Sugar Secrets…& Mistakes

by Mel Sparke

  “Yep,” Kerry nodded, her hazel eyes wide and childlike. “Joe’s trying to tell me these hideous freckles look nice and that can’t be right, can it?”

  “Well, I’m on Joe’s side.” Ollie grinned his lopsided grin and bent over to kiss her on the offending nose.

  A clattering of dishes from the kitchen seemed to remind him that the End was pretty busy this Friday morning and he made to move off. But an approaching vision caught his eye.

  “Uh-oh – check this out…”

  On the other side of the road, passing the parade of shops, was Cat, sashaying along in a deliberate, sexy, slow manner, red lips pouting and her shoulder-length blonde hair artfully tousled. She was wearing a teeny-tiny red slip dress and matching strappy high sandals.

  “She reminds me of someone,” Joe mused aloud as Cat sauntered past the launderette.

  “Cameron Diaz in There’s Something About Mary,” said Anna succinctly, coming over to see what they were gawping at after dropping off a couple of milkshakes. “That’s exactly how she was dressed in the posters for the movie. Remember?”

  “Ah, of course – now that she’s decided she wants to be an actress, she’s going to dress the part, isn’t she?” Ollie grinned. “Doesn’t look like Vera’s too impressed though…”

  They all peered over and watched as Mad Vera, the bonkers old lady who ran the launderette, came out on to the pavement and started mincing after Cat, mimicking her hip-thrusting walk.

  Cat must have heard laughter emerging from the open doorway behind her – from their vantage point in the window booth, Ollie and the others could all make out the amused expressions of the launderette’s clientele – and she spun round, catching Vera on tiptoe with one hand on her overalled hip and her nose in the air.

  “Oooh!” the friends all drew in gasps as Cat temporarily lost her cool and nearly her balance, stumbling on her pinheels.

  Then, seeing their friend haughtily turn towards the kerb and prepare to cross the road, they leant back from the window as one so that she didn’t catch them spying on her.

  “God, that woman!” snorted Cat, breezing into the café. “Isn’t it about time she retired?”

  “What and leave the customers with no entertainment?” said Ollie, strolling back over to the counter. “I think half of them only come to see what Vera’s up to.”

  Cat snorted derisively.

  “I haven’t seen you wear that dress before,” said Anna, without bringing up the Cameron Diaz connection.

  “Yeah…” drawled Cat. “I only bought it the other day.”

  “You look nice,” Kerry smiled at her friend, although she couldn’t help noticing that Cat’s bare shoulders were a more ferocious red than her new dress. It looked as though Kerry hadn’t been the only one who didn’t slap on enough sunblock the day before in the park.

  “Thanks, hon,” said Cat airily. “You guys wanna cappuccino? I’m buyin’.”

  Kerry and Joe both nodded, then exchanged glances as Cat’s heels click-clacked over to the counter.

  “Was that supposed to be an American accent?” Kerry whispered.

  “I s’pose,” Joe hissed back, sounding dubious. “What do you reckon she’ll do next? Change into an Edwardian frock in the loos and come back quoting lines from Titanic?”

  Kerry burst into stifled giggles and Joe felt good. He’d made her laugh.

  Over by the counter, Cat made herself as comfortable as she could in her thigh-skimming frock. A couple of twelve-year-old boys sitting with some girls at the table by the jukebox gaped open-mouthed, visibly transfixed at the sight of all this leggy foxiness at eleven o’clock in the morning.

  “It’s OK, Cat,” said Ollie, setting up crockery and cutlery on a tray ready for Anna’s next order, “I’ll bring your drinks over.”

  “Nah, it’s all right, I’ll wait,” said Cat, reverting to her normal accent for Ollie. “I wanted to ask you something,”

  “Fire away,” nodded Ollie, still busying himself.

  “Ollie, what did your parents say when you told them you wanted to leave school? I mean, I remember you telling us at the time, but…”

  “…but you weren’t that interested back then. And now, when you’re wondering how to break the news to your mum, you’re suddenly keen to hear my story again – is that about right?” Ollie quizzed her, above the noise of the gurgling coffee machine.

  “Well…” purred Cat coquettishly.

