Adorkable (26 page)

Michael nodded. ‘If I’d known I was expected to bring my driver’s licence and last three report cards, I probably wouldn’t have agreed to it, but, hey, free meal!’ He frowned. ‘Is it free? Should I offer to pay my share?’

‘No! We’re not here of our own free will and if Roy expects us to pony up then I’ll pay for your dinner. It’s the very least I can do.’ I glanced over to the salad bar where Roy and Sandra were deep in conversation over their heaped bowls. ‘You know, it’s not too late. You could still make a run for it and I’ll cobble together some story about how you were taken ill or you had a sudden emergency and had to take your pet rabbit to the vet.’ It was Michael’s turn to punch me on the arm. ‘Lame. Very lame.’

‘Well
, I’m stressed out and I stayed up all night cleaning and tidying. I haven’t even had a little bit of sleep and I can’t think on the fly when I’ve had no sleep at all.’

Everything that came out of my mouth was one gigantic whine but Michael was still sitting there next to me, knee brushing against mine. All large and solid and calm so I had to blink and shake my head because it made me wonder exactly why he was sitting there next to me.

Jeane’s
dad, Roy, was the saddest looking man I’ve ever seen. I don’t mean sad like in saddo, though he was wearing a really tragic cardigan and shirt and tie combo. I mean sad as in he looked like something terrible had happened to him at some stage in his life and he’d never got over it.

His lady friend, Sandra, also seemed to have suffered great misfortune. She twitched and fidgeted and smiled apologetically every time she spoke. Really, neither of them were that bad, even though they kept bombarding me with questions, but I think it was because they didn’t know how else to keep the conversation going.

Jeane wasn’t quite as snippy as usual. She didn’t even explode when she was told to go and put more salad things in her salad bowl instead of just bacon croutons and pineapple pieces. She’d also made an effort not to look like too much of an eyesore. Yes, she was wearing a glittery silver jumper and
cardigan but at least they matched and probably most girls wouldn’t have worn a red skirt with yellow tights and black and white lace-up brogues (she insisted they were something called saddle shoes) but Jeane wasn’t most girls.

The second round of drinks arrived and as we waited for our main courses Sandra started talking to me about her exhusband and how all he’d left her with was a mountain of debts and a peptic ulcer. As Sandra talked, I watched Jeane and Roy.

He’d say something. Jeane would reply with an answer so curt, it was almost, but not quite, downright rude. She also kept glancing down at her salad bowl suspiciously as if it might suddenly leap up and attack her. The lights glinting off the silver cardigan gave her face a ghostly hue and there was Roy with his tie and his comb-over and his sad, sad face and all I could think was, how could you two be blood relations? How could you have lived in the same house for sixteen years? How is it possible that you’re even sitting at the same table in Garfunkel’s?

Just then Jeane glanced up from her salad bowl and caught my eye. I’d never seen her look so lost before. She looked as sad as Roy and for a moment I was tempted to grab her and rush her to a place where she could sparkle and be gobby and eat huge quantities of Haribo.

‘This is hell,’ she mouthed at me. ‘Can we do a runner?’

I was definitely thinking about it but then our main courses arrived. There was a moment’s excitement when it looked as if they’d forgotten Sandra’s mashed potatoes but it was all sorted out so the four of us could eat our dinner in a tense silence.

As
soon as the waiter swooped down to take away our empty plates, Jeane was on her feet. ‘I need a wee,’ she yelped, snatching up her bag and galloping for the Ladies’. I knew for a fact, like I knew exactly how many goals Robin van Persie has scored for Arsenal in his career, that she was going to channel her anguish into a tweeting frenzy. I gripped my dessert menu as if it were a life belt and smiled wanly at Roy and Sandra.

‘I don’t understand it,’ he said. ‘She barely touched her omelette.’

‘Well, maybe she was full up after her salad,’ I said, though Jeane had only eaten the bacon croutons.

