by Rachael Wing
As I reached them, Emily and Wes both erupted into a fit of hysterical giggles.
“What’s so funny, guys?” I asked as I sat down, vaguely registering that Emily was sat in my seat, so I was forced to sit across from them both laughing fit to burst.
When they had quite finished, Emily managed to say: “Aw, nothing, don’t worry, honey, you wouldn’t understand.”
Ahem, excuse me? Who did she think she was?
I glanced at Wes with a quizzical look, but he just shook his head with a small smile and cast his look back to Emily. His eyes were all warm and happy, all shiny when he looked at her. My tummy grumbled and I realized that I was jealous. He only had eyes for her; he hadn’t said a word to me. Humph!
“So how are you guys? Good weekend?”
“Yeah, it was pretty great!” Emily jumped in. It started to dawn on me how her voice was kind of … grating. A bit nasal. A bit annoying. A bit too American. “Yeah, like yesterday me and Wes went to the park, and we sunbathed and we had ice cream—”
OK, I’d heard enough. The park? In the sun? Bathing? With ice cream?
That’s what we do!
That’s our thing!
My inner cow growled. Well, if cows could growl, it would have, but I suppose it was more like a low, menacing moo. I soothed it with a few home truths. 1) She was pretty, but that was about it. There was nothing interesting about her. 2) She was interested in bad boys. Wes wasn’t a bad boy. 3) She had an annoying voice.
That was about all I could muster right there and then, but they all contributed to the fact that if/when they did get together, Wes and Emily wouldn’t last past the end of the summer.
So I forced a grin. “Sounds like a great Sunday afternoon!”
“Yeah, it was pretty cool.” Wes smiled.
Was that the only adjective they knew or something?
“Hey, y’know what?” Wes asked me, suddenly looking up like he’d just realized I was there. “We’re going over to mine after school to play a bit of Wii.” He widened his eyes. “Why don’t you come too? Bring someone so we can play doubles and stuff?”
I knew he meant Jonah, and I knew that this was Let’s Meet Mummy, and I knew that I was supposed to be happy because it meant the plan was going really well; but I couldn’t help my good mood from dropping a few notches from “blinding sunshine” to “mild with a slight wind”. I just couldn’t shake the feeling of wanting to violently slap Emily’s hand away as she batted Wes’s shoulder.
So to give my hands something anti-aggressive to do, I whipped out my phone and composed a text to Jonah.
Recipient: The Fittest One
Hey. How was ur wknd?
Thnx for coming to c me
on sat, made me :) What r
u up 2 after skl? If ur free,
fancy coming to Wes’ 2
play on Wii?
Send?
No, I couldn’t send that – the last bit rhymed. Ahh, and was it a bit pushy to send the last bit, anyway? Stick to the “one question” rule: only ask a boy one question in a text if you want them to text back. Ask more than one and they can’t be bothered to text you back, and so leave you hanging like a fool.
Re-do!
Recipient: The Fittest One
Hey. How was ur wknd?
Thnx for coming to c me
on sat, made me :) R u up
2 nythin after skl?
Send?
Oooh, now there’s the kiss/no kiss dilemma!
Kiss or no-kiss?
Does a kiss seem too presumptuous or pushy, like I think we’re involved? Or does it seem flirty and nice and friendly? And if I don’t put a kiss, does that seem rude?
No. No-kiss seems friendly and not pushy, and also not too bothered about the whole thing! Nonchalant! It’s what it’s all about.
MESSAGE SENT.
I spent the rest of the day split between checking my phone and sending death glares in Emily’s direction. It wasn’t that I wanted Wes; it was the fact that Wes was, well, mine. He was my bezzay. And the blonde bimbo was all flirty and sexy and long-leggy and all sorts, and he was spending all his time thinking about and looking at her. And Jonah hadn’t texted back, so it looked like I was spending the afternoon alone.
MESSAGE RECEIVED!
(Thank god, I’d been beginning to wonder if I had even sent it!)