  “I’m not going to be much help to you, Cat. My folks knew for a long time that I didn’t want to go on at school. And they were fine about it. Their only stipulation was that if I didn’t get work, I should go to college to get some qualifications. Anything, so long as I didn’t just leave school to bum about on the dole.”

  Cat watched idly as Ollie filled two cups from the hissing taps on the cappuccino machine and plonked them on Anna’s tray.

  “So they didn’t flip out at you?”

  “Nope,” Ollie shook his head. “But if you want my advice Cat, when you do tell your mum, don’t let on all that stuff about it being your way into acting – she’ll just think you’re wasting your time. Or that you’re off your trolley. Or both.”

  “Ollie! Don’t you think it’s a good idea?” said Cat, genuinely hurt that her friend thought so little of her new career plan.

  “Cat, to be honest, I think it’s one of your crazier ideas,” he said, leaning on the counter and staring seriously at her. “But then, I’ve never known anyone more determined than you, so it wouldn’t really surprise me if I saw you serving behind the bar in the Queen Vic in a few years time.”

  “That long?” Cat grinned back at him, happy that he wasn’t scolding her too badly.

  “Sorry to spoil your fun, but is that pizza ready?” Anna interrupted them.

  “Jeez, I forgot…” yelped Ollie, running back into the kitchen to check the order with Irene.

  Anna perched herself wearily on the stool next to Cat. It had been a frantically busy morning and she couldn’t wait till twelve when Joe officially came on for his shift. He’d been a brilliant extra pair of hands through the summer holidays; he was a lot harder working and less easily distracted than Ollie, and she dreaded what it would be like in the End once he was back at college.

  Still, she comforted herself, glancing round at the crowded tables, half the customers will be back at school too.

  “So, are you coming out to play tomorrow night?” Cat asked Anna. The waitress’s quiet, knowing expression sometimes freaked Cat out, but she liked Anna’s dry sense of humour and was quite pleased to see her become a member of the extended crowd.

  “This thing Matt’s DJing at? Yeah, it sounds good,” Anna replied flatly, absently rearranging the cutlery on the tray in front of her.

  “Wow – don’t sound too excited!” Cat said with a hint of sarcasm. She thought Anna would have jumped at the chance to get out to a do like this: it wasn’t as if she had millions of friends and a dizzy social life to distract her.

  “No, it’s not what you think,” Anna tried to correct herself, realising that it seemed as if she was unenthusiastic and ungrateful for the invitation. “It’s just – it’s, well, just…”

  “What?” whined Cat, who had the patience of a gnat.

  “You lot look so good when you get all dressed up – like the other night at the Indian restaurant,” Anna blurted out. “I don’t have anything apart from a couple of pairs of jeans and I never know what to do with this…”

  Anna held up the long, dull brown ponytail of hair that hung down her back and gave it a contemptuous look.

  When she glanced back up, Cat was wearing that expression which her other friends knew signalled danger.

  “Never you mind about that,” she nodded conspiratorially. “Your Auntie Cat will sort you out. Leave it to me…”

  Anna – who never wore any make-up apart from a smear of lip balm and a slick of clear mascara – looked at Cat’s inch-thick foundation and heavy-duty lipliner and inwa
rdly gulped.

  CHAPTER 8

  WHO’S THAT GIRL?

  Cat pushed the heavy green wooden door closed behind her. She’d tiptoed carefully along the alleyway between the second-hand shop and the café – she hadn’t wanted the pitted tarmac to scuff her new, pale blue leather ballet pumps.

  Running quickly up the metal stairs that led to Anna’s flat, Cat shuddered. Even in the warm, late summer twilight the alley and the yard were full of shadows.

  Doesn’t it creep Anna out living here? she wondered as she pressed the doorbell, imagining the blackness of the alleyway come wintertime.

  The bright glare of a light and the thump of some reggae music made her glance over to Nick’s flat on the opposite side of the yard, and once again she gave an involuntary shudder. Everyone thought she’d shrugged off the whole episode with Nick; that she’d managed to forget how she’d lied about going out with him as an elaborate means of getting attention.

