Irresistible

by Bankes, Liz

  Gabi tilts her head toward me. “I am very wise.”

  My eyes fill with tears again, and I try to blink them away. “I’m really sorry, Gabs.” My voice wobbles at the end and I bite my lip.

  She throws her arm out and grabs me in what turns out to be more of a headlock than a hug. Then she kisses me forcefully. On the eye.

  “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. We’ll sort you out.”

  There’s a knock on the door, and a millisecond later Gabi’s mom bustles in.

  “Mom, it’s pointless to knock if you don’t wait. Mia might have been naked. She’s a slut now.”

  “Oh, yes, I read your blog.” Gabi’s mom grins at me. “Very funny, though I’m not sure I really understood it.”

  I think of protesting, but really I’d rather it was like this.

  “Gabi, there’s a woman on the phone for you. Julie something?”

  Gabi goes downstairs to pick up the phone, and her mom turns to me.

  “Are you all right, sweetheart? I was worried you girls had fallen out or something.”

  “I was … I’ve been a bit stupid. But hopefully she’ll forgive me.”

  “‘Course she will—it’s you girls! Come and grab a cup of tea. We’re going through Gabi’s options for college. I’ve marked the ones she might like.” She waves a brochure. Every other page has a Post-it note on it.

  “They all sound so interesting,” she says as we head downstairs. “What are you taking?”

  I stop, and for a moment can’t even remember which options I picked.

  “His—”

  “Oh, your mom said you were doing something exciting—a trip to Paris? Who’s the lucky fella? This one I’ve been hearing about from Gabi?”

  Before I get a chance to answer, Gabi bursts into the kitchen waving her arms.

  “O. M. F. G!”

  The confirmation e-mail comes through.

  THANK YOU FOR CLAIMING YOUR PRIZE.

  Two tickets to Paris, including train, a fancy hotel opposite the Gare du Nord, a three-course dinner on the first night, and a bottle of champagne on arrival. All I have to do is arrange the dates.

  I print it and fold it inside the card I made. It has a black-and-white picture of the Eiffel Tower on it and a heart drawn on crepe paper. I hope it doesn’t look too childish. I write the name on the envelope and go downstairs.

  Mom’s in her office staring with extreme concentration at her computer. She must be having trouble with a design for work. I walk around behind her. She’s playing solitaire.

  “Mom?”

  She yelps and clicks back onto InDesign. She moves a logo on what looks like a brochure a few fractions of an inch to the left. “Hello!”

  I fiddle with the doorknob and take a deep breath.

  What’s the worst that can happen? She can say no.

  I’ve got to try, though. Do something I want to do.

  “I’ve had this idea …”

  The conversation I’d been dreading for months went quite well. The college part was fine. And the going away part. I didn’t mention the skydiving.

  When I left, she gave me a bear hug. I asked what that was for and she said, “Just have a nice day.”

  It was the same when I came home the day that the blog went up. Mom’s on Facebook, so she’d already seen it. She grabbed me in a hug and muttered, “The little shit.”

  After a while I said, “Mom, you’re squashing my nose,” but she didn’t let go. Not for a long time.

  Chapter 43

  My phone buzzes again. I go to pick it up.

  “Mia,” says Jeff. “Stalin!”

  “It might be important.” I click on the picture. “She’s holding up a snail.”

  “Pardon?”

  I hold the phone out to him. Gabi is holding a snail and making the same “argh” face that she was in the picture of her in front of the Eiffel Tower, outside Notre Dame, in the aquarium, and in the Louvre next to lots of works of art that I am not sure she was allowed to take pictures of.

  “Mia. Stalin,” Jeff repeats, although I see him fighting off a smile.

  I tap a few words on my laptop. One of them is “the.”

  Gabi and I both changed from school to college to do our A-levels. I’m taking history, French, Spanish, and photography. I still remember Jeff drooling into his Shredded Wheat with joy when I asked him to help me with my enrollment form and saw I was doing history. He also instigated “study Sundays,” where I sit with him in his study for a few hours doing schoolwork while he plans lessons. It’s not actually as awful as I pretend it is, which is why I’m sitting in here in the middle of midterm break writing an essay.

