French Kiss Read online

  ‘But I can’t believe I’ll miss your birthday,’ she said, her voice going all squeaky.

  ‘Well, you can give me my present to take with me,’ was not the right thing for me to say, as I realised as soon as the words had left my mouth and her face kinda collapsed in on itself.

  She wanted me to tell her that I was going to miss her and how my birthday wouldn’t be the same without her and Dad having an argument about whether I was too old to still have candles on my cake. But it would have given her too much satisfaction. Then she tried to play with my hair. I reckon she’s having a mid-life crisis or something.

  Anyway, I’ve got more important things to worry about. Like, how will I cope spending five days in close proximity with Dylan? And will he try to kiss me again? And will I manage to be strong and stick to my decision to make a go of this thing with Josh? Josh is nice, super-nice, in fact, but I’m not sure if I want nice. All I know is that when I see Dylan and he gives me that look (the one where I get the feeling he can see through my clothes or something) I could forget that Josh ever existed.

  All this stuff rocketing round my head just makes me want to eat copious amounts of chocolate.

  16th March

  Shona’s invited herself over to stay tomorrow night. The official reason is so Dad can give us a lift to the coach on Friday but really she’s coming round so she can cut my fringe, make a couple of playlists and help me plan my Paris capsule wardrobe.

  The trip has become all about the clothes. We were sitting in the canteen just before I went off to Photography and all we could talk about was what we were going to wear.

  ‘Y’know how all those famous people reckon that they have one black dress, one pair of jeans, a cardie and two simple T-shirts that they can dress up or dress down?’ I whined. ‘Well, I don’t get it. How do I know what I’ll feel like wearing on Monday? Or what hairslides will suit my mood on Wednesday morning?’

  ‘It’s all rubbish, Edie,’ snorted Shona. ‘Famous people have walk-in closets stuffed full of designer outfits. And they get free clothes to go to swank parties in.’

  ‘It sucks,’ I said with such vehemence that Shona looked at me in surprise. ‘And they have stylists to help them put together their outfits.’

  ‘Even Ke$ha,’ Shona said, holding up her copy of Heat, which showed a picture of Ke$ha wearing something that looked like an explosion in a denim factory. ‘But you’ve got something that Ke$ha hasn’t. You have fashion sense.’

  She was right, I did. ‘And every morning I wake up and thank God for my unique ability to accessorise!’

  I giggled and even Shona managed to crack a smile, which was all that she’d allow herself when she thought something was really funny. Then suddenly I was plunged into darkness as someone put their hands over my eyes and a deep voice said, ‘Guess who?’

  I knew it was Dylan. I could smell the old leather of his jacket and the faint scent of oil-based paints. I didn’t know what to do. If I told him that I knew it was him, then it’d look as if I was really sad and obsessed. And if I just ignored him, I’d look stupid and like I couldn’t take a joke. So I just sat there frozen, kind of revelling in the touch of his hands on my face.

  ‘I think it’s an Art Boy,’ I said at last. ‘Yup, I can definitely smell Art Boy.’

  He took his hands away, brushing my cheek as he did so.

  ‘Edie’s having trouble planning her outfits for Paris,’ said Shona with another smile. That was almost two in five minutes, she was going to have to watch that.

  Dylan gave me a knowing look. ‘What? You can’t decide which Marc Jacobs dress to pack?’ he asked me with a teasing smile.

  I stuck my tongue out at him and then wondered if that was the wrong signal to send out to someone who was just a friend. ‘It’s OK for you. All you have to decide is which pair of tatty jeans and faded T-shirt to wear.’

  He failed to rise to the bait. ‘They may seem like tatty jeans and faded T-shirts to the untrained eye,’ Dylan informed me smugly, ‘but they’re actually really expensive designer clothes that just look like I found them in a skip.’

  ‘That job in Rhythm Records must pay really well,’ muttered Shona archly.

  Dylan ran a hand through his hair, mussing it up and I itched to smooth it down. ‘I’ve just spent the last week doing a portrait of this woman’s cat to get some extra cash. It was a nightmare. Look.’

  He pulled up the sleeve of his jacket to show two long cat scratches on the underside of his forearm. I couldn’t stop myself. I reached out a finger and touched the raised wound on the soft skin.

  ‘Nasty,’ I mumbled. I hadn’t realised that Shona was clueless about the pet portrait. I thought Dylan told her everything. I guess, he was worried that his couldn’t-give-a-fuck image would be shot to pieces if word got out that he was drawing old women’s pets to make a bit of cash for the trip to Paris.

  ‘You coming to class, Eeds?’ Dylan called over his shoulder as he’d already started walking away.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ I said to Shona, picking up my bag and walking over to Dylan who was waiting impatiently by the canteen doors.

