by Dyan Sheldon
And I’d say, “Of course I’m sure.”
But even though we hung out a lot together and were always happy and kissing and stuff, Les never said the L-word. He said he wasn’t ready for a serious relationship, but I reckoned he was just shy. I mean, it was all pretty new to him. Les was a boy, so he hadn’t spent all the years I’d spent waiting to fall in love. He wasn’t prepared. I knew that it can take a man a lot longer to realize he’s in love than it does a woman. Like in When Harry Met Sally… Though I hoped it wouldn’t take him that long.
So I never said the L-word, either. Not that it mattered. I felt it. And I showed it. And I knew that, deep down, Les felt it too.
Besides being ecstatically happy, the beauty of being in love was that it gave me real power for the first time in my life. Because nothing else mattered. It was that simple. Nothing else mattered at all.
The Wicked Witch of NW6 could moan at me and threaten me and refuse to give me any pocket money, and it didn’t matter. I couldn’t care less. She was like a toothless, clawless lion roaring at the ringmaster. I might still be living in her flat, but in my mind and heart I was already gone.
It was the same at school. Now there really was no reason why I should worry about boring stuff like science and history. As soon as I was sixteen, I’d leave school, move in with Les and get a job. Les was bound to be a manager by then, and he’d get me something in Blockbuster until we decided it was time to have kids. Before you knew it, I was going to be decorating our flat and making dinner for our friends, not sitting in the library with my nose in a book worrying about who started a war hundreds of years ago. I mean, it wasn’t like I was going to have to list the kings and queens of England in chronological order to shop in Sainsbury’s, was it?
As usual, the preachers didn’t exactly agree with me.
“You’re bright enough,” Mrs Mela, my English teacher, informed me one afternoon, “but you just don’t seem to want to make any effort at all any more.”
That’s why Mrs Mela had made me stay behind. Because I didn’t make any effort at all any more. She’d caught me passing notes to my friend Amie while she was reading us Romeo and Juliet. Again.
Thing was, I really didn’t want to make any effort just then. I was meeting Les for tea before he went on his shift. Who wants to discuss their lack of interest in English when they’ve got a date? I stared through the window behind her, as if I was listening and thinking deeply about what she said.
Mrs Mela sighed. She sounded just like Hilary Spiggs.
“Lana,” said Mrs Mela in her user-friendly voice, “what’s going to happen to you if you keep this up? You haven’t done your homework in weeks. You disrupt the rest of the class…” She gave another heartfelt sigh. “I’m very, very concerned.”
I flashed her one of my best smiles. “There’s nothing to be concerned about,” I assured her. “I understand what you’re saying, but you’re wrong. I’m fine.”
Mrs Mela cleared her throat. “And what about your future?” she wanted to know. “What are you going to do with your life? At the rate you’re going, you’ll be lucky to pass half your GCSEs.”
Now she really sounded like my mother.
So I told her the same thing I told my mother and everybody else, so they’d shut up and leave me alone.
“I reckon I’ll become an actress. I really like drama.”
Actually, acting was the one job I thought would really suit me. You make lots of money, you go to lots of parties and you don’t need any qualifications, you just turn up for auditions. What could be easier? You don’t even have to go to acting school, if you don’t want to. Scads of famous stars were discovered just walking down the street.
“I believe the correct term is ‘actor’ for both sexes nowadays,” said Mrs Mela. “And as far as your love of drama goes, Lana, Shakespeare is drama, but you don’t seem to like him very much.”
That’s the thing I’ve always found with preachers, they twist your words to suit themselves.
“I meant like films,” I explained. “You know, like Titanic. Or musicals.” Musicals were starting to interest me a lot. I’d watched at least six since I met Les. “Everyone says I have a really good voice.”
“You need more than a good voice to get on in this world,” said Mrs Mela. “You need to work hard and get proper qualifications.”
