Diary of a Crush: Sealed With a Kiss

by Sarra Manning

  I nudged her leg with my foot. ‘You’re not boring! But you have to stop comparing yourself to other people. When I first moved here I was so shy. Every time Dylan looked at me I’d get this full-on, all over body blush.’

  Grace gave me a trembly smile. ‘Really? ’Cause now, you pretty much boss him about.’

  ‘Yeah and I do not. But when I lived in Brighton I used to go to this disco on Saturday nights and always ended up kissing this science nerd with a pocket protector because he was the only guy who didn’t call me “Weedy Edie”.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is…’

  ‘What I’m saying is that you won’t feel like this forever, Gracie. ’Cause Jack can see the inner you and that’s why he likes you.’

  And then we both sighed in a moment of true girly bonding. It was very beautiful.

  26th May

  Dylan has disappeared. Someone who sounds a bit like him can sometimes be persuaded to come to the phone to jaw on about developing and hanging photos. Note to self: art boys, freaky. Being an art widow, I had a big Saturday night out with my girls, which ended up with us playing footie on a dual carriageway at two in the morning.

  29th May

  Weird! Just seen Grace for the first time since our big talk and she seems to have reached some kind of Zen-like state of inner tranquillity.

  ‘How’s the whole Jack thing?’ I asked her, expecting yet another tearful tirade but she smiled serenely and told me that she had it under control.

  Under control? Well, I guess I don’t have to worry any more.

  5th June

  I’ve had to sort out all the roadtrip stuff because Dylan is emotionally and geographically unavailable. Luckily Shona helped ’cause she’s very practical. Also Dad phoned Lewis’s dad to talk Dad to Dad and all systems are go!

  I took Dylan round some food and stayed long enough to hand it to him, before he pushed me out of the front door.

  ‘I still love you,’ he muttered through a mouthful of cheese sandwich. ‘But this is going to be a surprise so get the hell out of here.’

  And they say romance is dead.

  11th June

  Grace is weirding me out. Now that she’s not banging on about Jack at every conceivable moment, it’s impossible to get hold of her. Every time Poppy or me ring her she’s on the interpipe and you get grunts instead of intelligent conversation. Take today fr’instance.

  Me: ‘So Grace have you still got my baby-blue skinny jeans?’

  Grace: ‘Um, yeah.’

  Me: ‘You seem a bit distracted.’

  Grace: ‘No.’

  Me: ‘You’re on the internet, aren’t you? Again.’

  Grace: ‘What? No, I’m listening to you.’

  Me: ‘I can hear you typing. What are you doing? You’re either on G Chat or looking at pictures of Justin Bieber, you saddo.’

  Grace: ‘I’m not. I’m listening to you. What was that about Justin Bieber?’

  Aaaaargh! That’s me screaming via the medium of the written word.

  15th June

  Dylan’s just as bad. He’s emerged at last but spends all his time at the gallery where the exhibition is taking place. And won’t even give me the address. I might just as well not exist.

  23rd June

  Forget what I said about Grace and Dylan. All that seems to pale into insignificance after what Poppy has just done. She suddenly announced at rehearsal tonight that she’s organised a tour for us. Which would be great if a) she’d bothered to let us know and b) the tour wasn’t in August which is when I’ll be roadtripping across the US of A with Dylan.

  ‘But this is more important,’ Poppy had screamed when I pointed that out.

  ‘You knew about America,’ I insisted. ‘And did you think I was going to give up on my future and getting a degree to stay here and do this?’

  ‘You’re just one of those sappy girls who are more interested in their boyfriend than being loyal to your friends,’ Poppy had screamed even louder. ‘And how was I to know you were actually serious about your stupid road trip? I thought it was another of your ridiculous plans that never goes anywhere.’

  ‘Yeah, well at least I don’t waste all my time on stupid fantasies that I might be famous,’ I’d yelled back. ‘It’s been fun Poppy, but let’s face it, we’re crap! We can’t play more than three chords between us.’

  Poppy had looked to Atsuko and Darby for some support but they’d wisely decided to be someplace that was else.

  ‘Fine, fine then,’ she’d spat. ‘We’ll do this tour without you and to save you the trouble of formally quitting the band, I’ll do it for you. You’re out. You can’t play the guitar for crap anyway.’

  I’d tried to think of something really wounding and sarcastic to say but I couldn’t think of anything. It hadn’t mattered though ’cause Poppy was already stomping towards the door.

  23rd June (later)

  ‘You’ll make it up,’ Dylan assured me as I lay whimpering on his bed. ‘You two are always having rows.’

  ‘This wasn’t a row,’ I argued. ‘It had scenes and acts and walk-on parts.’

  ‘Well, she shouldn’t take it on herself to sort out a month-long tour and think it would be a really nice surprise.’

  ‘You’re not just saying that ’cause I’m your girlfriend and you have to take my side?’ I mumbled.

  Dylan stopped looking for his favourite 2B pencil and climbed on to the bed so he could spoon in behind me.

