The Booby Trap and Other Bits and Boobs (11 page)

The party was winding down by then and Kieran and I ended up on a sofa at the back of the upstairs bar. Normally I don't like getting off with someone in public but it was dark and there wasn't much to see; just Kieran sprawled out on top of me while he tried to hump my leg. It reminded me of the fight between my mum and dad when she'd taken the dog to the vets to have his balls chopped off. The dog, not my dad. And I was so busy thinking about castration and poor old Muttley that I wasn't paying any attention to where Kieran's hands were going, which was straight into my bra cups.

‘What the fuck is that?' he muttered in my ear and before I could process the full horror of the moment, he'd yanked out one of my rubber fillets and was staring at it in bemusement.

‘S'nothing!'

I tried to make a grab for it but Kieran was already jack-knifing off the sofa so he could look down and see one breast all perky and firm while on the other side there was nothing but gaping material. He laughed. He actually laughed. ‘Are you really a girl, Cath, or are you just a bloke in a dress?'

‘Give it back!' I squealed, trying to make a lunge for him, but he took a hasty step back and I fell off the sofa and landed in a heap on the floor. Which would have been Kieran's cue to apologise, scoop me up in his arms and kiss me better.

He didn't. Kieran just gave the chicken fillet a tentative prod and sniggered again. ‘I heard you were tight and now I know why.'

OK, Kieran wasn't the most sensitive specimen that boykind had to offer, but I've always had a weakness for the rugged bad boys. So I should have known what would happen as Kieran's pack of bumper-car mates tripped up the stairs.

‘Look what Cath was packing under her dress,' he shouted, as he threw the fillet at them.

I cried the whole way home. And then my mum wanted to know what had happened and when I told her she said that all men were bastards, then
she
started to cry, which made me cry even harder. Then I cried because I'd ripped my new Zara dress and I missed my dad and there was no one to say that it would be all right because nothing was going to be all right ever again. Not until I got my new boobs and I met some rich guy who'd take me away from this stinking town and everyone in it and I never had to come back.

In fact, I spent most of the night crying, when I wasn't throwing up, and the next morning I really wanted to call in sick. But I had a new appreciation for my £5.50 an hour and the bigger boobs it would buy me so I stuck on my fake Gucci shades and my longest skirt, which just skimmed my knees, and staggered to work.

Rosie was already waiting for me to open up and I just couldn't deal with her right then. Especially as the first words out of her mouth was, ‘You were vile last night.'

‘Don't talk to me,' I spat and tried to ignore the way her face sort of collapsed in on itself. It was raining again, which suited me just fine because sunny skies would have made my head hurt even worse. I sat at the counter and ignored Rosie. By some sheer feat of inner strength that I didn't know I possessed, I managed not to cry for a few hours. Not even when some cow started moaning about the chocolate-chip ice cream tasting funny. I scooped and assembled cones and asked people if they wanted ‘sprinkles or sauce?' in a drone-like voice.

I just needed to last until six and then I could go home and go to bed and cry a bit more but time had slowed down to a crawl and there were still two hours until I could herd the last ice-cream guzzlers out of the shop. I stared at the clock on my phone, then gave a little start as it beeped. Then I gave an even bigger start when I saw that I had a text from Kieran.

It was a bit late to apologise but
at least
he was apologising. That was something. I eagerly opened the message and then I really did burst into tears and six o'clock be damned. Once I started crying I couldn't stop and was only dimly aware of someone guiding me into the storeroom where they sat me down and tried to dab at my face with a damp tissue.

It took a long while for the sobs to die down to hiccups and Rosie was still crouched down in front of me with a concerned expression on her face.

‘What about the shop?' I spluttered.

Rosie shrugged carelessly. ‘I put the “back in five minutes” sign up on the door about half an hour ago,' she said breezily as if Big Don's profit margins weren't her problem. ‘Is this about Kieran? What's he done?'