  I had to start Spanish from scratch, but I think it’s going okay. It all feels like it’s going somewhere. I want to be able to go to countries and speak to people, not do what Mom does and just speak English at them with a foreign accent.

  Jeff is writing a to-do list on his notepad. All the things we need to figure out for the Adventure of a Lifetime in December. Gabi and I are going to New Zealand, where Gabi’s cousin lives, staying with her and going on an adventure bus tour. As long as we save up the money in time.

  Gabi will be fine, with her new role waitressing at Radleigh Castle “with a view toward becoming involved in events management.” She asked me if I minded her doing it, but I obviously wasn’t going to stand in the way of Gabi and her perfect job. I’m not sure whether Julia realizes that Gabi sees it as “one step away from planning celebrity parties.”

  I’ve got a Saturday job at the bookshop. Luckily, when Julia fired me, she said that “to save mutual embarrassment” my reason for leaving would officially be because the late nights would interfere with schoolwork now that classes were about to start. I wouldn’t have enjoyed having to explain in a future interview that I left my last job for inappropriate behavior with the boss’s son.

  That immediately brings up a mental image of just how inappropriate that behavior was. Jamie above me, our faces close and lips almost touching. My fingers digging into his back.

  It feels weirdly distant. Like it wasn’t even me. Gabi and I have met all these new people in the last few weeks. We’ve introduced them to the girls, and it’s like we have a new gang. It gave me this weird sense of closure. I told them all what happened over the summer. Completely different to what happened with Kieran, where I shut myself off. It made me realize that real friends just want you to be okay. They don’t care if you mess up.

  And although what I did wasn’t great, at least it was based on feeling something. I’d rather be able to admit I fell in love and acted stupidly than be like Jamie and Cleo, who think it’s something to be ashamed of. It makes you the loser in their game.

  I do still wonder if it was really all a game to him.

  My phone buzzes again. Jeff drops his head into his hands and sighs. This time it’s ringing.

  “Hello?”

  “‘Ello? Eez zat Meeyah Johzeef?”

  “Gabs, your accent is offensive.”

  “Shut up, dick!”

  “How’s la Paree?”

  “Omigod—awesome. I’ve eaten all this crap that I don’t know what it is. I flashed the Eiffel Tower—just bra, not tit! This woman screamed! Seriously, Mi, thank you so much. It is totally the most amazing present anyone has ever given me.”

  “No worries. My pleasure.”

  “Max says hi!”

  “Hi, Max!”

  “But guess who we’ve bumped into?”

  “Who?”

  I hear some rustling and Gabi saying, “You speak to her.”

  “‘Ello? Eez zat Meeyah Johzeef?”

  It feels like my heart twists.

  “Hi, Dan.”

  “Hello.”

  “How’s … How is it?”

  “Really, really great. I’m off to Germany tomorrow evening, but I’m beginning to think I should just lounge around here writing poems and growing a beard.”

  He’d look good in a beard. I should
n’t say that. I should probably stop saying suggestive things to men in general.

  “I like beards.” I hope that doesn’t make me sound suggestive. Perhaps a little simple.

  “Feel free to come out and see it,” he says. I can almost hear him stop and panic. I don’t think he meant to just invite me to Paris. Again.

  Then I hear more rustling and Gabi saying, “Omigod, omigod.” She’s grabbed the phone back.

  “Mia, you should come out here! For the day!”

  “I can’t go to Paris for a day! Can you even do that? I’m supposed to be saving—”

  “Do it! Do it!”

  “I can’t! It’s ridiculous!”

  There’s a tap on my shoulder. Jeff has slid his notepad across the table to me. Underneath the list he’s written, Eurostar train does day trips. My treat.

  Chapter 44

  We keep waving as Gabi and Max, laden with bags because someone let Gabi go shopping, walk under the huge departures board and disappear into the crowds.

