accident noun: any unfortunate event,
especially one involving injury
It’s almost 7 o’clock. Nick’s picking me up in five minutes and I feel like I want to vomit. I can’t stop thinking about the guys on the team, the sound of Corelli’s spit on the ground, their feet, shifting and scraping.
I tried to distract myself when I got home from the game and I made the fatal mistake of getting ready too early for my date. It’s a fine line. Get ready too early and you leave too much time to play with your hair and that’s deadly.
By 6.15 I’d fluffed it up so much I looked like I’d stuck my finger in a power point. I kept putting in more gel in the hope it would calm it down, but it kept getting stickier. By 6.30 I had hair the consistency of fairy floss. ‘Faltrain,’ I could hear Jane’s voice in my head, ‘just dunk the whole lot and start again.’
At 6.59 Mum isn’t looking at her daughter but a life-size stick of fairy floss, dripping water all over the floor. ‘Gracie, what on earth did you do?’
‘Mum, listen carefully. This is important,’ I say, wiping the gel that’s dripping down my forehead with the back of my hand. I’m on the verge of hair-product-induced hysteria. ‘When Nick rings the bell, DO NOT ANSWER THE DOOR.’
‘Gracie, you can’t leave him on the porch.’
‘Are you listening to me?’ I say, fear driving a wedge between each word, ‘DO – NOT – ANSWER – THE – DOOR. MY – SOCIAL – LIFE – DEPENDS – ON – IT.’
And with the kind of punctuality that only ever happens when you don’t want someone to arrive on time, the bell rings. Mum and I look at each other for just a second, like animals before they pounce. I know her. She won’t leave him standing at the door. She swerves past me and runs down the corridor. I chase her, calling out in desperation, ‘Stop!’
We both arrive at the door at the same time. I don’t think she means to open it until I’m in the bedroom. It’s just one of those accidents. Mum’s hand opens the door – and we seem to shout, ‘Nooo’ in slow motion as the wood swings back to reveal me, standing in the doorway, hair dripping in some strange sort of pre-eighties mohawk, wearing my dressing gown and slippers. Now, it would be bad enough to see just one boy standing there. But there are two.
I don’t know what is going on when she opens the door. I mean, she’s standing there in her dressing gown. Her hair looks like she’s been caught in a wind tunnel, you know? I tell her I’ll wait in the car. I don’t even want to take her anymore after what happened at the game today. The guys were really angry. She looked like an idiot. They won’t want her there. I’m starting to think this is all a big mistake.
Nice slippers, Faltrain.
When things go this badly in the movies, usually the date goes really well, and the girl ends up with the guy, right? I mean, everyone knows that. I give you every single teen flick that’s ever been made.
I can hear Jane now: ‘Life ain’t a movie, and people who tell you it is are trying to sell you something.’ Standing in the hallway, dripping water, mascara running down my face, I have to agree. Unless someone told me that my life was Scream 2. Then they’d be onto something.
Mum’s hands grip my neck and drag me into the bathroom. She dunks my head into the sink and holds it under the tap. I start banging on the bench, a desperate sign that the water is too hot and running into my undies.
‘Right.’ She throws my head back with a force that would make Coach proud. In ten minutes my hair is dry, brushed and plaited, my face is scrubbed and a new shirt ironed. I have to hand it to her. She’s good.
‘How does she look, Martin?’
He just stands there and stares. Typical Martin. I can’t stop thinking about what the guys said after the match. And that he didn’t say anything.
I don’t know what to say. I just dropped around to make sure she was all right after today and she gets all dressed up. My fingers start to tingle. I give them a bit of a shake and then leave. I mean, Faltrain’s a mate.
No one has looked at me like Martin looked at Gracie for the longest time. Pity for him she’s looking at Nick.