  But as bright and breezy as she was around Nick, she was still mortified every time she came near him. It had been a spur-of the-moment thing for her to claim to her friends that she was seeing him, but the repercussions looked as if they’d last for a very long time; both in the guilt and regret that Cat felt and the barely concealed dislike that the formerly amiable Nick had shown towards her ever since.

  And let’s face it, thought Cat, turning her gaze away from his window, if I had to make up a pretend boyfriend, I could have done better than to say it was some beer-bellied, ponytailed, boring old rocker…

  “Hi!” said Anna brightly, pulling open the front door and beckoning Cat inside. “You just caught me – I finished up in the café two minutes ago.”

  “Joe still there?” asked Cat, padding past Anna into the small flat.

  “Mmm,” nodded Anna, closing the door. “But I feel guilty ‘cause he’s clearing up all on his own. Nick disappeared to put the takings into the safe about twenty minutes ago and hasn’t been seen since.”

  “I looked over at his window just now,” said Cat. “He’s got some music on, so it doesn’t look like he’s in a mad rush to get back.”

  “Just as well there’s not much left to do then,” Anna shrugged.

  It had been uncharacteristically quiet in the End all day, which hadn’t done Anna any favours. Mooching about half bored, her imagination had run riot over what Cat might inflict on her, but she’d ultimately decided that to refuse Cat was to insult Cat. So here she was, like a lamb to the slaughter, leaving her fate and her face to Cat’s mercy.

  “Cat, you look… urn… short,” Anna said as they walked into the living room.

  “Oooh, do I? But is that bad short or cute short?” Cat grimaced, looking down at her outfit. “It’s these shoes, you see…”

  “Cute short,” Anna reassured her quickly and meant it. It was nice to see Cat out of her trademark skyscraper heels. She looked altogether more… delicate, Anna decided. “But what’s brought on this change of style?”

  “Drew Barrymore,” said Cat firmly. “I’ve done my hair like her before – her ringlet look – but I’ve never gone the whole way. And let’s face it: flat shoes are Drew.”

  And Cat should know, thought Anna. She’d seen how Cat sat and drooled her way through the celebrity pictures in TV Hits and B in the café downstairs.

  “Well, I think you look lovely like that,” Anna complimented her, taking in the rosebud-edged, powder blue top and nearly knee-length, layered chiffon skirt. Suddenly, Anna felt a little less stressed about her upcoming make-over.

  “Enough about me – let’s get started on you,” said Cat, thumping a holdall and her ominously large make-up box on to Anna’s throw-covered sofa.

  Cat was all of a sudden very proud of herself. Here she was, coming to the rescue of a friend in need, and she was resisting the urge to nosy her way round Anna’s sweet little flat which neither she – nor anyone else in the crowd for that matter – had ever been in to before. And for Cat, resisting the urge to snoop was very, very hard.

  “Right, I brought a few bits and pieces of clothes,” she said, hauling out a dazzling array of brightly coloured materials from the holdall, “and we’ll decide what to do with your hair and makeup once we’ve chosen those.”

  “OK,” squeaked Anna and prepared to surrender.

  In a move reminiscent of their slinky Burmese cat, Marcus, skinny, long-limbed Sunita slithered through Maya’s open door and posed silently against the wall.

  Aware that she was being watched, Maya turned away from her old-fashioned dressing table mirror – mascara wand still in hand – and focused on her staring sister.

  “What do you want. Sunny?” she asked brusquely.

  In her experience, her younger sister never came by just for a chat. She always wanted something, whether it was help with her homework (which their parents always expected Maya to give) or to pick up any information that she could store up and use later. (Why her sister felt the need to spy on her, Maya couldn’t figure out.)

  “Who’s your new friend?” asked Sunny.

  “Who do you mean? Anna?” Maya replied, wondering how Sunny could know that she was now part of their crowd. Sunny would have seen Anna down at the End when she was there with her own little gang, but there was no way that she’d have linked her to Maya and Sonja and the others.

  “No, it’s definitely not that waitress girl.”

  “Who are you talking about then?” said Maya irritably. She didn’t have time for her sister’s stupid riddles: it was Saturday night and she was busy trying to get ready to go out.

