More Than a Love Song

by Cathy Cole

  He looked relieved to escape the sticky conversation. As he headed to open the door, Rhi was left with her mother and the “Heartbreaker” montage on a flickering loop. Her mother’s face looked tight, her skin yellowish with exhaustion.

  “Are you OK?” Rhi felt compelled to ask.

  Her mother straightened her shoulders. “I’m OK,” she snapped. “It’s you we’re worrying about.”

  There was a cheerful bellow from the hallway.

  “Anita! Come and see who’s popped round to visit!”

  Rhi followed her mother out of the office. Her legs almost gave way beneath her to see Max standing on the doorstep, his dark hair blown and wild and a flush of colour along his cheeks. How can he still take my breath away? she thought in frustration. After everything that’s happened?

  “Good to see you, Mr Wills,” Max said warmly, shaking hands with Rhi’s dad. “Hi, Mrs Wills. Do you know, you look as gorgeous as your daughter?”

  Rhi’s mother’s pale cheeks pinkened with pleasure. She had always loved Max, Rhi knew. “What a lovely surprise!” she said, sounding almost girlish. “Isn’t it a lovely surprise, Rhi?”

  Rhi had no idea what to say. The sight of Max in the hallway had once been so familiar. Now it felt – alien. From some kind of parallel universe, over which she had no control.

  “I was just passing,” Max said, looking directly into Rhi’s eyes. “Is this a bad time?”

  “It’s never a bad time to see you,” said Rhi’s mother at once. “Come in! Rhi, take Max’s coat, for heaven’s sake. Do I take it that you two are back together?”

  Rhi wanted to sink through the floor. She caught Max winking at her.

  “That would be telling, Mrs Wills,” he said with one of his most dazzling smiles.

  Rhi wanted to kick him. He was so… slick. What was he doing here?

  “I won’t ask any more,” said Mrs Wills, tapping her nose in a way that made Rhi cringe. “You’ll stay for dinner?”

  No! thought Rhi in alarm. The last person she wanted to sit opposite for dinner was Max! But her mother seemed so happy, so different from the stressed, yellowish creature in the office just now, that she didn’t have the heart to protest.

  “That’s really kind of you, Mrs Wills,” said Max, sounding genuinely pleased. “I’d love to. If it’s OK with Rhi?”

  Rhi shrugged. Her mother frowned, giving her best Be a little more encouraging! face.

  “Great!” said Max. “I always love the cooking in this house.”

  “Chicken curry tonight,” said Rhi’s dad. “Sound good?”

  “Perfect,” Max said warmly. “I really only came round to show Rhi another video I created for her. Did you get the link I sent you, Mrs Wills? Doesn’t she sound fantastic?”

  Rhi’s mother was still beaming at the sight of Max. “Oh, did you put those pictures together? We were just listening to the songs. They’re lovely.”

  News to me, Rhi thought, fighting the urge to roll her eyes towards the ceiling as she hung Max’s coat on a peg. Her mother was as transparent as glass.

  “Your daughter is super-talented,” said Max. “But you already knew that.”

  Rhi saw her mother had the grace to flush a little. “Of course we did,” she said.

  “I did,” Rhi’s dad corrected, pulling cutlery from the kitchen drawers. “You didn’t.”

  Rhi watched her mother’s mouth pinch up. “I never said she wasn’t talented, Patrick. I am just struggling to see how she can make a living at it.”

  “Plenty of people do,” said Rhi’s dad. “I’m sure there’s a way round it, Anita.”

  “There isn’t. We can’t have two dreamers in the family,” Rhi’s mother snapped. She gave a brittle laugh. “Family life, eh, Max? It’s enough to challenge us all!”

  This is my fault, Rhi thought unhappily. My music is making them argue. Her parents’ marriage had barely survived Ruth’s accident. She had the unpleasant sense that her parents were only staying together for her sake these days. Now everything felt as if it was fracturing again.

  “I know what you mean,” Max smiled as Rhi’s dad gave him a plate of curry. “My dad’s driving Mum mad with all the golf he plays at weekends. Mum hid his golf clubs in the laundry room last week. She says he doesn’t know where the laundry room is, let alone his clubs.”