Time Sent: 2.59pm
SENDER: The Fittest One
Hy bbe :) Yh wknd ws gud
ta, betr 4 cin u! Sry im busy
aftr skl, gt 2 go 2 dentist :(
il b thinking of u. Cnt
wait 4 fri X
Great! I was all alone – again! I was beginning to get really angry but then reread the text and he said he’d be thinking of me, which is always nice. I couldn’t wait until Friday either. It was going to be the perfect warm-up to the Best Weekend Of My Life!
So I walked out of the gates, got on to the bus, and walked down the street and then all the way up Wes’s extraordinarily long drive with the two of them laughing and joking – all with my head held high. I may have been alone, but I was there to do a favour for my best friend and I was damn well going to do it! As we walked up the steps, I looked at myself quickly. Emily would definitely look good next to me! Jeans, flip-flops, bare shoulders, bare midriff, bright colours: the only way I could be more obvious is if I wrote “Bully me, Mrs Stone, please!” across my chest. I pinned a smile on to my face. It was going to be fine. It wasn’t as if she was nasty exactly, it was just that she ignored my very presence! Hmm.
“This is my house!” Wes said with a flourish as he pushed open the heavy door.
“Woah!” Emily exclaimed. “Nice place. I have a staircase like that! Or I did in my house in the US. OMG, is that, like, a crystal chandelier?”
I was nodding and smiling along on the outside, but inside I was pacing around. Where was Mrs Stone? She usually appeared straight on the dot when the door opened, to see who was entering. But I couldn’t see her stunning yet devilish form, I couldn’t hear her lethal heels, I couldn’t smell her Chanel – where was she? It was making me nervous.
We moved around into the great white kitchen, which was chrome and tiles as far as the eye could see; the library, looking like something out of Beauty and the Beast; the study, lounge, second lounge, bathroom, washroom, cloakroom, games room, conservatory – and she wasn’t in any of them. We headed upstairs.
“And this is Juanita’s quarter,” Wes was saying, as we followed like sheep in his wake along the landing. “She’s our maid. She’s Spanish and doesn’t speak loads of English, but she’s funny and a really good cook!” We heard a rattling in her kitchen, the sound of something being dropped into the metal sink. “That might be her now, actually!”
We trooped into the small kitchen, me first. Juanita wasn’t there. Instead, in the corner, stood Mrs Stone.
“Mother.” Wes’s tone suddenly stiffened. “What’re you doing in here?”
Mrs Stone smiled, but it wasn’t her usual superior, smug smile; it was too tight and forced. She never came into that kitchen: she made a point of it.
“Simply checking that Juanita is keeping her quarters spick and span, dearest,” she declared, not missing a beat. Her eyes flicked over me quickly in distaste, and then straight on to Emily. She smiled juicily. “However, dear, the question here is, who is this darling girl and why have you not brought her home before?”
Emily smiled demurely, which was extremely out of character for her normally extroverted approach. “Well, how do you do, Mrs Stone? I hope I find you well this afternoon.”
I was so surprised; she was acting less like her usual “How’re ya doing?” Wink-And-A-Smile Barbie, and more like Shy, Respectable And PC Barbie. I actually thought for a fleeting moment that she was going to bob down into a curtsey, but before sh
e did, Mrs Stone walked over and did something I’d never seen her do before, to either of her children: she placed a perfectly manicured claw (oops, I mean hand!) on to Emily’s shoulder. Even Wes looked surprised.
“My dear girl,” she cooed. “I am most well, as I trust you are. You are simply beautiful, darling; you must be Emily, whom my Margo was talking of! She was right, your hair is stunning; what a delightful shade of blonde!”
I backed away a bit, stunned. So the plan went a little better than expected – but I didn’t know that The Dragon was capable of saying nice things. I leaned back against the counter for support, and my metal belt clicked loudly on something. It made me turn around to have a look, and I saw that it was only the metal sink. I was about to turn around, but then I saw what was in the sink. A spoon. But not just a spoon – a spoon with a chocolate-looking slush melting on it that looked suspiciously like—
That’s why she was in here, looking uneasy and pouring out the compliments! She’d been at the ice cream!
