Lou Out of Luck

by Nat Luurtsema

  “Um. Itchy nose, Ms Peel. Scratching it with air.”

  My phone vibrates with another text from Lav. I risk the wrath of Ms Peel and peek at it again.

  Ro’s loving it. Pretending he’s not.

  Fighting over his model girlfriend.

  Right. Leather jacket and motorbike next.

  She adds an unimpressed face. I send one back. How come Roman is cool for having a girlfriend in a modelling competition but Lav is a trashy show-off for being the girl in the competition?

  If Mum was here, she’d shout, “The Patriarchy!”

  Well, old Mum would. New sad Mum might mumble it through a mouthful of biscuits with her eyes fixed on the TV.

  I feel a sharp poke in my back where Melia has jabbed me with a long fingernail. I turn around warily to see all four of them looking at me. They’re wearing friendlier expressions than they were half an hour ago.

  (Hate that I now think of them as a four.)

  “I just heard about Roman and your sister,” whispers Melia.

  “What happened?” Cammie demands.

  I take great pleasure in giving them a wide-eyed shrug. I savour the annoyed looks on their faces and return to Dermot, who, after some whispered discussion, is letting me copy his answers. We agree that I am learning as I’m copying. It’s all good.

  I don’t hear from Gabe all afternoon. I thought I would after our terse phone call last night but I guess he’s distracted with his presentation. I decide to send him a mature, sensible text. Nothing gossipy about his brother’s lunchtime antics, just Good luck with the cities! and then lots and lots of flags, peppered with sensible vegetables and civic buildings. I am so adult. I am MADE of adult.

  As I’m heading to my final lesson of the day, my phone starts to vibrate, a long buzz that announces a phone call. I sneakily check it. Gabe! Happy-happy-joy-joy fireworks! I duck into a toilet to take a hushed phone call. I am breaking mobile phone rules quite heavily today.

  “Hey!” I say. “What are you—?”

  “Lou, what are you playing at?”

  “I … sorry, what now?”

  “I told you I was giving a big presentation today. I TOLD you.”

  “Yes!” I say defensively. “Dickens. Two cities. I listen.”

  “I gave it on my laptop.”

  “Y’and?”

  “And you iMessaged me a HUNDRED vegetables!”

  “And civic buildings.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “IMessages go to my laptop! Why are you sending me a corn on the cob? I’ve been working on this for days and a corn on the cob pops up right in the middle of the French Revolution!”

  “I’m sorry. Did it look like a French baguette?”

  “No, it did not look like a French baguette. Me and Hazel worked really hard on this and—”

  “Why was Hazel working on it?”

  “She was being helpful. Unlike you.”

  Hot sicky jealousy heaves inside me. Me and Hazel, me and Hazel. I GET IT. She’s sooooo clever. And he’s sooooo annoyed at me.

  I take a deep breath and try to do the right thing. Which is not to yell “WHAT DOES SHE LOOK LIKE? PLEASE TELL ME SHE’S GOT A FACE LIKE AN OLD POTATO!”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  He’s not ready to let it go. “I’m tired, I worked really hard.”

  A REALLY OLD POTATO THAT YOU FORGOT ABOUT AT THE BACK OF THE CUPBOARD, COVERED IN ROOTS THAT LOOK LIKE TINY FINGERS?

  “Did it go well, though – vegetables notwithstanding?”

  I’m proud of notwithstanding. I picked it up off his mum.

  But it doesn’t help. He makes a non-committal noise and says he has to go.

  I duck back into the corridor, feeling small. I don’t think I’ll tell Hannah about this. I suspect she’d be happy to hear that Gabe and I are fighting. Dermot is waiting for me and I head into English with him, sniffing hard and determined not to cry. If he notices, he doesn’t say anything. We struggle into the classroom with our broken bags; books and pens keep falling through the rips and holes. I’m pretty sure I hear a tampon drop out but I don’t look back. We’re a dishevelled mess.

  Finally, it’s the end of school and I can’t wait to get out. I don’t want to bump into Gabe, I’m scared Cammie’s mum will see her ruined bag and demand I pay for it and I’m sick of people asking me about Ro. So I stride out of school at top speed to skulk at the end of the car park.

