Rosie did want. She wanted so badly that she even gave him an extra helping of chocolate sauce.
‘Do you fancy him?’ I asked when he’d left with his sundae perched precariously in one hand as he shifted the box of flyers under his other arm.
‘I fancy not handing out flyers in a sudden downpour,’ Rosie muttered. Her voice dropped. ‘‘Sides, boys like that don’t fancy girls like me.’
‘What, dorky boys in cardigans?’
‘Whippet thin, arty boys with a casual insouciance,’ Rosie said, which seemed like brainiac speak for dork. It also seemed like we’d used up our allotted word quota for the day.
I soon realised that Rosie really didn’t like me. Like, she would never speak to me about anything not ice cream related. She’d either bury her head in one of her boring books or willingly serve customers without waiting for them to cough pointedly first.
I tried everything. I asked her about music but she only liked whiny emo bands. I asked her about her favourite TV shows but she was a freak who didn’t have her own TV. By the time I asked her what her favourite colour was, I was officially desperate, but she just mumbled, ‘green’, as Cardigan Boy walked in.
He stood there trying to catch Rosie’s eye but she was steadfastly gazing at the syrup bottles until I gave her a theatrical nudge. ‘I don’t serve dorks, so he’s all yours,’ I drawled.
If I’d been Rosie, I’d have engaged in some flirty talk involving the word ‘vanilla’, but Rosie just waited silently until Cardigan Boy decided on a praline and peanut butter combo. She dropped the first scoop on the floor and because I’m a saint, I offered to mop it up, while she tried again. Her legs were totally shaking and when I finally straightened up it was in time to hear him say, ‘Nice badge,’ as Rosie handed him his change.
The door had barely had time to close behind him, before she burst into tears.
Rosie wouldn’t say why she was crying. She just ran into the loo. When she came out, her eyes were pink, like she’d been scrubbing at them with the scratchy toilet tissue that Big Don got from the cash and carry instead of the posh stuff we had at home.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked, but Rosie simply sniffed a bit and picked up her book.
It was much, much later when I’d just locked up and was gazing at the bulging sky and waiting for the first fat drops of rain to start plopping down, that Rosie spoke.
‘I thought he was different,’ she said, trying to yank the zip of her cagoule over her breasts. ‘But he’s the same as all the other boys.’
‘He is different from other boys. He wears a cardigan, for God’s sake.’
‘No, I mean, it was just about these, wasn’t it?’ She gestured at her chest. ‘He wasn’t looking at my badge at all.’
I looked at her badge, which was hard because her breasts really were attention hoggers. ‘Reading is sexy’, it proclaimed, which it so wasn’t, but if Cardigan Boy really had been looking at her badge and thought it was cool, then they were, like, kindred spirits or something.
‘Maybe he was looking at your badge but your boobs are in the same area so he had to look at them too. They are kinda…’
‘Big?’ Rosie suggested coldly. ‘Ginormous, don’t get many of them to the pound, could have someone’s eye out – whatever you were about to say, don’t bother. I’ve heard it all before.’
‘I was going to say gazeworthy,’ I snapped because she could just get over herself. Lots of people would pay good money for a pair that weren’t even half as impressive. ‘How big are you anyway?’ I heard myself asking. ‘Like 40DD?’
‘Oh, piss off,’ Rosie hissed in a very un-Rosie-like manner and stomped off.
‘I was only asking,’ I pointed out, following her because I wanted to get off the pier before the heavens unleashed. ‘Boys like boobs. Deal with it.’ Which was precisely why I had a pair of rubber chicken fillets stuffed into my bra cups.
‘Well, I like boys who can see beyond my chest to the person underneath,’ Rosie muttered. ‘If he doesn’t like me for my personality then he’s not worth it.’
‘Do you want to know what your problem is, Rosie?’
‘Apart from the way you keep haranguing me with rhetorical questions?’ She folded her arms over the offending areas. ‘What is my problem, oh wise one?’
‘You think everything is about your breasts; but they wouldn’t be so noticeable if you stopped tugging at your clothes and drawing attention to them every five seconds.’ Rosie’s hair was in her face and I couldn’t tell whether my words were having any effect. ‘You don’t make the best of yourself. You should do something with your hair and stop letting your mum buy your clothes.’