Mrs Mela had two university degrees, plus a teaching degree. If I was an underachiever, she was an overachiever. Fancy going to school for twenty years just to teach English to a load of kids who’d rather be at home watching telly.
I readjusted my school bag over my shoulder. “So, is that all?” I prepared for flight. “It’s just that I have to get home. My mum’s got the flu.”
I got the feeling from the way Mrs Mela frowned at me that my mum had had the flu before. Probably recently.
“How old are you?” asked Mrs Mela. “Fifteen?”
You didn’t need a university degree to guess that, either. I was in Year Ten, wasn’t I?
I nodded.
“Fifteen’s old enough to start taking things seriously,” said Mrs Mela. She smiled hopefully. “With a little effort on your part, this year could see your attitude mature a little more.”
“I’ll try,” I lied. “I’m sure it will.”
I couldn’t see how much more mature she expected my attitude to get. Only one more year and I’d be out of school for good.
My best friend, Shanee Tyler, was the complete opposite of me.
Shanee was small, dark, quiet and plain as a wholemeal digestive. I was into fashion, but Shanee couldn’t tell DKNY from CK. Plus, her mum had three kids and no husband, so they were always broke. Most of the time, she dressed in old jeans, and she didn’t even own a pair of trainers, never mind platforms or heels. She wore hiking boots and somebody’s hand-me-down motorcycle boots that looked like something out of Star Wars. And forget make-up. The only time she let me do her up, she’d moaned and moved so much that I nearly put her eye out. And, unlike me, Shanee was polite, well-behaved, worked hard and was good at school. The perfect daughter.
But even though we were so different, Shanee and I had been best friends since primary school.
She was waiting for me in the hall when Mrs Mela finally let me go.
“I saw you through the door,” said Shanee. “What’d she want?”
I shrugged. “Oh, you know…” Shanee didn’t really know. She never got in trouble. “She caught me passing notes with Amie, and then I didn’t know what page we were on in the stupid play and then it turned out that I didn’t have my homework—”
“Turned out?” Shanee smirked. “What do you mean it turned out that you didn’t have your homework?”
I gave her a look. “I forgot it.”
She spluttered. “You mean you forgot to do it.”
Shanee knew me too well.
“More or less.” I grinned. “Old mealy-mouth went mad. So I had to hear the lecture about making an effort and thinking about the future and all that stuff.”
Shanee adjusted her school bag on her shoulder.
“You’d think she’d get tired of saying it,” said Shanee.
I laughed. “Preachers are robots. They just repeat the same things over and over.”
Shanee kicked a drinks can out of her path. “On the other hand, I suppose you have let your usual low standards drop a bit lately…”
If my mother had made a crack like that, it would’ve been a criticism, but with Shanee I knew she was just joking.
“You know,” she went on, “you used to do your homework now and then.” She gave me a smile. “Or at least copy someone else’s.”
“I couldn’t copy someone else’s English, it was an essay. Plus, Amie’s useless at English and she’s the only one who would let me.”
Shanee laughed. “You really are too much sometimes…”
I was laughing, too. We stepped through the gates.
“I’ve got a life now, Shanee. I’m no
t going to waste my time trying to work out what some dead geezer wrote hundreds of years ago. It’s not redolent.”
“You mean relevant,” said Shanee. “Redolent has to do with smell.”
I flapped one hand. “Whatever you say.”
She stopped just outside the gates and looked at me with her head to one side.
“Where are you going?” she demanded. “The garden centre’s left.”
I was going right, towards the café.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’m meeting Les for tea before he goes to work.”
Shanee’s mouth formed a perfect O.
“What about our science project?”
We were working in pairs. Shanee and I were finding out about the effects of light and water on plants. This was the day we were meant to buy our seeds.
“You don’t need me to pick out a packet of seeds.”
Shanee was quiet, but she was stubborn.
“What about planting them?” she insisted. “Do you expect me to do it all on my own?”
“I trust you,” I assured her. “I’m sure you’ll do a brilliant job.”