I looked back to Mrs Stone, my eyes wide. My head was spinning. I’d thought the ice cream had been going down, bit by bit, but Wes and I had just assumed that Juanita had been having a bit every so often. But Mrs Stone didn’t like food, let alone ice cream. I’d never seen her eat. And she always said that she didn’t like ice cream; she made out like she was some kind of martyr for it, she didn’t even have it in the house—
Because she would eat it all!
I’d found out Mrs Stone’s guilty secret.
I gasped.
They all looked at me.
“You all right, Hols?” Wes asked, concerned.
I couldn’t help myself. I looked over to Mrs Stone, and her dark, lifeless eyes suddenly awoke at the sight of my own wide, shocked ones. They took in the sink, my expression, and put two and two together. It was then that I saw the first flicker of humanity I would ever see in Wes’s mother: panic.
I cleared my throat.
“Um-hum, yeah, I’m good. I just, er, forgot to breathe!”
What was I on about?! I needed to get away from that mind-numbing stare.
“So how about that Nintendo Wii, ey?” I suggested to a wide-eyed Wes. “Can’t wait to play that tennis!”
I was using all of my subliminal power to get Wes out of the room so I could tell him about his façade of a mother, but he wasn’t getting the urgency. Boys never get the urgency.
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool!” Wes said to Emily, smiling, unaware of the tension building between his mother and myself. “It’s in my room…”
We all turned to leave. Wes left first, then Emily, then me – but just as I thought I was free, a claw snapped out and grasped my arm like a vice. Emily and Wes continued down the corridor, chatting away about something cheery, like they were in their own little world, and I turned to face the devil herself. Up close, Mrs Stone wasn’t that pretty. The skin around her eyes looked tired and despite the surgery, wrinkles were catching up with her. And those eyes looked huge and threatening, the pupil and iris all one colour, and I felt like they were going to swallow me up whole.
“Tell anyone, and you never come around to this house again. Do you hear me, girl?” she hissed into my ear with words that flew. “And if you do, you can say goodbye to your tent for the silly festival this weekend, because you won’t even be going. I paid for your tickets; I can get them cancelled.”
I was that shocked that my knees almost gave way. It was too much information to take in in only a few moments. Before I knew it, Mrs Stone had escorted me down the hall, hands on my shoulders – her talons digging in like a great bird of prey – to Wes’s room.
“You don’t look too well, dear. Maybe you should go home? Tell Winston you’re leaving. And while you’re leaving things, do leave him alone. He has finally found a young lady who is worthy of his time and efforts – someone at the same level, someone good enough for him. I hope you understand.”
Then, without another word, Mrs Stone straightened up and walked off down the corridor, leaving me stunned into silence and stuck to the ground, wondering what the hell I should do.
So I just walked in and told Wes I was sick, and that I had to go home. It didn’t even look like he was that bothered. All I could see was him looking at her in all her perfection: her beauty, her humour, her wealth.
And then I really did feel sick.
I went home and I cried like I had never cried before. Y’know when you cry, but you’re not really sure what you’re crying for? It felt like that. I’d never thought that I wasn’t good enough to be someone’s friend before; it had never crossed my mind. Her voice when she said that phrase: “someone good enough” – it was like I’d been wrapped in this nice big cloak that was keeping me so warm from the snow, but then suddenly that cloak got stripped away, and I was stood shivering in the freeze, blinking back the icicles and wondering how on earth I was going to live without it.
Mum brought up a cup of tea and tried to get me to tell her what was wrong. She even woke up Dad. But I couldn’t put it into words: my mind wouldn’t work. I would try to talk, and then I would just hear Emily’s laugh in my head, or see her face, and jealousy would explode so violently in the pit of my stomach that the words were blown clean away, leaving only a thick coating of self-loathing. I couldn’t even listen to our favourite song. I stuck on a different CD so I didn’t have to listen to my own thoughts.
