by Mary Hooper
At three-thirty I went off to the play reading, which turned out to be a bit of a dead loss. I’d read through The Face in the Mirror a couple of times, but I hadn’t learned any parts off by heart, which Mr Bryant seemed to think we should have done. Several of the really keen girls, like Janine and Imrie, had, so they were the ones who got the main parts to read.
‘I won’t be assigning parts for a couple of weeks yet,’ Mr Bryant said when I asked him who was going to play the lead. ‘I not only want to see who can act well, but also who shows the most enthusiasm for the play itself.’
I put a suitably keen expression on my face when he said that, though the main reason I wanted the starring role was to impress Ben. It would be so easy then to casually say that I’d love to meet his dad and get some acting tips …
It was five-thirty by the time we’d read right through the play and Mr Bryant eventually let us out. It was too late for any of the school buses by then, of course, so I set off home thinking about Ben, wondering whether I’d see him on his own to talk to before next Monday – Sarah’s party. Most of all, I wondered what would actually happen at the party.
I was only a few hundred yards from school when Ben appeared.
‘What are you still doing here?’ I asked, my heart thudding. He’d hung about to see me…
‘Things to do,’ he said mysteriously. ‘What were the Social like? What did they talk about?’
‘Nothing much,’ I shrugged. ‘Mostly about leaving home and about how dodgy it is in London and all that.’
‘Oh, right,’ he said, and it may have been my imagination but he seemed to look relieved. ‘So how was drama, then?’ he asked after a moment.
‘Great!’ I lied, and then before I could stop myself, added, ‘Bryant said I’m a natural. He reckons I could go far.’
‘Fantastic!’ He slung his arm around my shoulders. ‘I’m glad I bumped into you on your own,’ he went on, ‘I was just thinking that I might go into town Saturday to buy something to wear for Sarah’s party. D’you want to come with me?’
Did I?! I felt like leaping in the air. ‘Saturday …’ I said thoughtfully. ‘Yeah, I think that’ll be all right. Shall I come round for you?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I’ll meet you in town – in the square. Eleven o’clock all right?’
‘Fine,’ I said. Fine? Talk about that word being the understatement of the year!
We walked on, his arm still draped around my shoulders. I would have given anything for Astra to come along and see us.
I left him at the end of my road (I think he might have kissed me but people kept walking by) went straight in and picked up the phone.
‘About Saturday,’ I said to Astra. ‘I won’t be able to make it. I’ve got to go out with my mum and dad.’
‘Oh, that’s all right,’ she said, cool as anything. ‘I’ve got something else on as well, actually.’
‘So that’s OK, then.’
‘Sure.’
‘See you at school tomorrow!’ I said in as friendly a voice as possible, and put down the phone.
Oh, it was going to be difficult, but she’d just have to face up to it. Ben and I had a date. It was me he’d asked out, not her …
Chapter Eleven
Saturday, 29th October
ASTRA
I was up at seven o’clock this morning and in the bathroom at half-past. Mum shouted to me, asking what was going on and what was I doing up so early when it wasn’t a school day, but I just had my shower, using all my best Body Shop shower gels and creams, and then crept back in my bedroom. I looked outside to see what the weather was doing and then I started delving into my wardrobe, dragging out clothes and trying to make up my mind what to wear.
What was suitable for a day in town with the boy you fancied? Were we going to go shopping, or for a walk, or maybe (was it a real date?) for something to eat and then to the cinema? At school, Ben had only seen me in jeans and sweat shirts, but now I had a chance to show off a bit.
I just couldn’t decide, and I felt myself beginning to get a bit stressed, so I put on a pipe music tape that I’d bought from the crystal shop and tried to calm down. I heard the newspaper arrive, got it out of the door and looked to see what they predicted for Gemini today, for me and Ben.
It said: Life’s difficult issues often turn out to be the most rewarding, and if you refuse to be downcast by what seems to be a setback, things may turn out to be for the best. Put your natural talents to good use, and you can’t possibly fail.