Shanee rolled her eyes. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “Who needs photosynthesis when they’ve got love?”
I forgot all about Mrs Mela and Shanee for the rest of the afternoon. I had a great time.
After tea, I walked Les to work. The other guy on the night shift hadn’t turned up yet, so I helped out behind the counter till he did. You had to log in each title that was being taken in or out on the computer. I’d done pretty well in my computer class, so I had no trouble. Les was impressed.
“It took me ages just to learn how to call up a file.” He gave me a quick kiss. “Not only pretty but clever, too.”
No one had ever called me clever before.
Later, he came up behind me while I was putting some titles back on the shelves and gave me a squeeze.
“And she’s a hard worker,” he informed an invisible audience. “What more could one man ask?”
I laughed. Mrs Mela and Hilary Spiggs would’ve had heart attacks if they’d heard Les describe me as “a hard worker”. But that was the whole point, wasn’t it? I was a hard worker when there was some reason to be one. Plus, I liked working in the video shop. It made me feel grown up and in charge. And responsible, just like everyone was always telling me I should be.
I was about to kiss Les back, but at that moment someone came into the shop. He pushed me away.
“No fraternizing on company time,” he whispered, giving me another squeeze.
A thrill ran through me. It was like having a secret no one else knew. How grown up could you get?
The other guy didn’t show up till nearly six, so by the time he was settled, and Les and I had said goodbye, and I’d walked home, it was after seven.
She was in the kitchen, drinking a beer and making a curry.
She turned as I reached the doorway.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Out.”
I hadn’t told her about Les, of course. It was my private, personal life and had nothing to do with her. She’d only try to ruin it for me. Plus, she’d probably want to meet him, you know, check his teeth and his intentions and stuff like that. The mind boggled. Even if Les didn’t get scared that I was going to turn into an old bag with dyed hair and the dress sense of a tramp – and even if she didn’t tell him how old I really was straight away – she’d be sure to tell him enough of my faults to put him off for good. I could just hear her. “Did you know she cuts her toenails over the living-room carpet? Have you seen the state of her room? She’s violent, you know. She threw the remote control through the front window last winter because I told her to do her homework…” That’s what she was like. Moan, moan, moan. Worse, though, was the fact that if she knew I had a boyfriend who came round after work on the nights she went to Charley’s, she’d stay at home. I knew her. She was mean. Anything to spoil my fun.
She put down the knife she’d been chopping carrots with.
“Out where?”
I threw my bag on the table and draped my jacket over a chair. “Doing my science project with Shanee. How long till we eat?”
She gave me her mind-reading stare.
“I had a call from Mrs Mela.”
She said it like it was some kind of threat. Which I suppose it was.
I took an apple from the fruit bowl. “Have I got time for a shower?”
She leaned against the counter, her arms folded in front of her in typical telling-off mode.
“She says your work is slipping.”
I bit into the apple. “Shakespeare’s boring. I don’t understand it.”
I could see the tip of her tongue between her lips.
“That’s why you’re doing Shakespeare at school. So someone can tell you what it means.”
“Yeah … right…” I took another bite. “Well, I am doing it at school, aren’t I?”
“Apparently not,” said Hilary Spiggs. “Apparently you’re writing notes and making jokes at school.”
I started to ease back out of the kitchen. “I’m going to have a shower before sup—”
“You’re going to stay right here and tell me what’s going on.”
I met her eyes, my face expressionless. “Nothing’s going on. I don’t like Shakespeare.”
“Mrs Mela says it’s not just her class.”
“Well, she’s wrong.”
Old stone-face didn’t even blink.
“Something’s going on,” she informed me. “Ever since your birthday you’ve been acting oddly.” She narrowed her eyes into two dark, probing slits. “Are you seeing someone, Lana? Is that what it is?”
I didn’t think my mother was the stupidest person on the planet, but I definitely thought she was one of them. I mean, she knew nothing about life or love or anything like that. And if she’d ever been younger than thirty she’d blocked it out completely. But sometimes she surprised me. Like now. How could she tell?
