Keeping Up Appearances

by Elizabeth Stevens

  “Of course I knew she was talking to him. I’m the one who told her to talk to him!”

  “You want to push her into his arms?”

  I had a feeling I wasn’t supposed to butt in here and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to defend myself without making things worse anyway. So, for better or worse, I kept my mouth shut.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s Holly’s decision, Rach. She wants him, what am I going to do, huh?” Xander asked.

  “You’re going to fucking mope and I’m going to have to pick up the pieces is what.”

  “What’s your point, Rach?”

  Rachel stood up quickly, her hands landing heavily on the table. “My point is that the minion is going to go running back to him as soon as she gets the chance. You think you’re anything but something to make him jealous? She’s playing you Xander and you’re too fucking whipped to notice.”

  Now Xander stood up to face her. “Then don’t hang around, Rachel. It’s not that hard. When Holly’s with the git you can tell me you told me so and let me wallow on my own.”

  I wanted to say something here about how I wasn’t going back to Jason, no matter what happened. But, I didn’t know how to voice that just then.

  “You know I won’t do that,” Rachel answered.

  “Why not? You need my permission? Go ahead, Rachel. Walk away.”

  “Don’t you pull that on me, you arsehole. You know I’m not going anywhere. When she finally breaks your heart, you know I’ll pick up every damned piece no matter how long it takes.”

  I finally looked up at her and I saw she meant it; Rachel was worse than a territorial mother, she wasn’t just some mother hen, she’d fight tooth and nail to protect Xander’s heart and, as awkward as I felt about the fact they were arguing over me, all I had for her was respect. I could only see it from her perspective, and I wouldn’t have trusted her either had the tables been turned.

  “Don’t you dare fuck it up, Minion,” she snarled at me and shoved away from the table.

  “Rachel!” Xander yelled as he briefly touched the back of my head then headed after her.

  “Gosh. Mummy and Daddy fighting again,” Greg sighed sarcastically.

  “Shut up,” Daniel muttered, giving me one hell of a death glare, then he got up and followed them, Sabrina following close behind.

  I should have felt more shaken. I should have felt more uncomfortable. And, I did feel uncomfortable. But, I didn’t feel uncomfortable for me. I felt uncomfortable for Xander. Even after we’d talked about it the other day, I still worried about the way he seemed stuck between Rachel and me. Nothing seemed worth that, not whatever friendships I’d found with Xander, Miranda, Greg or whatever might have grown with a couple of the others given time.

  Miranda nudged me companionably and put an arm around me. “Don’t worry about them. Mum and Dad fight, it’s what they do. They’ll make up and everything will be fine.”

  “Mum and Dad?” I asked.

  Tara gave me a wry smile. “It’s what we call them when they go at it like that. It happens over much less than you.”

  “I should go…” I shrugged out of Miranda’s arm and stood up.

  “Doll, don’t worry about it. Rachel’s just worried about him. She’d be like that with any of us. Hell, she was like that with the Tara and JT thing, you just didn’t see it,” Greg said, still stuffing himself with chips.

  Tara gave him a look to shut up, then gave me a smile that I knew was an apology. It was unnecessary, but I appreciated it anyway.

  “You know Darcy?” Liv asked and I looked at her, confused.

  “Who?”

  “You know, Mr Darcy. Pride and Prejudice?”

  “Oh, uh. Yeah, I saw that once.”

  “Yeah, well Rach is our very own Darcy. She’ll go to any length to protect her friends. She just doesn’t go about it the right way.”

  I looked up, but couldn’t see Xander or Rachel so didn’t know where they’d gone. I sighed. “I know she means well. I get it. If it was one of you and Jason, I’d…”

  I didn’t know what I’d do anymore. When there was that thing between him and Tara, I’d been exactly like Rachel… Just not to Jason’s face. And, Nancy had probably just thought it was jealousy talking. In a way, it had been. But back then, what was now the Bows and the…idJits – I was still getting used to that – were less distinct in our year level; it had just been Xander versus Jason and the social lines had been more blurred.

  Now, I’d seen a side to Jason I wouldn’t defend, a side of him that I thought didn’t deserve my loyalty. Not if he wasn’t going to stand up for me once – and picking a fight with Xander totally didn’t count.

  “You’d what, Doll?” Miranda asked.

  “I would have been the same once,” I said.

  Miranda tugged on my arm. “Come on, sit back down. Don’t worry about them.”

  “Yeah, you’ve got us. It just takes them a little longer to get over hang ups,” Tara said with a nod.

  I gave them all a smile. “I totally ruined your night out.”

  Liv snorted. “No. If our night was ruined, it would have been Rachel’s temper that did it. Honestly though, Doll, when we say this is normal for them… It’s normal. Like every week or two. Frankly, it’s not a good night out if they’re not yelling at each other.”

  “Yeah, I think the longest they went was like a month,” Tara said. “We actually thought they’d stopped loving each other. We were all ready to pick sides in the divorce.”

  “It was a stressful time,” Greg finished and I smiled at them all.

  “You don’t all have to be so nice to JT’s ex-minion,” I told them.