Roy shook his head. ‘She loved coming to Garfunkel’s when she was little. I’ve never seen a child so excited at the thought of a chocolate sundae.’

Jeane was still that girl. Some of her happiest moments were spent watching bad TV and rooting through a bag of sweets, but I don’t think Roy had seen that girl in a long time. Still, he ordered her a chocolate sundae and when she finally returned to the table she gave him a thin-lipped smile and said thank you, even though normally if anyone had ever tried to order for her she’d have spat out a ranty lecture about the complex, conflicted relationship girls had with their bodies and food and possibly something about patriarchy.

I thought I hated at least half of the bits that made up Jeane but I hated this sad-faced, quiet bit of Jeane the most. When she sat down I couldn’t help myself and I surreptitiously took her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze and the worst thing was that she let me.

‘So
, Jeane, we were thinking, Roy and I, that you might like to spend Christmas with us?’ Sandra ventured timidly, as Jeane ate her chocolate sundae with all the enthusiasm of a girl who was working on a chain gang. ‘There’s a lovely family moved into our apartment complex, they’re coloured even though they’re German but they’re very nice, and they have two daughters about your age that you can play with.’

Jeane didn’t say anything at first because she was struggling to scoop out a piece of chocolate brownie from the bottom of her sundae glass.

‘Now, I know you think the Costa Brava isn’t the most exciting place in the world but it will be nice to spend Christmas together,’ Roy said as he rubbed his hands together nervously. ‘I’ve got an old portable TV in the spare room so you can watch your programmes.’

‘That sounds nice, it really does,’ Jeane said in a voice that was flatter than Holland and I
knew
her now and the angrier Jeane was, the flatter her voice got, like she didn’t dare to let any emotion break through because then she might start screaming or doing something else that she’d normally think was totes uncool. She hadn’t actually told me this but by this stage I’d had plenty of field experience. ‘Ordinarily I would love to come but Bethan’s coming back to London for Christmas.’

‘Well, it would be lovely to see both of you,’ Roy said gamely. ‘Might be a bit of a squeeze but you and Beth could share the spare room and—’

‘Yeah, it’s just, like, we’ve already made plans ’cause Bethan could only get a few days off work and I’ve already booked us
Christmas dinner at Shoreditch House. It was very expensive,’ she added with a frowny significant look. ‘But it was really sweet of you to offer. Maybe I could come for a really quick visit in the New Year.’

It was obvious that Jeane had no intention of doing any such thing but we all nodded and then Jeane pulled out her phone and began to type furiously. A second later my phone vibrated and under cover of the table, I read her text:

Not much longer by the look of things. Roy signalled for the waiter and asked for the bill, then pulled a buff-coloured envelope out of the inner pocket of his anorak. ‘It’s a shame about Christmas.’

Jeane sighed. ‘Honestly, Roy, after six hours tops you’d be wanting to kill me, you know you would.’

‘Why can’t you make more of an effort to be normal? It would be so much easier for everyone,’ Roy said, shaking his head, and still Jeane didn’t lose her temper, though she was gripping her extra-long sundae spoon so tightly I was surprised it didn’t snap. ‘Now, do you have a thing that takes copies of photographs and puts them on your computer?’

‘You mean a scanner, right?’

‘Is it a home photocopier, Roy?’ Sandra butted in and I actually
heard
Jeane grit her teeth.

‘I’ve got one,’ she properly snapped for the first time that evening. ‘What do you want scanned?’

‘I had to sort through some boxes I had in storage … now
that Sandra has done me the kind honour of moving into my apartment with me …’ Several very long-winded moments later, Roy finally handed over the envelope, which contained family photos. ‘I’m sure your mother would like copies. So can you turn them into photos once you’ve copied them?’

‘Yeah, sure, or I could just email them to you or put them on Flickr,’ Jeane suggested to Roy’s blank face. ‘Look, I’ll email them
and
print out copies on photographic paper – I’ll put them in the post with the originals.’

