‘But as you said yourself, he told you he was a Casanova so he didn’t exactly lie to you. He just didn’t tell you the whole truth. You can’t spend your whole life running away from people or avoiding them because you’re afraid of confrontation or what they might think of you.’
‘I know,’ I groaned. ‘Just . . . honestly, Iz, I’m feeling really disillusioned at the moment. Boys. I’m through with all of them. You can’t trust any of them. I am going to stay single for the rest of my life. In fact, I will probably become a nun.’
I could hear Izzie laughing at the other end of the phone. ‘Ah, so you won’t want to know about Luke, then?’
‘Luke? What about Luke?’
‘Well, if you’re through with boys and never want to hang out with one ever again, there’s really no point in me telling you.’
‘Izzie?’
‘Yes, TJ?’
I couldn’t see Izzie’s face, but I knew she had an almighty great smirk on it. ‘If you don’t tell me what you know about Luke, Izzie Foster, I will have to . . . have to go and throw myself off the nearest cliff.’
‘Ah, but then you’ll never find out what I have to say . . .’
‘IZZIEEEEEEE!’
‘OK. OK. Luke has been asking about you.’
‘Asking you?’
‘No. Not me. Nesta. Well, not Nesta exactly, but Nesta through William. William told Nesta that Luke asked him to find out everything that he could about you and Ollie. And she said that Luke told William that he’s really hung up about you and thinks he might have blown it by overreacting last time he saw you. He also made William promise not to tell Nesta any of this, but she knew that he knew something and threatened to dump him if he didn’t spill, so he told her everything . . .’
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘That was really good of her because she likes William a lot.’
‘Yeah, but she knew that he’d give in. He’s lucky that she didn’t go to Plan B, which was to give him a Chinese burn if he didn’t talk. She has her methods, does our Nesta, and isn’t one to give up. Anyway, William made Nesta promise not to tell any of us. Ha ha. As if. She was straight on the phone. I think she tried to phone you too, but it was engaged.’
‘I was probably talking to Mum,’ I said. And then thought, oh no, Luke asking about Ollie? Even though I love Nesta dearly, God only knows what she told William with her big mouth.
‘What exactly did Nesta say?’
‘She says she didn’t tell him anything except that you had only met Ollie recently and it was early days, and she didn’t know if you were even going to see him again as you weren’t sure if he was your type.’
‘Really? Hey, good for her. That’s not bad. It leaves it open.’
‘Yeah,’ said Izzie.
‘Cool,’ I said.
‘Yeah, cool,’ said Izzie. ‘Sounds to me like you and Luke have some unfinished business.’
‘Very possibly,’ I said as I thought about our last kiss. Second kiss, actually. Our first kiss last year in our living room in London was disturbed by my parents coming home, and our second kiss was disturbed halfway through by Ollie and Paul. So Luke and I definitely had unfinished business. Of the snogging type.
‘Izzie?’
‘Yes, TJ?’
‘Do you think I am a slut?’
‘Definitely.’
‘No, really.’
‘Yes, really,’ said Izzie, but I could hear her laughing. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘Well, only this lunchtime there was me thinking that Ollie was maybe The One, and last week when I saw Luke I thought he was definitely The One. And now that I know that Ollie likes to play the field, I don’t think he could possibly be The One for me because I don’t think that I could handle feeling strongly about someone and knowing that they were seeing someone else as well. I couldn’t do the open relationship thing. I think I’d get too jealous. But he and Luke have shown me that I can feel for more than one person at the same time. I have. I did. I do. Ollie and Luke. It’s different with both of them, least I feel different things. Both nice. So does that actually make me the love rat? And not them? I think I’m very confused.’
Izzie was really laughing now. ‘Yeah, really confused. Er . . . can you run that by me again?’
‘Run what?’
‘All that you just said.’
‘Oh God no,’ I said. ‘I can’t even remember what I said.’
‘Confused,’ said Izzie. ‘You.’
‘Yes. I think that was about the gist of it.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Izzie. ‘Love can be very confusing. It will get clearer. Give it time.’
Izzie is so wise, I thought. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘How long?’