  “Wait!” Dermot is panting behind me. “Lou, these trousers don’t really bend.” I look behind and he is running stiff-legged like a gingerbread man. I slow down a little so he can catch up.

  “I thought they were sports casualwear.”

  “Like I said, last century.”

  Lav appears behind him. “Can I catch a lift? Ro got sent home after lunch, and it’s too wet to walk.”

  But Aggy’s not here yet, so we’re stuck waiting in the rain. Dermot’s bag and mine are threatening to fall apart completely and I stuff my books up my jumper to protect them. Dermot phones his mum to “encourage” her to hurry up.

  I take advantage of this to check in with my sister. “Hey,” I say. “You all right?”

  She shrugs. It’s like, No, but I don’t want to talk about it.

  “It’ll be all right, though, won’t it?”

  Another shrug.

  I decide to be extremely annoying and goad her into some honesty. “It could be worse,” I tell her. “I read about a woman in Kent? Who bought a micropig? But it wasn’t a micropig, it was just a pig, only she didn’t realize that for ages because of course it was small when it was young but it just kept growing and now she can’t rehome it because she loves it and pigs are as intelligent as toddlers, and her house is ruined now. So, there’s that…”

  “Louise. I will shove you in that bush.”

  Charming!

  With a loud clanking noise, Aggy approaches – well, her van. (If she was clanking like that, I’d be worried.)

  She drives around the car park in very slow circles so I guess she still can’t stop. We walk alongside, open the door and slide in. Dermot and I have mastered the knack of this now. Lavender’s new to it and needs hauling onto the seat, arms and legs everywhere.

  “I’m sorry,” Dermot says, a little pink in the face. “I think I grabbed your thigh.”

  “Don’t stress,” she tells him. “It’s not the worst thing that’s happened to me today.”

  WORRY DIARY

  Gabe hates me and my corn on the cob emojis.

  I can’t afford to replace three designer school bags.

  Hang on, I can’t even replace mine.

  Is Lavender a social outcast?

  Is Roman a thug or just a drama queen?

  The house smells cold and musty when we get in. If Mum and Dad get any more stingy with the heating, we’re all going to smell like Dermot.

  “Lavender, can we talk to you?” Mum calls from the living room and Lav makes an Eek! face at me. I take advantage of this to hurry my broken school bag upstairs and hide it.

  I nip back downstairs to make everyone a delicious glass of water to be totes helpful/nosy. We’re all out of bananas, so I put a cucumber slice in each glass. Classic recipe.

  The glasses tinkle against each other on the tray as I head carefully into the living room.

  Mum is saying, “We’re not blaming you but Janet is very concerned…” She breaks off and waits for me to leave.

  “Don’t mind me,” I chat mildly. “Carry on. Just bringing you all some water for this … telling-off? If that’s what’s going on here.”

  Mum and Dad stare at me silently.

  “Fine, I’ll leave you to it. Drink your cucumber before it goes soft.”

  It would be so unreasonable if Roman’s mum blamed Lav for disrupting Roman’s schoolwork when I’d bet the Teapot of Money she never asked him to fight Karl. This is classic melodramatic Roman. I want to text Gabe and defend Lav, but I don’t feel we’re on the friendl
iest of footings yet. In fact, what if even now Gabriel is complaining about me to his new friends?

  I don’t want to think about that, so I decide to start my homework. I’m sitting in my bedroom, wearing three jumpers, with a sleeping bag swathed around my lower half. I never realized how draughty this house was until heating and hot water became luxuries.

  Usually Hannah and I chat away on iMessage while we’re doing our homework, but she’s been quiet the last week or so, caught up in prom stuff. I miss her. I write a message and look at it. It’s a bit manipulative. It might as well say BE NICE TO ME, I AM SAD.

  But I press send anyway.

  Hey Han, do you have those anxiety exercises that Hari gave you?

  She pings back immediately. Ah, see! I know it’s not cool to be manipulative but it works.

  Poor you! Are you stressed about stuff?

  Yeah, Mum and Dad, etc.

  And Lav?

  I consider telling her about Lav.

  Are you alone?

  I’m at Nicole’s.

  I see.

  Just for a bit.

  I’ll tell you later.

