Don't You Forget About Me

by Liz Tipping

  “Look, Daniel, this is lovely. I’m just having a bit of a bad day is all. I’m not really in the mood. I’m sorry, I’m going to have to go.”

  I stood up to leave and Daniel took me by the hand.

  “Wait,” he said. “Let’s catch up properly, later on. When you are feeling a bit more…a bit more yourself. Maybe I could come along to your event. Or I could maybe take you to the ball?”

  The ball. Daniel Rose was asking me out to the ball. I’d been waiting years for this. Daniel Rose was interested in me. I wasn’t invisible to him. I’d waited for this for ever, for Daniel to ask me out. Here was the moment I had wanted for so long, but I didn’t want it any more. Instead, I wanted more than anything for Stubbs to be asking me out, but now that was never going to happen. I was sure I had lost him to April.

  “Okay.” I nodded. “Okay.”

  He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a card with his number and his website on. It was businesslike and devoid of any creativity. I’d imagined in my head he would be an artist, but seems I didn’t need to impress him with being arty or knowing about music stuff. I felt a sense of relief that he had asked me out without me needing to devastate him with my knowledge of cool bands. Something shifted in me as I could see that Daniel liked me anyway.

  “Okay, I’ll see you Friday then.”

  “Okay,” I said. “You will.”

  “Will be nice to catch up. I always wanted to ask you out at school.”

  “You did?” I said. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I wanted to ask him why he didn’t, but I couldn’t bear to hear the response. I convinced myself he would say it was because I was a “bag lady” and he thought I was beneath him somehow. I couldn’t listen while he told me I wasn’t good enough for him, but he offered an answer anyway.

  “Yeah, I wanted to, but your mate Stubbs had other ideas. He kind of warned me off.”

  I stood staring at him in disbelief, my mouth open. “Stubbs?”

  He nodded. “Yep, think he wanted to ask you out himself. Looks like he didn’t.”

  “No,” I said, unable to believe what I was hearing. “He didn’t.”

  *

  I left him and went back to Verity’s.

  “So tell me exactly what happened,” she said, calmly.

  “She was at the kitchen window. Making a cup of tea. She had nothing on except Stubbs’s Soundgarden T-shirt. And her pants.”

  “I see,” she said, prising my arms open and removing the cat from me. “So you don’t actually know what has happened then? Cara, that’s no proof of anything is it? It could have been worse.”

  “How?”

  “She could not have been wearing pants either,” she said and shrugged. “It sounds bad. But come on, that’s not really Stubbs’s style is it? A one-night stand? She was bawling her eyes out about something on Friday after you left. Maybe they were just chatting about the photography stuff.”

  “Yeah, well. What was she doing wearing his bloody clothes? She must have been there all day. All night. Oh God, what do you think they were doing all that time?” It made me feel so sick, I almost heaved.

  “Look, I always thought you two would get together at some point, but are you really sure you’re actually in love with him?”

  I nodded.

  “Maybe you just don’t like the idea of Stubbs being with someone else? And that’s what has triggered all these feelings. And you know, with you leaving and stuff, maybe you’re looking for a reason to stay. It was only when you thought me and him had got together that you felt like this. Maybe it was a bit of confused feelings or something. Even I don’t like the idea of Stubbs going out with someone else.”

  “You don’t?”

  “No, of course not. Because I like that we get to keep him all to ourselves, you know? ’Cos he’s always there for us, looking out for us. It’s like having a boyfriend but not having a boyfriend though, isn’t it?”

  I nodded. But what she said wasn’t true. I couldn’t explain the feelings I had for Stubbs to myself, let alone Verity.

  “I suppose,” I said. “Anyway, you do have a boyfriend.” I managed a smile.

  “Oh God, I know. It’s mad isn’t it?” Her face came alive and she came and sat down beside me on the sofa, shoving the cat out of the way.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I dunno. It’s because he’s Divvy isn’t he?” She laughed. “I just wanted to make sure it was going somewhere before I told anyone.”

