‘You do understand why you can’t tell anyone about this, don’t you?’ I asked as we finished our starter. ‘It’s not just about us meeting in secret, no one must ever know that we came here to Biasi’s. Dad would go ballistic if he knew that I’d defied him as well as Nesta.’
Lucy nodded. ‘I do. Nesta’s told me what’s been going on.’
‘Yeah. It’s like a war zone at home with her and Dad arguing. I’ve never seen Dad being so unreasonable before – but you saw, you were there the first night Dad saw Luke.’
‘Will Luke be working here tonight?’ asked Lucy.
‘No. He does the acting course with Nesta on a Wednesday.’
‘She told me that she found out that your dad knew Luke’s dad when they were younger.’
‘Yeah, they were best of friends apparently, but then Nesta got carried away trying to work out why Dad had fallen out with Mr De Biasi —’
‘I know,’ Lucy interrupted. ‘She told me that she thought that Luke was your dad’s secret love child . . . ’
‘Yeah and that she’d been snogging her own brother. God, she’s priceless. She told me that she decided that Dad had been in love with Mrs De Biasi before he was married and Mr De Biasi stole her from him. None of which was true. But listen, enough about Nesta. I am not going to let her take over my night with you. She gets enough of the limelight as it is.’
I leaned over and took her hand. ‘Tonight, my Juicy Lucy, is about us. Let’s forget about everything else.’ I looked deeply into her eyes and she blushed as the waiter glanced at her and gave her a conspiratorial wink. I love the way she turns pink so easily.
Lucy nodded. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘Let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?’
I laughed. ‘No, let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about you. What do you think of me?’
Lucy laughed.
It was so easy being with her. We’ve got each other’s sense of humour.
‘We’ll go out again, won’t we?’ I asked.
‘Um. Yeah.’
‘And it’s got a nice atmosphere here, hasn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ said Lucy. ‘Is this where you bring all your girlfriends?’
‘Only the special ones,’ I joked, but this time Lucy didn’t laugh. ‘You OK?’ I asked.
‘Yeah. Fine. Um, just thinking about secrets and mates and . . . you know, just thinking.’
Lucy’s Diary
30th September
Too many secrets!
My secret supper with Tony.
Secret snogs with above.
That Tony was my secret mystery contestant. I might tell him one day. Not yet.
A secret part of me wonders if the reason why he wants everything to be secret is because secretly he thinks I am too young for him and fears that secretly, so would everyone else.
I’d had enough of all the secrets so told Izzie about my secret meetings with Tony. She laughed her head off. ‘I knew, you dingbat,’ she said. ‘You can’t hide anything from me.’ Sometimes I think she is a witch. She said that it was her secret that she knew my secret. Hahahahaha – though I didn’t tell her about the birthday dinner because I’d promised Tony.
Felt good that Izzie knows. I hated keeping secrets from her more than anyone because we have always shared everything. I asked if she had minded me not telling her and she said that she had in the beginning and would have minded if I had never told her, but now that I had told her, it proved that I trusted her and so everything was cool again. I do love her.
When I told TJ however, she said the opposite of what Izzie had said and that a clandestine affair was the stuff of great romantic novels. Forbidden fruit and all that. She has been reading a book called Lady Chatterley’s Lover and she said that was all about a secret love affair between a posh lady and her gardener. I hope he was nothing like the man who does our garden. He’s ancient with bandy legs.
When I finally told Nesta the truth, she said that she would kill Tony. I had to beg her not to and that if she killed him then she had to kill me too. And then I had to swear them all to secrecy about having told my secret about seeing Tony.
Anyway, I’ve spent ages trying to decide what to do about Tony. I can’t go on as we are because it’s doing my head in. Izzie thinks that I should tell him that our relationship should be a ‘public’ one but I explained to her that no way is he ready for that and he will just freak if I lay my cards on the table. Sometimes I think that I should simply call the whole thing off. At least then I could get on with my life.
‘You serious?’ asked Rob as we made our way to the science lab. ‘The love meister is actually going to settle down with a girl?’
