Authors: Sarra Manning
Michael swatted my hand away with annoying ease. ‘Sorry, but it sounds like a pretty shit childhood.’
‘Whatever. I doubt I’d be quite as awesome as I am today if I hadn’t learnt from an early age that I was the only person I could rely on. Though maybe I was just born dorky and proud of it. Who knows? Everyone has some trauma growing up, don’t they?’
Michael shook his head. ‘I’m pretty much trauma-free.’ He pursed his lips as he thought hard about any trauma he might have known. ‘Well, apart from being an only child for ten years until Melly rocked up. That was a shock after being top dog for
so long.’ His face brightened. ‘I suppose the weirdest thing about our family is that biologically Melly and Alice are twins.’
‘How can they be, when Melly is seven and Alice is, what, five?’
‘I don’t know all the details but Mum and Dad had problems after they’d had me so they went through IVF, froze some of the spare embryos, had Melly, defrosted the rest of the embryos and then there was Alice.’
‘I still don’t understand how that makes them twins,’ I argued, and if Michael had been trying to distract me from my own woe-is-me-ness then my God it was working.
‘No, neither did Melly when Mum and Dad told her and they got into a whole thing about sperm and eggs, which just confused her even more, and then Alice wanted to know why she’d been stuck in a freezer for two years.’ Michael choked back a laugh. ‘I caught the pair of them standing on a chair rooting in the freezer to see if there were any more tiny babies in test tubes hiding behind the fish fingers.’
I couldn’t help it, I giggled, though I forced myself to stop as soon as was humanly possible. ‘I guess if that is your closest brush with a childhood trauma then at least it was a nice sort of trauma. Well, that and the fact that your mum and dad are kind of hands-on with the whole parenting thing.’ I shuddered. ‘Now that would be something I totes couldn’t deal with. I much prefer Pat and Roy’s benign neglect.’
‘I think we’re about to have another argument,’ Michael announced, sitting up straight. I dreaded what he was going to say next. Normally I loved a good argy bargy but I was too wrung out for any more bickering.
‘Why
?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘Because, actually, my mum and her overprotective parenting style is looking bloody good right now.’ He sounded so amazed that he might actually have lucked out in the mum department that I started giggling again. ‘What’s so funny?’
‘You are,’ I told him, sliding off the computer chair so I could slide on to his lap and push him down so he was lying on his back and I could pin his arms above his head. ‘Everything shows on your face. I always know exactly what you’re thinking.’
‘No, you don’t,’ Michael said grumpily as he made a token effort to free himself. He wasn’t even
trying
. ‘I do have some mystery.’
‘You don’t. You really don’t.’ I gasped slightly because now Michael was
trying
to break free from my puny hold. ‘You have zero mystery. Besides, mystery is totes overrated.’
Sure, Michael might have had a few issues courtesy of his control freak mum and his insane need to be liked by everyone, but he was pretty much an open book. Not even a book with a lot of long words.
‘You’re such a bitch sometimes,’ Michael grunted as he flipped us so he was on top and I was squirming on the bottom. ‘You don’t know everything. Like, you don’t even know what I’m thinking right now.’
But I did. He was holding me down with his body and I was wriggling to get free and it was suddenly
very
obvious exactly what he was thinking about. I didn’t need to say anything; I just smiled knowingly. And, yes, I knew exactly what the next words out of his mouth were going to be.
‘Well
, apart from
that
, I bet you don’t know what I’m thinking about.’
‘How much you’d like to kill me at this particular point in time and how did you ever get mixed up with a mixed-up girl like me blah blah bloody blah,’ I said in a singsong voice.
He kissed me then and his kisses chased the last of my blues away and he’d been solid and dependable and rock-like and utterly boyfriend-able during the evening’s awfulness with added bits of awful. Instead of winding Michael up, I should have been thinking of ways to repay his kindness.
Then Michael stopped holding me down and just held me and his kisses got sweeter and fiercer and it was all I could do to kiss him just as fiercely and payback was going to be impossible until, as Michael tore his mouth away from mine so he could get some air, I had my best idea ever.
‘Come to New York with me!’ I panted. ‘My treat!’
‘What?’ He tried to kiss me again, but I warded him off. ‘Come on, give me another kiss.’
‘No kisses right now. I’m serious. I’m speaking at a conference in New York in a fortnight and you’re
so
coming with me.’
Michael shook his head. ‘I am so
not
coming with you. New York in two weeks’ time? Are you freaking crazy?’
‘Never been saner. Come to New York! It will be fun!’
I was laughing. Michael was laughing too, even as he shook his head. ‘No!’
‘Yes!’
‘No!’
‘Yes! You know that secretly you want to.’
‘No
! Never! Not in a million years. Now shut up and kiss me or go home.’
I kissed him, but we weren’t done with the conversation. I knew that within twenty-four hours, Michael would come round to my way of thinking. People always did.
‘Michael
, you’re coming to New York. End of. I swapped my business class seat on Virgin Atlantic for two premium economy ones. Does my sacrifice mean nothing? Does it? What kind of unfeeling brute are you?’
I thought Jeane was being her usual melodramatic self when she’d claimed that she’d badgered her parents into getting a divorce but after five days of being badgered, pestered and nagged, I was beginning to believe her.
I’d told Jeane that there was no way, not even if the Rapture was imminent, that my parents would let me go to New York with her for the weekend. Never even mind taking the Friday off school – I might just as well ask if I could go to the moon. I had to ask my parents’ permission before I took something from the fridge.
Of course when I’d told Jeane this, after paraphrasing so I didn’t sound like a complete loser, she’d looked appalled.
‘For
God’s sake, why can’t you just lie to them like a normal teenager? I’ll
tell
you what to say. It’s not rocket science, Michael.’