I tried to explain what had happened but every time I opened my mouth, a fresh volley of sobs emerged. In the end I handed over my phone so she could see the picture of my rubber fillet stuck to a wall and the text: ‘Feel like chicken tonight? Call Cath on 077557 … '

She gave a little gasp, stared fleetingly at my chest, which was as flat as my mood, and then narrowed her eyes. ‘I knew he was no good,' Rosie announced. ‘You can't trust a boy who bleaches his hair. It shows a lack of character.'

It was such a Rosie thing to say that I actually smiled. Until I looked at my phone and my face crumpled again. ‘I bet he's sent it to everyone in his address book and they'll have sent it to everyone in their address book.' I hunched over as the enormity of the situation dawned on me. ‘I'm going to be a flat-chested freak of a laughing stock. Oh God, it will be all round school too. This must be how Kim Kardashian felt when her sex tape got leaked.'

There was nothing else to say so I decided to start crying again.

She totally didn't have to, but Rosie was really cool about it. She let me skulk in the storeroom so I could come up with a convincing argument to persuade my mum to get a bank loan so I could have my surgery before I went back to school. Then I could pretend that the rubber fillets weren't mine and also start a vicious rumour that Kieran wore a codpiece. It was a long shot, but it might just work.

My musings were interrupted by a knock on the storeroom door, which burst open to reveal Kieran standing there, Rosie's hand around his wrist in a vice-like grip, if the ouchy expression on Kieran's face was anything to go by.

‘I can take it from here,' she called out and over her shoulder I saw David and a couple of face-painting-booth geeks fade into the distance. ‘Kieran has something he wants to say to you,' Rosie told me in a sing-song voice and I couldn't understand why Kieran was letting her treat him like a bitch until she did something with her nails and his wrist that made him yelp like the spineless wanker that he really and truly was.

I lifted up my blotchy face and wished that I still had my shades on. ‘What could you possibly want to say to me?' I asked dully.

‘I'm sorry,' he spat sullenly.

‘Why don't we try that once again with more feeling?' Rosie suggested pleasantly. ‘Like we discussed after David threw your phone off the end of the pier. Or I'm digging my nails in again, and I don't care if it is your throwing arm.'

‘I'm sorry that I acted like a Nean … like a Nean-der … like a tool last night. It was really disrespectful of me to treat you so objectively and … ' Kieran faltered and Rosie hissed something in his ear. ‘I need to appreciate women for their minds and not just their individual physical attributes.' He broke off from the script to shoot me a reproachful look. ‘I was only having a laugh, Cath. Why you being so touchy about it?'

‘Because you humiliated me in front of all your friends,' I hissed. ‘And I bet you sent that text to everyone on the south coast and now I'm going to have to be home-schooled or something.'

Rosie let go of Kieran, who rubbed the back of his hand and flushed. ‘Actually I ran out of credit after I sent you that text,' he admitted. ‘I didn't send it to no one else, I swear. And I don't mind that you've got no tits, I still fancy you.'

The huge wave of relief swept away everything else in its path. But if there was a footballer in my future who'd lead me by the hand to a world where I was special and important and there was a never-ending supply of designer handbags and spa memberships, it wasn't Kieran.

‘Well, I don't fancy you,' I confessed flatly. ‘Not any more. Not after what you did.'

He stumbled out after that, mumbling something indistinct, though the word ‘bitch' was loud and clear. Rosie raised her eyebrows at me and sort of shrugged.

‘Thanks,' I said, even though it was really inadequate because she'd just saved my life.

But Rosie seemed to understand because she gathered up my bag and shades. ‘Come on, let's get out of here,' she said decisively. ‘You need junk food.'

It wasn't until I was tucking into a huge basket of fries in the nearest pub that didn't ask for ID that Rosie remembered to text David to let him know I wasn't going to top myself or anything. I felt a pang of envy because when would it be my turn to have a devoted boyfriend?

‘See, it's stuff like this whole Kieran business which is exactly why I've spent my summer dishing up ice cream so I can save to get my tits done,' I blurted out before chugging down a whole glass of Diet Coke because I was never drinking alcohol again, not even when I was eighteen and legally old enough.

