by Nicci Cloke
we could go get a coffee at the rec
yeah cool
breaktime?
It’s a date
ON TUESDAY MORNING I’m leaving the gym, still wet from the shower, when my phone rings; a number I don’t recognise. I’ve got five minutes before first period starts so I answer it jogging through the car park to chuck my kit bag in my boot.
‘Hello?’
‘Aiden, it’s Cheska.’
I pause, the boot lid halfway up.
‘Hi,’ I say slowly. Cautiously.
‘Can we meet today?’ She sounds so casual, so relaxed, so in charge. Like I’m an employee of hers.
‘Erm…’ I look around the car park, and then into the boot. ‘Today’s not great,’ I say decisively. I do not feel like seeing Cheska Summersall today. I heave my bag into the boot.
‘Please, Aiden.’ She drops a little of the casual cheer in her voice, does a reasonable job of sounding a bit sadder. ‘I really need to speak to you.’
I look up at the sky. I don’t say anything.
‘Please,’ she says again, capitalising on my silence. ‘Please. If you won’t do it for me, do it for Lizzie.’
I sigh. I know she’s playing me. But…
‘Fine.’ I say. ‘I’m going into town at lunchtime. You can meet me then.’
‘Great,’ she says. ‘Wherever you want. Thank you.’
I hang up. And when I slam the boot shut, I slam it just that extra bit harder.
I meet her outside Waitrose in town, after I’ve picked up some dry-cleaning for Mum and grabbed myself some lunch. She’s dressed in the hoody again, with a pair of jeans and towering high heels. I guess that’s what counts as dressed down for her, but it looks too thought-through, too much like a costume. Like she stood in front of her wardrobe this morning and thought What would a person who feels sad wear? I want to tell her that she’s got the shoes wrong.
‘Has something happened?’ I ask instead, because I don’t feel much like making small-talk.
‘Not exactly.’ She glances around. ‘Here, come this way.’
There’s a war memorial in the middle of the road, the sides carved into sort of sheltered seats. Cheska leads me over to one and when we sit down, we’re out of sight of most of the street.
‘I don’t have much time,’ I tell her, checking my watch. I want to try and find Marnie before lunch is finished. I haven’t heard from her in a couple of days and I’m worried about her, especially after the news about Lizzie’s clothes.
When I glance back at Cheska, she’s smiling. ‘You don’t like me much, do you?’ she says.
‘Not really.’
‘You don’t like the show.’
‘No.’
‘You think I should keep my personal life private and not use it to get on TV.’
It’s so bang on that I’m shocked. I may as well be honest. ‘Pretty much.’
‘Did you ever think that maybe someone watching the show might come forward with information? That it might stop people from forgetting about Lizzie?’
I don’t reply. There is a kind of twisted logic to that, I guess.
‘Aiden, 300,000 people follow me on Twitter, and that number gets bigger every day. That’s 300,000 people who see everything I write about Lizzie, who’ll be looking out for her. That can’t be a bad thing, can it?’
‘I guess not,’ I say, even though I can feel her leading me somewhere and I don’t like it.
‘I’m glad you think so,’ she says, ‘because that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.’
There’s something about the way she’s talking that isn’t right. It’s posher than her usual fake-dumb twang, and she’s speaking carefully, like she’s trying to get it right, even though she’s trying to sound casual. It’s like… I don’t know –
‘You want to help find Lizzie, right?’ she asks, leaning a bit closer to me.
‘Of course –’
‘Do you know that Sunday’s show had the second highest audience share? That’s of all the channels. That’s huge!’
‘Okay…’ I still don’t see where she’s going with this.
‘All of those people were reminded of Lizzie. That means they went to work on Monday with her story fresh in their minds.’
Suddenly I realise what’s wrong. These words aren’t hers. It’s like someone’s feeding her lines. Like someone’s given her a script.
‘So people know Lizzie has a family who love her waiting for her at home. Don’t you think it would be even better if they could see she had a boyfriend who loves her, too?’
