Crushworthy

by Sara Lawrence

  “So,” said Chastity thoughtfully, “who’s going to be the one to front him up?”

  “Bagsy not me!” yelled Liberty, shaking her head from side to side so wildly half her ponytail came unstuck.

  “And me,” added Liv. “I’m not doing it. No way!”

  “I think,” said Daisy, looking as exasperated as she felt by now and keen to get back to her essay, “that Jinx should do it.” She held up a hand to indicate they should let her finish and ignored the expression of total horror that passed across Jinx’s face. “You were the one who comforted Mrs. Carpenter in the loos this morning, so you can use that to start the conversation off. Also,” she added, fixing Jinx with a look not dissimilar to the one she’d given Betsy Johnson in the bathroom that morning, “you’ve got two brothers, so I assume you know how to deal with men in moods?”

  “Well,” said Jinx, “yes, but…”

  “And,” finished Daisy, standing up as if this were the end of the matter, “you love the school and you’d do anything for Mrs. Bennett. If anyone can find out what’s going on, you can.”

  “Hear hear,” said Chastity. “I think Fingers has got it bang on the nose.”

  “Me too,” agreed Charlie. “You’re our man, Jinx!”

  “You are good at stuff like this,” Liberty said, tapping Jinx’s knee. “You know you are.”

  “I’m NOT though,” yelled Jinx, feeling truly horrified at the task that lay in front of her. “I’m bloody crap at it. I couldn’t think of a single comforting thing to say to Mrs. C. this morning—I just stared at her in mute horror until you came along, Dais. And as far as Igor goes, he and my brothers are, like, exact opposites. I can’t do it.”

  “You can,” said Liv. “Come on, Jinx. Think of what Mrs. Bennett did for Liberty. This is nothing compared to what she did.”

  Jinx sighed. Really, when Liv put it like that she knew she didn’t have any choice in the matter. However awkward, embarrassed, and terrible this cringeworthy scene was going to make her feel, she owed it to Mrs. B. to at least try and find out if anything was threatening the school.

  “Okay. I’ll do it tomorrow morning and I don’t want to hear another word about it from any of you until afterwards. Hey,” she said to Daisy, suddenly remembering something and wanting to change the subject before they all started banging on and confusing her anyway, “did you ever speak to that second-year? The girl who stole your chemistry revision thing or whatever it was?”

  “Oh,” replied Daisy as all the others gaped at them in astonishment—since when had these two become so freaking friendly? “No, not yet. I’m going to tackle her about it tomorrow morning. I just can’t see a second-year banging on Mrs. Bennett’s door in the middle of the night to purposefully get us into trouble. The more I think about it, the more I think she must have just found the thing lying in the grounds somewhere and kept it. I’m going to speak to her after chapel, though, and tell her she should have given it straight back to me.”

  “That other one this morning was bloody rude as well,” Jinx muttered, shaking her head in disgust at the wanton bad manners of the youth of today. “She reminded me of my cousin Cassie—whom I can’t stand and who, my dear mother incidentally informed me last time we went home, might be coming here to Stagmount next term.”

  “Oh yes,” said Liberty with a giggle, “she sounds awful!”

  “She is. Anyway,” Jinx said, standing up and stretching her arms above her head as she yawned, “I know Daisy’s desperate to get back to her books, and I’ve got to bank some serious Zs tonight so I’m on form for my torture session in the morning.”

  Lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling after they’d all bundled out, Jinx was wondering how the hell she’d gotten herself sucked into the middle of yet another fine mess. This term, she thought with a scowl as she flicked her digital radio on, was supposed to be nothing but fun—and a lot of it. Well, she had to admit, there had been some but nowhere near enough of late and she really was not looking forward to buttonholing the scary Igor. That was an understatement. She was, in fact, beyond terrified about the impending encounter and decided she needed to work out exactly what she was going to say and how she was going to say it.