‘They might get lost that way, dear.’

‘That’s why I’m going to send them special delivery, Sandra,’ Jeane said in her flattest, dullest voice yet. It was official. She’d met the end of her tether, which was why she was standing up, then taking hold of the sleeve of my shirt so she could yank me to my feet too. ‘Thanks
so
much for dinner. It’s been
great
catching up, but Michael and I have to go now.’

I think Jeane put Roy and Sandra out of their misery too because they didn’t pretend that they wanted to linger over coffee or see Jeane before they went back to Spain. Roy didn’t even stand up or make any attempt to give Jeane a goodbye kiss or a hug. He just nodded at her and said, ‘Let us know if you change your mind about Christmas. Have to be in the next week or so because we might go away if you’re not coming.’

Jeane didn’t comment but her jaw was working furiously as she gave a mock salute then marched out of the restaurant. She was halfway up the street before I managed to catch up with her.

‘Are you all right?’ I asked pointlessly, because it was obvious that Jeane and all right weren’t on speaking terms.

‘I’m
fine. Why wouldn’t I be fine? My dad came to town and took me out for a free meal. End of. I’ve got absolutely nothing to complain about.’

‘That’s weird ’cause you kinda sound like you’re complaining.’

‘Look, Michael, I know we have this whole thing where we bitch and take the piss out of each other but I’m really not in the mood right now,’ Jeane said. She came to a halt. ‘“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” I come from the unhappiest family since records began.’

I knew from when Mum’s book club tackled
War and Peace
that when someone starts quoting Tolstoy they’re not in a good place. But the thing was that I didn’t know how to get her to a good place.

‘Come on, let’s just go,’ Jeane said.

‘We could go and see a film if you like, or there might be a band on or—’

‘Let’s just
go
.’

We got the tube in silence. Waited for the bus without speaking. I could feel Jeane’s unhappiness as if it was a person coming between the two of us, wrapping us up in its misery. Jeane stared at the bus timetable, her lips moving soundlessly, arms folded, and suddenly I felt angry.

I’d given up a night to meet her dad and she hadn’t even said thanks. I’d let myself be interrogated and eaten food that I didn’t really like and had been there for her and now she was giving me the silent treatment. I wouldn’t have done half that shit for a real girlfriend.

The
bus arrived. It was a ten-minute bus ride back to our nabe and I knew that by the end of the journey I had to break up with her. For the sake of my sanity and, more importantly, my reputation, because the way things were going, Jeane was going to infect me with dork disease. Like, I hadn’t even thought that tonight’s outfit was too awful even though Jeane was wearing a cardie and a jumper made out of scratchy silver material and a clashing red skirt – the more time I spent with her, the more immune I became to the hot mess that she looked. Not even a hot mess, which implied some kind of hotness, just a mess.

I watched resentfully as Jeane marched up the aisle of the bus, then, just as she was about to sit down, she turned and smiled at me. It was a weak, lopsided smile and whatever hell I’d been through tonight, it had been worse for Jeane, but she was still colossally self-involved and she still could have said thank you. Instead, surprise, surprise, she’d pulled out her phone and her fingers were flying over the screen.

I sat down in the seat in front of hers and thought about how to break up with her. It would probably have to be via text message as it was the only way I was sure of getting her attention, and, as I thought it, I was pulling out my knackered old BlackBerry and surrpetitiously checking Jeane’s Twitter timeline.

	adork_able Jeane Smith I’ve seen hell and it looks a lot like the salad bar in Garfunkel’s.
	adork_able Jeane Smith You can never go home again. Fo sho.
	adork_able Jeane Smith They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do …
	adork_able Jeane Smith They fill you with the faults they had. And add some extra, just for you … Way overidentifying with Philip Larkin tonight.
	adork_able Jeane Smith I heart Chinese buns stuffed full of red bean paste and people who buy me Chinese buns stuffed full of red bean paste.