  Miranda put her arm around me again. “Doll, our King’s never smiled as much as he has in the last few weeks and you’ve been nothing but nice to us when we’ve let you–”

  “She’s right, though. You’re nothing like the stuck up bitch I thought you were,” Greg interrupted and Tara threw a chip at him.

  “You don’t tell people things like that, dickweed,” Tara snapped and I laughed.

  “It’s fine. I get it.”

  By the time Rachel, Xander, Daniel and Sabrina came back to the table – Xander’s arm around Rachel’s shoulders, so I hoped everything was okay – the rest of us were back to laughing again and talking about the sort of nonsensical things that you talk about. Greg was doing a fantastic example of his ‘sweet’ dance moves and Xander and Daniel joined him, much to the amusement of the other Grill’d customers who obviously realised that our group was prone to theatrics.

  The rest of dinner went well enough. Rachel, Daniel and Sabrina ignored me and otherwise acted normal. Especially when Greg and Xander broke out into a rendition of Britney Spears’ ‘One More Time’, complete with standing on the bench seats as they sang at each other.

  “God, they spent too long helping with that playlist,” Sabrina muttered with a smile to Liv.

  It wasn’t until a little later that we were walking to Cold Rock that Xander held me back from the rest of the group as they jostled and yelled at each other companionably.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “You have to stop asking me that.” I smiled at him.

  “I’m sorry about her. I told her–”

  I put my finger over his lips. “Xand, I need to earn her trust. I’m not above doing that, I just don’t know how. It’s not ridiculous. I mean, she could be a little more civil about it, yeah. But, she’s fighting for the same thing as me so I just have to work out how to prove that to her.”

  Xander was smirking at me knowingly.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Fake dating.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “There’s keeping up appearances, babe, then there’s trying to win over the Queen Bitch of the Bows.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me and I couldn’t help my smile.

  “So? Just because we’re fake dating, that means I can’t wan
t to show her I’m on your side?”

  “Oh, you’re on my side?” he teased.

  “I thought it was ‘Team Bowdeen’? Where else would I be?”

  He shrugged and looked behind me. “Don’t know. I guess I just figured if it was all fake, then you wouldn’t be on a side?”

  “What are you suggesting Xander?” I asked him.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all.” That hint of humour played across his face.

  “Xander?” I pressed.

  He gave me that infectious smile that made me believe we could be amazing. “What? I can’t like that you want to win over my best friend?”

  “I thought that’s what girlfriends are supposed to do?” I said teasingly.

  “Oh, real girlfriends, yeah,” he replied, just as teasingly.

  “What about friends?” I asked, really not sure what he wanted and too afraid to ask.

  He looked at me. “What about friends?”

  “Where do they stand on the winning your best friend over?”

  “Depends what this friend’s intentions were.”

  We looked at each other seriously, both seemingly looking for something. My heart felt like it had one foot in either side of the ring, only it wasn’t Jason in the other corner; honestly, it hadn’t been Jason in the other corner for a long time. I didn’t know who or what was in the other corner, but my heart wanted to take another step towards Xander. And, between my brain and me, we let it. But, my heart was hesitant this time, like it wasn’t sure how it felt.

  “What if she just wants to show you that loyalty she’s heard so much about?” I hedged.

  A frown crossed his face for a second. “The conversation you had with Dan the other week?”

  “What about it?”

  “You guys have a talk about loyalty?”

  I shrugged. “Might have.”

  Xander swore under his breath and I laughed. He looked at me in confusion.

  “You know, one thing I’ve learnt in pretending I’m a Bow is that the one person I thought was the most shallow guy I’d ever had the misfortune of meeting had better friends than I’ve ever had.” I held a hand up because I knew he was going to get comforting on me. “That is not me looking for sympathy, Xander. I’m being serious. Just like I was serious when I said you standing up for me with Jason the other week was showing me more loyalty than he’d ever shown me. Wherever this goes, however it ends, you’ve opened my eyes to the fact that I was a complete arsehole before.

  “I blindly followed Jason when he’d done nothing to deserve it. I thought he was wonderful and funny and smart and amazing. And, for what? For the fact that Mark had left him in charge of a bunch of people the Bows now call idJits?” I shook my head. “I’d like to think I can be a better person now I’ve realised how damned judgemental I was. It’s not going to happen overnight, but I’ve got faith.”

  “Holly, I’ve always thought you were amazing,” he said, taking my cheeks in his hands and looking into my eyes. I felt my heart take one more step and there was less hesitation this time. My brain and I half-heartedly cautioned it without knowing how he felt, but it stoically had its fingers in its ears again.

  “Xander…” I breathed.

  “I don’t know how or when this is going to end either, but you have to know that. You have to at least know that I’ve always thought the world of you.”

  I smiled at him and reached up to kiss him.

  Just as he wrapped his arms around me, Rachel was yelling at us, “Come on, you two! You can canoodle when we have ice cream in our hands!”

  I pulled away from Xander as he laughed. “She’s thawing,” he assured me.

  “Slower than the damned ice caps.”

  He snorted as he put an arm around my shoulder and we headed down the street. “She’ll get there, babe. Just wait. She’ll see what I see.”

  “What you see?” I scoffed.