  However, always one for looking on the bright side, Jinx quickly decided that if she did manage to figure this whole thing out she’d get back on Mrs. B.’s good side before it was too late. She still hadn’t heard a word about what her extra punishment was going to be, and the longer the headmistress left it the more anxious Jinx became. No doubt that was the point, but still—she needed to know! Since Jinx had a tried and tested theory that Diet Coke is the best thing in the world for sharpening one’s brain power, she rummaged around in the bottom of her bag for a fifty-pence piece and headed out of her room towards the vending machine just outside the ground floor common room.

  It was half past eleven and the house was in darkness. Jinx crept silently along the wall of her corridor with only the green glow of the emergency exit lights to help her on her way. She reached her destination without seeing a soul. The weather had been so bad of late and the nights so miserable that everyone had started going to bed way earlier than usual and it seemed the habit had stuck, for now anyway.

  Jinx fed her coin into the slot and leant slightly against the front of the machine to make sure the can fell properly from its slot. She was straightening up from collecting it from the tray below as she felt the air change around her. She had the distinct feeling someone was watching her. She instinctively knew that whoever it was wasn’t one of her friends and that this person was not far away. She gulped and turned around, telling herself to get a grip. Who the hell did she expect to be lurking by the Diet Coke machine in Tanner House anyway?

  “Oh,” Jinx gasped, covering her hand with her mouth as her eyes lit on a shadowy figure behind her. “It’s you.”

  Igor stood on the other side of the glass door that led into the common room. He wore a black shirt underneath a black jumper with black trousers and shoes, but the first thing Jinx noticed was the preponderance of silver jewelry he wore about his person. In the greenish gleam of the emergency light the massive ring on his finger glimmered as he raked a hand through his jet-black hair. At his white throat a pair of chunky silver chains jangled together as he silently opened the door and motioned for Jinx to walk past him into the room beyond. She did so without a word. Standing by one of the chairs at the table by the window, Jinx gripped her ice-cold refreshment as if it were a weapon and turned to face the bodyguard.

  The bank of dark cloud moved past the moon at that point, and Igor’s face was lit with a ghostly pallor. Daisy, Jinx thought, was right. That something was seriously bothering Igor was evidenced with one single glance at the deep hollows underneath his sad eyes, the more-sunken-than-usual cheekbones, the not-so-designer stubble covering his jutting jaw and the deep lines recent pain had left etched across his forehead.

  “Igor,” she said, putting her drink down on the table and moving towards him without a thought for her personal safety, “you look terrible. Maybe if you tell me about it you’ll feel better. What’s wrong?”

  “I can’t discuss it, Jinx,” said Igor, clutching her icy hand in his own, so out of it he didn’t even register the drop in temperature. “I wish I could, but I cannot.”

  Jinx gritted her teeth. Not only was she now doing this for Mrs. Bennett—as long as she lived she’d never be able to pay her back for rescuing Liberty like that—she also felt genuinely moved by Igor’s plight, whatever it was.

  “I think it’s got something to do with Mrs. Carpenter,” Jinx said, squeezing his hand and sitting down at the table without letting go, thereby forcing him to do the same. “And I had a very interesting talk with her this morning that you might want to hear.”

  “Cathy?” asked Igor avidly, leaning forward, “You spoke to Cathy about me today?”

  “Yes,” Jinx said, looking away as she fought an urgent desire to laugh, “I did speak to…um…Cathy, an
d she said a lot of things I think you’ll want to know.” She looked at him intently. “But Igor, I also think there a few things you might want to tell me. Like what’s going on with you and the bursar for example. And why you and the triplets have matching diamond rings.”

  “Ha!” Igor let out a short bark of amazed laughter. “So you have noticed. I wondered whether someone would. Well, Jinx, with all due respect, I didn’t realize you were so on the ball. You’re more clever than I thought you were.”

  “Well,” Jinx replied, having instantly decided it would be far too complicated to bring Fingers into the game at this late stage, “I am, I’m afraid. Guilty as charged! So come on then, what’s going on with you and…um…Cathy?”

  “Oh, Jinx,” Igor said, putting his head in his hands and shaking his head roughly, “I have never been so in love with a woman. This passion inside me is unlike anything I have ever known before.” He lifted his head and stared at Jinx like a broken man. “But there is nothing I can do. We are star-crossed lovers, the real deal. I can’t see any way for us to be together that does not involve lying either to my family or to her. And true love such as ours should not be tainted by deception, deceit, and disloyalty. I love her too much for that. If I can’t be with her in the proper way then I won’t be with her at all.”

