Lunch at Il Gusto starts off well enough. Giorgio makes a big fuss of me, telling me I’ve become a “bella donna” since he last saw me and escorts us to our usual table. We’ve been coming here since before Ziggy was born and it hasn’t changed a bit, from the Chianti bottles hanging from the ceiling to the red-and-white-checked tablecloths.
When Giorgio brings our drinks Dad proposes a toast to me overcoming my hatred of Jane Austen to succeed in EE. Then we toast Ziggy getting three tries in footy yesterday. Dad and Mum smile proudly at each other.
The food is heavenly, as always, and I eat my tortellini one at a time, trying to make it last as long as possible. And for once there’s no tension to our family chatter. It’s the perfect family outing until Giorgio brings dessert.
“So, Freia,” he says with a wink, “when are you going to bring your boyfriend to meet me? He has to have Giorgio’s stamp of approval, you know.”
“Get in line!” Dad says, faux sternly. “First, he has to get my stamp of approval.”
“We’d all like to meet him, Giorgio,” adds Mum, “but Freia’s keeping him to herself at the moment.”
Then Ziggy announces at the top of his voice, “His name’s Skeletor and he’s a freak!”
“Now, now, Ziggy, I’m sure he’s a very nice boy,” says Giorgio, probably because he’s noticed that every table within earshot has turned round to see who’s going out with the freak. “Maybe you’ll bring him for lunch someday, Freia?”
“He is not my boyfriend!” I practically yell at Giorgio, who looks hurt and busies himself clearing the table behind us.
“Freia!” says Mum.
“Could we just stop talking about it please?” To add to my public humiliation, I’m on the verge of tears. I put down my spoon and go to the bathroom where I splash my face with water and sit on the toilet with the lid down until Dad comes looking for me.
“Sorry, Fray,” says Dad when I open the door. “We didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just … we used to be able to joke around about stuff like that.”
“Well, it’s not funny any more,” I say, unable to tell him that the real reason I’m upset is that I know that Daniel isn’t interested in me and never will be.
“Sorry, Sausage. You know, I love the person you’re becoming, but sometimes I miss the little girl I knew.”
Me too, I think, not bothering to tell him off for calling me Sausage.
I spend the next twenty-four hours veering between looking forward to seeing Daniel and dreading it. I keep telling myself that he’s just a friend and that’s all I want him to be, but then I remember that Jacob’s Ladder-crackliness and my toes tingle again and I wonder who I’m trying to kid.
I sit with Kate and the Bs at lunchtime on Monday, but luckily they’re all too busy admiring Belinda’s newly permed eyelashes to pay much attention to me.
“Mum says if I keep aceing Maths and Science, she’ll let me get semipermanent eyelash extensions for the formal,” she enthuses, as Kate and Brianna “ooh” and “aah” at the extreme curliness of them.
Of course, this is the exact moment that Siouxsie and Stephanie walk by. Steph does a double take as if she can’t believe her ears. Siouxsie winks at me. I grimace in reply, but turn it into a sort of smile when I realise Kate is watching.
Daniel is late to rehearsal and offers no apology or explanation when he arrives. I’d hoped we might do our opposite-hand operating trick, but instead of sitting at the desk, he moves the second chair as far away as he can and sits slumped in it.
“Bad day?” I ask.
“No worse than usual,” he replies, staring straight ahead.
He’s obviously in no mood to make conversation, but after the anticipation of seeing him, I’m suffering from a case of verbal diarrhoea.
“It was funny running into you at Switch.”
“Yep, small world.” He takes out his iPod in an obvious move to shut me up. I want to ask him what he’s listening to, but I don’t dare.
The highlight, of sorts, of the afternoon is Belinda fainting in the middle of the ball scene. One moment she’s standing there in her ball gown and the next she’s hit the deck and the Bs are racing as fast they can in their long dresses to attend to her. Daniel lifts his head to see what the fuss is about, gives it a dismissive shake and goes back to his slumping. Ms Burns asks Bethanee whether Belinda has any known illness or a heart condition. I want to tell her that it’s more likely because Belinda’s idea of lunch is half a carrot.
Belinda comes to after a few minutes, but everyone is still fussing over her half an hour later.
“Screw this,” says Daniel, picking up his bag and heading for the stairs. “See you on Wednesday – if the diva’s recovered by then.”
I consider going after him to make sure he’s okay, but I don’t know what I’d say to him if I did.
Someone must’ve called Belinda’s mum because she rushes in, yelling about having her four-wheel drive double-parked out the front. Luke lifts Belinda as if she weighs nothing at all and carries her out of the hall.
After Belinda’s dramatic exit, Mr Wilson decides that we should call it a day, telling us to be prepared to work extra hard on Wednesday to bring things up to speed. When I get downstairs Kate and the Bs are still huddled around the spot where Belinda had been, talking in low voices.
“I tried to get to her in time to break her fall,” Brianna says, as if she needs to justify herself. “But she just went down too fast.”
“It’d be worth a bump on the head to be carried out in Luke’s arms,” says Kate, and Bethanee shoots her a raised eyebrow that makes her back-pedal like crazy. “I mean, Alex’s arms, if it was me. You know, just the whole being saved by a knight in shining–” she cuts herself off.
“I don’t see why we had to stop rehearsing,” says Bethanee. “I mean, what’s the point of having an understudy if you’re not going to use her?”
Bethanee is, of course, Belinda’s understudy. Kate and Brianna murmur noncommittally. Neither of them is stupid enough to publicly support Bethanee over Belinda; word would get back to her before you could say “the rain in Spain”.