I’d often wondered how Jeane managed to run her dork empire when her life was so chaotic and disorganised until she emailed me a bullet-pointed action plan.
Your New York Checklist
Tell your parents that you’re going to look at a university over that weekend. You must have an older friend who managed to get on to a degree course. Pretend you’re going to stay with him. Have checked your timetable, you hardly have anything on Friday – just Comp Sci and Maths. Quelle boring.
I also need to register you for the conference. TBH, most of the other speakers will probably be deathly dull. But I won’t be deathly dull, I promise. I will do exciting things via the medium of PowerPoint and video.
You can’t take liquid in large quantities in your hand luggage so you’ll have to put your hair gunk in your suitcase. Or better yet see if you can manage without it for a weekend. I’m not sure that strange cockscomb thing usually seen on middle-aged lesbians is going to cut it in New York. Just saying …
I need your passport deets for the ticket. Also what kind of meal do you want? I thought I’d mix things up and go for the kosher option.
You need to log on to this website and fill in a US visa
waiver form NOW. It has to be done at LEAST three days before you enter the States, otherwise you’ll either be put on the first plane back to London (can you say ‘expensive’?) or be arrested at gunpoint, possibly with the assistance of some snarly dogs, and detained in an illegal aliens prison-type place (which would be a major bummer).You also need to call your mobile phone company and get them to turn off your voicemail. Also, turn off international roaming on your phone otherwise it’ll cost you ££££££s. Don’t worry, I’ll remind you at half-hour intervals until you do it.
I’m sure there was other stuff you need to do. I’ll get back to you.
Now it was eight days until Jeane jetted to New York and she’d redoubled her efforts. Her efforts had been pretty nonstop anyway so redoubling them meant there wasn’t a spare moment when she shut up about bloody New bloody York.
‘Don’t you want me to go because I actually want to go, not because you’ve nagged me into going?’ I asked Jeane.
We were in the stationery cupboard tucked away at the back of the upper school basement. I don’t know where Jeane had got the key from and I also never knew that the school had so many hidden spots where we could sneak away for a kiss and a cuddle. It was only ever a kiss and a cuddle (and maybe a little unbuttoning) on school premises, but today Jeane had lured me to the cupboard under false pretences.
We’d only had ten minutes of kissing before she pushed me away and started on her New York nagathon.
Now
she swung herself up on a broken filing cabinet and gave me a stern look. ‘I don’t care what makes you go to New York, as long as you go. Why are you being such a drag about this? It’s so boring.’
‘If I’m so boring then you won’t want me tagging along for three days.’
‘I didn’t say
you
were boring, I said
the situation
was boring, and technically it would be four days, but that’s all right. Just tell your parents that you’re coming back from seeing your old football-playing friend at his place of higher learning really early on Monday morning and you’ll go straight to school.’ She tilted her chin defiantly. She never tilted her chin in any other way. ‘Really, what could be simpler than that?’
‘Open heart surgery would be simpler. Have you met my mother?’
Jeane grumbled something under her breath and pouted. Some girls broke your heart when they pouted but Jeane just looked bad-tempered and sulky. ‘We both know that you’re going to give in eventually sooner or later and it would be much more convenient for me if it was sooner.’
I took a step towards the door. ‘One more word about New York and I’m out of here.’
‘But secretly you’d love to go to New York with me, wouldn’t you? Just admit it.’
This time I took three steps towards the door. ‘I’ve had enough of this.’
‘OK! OK! I promise I won’t talk about you-know-what for a whole ten minutes.’
‘You can’t go ten seconds without talking about it.’
I
turned round to see her pouting again. ‘I can if you’re kissing me.’
And when she put it like that, and there was still a good half hour before afternoon lessons and I’d already bolted down my lunch, kissing Jeane was much more fun than storming off in a huff.
Sat on top of the filing cabinet, Jeane was taller than me for once, which made for an interesting adjustment as I had to stretch to reach her mouth and she wrapped her legs, adorned in red and blue striped tights, around my chest to pull me in closer. I didn’t even care that one of the drawer handles was digging into my stomach.
‘You’re such a pretty boy,’ Jeane whispered and I should have been offended and pulling away because, Christ, no boy wants to be called pretty, but she sounded, I don’t know, wistful and like she was completely down with the whole pretty thing, so I let it go just this once.
Jeane shivered when I kissed her mouth. Then I kissed a path along her cheek, pausing to nip her earlobe before I started kissing her neck. She always smelt so good, of figs and vanilla and baby lotion, particularly this spot where her pulse thundered away and she was extra ticklish so it always made her squirm and giggle.
‘You’re so cute when you’re like this,’ I told her and she dug her knees into my ribs.
‘Piss off. I am
not
cute. Cute is not what I aim for.’
‘Tough. You’re cute. Deal with it.’
‘Oh, shut up and kiss me.’
I was just shutting up and kissing her when I thought I heard
something outside, but I’d just succeeded in undoing the third button on Jeane’s dress so I wasn’t really paying attention, especially as she was wriggling to get even closer to me.
But I was definitely paying attention when the door handle rattled and I heard Barney say, ‘Sometimes she hides out in here. She has a secret stash of Haribo tucked away in a box of A3 paper. Oh! Door’s unlocked.’
Jeane and I were still pulling away from each other as Barney, closely followed by Scarlett, burst into the cupboard and they both said, ‘What the …?’ in perfect unison, which would have been funny if Jeane didn’t still have her legs wrapped round me and her dress unbuttoned and my hoodie and jumper were slung over a broken fan.
It was the most awful silence I’d ever known. It felt as if it lasted for centuries, but it was only about a minute until Jeane had done up her dress, folded her arms and said, ‘Well, this is awkward.’