“Of course I’m seeing someone.” I smiled very sweetly. It drove her mad. “I see dozens of people a day. Shanee, Amie, Gerri, Meryl, Lisa—”
“Please,” said the Grand Inquisitor. “Spare me the list. You know what I mean. Are you seeing someone? A boy?”
I tossed my apple core into the bin. “It’d be pretty hard not to see a few hundred of them. It’s a mixed school, remember?”
She picked up her beer. “Yes,” she said. “I do remember.”
Not Quite Romeo and Juliet
“So how’s your science project going?” Amie asked one lunch-break.
Shanee squashed her drink carton under her foot.
“OK. My plants seem to be doing what they’re meant to be doing. You know, different stuff depending on how much light and water they get … I haven’t lost any yet.” She looked over at me. “What about yours, Lana?”
I groaned. “Oh, my God, the plants…”
Shanee bought the seeds, planted the seeds, separated the tiny plants out into pots, and then gave me a dozen to look after. I was meant to put three in a place where they got a lot of light, three in a place where they got a bit of light, three in a place where they didn’t get much light, and the rest in the dark. I was meant to check them every day and keep notes. I was meant to be making scientific observations.
“I totally forgot about them … I’ve been so busy lately…”
“Not doing homework obviously,” said Gerri.
Shanee bit back a smile.
“No,” said Amie in this baby voice. “With Les…” She gave me one of her sour looks. “I thought he had a job. Doesn’t he ever go to it?”
“You know, you’re not the only one with a boyfriend, Lana,” purred Gerri. “Other people manage to have a love life and occasionally get some work done.”
It was as if their bodies had been taken over not by aliens but by preachers. What was wrong with everyone all of a sudden?
“I never said I was the only one with a boyfr
iend,” I snapped back. “I just said I’ve been busy.”
Amie snorted. “Yeah, right.”
“So what’d you do last night?” asked Shanee, the Peacemaker. “Anything exciting?”
The other two spluttered.
“Nothing special. The old bag went to Charley’s, so Les came over after work and we hung out.”
The first couple of weeks we were going out, Les and me did do things. We went to the park and had tea in the café; we went to the cinema; we had a meal in the pizza place by the station; he took me for a drive up to Hendon because he loved roundabouts. But as time went on, nothing special was all we did. Not that I was complaining. I wasn’t complaining. I’d be happy watching paint dry with Les. Doing nothing with Les was a hundred times better than doing something with anybody else. I’d meet him for tea after school, or I’d drop by the shop, and, if Hilary was out, he’d come round at about eleven-thirty or twelve, after he finished work and the pubs had closed. We’d watch a bit of telly, then we’d snog for a while, and then he’d go home. He never invited me round to his, because he lived with four other guys and there wasn’t any privacy. He wanted me all to himself.
Gerri glanced over at me. “Have you slept with him yet?”
Gerri’d been having sex since the day before her fourteenth birthday. So, since she was thirteen. At least that’s what she said. She never actually went into much detail.
“No, not yet.” I crumbled up my sandwich wrapper. “Les is a gentleman. He never pressures me.”
This was true, but it did puzzle me a bit. Boys were meant to want sex; they were meant to pressure you. But Les never did. We’d snog in his car, we’d snog in my flat when Hilary was out, we’d even snogged in the Blockbuster office a couple of times, but he never tried to go any further. Most of the time I didn’t think about it, but when I did think about it I couldn’t decide if there was something wrong with Les, or with me.
I wasn’t the only one.
“Oh, puhlease…” Amie spluttered with laughter. “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong with him?”
“Maybe he’s gay,” said Gerri. “Only he doesn’t know it yet.”
I’d seen that film, too. Only the guy Kevin Kline played was obviously gay. I mean, it was incredible that it’d never occurred to him or anyone else. Les wasn’t anything like that.