‘She doesn’t buy my clothes … ’
‘Well, it looks like she does.’ I tried to soften my voice because we were getting off topic. ‘Look, Rosie, you might read lots of books but they’re not teaching you important boy-getting life skills. Twenty-five per cent of your problem is obviously low self-esteem and the other seventy-five per cent of your problem will disappear if you let me work on your wardrobe, grooming and getting you a bra that actually fits.’
Rosie took the bait at last. ‘What’s wrong with my bra?’
I came right out with it. ‘You have a mono-boob. There’s meant to be two of them, not one long sausagey thing hanging there. I’m not a lezza or anything, Rosie, but I’d really love to know what’s going on under your clothes.’
I hadn’t even finished my sentence before Rosie bolted across the road and narrowly avoided getting mown down by a bus.
And that was that. If Rosie wanted to spend the rest of her life being a mono-boobed freak, it was nothing to do with me.
But three days later after Big Don had been in to give us our wages, Rosie sidled up as I stacked my magazines in a neat pile. ‘It’s late-night closing, isn’t it? Will you help me buy some new bras?’
Rosie had a long list of acceptable behaviour for our bra-buying expedition. She refused to have her boobs measured. I wasn’t allowed in the changing room. The words ‘knockers’, ‘bristols’, ‘norks’ and all other variants were banned and I wasn’t to speculate on what her size might be.
I agreed to everything because even walking to the main shopping drag together was a big thing for Rosie. Acceptance was the first step to recovery, blah blah blah. And I almost shed a tear as I saw the light dawn on Rosie’s face as I extolled the virtues of underwire bras and she snatched a handful and hurried to try them on. She was actually figuring out the basic rules of girl stuff before my very eyes.
When Rosie reappeared, and headed towards the cash register with her hands full of new bras and one greying old one, she was walking very oddly, as if her centre of gravity had totally shifted. Maybe it was because her boobs were no longer one weird roll propped on her chest, but like actual proper breasts. They were still enormous but at least they didn’t look like they should have their own national anthem any more.
‘You have a waist now,’ I told her in amazement after she’d paid. ‘You look super fierce.’ I expected Rosie to give me another speech about how she only wanted to be judged for her lame personality, but a tiny, pleased smile played around her lips.
‘I’m having this major epiphany,’ Rosie confessed. ‘I always thought it was superficial to care too much about clothes and hair and it was the inner me that counted. But maybe the outer me should look more like the inner me.’
She really needed to come with subtitles.
‘What does the inner you look like,’ I asked.
Turned out that Rosie’s inner me looked like the girls in the books she read; quirky and mysterious, which I translated as a muted colour palette and lots of V-necks and wrap tops to minimise her mammaries. We trawled through New Look, Primark and H&M and Rosie tried on everything I suggested. I wouldn’t say we were becoming friends, more like teacher and pupil.
Every day the skies got darker and the rain got more biblical and we’d camp out in one of the booths, so I could imp
art all the wisdom I’d acquired in my sixteen years.
Rosie took notes and when I was done imparting she made me laugh by inventing this whole other life for Big Don where he ordered girlfriends off the internet. She was dead sarcastic and funny once you got to know her.
There were hardly ever any customers but when Cardigan Boy came in, Rosie would hide from view and whisper: ‘You serve him, Cath, please.’
But on Thursday when the bell above the door jangled I’d just given my nails their second coat of The Lady Is A Tramp, so with a long-suffering sigh, Rosie hauled herself up.
‘Hey, I haven’t seen you for ages,’ he said and she almost tripped over her feet.
Then his eyes widened at new improved Rosie in a black V-neck sweater that fitted properly with a little felt corsage pinned to her shoulder and a pair of jeans that didn’t give her a mum bum. And game on, because Cardigan Boy was looking at Rosie in exactly the same way that he’d looked at his Tropical Fruits sundae. Mind you, he’d looked at her like that pre-makeover too.