‘He is,’ I replied. ‘I’ve been thinking about it for a while now and I reckon the time is right.’
Rob shook his head. ‘Never thought I’d see the day.’
‘Why not? You and Hannah are going strong, why not me too?’ I began to sing. ‘Lub is in de air, oobala oobala. Yes. For the first time, I can see the strong points for a steady relationship. Someone to talk stuff over with, do things with and especially at this time with our A-levels – we both have to get our heads down.’
‘You sound like an old geezer. What about having a top babe to snog?’
‘Yeah, that too. Course. But if I am to get into Oxford, I need top grades. I don’t want the distractions of girls who are hyper-emotional, doing my head in with their demands and wanting to talk about their feelings all the time.’
‘Sooooo romantic,’ said Rob in a tone loaded with sarcasm. ‘You like Lucy because she isn’t demanding?’
‘No, way more than that. I like Lucy because she’s cool. She’s never done the clingy act. Plus I enjoy her company. She makes me laugh. Anyway, I’m going to tell her next time I see her. We’ve been sneaking around and nobody really knows that we like each other and are an item. It is time to go public.’
‘Poor girl,’ said Rob as he opened the lab door as if to let me in, then he tried to trip me up as I walked past him. Luckily I was wise to his pranks and flicked my leg behind his ankle so he almost went over.
Mr Roberts, our science teacher, glanced up and rolled his eyes.
Lucy was waiting for me at the top of the steps outside Highgate tube on Friday after school. She looked pale with the cold, which wasn’t surprising because it was freezing, more like February than October, and she only had a jacket on. I took my scarf off when I got to her, wound it around her neck then used both ends to pull her towards me so I could warm her up with a hug. She lurched slightly as if resisting but when I tugged a bit harder, she came forward and let me wrap my arms around her.
After a while I let her go and asked, ‘So what’s up?’
She grimaced. ‘Same ole at school.’
I scrutinised her face. ‘That all? You don’t look your usual daft self
She playfully punched me. ‘Let’s go and get a drink. I, er . . . wanted to talk to you about something.’
‘Sure,’ I said. As we walked over the road to a café, I marvelled at how she was the only girl who ever said something like that and it didn’t fill me with dread. Knowing her, she probably did simply want to talk something over. No biggie.
We reached the café and I got us drinks. A cappuccino for me, a blueberry smoothie for Lucy. I took them back to where she was perched on a stool by the window and sat beside her.
‘I’ve got good news,’ I said.
‘Let’s have it,’ said Lucy.
‘Oxford. Remember I did the entrance exam the other week?’
Lucy nodded.
‘I got a place. Well, maybe a place. OK, I have to get five million A stars but that’s OK. I’ll do it.’
Lucy smiled. ‘I’m sure you will. I reckon you could do anything if you put your mind to it.’ She looked pleased for me but distracted. Something was going on.
‘OK. What is it? Trouble at home?’
Lucy shook her head.
‘Mates?’
‘Nope. W
e’ve all been busy. Nesta’s loved up with Luke. TJ’s still seeing my brother. All like old married couples. I think Iz would like to meet someone but she’s holding out for the right guy. We had a long talk last time we saw each other though about soul mates.’
‘What was the verdict?”
‘We all thought something different. TJ doesn’t believe in them at all. She thinks it’s all down to chemistry.’
‘She would. What about you? What do you believe?’
Lucy shrugged. ‘Still thinking about it.’
‘Maybe you and me are soul mates? What do you think?’ I teased.
Lucy blushed then she looked anxious. ‘I . . . thing is . . . um . . . how can I put this?’
Maybe she’s sad about the fact that I will be going away to uni in a year, maybe that’s it. Yeah, probably is. But a year’s a long way off, I thought.
‘Are you sad because I will be leaving for uni, is that it?’
She burst out laughing. ‘You total bighead.’
‘Thank you,’ I said and bowed.
‘It’s not always about you, you know, um . . . though maybe it is sometimes, and . . . it is actually this time.’
‘Just spit it out, Lucy,’ I said, ‘I can tell you’re trying to say something and actually I have something I want to say to you too.’
‘You go first,’ said Lucy.
