My phone beeped from under my body. I turned over on the grass and looked at the screen.
“Who is it?” Jane asked, from behind a pair of sunglasses.
I grinned. “Oli.”
“Has he asked you out yet?” Joel asked, from under Jane. She was lying on top of him – her head on his head, like they were a sandwich.
“Umm… No, not yet.”
Autumn had slid back into summer for one last gasp before winter snatched all sunshine away for six months. It was mild and bright and lovely. Half of college sprawled out over the grounds, huddled in groups of not-so-new-any-more friends. I was sunbathing with Jane, Joel, Guy, Lottie and Amber. Although Amber was attempting to use her sketchbook to shield her face from the rays.
“I’m so jealous of your skin, Lottie. You tan so easily, whereas I’m going to have to spend my entire ginger life plastered in factor 30.”
Lottie arched an eyebrow. “Yes, but think of all the wrinkles you won’t have when you’re older?”
“Annnnnd, I’m going to stop complaining now.”
Lottie smiled. “Never stop complaining, Amber. It is why I love you so very dearly.”
Guy snorted. “Who is this guy any way?” he asked, an unlit fag dangling from his lips.
Lottie tilted her head up from the cushion she’d made out of her jumper and answered for me. “He’s this super sweet guy from her film class. But he’s so shy it’s ridiculous.”
“He’s not shy,” I said, defending him. “He’s just…umm…shy.”
Guy lit his cigarette, took a deep drag then exhaled deliberately into my face. I coughed and glared at him.
“He sounds like a pussy.”
“He’s not a pussy!”
“Oh yeah?” he said, tauntingly. Then, with no notice, he grabbed my phone out of my hand.
“Hey,” I said, clambering to get it back but he fended me off with his cigarette.
“Hey, what animals do you like? I’ve always wanted a monkey,” he read off the screen. He made a look of utter disgust and chucked my phone back at me. “See, told you. Puss. Ay.”
I collected my phone off the grass and dusted the mud off it. “He’s just making conversation. I like monkeys too.”
“Whoop whoop, why don’t you just marry the guy?”
Amber sat up and joined in. “He has a point,” she said. “Did he honestly just message you about animals?”
“Just this one time.”
“And what else does he message you about?” Lottie asked. I had everyone’s attention and I didn’t like it. I felt defensive of Oli, and his cheekbones, and our future children’s cheekbones.
“Umm. Films sometimes.”
“Anything else?”
“Er. What we did at the weekend?”
Guy finished his fag and stubbed it out in the grass. “And yet he’s never said, ‘Why don’t we do something this weekend?’”
I didn’t reply, just looked at his fag butt. Wanting so badly to pick it up, carry it over to the bin and then wash my hands twice. Maybe three times.
My phone beeped again. I looked at the screen and broke into a huge grin. “HE’S ASKED ME OUT,” I yelled, waving the phone at all of them.
Lottie and Amber shrieked and ran over to read the message. Lottie read it aloud.
“‘Fancy cinema this weekend?’ Aww – finally! I’d about given up hope.”
I beamed at everyone, then quickly stuck my tongue out at Guy. A date! With a boy! To the cinema! Like people do!
BAD THOUGHT
You’ll have to sit on a cinema seat that’s already been sat on by hundreds of thousands of dirty people.
BAD THOUGHT
He’ll want to buy you popcorn. How can you explain that you won’t be able to eat the popcorn?
BAD THOUGHT
What if he realizes within minutes that you’re a massive weirdo freak and runs out leaving you alone to fester in the germs?
“So…?” Lottie said, examining my suddenly pale face. “Are you going to message him back?”
“Shouldn’t I wait a while?”
“Yes,” Guy said.
“No,” Amber butted in, ignoring Guy. “Message him back. He’s shy, he’ll be dying by now.”
I flicked through our plans for this weekend. “Isn’t Anna having another party on Saturday? Should I invite him to that?”
Amber thought about it and shook her head, sunrays bouncing off her hair. “Hmm. No… See how the cinema goes and then, if you still madly fancy him, you can tell him about the party and invite him along.”
“Perfect,” Lottie joined in. “And then if the date is terrible, you can tell us all about it at the party.”
I couldn’t hold in my smile as I shot back a message.
Sure, cinema sounds great. Sat during the day? X
“Argh,” I squealed. “I’ve sent it. I have a date.”
Lottie and Amber pulled me in for a bear hug and, surprising us all, Jane unearthed herself from Joel’s grasp and joined in on the hugging action.
“I’m so excited for you,” she squeaked.
Guy and Joel rolled their eyes at each other in an ergh-girls way and I felt a bit silly. I broke apart the hug. “Come on, girls, calm down. Bechdel test, remember?”
Jane scrunched her eyebrows in confusion. “Bechdel what?”
“Oh, don’t worry, Jane. It’s not a test for you,” Amber said.
“Huh?” she asked as Lottie and Amber burst out laughing. Bitchily. My stomach twisted for Jane. I would always defend her…when it wasn’t me complaining about her or calling her names in my head. My phone beeped with Oli’s reply, breaking the awkwardness.
Sounds good. See you Saturday.
And we did more squealing.
The college bell rang in the distance and the others groaned and picked up their bags and litter. I lay back in the grass, a mixture of euphoric and petrified about the impending weekend.
Lottie stood over me, blocking out the sun. “You not got class?”
“Nope. Free period.”
“Lucky bugger. You staying around here?”
I yawned and stretched. “Nope, don’t think so. I think I’m just going to walk home.”