  She doesn’t reply but she does send over the Word doc of breathing exercises. So, she’s annoyed but still cares.

  XXX, I sign off, just as Dad is yelling up the stairs that it’s time for dinner.

  Dinner is the same as yesterday’s as Mum and Dad have started cooking huge cheap meals and making them last a few days. Yesterday it was called Bean Surprise. It was a bean casserole and apparently the surprise was that there was no surprise. Mum said it was meta, and I spent the meal googling what that meant, trying to ignore her lecture about my data allowance. Tonight there’s cheese melted on top and it’s called Beany McBeanface. Lav and I make noises of approval mixed with ones of surprise. “Is this bean-shaped thing a BEAN? And … onions? Oh my word, the surprises keep on coming!”

  “So, Dad,” I say, chasing a butterbean around my plate, “are you going to start that job for Vinnie soon?”

  Dad looks shifty. “Um, yeah, well, it’s complicated. I might be working Saturday.”

  “Might?” Mum asks.

  “Yeah, it’s a bit messy. The guy currently doing the job has a bit of a drink problem. Sometimes he shows up, sometimes he doesn’t. No one wants to say anything to him, but if he doesn’t turn up on Saturday, I’ll step in.”

  “And, what? If he does show up you’ve just wasted a day?” Mum asks, sharply, and Dad shrugs.

  “Charming,” she tuts. “I’ll have a word with Vinnie about this. Just because you’re out of work doesn’t mean your time isn’t worth as much as anyone else’s.”

  “Well, it kind of isn’t,” Dad says.

  “How do you reckon?”

  “Because today we spent six hours watching TV and eating bread.”

  “Mum!” She’s always so get off the sofa, you’re missing the best part of the day. What a hypocrite.

  “Shut up and eat your Bean Surprise.”

  “Beany McBeanface,” we all correct her.

  “It’s not fun doing nothing all day,” Dad says.

  “I wouldn’t mind finding out,” Lav retorts.

  “I think Lav should have a day off school, until people stop being horrible to her,” I say, being lovely and thoughtful.

  “What?” Dad and Mum look surprised. “Who’s being horrible to her?” Behind them Lav is shaking her head, looking daggers at me.

  “I. Um.” I look from Mum to Dad to Lav and I’m not sure what to say. “Girl Emergency!” I fork the last bean into my mouth and scoot upstairs.

  Ten minutes later, there’s a knock at my door.

  “Enter!”

  Lavender comes in, shaking her head at me.

  “May I just say,” I pre-empt her, “that if you TOLD me what was going on, then I wouldn’t say the wrong thing over beans. So it’s your fault. But also, sorry.”

  Lav sits on the end of my bed and wraps her feet in my duvet. “I’m freezing. OK, so Mum and Dad don’t know that people are being bitchy over the modelling competition. Because if they did, they’d tell me to just pull out, and then…”

  “No twenty-five thousand pounds.”

  “Right. So they think Roman is fighting over me in more of a vague romantic way.”

  “Which is why Janet is annoyed.”

  “Yeah. Because it sounds like I’m flirting with Karl and causing unnecessary drama and she wants her boys to be super successful and the stupid Brown sisters seem to do nothing but drag them into trouble.”

  I hadn’t thought about it that way before. Gabe’s mum’s always been really nice to me, but then I guess that since I’ve been around he has been in hospital twice and a police station once and had a couple of ME relapses. I pick the skin on my lips.

  “Does she think we’re stupid?”

  Lav isn’t the queen of tact. “We’re not geniuses.”

  “Is it geniuses? Or genii?”

  “I don’t know. This kinda proves my point.”

  I slump over my desk and she goes to leave. “Oh, Lav?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Can I borrow a dress or something for prom?”

  “We sold them all on eBay. You wrapped them.”

  Ugh, brilliant. I’ll have to beg something off Hannah. At least Lav has style. Hannah’s as bad as me.

  My phone vibrates and I grab it. I’ll take any distraction right now. Hannah.

  Are you in?

  Uh … yes.

  Cool!

  A minute later there’s a knock at our front door and I get there first. It’s Hannah, holding a fancy Herschel school bag. I’ve never had one, but I’ve always liked the look of them. On richer kids’ backs, of course.