‘I hope this doesn’t sound sketchy, but I’ve got something for you,’ he said nervously, reaching into the inner depths of his anorak while Rosie looked intrigued but nervous, because Cardigan Boy was coming over all stalker-y. ‘I saw you reading Bonjour Tristesse, and then the other day I found this in a charity shop.You’ve probably already got it, but the cover’s really cool.’
He pulled out a mouldy paperback, its pages tinged yellow. Rosie took it and turned it over carefully like it was some holy relic, as I squinted over her shoulder to see the book title: To Esme, With Love And Squalor. Whatever. But Rosie’s face lit up and in that split second she was so beautiful that it made me blink rapidly until she looked like she usually did.
‘That’s so weird, this is on my to-buy list,’ she said. ‘And I love old editions of books. If I really like the book, it makes me kinda sad that they gave it away. Do you know what I mean?’
Cardigan Boy knew exactly what she meant. ‘I have this hardback of The Collectible Dorothy Parker from the 1940s that I found in Cancer Research. Why would someone get rid of that?’
It was all very well bonding over books but they still weren’t getting the basics sorted. Not unless I did it for them. ‘I’m Cath, this is Rosie and you are … ?’
‘David,’ Cardigan Boy said. ‘Never Dave or Davy or Id.’
And Rosie totally laughed, even though it was the lamest joke I’d ever heard. It was adorable in the dorkiest, geekiest way possible.
How was I going to get Rosie and David away from ice cream and on an actual date? I needed to try to fathom out the geek mindset but, God, that was so hard. Then on Tuesday Rosie was banging on about her latest boring book while I was flicking through the local paper and I had such a genius idea that I almost fell headfirst into the strawberry ice cream that I’d left out on the counter to soften.
When David finally came in, I elbowed Rosie out of the way, so I could get to him first. We went through the usual sundae business while he cast longing glances in Rosie’s direction, then I moved in for the kill.
‘Hey, have you ever read The Great Gatsby?’ It was a perfectly natural question for me to ask so there was no need for him to smirk.
‘It’s one of my favourite books,’ he replied and Rosie opened her mouth to start wordgasming about it too but I rustled the paper as a diversionary tactic.
‘You know they made a non-musical film of it ages ago, right? It’s playing at the Rep Cinema tonight.’
‘I’ve always wanted to see it,’ David enthused, walking into the clever trap I’d set and making himself right at home.
‘Really?’ I smiled sweetly at Rosie whose eyes were promising a little light torture. ‘Rosie’s dying to see it too but she hasn’t got anyone to go with. I refuse to watch any film that wasn’t made this century.’
If David paused for longer than five seconds I was going to brain him with a box of Cornettos, but he was already turning to Rosie with a casual smile that I knew masked the fear of rejection. ‘You probably already have plans, but if you fancy going with me … ?’ He tailed off and stared down at his Jack Purcells. Which was just as well because Rosie was doing a good impression of a slack-jawed yokel.
‘Um, if you don’t mind, I guess that would be er, like all right,’ she muttered.
‘No, I don’t mind. If you’re sure you don’t … ’
It was like watching some nature show on the Discovery Channel about the mating habits of geeks. Watching two bears clawing each other into bloody shreds would have been less painful. ‘Jesus!’ I snapped, pushing his sundae at him. ‘Come and pick her up after work. Six sharp so you’ve got time to get the tickets. Now go away. We might have some other customers in a minute.’
As soon as he was out of the door, Rosie turned on me furiously. ‘You’re absolutely unbelievable, Cath,’ she began, her face flushing. ‘You pimped me! He was obviously just being polite because you forced him into … ’
‘You’re welcome,’ I said when she had to pause for oxygen. ‘If I were you I’d start doing your make-up because you’re still crap at applying liquid eyeliner.’
‘He paid extra for the superior comfort seats,’ Rosie told me the next day, as we shivered behind the counter. It wasn’t actually that cold but the rain was thudding against the window and it felt like we should shiver. ‘And then we shared a tub of popcorn and he squeezed my arm in a really sad part of the movie, but it wasn’t in a lecherous way. It was a very empathetic squeeze.’
‘And then what happened?’ I prompted, eyes wide.