I shook my head. ‘No you. You started it.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I . . . I can’t go on as we have been. The secrecy and meeting when no one knows. I hate lying to people.’
I smiled, confident in what she was going to say next. That we should be an item. Go public. No wonder she had been nervous. She wasn’t to know that I was going to propose the same thing.
‘Go on,’ I said.
‘So . . . I suggest we take a break. As you said, you have your exams to think of and —’
‘A break?’
‘Yeah. Oh, come on, Tony, don’t pretend to be shocked. I know that you don’t do commitment and I would never be stupid enough to ask you. You’d run a mile and I don’t want to lose you as a friend. So, um, mates. Is that OK?’
‘Mates. I . . .’
‘What did you want to say?’ she blurted.
I had to think fast. ‘Exactly the same,’ I replied. Yes. Exams. Best have no distractions. Yes, I was going to say the same.’
Lucy punched the air. ‘I got there first. I win. Yay. Hey, are we a good match or what?’
‘The best,’ I said. Drat, I thought as I sipped my cappuccino. Guess it’s karma. At the beginning of the summer when she came to me thinking it was time to get serious, I blew her off. Now she’s doing the same to me. Should I tell her what I really wanted to say? I watched her drinking her smoothie. Maybe not. Bad timing. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Change the subject quick, mate, so she doesn’t see that I am lying.
‘So what else is new with Izzie and TJ?’ I asked.
Lucy grimaced again. ‘Don’t know. We’ve hardly seen each other. TJ’s gone down to Devon this weekend. Her sister’s getting married so they are talking weddings. She’s also been working on the school project about the history of London.’
‘Oh yeah, Nesta mentioned it.’
‘It’s huge, a few schools are joining together for it. TJ’s working with Luke, they’re doing places of interest. Izzie’s doing a bit about the development of religion and I’m doing costume.’
Watching her sip her smoothie and get a milk moustache made me smile. She was so cute. I didn’t want to be just her mate. Maybe I’d risk telling her what I’d meant to after all. ‘Actually Luce, I lied.’
She wiped her lip. ‘About what? You’re not going to Oxford. You’re really going to join the foreign legion because I have broken your heart?’
‘I will if you won’t go out with me. What I was going to say is . . . you, me, let’s do it properly. I don’t want to take a break. Let’s go public. Be a couple.’
She looked shocked. ‘As in a couple couple? Really?’
‘Really.’
‘Where’s the engagement ring?’
It was my turn to be shocked. Lucy laughed. ‘Joking,’ she said. ‘Got ya.’
I could see that she was chuffed though. Lucy doesn’t hide her feelings well. She didn’t say anything for a few moments, then she looked me up and down with a disdainful expression. ‘Be your girlfriend? Hmm. Let me think about it. Tell you what, I’ll get back to you,’ she said, then she smiled.
‘Thank you, Miss Lovering. I’d appreciate that.’
She slipped off her stool and leaned into kiss me.
Result, I thought.
Lucy’s Diary
5th October
I have a boyfriend. Me. Moi. Tony. Me and Tony. Tony and me. I never ever thought I’d write that for certain but he asked. He is. I am. Tadah. I felt like dancing all the way home after he’d asked me, in fact I did when I got to our road. Mrs Cousins over the road saw me and looked at me as if I was a lunatic so I did a quick burst of the Highland Fling for her. It’s such a lovely feeling, going to sleep at night and knowing that I will wake up being Tony-the-cutest-boy-in-North-London’s girlfriend. Official.
But oh my giddy aunt, other big news. TJ’s parents want to move to Devon. We are all well freaked about it, as is TJ. Major trauma, as Nesta said. I would miss her soooooo much. When Candice Carter heard the news, she asked if Steve would be free. I think she was joking. Sure she was joking in fact. Then I said he won’t be free because he’ll be having a long distance love affair with TJ. Usually TJ would have joined in and seen Candice off like ‘stay away from my man’ kind of thing but I noticed that TJ froze. I wonder if her and Steve have had a falling out, but maybe it’s because she’s so upset about leaving us all. Leaving Steve too. He really likes her. He put himself out to help her on the school project and spent all of the weekend traipsing all over Hampstead to get her shots of the houses where famous people had lived. I’ve never seen him like this over a girl before. They seem so right together, into the same stuff like books and art. Be fab if they got married and then she’d be my sister as well as my friend. Iz, Nesta and I could be bridesmaids.