  “I don’t understand,” Jinx faltered. “She said this morning that she loved you, and if you love her then I can’t see what the problem is. You’re not,” she said quickly as an idea floated into her mind from a Jilly Cooper novel she’d been reading earlier, “married already or anything, are you?”

  “No,” Igor said crossly, fixing Jinx with a black look. “Of course I do not already have a wife. Have you not listened to a word I have said to you? I am in love with Cathy! I want to marry Cathy!” He paused to bang his head on the table with what Jinx considered unnecessary force. “But I can’t.”

  “But why not?” Jinx pressed. Christ, this little chat had only been going on for ten minutes, but she was already beginning to feel a tension headache starting up behind her eyes. “I just don’t get it. If you love her and want to marry her then for God’s sake tell her so. You’ll be doing all of us a huge favor if nothing else, I promise you.”

  “My father would--” Igor stopped suddenly and banged his head against the wooden tabletop once more.

  “What would he do?” asked Jinx, exasperated beyond belief by all these dramatics. She just wanted to know what the hell was going on, once and for all. “Come on, tell me. Mrs. Carpenter, um, Cathy, said she knew you, but she didn’t KNOW you. What did she mean?”

  “Oh, Cathy,” Igor wailed, clutching his breast and staring at the moon, painful longing etched across his strong face, “what have I done? What am I doing? What will I do?”

  “Right.” Jinx reached for her drink and flipped back the ring pull. It was time to regain some semblance of control over the situation. “That’s it. I’ve had enough. You’ve got one minute exactly and if you don’t start speaking sense then I’m afraid I can’t help you anymore.”

  “Okay, okay,” Igor said, looking impossibly hurt at the callous way he was being treated. “Hold on. I was getting to it.” He twisted himself around in his chair and stared moodily out the window towards the sea. “So you have already seen the rings. I suppose you have already worked out that Olga, Masha, and Irina are my sisters? I am not their bodyguard anymore than you are.”

  “Of course.” Jinx nodded encouragingly, not giving away an inch of how completely blindsided she’d been by this information and pretending she’d known all along. “That much was obvious.”

  “My father has been planning this for ages, since at least the time he sent off for the Stagmount brochure four years ago and fell in love with the beautiful picture of the building on the front cover,” Igor said. “He thought the girls could have a lovely time studying here and that when they were finished with school he could move in and buy the place. He had a vision of Stagmount as the most exclusive gated community in the world, an icon of modern property development and a sure-fire winner of the coveted design awards. He wanted me to join the family business and thought sorting this out would be the perfect test. He decided he wanted me to be his man on the ground, so he arranged with the bursar that I could stay here with the girls under the guise of being their official bodyguard. Then he thought I could arrange the whole sale for him and slip away unnoticed at the end of term.”

  “But,” Jinx interjected, “I don’t understand how he imagined he could do that, that he thought it was even possible? Stagmount is not for sale.”

  “To my father,” Igor responded sadly, “everything is for sale, as you call it. To someone like him, he can get whatever he wants if he pays enough people off. Some things are just harder to organize than others, but nothing is impossible. That’s the mentality, and normally, I must admit, it is true.” He shook his head. “But this case is proving very difficult indeed.”

  “So the bursar…” Jinx said, trying hard to follow the incredible story she was hearing.

  “The bursar is a very bad man indeed,” Igor said, “He doesn’t care about this school at all. Not like Cathy. She loves it here, and seeing it through her eyes I have grown to love it too. He is being paid a vast fixer’s fee by my father to put pressure on the members of the school board and the governors to find a way around things.”

  “What about the triplets?” Jinx asked suddenly, leaning forward. “What do they think about all of this? They seem really happy here. Surely they don’t want to see the place turned into a series of luxury flats, even if they are the most luxurious ones in the world?”