  ‘Edie, I’ve called you out plenty of times when you’ve been hissy-fitting about nothing,’ he said, kissing the back of my neck. ‘But Poppy… she’s just all “nothing must stop me in my plan for world domination”. If I can accept that you have to do things even if they don’t fit in with what I want, then so can she.’

  ‘I hate her,’ I said, because I’d suddenly turned into a ten-year-old.

  ‘No you don’t.’

  ‘No, I don’t but she’s really pissed me off,’ I conceded. ‘And I’m not talking to her until she says she’s sorry.’

  Dylan can be very wise occasionally so he didn’t say anything at all. He didn’t even make a snorting noise, he just carried on kissing the back of my neck.

  27th June

  I’m beginning to think that Mrs Poppy must have taken lots of mind-altering drugs when she was pregnant with her two daughters. Because they are both complete mentalists.

  Like, Poppy won’t even speak to me, let alone be in the same room as me. If I’m not at Dylan’s or she’s not at Jesse’s, she’ll walk out rather than be in the kitchen when I’m making a cup of tea. I’m not going to apologise for the sake of making it up and a peaceful life because none of this is my fault.

  For once.

  And as for Grace! Turns out that her and Jack are Skype dating because they don’t feel they’re ready for the real thing.

  If you put Grace and Poppy together, you might possibly have one almost sane girl.

  1st July

  Poor, poor Dylan. He spends weeks taking photos of me and Poppy for his first big art exhibition. He spends even longer thinking up a name for it: Edie and Poppy: The only colour in this world is love (um, whatever). And when he unveils his big surprise, one of the girls is absent and the other one (that’d be me) tries to smile and then goes to the Ladies so she can get a grip on herself before she starts bawling her eyes out.

  Eventually I emerged. Dylan was talking to one of the exhibition organisers so I wandered around and looked at the photos. As far as I could tell they were a love story. A love story about me and Poppy and how cool it is to be a girl. Dylan had captured us doing all the things we loved to do together: playing our guitars and putting on make-up and sharing clothes and eating ice cream and just generally hanging out and being girl-shaped. Plus we looked smudgily beautiful.

  I have to sort out this Poppy thing.

  6th July

  Poppy’s put ‘guitarist wanted’ ads up all over town that say ‘Must be able to play more than three chords.�
�� She’s like an evil genius when it comes to hurt.

  7th July

  Dylan and I spent last night doing the final draft of our road trip, it took hours. We’re going to start in New York and drive to LA via Chicago and Seattle and San Francisco. That’s Dylan’s deal, the driving whereas I’m Miss Map Reader.

  ‘That’s the most money I’ve ever spent on anything,’ I said to Dylan in a shaky voice, as we came out of the travel agent’s having forked out a cool £1000 on plane tickets and about every form of insurance it’s possible to buy.

  Dylan grinned and took the tickets from me. ‘Not that I don’t trust you but I’ll look after these.’

  ‘We’re going to America!’ I squeaked, hugging Dylan. ‘We’re actually going to do it.’

  Dylan gently brushed his lips against mine. ‘I can’t believe we had a plan and saw it through. We must be getting mature.’

  9th July

  Grace came over to see me today to help me move my stuff back home. Shona and Paul have agreed to drive it down to London in time for me to start at university. I swear, my entire life is about organising complex and detailed stuff. Any more of it and the entire back of my head will cave in.

  I was trying to shove things in bags and boxes and wasn’t planning on listening that attentively to Grace banging on about Jack for, like, hours but she was very twittery and twitchy. I thought it was Jack-related but when I finally asked her what was up after I’d boxed up the last of my books, she flopped down on the bed and announced that she wanted to try out for the guitarist job in Mellowstar.

  ‘I know all the songs and I can play a guitar but Poppy won’t even let me audition,’ she protested. ‘She’s such a bitch at the moment.’

  ‘Well I’d offer to talk to her but I don’t think it would help,’ I said. ‘I could talk to Atsuko and Darby though?’

  Grace sat up eagerly. ‘Now?’

  I sighed and reached for the phone. ‘OK, I guess now would do.’

  Atsuko and Darby were surprisingly up for the idea of Grace in the band. Something to do with Poppy asking this girl whose boyfriend they’d both snogged if she wanted to join. I really didn’t want to go into the details. They both promised they’d out-vote Poppy, as long as Grace knew the songs.

  The packing went out of the window as I spent the afternoon drilling Grace in the finer art of playing the same three chords that we used in all our songs. But, like, in different combinations.

  ‘I think you’ve got it,’ I said after five hours. ‘Well, you’re better than I ever was, not that that’s saying much.’

  Grace squeezed my hand. ‘Oh, Edie, I’m really going to miss you. You’re like the sister I wanted, instead of the evil bitch queen sister I got.’

  ‘Poppy’s OK,’ I muttered. ‘She’s just a bit more driven than the rest of us. Makes her mouth say nasty things before her brain gets in on the act.’

  Grace nodded. ‘I s’pose. Well, all I need now is a guitar.’

  I looked at the guitar that I’d spent months saving up for and Dylan had painted pink for me. I picked it up, feeling the weight of it in my hands.