  “Your poor mother!” said Rhi’s mum. “Thank goodness Patrick doesn’t play golf.”

  “I have many faults,” Rhi’s dad agreed, “but golf isn’t one of them.”

  Rhi shot a grateful look at Max as her parents both laughed. You could say one thing for her ex-boyfriend: he knew how to ease any tension.

  The rest of the meal passed smoothly, Max laughing and joking with her parents as if he’d never been away. Rhi propped her chin in her hand and watched him. He had a dimple in one cheek that always caught her eye when he laughed. Max laughed a lot. She allowed herself to relax. There were worse ways of spending a Wednesday evening.

  “There are definitely ways of making a living at music if you’re as talented as Rhi, Mrs Wills,” said Max as they cleared the plates. Rhi’s dad went to the cellar to fetch some ice cream from the freezer. “I’m sure she has a future in music, if that’s what she wants.”

  Rhi didn’t look up from stacking the dishwasher. The last thing she wanted now was to see her mother’s face all pinched and disapproving again.

  “Perhaps you’re right, Max,” she heard her mother say. “If this scout sees something worthwhile in my daughter and not in all those hundreds and thousands of other girls trying to make it then I suppose she would be foolish not to explore it.”

  Rhi looked up in disbelief. But before she could double-check that her ears hadn’t deceived her, the phone started ringing in the hallway. Rhi’s mother answered it.

  “Hello, Eve dear. How are you?”

  Rhi’s stomach plummeted. What would Eve think if she saw Max here tonight, laughing and joking over chicken curry?

  “I’m sorry, but Rhi can’t come to the phone right now,” Rhi heard her mother say. “Max is over for dinner. Yes! Isn’t that nice? I’m so glad they’re back together.”

  Rhi exchanged a horrified glance with Max, who was as chalk-white as the plate he was holding. She had never told her parents she and Max had split up because of Eve. It would have broken her mother’s heart. But now… she wished she’d told her mother everything. That way, this conversation would NOT be happening.

  This was bad. This was really, really bad.

  “That was nice of Eve to call,” said Rhi’s mother, returning to the kitchen, blithely unaware of how Rhi’s stomach had just turned itself inside out. “I said you’d call her back when Max had left.”

  Rhi’s dad emerged from the cellar, holding a tub of ice cream. “What did I miss?” he said cheerfully.

  As he set the tub down on the table, Rhi felt her pocket buzz. She took out her phone with shaking fingers.

  BACKSTABBING TRAITOR.

  NINETEEN

  After a stilted goodbye with Max and a promise that she’d watch his new video, Rhi went up to her room after supper to stare unseeingly at the wall. She felt sweaty and nervous as she thought about Eve and that horrible text. She even thought of calling Eve to explain, but what would she say? I’m not back with Max, although we’ve kissed a couple of times? She put it off until it was too late to call. Then she struggled to get to sleep, tossing and turning and dreading the morning. When she finally drifted off in the early hours of the morning, her dreams were full of horrible confrontations and anger.

  She felt jumpy the whole way into school the next morning, convinced that Eve would appear around every corner.

  Backstabbing traitor.

  I didn’t know he was coming! Rhi wanted to cry. But she knew she wasn’t exactly blameless. She’d kissed Max twice behind Eve�
��s back. She’d let him help her with her music video. She had been keeping secrets, and Eve would never forgive her for it.

  When Rhi got to school, it was clear that something was wrong.

  A group of backroom staff were standing in a serious-looking huddle at the reception desk, deep in conversation. Paranoia surged through Rhi, prickling down her back and turning her blood to ice. Eve had done something. She knew it. It was just Eve’s style to get her revenge in the most public, humiliating way possible.

  “Get to your classroom,” barked a receptionist, seeing Rhi hovering at the main doors.

  “What’s happened?” Rhi asked in terror.

  “You’ll find out soon enough. Your classroom, now.”

  Rhi panicked the whole way down the corridor to 10Y. Kids were loitering, talking excitedly. The atmosphere was feverish, almost wild. What had happened? Rhi’s imagination was in overdrive.

