Mates, Dates and Cosmic Kisses (6 page)

The downstairs phone rang a minute later.

‘Home phone working,’ said Lucy. ‘I’ll try the mobile now.’

A moment later my mobile rang. ‘Lucy again,’ she said. ‘It looks like it’s all in order. And Izzie, have you got a minute? I need to talk to you.’

It suddenly occurred to me that Mark might be trying to get through at just that moment so I didn’t want to have a long conversation.

‘Can it wait?’ I asked. ‘Mark might be trying to get through.’

‘OK,’ she said, sounding disappointed. ‘I’ll talk to you tomorrow but not when Nesta’s around. OK?’

After she put the phone down I felt a bit rotten as I remembered she was supposed to have seen Tony after school. She probably wanted to talk about that and didn’t feel she could open up
with Nesta there seeing as he’s her brother. I hoped she was OK and made a mental note to make it up to her tomorrow.

There was nothing else on TV I wanted to watch so I got out my love charms from the fair and decided to try one out to see if that would help the phone to ring.

‘Charm to make a boy sweet on you,’ I read. ‘Write your love’s name on a piece of paper, then sprinkle it with sugar and put it under your pillow and sleep on
it.’

I found a piece of purple writing paper and thought that would be the best to use, as purple is a magical colour. I wrote Mark’s name on it in a heart then went down to the kitchen and
rooted in the cupboards for sugar.

Brown or white? I wondered. Does it matter? I settled for the brown and sprinkled it liberally on my paper. Luckily Mum and Angus were next door watching TV, as they would think I was barking if
they’d caught me.

I took my charm back upstairs and put it under my pillow. Immediately the phone rang. Amazing. It worked! I dashed down to the hall to answer it.

‘Is Dad there?’ said Claudia’s voice.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll get him. But don’t be long, I’m expecting an important phone call.’

I hovered on the upstairs landing as Angus took his call.
Ten minutes
! Mark could have been trying to get through and Claudia would have ruined everything. What we clearly needed in our
house was Call Waiting, so that you could tell if someone was trying to get through when you were on the line. I must put it on my Christmas list, I thought, along with a lock for my bedroom
door.

After they’d finished talking I went back into my bedroom to read but I couldn’t really concentrate as my mind spiralled into maybes again. Maybe this time he really had lost my
number. Maybe, maybe, maybe, zzzzz.

I must have dozed off at some point because the next thing I knew, it was Saturday morning and my mobile was ringing.

Oh thank God, I thought as I picked it up.

‘Izzie, it’s me,’ said Nesta. ‘Has Mark called yet?’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘Do you think I should go to the Lock to see if he’s working there today?’

‘NO!’ wailed Nesta. ‘No, no,
no.
Anyway, Lucy and I had a long talk about you this morning. We’re both worried. What would you say if he’s at the
Lock?’

‘Well I could say I was Christmas shopping again.’

‘No, Izzie. I won’t let you. It’ll be really obvious. You’d look desperate and if there’s one things boys hate, it’s desperate. Honest, Izzie, you’re
losing the plot. What’s come over you? It’s usually you telling Lucy this stuff.’

‘I know. I hope she’s going to be OK with your brother.’

‘Don’t
try and change the subject,’ said Nesta. ‘We’re talking about you and how you’re not going to the Lock today.’

‘Oh come on, Nesta, come with me. I’d do it for you.’

‘No. You’d be all weird if you did see him, wondering if he was going to call or not. You won’t be yourself. He’ll pick up on it. And what if he wasn’t there like
the fair last week? You’ll only feel down.’

‘So what should we do, then?’ I asked. I knew better than to argue with Miss Know-It-All when she’s in a mood like this.

‘Lucy and I are going to meet in Hampstead. See you there in half an hour.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘But I can’t stay long, I have to go to my dad’s later.’

Nesta and Lucy did their best to cheer me up, but I was sure that I’d blown it with Mark. I’d gone over everything I’d said to him a million times.

‘I just know he’s not going to phone. I think I was a bit off with him when I saw him last Saturday. He probably thinks I’m not interested.’

‘Relax, Izzie,’ said Nesta. ‘You’re over-analysing.’

We were sitting in a café on Hampstead High Street and Nesta and Lucy were drinking cappuccinos while I sipped on a camomile tea.