  ‘I want you to have it,’ I said to Grace who stared at me with her mouth wide open. ‘It’s not like I’m going to need it. I’m going to be busy with the book learning.’

  ‘But are you, I mean…’

  ‘Look, take it and get out of here,’ I mumbled, feeling tears prick the back of my eyes. ‘I have packing that is so not done.’

  15th July

  My last day at the café. Never again will I have to be splashed by the evil deep fat fryer. Or be told to ‘crack a smile’ by the gang of builders that come in for their special breakfasts every morning. Italian Tony won’t be able to tug on my pigtails and Anna won’t take breakages out of my paypacket any more.

  So why do I feel so sad? Probably because, even though she’s spent the last few weeks glaring at me from behind the coffee machine, I won’t get to spend all day with Poppy.

  ‘Are you ever going to speak to me again?’ I asked her today when she’d come into the storeroom to get some mayonnaise. I was skulking in there because I knew the others were writing in my ‘surprise’ Bon Voyage card.

  ‘I don’t talk to people who dump on their friends,’ she growled. Then she stuck her chin out, which means there’s no reasoning with her and I had to let it go.

  She didn’t even sign my card.

  I moved back to the ’rents today too. I know I should be looking forward to Edie And Dylan’s Road-Tripping USA Adventure™ but it’s also important that I feel sad about this part of my life ending. There’s all these little things that have made up part of my day for the last year and now they’re not going to happen ever again. The future’s out there, it’s like just within my reach but it’s also scary. It’s this big leap into the unknown and I’m not sure how far I can jump.

  15th July (later)

  We had a very low-key leaving do in the pub this evening, probably because there were parents there. Even Jesse was quite subdued with Mrs Poppy around. Dylan and I sat there holding hands and not really saying much apart from the odd, ‘Do we need to get travel sickness pills?’ and ‘Don’t forget to phone up and sort out the International Roaming on your mobile.’ Plus, my mum watched every sip I took so I couldn’t even get hammered, which is what I really felt like doing.

  It was actually the most boring leaving do in the history of leaving dos until Poppy suddenly stormed in, followed by an unhappy-looking Grace.

  I cowered against Dylan. ‘Oh no, this isn’t going to be good,’ I muttered as Poppy looked around wildly, clocked me and marched over.

  ‘How dare you go behind my back!’ she screeched. ‘It’s my band and I decide who’s in it.’

  I could hear Dylan rolling his eyes, I swear. He gave my leg a reassuring squeeze under the table but then became very interested in the contents of his pint glass.

  Grace was standing behind Poppy and mouthing the word ‘sorry’ at me as Poppy carried on carrying on.

  ‘I was going to get Grace to join all along,’ she ranted – or lied, to be more accurate. ‘I’m so glad you won’t be around to stick your nose where it’s not wanted.’

  ‘Poppy, don’t be like this,’ I said quietly, in the vain hope it might calm her down. ‘I don’t want to fight with you any more.’

  ‘Yeah, well you’re just a lightweight,’ she sneered. ‘I don’t need you, you hold me back.’

  And when I was lying in bed and trying to sleep because I was going on holiday in a few short hours, all I could think about was the venom in Poppy’s voice.

  Road Trip!

  16th July

  It rained practically all the way to London, almost as if the raindrops were little messengers from some higher being telling us to get the hell out of England.

  Dylan had managed to get all our stuff into the back of the Mini after forbidding me to take more than one suitcase and then standing over me as I re-packed and re-packed.

  ‘Who died and made you boss of all the luggage?’ I’d bitched at him after he’d pointed out that I didn’t need more than two pairs of sunglasses and I certainly wasn’t going to wear a winter coat. Even my mother had been impressed at the way Dylan had managed to halt my ‘I don’t do travelling light’ speech after only two minutes, before she went back to sniffing loudly and making more sandwiches.

  ‘You’re leaving on a jet plane. Don’t know when you’ll be back again,’ Paul warbled from the back seat. I craned my neck so I could look round at him and Shona who’d volunteered to drive Dylan’s car back to Manchester and Grace who was wedged between them and had come along for the ride.

  ‘I can’t believe I had to get up at five,’ moaned Shona for the tenth time.

  I nodded sympathetically. ‘I hear you.’ I looked at my travel notebook for confirmation and then added: ‘But we have to check in at 14.00 hours GMT and the plane leaves at 16.40 hours GMT and we should get in to New York at 19.00 hours, EST – that stand
s for Eastern Standard Time.’

  ‘You want to run that by us one more time?’ Dylan chuckled.

  ‘I’m sorry, I just don’t want us to be late,’ I said. ‘Does anyone want a sandwich? The Mothership was up at four this morning making them. She even cut the crusts off.’

  Paul leaned forward. ‘Well, pity to let them go to waste.’

  Silence.

  ‘Can we stop for a pee break at the next services?’

  ‘No! We won’t make it. It’s already eleven o’clock now and we’ve got miles to go.’

  ‘Dylan! Edie’s gonna make me wet myself.’

  ‘Edie, don’t make Shona wet herself.’