‘Oh, and Lisa,’ he said in his scary, quiet voice that always sends shivers down my spine. And not in a good way. ‘Can I have the $600 back?’
Lisa opened and shut her mouth a couple of times.
‘Yeah what was all that about?’ Carl said to her. ‘Why should they pay for doing us a favour?’ He turned to Dylan. ‘It’s like I told you, we’d have had to pay a fortune to get the car shipped back to LA.’
Lisa was digging furiously in her purse. ‘There’s $500,’ she hissed at Dylan, slamming a wodge of bills into his hand. ‘I don’t have the rest.’
Carl threw her a mean look and she raised her eyebrows at him before he drew out a crumpled $100 bill from his jacket pocket. ‘There you go, man, sorry about that.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Chicks, huh?’ And Carl and Lisa exited stage left.
Dylan let go of me and I staggered backwards.
‘I wasn’t doing anything with him, I mean…’
Dylan made a dismissive face. ‘I don’t want to hear it, Edie,’ he said tiredly, shoving his hands into his hip pockets. ‘I just want to go back to the hotel and forget that this last half hour ever happened.’
‘Dylan, I…’ I didn’t finish the sentence. Dylan was already standing in the road, trying to flag down a cab and not paying any attention to me.
I got into the cab which had just pulled up, went back to the hotel and for the second night running, Dylan and I weren’t talking.
18th July (still New York)
Dylan was still mad at me the next day. He didn’t say he was mad (he didn’t say much of anything) but had made an unnecessarily harsh decision to check out early. Eight in the morning, early. All I wanted to do was burrow under the covers and wonder if some small animal had crawled into my mouth during the night and died.
Hangovers are not of the good. Even the merest twitch of an eyelash made my head thump and my stomach lurch but Dylan ignored my muffled protests and went down to breakfast after tersely informing me that he wanted me washed, packed and ready to go in half an hour. The slamming of the door was an added Dylan bonus.
By eight thirty-five I was clutching a triple shot espresso from the nearest Starbucks as I stood meekly watching Dylan load up the car and swearing under his breath. I tried to lift my suitcase and show willing but he snatched it from me and told me to get in the car. Never come between a boy and his bad mood.
The wreck had one long seat up front and I carefully arranged my maps and the itinerary notebook and my bag in the middle so no part of me could touch any part of Dylan. That took all of thirty seconds but Dylan was still faffing about.
I didn’t know what was taking him so long. We had two suitcases plus assorted carrier bags and a whole boot and back seat to put them on.
Eventually he was done packing and slid into the driver’s seat.
Dylan put the key in the ignition, checked the rear-view mirror, adjusted his seat, wound down the window, wound it up again when he realised that it was hotter outside than it was inside the car, then put his hands on the steering wheel and gave a deep sigh.
There wasn’t a lot I could do. He was obviously nervous about driving a clapped out heap of junk and on the wrong side of the road but anything I said was going to sound majorly unsupportive given the foul mood he was in. I contented myself by slowly stretching my facial muscles into a bright smile which I’m sure would have been very encouraging if Dylan could have forced himself to look at me.
We sat there for another couple of minutes before Dylan suddenly turned the key and the engine roared into life. Dylan looked a bit surprised, recovered himself and gently eased away from the kerb.
We were on our way.
Two hours later I was still plucking up the courage to talk to Dylan. Even if it was to ask him to stop at the nearest place that sold food so I could try solids and see if they stayed down. He’d worked through his driving demons and was now relaxed. His shades were on, his arm resting on the edge of the open window but every time I shifted on the seat or made a move to turn down the volume on the Arcade Fire mix he was playing, he’d shoot me a look that was equal parts distaste and equal parts reproach.
I was having a hard time remembering why Dylan was still so angry with me. Yes, I’d got drunk and made a total fool of myself but he’d been the one who’d left me to the evil clutches of Carl while he was engrossed with Lisa.
‘Dylan?’
‘What?’ he replied curtly.
I took a deep breath and counted to ten. ‘How long are you planning on giving me the silent treatment?’
‘I haven’t decided.’
‘I got drunk, I threw up. Like, you haven’t done that a hundred times!’ I pointed out.
‘I don’t hold hands with people while you’re sitting opposite me,’ snapped Dylan, unable to maintain the ironic detached thing.
‘D, that guy had been groping me for hours but you were so occupied with Lisa, you didn’t notice,’ I pleaded. ‘I was holding his hand because it was the only way to stop it heading straight for… well, y’know.’
‘Whatever.’
‘You don’t believe me?’
Dylan changed lanes, the car juddering slightly with the aggressive movement.
‘I believe you,’ he sighed.
‘You want to try that once more, with feeling?’ I mused.
‘OK. I do believe you,’ insisted Dylan with a bit more vehemence. ‘But I am not spending the whole trip cleaning up your mess. I don’t see why I always have to be the designated adult.’