  “Hey!” I say and give her a hug. “Oof – you’re cold.”

  “I just thought I’d drop this round –” she holds out the bag – “cos yours is broken.”

  “Han, that’s so nice of you!”

  “It’s nothing.” She shrugs. “Just an old one I had lying around.”

  “It’s still got the price tag on.” I show her and she quickly rips it off, embarrassed.

  “Hi, Hannah!” Dad calls, poking his head out of the living room.

  “Hi, Mark.” She gives him a little wave. “You look well.”

  “I’m drinking green tea,” he tells her. “Is it a diuretic?”

  “I … don’t know.”

  “Well, either that or I’m not well. I’m spending a lot of time on the toilet and it’s really slimming me out.”

  “That’s nice!” she lies.

  “Listen, Hannah. I had a bit of time on my hands – I’m between jobs at the mo,” Dad says, holding up a rolled-up tube of paper. “I was just messing about and I made a project timeline for the prom. You might find it helpful.” He shimmies off the elastic band.

  “Dad, have you laminated it?” I ask.

  “It’s not a big deal. We were always laminating things at work. So, what I’ve done is take you through your workflow week by week. How big is your team?”

  “Four, but—”

  “Uh-huh.” He’s unrolling his poster – it’s gigantic. “That’ll work.”

  “Mark? It’s really meant to be a thing by students…” Hannah’s tone is firm.

  Dad stops unrolling his laminated plan and starts rolling it back up, all in one swift movement. “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

  “It’s just by students for students, so, you know…” Hannah is trying to be nice but he’s clearly hurt.

  “No, no, no,” he says brightly. He snaps the elastic band back on and holds the tube up like a baseball bat.

  “Thank you, though,” she says.

  “Cool, cool, that’s cool,” Dad says and swings his little tube towards an imaginary baseball, giving a little pop! when it makes contact.

  We stare at him.

  “OK then.” He nips back into the living room, shutting the door behind him.

  “Is he OK?” Hannah says quietly.
r />   I gesture at where he was standing – clearly not.

  There’s a toot at the end of the drive from a car I don’t recognize.

  “Want to come say hi to Mum?” she says.

  “Yeah!” I say, faking enthusiasm I don’t feel. I grab a coat and follow her out.

  “Hello, Barbra!” I say, leaning down to the driver’s window. “New car?”

  “It’s not new new,” says Barbra. “Six months old. I mean, very good value,” she adds hastily. “I hate to be flashy when other people are, ah – struggling financially.”

  Next to me, I see Hannah giving her a look.

  “It’s very nice,” I say politely.

  “Of course, with BMWs you pay a lot up front but they’re no trouble further down the line. I know some people buy them as a status symbol, but not me. I think it’s just a good investment of five figures— Ow! Hannah!”

  “Sorry,” says Hannah, who seems to have accidentally slapped her mum’s hand. “There was a fly.”

  “Anyway, how are your parents?” Barbra asks, in sympathetic tones.

  “Um,” I say, trying desperately to think of something better than, I’m worried about them. They seem really sad and watch TV all day. We have no money and I think my uncle is dragging my dad into a life of part-time crime. “OK-ish, you know?”

  “Good for them,” she says, with her head on one side.

  I’ve run out of things to say. I get that a lot with Barbra.

  “Anyway, we’d best be off,” Barbra goes on. “Got to pick up a takeaway. I mean –” she catches herself – “we don’t usually get takeaway midweek! Just so busy at work right now…” She remembers something. “You should come round when it gets warmer. Try out the new pool!”

  “Mother,” Hannah says, firmly, getting in the car.

  “We got it because Hannah is still training all the time. I bet you’re glad to be out of that!” Barbra laughs.

  “Mother.”

  “I was just saying, Hannah! Or Louise will think we’re profligate.”

  I won’t think they’re profligate. I have no idea what the word means. It sounds medical.

  “Right, right, yes, bye!” Barbra says, as Hannah waves goodbye to me. And they drive off.

  I go back in to find Dad sitting at the kitchen table, reading some Jobcentre forms. The laminated plan is nowhere to be seen. I give him a little kiss on his bald spot and go upstairs to admire my new bag.