Grace didn’t look too perturbed. ‘She’s just impulsive,’ she said in her tiny voice. Since we got back from the festival, Grace and I have become mates. Well, I talk and she listens. I think the whole having-her-Highland-Spring-spiked-with-acid incident made her realise that she actually had to take part in life, instead of just observing it from the sidelines. Since then I’ve made a point of trying to drag her out of her shell. Because I’m all heart, in case you hadn’t noticed.
As we reached the top of her road, my mobile started ringing. It was Dylan.
‘Hey you,’ I said softly.
‘All my flatmates have disappeared off to Altrincham for an all-night rave,’ Dylan drawled.
‘And?’ I prompted.
‘Fancy a sleepover?’
‘Cool! Shall I bring DVDs and ice cream?’ I enquired.
‘Just bring yourself and your toothbrush,’ Dylan purred. ‘And I’ll provide the entertainment.’
Yay! I’m going to get seduced tonight. Go team Edie!
15th September
What I like about staying over at Dylan’s:
1.
He has a proper double bed, even though he chooses to encroach on my half of it.
2.
He always wakes me up with a kiss and a cup of coffee.
3.
The smoochies part of staying over gets better and better.
4.
Even though they’re a pikey student household, they have a far more expensive cable package than we do at home so we can watch Bollywood films till really late and make up the dialogue.
5.
Dylan’s there.
What I don’t like about staying over at Dylan’s:
1.
Communal bathroom with no power shower, toilet seat always up and Carter barging in (the flimsy lock was no match for the arrogant way he flung the freaking door open without knocking) while I was cleaning my teeth.
Luckily I was clothed. ’Cause I learnt pretty quickly that you don’t wander round in your underwear when your boyfriend lives with other boys.
I glared at Carter, but it was pretty hard to pull off when I had a mouthful of toothpaste, which was threatening to dribble down my chin.
‘Oh, you stay over now, do you?’ Carter enquired with a nasty smile. ‘God, you’ve gone from shy virgin to experienced woman of the world in sixty seconds.’
I spat a big mouthful of foam into the basin and pointed at the door with my toothbrush. ‘Get out!’
But Carter just stood there, grinning like the total, toxic cretin that he is. ‘You know something, sweetheart?’ he said in a low, confiding tone, leaning closer to me. ‘You’re not looking as cottony fresh as you used to. In fact, you seem a bit worn-in, a bit pounded, if you get my drift.’
I took a step back to get away from him and got banged in the butt by the edge of the sink. ‘Firstly, ew! And secondly, get the hell out!’ I said furiously, but I kept my voice down because if Dylan knew that Carter had come into the bathroom while I was in there, let alone knew what he’d just said to me, it would have been like the Iraqi Conflict all over again. But with art boys.
I made another threatening gesture with the hand that was brandishing my toothbrush and with that stupid, inane chuckle of his, Carter finally got out.
It left me in a bad mood for the rest of the day.
19th September
Dylan’ll be going back to university at the end of this week. That means no more smooching in the storeroom ’cause he’s also starting back at his regular part-time job in Rhythm Records next door.
‘It’s a good excuse to have a party this weekend,’ Poppy pointed out as I bemoaned the disadvantages of not having a willing kiss-object at my beck and call.
‘Well it would make a nice break from the chip fat in here and being in a band with a complete slave-driver who wants me to rehearse twenty-four seven,’ I agreed.
‘It’s just over a month to go till our gig,’ Poppy reminded me yet again. ‘We have to be perfect. In a really cool, rock ’n’ roll kind of way.’
I waved my hands in front of her face. ‘Between mastering A flat diminished and the endless washing-up, my fingers are seizing up. I’m going to start charging you for my hand-cream supplies.’
‘Stop being a drama queen and go and take this order to table five.’
I’m sure I’m developing calluses on the tips of my fingers from all that strumming action. Plus I have to have really short nails now and the polish just gets scraped off as soon as I apply it. This rock ’n’ roll stuff is not in the least bit glamorous.
21st September
If I thought I could spend the next year waiting tables while waiting to be famous, The Mothership has other ideas. She’s got this notion that I should spend my gap year doing something worthy (translation: boring) like working in the Third World or going trekking in the Hindu Kush. What she really means is that she doesn’t like me going out with Dylan. Not when I could be having a proper, committed relationship with the ‘lovely Jake’.
‘Carter was an evil, scheming rat,’ I told her till I was blue in the face.
‘Well he had charming manners,’ my mum said mildly. ‘While Dylan, well he’s very glowery, isn’t he?’
Jesus!
22nd September
I took the day off so I could spend some quality time with Dylan before he becomes re-immersed in doing art boy stuff.
We went to the Tate Modern in London and after we’d admired the Warhols we walked hand in hand by the Thames, which isn’t a patch on the Manchester Ship Canal, quite frankly.
‘I hate that summer’s over,’ I moaned as we sat down on a bench. ‘There’s absolutely nothing to look forward to.’
‘Winter’s good too,’ said Dylan. ‘We can stay in and I’ll paint while you play the guitar and it’ll be all dark outside.’
And where was the fun in that? ‘Yeah, but your central heating doesn’t work,’ I reminded him, thinking back to a party they’d thrown last winter when I’d had to keep my coat on for, like, the entire three hours I was there.
Dylan grinned and shook his head at me. ‘You’re such a princess.’
‘My mum doesn’t think so.’ I rested my head against his shoulder because that’s my head’s preferred resting place these days. ‘She thinks I should be travelling round Asia in my gap year. Like, I would ever go anywhere that doesn’t have public lavatories. Clean public lavatories.’
‘We could go somewhere next summer,’ Dylan said but I thought he was trying to get me off the topic of public conveniences.
‘Like where? Blackpool? Or, hey, maybe we could go back to Paris at a push.’
Dylan gave a start and I had to sit up. ‘Oh! Yeah! We should go to America.’
‘Dream on, D. It would cost a fortune.’ I stood up and stretched lazily. ‘But my limited funds will stretch to a couple of ice creams.’
‘It wouldn’t have to cost that much. I have some money in the bank from the guilt fund my dad left me when he walked out anyway,’ Dylan continued, leaning forward and yanking me back down on the bench. ‘If we went next summer we’d have a whole year to save up and we could hire a car and do a road trip. Road trip, Eeds!’
I still wasn’t convinced. ‘So you think we’ll still be together then?’ I asked him.
He touched my face lightly. ‘You don’t get rid of me that easily.’ He moved closer to me and brushed my mouth with his. ‘Just think, we could go to New York, LA, San Francisco…’ He nudged me with his elbow. ‘You know you want to.’
He was right. I did. I wanted us to stay together and I wanted to do stuff with him. Exciting, adventurey stuff like going on a road trip in a cool car and going to places that I’d only seen in films. And shopping. A girl could do some serious shopping in the land of rampant consumerism.
‘Well I have always wanted to go to New Orleans,’ I admitted carefully. ‘And Seattle, maybe Chicago, oooh! And we so have to go to Las Vegas! Oh God, we’re going to do t
his, aren’t we? We’re going to do a road trip and I’m going to save all my tips and empty out my Marc Jacobs shoe savings account…’
Dylan jumped up so he could pull me to my feet, hoist me up and swing me round till I squealed because I was getting dizzy. ‘Think of all those cheap motel rooms too! Double beds, no parents, no friends, no annoying flatmates.’
‘Talking of which my parents have got a do tonight.’
Dylan smirked and leered at me at the same time, which was quite a feat. ‘So that means…’
‘An empty house. C’mon let’s go and get the train home.’
Diary of a Crush: Kiss and Make Up Page 21