‘We went for a coffee and talked about the movie and Scott Fitzgerald’s other books, and loads of things and then he walked me home,’ Rosie finished with a smile that was verging on smug.
‘And did he kiss you? Like, with tongues?’ It came to something when I had to get vicarious snogging thrills from Rosie.
‘Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t,’ she said coyly. ‘But I’m seeing him tonight. We’re going to a gig. You should come,’ she offered, because she was a sweet but totally naïve girl who thought it was polite to invite friends along on dates.
‘Nah, you’re OK,’ I shrugged. ‘The music you like hurts when you listen to it.’
‘Some of David’s friends are going to be there.’ Rosie’s face squinched up. ‘Maybe they won’t like me. They’re all at university or art school and they’ll think that I’m fat … ’
‘You are not fat,’ I interrupted angrily because at least she didn’t go straight up and down like me. ‘You’re curvy. Big diff. And you’re really smart and funny and you should stop judging yourself about what you think you look like. It’s pathetic. And don’t you forget it.’
Rosie didn’t forget it. Maybe that’s why she was a such big hit with David’s friends. She even went bowling with them later in the week, then turned up for work in this old-fashioned dress that hugged her curves like she’d just stepped down from one of those 1950s pin-up girl pictures. Her boobs were still mighty but it was like she’d grown into them.
‘David’s friend Kara gave me this,’ she said, twirling so I could see how the circle skirt foofed out. ‘She said I had the perfect figure for vintage clothes.’
I was happy for her. Really I was. That’s why I folded my arms and pouted. ‘You could get something in H&M that’s practically identical,’ I noted savagely. ‘And no one would have died in it.’
Rosie’s face fell and I felt like a bitch for raining all over her vintage parade, but I could tell she was leaving me behind and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.
We still hung out at work but it wasn’t the same. Rosie was kicking it freestyle these days and now that I had nothing left to teach her, there wasn’t really a lot to talk about.
So it was a huge relief when it stopped raining and the sun came out. Big Don dragged the Mr Whippy machine outside to take advantage of the daytrippers and I volunteered to man it. I couldn’t quite master the necessary twirling action but I re
ally needed to start on my tan and scope out the talent.
The sunshine had made the boys emerge from wherever they’d been hiding and I remembered what summer was meant to be about. I’d lost too much time for sticky kisses and holding hands with out-of-towners. I needed to think about who’d still be around in September when everyone at school was bragging about Pedro the cabana boy and François the deckchair salesman. If I had a boy in the bank, so to speak, rather than living off memories, then I wouldn’t need any sympathetic looks because newly one-parent families couldn’t afford luxuries like package holidays to Corfu.
First I considered Jimmy from the Waltzers because he was really fit, but he had dirty fingernails and everyone knew he’d done really gross stuff with a girl from the doughnut stall under the pier. Loz from the Ghost Train always winked at me when he came to beg for change, but he had a zitty back and he spent off-season in a spliff haze. I needed a boy who was way more thrusting and dynamic.
Eventually I settled on Kieran from the bumper cars because he played football for the local club’s youth team, drove a black Jeep, and when he sauntered bare-chested along the pier with a cocky smile, his muscles rippled and it was like having a religious vision. He was perfect for me.
I pulled out every single weapon in my arsenal. I went two shades lighter on the blonde scale, fashioned my T-shirt into a bandeau to show more skin and smiled flirtatiously every time he walked past. Nothing seemed to work, and the skanks from the café opposite had set up a tea stall outside the front door and weren’t above whistling at him. I could have been invisible for all the notice Kieran took of me.
Summer was limping to a halt and I could feel the weight of going back to school already crushing down on me. I needed a Plan B on the boy front, I thought as I served up 99 after 99. And as soon as I thought it, a voice in my ear roughly enquired, ‘You all right, then?’
It was Kieran. I mean, of course it was Kieran, and all of him was twinkling at me: his eyes, his smile, the bleached tips of his spiky hair. I stuck out my chest and fluttered my eyelashes. ‘Yeah,’ I said, staring at his mouth. ‘You all right?’
The Booby Trap and Other Bits and Boobs Page 8