We exchanged a look. Dylan’s mouth was set in a stern line; I searched intently for some sign that he was softening towards me. There wasn’t one. I touched his leg gently. ‘Dylan, I’m sorry,’ I said with every ounce of sincerity I had. ‘I don’t know what else I can say. I’m sorry for all of it.’
Dylan arched his eyebrow as if to say, ‘go on’.
I slid nearer to him. ‘C’mon, let this be the real start of our holiday. Let’s put New York behind us.’
I reached over and kissed him on the cheek. Still no reaction. I stuck out my tongue and slowly licked his neck before nibbling on his earlobe in a way that I knew made him come over all unnecessary and he snaked his arm round my waist so I couldn’t move away.
‘OK,’ he all but purred. ‘I forgive you. New start.’
‘I hate arguing with you,’ I said plaintively. ‘And that’s all we seem to have been doing ever since we got here.’
‘Jet lag,’ decided Dylan. ‘And for the record, I was engrossed with Lisa.’
My heart sank. ‘You were?’
‘Yeah, because she was… so weird,’ Dylan tried to grope for the right word. ‘Not interesting weird. Scary weird. Like, she was completely self-obsessed but she called it “being tuned in to her inner being”. For a while I thought she was coming on to me.’
‘She was coming on to you,’ I said indignantly. ‘She said that she and Carl have an “open relationship”.’
‘Oh, right,’ said Dylan a bit nonplussed. He was silent for a few seconds. ‘God, she really was weird.’
It took us a day to drive to Philadelphia and what can I tell you? The journey was like being in an arthouse film. Like when they show you all those different shots to mark a passage of time and you know the hero and the heroine are crazy in love with each other and everything’s sun-dappled. It was exactly like that.
We sang along with the Elvis compilation that Italian Tony at the café had made us as a going-away present. And we stopped at an authentic American diner for lunch, where Dylan’s waffles and ham (just focus on the ham part of the lunch) came with icing sugar smothered over the top and a bottle of maple syrup that he was expected to pour liberally over his plate. And once we were back in the wreck I kicked off my Birkenstocks and rested my feet on the dashboard and stared out at the yellow school buses and the big square cars with their tinted windows and ‘New Jersey – The Garden State’ number plates.
Philadelphia
It was mid-aft
ernoon as we crossed over the Delaware River into Philadelphia. I juggled the outsize map from one of the guidebooks and directed Dylan towards the city centre or ‘center’ as the Americans insist on spelling it.
Dylan gave a low whistle. ‘Dead impressed with the map-reading, Eeds.’
I pulled a face. ‘We used to go caravanning to France every year and not only did I have to navigate but I had to do it in French!’ I winced at the memory.
After a few ‘umms’ and ‘maybes’ we pulled into the driveway of a motel whose sign Dylan didn’t actively hate and went to check in. There was a little awkward moment when the man at the desk thought I was underage and demanded to see some ID while Dylan spluttered, ‘She’s nineteen, look at her passport!’ but after slapping down a room deposit we had cabin 31 for the next two nights.
Dylan stretched and groaned as I opened the curtains and let the afternoon sun flood through the room.
‘You all driven out, D?’ I asked as I went into the bathroom to see if the free toiletries were up to much. They so weren’t.
‘I’m a bit stiff,’ came Dylan’s muffled reply as he collapsed onto the bed.
‘I’ve got some tiger balm somewhere,’ I said vaguely. ‘We could go for a walk and get something to eat.’
Dylan stretched again before staggering to his feet and pulling his T-shirt over his head. He rubbed his neck tiredly.
I caught sight of ourselves in the mirror. Dylan looked so beautiful. Not many boys are beautiful but Dylan is. Some people would say that he is too bony but I love his leanness. The way all of him is taut, no matter how many plates of pasta he devours in an attempt to bulk up. And I love the slightly crooked angle of his nose and the way his cheekbones are so sharply defined and that his left eyebrow is constantly quirking upwards. I am less beautiful. Dylan always tells me I’ll age into beauty when I’m moaning about my freckles and the way my mouth is too large. Sometimes I think I look like an alien with my big eyes and pointed chin, and nose that almost isn’t there. Maybe my fringe is too short. I tugged on my ponytail and frowned, suddenly realising that Dylan had disappeared and by the sounds coming from the bathroom was power showering.
Dylan emerged half an hour later with a towel wrapped round his hips. He looked squeaky clean but dog tired.
‘It’ll be dark soon,’ I said, figuring that any sight-seeing could wait till tomorrow. ‘Why don’t I get us something to eat and we can watch a movie or something on the TV? I think there’s a film channel.’
Dylan gave me a slightly surprised look but nodded in agreement.
‘Will you be OK going out on your own?’
I nodded. ‘Yeah, I’ll be half an hour. Tops.’
When I got back with sandwiches the size of concrete breeze-blocks and a carton of Ben & Jerry’s, Dylan was fast asleep. I contemplated waking him but he looked so peaceful that I took my turkey bagel and the ice cream and sat on the bench outside and watched the stars while I ate.
