by Oli White
“But you are still interested in being part of GenNext, right? You’re not bailing on us already, are you?”
“Oh God, Jack, no way,” she said, pushing her prawn salad away and looking me in the eye. “Please don’t think that. It’s just . . . well the thing is—”
At that moment we were rudely interrupted by Ava, who threw herself down on a chair and slumped across the table complaining for the next ten minutes about how tired she was. Eventually Ella grabbed her things and got up to leave, cutting our conversation annoyingly short.
“Look, we’ll speak later, Jack,” she said. “I’ll be down at HQ tonight so we can catch up then.”
“Cool.” I watched her walk away, hoping I might finally get to the bottom of what was bugging her.
Only she didn’t come down to Austin’s that night, or the night after. And I felt lost.
It was all a bit weird, really. I mean, for quite a few weeks we’d been pretty much inseparable, working together on projects in and out of school, but now it suddenly felt like she had somewhere more important to be whenever I was with her. That was especially hard because it always felt so good being close to Ella. There was a connection between us that I’d never felt with any other human being, and I absolutely knew she felt it too. When I laughed, she laughed, and if we were working on something together and I had what I thought was a genius idea, it was like I could somehow telepathically convey it to her, because she’d be right there with me, having the same thought at the same time.
So you can just imagine how frustrating this new development was; even more so because deep down I felt like it was all my fault. Yes, we were the best of friends, but so far there was nothing more and that was down to me. I don’t know why, but it was like there was some invisible force stopping me from taking that one step further and turning our friendship into a romance. Yeah, I hear you; maybe I was just a coward, but it was as if our friendship was something perfect that I was too scared to touch in case it shattered and broke.
Lying in bed some nights after we’d spent the day together, I’d mentally kick myself for being such a wuss about the whole thing, but then I’d see Ella the next day and it would be just the same. I’d sit there thinking about how well we got on, how smart and amazing she was. I’d read and inject hidden meanings into everything she said—come on, we’ve all done it, right? Like, if we were down in HQ and she made me a coffee while I was working on something on my laptop, setting it down next to me with a chocolate Hobnob and patting me on the shoulder, I’d be thinking, yes, she really cares about me. She didn’t make a coffee for Sai or Austin or Ava. She didn’t offer them a chocolate Hobnob, just me. When the truth of the matter was probably that she couldn’t be bothered to make five coffees, or there weren’t enough bloody biscuits left in the packet. Or the time she said something like “I love working with you, Jack, I hope we can keep doing it.” Well, I sort of heard that as “Will you marry me, Jack?” OK, OK, not literally, but you get my drift, right?
It wasn’t easy, and although I’d put that vital sentence together in my head a hundred times those past few weeks, the actual words “Would you like to go out on a date with me, Ella?” or anything bearing any resemblance to that had not been forthcoming. Instead I spent hours checking her Instagram feed and wondering just how many times it was acceptable to text a person in a twenty-four-hour period. It was strange; I’d fancied girls before, of course I had, but I’d never felt anything like this crazy longing to be around someone. It was like going slightly insane but with the most beautiful kind of insanity I could imagine.
Now she’d been AWOL for an entire weekend and I was obsessing. In fact, it was pretty much all I could think about as Sai, Austin, Ava and I sat up on the roof of the block of flats where Sai lived. The rooftop was Sai’s private little sanctuary, as hardly anyone else ever went up there; he loved it, and I could see why. It was so peaceful, and you felt like you were somehow disconnected from the rest of the world. It was getting dark by the time we’d headed up there that evening, and the lights of the town were waking up and starting to shimmer below us. Truth is, we were all a little bit burned out because we’d been working so hard on the website, as well as revising, so nobody was saying much. I broke the silence eventually, bringing up the subject of Ella, of course.
“Where do you think she’s been hiding?”
Austin and Sai both groaned.
“You haven’t even asked her out,” Austin said. “We’ve been working together for weeks and you always seem like you’re just treading water, waiting for the right moment, but it never seems to come. What’s the matter with you?”