I folded it up again. It could mean anything. Of course, I knew that daily horoscopes were pretty vague and I was saving to have a personal horoscope done, but I didn’t like the sound of. refuse to be downcast by what seems to be a setback … What did it mean?
I gave up on the horoscope and went back to worrying about what I was going to wear. After putting on about twenty different outfits, decided on a really long purple skirt a tie-dyed blouse and a black waistcoat with silver embroidery on it. I also painted my toe nails silver so you could see them through my thong sandles (I wanted to wear these, even though it was quite cold), and put on five different silvery necklaces. Once dressed, I darkened round my eyes with loads of kohl and put on some plummy coloured lipstick.
I brushed my hair and tried to make it look a bit messy and more interesting with gel, then studied the whole effect in my bedroom mirror.
I sighed, unsure. I thought I looked OK – I certainly looked different from how I looked every day – but I really couldn’t say for definite whether it looked right or was too over the top. Before, I’d always had Chelsea to ask; for years we’d always told each other what looked good and what didn’t, but even if she’d been here now I wouldn’t have been able to trust what she said. It was quite likely, the way things were between us, that she’d say I looked fantastic when I looked daft.
I studied my reflection again, trying to look at myself through his eyes. I nodded slowly … yes, I was fairly sure that a boy who lived with an eccentric old granny in a caravan would prefer to go out with a girl who dressed in an interestingly different way, rather than one who went along with high street fashion and looked like everyone else. Rather than someone like Chelsea, in other words.
I thought about Chelsea, glancing at the photographs of us that were pinned all over my notice board. They went way back: there were photos of us on holiday last year, photos of us at Chelsea’s tenth birthday party, posing by the huge cake her mother had ordered from Harrods, and photos of us holding hands on our first day at playgroup.
When we were small Chelsea and I had looked quite alike: our hair was quite short then, and we’d worn it in the same style. We were exactly the same height and size and we used to wear the same type of clothes, too. Sometimes, when we were playing, we pretended we were sisters. The older we got, though, the more unlike each other in looks we became. But we still shared everything and were still best friends.
Now we don’t look anything alike; I’ve got secrets from her and I don’t even know if we’re still best friends.
But she’s got a secret, too. The card she’d sent him – what had it meant? Maybe, I mused, it was all on her side: Chelsea, coming on too strong again. She sometimes did that – went after boys and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Last year she’d sent five different Valentine cards – and once she’d sat outside a boy’s house all day waiting to talk to him, refusing to budge. In the end his mum had appeared and asked her to go home.
Maybe she was being like that with Ben; making a nuisance of herself. And Ben, being the sort of boy he was, didn’t like to say anything to her in case it hurt her feelings. Maybe he’d say something to me. Perhaps I’d have to tell her, very gently, that he just didn’t fancy her …
Once I’d finished doing myself up, I had to get out of the house without Mum seeing me, so I waited until she was in the shower, then shouted to her that I was going shopping and wasn’t sure what time I’d be back. I didn’t want to get into a discuss
ion about what I was wearing, and definitely didn’t want to get into a discussion about boys and dates and all that stuff.
I got to the square early – miles too early. I went into one of the big shops, agonised at myself in the loo mirror, wasted a bit of time spraying myself with perfume and looking at tights and then went out again.
It was eleven o’clock. As I walked back towards the square, holding on to the crystal in my pocket to give me the right vibes, I wondered to myself what it would be like when we saw each other. Would we be different out of school, and was this the beginning of a new sort of relationship for us? Should I kiss him on the cheek when we met, or would we hug, or would we not do anything – just be embarrassed and awkward with each other? Would it not be like any of those; would it be like in the movies where everything goes fuzzy and beautiful and the couple run towards each other in slow motion?