School whizzed by after TJ’s bombshell, I didn’t have time to tell her my news about Tony and I going public. Course I’d told Nesta and Izzie the moment I’d left him at the tube on Friday night. Izzie was well pleased. Nesta was kind of happy for me, but I know she worries about Tony breaking my heart or messing me around. I’m the same about Steve and TJ so I can’t object.
In the meantime, Tony and Lucy. Lucy and Tony. It’s true. It’s official. Yahey.
‘So how’s it going with Lucy?’ Rob asked a couple of weeks later when he was round at my place having an after-school milkshake.
‘Good. Better than good,’ I said as I chopped bananas into the mix. We were a proper couple, seen out in public, acknowledged as Tony and Lucy. Lucy and Tony. It felt good – like getting a present you’ve wanted for ages and then it’s finally yours.
‘First base? Second base? Or have you got a home run and done the deed?’
I tapped my nose. ‘A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.’
Rob laughed. ‘So you have done it. You ole dog. AWOOOO.’
I didn’t say anything. I hadn’t even got past first base with Lucy and I didn’t want to push her. I wanted it to be right. I wasn’t going to tell Rob that though. No point in ruining the legend that is my love life.
I peeked out of the window. It was cold and bleak out there, the trees bare against a December sky. I got dressed and went down for breakfast.
Steve was already down. He looked his usual miserable self.
‘Uh,’ I said to him. I knew how to speak his language.
‘Uh,’ he replied without looking up.
I poured some muesli into a bowl and sat at the table. Moments later, Lal burst in. ‘Is that for real?’ he asked.
‘What for real?’ I asked.
‘That email from TJ?’
‘To who? To me?’ I asked. ‘Have you been looking at my mail?’
‘Not yours, dingbat,’ said Lal. ‘On ours.’ (Steve and Lal share a PC upstairs.)
Steve flushed slightly. ‘Have you been looking at my private email?’
‘I have. I wasn’t snooping. I —’
‘Yeah right,’ Steve interjected, then he turned to me. ‘You might as well know, Lucy. TJ dumped me. I got an email from her.’
‘Dump you by email? She wouldn’t.’
‘Well she did.’
‘Can I go and see?’
Steve shrugged. I got up and ran up the stairs to the boys’ room and looked on the computer. And there it was.
From: [email protected]
To: jamesblonde@psnet
Date: 12th December
Subject: Us
Dear Steve
I am writing to tell you that I can’t go out with you any more. I’m really sorry and I hope that you won’t be too upset. It’s not you. I think you’re fantastic. It’s me. But I’m not going to insult you by explaining or trying to make excuses. It’s never easy ending something and I’m keeping this short as it’s about the hundredth version I’ve written and I couldn’t find the right words in any of them.
I hope that you will always be my friend as you genuinely do mean a lot to me and I really enjoyed going out with you and I am sorry to do this by email, but will explain why I had to do this later.
Your friend
TJ
His friend? I thought. She was supposed to be my friend too. One of my best friends. What the heckity thump is she up to? I raced downstairs.
‘I am so sorry, Steve, I knew nothing about this,’ I said.
‘It’s not on, dumping someone by email,’ said Lal through a mouth of toast. ‘Totally out of order.’
‘Yeah? Since when have you been Mr Sensitivity? You OK, Steve?’ I asked.
Steve shrugged again. ‘Uh,’ he replied. I didn’t press him any more because Mum came in and if she got wind of what had happened, she’d make a big fuss and try to get him to talk about it and I wasn’t about to do that to Steve. I no longer felt like breakfast. I needed to get to school and find out why TJ had done this. She’d better have a good explanation, I thought as I put my jacket on. Although Steve and I didn’t talk much, he was my brother and I hated to see him hurt.
The Secret Story Page 10