‘My life is over,’ I said. ‘I will never have a boyfriend. I will be alone all my life. And I’ve got a big bum.’

Lucy started laughing. We always played a game when one of us was having a moan. Who could outdo the others with the worst life. ‘Ah,’ she said, ‘but I look twelve when
I’m fourteen.’

‘Not since you had your hair cut,’ said Nesta. ‘You look at least twelve and a half now . . .’

Lucy pinched her. ‘Excuse me! I haven’t finished my tale of woe. My parents are mad hippies.’

‘I think your parents are cool,’ I said. ‘I wish they were mine. That’s another thing to add to my list. I have the most boring mother and stepfather in the
world.’

‘OK, my turn,’ said Nesta. ‘I’m five foot seven and all the local boys are midgets.’

‘Well, what does that matter if you’re going to marry James Parker Henson? He’s tall!’

When Nesta went downstairs to go to the loo, Lucy suddenly looked really serious.

‘Izzie, I have to talk to you,’ she said. ‘About Tony.’

‘What?’

She shifted uncomfortably. ‘Well, you know what I was saying about him thinking I was too young for him? Well Nesta was right.’

‘What, about him wanting to grope you?’

Lucy nodded. ‘I don’t know what to do. I mean, up till now we’ve just snogged but last night he said he wants to take it further.’

‘Oh God,’ I said. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Dunno. I don’t want to take it further. I’m not ready. But if I don’t, I reckon he’ll dump me for someone that will. It’s awful because I really like him.
But you shouldn’t just do it because you want to keep the boy, should you?’

‘That’s the trouble when you go out with older boys,’ I said. ‘Wandering hands.’

‘What should I do?’

‘I’ve got just the thing,’ I said, as Lucy looked hopeful. ‘Have you got a photo of him?’

‘Yes. We had some done in one of those photo booths.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘You do a spell. You cut the side of the photo with him on it and put it into the freezer and it will cool him down.’

Lucy laughed out loud. ‘Oh come on. Get serious.’

At that moment, Nesta came back. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing,’ said Lucy, clamming up.

‘Lucy was just telling me something one of the dogs did,’ I said, trying to change the subject.

‘Yeah, whatever,’ said Nesta, sitting back down. ‘Now what was I saying about James Parker Henson and me?’

Lucy looked relieved that she hadn’t caught on.

After I left the girls, I took the tube to Chalk Farm, where Dad lives now with his new wife Anna and their little boy Tom. Tom’s gorgeous. He’s only three. I like
going to Dad’s as it’s so much more relaxed than Mum’s house. I reckon she drove him out with all her constant cleaning and stuff.

Dad lectures in English at a university and the house is always cluttered with books and journals and papers. I feel at home there, as at least his house looks lived-in, unlike ours which is a
cross between a hotel and a hospital clinic.

I was really heartbroken when Dad first left. I was seven at the time and for ages was convinced it was my fault and that I’d done something wrong.

One day Mum and Dad sat me down and explained that sometimes people can still like each other but can’t live together any more and that’s what had happened to them. Then they both
said that no matter what happened, they both loved me and always would.

I felt better after that – that is until Angus moved in with my mum a couple of years later. I didn’t like him at all at first. I asked if I could go and live with Dad, but he was
living in a tiny flat at the time and there was no room for me.

Eventually, I decided that there was only one way to deal with Angus, and that’s to pretend he’s our lodger and be polite but nothing else. I mean, he’s not my dad, is he? A
lodger that just happens to sleep in the same bed as my mum, but I shut those kind of thoughts out of my head straight away. Yuk. I don’t want to even go there.

I was looking forward to spending some time at Dad’s and thought I’d spend the afternoon working on my songs.

‘Excuse the mess,’ said Dad as he opened the door, paint-brush in hand. ‘We’re doing up the study.’

‘You’ve got paint all over your hair,’ I laughed, looking at the white streaks in his normally dark hair. ‘Did you actually manage to get
any
on the
walls?’

‘Hi, Izzie,’ said Anna, appearing behind Dad. ‘Welcome to the madhouse.’

Anna was one of Dad’s students when they met five years ago. A mature student, he told me, in case I thought he was cradle-snatching. But mature or not, she’s still twelve years
younger than him, round and pretty with long auburn hair. She and Dad look right together. Dad always dresses in typical lecturer gear – jeans and leather jackets, looking most days like
he’s just got out of bed, and Anna still looks like a student, in jeans and sloppy jumpers. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her in a skirt or dress.