  She passed Ms Andrews’ classroom, where thirty kids stood silently beside the door. The head teacher was in the classroom – Rhi could hear his distinct, deep voice. She glimpsed something in large red letters on the whiteboard.

  GO HOME

  A tumult of emotions surged through Rhi like a riptide. Three thoughts stood out from the swirling chaos in her mind.

  Poor Ms Andrews.

  The rumour was out.

  Polly.

  The head teacher saw Rhi frozen in the doorway. “Go to class, Ms Wills,” he rapped out.

  Rhi fled. Her heart was pounding. Who would write that?

  She knew the answer as soon as she had asked the question.

  Eve. She was the only one who knew.

  Eve had always been unpredictable. But this? Hurting a teacher, hurting Polly, just to get back at Rhi for stealing Max? They weren’t even together again – not properly. Then Rhi remembered Eve coming out of Ms Andrews’ classroom earlier in the week. It looked extra-suspicious in the light of what was going on today.

  Rhi’s phone buzzed. She yanked it from her pocket. A picture popped on to her screen showing Ms Andrews, her blonde hair instantly recognizable, kissing a woman. A woman that maybe not everyone would recognize at first, but would work out eventually. Polly looked too much like her mother for it to be a coincidence.

  Judging from the shocked laughter starting to ripple down the corridor, the sender had copied in the entire school.

  Getting to class on time suddenly seemed unimportant. Rhi had to find Polly. Had she heard already? Had she seen the picture? How could Eve do something so terrible? Rhi checked the number the photo had come from, but her phone didn’t recognize it. Eve must have used a different SIM card.

  Rhi walked, fast and furious, looking in classrooms, dodging groups of laughing kids and winking phone screens. She felt crushed with guilt for causing it all.

  She checked round the door of the girls’ toilet, the one nearest the reception desk that was normally used by the younger kids. “Are you in here, Polly?”

  She walked through, checking under stalls, and stopped when she reached a pair of familiar shiny brogues, laced with red.

  “Polly?”

  The toilet door opened slowly. Polly was looking as pale as her blonde hair. “Have you heard?”

  Rhi nodded. Polly covered her face. “I don’t know what’s worse,” she said through her fingers. “That Mum’s been keeping a secret like this, or that she’s dating Ms Andrews.”

  Rhi pulled Polly into a hug. Polly hugged her back, bursting into tears.

  “People can be so h… h… horrible,” Polly wept. “Poor Mum! Poor Ms Andrews. They don’t deserve this. I don’t know if I’m angry with Mum, or angry with the idiots who wrote that awful thing on Ms Andrews’ board and sent that stupid picture.”

  “Don’t be angry with your mum,” said Rhi, holding Polly tightly. “The heart wants what it wants. We can’t change that. Save your anger for –” she had been going to say Eve Somerstown but that took too much explaining right now “– for the morons with the camera and the marker pen.”

  Polly sniffed and wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. Rhi pulled some paper towels from the dispenser and handed them over.

  “Oh God, I look hideous,” Polly moaned, catching sight of herself in the mirror.

  “You’ll be fine,” said Rhi as reassuringly as she could. “Stick with me. We’ll face them down together.”

  Polly nodded, and blew her nose. She smiled wanly at Rhi. “Thanks, you’re a really good friend. And you’re right about the heart thing. Mum hasn’t been happy in such a long time. If this is what she wants, I’ll get used to it. I just wish I didn’t have to get used to it with six hundred kids all laughing at the same time.”

  “Just pretend you’re a celebrity,” said Rhi, trying to lighten Polly’s mood. “Think of all the extra publicity. Front page news. Interviews on breakfast TV. It could all happen for you now.”

  Polly gave a sobbing laugh. “Sounds like the kind of thing you’ll be using in your stellar music career,” she joked feebly, wiping her eyes one more time.

  Rhi felt encouraged. Polly was handling this better than she’d thought she would. Then she thought of Eve, conniving horrible Eve, and felt angry all over again.

  She slid her arm through Polly’s. “Ready when you are.”

  Polly looked frightened, but nodded. “Don’t leave me, OK?”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Rhi promised.

