, now you have something in common. She’s bound to be impressed.”

  “If you say so. Shall we go now, then?” he said. “They’ve got hot chocolate over there.”

  “I’ll think of something better next time,” I said. “Do you think I’m boring, Stubbs?”

  He looked at me surprised. “No. Why would you say that?”

  “It’s just when I told you about the cardigan you laughed. I know I’m not the most adventurous person when it comes to clothes. I just never know what to wear.”

  “Look, Cara, this whole reunion ball thing – are you sure you really want to go?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “It’s just, you know, cardigans and all this Molly Ringwald business and wondering about what might have happened with Daniel Rose. Why is it so important to you?”

  “I just want to let them know they didn’t break me.”

  “What?”

  “I just want to let them know they didn’t break me?”

  “What are you on about now?”

  “It’s from the film? Pretty in Pink? She says it to her dad at the end.” I shrugged and put my hot chocolate cup in the bin.

  “Oh, Cara, it’s such a long time ago. It shouldn’t matter. Who cares about what happened at school? And Daniel bloody Rose.”

  “It’s not just that, not just him,” I said. “It’s everyone else as well. Come on, you know what it was like, how everyone looked at us different. Free school meals and charity shop clothes. It’s not fair that they had their moments, their ice skating and school trips. Why didn’t we get ours?”

  “Because we were skint,” said Stubbs. I felt a pang of sadness as I thought about all the school trips we missed out on, the coach trips to museums, day trips to aquariums at the seaside.

  “I hated missing out on everything,” I said.

  “We didn’t miss out on everything,” said Stubbs. “You’re just looking at the wrong moments.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “You always do this, Cara. You forget about all the fun stuff, those days when we couldn’t go on the school trips were the best.”

  I thought back to a moment when it was just me, Verity, Stubbs and Divvy left in the classroom on the days the school trips happened. How freeing it was to be the only ones left in school when we had the freedom to just be ourselves. The teachers let us play music in class and we watched films without anyone around, and we laughed all day. We had fun.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said.

  “Of course I am,” he said. “Remember when we hid for the whole lesson behind the curtains when the supply teacher came in?”

  “I do,” I said and giggled. I had never laughed so much in my life.

  “And then there was the time we had the whole dining hall to ourselves and had a food fight.”

  I laughed again.

  “You see, you’re just picking the wrong moments,” he said.

  I tilted my head and wrinkled my mouth. “I am?”

  “Yeah, you are.”

  Stubbs was right, as usual. He had this wonderful way of seeing the positive in everything. It was like he could pull magical moments out of thin air and make them tangible in a way that made your spirit soar. I needed to start doing some of this myself, grasp on to all the magic moments and start making some for myself.

  And while I was at it, I’d create a few for Stubbs as well. Starting with making him the perfect man for April.

  Chapter Ten

  Stubbs pulled himself up onto the counter in the shop with barely any effort. I imagined myself doing that and considered whether I should have spent more time trying to be an athlete, but I’d already tried that and knew that an athlete’s life wasn’t for me. Still, it was impressive that Stubbs could do it. He’d called in before he went to work and I caught myself looking at his arms before looking away and my face reddened a little bit.

  “Get off the counter, will you? What will the customers think if they come in here and see you lounging about all over the place?” I carried on pulling the staples out of the noticeboard.

  “What customers? You haven’t even got any! When was the last time anyone came in here?”

  “Yesterday,” I said, “or maybe it was the day before. You could hire something. When was the last time you took anything out?”

  Stubbs looked at me like I had asked him to go and get his hair permed so he could look like Derek from the bookshop next door.

  “It was only a suggestion,” I said.

  “Nope, I haven’t got time, anyway. Got stuff to do before work.”

  “What stuff have you got to do?”

  “Stuff. Projects and stuff,” he said. “I’ve just come to see what you are up to tonight. I have a plan to help you stop being a loser and get you into some decent music.”

  I scowled at him only to be met with a wink and a cheeky grin.

  I reckoned the “stuff” Stubbs was doing was probably going home and listening to music no one had ever heard of and probably talking about it with some weird online friends.