  There’s another hour before my train, so Dan and I are going to find a café to sit in.

  My hair is still separated into damp strands from the rain.

  It was the most torrential downpour I’ve ever seen. It started in big drops about five minutes after we left the zoo, and the drops very quickly turned into thick jets of water bombing down from the skies. I quickly put on Jeff’s sweater, which he made me wear when I left the house at five in the morning, in a feeble attempt to ward off the sogginess. We were in the middle of a big park that led back to the Metro station and stood there in shock for a moment, unsure whether to carry on or run back to the zoo. Gabi decided for everyone when she turned and ran in the direction of the Metro, shouting, “SAVE YOURSELVES!” We all ran, shouting incoherently, and as we became completely soaked, the shouts became a mixture of hysterical laughter and crying.

  I was surprised by Gabi’s speed. She has, to my knowledge, never attended a PE class. I also had assumed that if she ran too fast she’d be in danger of being knocked out by her own breasts. But, on the contrary, they seemed to give her momentum as a larger and larger gap opened up between us. Similarly, Max managed to go pretty fast, despite the water having traveled all the way up his baggy jeans, causing them to flap behind him.

  I was struggling, mainly because my pumps had filled with water and were falling off my feet. Dan was too, because he had his backpack with him. I caught up with him, gesturing wildly at a tree to suggest we shelter for a bit.

  We stood under the tree, panting and wiping the water off our faces. I emptied out one of my shoes and then saw Dan peering at me through dripping hair with an odd expression on his face.

  “What?” I said, leaning against the tree to take off the other shoe.

  “Nothing,” he said. He kept looking at me steadily. His eyes shone warmly, and there was the hint of a smile on his lips. I smiled back at him. At least whatever he was thinking was something good. At the beginning of the day, we’d been so polite and careful around each other, making awkward small talk about the food or the hostel or the trains whenever it was just the two of us. But every so often we’d catch each other’s eye or say something that made the other one laugh, and I’d get flashes of when we’d just met, of the excited thrill each time we shared a joke. Standing with him under the tree, that happy, crackly feeling surged between us. Looking out at the nearby lake, with the rain bouncing off it, I thought how ridiculously cheesy it would be if we kissed right now.

  One of the branches above us must have moved, because a stream of water dropped through, directly onto Dan’s head.

  “Run again?” said Dan, and I nodded. “Okay, three, two, one!”

  On the Metro, people kept their distance, which was fair enough, really, as we looked like a couple of drowned rats.

  We got off at Temple and made a dash from the Metro steps to the nearest bar. We’d agreed that when we got somewhere vaguely warm, we’d put on some dry clothes from Dan’s bag. Jeff’s sweater was so wet that it was practically molded to my skin, and I couldn’t wait to take it off. I lifted it up above my head and felt a bit more of a breeze than I’d been expecting. I stopped.

  “I’m flashing you, aren’t I?”

  Dan said, “Umm,” in a noncommittal way, and I felt him peel my T-shirt back down. I struggled out of the sweater.

  “I’ll go and change in the bathroom.”

  “Cool,” Dan said quickly, holding out a top. On my way to find the restroom, an old man gave me an approving nod. Well, at least someone enjoyed getting an eyeful of my bra.

  A few minutes later, we both sat at the window looking out at the rain and drinking hot chocolates.

  “What an adventure!” I said. “I’m so jealous you’re out doing stuff like this while I’m doing homework.”

  “Seriously? You’ve come out here for one day and nearly drowned!”

  “But if I had to drown anywhere, I’d like it to be Paris.”

  He smiled. “We could try drowning you in some other European cities and see which one’s your favorite.”

  “I’d like that.”

  There was a pause, and both of us drank from our cups instead of speaking. I realized too late that I’d finished mine already, so ended up doing a very bad mime of drinking.

  Then we were interrupted by a face in the window. It looked like some sort of sea monster. It turned out that Gabi had tried to fend off the rain by holding a newspaper over her head, but the paper had disintegrated and molded to her hair.

  “I’ve given up,” she said as she sat down. “Max is totally pissed off, though. His hat sank.”