“Do you know what, Austin? I like Ella so much that the thought of asking her out and then getting knocked back is doing my head in.”
“So you’re basically bricking it,” Ava said.
“Pretty much.”
Sai was very quiet on the subject, but looked as though he was dying to say something.
“What do you think, Sai?” I asked. “You look like you’re a wise man where women are concerned.” Actually he didn’t at all.
“It’s just that . . . What I’m saying is, like . . .” Sai stopped in the middle of his garbled sentence.
“Spit it out if you have an opinion,” I said.
“Well I think you need to be careful around that situation,” he said, looking down at the floor.
“What situation?” Why did I think there was something he wasn’t telling me?
“What Sai is trying to say is that if you have these feelings for Ella, you need to act now,” Ava said. “Tell her the next opportunity you get.”
“Actually that wasn’t what I was saying at all,” Sai argued.
“Look,” Ava said, taking control, “if I was a girl—and I am—I would want a boy, or whoever, to tell me what was what and how they felt, right? So do it, man. Stop dithering or it’ll be too late.”
“Maybe it’s too late already,” Sai said.
“And there speaks the voice of doom,” Austin snorted, causing laughter amongst all of us.
After that, I felt like maybe everyone was a bit fed up with me banging on about my love life, or lack of it, so I decided to change the subject and get back to the thing that had brought the four of us together.
“Can you believe we actually roll out GenNext next week, guys? It’s so amazing how it’s all come together in less than two months. How are we going to celebrate? Shouldn’t we have some kind of sick launch party?”
We were all slumped on a slightly damp abandoned sofa, heads back, looking into the evening sky.
“What, with just the five of us?” Ava said. “How rubbish would that be?”
“We need to get the word around. We want people to check it out, at least the kids in our own school. How do we announce it if not by throwing some kind of event?”
“I’ve got an idea about that,” Sai said. “There’s a party on Friday where literally anyone who’s anyone cool and important is going to be.”
Austin sat up, excited.
“And we’ve been invited?”
“No, not exactly,” Sai said. “Well, not at all, actually. But I sort of have, and—”
“They said you could bring friends,” I said, also sitting up.
“Again, not exactly. But I could get us in, ’cause it’s a kid in our year and I help him with his homework. Actually I end up doing most of his bloody homework, so he owes me a favor.”
That was when the penny dropped with Austin.
“Hunter? Hunter’s having a party? What, at his mum and dad’s ridiculous palace on Underwood Road?”
Sai nodded and I groaned.
“I heard it’s gonna be sick,” Sai said. “A pool party with DJs, girls, drinks, everything. Bad things are gonna happen, I tell you.”
“Really, Sai?” Ava said. “Bad things?”
Austin was taking it all in, staring into the night air like he’d been hypnotized.
“That’s so amazing,” h
e said, temporarily lost in another world.
“But you don’t even like Hunter,” I reminded him. “You called him a knob-head.”
Austin leapt up, suddenly very animated and waving his arms around.
“No, it’s perfect!” he yelled. “We can make some flyers and pass them around.”
“Oh yeah, ’cause when I’m at a kick-ass party, there’s nothing I like better than to sit down with a really good flyer,” Ava said.
“Or I could put together a business card design with some info included,” Sai said. “Make it look like something cool and a little mysterious that people want to discover for themselves.”
“Better,” Ava said, nodding.
“Look, J, it doesn’t matter whether we like Hunter or not—the main thing is that everyone else does,” Sai said. “We need to be there, mate, and that’s all there is to it.”
“But—”
“Ella’s bound to be there—it’s her crowd—and you did say you haven’t seen enough of her the last couple of weeks.”
I hadn’t thought of that, and yes, I know it was a bit shallow of me, but that’s what love does to a man. That was when I caved. That was when I sold my soul. That was when I agreed to go to Hunter’s party.