  “I’ll have you know I have something truly excellent planned,” he said. I had hoped Stubbs might be up for just going to the pub, but I did want to try and be more adventurous. The door opened and Weird Roger shouted, “Have you got…” But I didn’t give him the chance to say the Free Willy bit as I shouted “NO!” at him and threw the staple remover at his head.

  It narrowly missed him and Weird Roger went off chuckling to himself.

  “Not surprised you’ve got no customers if this is how you treat them,” said Stubbs jumping off the counter.

  “He’s not a customer,” said Liv. “He’s just the local weirdo who has made it his job in life to harass us every day.”

  “At least he gets job satisfaction,” said Stubbs.

  “Yeah,” I said, wishing I had the same.

  Olivia had just come back from lunch and we started dragging the telly and video player out the back. The sun was out but even so it was a bit chilly. We’d need our coats.

  “What shall we watch anyway?” Liv said.

  “We’re going to watch She’s all That so we can learn how to give you a makeover so that April can’t resist you.”

  Stubbs rolled his eyes and threw his head back.

  “What, so you think I need to change my appearance in some way for April to notice me? Thanks a bloody lot.”

  “No,” I said. “You look fine.”

  “Fine?” he said. “Well that’s nice isn’t it?”

  “No, you do,” I said. “You look totally okay.”

  “Ignore her, Stubbs,” said Liv putting the video in. “You look totally smoking hot.”

  My eyes widened when Liv said this. It totally threw me. Stubbs starting blushing and pulled at his shirtsleeves.

  “Yeah, well I’ll leave you to your outdoor cinema experience, then.” He looked sheepish as he took off.

  Liv checked him out from behind as he walked away. “Yep.” She nodded approvingly. “Smoking hot.”

  “Seriously?”

  Smoking hot was reserved for film stars surely. I was puzzled by how convinced Liv was.

  “Am I serious? Like you don’t know it. I’ve seen how you look at him.”

  “Who Stubbs? No. Don’t be daft,” I said, but as I watched him walk away, I kind of thought she had a point. Once he had a bit more confidence with women, he’d easily be able to ask April out. But I hesitated for a minute and wondered if there was a possibility that Stubbs could get together with April, whether he would have any time for me. I suppose it wouldn’t matter if I had a job far away from here anyway. But I did like being around him. I liked how he could change what I was thinking with just a couple of words.

  “Although…” I added without realising I was talking out loud.

/>   “What? Although what?” said Liv.

  I stuttered as I began to answer and felt myself going red. “I don’t know, just that he’s nice is all. I like him.”

  “Oh my God, do you think like like him?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t know.”

  Liv pressed play on the machine and interrupted my thoughts. “Outdoor cinema experience indeed.”

  And then it hit me. I looked around at the hardly used car park at the back of the shop and the sloping grassy bank at the side.

  An outdoor cinema experience.

  “Liv, you are a flipping genius. Stubbs is a genius. Or maybe I’m the genius,” I said and I jumped up and kissed her on the head.

  “Cara Dunham, why are you behaving so unusually?” she said looking alarmed.

  “Look at it here, it’s perfect. We could totally have outdoor film screenings. It’s just the thing we need. It would be my dream job. And it’s something I actually have the skills to do as well. I’m qualified in events management and this is perfect for me. It’s managing an event and I’d be doing something I’m passionate about.”

  I felt a grin spreading across my face and realised I might actually be a brain after all.

  “Now, let’s get down to business and sort all this out. We may need to raise some funds and work out the logistics, so I think we need to get cracking. We are going to launch on Friday.”

  “Cara, you are a genius! Yes! Let’s do it. We’ll have it out the back on the grassy bank. It’s going to be amazing! This is your idea, Cara, and we’re going to do it.”

  I couldn’t wait to see Stubbs later and tell him my plans. I knew he would think it was cool and, even more importantly, imagine what Daniel would think when he learned I was running a successful outdoor cinema company. I was going to be cool at last. And it would create so much magic. How wonderful it would be to organise something so special, a sparkling event that changed how people felt, and a shared experience, something people could do together. My stomach flipped when I thought about it.

  It would take a bit of thinking through, and a bit of planning, but for the first time in ages, I felt really, truly excited.