  “The girl downstairs,” Sunny replied flatly. “The one that arrived with all your other friends…”

  Maya suddenly realised the implications of what Sunny was saying.

  “Everyone’s here already? I didn’t hear the doorbell! Why didn’t you just tell me my friends had arrived straightaway instead of mucking around?”

  “I’m telling you now,” shrugged Sunny, following her sister as she dashed out of her room and down the stairs.

  Maya peeked her head round the living room door and found Sonja, Kerry and Cat making polite conversation with her parents. And, sitting quietly on the sofa stroking an enamoured Marcus, was the mystery girl.

  “Oh, my God…” gasped Maya.

  CHAPTER 9

  MATT GETS ZAPPED

  “Oh, my God…” gasped Ollie.

  Joe stared wordlessly at Anna and tried to force his brain to come up with something appropriate, but it let him down. When he’d last seen Anna a few hours earlier at the End, she certainly hadn’t looked anything like she did now.

  “Put your tongue away, Joey,” Sonja teased him, then regretted it as soon as she saw the colour flood to his cheeks.

  “Oh, my God…” Ollie repeated, struck almost as dumb as Joe at the sight in front of him.

  “That was Maya’s reaction too – isn’t it brilliant? Managing to shock Maya, I mean!” smirked Cat, clapping her hands together in excitement.

  “Anna, you look…” Ollie struggled for the word.

  “…beautiful,” Joe chipped in, finally finding his voice.

  “Thanks,” Anna smiled, shuffling from foot to foot, furiously embarrassed and furiously thrilled in equal measure at the reaction to her transformation.

  She’d been utterly awestruck herself when Cat had finally let her step in front of the full-length mirror that she’d brought through from the back of the bathroom door. (“The light in there is too harsh,” Cat had informed her. “It’s much more flattering through here in the living room.”)

  Instead of her ever-present jeans and T-shirt, Anna found herself wearing a long, sleeveless, slinky black dress. It was the same dress that Cat had poured herself into for one of Matt’s parties back in the spring; the dress she had worn the night she’d decided to go after Ollie.

  But without Cat’s ample chest straining the neckline, it now looked more elegant than glam. Even the side split looked less sexy and more stylish worn with
Anna’s own strappy, flat, Roman sandals, instead of the teeteringly high shoes Cat had originally teamed with the dress.

  At work, the only jewellery that Anna wore was a tiny cross on a chain – a present from her mother on her twelfth birthday. Tonight, she’d swapped that for a chunky amber pendant. The dark strands in the amber, worn high at her throat, seemed to intensify her dark brown eyes. And as for her eyes, her face… Anna could hardly recognise herself.

  Cat had smudged a nut-brown eyeshadow above and just below her eyes, so they looked enormous and doe-like. The mole on her cheek had been highlighted with a brown pencil and was every bit as striking as the one that Cindy Crawford sported. A soft brownish lipstick accentuated Anna’s small but full mouth, and a tinted moisturiser disguised the dryness and blotchiness which her skin tended to suffer from after a hard day working in the steamy café.

  But it was Anna’s hair that surprised her most. Longish, brownish, dullish: that’s how she normally thought of it, and normally she did the simplest thing she could with it – pulled it back into a ponytail. But Cat had turned it into something that wouldn’t look out of place in a hair magazine.

  Parting it in the middle, she’d combed serum through to give it shine, then slicked her steam straightener over every lock for an immaculate look. Finally, Cat had worked in two tiny plaits, tied tightly and invisibly with dark brown thread, which hung down on either side, framing Anna’s face.

  “Maya’s little brother said she looked like Pocahontas!” Sonja laughed, enjoying the boys’ reactions. “And Sunny didn’t even believe it was the same girl from the End!”

  “Where is Maya? Didn’t she come with you lot?” asked Ollie at the mention of Maya’s name.

  “Yes, but she’s outside, waiting for Billy,” Kerry told him. “She said she’ll come and find us.”

  “Come on – we’ll show you around,” said Ollie, motioning the girls to follow him out of the plush reception area of the fitness centre and through to the huge, atmospherically-lit room beyond, where music was already booming from Matt’s decks. “We had a good nosy around after we helped Matt get set up. This place is really flash!”