THE PARTY
Hunter was a kid who knew how to splash the cash around, despite the fact that he was only seventeen. Now obviously I wasn’t exactly what you’d call close buddies with him—far from it after the unfriendly welcome during my first few weeks at St. Joe’s—but in the short time I’d been there I’d noticed he was constantly designer-labeled up to the eyeballs, with the most expensive boots, jackets and bags and the coolest gadgets money could buy. It was also apparent that about fifty percent of the girls from Year 9 upward wanted to be his girlfriend, and he seemed to have this strange, slightly dangerous kind of charm that attracted people to him. In fact it seemed to me that a fair few of the students at St. Joe’s actually wanted to be him, which I didn’t get at all.
Word around school was that Hunter’s dad was some kind of big kahuna on the property market and owned about a third of the county. Now, I’m pretty sure that was an exaggeration—but not a hundred percent sure. Plus I’d heard all sorts of talk about how lavish his home life was: a butler at the dinner table, au pairs who looked like Bond girls, two—or was it three—Ferraris in his dad’s garage, all of which Hunter was allowed to drive, an indoor and an outdoor pool. If you believed the school grapevine, Hunter’s life was a cross between Downton Abbey and MTV Cribs. Someone even said that his dad had converted one of their bedrooms into a dry ski slope, but as I said, this was all supposition rather than cold hard fact, and when you questioned anyone about who had actually seen evidence of this stuff, it all went a bit quiet. Whatever the case, we were all eager to find out just how sickeningly wealthy Hunter was, and exactly what the house of someone that sickeningly wealthy might look like, and at least he hadn’t given me any trouble in the last couple of weeks. Maybe it was going to be a bit of a laugh after all.
“What’s this shindig in aid of anyway?” I asked Austin, who was sitting at the desk in my room, waiting for me to get ready.
“I think it’s his birthday,” Austin said. “His mum and dad are on safari in South Africa and he’s taking over the entire gaff. As far as I know, he’s invited half the school.”
“All right for some,” I said. “And we’ve definitely been invited? You’re sure about that?”
“Look, Sai does most of Hunter’s homework, so we’re in,” Austin said.
“Remind me why he does that again?”
“For a small amount of money but mostly through fear of violent reprisal,” Austin said, laughing. “Whatever the reason, Sai got invited, which sort of means I’ve been invited, which sort of means you’ve been invited. Dude, this is the social event of the year and we need to be there. We don’t have to like the host, don’t stress. We’ll just walk in together like we’re meant to be there, and while we’re enjoying ourselves in a heated pool with hordes of hot girls, we’ll be dishing out the new business cards and spreading the word about GenNext. It’s a win-win.”
“Oh is it now?” I said.
Earlier in the week there had been a fairly heated debate regarding the pros and cons of the two of us turning up to Hunter’s party together. One line of reasoning was that we should because neither of us had a girlfriend and rocking up on our own might look lame and a bit sad. On the other hand, Austin had a bee in his bonnet about people thinking we might be a couple. I pointed out to him that if I had even the slightest interest in dating somebody of my own sex, the person in question would be a lot better-looking than he was. Then he got all sulky and I had to assure him that he wasn’t ugly and that he was sure to meet a hot girl at Hunter’s party whether we walked in together or not. Jeez, the pitfalls, etiquette and dos and don’ts of teenage life could be very complicated at times. I swiped through my wardrobe, trying to make a decision about what to wear: a crisp white shirt, or was it better not to look too try-hard and just go for a T-shirt? After all, it was a mild night so a jacket wasn’t required. Maybe a polo shirt was a good halfway house. Yeah, that was the way to go.
“Do you think some of those au pairs might be there?” Austin said, rubbing his hands together and staring at me, deadly serious.
“What? Serving us beers in bikinis?” I laughed. “You wish, mate.”
“You never know, do you?” he said. “Are you taking swim gear?”
“Of course, it’s a pool party, isn’t it?”
“And talking of beer,” Austin went on, “we’re all supposed to be taking our own alcohol. How are we going to swing that?”
“Well, I’ve had a few thoughts,” I said, grinning. “My old man has got quite a nicely stocked liquor cabinet, so . . .”