I know, that
You know
You’ve got a hold around
Me that
Nobody else could
Know.
Your idle heart
For my
Idle soul, the
Ideal trade,
I’ve been
Told.
The rest of the week was spent with me not saying much, and not doing much. Tuesday I had a bad headache from all the crying and when people talked to me I flinched, so when they asked me what was wrong I just said I had a migraine. All that day I watched Wes and Emily. They were friendly with each other, laughing and joking – and it occurred to me that I had never actually seen them talking, like really talking, like we do. But then I suppose he chooses his friends to talk with and his girls to—
Whatever.
But I just couldn’t help thinking that I must be pretty awful to not be as good as her, someone who can’t even hold a conversation. But we hadn’t actually had a real conversation for a while, what with all the Emily/Jonah stuff going on – we each had someone to focus on apart from each other.
Stuff with Jonah was going well. He texted me on the Tuesday, but I didn’t reply, and when I bumped into him at school on Wednesday I told him I had the mother of all headaches, and he gave me a hug in front of everyone (Jonah doesn’t really “do” hugs, whereas I’m a pretty huggy person – I’d hug a fish if it wouldn’t, like, die, as soon as you took it out of the water) but I couldn’t even get excited about it. The week had lost its rosy glow and I felt a bit out of it.
“Darling, do tell me why you’ve got a face like a slapped arse – it’s so last season.”
Margo wasn’t helping either. She kept on finding little opportunities to talk to me during the week to try to find out why I had lost my mojo, and why I was “a bit out of sorts” with Wes.
He’d been trying to talk to me all week. Well, I say “talk” – all he wanted to do was ask me about Emily. Had she said anything? Was she excited about the weekend? Did I know if she liked Cubical or Hyperbowl better? He asked me round to dinner and a movie-fest on the Wednesday night. The thought of seeing his mum made me want to be ill in the nearest bin, and besides, I couldn’t take another few hours of “Emily this, Emily that” – I’d sooner eat the next-door-neighbour’s kamikaze cat than put myself through it. I couldn’t summon up the energy to be helpful any more, and I snapped at him on that Wednesday afternoon – saying that I didn’t know if
she preferred to be kissed with eyes open or not because I’d helped him to get to the point where things could start to happen, and now he had to do just that: make it happen.
“I’m not your relationship guru, Wes! Just grow a pair and get on with it!”
I may have been a little bit harsh, but it meant he stopped twittering on about how amazing Emily was.
By Thursday night I was beginning to lose sight of the happiness. I was deliberating whether to drop into the hole where everything is dark and gloomy, with a heavy metal-scremo soundtrack and wearing a lot of black (i.e., to have an “emo day”), when my mum came into my Hall of Pain and Mental Angst (my room) and held out the phone.
“It’s for you,” she whispered, smiling mysteriously, and then left the room and shut the door.
“Hello?”
“My beautiful Holly, I haven’t seen you since Saturday! Nearly a whole week! Are you all right?”
It was Ozzie.
Bless him.
I took a deep breath.
“Thanks, Ozzie, I’m fine! I’m sorry – this week’s been so busy I haven’t had much time…”
Busy wallowing and not going anywhere or doing anything. I was beginning to get a bit bored, to be honest.
“Well, I wonder if you would be free this evening? I would need a hand?”
Hmm. He was concerned for me. He needed some help at the shop. He’d always been there for me, so I should be there for him. Also, I hadn’t eaten ice cream since Monday because the thought had made my headache return, but I had started to get withdrawal symptoms and I just knew that Ozzie’s comforting conversation and iced dairy treats would at least make me feel a teensy bit better.
“Of course,” I said softly, with a smile. “I’ll come and help. I’ll be down in ten minutes.”
I was down in five. Suddenly my appetite had come back, and I needed to wallow with people rather than by myself before I developed multiple personalities. (The plus side to that was that if I did create a few, maybe one of them would be good enough to be around Wes.)