  “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  “When I look at us.”

  “And, what’s that?”

  “Something amazing,” he whispered in my ear as he squeezed me and my heart almost went running the rest of the way to him whether he could really like me like that or not.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Everyone was going insane.

  More people were wearing buttons by the time we were back to school. Seriously, I had no idea where they were getting them from; no one seemed to know where they were getting them from. Madness aside, I really wanted to know how I could make my own – I’d like something really random I could put on my bag all old-school.

  Anyway… I’d spent all day roaming the school and watching fights break out between friends and enemies and people previously totally indifferent to each other about which couple was better than the other and who was going to last longer. It was utterly ridiculous and none of it helped the fact that I could no longer deny I’d fallen for Xander.

  Like actual, proper, I-did-really-like-him-after-all fallen for him.

  But, who does a girl talk to about falling for her (supposed-to-be-fake) boyfriend?

  I felt like the most clichéd romance heroine in history.

  But, who was I supposed to go to for advice?

  Miranda thought I was already in love with Xander. Nancy was acting like a raging bitch and on the other side of the battlelines. Jason was so not the friend I’d spent ten years thinking he was. Mum had gone overseas with the beau so I didn’t want to make her feel obliged to have a conversation I wasn’t sure how to have and I thought we might have already had. I already couldn’t handle just imagining the hurt response from Greg. And Rachel would probably punch me in the face, which I kind of felt like I deserved at this point.

  That only left Mark…

  “So…” I started as I hovered in his doorway on Monday evening.

  “What?” Mark asked and I knew he wasn’t looking forward to what I had to say. I can’t say I was super thrilled about it either.

  “We talk about everything right? I mean, no matter what the problem is, I can come to you about it…?”

  He pushed away from his desk and looked at me. “Of course. Why? What’s the matter?”

  I sighed. This was the conversation I’d been avoiding for five weeks (not that I was counting). “So, you know how Jason and Nancy started dating and I made friends with a Bow?”

  “Yeah…” he said slowly, clearly still not thrilled about where he thought this might be heading.

  “Well, funny story… King Douche and I got to talking and…” I took a deep breath.

  “And what, Doll?” Mark asked quickly.

  “We decided it would be a good idea to – okay, don’t hate me – it would be a good idea if we,” I paused, “fake dated,” I finished really quickly as though he might not hear me but it totally counted as me telling him.

  “Fake dating?” Mark asked in that slow tone that I knew meant he was trying to work out what to actually say.

  I closed my eyes as though that was going to give me the confidence to tell him the whole story. It came out like complete word vomit. “Yeah. So, apparently he wanted off the menu for a while but the girls didn’t seem to get the memo. Then, he puts the idea in my head that hooking up with someone else would make Jason jealous. So, I start think about that– Well, I can’t stop thinking about it, more like. But I figure I’m too mature for stupid games. So, I initially say no when he says we can solve each other’s problems. But, then Nancy gets under my skin and he’s not such a douche and I say yes. And, we hang out and he’s funny and…” I took another deep breath and opened my eyes. “I think I fell for him.”

  “You what?”

  “I think I fell for him.”

  “So you fell for a guy while you were trying to make the love of your life jealous?” he asked sceptically.

  I winced, wishing he hadn’t put it like that so I didn’t feel stupider than I already did. “Uh, yeah.”

 
; “So, all that time ‘studying’…” he sighed. “God. I wish I hadn’t expected this…” he muttered.

  “Expected it?”

  Mark ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah. You’re not exactly subtle, Dolly. I was just seriously hoping I was wrong and you weren’t lying to me about it.”

  That hit home and my heart crumpled at the thought I’d disappointed him. “I’m sorry, Marco…”

  He waved away my apology and I knew that meant he forgave me, even if he thought I’d been a complete idiot. “Just… Tell me what happened. How did you possibly fall for King Douche?” I knew Mark wasn’t pleased – he knew Xander well enough from years at school and club soccer to know his reputation well – but I also knew he was going to hear me out.

  “He’s not… He’s not what I spent all those years thinking he was–”

  “You mean he’s seduced you into idiocy?” He interrupted, then paused. “Wait, when he was here in the holidays?”

  I sighed heavily. “No one’s seduced anyone into anything. I know the rumours say he’s a douche, a player, so not the boyfriend type. And that’s all he was before. But, I have to ask myself if that was a mask or if he’s changed. Because then, yeah, he wallows with me when I’ve got my period, we laugh and talk, he stands up for me against Rachel and Jason–”

  “Hang on. In what world does that make sense?”

  Where’s the world that doesn’t care… ran through my head.

  “No. Not together. Rachel’s been an utter bitch about me. But, Jason started a fight and we got sent home and–”

  “Whoa!” Mark cried and stood up. “Back up. Go from the beginning.”

  So, I did. And I left nothing out.

  By the end of it all, Mark looked like he seriously regretted his life choices. “Okay,” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Okay. So, you’ve been fake dating all this time. And now you think you’ve actually fallen for him?”

  I nodded. “I know he’s attractive. Everyone knows he’s attractive. But, there’s more to him. Or at least, I think I see more in him. And, I can’t.”