So, here I am at the train station, for the second time this week. It’s two days before Christmas. Yesterday we all came to see Aunt Squeezy off. It was very sad and everyone cried, even Barnaby, who never cries. Or maybe he didn’t cry, but he looked like he could. Aunt Squeezy told me she was proud of me for staying. She said if she has a red-headed baby, and she hopes she does, that baby’s second name will be Cedar. I said thank you for teaching me about lentils and hope, and bigotry and differences, and she laughed and winked and waved her hand, which tinkled in the air from the silver bracelets. Mum put her arm around me as we waved goodbye, and I think she was as sad as me to see Aunt Squeezy go.
Now I’m here again. It’s warm. I’m wearing the green sundress that I mentioned earlier, but what I didn’t tell you is how it has a white edge on the bottom and along the top, where it dips down in a very sexy way.
I also have some dark sunglasses on so I feel quite grownup. It’s making me walk in a certain way too, as if I’m sure. And, actually, I am. I am sure. It happens every now and then. It’s like you and the day and your intentions meet up in perfect harmony and sing out a good loud note that’s just right – not too loud or sharp, just right. And today, as I walk down the platform in my green sundress and my dark sunglasses, I feel sure it’s a good-note day.
I know you can already guess who’s arriving on the train just by the fact that I’m wearing something special. But I want to say it in a particular way. Like this:
It’s my boyfriend.
My boyfriend.
Those two words together just keep putting more and more of a spring in my step. I kind of wish I might bump into someone, like say Marnie Aitken, or even just some old lady would do, though Marnie would be better, but still anyone. Someone who would ask, ‘And what are you doing here?’ and I’d say, ‘Oh, I’m just meeting my boyfriend.’ I’d say it in a casual way, though, just as if it was a normal thing to do, and they’d think, ‘Oh, she’s lucky, she’s lucky to be meeting her boyfriend. And if that someone stood around to watch the train roll in they’d see the doors open and the guards come down with the luggage trolley, and the girl in the green dress take off her glasses and sit on a bench watching the passengers pour out, and there’s a chunk of sun she’s sitting in, which makes her red curly hair shine, and then she smiles because she has seen her boyfriend, but she doesn’t stand up, not right away because he’s already standing there in front of her with a bag slung over his shoulder and she wants to just look at him for a moment, since he’s quite a handsome boy in a rough kind of a way, with nice brown arms that drop the bag just as she stands up, and then those nice brown arms wrap themselves around her and she leans up on her tiptoes and puts one arm over his shoulder and then they kiss. And at this stage the person watching turns away, because she feels it isn’t the kind of kiss that you should watch for too long, so she walks off down the platform and goes to the newsagent where she buys herself a romance novel instead.