19th July
Philadelphia is the birthplace of democracy. That was my reason for insisting that Dylan came with me to see the Liberty Bell but he was less than impressed.
‘It’s got a big crack in it,’ he pointed out. ‘And it’s slightly unpatriotic of you to make me look at stuff that commemorates the English getting their butts kicked.’
‘But, it’s history,’ I squeaked, scandalised.
Dylan looked unimpressed. ‘Can we go to the Rodin Museum now?’
‘Whatever.’ I plucked at my pink checked shirt. It was so hot. Maybe jeans hadn’t been such a good idea.
Dylan perked up when we got to the museum, although he’d been pretty chipper after his fourteen-hour sleep marathon. Apparently he’d woken up at two in the morning, scarfed down the sandwich I’d put on his bedside table before I got into bed and then fell asleep for another six hours.
The museum was air-conditioned which made me happy and there was plenty of sculpture which made Dylan happy. Dylan really knows the drill when it comes to art. He can look at a painting or a sculpture for ages and I never know if he’s wigging on the art or just being a great big ponce. Me? I just look at something, decide whether I like it or not and then I’m good to go. We spent four hours in that museum. Four hours of my life that I’m never getting back. Grrrr.
Washington
20th July
We’re back on the road. According to my never wrong itinerary it’s a 139 mile drive to Washington which is just about bearable considering it’s boiling hot in the car. I’d never really given a moment’s thought to air conditioning before but with my thighs sticking to the leather seat and the sun glaring in through the windscreen it’s all that I can think about.
Well, not the only thing. I’m thinking about Dylan a lot. About how spending all this time with just him is starting to drive me a little crazy. Every time I turn my head, he’s there. And I’m comfortable with him but I don’t want to be too comfortable with him. I need to have my mystery and that means that I don’t want him trying to clean his teeth while I’m having a shower. That was the first thing we rowed about this morning.
He’d sauntered into the bathroom without a care in the world and seemed completely surprised when I’d screamed and wrapped the shower curtain around me.
‘Get out!’ I’d squeaked.
Dylan just couldn’t understand why I’d got so mad. How standing butt-naked in a shower made me feel more vulnerable than when we were getting, well, pelvic.
‘It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,’ he’d leered before I’d thrown a shampoo bottle at him and he’d realised I was serious.
By the time I’d come out of the bathroom fully clothed, Dylan had realised I had nudity issues and apologised but now we were stuck in the car again and it was hot and we were both acting like gritty toddlers. I mean we’d argued over everything; from what tape to play, why I had to have two cups of coffee when I know they make me pee to why it was skanky and disgusting to wear the same T-shirt two days running. These weren’t major arguments and Dylan kept laughing in the middle of every point he made but it was doing my head in. I’d never realised how confrontational he was. Worse than Poppy. But thinking about Poppy just gave me a big, bad gloom.
Another major US city, another cheap motel room decorated in various shades of beige. Dylan was sitting on the bed, thumbing through the guidebook after changing his T-shirt.
‘OK, we can do the National Gallery of Art this afternoon,’ he decided. ‘Then the National Portrait Gallery tomorrow and maybe the Corcoran.’
‘There’s more to life than galleries,’ I muttered under my breath.
‘Yeah. So you hungry?’
I really didn’t want another argument. Really, really, really.
‘D… maybe we should have some alone time tomorrow,’ I said hesitantly. ‘’Cause we’re arguing a lot and you like the art and I kind of like the art but I also like other things…’ I tailed off.
Dylan gave me a considered look. I smiled weakly.
‘OK,’ he said slowly. ‘If you’re sure you’ll be all right on your own?’ He sounded as if he thought that was unlikely.
‘Of course I will,’ I said in a hurt voice. ‘I just need to do me things. You know, girly things?’
‘Look, if you end up dead in a ditch I’ll have a hell of a time trying to explain it to your parents,’ Dylan announced lightly before promising that we’d only look at twentieth century pop-art this afternoon and absolutely no paintings of naked cherubim from the early sixteenth century.
21st July
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
It’s started! The endless tour rehearsals. Jack has begun his roadie duties already, Jesse’s teaching him how to work a PA system and you’d think it was space shuttle command the way they go on about it. But Jack does carry my (well, your) guitar case for me. So I s’pose he’s not all bad.
I said hi to Poppy for you but she just said something unrepeatable.
Gotta go! Don’t forget about us while you’re burning up the freeway.
Love Grace xxx
I took a sip of my drink and sighed. The coffee shop in downtown Washington was a long, long way from Manchester. I mean, I could see the White House from where I was sitting. The people in suits here didn’t work in insurance companies, they were like in charge of America, which more or less put them in charge of the world. It made me feel small and insignificant.
I hit ‘Reply’.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
I love being a girl; a well-read, fashion conscious, heroine-loving girl having an adventure in Washington.
Diary of a Crush: Sealed With a Kiss Page 12