I almost giggled to myself when I had that thought, and that helped in a way, because when I came round the corner into the square I was still smiling. This smile – I hope – hid the shock I got just a moment later.
Ben was sitting, reading a paperback, on the low wall which runs round part of the square. He was wearing the jeans he wears to school but he had a new dark green shirt with the sleeves pushed up and showing his brown arms. He didn’t look up as I approached and I had time to really stare at him, thinking to myself how fantastic he looked and how mad I was about him.
Suddenly though, horribly, unbelievably, I saw her: Chelsea, walking from the opposite corner of the square straight towards Ben. She looked across and saw me at exactly the same time as I saw her, and though a flicker of shock flashed across her face, her swingy, confident stride never faltered.
I don’t know how I looked on the outside, whether my stride faltered, but I felt all the stuffing go out of my body and my legs go wobbly so that I could have just doubled up and collapsed in a heap. Only by a sheer effort did I keep the smile fixed on my face and keep walking towards Ben, one step in front of another automatically, like a robot.
He looked up just as we reached him.
‘Hi!’ he said, perfectly easily. And he looked from one to the other of us and smiled.
Chelsea tossed her hair – I could see she’d just washed it, because it was a bit frizzy – and sat down next to him. She was wearing a cropped white T-shirt and a tight skirt which was miles too short and showed off loads of leg. My first thought was that she looked tarty – and my second thought was that she looked slick and modern and that I, in my technicolour dream clothes, was stupidly overdressed – an Abba lookalike.
Ben was sitting next to a concrete planter, and I wasn’t going to sit down next to her, so I just stood there like a lemon. The silly smile was still on my face and I didn’t know what to do with it. It didn’t seem to be fading naturally but just stayed there, stuck.
They both looked up at me.
‘So, what shall we do, then?’ Ben asked. ‘What is there to do around here on a Saturday?’
I just stared at him bleakly. I couldn’t think of what to say, how to act, or what I was doing there at all. Why didn’t someone tell me what was going on? I clung on to the crystal as if I was drowning, but I can’t say it helped.
‘We could go and have a hamburger, or we could walk by the river,’ Chelsea said in a strangled voice.
I looked at her. She was talking like that beause she was trying not to laugh!
It was then that the smile disappeared altogether. I’d been set up! She was just having a laugh at my expense!
‘How could you!’ I gasped. ‘You … you …’ I wanted to call her all the awful names under the sun but the words wouldn’t come. ‘I hate you!’ I burst out, and then I just turned on my heel, ran across the square and away from them both, my stupid long skirt getting tangled in my legs as I ran.
I hated her! I hated them both! I ran home, crying all the way. When I got in I went straight upstairs, locked myself in my room and tore down every single photograph that had Chelsea in it.
She’d got at him! She’d got at him with her flirty ways and she’d taken him away from me. She’d led him on and promised him – well, who knew what. Everything, probably.
She was a sly, treacherous cow. How could she do such a thing to me?
I hated her. Hated, despised and loathed her. She wasn’t my best friend and she never would be again.
Chapter Twelve
Saturday, 29th October
CHELSEA
‘God, what was that all about?’ Ben said as we watched Astra run across the square, clothes flying around her.
‘I … I don’t know,’ I faltered.
‘I mean – how did she get here? Did you tell her you were meeting me?’
‘Of course not!’ I said.
‘She must have found out, then.’ He shrugged his shoulders, ‘somehow …’
I stared at the ground and swallowed hard. I felt awful. Someone must have told Astra about Ben and me – or perhaps Ben had told one of the boys and she’d overheard – and she’d decided to come and see for herself.
I nibbled at my lip worriedly, wondering what to do.
‘I feel terrible,’ I said to Ben. ‘D’you think I ought to go after her?’
He raised his eyebrows. ‘Why?’
‘Because …’ I swallowed, ‘she thinks we did it deliberately. She thinks I was laughing at her.’
‘But you weren’t.’