  Chapter 45

  I suddenly snort with laughter, making Dan jump.

  “Sorry. I was just thinking about Max and his sunken hat.”

  He’d put the hat on the table and sat there looking at it mournfully while it curved sadly inward from the top. Then he’d tried drying it on a radiator and gotten even more annoyed when it seemed to be drying in its collapsed state.

  Dan grins. “Oh, Max.”

  We’re at a café aross the street from the Gare du Nord. Every so often one of us looks up at the clock on the wall as the time for my train gets closer and closer.

  “How have fifteen minutes gone by?” exclaims Dan. “I swear I looked at the clock only a minute ago.”

  “I don’t want to go home,” I say childishly.

  “Time for one more,” says Dan. “My turn.”

  He goes up to the bar. Outside dusk is setting in; the air is cool and fresh after the downpour, and the busy streets with people sitting outside chatting are creating an exciting buzz. I look up at him waiting to be served, frowning in concentration at one of the menus and probably seeing how much of it he can read. I remember that I’m still wearing his rugby shirt and should probably give it back, considering he’s going to be away for a while. He’s off to Germany, and then Eastern Europe next. He traveled around Spain first. He said he didn’t want to do Paris at first, after all our planning, but he saw a train when he was in Madrid and thought he might as well come and see the place.

  The collar of the rugby shirt is sticking up and is just brushing my nose when I turn to look at Dan. I breathe in his smell. Warm, fresh, and with a hint of honey, I think. Or perhaps that’s how it makes me feel. It’s a nice, glowing feeling, like honey drizzling off a spoon.

  It feels like friendship.

  The clock on the wall chimes to mark eight o’clock.

  I take off the rugby shirt and leave it nicely folded on top of Dan’s bag. I’m a little cold, but I’m sure it will be warm on the train.

  Sitting back down, I see my phone, which is on the table, light up.

  There’s no name, but I know the number. It’s pointless, really, to delete someone from your contacts when you know their number anyway. I sit there, looking at the unread message.

  I look up at Dan. He’s picking up Diet Cokes from the bar and gives me a friendly nod.

  My heart is t
hudding as I pick up the phone. Read or delete?

  I click OPTIONS, and my thumb hovers over the delete button. I haven’t spoken to him since I saw him outside Radleigh Castle. I’ve had missed calls, but I’ve never returned them. I saw a silver car a few times in the parking lot by the college, but I just told myself that there must be more than one person with that car.

  I can’t resist. I click the message just as Dan sits down.

  Check Facebook x

  Jamie’s Guide to Being an Idiot

  1. Meet a girl.

  2. Realize she makes you laugh and that you feel differently with her than with anyone you’ve met before. This annoys you. Be rude to her.

  3. Try usual techniques. Swimming pool. Wine. Casablanca. End up actually enjoying yourself (highly unusual).

  4. When it’s not working and you are losing her to someone else, be weak. Be persuaded that if you want to get anywhere with her, you’ll have to trick her. She would never love the real you. Lie as usual. Allow her to be humiliated because you don’t want to admit to anyone else that you love her. Being in love is your version of a dirty little secret.

  5. Think about her every day for weeks.

  How to Not Be an Idiot

  (even if you risk rejection,

  humiliation, and heartbreak)

  1. Turn up at St. Pancras station as she returns from Paris, holding a rose and hoping she forgives you. Make it known that you would be willing to wear a “backpack” and stay in “hostels” and other such uncivilized things.

  Really, I’d do anything.

  J x

  • • •

  Jamie Elliot-Fox is toxic.

  Isn’t he?

  So now I’m here.

  The train’s moving away. I waved to Dan, and he’s heading off to continue his adventure.

  I showed him the message, in the interest of honesty. He said he’d only repeat what he said to me before: do something you actually want to do.

  For the last few weeks, that’s what I’ve been doing. Choosing, deciding, making my own adventures, not just letting things happen.

  One more choice.

  Do I believe him?

  Well, I’ve got a few hours to think about it.