  “Well, I think it’s nice,” I said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “He’s nice. But here’s the other thing, then I bumped into Daniel in the High Street who wanted to know if I fancied going to the ball with him and he told me he wanted to ask me out at school, but he didn’t because Stubbs liked me.”

  “What, the actual?” Verity started biting her nails. “Christ almighty, Cara, this is just too much to take in.”

  “You’re telling me!”

  “This is a game changer, this,” she said. “I knew it, I always knew it. I’m going to get the emergency chocolate”

  I took a huge lungful of air as Verity went rooting in the kitchen for her secret chocolate stash.

  That’s when there was a knock on the door. “Get that will you?” Verity shouted.

  I opened the door. It was Stubbs.

  “All right? Where did you get to earlier? Why did you walk off like that?” he said, chirpily with a big fat grin on his face. I was clenching my teeth so hard, they were hurting.

  “All right,” I said, trying to smile back.

  Stubbs didn’t seem to notice I hadn’t answered all of his questions. “So, I’ve got something to tell you.”

  He leant in as if he was going to whisper something. I pulled back and shrugged.

  “I bet you have,” I said and folded my arms, leaning against the door.

  “You inviting me in then or what?” He looked past me.

  I wanted to tell him how I thought I was in love with him and how I’d seen April in her pants at his flat. And I ran through another scenario in my head where I told him I loved him and he said, “I feel the same.”

  “I’ve made a bit of progress with April,” he said.

  I nodded and tears pricked my eyes.

  “You all right?” he said. He was bending down a little bit and then he put an arm on my shoulder.

  “Yeah, I’m just busy,” I said, barely able to get the words out because of the lump in my throat. I wanted to tell him that I knew what Daniel had said. That Daniel had wanted to ask me out years ago, but he had stopped him.

  Verity came bounding into the hall waving a bar of chocolate. She stopped in her tracks when she saw Stubbs.

  “Hi, Stubbs,” she said, taking the hat off and holding it in front of her, almost bowing her head.

  “Hi,” he said. “Look you’re both obviously busy here. I’ll leave you to it then. See you at work later, Verity.”

  He turned to walk away.

  As he made his way down to the steps, I called after him. “Stubbs! Wait.”

  He looked back at me. “No way, Cara. I’m not hanging around for you to be pissed off with me. Why are you being so arsey?”

  “Daniel told me he liked me.”

  “Yeah, when did you see him?”

  “Earlier. He said he wanted to ask me out. At school. But you stopped him.”

  Stubbs looked at the ground. It looked like he was chewing his lip.

  “So did you?”

  “Why does it matter, Cara? Why does it matter now?” He brushed his hands through his hair and then tilted his head to the side. I didn’t know what was happening and I was desperately trying to understand.

  “So did you hate him so much, you didn’t want him to go out with me or what? What was it?”

  “You can’t keep living in the past, Cara. You need to think about now. What do you want now?”

  “I don’t know,” I said and I didn’t. I had been so certain it was Daniel I’d wanted
for such a long time and then had been utterly convinced it was Stubbs I wanted to be with. But he didn’t want me now, if he ever did. “I mean, I don’t know, I just saw you with April at your flat and I thought…”

  “Yeah, I know what you thought. You didn’t think she’d go for me, because you think I’m a joke. And for your information, she was only there because she needed a place to stay and she’s helping me with stuff. She’s kind of all right, so maybe I will ask her out anyway. Because why not?” He threw his hands up in the air in exasperation.

  “I…”

  “Why not, Cara?” he said, staring at me intently.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You can’t think of one reason why I shouldn’t? Not one reason,” he said.

  “No,” I said, feeling hurt by his questioning.

  “I thought you might be happy for me.”

  “I am,” I lied. “I want to be happy for you.”