“Not fair. Anyways, come on, love birds,” she said to Jane and Joel. “We’re late for philosophy. See yas.”
I waved them all away. All of them apart from Guy who, to my surprise, still sat next to me on the grass.
“You not got class either?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “You say you’re walking? Whereabouts do you live?”
“Ashford Road.”
He stood up, shaking grass from his band T-shirt. “That’s right near me. I’ll walk with you.” It was a statement, rather than a question. He held out his hand to pull me up off the ground. I took it gingerly.
“Okay, I guess,” I said, wondering what the hell we were going to talk about for the thirty minute walk.
For the first ten minutes, apparently absolutely nothing…
We veered along the pavements in a hazy sunshiny stupor. The awkward silence hung heavily over us like a cloud of conversational napalm. It only dispersed when Guy brazenly lit up a cheeky spliff and I sighed dramatically.
“What is it?” he asked, blowing out the smoke slowly.
“Don’t you ever wanna, like, live in reality?”
He looked bewildered for a sec, before looking at the small rolled-up flaming paper in his hand.
“This is reality. It’s natural!”
“It’s a mind-altering substance.”
“It’s a plant.”
I sighed again. “Whatever.”
The fragrant smell floated past me on the wind and I tried not to cough. Silence descended once more and I wondered why he’d walked with me. Especially as he seemed a bit pissed off. He spoke first.
“So, you looking forward to this date then?”
I gave him a sideways look. “I guess.”
He took a drag and giggled a bit under his breath. “And this one’s not a nympho?”
I glared at him. “Not that I know of… No.”
“He’s just a pussy.”
My glare intensified. “I object to that word.”
“What word? Pussy?”
“Yes. It’s sexist. And vulgar. What’s having a vagina got to do with not having any courage? You’re a misogynist.”
“I’m an a-what-a-nist?”
“If you don’t know what it means, then you definitely are one.”
He giggled again in response. “You’re funny.”
“I’m not trying to be funny. I’m trying to be angry.”
“That’s what makes it so funny.”
“It’s only funny to you ’cause you’re high. Alone. On a Thursday.”
He laughed again, his eyes already red. “I’m not alone, I’m with you.”
“That’s not what I’m telling the police if they pull over and arrest you.”
His laughter got more and more amplified. I let him giggle himself out and watched him finish his joint and flick it into a bush. Younger girls had started crushing majorly on Guy since the big church gig. I’d heard some girls from the local secondary school, my old school, discuss his fitness in the fish and chip shop, and some of them followed him and Joel around in town. I examined him now. The sun lit his face from behind, giving him his own little golden lining, detailing his unruly mop of hair. He was attractive, I guessed.
He muttered something under his breath.
“What was that?” I asked.
“I said, I’m not a misogynist.”
“I’d believe you more if you weren’t laughing as you said it.”
He ignored me. “Anyway, the context of the word ‘pussy’ isn’t in relation to a vagina. It’s pussy as in ‘pussycat’. Put that” – he flicked out his hand towards my face – “in your pipe and smoke it.”
I gave a wry grin in defeat. He was right. Pussy came from pussycat. “I can’t smoke it. You’ve smoked it all.”
And I lost him again in splutterings of laughter.
The sun beat down on us. The leaves were glowing golden, our jackets hung off our arms. As we neared my house, we conducted an epic game of “Would You Rather?” which had us both tearing up with hysterics.
“Okay, okay, okay,” Guy said, hands flailing dramatically, barely able to talk. “If you HAD to…would you rather have two bollocks the size of watermelons, or twenty the size of grapes?”
I snorted. “That’s disgusting. I don’t even know what it’s like to have balls in the first place.”
“Oh, it’s great. Trust me.”
I suddenly found myself thinking of Guy’s balls, and went a bit red. “Umm…two the size of melons, I guess.”
He pointed at me. “Why?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. They’d be easier to tuck into my boxers?”
It took a while for him to calm down. It was hard to tell with Guy how much of his laughter was my natural wit, and how much was his cannabis habit.
When he calmed down, I said, “Right, I’ve got one.”
He raised both eyebrows, his dark eyes almost glowing hazel in the sun. “Okay. Hit me.”
“Would you rather have…incurable full body acne…” I paused for comic effect.
“Or…?” he prompted.
“Or, a full body Celine Dion tattoo. Her face was your face. Her arms were your arms. Her legs were your legs.”
He dissolved into hysteria again, sitting down on the wall of someone’s front garden and whacking his thigh like an old man.
“No…neither.”
“You HAVE to choose,” I insisted. “I told you about my melon balls.”
More hysteria. “Okay, okay, okay… The acne. Oh God, it would have to be the acne.”
I sat next to him and laughed too. For one moment, he rested his head on my shoulder. Then his head was gone. We stopped laughing abruptly and earlier’s convo napalm descended again instantly.
“I’m almost home,” I said. For no real reason.
I felt Guy turn to me on the wall and instinctively turned towards him too. The tips of our knees touched and it made my heart do a…thing. A thing I didn’t quite understand. My face tingled with the dappling of oncoming sunburn.
“So you coming to this party on Saturday then?” Guy asked, all serious.
“Yeah. I guess.”
“And you’re bringing this guy?”
“Oli.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, maybe, I guess. We’ll see.”
“The pussy…cat?”
I shot him a look. “Why do you care?”
He leaned back off the wall, balancing his weight in mid-air, and put his hands behind his head.
“I don’t care. I don’t care about anything.” He said it with pride.
“Right, well, see you Saturday.”
“See you then.”