  “My sisters,” Igor replied gravely, “do not really understand what is going on. They pay no attention to the business, nor do I imagine they ever will. They think the whole thing is hilarious and have delighted in tormenting me ever since I arrived with them. It was they who told my father I had fallen in love with Cathy. They thought it was funny, but he then instructed the bursar to tell me to break up with her or be cut off and cast aside. I don’t even want to be a property developer, but if Cathy found out I was involved in this plot against Stagmount she would hate me anyway. So what could I do, Jinx?”

  “Well,” Jinx said, thinking that Igor really was a bit of an idiot, “the way I see it, the whole thing is very simple.”

  “It is?” he asked disbelievingly, before throwing his packet of cigarettes across the room in anger at her insouciance.

  “Yes,” she said, standing up to better make her point, for there was no way in the world she was going to be intimidated by him now. “You just need to make some decisions and then stick with them. Here’s what I think you should do. Firstly, if you truly do love, you know, Cathy, then you need to tell her so, the sooner the better I’d say. Secondly, you need to phone your father and tell him that you don’t want to be a property developer. Thirdly,” Jinx said, resting her hands on the back of the chair and leaning forward to press her point home, “you need to start doing things for yourself. If you want to be a…”

  “Poet,” Igor supplied sulkily. “I mostly write poems about Siberia in the winter.”

  “Okay, so if you want to be a, um, poet,” Jinx continued, fighting a desperate urge to snort with laughter but beating it once again, “then just be one. Write some poems, or, like, go to Siberia or whatever. And tell Cathy you love her and then tell your father you love her. You can’t predict his responses,” Jinx carried on sagely, wondering where on Earth all this stuff was coming from, “but you can tell him the truth so all the facts are out there. Honesty is the best policy…um…in most cases. But moving on, what can your father do that’s so bad? So he cuts you off—who cares! Write some decent poems and you won’t need his money. And as far as I’m concerned,” she continued, looking warily at him for the first time since she’d entered the common room, “I’m going to tell the truth too. Tomorrow morning I’m going to see Mrs. Bennett and I’m going to tell her everything we’ve talked about her
e tonight. And I’m telling you that’s what I’m going to do so you can speak to Mrs. C. beforehand and sort everything out with her. Okay?”

  “It is more than okay,” Igor said, gripping Jinx’s hand in his and holding it to his chest. “I don’t know how to thank you, Jinx, I really don’t. Is there anything, anything at all, I can do for you?”

  “Just be nice to Cathy,” Jinx said, a small giggle escaping her lips at this unlikely statement. “And then she’ll be nice to us. We love her too, when she’s in a good mood.”

  “I will be nice to Cathy forever,” Igor said solemnly. “I promise you that.”

  “Good,” said Jinx, releasing herself from Igor’s strong grip and making for the door. “I’m beyond thrilled we had this little chat, and I’m so pleased you’ve got everything sorted out, and I can’t wait to hear how Cathy takes the news, but right now I really must go to bed. Good night, Igor. God bless.”

  “Good night, Jinx,” he replied, staring out the window once more, an expression of dazed relief on his face this time. “I will never forget this.”

  A few minutes later a wide-eyed Jinx lay on her bed and marveled at the sheer insanity of everything she’d just learnt. She had never known Mrs. Carpenter’s name was Cathy. Cathy Carpenter, bloody hell. She could hardly have made it up. She could also hardly believe she had to go and inform Mrs. Bennett of yet another dastardly plot so soon after last term’s debacle. She knew her friends would find it hard to believe, so she just hoped the headmistress would take this undoubtedly tall tale seriously.

  24 Coming Clean

  Jinx Sat On a bench in the very same lock-up bike shed she’d caught Mrs. Gunn and The Dick doing unspeakable things to each other at the end of last term. She took a deep drag on her Marlboro Light. She’d had a key to this place for as long as she could remember and she often shut herself away in here for a bolstering cigarette before a tricky meeting or a nasty test. Although this running to Mrs. B. with shocking news at the end of term business, she thought with a frown as she ground the fag end underneath her heel and slung her oversized tan leather Simultane bag over her shoulder, was becoming just as much of a bloody tradition. And it wasn’t one she liked much, either.