  “Then why the bloody hell aren’t you?” he said. “This whole thing is stupid, Cara. All this cardigan business and trying to like things you don’t and will never like and trying to be something that you’re not? I totally, totally get it. But it’s not that no one notices you, Cara, it’s you not noticing what you have here. It’s like you blend into the background on purpose so you can blame everyone for not noticing you.”

  “And what about you?” I said, feeling hurt by his words. “You could have told me any time the reason why Daniel didn’t ask me out when I’ve wondered about it all these years. And you never, ever told me.”

  He still looked angry and he shook his head.

  “Forget it,” he said. He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away. The tears I’d been fighting back came out like a torrent. Verity put her arm on my shoulder as I sobbed at the door.

  “Oh bollocks,” she said. “Bollocks, bollocks, bollocks. We’ll sort it out, Cara, I promise.”

  “I don’t want to be here, Verity,” I said. “I just don’t want to be here.” All I could think about was how I wanted to run away, to be somewhere else, away from Broad Hampton and everyone in it. I had been trying to make my story different somehow, trying to show everyone that I was good enough, but now I was worse off than ever before, so on the way home, when the agency called to offer me the job in Cardiff, I said yes straight away.

  Chapter Seventeen

  My heart sank when she told me the job was mainly reception work with some corporate hospitality, but she said there was the odd special event like weddings and parties. It was just a start, I told myself. It was a live-in position, so I didn’t need to worry about finding somewhere to stay, and it was by the sea and miles away from our landlocked little town.

  As I walked home from Verity’s, I felt a pang of sadness. I passed the park in town and thought about how I’d been there with Stubbs trying to see if I could become an athlete, just a few days before. So much had happened since then, I’d spent so much time with him. I found myself wondering what Stubbs would say when I told him I was leaving. Would he be upset? Would he miss me? I wanted to tell him, because then I would know by his reaction whether he was happy I was leaving.

  That night, I barely slept a wink because I couldn’t stop thinking how much I had massively messed up my friendship with Stubbs. By the time Liv arrived at work the next day, I was slumped over the desk trying not to fall asleep as I went over the numbers again. I told her what had happened and about the job. She congratulated me, but was sad that the outdoor cinema wasn’t going to be a regular thing.

  “But I thought this was what you wanted to do, Cara. And I wanted to do it with you. As my job. Like, for ever.”

  “I’m not sure it’s even viable,” I said.

  We needed to get the equipment in the next couple of days and although tickets were selling and we were selling the stock, there still wasn’t quite enough yet to get everything we wanted. I considered whether it would be better to give up on the whole thing. Liv got to work on printing some flyers for the event on Friday and stuck a load together to make a big poster for the window.

  We were just putting the last one up when Derek popped in, demanding to know why the shop was closing down and enquiring how much the DVDs were.

  He picked up a copy of a French language film announcing he’d take a few of the films with him and he rifled through some of the independent films. Liv and I mostly ignored him as he made little comments like “wonderful film” and “beautiful mise-en-scène” and told us about Hitchcock influences and chiaroscuro lighting. After a while he came to the counter with piles of films, trying to distract us with showing how clever he was. I made a point of rifling through his selection and discovered in amongst the arty films, he had sneaked in Pretty Woman, Dirty Dancing, Runaway Bride and The Princess Diaries.

  “The Princess Diaries?” I asked.

  He shrugged. Me and him both knew the game was up.

  “You coming on Friday, Derek?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said, smiled and turned to leave.

  “Enjoy your films, Derek,” I said.

  “Oh, I will,” he said.

  “Well fancy that,” said Liv. “Looks like he does like fun after all.”

  “Who would have thought it?” I said and we both cracked up. I was imagining Derek going home and putting his feet up and watching The Princess Diaries.

  “Fancy pretending you don’t like stuff when you do all along!” Liv said.

  I smiled at how nice it must be for Derek to just be himself for a change.

  People popped in and out, attracted by the closing down sign. Why was it people only realised what they had until it was about to go? Like me with Stubbs. At the end of the day, we totalled up the sales and it was better than we had done in months, but it still didn’t look like we would have the funds we needed to buy all of the equipment.