I was glad when Dad met her, as I used to worry about him all alone in his small flat when I went to visit. I got on with her immediately and always found her easy to talk to. When they decided
to get married I was the first to congratulate them, secretly hoping that they’d find a bigger house and then I could move in with them. But when they moved to this flat Tom came along and
it’s clear there’s no room for me unless I sleep under the kitchen table.

I stepped over the various paint cans and boxes strewn in the hallway and made my way into their kitchen. Somehow I didn’t think I was going to get any work done on my songs that
afternoon.

‘Izzie love . . .’ Dad began.

‘Yeees?’ I said. I knew that tone of voice. He wanted something.

‘First,’ he said, ‘I’ve got a book for you.’

I laughed to myself. Another for the box at the bottom of my cupboard, I thought. He was always giving me books to read – has since I was tiny. I got
War and Peace
for my ninth
birthday. I don’t think he’s quite tuned into books for teenagers these days.

He handed me a book from the shelf in the kitchen. ‘Dorothy Parker. I think you’ll like her.’

‘Thanks, Dad,’ I said unconvincingly.

‘No really,’ said Anna, who was sympathetic to some of the heavy-going books he gave me to read. ‘I really think you will.’

‘OK, I’ll take a look at it,’ I said.

Then Dad smiled his ‘I want something’ smile. ‘Would you do us the most enormous favour and take Tom out for a while? Anna and I want to finish the painting and it will be best
if Tom’s out of the way.’

‘Sure, Dad,’ I said as Tom paddled in and hugged my knees. ‘No problem.’

‘Izzie, you’re an angel,’ said Anna. ‘I’ll get his coat.’

‘What, right now?’ I asked. I’d hardly got there.

That’s one of the minuses of having two sets of parents. You get two sets of chores.

I set off for the park with Tom and tried to distract him at the shops in Primrose Hill. I spotted an amazing black velvet dress in one of the displays and made a mental note to put it on my
Christmas list.

Tom pulled on my coat. ‘Swings,’ he said, pointing to the end of the road.

‘Shops,’ I said hopefully, pointing to the windows which were bright with Christmas lights and tinsel. Sadly, Tom wasn’t impressed. Like most males, he wasn’t interested
in shopping.

‘OK, swings,’ I said.

When we got to the play area there were a number of mothers there with their children and all the swings were full.

I sat on a park bench and wondered how best to keep a three-year-old entertained. Just at that moment, my mobile rang.

As I fished about in my bag to find my phone, I was vaguely aware of someone walking towards us with a toddler. Whoever he was, he was on his mobile phone.

Just as I was about to answer my phone, the boy stopped in front of me. He gawped at the phone in his hand, then gawped at me.

‘I’ve just called you!’ said Mark.

My mouth dropped open. ‘I don’t believe it!’

‘Neither do I. I call you, and here you are in front of me! It’s so weird.’

I switched off my phone. ‘Synchronicity,’ I said.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘What’s that?’

I laughed. ‘It’s when something you’re thinking about happens, or something to do with it does. I read about it. I’m not explaining it very well.’

‘You’re not a witch, are you?’ asked Mark.

I thought about the love charm under my pillow. ‘Might be,’ I grinned.

After that we had the most brilliant time. I might not be a witch, I thought, but the afternoon was magic.

Mark had been landed with his little sister like I’d been landed with Tom. We spent hours playing on the swings and slides, joining in like kids ourselves. Then we had a go on the
roundabouts. Mark was fantastic and knew loads of games that had Tom laughing and giggling.

We didn’t have a lot of time to talk to each other but it didn’t matter, I thought, as I watched Mark rolling on the grass as his sister and Tom jumped all over him. Just being with
him was fantastic.

After a few hours, my mobile rang.

‘We thought you’d be back ages ago,’ said Dad. ‘Where on earth are you?’

I laughed. I wasn’t on earth. I was somewhere up in the clouds.

Chapter 7

‘So are you going out
with Mark now?’ asked Lucy at break-time the following Monday.

‘Not exactly, not yet,’ I said. ‘But he said he’d phone this week to arrange something. And this time I
know
he will because there he was, in front of me, phoning
me. You should have been there. It was
amazing.
Like it was meant to be. And it was another day when my horoscope
said
that it was a good time for romance.’