I jerk round to stare at her. ‘Cheska, I’m not –’
She waves the rest of the sentence away. ‘I know you’re not her boyfriend. But you sort of were once, right? And what does it matter, really? It’s constructed reality. You know, like real life made better.’
I’m too disgusted to even reply.
‘Look,’ she says, ‘you wouldn’t have to do much. Just a scene, maybe two – me and you, talking like we are now. We’d just talk about Lizzie and how worried we are. And then she might see –’
I jump up. ‘She might see us talking about her on a TV show she hated! And you know what, she hated you, too, Cheska. She hated you, and she hated me, and she would really, really hate all of this –’
It’s at this point that I look up and see the camera crew setting up on the other side of the road. The producer is back with her clipboard, and all of them are watching us like we’re animals at the zoo.
‘What the –’
‘Aiden.’ Cheska’s voice is still calm but I can see she’s starting to get twitchy. ‘It wouldn’t take very long. It would help, honestly.’
I look from her to the crew and back again. Would it help? Is there any chance that Lizzie might be watching? And what would she think if she saw me?
Cheska stands up next to me. ‘They’d pay you,’ she whispers.
‘Go to hell, Cheska,’ I say, and I walk away. As I pass the crew they all goggle at me, like they can’t believe what they’re seeing. The producer scowls down at her clipboard and starts scratching something out with her pen. I’m almost out of earshot when I hear one of her assistants say plaintively, ‘But she promised.’
‘It’s fine,’ the producer says. ‘We’ll do a scene with Aimee instead.’
I feel a vicious stab of satisfaction that I’ve just cost Cheska airtime, but it’s only temporary. My bad mood lasts the rest of the day.
ON THE DAY of the auditions for our Year 11 production, we waited in the drama studio’s back room. It’s all brown and beige, instead of the studio’s black – plain beige brick walls, prickly brown carpet. It serves as backstage a lot of the time, so there’s empty rails for costume changes, a couple of plastic chairs and not much else. The room was full of people; all of our drama class, the other Year 11 drama class, the Year 10s and a couple of randoms who wanted to take part. Lizzie and I sat on the floor at the edge, our backs against the wall, feet stretched out in front of us.
It was good to sit with her, to be next to her. It was still February, cold and icy, and the second season of Spoilt in the Suburbs had just started. Cheska had found out at the end of the first series that Thomas Jay had been cheating on her with various girls who’d made themselves known on Twitter. People had felt sorry for her, and the constant taunts that had followed Lizzie everywhere around Aggers had pretty much died down. In this season though, Cheska had decided to take Thomas Jay back, and now she wasn’t just a ‘homewrecker’ (despite the fact Aimee and TJ never lived together) or a ‘slut’, she was also an idiot. Lizzie had got really quiet. Like she was trying to melt into the shadows whenever she was walking between lessons. The only times I really saw her animated were when she was performing in drama, or in English when we were reading aloud.
‘Eat the orange ones,’ she said to me then, holding out a pack of Jelly Tots. ‘I hate the orange ones.’
‘Oh, right, so I get landed with them? Cheers!�
��
She leaned against me, just for a second, and smiled. ‘You have your uses.’
We went back to studying the page on our laps, a photocopied double-spread from the play, which had been handed out to everyone when they arrived.
‘Seems pretty straightforward,’ I said.
‘Yep, we got this.’ She leaned her head back against the wall. Her feet were small next to mine, just in pale blue socks, her boots kicked off next to her. This was something she always did. She always performed without shoes if she could. Even in other lessons, you’d see her foot sliding out of a shoe, as if she hadn’t even noticed she was doing it. I turned to look at her, her face side-on to mine, eyes closed like she was running through the lines in her head, and I thought how easy it would be to lean over and kiss her. I wondered why I hadn’t done it yet, why she hadn’t either. I almost leaned in, because suddenly it seemed like time, like the exact right time, like it couldn’t wait any longer.
And then Hussy came into the room and called Lizzie’s name.
‘Wish me luck.’ She stood up.