‘Oh . . . about three or four . . . hundred years.’
‘Thanks a bunch.’
‘You’re welcome,’ said Izzie, and then she started sniggering again.
‘Well, I’m glad you find my love life so amusing.’
‘Don’t worry so much,’ said Izzie. ‘All you need to do is be true to yourself and honest with everyone else.’
‘Right,’ I said. Easier said than done, I thought. Be true to myself? Which one of my selves? There are so many people living in my head. All with voices. And all with feelings. And those feelings keep changing every five minutes. I think I am well and truly and completely and utterly bonkers.
‘And if you’re not true to yourself,’ said Izzie, ‘the universe will conspire to make you. Least that’s what I think. If you try and run away from what you fear then something will happen to make you face your fears. So there. Iz the Oracle has spoken.’
Izzie was always coming out with stuff like that. I think that she may be bonkers too. That is probably why we are such good friends.
‘I hear and obey, O wise one,’ I said.
On Saturday morning, as Mum packed up our things ready for our return to London, Dad and I took Mojo for a final walk in the woods.
‘I want to talk to you about something important,’ said Dad as we set off through the fields that led down to Cremyl.
My heart almost stopped – he looked so grave when he said this. Immediately Cassandra, prophetess of doom, raised her head ready to hear the worst as my imagination went into overdrive. Ohgooooood, said her gloomy voice, he’s going to tell you that he hasn’t long to live. Woe oh woe oh blooming woe.
Dad put his hand on my shoulder. ‘Hey no need to look so worried.’
‘So what is it?’
Dad looked around and gestured at the landscape with his right hand. ‘This place. It is wonderful, isn’t it?’
Oh no, I thought. I know what’s coming. He wants to live here. Last year he and Mum were on about moving to Devon, leaving London. Oh God. I’m not ready to move.
‘Er . . . yes. Lovely. Very nice, but . . .’
‘Don’t worry, TJ, we’re not going to leave London. Not yet. Your mother’s not ready to retire yet and I’m not ready to leave London forever. I still love living there. No. But maybe there’s a compromise that everyone will be happy with. Dr Rollands phoned last night with a proposition that your mum and I are considering carefully, and of course we want to know what you think as well. He’s buying a place in France and needs to make some capital, so he’s putting Rose Harbour Cottage on the market. He wanted to know if we were interested. What your mother and I thought was that we could have it as a holiday home. I need to slow down a bit, take note of the warning signals my body’s been giving me lately, so we thought I’d go part time at the hospital. We’d spend most of the year in London, but summer and the odd weekend down here. Best of both worlds. What do you think?’
‘Yes . . . Best of both worlds,’ I said.
Izzie was right, I thought, as we walked on and chatted about the cottage. I can’t object to something that will be so good for Mum and Dad because I’m a coward. I can’t run away from what I fear. If we’re going to be down here for summers and the odd weekend, there were two people I was bound to bump into
from time to time and I’d have to sort things out with them sooner or later.
Ollie and Cat.
Gulp.
Be true to yourself and honest with everyone else.
Mystic Iz
I answered Hannah’s e-mails the moment I got home from Cornwall, and put her in the picture. Then it was out the door and off to see Lucy, Nesta and Izzie. I didn’t even unpack. It was straight round to Nesta’s, where we’d all arranged to meet for a proper catch-up.
Nesta was dying to show the photos she’d taken on her digicam. ‘So you can see exactly what I’ve been up to,’ she said.
‘You’d be a rubbish travel journalist,’ I said as I scrolled through. ‘All of these are close-ups of William. None of them show the location.’
Nesta laughed. ‘He was the most interesting part of the landscape. Come on, then, show us yours.’
I got my camera out and showed them my pics of the Rame Peninsula, although I’d already e-mailed some of them through from the computer down at the cottage. All of the girls were up for going there in the summer.
‘I’ve asked Mum and Dad already,’ said Lucy. ‘And they’re into the idea as they spent their honeymoon down there and want to go back. Steve and Lal like the idea too.’