Props to Rosie because she didn't chew me out for letting her rattle on about her own breast issues without ever fessing up. ‘Maybe it's not your tits that's the problem, maybe it's the guys you go for,' she said mildly.

That was so typical of her! ‘I can't help if it I'm genetically programmed to only fancy boys who want the whole package; blonde hair, long legs, big boobs.'

‘But you said it was all about confidence,' Rosie pointed out. She was starting to sound a little peeved. ‘That I should stop worrying about what other people thought of me.'

‘Well, maybe I kinda lied,' I admitted. ‘Confidence only gets you through the door – doesn't get you into the VIP room though.'

Rosie threw her hands in the air like I was getting on her last nerve. ‘You know if you used your powers for good, not evil, you could totally eradicate world hunger in six months,' she said, as she pinched one of my fries. ‘Seriously, Cath, don't you think if you stopped concentrating on making your hair super shiny and chatting up creepy boys, you could use all that determination to do anything you wanted?'

‘But all I want is to have super-shiny hair and actual breasts so I can attract a really cute boy with lots of money who'll take me away from this shitty little place,' I said round a mouthful of hot potato. ‘Ain't gonna happen any other way.'

‘Well, you could study hard, go to university and get a really well-paid job,' Rosie suggested, but my face scrunched up because I was that close to crying again.

‘That would take way too long,' I moaned. ‘And I'd make an ace trophy girlfriend … '

Rosie's eyebrows shot up so high that I thought she'd need surgery to remove them from her hairline. ‘You have to figure out who you really want to be, then make sure the people in your life are going to help you achieve that. Like you helped me see beyond my 36Fs.'

It wasn't that simple but now I was distracted by Rosie's true bra size. 36F? F? How could such a thing be possible when I was a 32AA? Before I could ask Rosie, she was digging in her bag and pulling out a notebook and pen.

‘You need a proper plan for the future,' she said firmly. ‘One that doesn't involve invasive surgery.'

‘You sound like my careers advisor, except he thinks my only future is working in a call centre,' I grumbled.

Rosie ignored my whining and held her pen poised over a snowy-white page. ‘You're very goal orientated, love a challenge and we're going to come up with a project to make the most of that potential. Now, what do you really want to be when you grow up? And if you say footballer's wife, I'm going to smack you.'

‘We'll keep in touch,' Rosie insisted on our last day when we were helping Big Don out by eating our way through the last of the Flakes. ‘I'm still going to need tons of fashion advice.'

But we weren't and she wouldn't. Rosie had her own sense of style now and she was doing a gazillion A-levels and had plans to visit David in London. While I'd be stuck retaking the GCSE's I'd spectacularly failed, because it was hard to revise when your parents were throwing crockery at each other. Which was why I'd thrown her bullet-pointed list of my future goals and aspirations in the trash. And I was thinking about buying bigger boobs again because finding a rich boyfriend seemed more doable than ever passing English.

‘Yeah, for sure,' I sighed, but Rosie didn't even notice my utter lack of conviction because she was dragging out a huge brown-paper parcel from the back of the storeroom.

‘I prepared some audio-visual aids for your project,' she said, thrusting it into my hands and smirking when I nearly collapsed under the weight. ‘No peeking until you get home.'

When I got home my mum was well into the first bottle of wine of the evening so I carried the package upstairs and ripped into it. I sifted through the collection of CDs and yellowing books that smelt of damp until I found a note written in Rosie's crabbed scrawl.

Dear Cath

Before I met you, these were the people who showed me that there's a whole big world out there and that who I am isn't who I'm always going to be. I hope they do the same for you.

Love Rosie

It was really sweet of her, but I wasn't Rosie. We were completely different people. Like, the huge diff in our breast sizes wasn't a big enough clue. I shoved the package to one side and then Jules called me and I forgot about it.

I kept forgetting about it until one night in October when there was nothing on TV and I'd just dumped another lad from the school football team because he only spoke in grunts. I groped about under the bed and pulled out the first book from the package I could reach:
Madame Bovary
by some bloke called Gustave Flaubert.

I took a deep breath, turned to the first page and began to read.