‘No, I …well, it wasn’t a real laugh. It was sort of hysterical – you know, when you don’t know whether to laugh or cry.’
‘Just leave her,’ Ben said with a shrug. ‘It’s her problem, not ours.’
‘But …’
‘She’s a bit of a silly cow, isn’t she?’ he said bluntly. ‘What did she expect? If she knew I was meeting you, she shouldn’t have just turned up, should she?’
‘What was it she said – something about us setting her up?
‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘She was just raving on. She’s jealous of you, that’s all. That’s what’s behind it.’
‘Is she?’
‘Course. You’ve got the looks and you’ve got the style.’
‘Have I?’ I gulped. I’d thought she looked quite good, actually. Grunge and wild-child.
‘I mean, what was she wearing? Outta date. Outta sight.’
I giggled nervously, disloyally.
He traced a line around my cheek with his finger. ‘Whenever you get two friends together you get beauty … and you get the beast.’
‘She’s not that bad! She’s quite pretty, really.’
‘Not only that – you’ve got all the personality.’
‘Oh, go on …’
‘I just think she must have realised I was meeting you, and decided to turn up and spoil things,’ he said.
‘But why would she just appear? I can’t believe anyone would just …’
‘Perhaps you don’t really know her,’ Ben said. He put an arm round me. ‘Look, can we forget about her? It’s bad enough having her hang around at school all the time without having her on a date.’
‘Yes. Sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s just that she and I have gone round together for years and nothing like this has ever happened before. It’s going to be really weird not being friends with her …’
Ben tipped up my face to his. ‘Who’s more important,’ he asked, ‘me or her?’
I didn’t even have to think. ‘You.’
‘So forget about her.’
‘OK,’ I gulped.
He stood up. ‘Let’s go, then!’
We went. And though I tried to forget about Astra, it was difficult. I kept seeing her eyes as she looked from Ben to me and back again. I kept seeing her face crumple into tears.
I don’t think this made me very good company. I did my best, though. We went to the shops and he bought a pair of jeans, and then I bought a skirt on Mum’s storecard and bought him a jumper on it as well. Well, I knew Mum hardly ever bothered to check on what was on there. If
she did, then I’d say it was for me.
I’d hoped that Ben and I would go on somewhere; have something to eat out, perhaps, or go to the Screen on the Hill, but when we came out of the shopping arcade he suddenly stopped dead.
I was asking him about where he lived at the time, trying to pin him down, quite sure that he must be in one of the Highgate Road houses, when he suddenly looked at his watch.
‘I’ve got to go now.’
I looked at him, bewildered. ‘Why?’
‘I’ve just remembered that I’ve got to be at home. Visitors – important visitors. I promised my dad.’
‘I’ll walk back with you, shall I?’ I asked eagerly, wondering who they were, and if he’d ask me in.
He shook his head. ‘No, you finish your shopping.’
‘But when will I see you?’ I said, forgetting to be cool. ‘It’s Sarah’s party on Monday. D’you want to come round for me?’
‘I’ll ring you!’ There was a shop doorway nearby and he suddenly pulled me into it and put both arms around me.
‘I’ll ring you tomorrow. OK?’ he said into my ear.
I shivered all over. ‘OK.’
‘And until then …’ He gave me a brief smile and he kissed me, quite hard, quite swiftly, and then he just let me go and walked off, leaving me standing there.
I just stood there, stunned, feeling awkward and abandoned, not knowing what to do. I felt all mixedup. I’d been kissed by a few boys before, but never like that. I’d never been kissed and just left standing.
Eventually, I caught the bus home. When I got in, Mum came out of the sitting room and asked me where I’d been.
‘Shopping,’ I said, not wanting to talk.
‘Did you go with Astra?’
‘No,’ I said, wondering where this was leading. ‘Why?’
‘Because her mother’s been on the phone. Apparently Astra went out shopping – her mother thought with you – but she came home early crying her eyes out.’