“What’s in it?”
“Wine, Bacardi . . . I dunno.”
“I don’t like wine,” Austin said.
“What do you like?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” he said. “Where is the drinks cabinet, anyway?”
“It’s in the living room,” I told him.
“And where are your mum and dad now?”
“In the living room, watching Game of Thrones.”
“So unless you’ve developed the power of turning yourself invisible, how are we going to get hold of it?”
Austin had a point. This required a bit of fast thinking.
“Tell you what,” I said, after deciding on jeans and a light blue polo shirt, “what about if you, like, pretend to fall all the way down the stairs and twist your ankle and then, like, scream out and then they’ll rush out to help and I’ll swoop in and put a bottle or two in my bag and . . .”
Austin looked at me like I’d come unhinged.
“Twist my ankle and scream out?” he said. “Do I look like one of Dr. Who’s female companions?”
I shrugged, wondering if Austin might come up with an alternative plan. I mean, it wasn’t exactly Mission Impossible, was it? We just had to get them out of the room and grab a bottle of something alcoholic.
“Or,” Austin said finally, “we both go into the living room and then you say you need to talk to them in the kitchen privately and very urgently, with a proper serious look on your face. Then they get all worried and follow you out and I nick the bottle out of the cupboard.”
“Yeah, and what do I say once we’re in the kitchen?” I asked.
“I don’t know, do I? Tell them you feel a bit ill, or that you’ve got some really bad life-threatening illness.”
“Tell them I’ve got a life-threatening illness and then swan off to a party?” I said. “Is that your idea?”
Austin nodded. “It’ll work, trust me,” he said.
And it was at that moment I realized why I liked Austin so much. He was both a clown and an optimist rolled into one, and as far as I was concerned that was a pretty good combination.
In the end I got them out of the room on the pretense of showing the
m a personal website I’d been putting together up in my room. Dad wasn’t all that happy that I’d interrupted a particularly bloody battle scene, but they went for it anyway. While we were upstairs, I could hear the clanking of bottles as Austin rifled through the drinks cabinet, so I spoke to my parents in a stupidly loud voice to cover up the noise. Dad complained that I hadn’t made any progress since the last time he’d seen the website so what was so urgent, and Mum asked me why I was shouting and assured me she wasn’t deaf, but I think it did the trick because when we came back down the stairs Austin had a massive grin across his face and was standing by the front door, ready to go.
We left the house and headed off down the street armed with a small box of our new GenNext business cards and whatever alcohol Austin had managed to steal. I just hoped that neither of my parents fancied a glass of whatever it happened to be.
In the end, Hunter’s house turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, at least from the outside. Sure, it was nice, and a fair size, but not really the rock-star mansion we’d all been imagining. It was just a smart house on the outskirts of town. My hopes of a dry ski slope in one of the back bedrooms was also dwindling. On the up side, we were greeted at the front door by a gorgeous young woman who Austin was convinced was one of the aforementioned au pairs, clearly ready to strip down to a bikini at the drop of a hat and cater to our every whim. Wrong again. Turned out it was Hunter’s older sister, Fran, who had a degree in interior design and had just set up her own business.
The inside of the house was a bit more impressive than the outside, with an awesome hallway that led to a huge staircase. Above our heads was one of the biggest chandeliers I’d ever seen, and there seemed to be doors everywhere—so many rooms. Fran led us to the back of the house and out to the pool, where it was all happening. As we stepped outside, I felt my eyes widen, and Austin and I gawked at one another, mutually awestruck. All around the sizeable pool and the smart patio area behind it there were people partying: some dressed up, others in swimming gear, and at first glance I didn’t recognize a single one of them. Strands of lights decorated the walls, tables, trees and plants, and there were several flame-lit lanterns dotted around too. A guy in a chef’s hat and Speedos was flipping burgers on a grill on the patio, and the pumping dance music was courtesy of a DJ who had set up on one side of the pool. Everyone seemed to have a drink in their hand and a smile on their face, and you could hardly hear yourself think, let alone speak.