  The first group of kids they passed were year eights, being ushered towards the hall. Ms Andrews’ tutor group, minus Ms Andrews. Rhi wondered where the teacher was. Two kids at the back were looking furtive as they giggled over a phone. Polly stiffened miserably, but Rhi pulled her onwards.

  They found themselves on the corridor containing Ms Andrews’ classroom. The door was open. Both girls heard the familiar tap-tap-tap of Ms Andrews’ shoes on the classroom floor, and the sound of books being taken off shelves. Polly slowed.

  “I’m going to see if Ms Andrews is OK,” she said, swallowing.

  “Good for you,” said Rhi. “I’m right behind you.”

  The teacher was slowly packing books into a cardboard box on her desk, her blonde hair swinging round her face. She glanced round, startled, as Polly and Rhi entered the room.

  “I wanted to say how sorry I am about everything, Ms Andrews,” Polly blurted, fiddling with her jumper. “And… and that I don’t mind. About you and my mum.”

  Ms Andrews’ eyes were red. It looked like she’d been crying. “Thank you, Polly,” she said, clearly moved. “That means a great deal. This kind of thing is never easy. I’m sorry you had to find out this way.” She gestured vaguely at the whiteboard, even though the message was no longer there.

  Rhi frowned at the box of books. “Are you leaving, Ms Andrews?”

  “The head teacher has given me a leave of absence until all this is sorted out,” said Ms Andrews. “I hope I’ll be back before long. But…”

  Rhi felt a lurch of shock.

  “They’re punishing you for this?” she said, bewildered.

  Polly’s eyes filled with fresh tears. “But you haven’t done anything wrong!” she said. “You can’t go!”

  Ms Andrews pushed her hair out of her eyes and resumed her packing. “It’s best for everyone, Rhi,” she said quietly.

  Rhi couldn’t believe the injustice. Ms Andrews was leaving, and no one was doing anything about the person who had done this to her! Dumbstruck, she could only stand and watch with Polly as Ms Andrews put the last items into her box and picked it up.

  “Goodbye, girls,” she said. Tears glimmered in her eyes. “Thank you for your support.”

  Something cold and hard settled in Rhi’s heart as Ms Andrews left the classroom with her head bent over her possessions. A sense of resolve and purpose that she couldn’t remember ever feeling before. For the first time in he
r life, Rhi wanted a proper fight.

  And she knew exactly where to find one.

  TWENTY

  Rhi leaped out of her skin every time the door of the Heartbeat opened. She’d invited everyone she could think of to come after school. Everyone except…

  Lila patted Rhi’s arm. “Stop jumping like a startled horse all the time. I’m going to spill my coffee in a minute. For the third time, Eve doesn’t know about this, OK? So just relax.”

  Rhi jumped again as the door swung open. More familiar faces flooded in, waved and took seats around the room. “Sorry,” she said helplessly. “I just… you know what Eve’s like. Popping up where you least expect her.”

  “What’s she done this time anyway?” Ollie asked curiously.

  Rhi wasn’t prepared to accuse Eve out loud. Not yet. Not until she had definite proof. “I don’t know for sure,” she said carefully, “but if I’m right, it’s bad. Hey, Polly!”

  Polly had come through the door with her chin tucked into her coat. She looked exhausted. Keeping her eyes on the floor, she made her way towards Rhi and the others.

  “We were going to walk with you,” said Lila anxiously. “But we didn’t know where you were.”

  Polly’s big hazel eyes were red-rimmed and tired. “I took a different way here so I wouldn’t see anyone. Rhi, do you mind if I sit there? Right now, looking at the wall is all I can cope with.”

  Rhi swapped seats, still half-watching the café door. No Eve. No Max either. It was time to relax, and focus on the reason they were all here.

  “What’s this about?” asked Ollie, echoing Rhi’s thoughts. “My charm and good looks? Don’t you get enough of those at school?”

  “Are you going to sing again?” Lila asked eagerly.

  Rhi studied her hands for a moment, gathering her courage. “I’m going to start a petition,” she said, looking up again. “To get Ms Andrews reinstated. It’s a total scandal that she’s been sacked.”

  “She hasn’t been sacked,” Lila said. “She’s on leave until the fuss dies down.”