‘Go get ’em,’ I told her, and she smiled and picked up her boots.
‘See you on the other side,’ she said.
I’M JUST ABOUT to sit down to my dinner for one when the doorbell rings. I consider ignoring it, but seeing as my microwaved lasagne isn’t at all appealing, I leave it on the coffee table and head for the door.
Marnie is standing on the doorstep in just a t-shirt and jeans, even though the wind is howling round the houses and it’s starting to rain. She looks like she’s been crying.
‘Can I come in?’ she asks.
I stand aside and let her pass. She kicks her shoes off – Kevin would like her – and then looks at me questioningly.
‘This way.’ I show her into the lounge. The weird white leather sofas are as uninviting as ever, but Marnie immediately flops down in one and curls her legs up under her as if she’s been waiting to sit down all day.
‘Is anyone else in?’ she asks.
‘Nope. Just me.’ It’s as good as true, anyway. Kevin’s holed up in his office again on a conference call, which I’ve got strict instructions not to interrupt, and he’s arranged for Mum to have a fancy meal out with one of her old London friends. Sounds awful but I’m glad I don’t have to sit down to dinner with them right now. I don’t feel like answering questions about my day.
‘I looked for you today,’ I say. ‘You okay?’
‘I couldn’t face school,’ she says. ‘The clothes thing…’ Her eyes fill with tears.
I sink down beside her. ‘I know.’
‘It doesn’t make any sense,’ she says. ‘You know, her mum told me that they were folded. All neat. Left on a park bench. Why? Why would they be there? I mean if… If –’ She can’t bring herself to finish, but I know what she’s trying to say. If Lizzie was attacked, or her clothes had been thrown away because they were evidence, you wouldn’t expect to find them left right out where anyone could find them.
‘You went to see her mum?’ I ask.
Marnie nods and looks down at her hands.
‘How is she?’ I ask, though I don’t think I want to know.
‘Not good.’ She starts fiddling with the skin around one nail. ‘She looked like she hadn’t slept in days.’
‘I saw Cheska again today,’ I say, and she looks up. ‘She asked me to be on Spoilt in the Suburbs.’ Saying it aloud I almost want to laugh. Almost.
Marnie’s face drops, and her voice instantly jumps up by about a million decibels. ‘Doesn’t she have any limits?! Just when you think she can’t go any lower!’
‘I know,’ I say, trying to be soothing. ‘I know. It’s twisted.’
Her cheeks flush. ‘That show! I hate that my dad’s involved in it. I hate that they’re making money out of this. I could hear him on the phone the other day, bragging about the advertising rates they can charge now.’
‘Here.’ I get up and go to Kevin’s booze cabinet in the corner, a tall, silverish thing that looks like a sculpture until you push just the right part of it – click – and a door swings open to reveal bottles and bottles of expensive alcohol. I grab the first bottle I see and pour some into one of the fancy tumblers that are stacked into the circular rack at the top of the cabinet. After some thought, I pour one for myself, too.
I pass Marnie her drink. ‘Breathe,’ I say.
She lets out a long, puffing breath that blows her fringe off her face, and takes a big swig. She pulls a face at the same time I do. ‘Bleurgh.’
‘Yeah.’ I put the rest of my glass down on the table.
Marnie drinks hers, and slides her empty glass next to mine.
‘She’s still out there,’ she says quietly. ‘I can feel it.’
‘I know,’ I say, and I mean it.
She glances sideways at me. ‘You know, she never really told me what happened with you guys.’
I fidget with the remote, even though the TV isn’t on. ‘I don’t know if there was much to say.’
‘But you liked each other, right?’
‘Yeah. No. I don’t know.’ I look away, trying not to think about the days when all I thought about was whether Lizzie liked me. ‘It just didn’t happen. With me training, and her at that drama school thing…’
She nods. ‘We drifted apart a bit too this summer.’
‘How come?’
‘I didn’t see much of her after prom. I felt like she pushed me away, I don’t know. And then she’d always be online but sometimes she wouldn’t reply to me. And I’d see pictures of her at parties I wasn’t invited to.’