‘I think Mum and Angus want to go to some château in France this summer, so I don’t know if I can come with you,’ said Izzie.
‘There is room at the cottage,’ I said. ‘You could come with us and then your mum wouldn’t need to worry.’
‘Good plan, Batgirl,’ said Izzie. ‘And then Mum and Angus can go and do their Frenchie thing sans teen. She’d probably love that. What about you, Nesta?’
Nesta sighed and draped herself on her bed. ‘I don’t know if I could bear to be apart from William for too long, and Mum and Dad have been talking about going to Italy for a while so I’ll let you know. If William has to go away with his family then of course I’ll be down some time.’
‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘I just know you’re all going to love it.’
‘So what are you going to do about Ollie?’ asked Lucy.
‘And Cat?’ asked Izzie.
‘And Luke?’ asked Nesta.
‘Who?’ I asked.
Nesta gave Izzie and Lucy the nod and they grabbed pillows from Nesta’s bed and began to beat me with them. I tried my best to grab one and fight back, but I didn’t stand a chance.
‘Hey not fair, three against one,’ I groaned, as they wrestled me to the floor and Lucy sat on my back.
‘We’ve been giving your situation a lot of consideration while you’ve been away,’ she said, ‘and we, the council, have decided that you need to come clean with all of them. Cat, Luke and Ollie.’
‘I will. I was going to. Honest.’
‘When?’ said Izzie.
‘Oh . . . some time this week.’
‘Do you have their numbers on you?’ asked Nesta.
I nodded.
‘So do it now,’ said Nesta.
‘Now? No. I . . . have to think about it. What to say and all that.’
Lucy shook her head. ‘The more you think about it, the more scary it will seem. Do it now. Remember my mum’s saying, don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today.’
‘I can’t. You’re all here. I can’t do it while you’re all listening in. You’ll make me laugh.’
‘Promise we won’t,’ said Nesta. ‘But which one are you going to go for? Ollie or Luke.’
‘Luke,’ I said. It felt weird coming out with it like that to Nesta, seeing as he was her boyfriend first. I was still worried that it might all turn sour again. ‘I . . . I think he wants to be with me. Just me. And so does Ollie, in a way, but not just me – I’d be one on a list and I can’t do that.’
‘Good,’ said Nesta, ‘because you’re worth more than that. You deserve someone who wants you and you alone. I think it’s disrespectful to you to put you on a list, like you’re not special enough. And you are. And I think Luke knows it.’
‘Yeah,’ said Lucy. ‘I think he knows he blew it with you before.’
‘Yeah,’ said Nesta, ‘you have to tell him how you feel now. And Ollie, too. I think through all of this you’ve been putting them first. How they feel. What they want. Your feelings matter too, TJ. What you want.’
Nesta is so top, I thought. It was so kind of her to say what she just did and not hold any grudges about what happened in the beginning with Luke and I.
‘So what are you going to say to Luke?’ asked Izzie.
‘Oh, I don’t know. It wasn’t just my fault that things went wrong . . . I don’t know. I’ll see how it comes out. I will try and tell him how I feel. Oh Goddddd. Do I have to do it now?’
The thought of talking to Luke filled me with dread. What if what I wanted to say came out all wrong? What if we misunderstood each other again? I couldn’t bear it.
Nesta stood up. ‘Izzie, Lucy – in the kitchen. TJ,’ she said, and then pointed to the phone on her bedside cabinet. ‘Phone, and you’re not allowed out until you’ve done them all. Luke. Cat. Ollie.’
‘God, you’re bossy!’ I said.
Nesta grinned. ‘Thanks.’
Lucy got off my back. ‘She’s right, though. Get it over with.’
Izzie got up and gave me the thumbs up.
And off they went.
I stared at the phone for a few moments, then got my notepad out of my bag. Who to call first?
I checked the numbers, then dialled.
Mrs Biasi’s voice on their answering machine told me that no one was home. I tried Luke’s mobile. It was on voicemail.
I dialled the next number.
‘Hello,’ said a young boy’s voice a moment later.
‘Er, is Cat there please?’