  Liv placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

  “There’s still time,” she said. “We’ll raise the cash. I’m sure of it.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “We will,” but I was feeling less confident and I began to feel slightly panicked about the event in general. It was such a public thing to do; I was really putting myself out there. I glanced around at the cardboard cut-outs I had so often turned to for advice. I can do it, I told myself, I can do it. And if it was a disaster, I was leaving town anyway and I wouldn’t have to see anyone again.

  “Hang on a second, Liv, we might not have enough to buy all of the equipment, but we’d have enough to hire it, I’m sure. It wouldn’t be ideal, but it means the evening could go ahead.”

  I smiled when I thought about it. I had to make this happen. I had to create this moment for myself. I had, after all, most of the things I wanted. I knew why Daniel hadn’t asked me out and while this created a whole host of other issues for me, at least I had my answer. And now I was doing this wonderful fun thing to entertain everybody, so I could go to the ball on Saturday with my head held high. And I had my cardigan to collect too. The only thing I didn’t have was Stubbs.

  *

  I’d listed my address as Mum and Dad’s house as I didn’t know how long I’d be staying at the flat for. After Liv and I had found a place we could hire our equipment from, I went over to see if my cardigan had arrived.

  I clambered over all the latest gadgets that had been sent to Mum to try and find the sofa. I squeezed myself into a tiny spot between a microwave and a HD television. Mum had the camera set up, ready for her latest vlog.

  “Numbers are up, Cara,” she said excitedly. “One hundred thousand Twitter followers, a spot on the local radio and there’s talk of a spot with Angela Rippon on a daytime TV show.”

  “That’s great, Mum.” I was happy she was a success, and it gave me hope there was still time for me to make a success of things. “And I have some news too! I got a job.”

  “That’s brilliant, love! Where is it?”

  “Penarth, by Cardiff.”

  Mum put her hands to her
face. I couldn’t tell if she was proud or upset.

  “Oh, love! That’s a bit of a way. I’m surprised you are moving,” she said.

  “I always wanted to go back,” I said. Mum put her hand on my shoulder.

  “But I thought you were so happy here,” she said and paused for a moment. “Well, either way, well done. I’m pleased for you. If it’s what you wanted.”

  “It’s what I am qualified to do,” I said.

  “But is it doing what you love?”

  What a question. I don’t know if anyone really had jobs they loved.

  “Did you get a parcel for me?” I said, changing the subject, not wanting to think about whether my decisions were right.

  “I did. Hang on, it’s out on the line.”

  “On the line? Please tell me you haven’t washed it!”

  “I had a washer-dryer they wanted me to test.”

  I could not believe what I was hearing. My beautiful priceless cardigan. Molly Ringwald’s cardigan had been in the wash at probably more than forty degrees.

  “What?” she said when she saw the horrified look on my face.

  “Mum, that cardigan cost me a fortune.”

  I rushed out to the garden and pulled my beautiful cardigan from the line and held it up. It looked small, very small.

  “Mum, you’ve shrunk it!” I rushed back into the kitchen. “You’ve shrunk it, my lovely cardigan.”

  I held it up against me in front of the hall mirror, which is when I realised how small it was. I hadn’t even stopped to think with all the bidding about what size it would be. I tentatively poked my arm inside. It just about reached up to my shoulder but even with a good tug, it wouldn’t even go halfway across my back. It was like a giant trying on doll’s clothes.

  “It’s exactly the same size as it was and I washed it on number seven,” she said impatiently.

  And then it occurred to me, that whether she had shrunk it or not, it was unlikely to fit me. Why on earth would Molly Ringwald’s cardigan fit me? I pictured Molly in my head in all her various outfits that I knew her in so well. The pink dress in Pretty in Pink that Verity hated so much. The brown outfit in The Breakfast Club. What size was Molly Ringwald? Not the same size as me.