‘Parties?’ When Lizzie was still talking to me, she didn’t go to Aggers’ parties. She hated them. Boys getting drunk in back gardens, girls bitching in kitchens and bathrooms, everyone gossiping about who’d ended up with who in the dark bedrooms.
‘Yeah. Every weekend. The kind of parties she used to hate.’
‘Who with?’
‘Some of the girls from school. Lauren Choosken and that lot.’
Lauren. Once again, things lead back to Deacon.
‘She was hanging out with Lauren?’
Marnie shrugs. ‘They just started inviting her places.’
Yeah, I bet they did.
‘I think she thought it was funny at first,’ Marnie says, kind of thoughtful. ‘I mean, Lauren’s wanted to be on SITS since it started, everyone knows that. Lizzie just thought she wanted to get closer to Cheska.’
I don’t want to ask the next part. ‘And there were guys?’
She looks at me. ‘Well, yeah. I mean, there were rumours, I’m not sure –’
I don’t say anything.
‘Aiden, do you think it could be someone like that who set up the Hal profile? Someone she met over summer?’
I look at her, the faint tapping of the pipes and the rain lashing against the window the only sounds in the room. ‘No,’ I say eventually. ‘Why would someone she’d already slept with –’ the words feel sticky and sickly in my mouth – ‘go to all that trouble? I don’t think the kind of people who hang out with Lauren and Deacon would think of something like that.’
She picks up my fork and begins idly twirling it between her fingers. ‘I just don’t understand – last year she was all about school and studying and her acting. And then, in the space of a summer, she starts drinking, partying, talking to strange guys on the internet. How can someone just change like that?’
I look away. ‘I don’t know.’
Marnie gets up and goes to the window. She looks out at the neighbourhood I’ve got used to looking at but I don’t think will ever feel like home; at the perfect, polished houses, and their empty, dark windows staring out at the street.
‘Something happened to her this summer,’ she says. ‘I know it.’
AFTER MARNIE LEAVES, I log into Facebook. The lasagne’s gone cold and cement-like, and I’m not hungry any more. I scan through the updates, but there’s nothing interesting. For once, it seems
like Cheska isn’t clogging up everyone’s newsfeeds, but when I get past about an hour ago, I see why.
Cheska Summersall is off to shoot!!! #partyscene #drinkdrinkdrama #comingsoon
Urgh. I scroll back up through all the updates about people’s weekend plans and people’s homework and people’s best or worst days ever.
I’ve got a new message from Farid, asking if I’m going to the match on Sunday and want to meet up with a group of them. I’m relieved he doesn’t seem offended after I brushed him off at training the other day, and I should be excited about Sunday, our derby against Ipswich, so I write straight back and say yes.
My computer bleeps and another conversation window pops up. I’m glad to see Autumn’s name at the top of it. We spent this morning’s lessons chatting, my phone hidden under my desk, and after my run-in with Cheska I could’ve used the distraction this afternoon, too. I feel stupid for being suspicious of her before; all we talk about is normal stuff – our days, our teachers, funny videos that are doing the rounds online. Normal stuff is what I want right now, what I need. And Autumn’s funny, too. It feels like forever since the last time I laughed.
How was maths?
Alright actually
stats today
prob my favourite
Errr totally over my head I’m afraid
:p
Sorry
maths bore!
how was the rest of your day?
it was good thanks
went shopping in my free
Bought new shoes yaaaaay
haha
Erm exciting?
Sorry that was such a girly thing to say!
wrong audience
I like shoes lol
so long as they have studs in them
ooh sexy
haha! FOOTBALL STUDS
I know im kidding
you don’t strike me as a kinky dresser :p
yeah sorry 50 shades of trainers over here
lol
I click back onto my other conversation. Farid says we’re all meeting at a pub outside the ground at twelve-thirty on Saturday, and suggests that me and Jody, a defender who lives in Kings Lyme, get a lift together. Then he logs off.