‘CAAATTTTTTTTTTT,’ the boy yelled at the other end. He was so loud he almost shattered my eardrum.
I heard footsteps. ‘Hello?’
I took a deep breath and launched in.
‘Hi Cat, it’s me, TJ, the girl you met on the beach and I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you at the time but I am the girl that Ollie was seeing behind your back but please can we be friends? I didn’t know that he had a girlfriend down there and if I had known I wouldn’t have gone out with him because I don’t like boys who are two-timers. I don’t two-time people . . . and I don’t want you to think that I’m a boyfriend stealer because I’m not. I genuinely didn’t know about you.’
There was a silence at the other end.
‘Cat. Are you there? Say something.’
‘Oh, sorry,’ said Cat. ‘My stupid brother was at the door trying to listen in so I had to shoo him away. Yeah, you were saying about Ollie. Yeah. I thought there was someone else, so it’s good to know that I’m not crazy and imagining things. And yeah, I knew what he was like. He never said that we were an item as in girlfriend and boyfriend. It was always understood that we’d hang out in a casual way. So . . . are you going to see him again?’
‘Don’t think so. Not on his terms. I’ll be totally honest. I was starting to like him a lot but I don’t think I could continue if I knew that he was seeing other girls as well. It would do my head in.’
Cat laughed. ‘Tell me about it. Have you told him you met me?’
‘Not yet. I haven’t spoken to him since I got back. But I will tell him. You bet I will.’
Cat laughed again. ‘Hah. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when you speak to him! Listen, TJ, I’m cool. You do what you have to. I have no expectations of Ollie Axford, and to be totally honest with you back, I was thinking of calling it a day with him anyway. Same reason as you. He does my head in. It was fun for a while, but we weren’t really going anywhere. I think he’s one of those boys who likes a challenge, you know? He’s not ready to have a proper relationship, and I am. I want more and I know that I’ll never get it from him.’
‘That’s exactly how I feel. We deserve more than to be a number amongst many in his little black book.’
‘Yeah. Ri
ght on, TJ. Us girls rule, yeah?’
‘Yeah. But Cat, listen, my mates are really into coming down in the summer so I hope that we can meet up again. I hope that we can all be friends.’
‘Yeah, sure,’ said Cat. ‘I’d like that. And now that you’ve called I know that we could be friends. That you’re an honest person. To be doubly, trebly honest, after I’d met you, I saw my mates down here, you know, Becca and Ollie’s sister, Lia. I said I’d met this great girl on the beach called TJ and Lia went pale. I asked why and if she knew you or something and, well, Lia can’t lie to save her life and she told me that she thought Ollie had been seeing someone called TJ. So I did know it was you in the end. But I’m really glad you called and told me yourself.’
‘I should have done it on the beach but . . . sometimes I panic and I was scared you’d hate me.’
‘Nah,’ said Cat. ‘I wouldn’t have hated you, although I have to admit I was a bit jealous when I found out. OK, a lot jealous, but then again it showed me what being involved with Ollie would always be like. I don’t want to get in too deep with him if it’s forever going to throw up that kind of emotion. I want to move on from that and find some guy who adores me and only me and doesn’t need to see other people. Know what I mean?’
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘I can’t do the casual thing either. You know, it’s funny. Ollie told me all about Lia and I really wanted to meet her, but she was never there when we went up to the house. Now I know why. I guess he didn’t want us to meet because he knew she was a mate of yours.’
‘Probably. So listen, I’ve got to go . . . My dad’s doing supper and it smells like he’s burned something as usual. Stay in touch and see you in the summer, hey?’
‘Will do,’ I said. ‘And good luck finding the right guy.’
‘You too, TJ.’
We swapped e-mail addresses and promised to stay in touch. I felt so much better when I put down the phone. I’d been dreading the call, but Cat was cool about the whole situation. And talking to her had made it much clearer what I felt about Ollie. I did like him, but she was right – a relationship with him could never go anywhere. He was a player, and involvement with him would always be a rollercoaster of emotions. Not for me, I thought, as I dialled Luke’s mobile again.
Mates, Dates and Sizzling Summers Page 12