  But I wished that I had skived off Photography because Dylan was being so scratchy.

  ‘You seeing the devoted Josh before you leave?’ he whispered to me, as Martyn banged on about our itinerary for Paris.

  ‘I’m seeing him tonight, if you must know,’ I hissed crossly. ‘Not that it’s any business of yours.’

  ‘I bet he’ll hold your hand and get all mopey ’cause you’re going to be away for five whole days. How will he manage without you?’

  ‘Very well, I should imagine,’ I snapped.

  ‘Yeah, right! He needs help crossing the road.’

  I shot him an extra special version of no. 3 from my evil glare collection.

  ‘Temper, temper,’ laughed Dylan, reaching out and grabbing my wrist. I tried to pull my hand away.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m just checking your pulse. Stress isn’t very good for you,’ Dylan said with a smirk.

  ‘Well, stop bugging me then.’

  Dylan was right. Josh took me to Pizza Express and spent an hour going on about how much he was going to miss me and how great I was and how he wouldn’t know what to do with himself.

  It’s flattering going out with a boy who thinks you’re completely ace, but sometimes I don’t know who this girl is that Josh thinks he’s so in love with. It doesn’t sound like me.

  ‘You won’t know I’m gone,’ I insisted. ‘Five days is, like, no time at all.’

  Josh pushed his floppy blond fringe out of his eyes and I wanted to scream at him to get his hair cut.

  ‘But I really wanted us to spend your birthday together,’ he moaned.

  I picked at a cold piece of garlic bread. ‘Look, Josh, I wish you were coming too, but you’re not so we’ll just have to make the best of it.’

  Josh just sighed heavily, which made me grit my teeth with irritation, and asked if I was going to finish the garlic bread.

  Josh walked me home and stopped when he got to the corner of my road.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked, hoping we weren’t going to have yet another discussion about me going to Paris.

  ‘Since I’m not going to see you on your birthday, I thought I’d give you your present now,’ he said, his voice trembling a little.

  I thought that this was his cue to grab me and kiss my face off – Dylan would – but instead he was rummaging in his pocket. Eventually, along with a couple of bus tickets and some bits of fluff, he produced a small, wrapped present.

  ‘You can open it now if you like,’ he said but I was already tearing off the paper to uncover a jewellery box.

  For one terrifying moment I thought it was an engagement ring and he was going to do something really stupid like propose to me. As I opened the box, I was rehearsing how I’d tell him that I was too young to commit myself, but it wasn’t a ring, it was a gold necklace with a charm
that said ‘I love you’ on it. I don’t want to sound like an ungrateful bitch, but it was dead naff. Josh looked at me expectantly and I couldn’t hurt his feelings. I reached up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. ‘Thanks Josh. It’s lovely,’ I lied. And then before he could reach for me, I gave his hand a quick squeeze, muttered something about my curfew and ran the last few yards home.

  17th March

  Shona was very underwhelmed when she saw the token of Josh’s affection.

  ‘Not really you, Edie,’ she said, wrinkling her nose when I showed her the necklace.

  ‘It was probably really expensive but I don’t like gold,’ I muttered, trying not to sound like a heartless ingrate. ‘I’d much rather have had, y’know, maybe one of those red enamel strawberries on a silver chain that we saw in town last week.’

  ‘Hmmm, that sounds far more like something Dylan would get a girl,’ Shona mused with an arch look in my direction.

  ‘Oh, shut up!’

  ‘Come on Edie, I know you’re still mad about him,’ Shona insisted. ‘All this “being friends” stuff doesn’t fool me. And when we get to romantic Paris, the city of lovers, who knows what might happen?’

  I threw a balled-up pair of socks at her. ‘Yeah, Shona, who knows what might happen? Like, you could knock off Mia and get back with Paul.’

  Shona raised her eyebrows, ‘Something like that, perhaps.’

  I sat down next to her on the bed. ‘Spill.’

  She stopped folding cardies and gave me a long look. ‘I am going to get back with Paul,’ she said fiercely. ‘Not if, but when. Mia’s just a temporary blip. I bet you a tenner that by the time we get back from Paris, Paul will be glued to my side.’

  I shrugged. ‘You sound like you’ve got it all worked out.’

  ‘You bet.’ Shona dug into her bag and squashed everything down to make more room. ‘I will end her if I have to.’

  She sounded positively scary and then I saw the box of condoms she was packing. I guess that if I thought about it, Shona and Paul probably had slept with each other (or at least thought about it) but there was no way that I was ready to get naked and horizontal with Dylan or Josh. Or, like, anyone for that matter.

  ‘Oh! So you and Paul were… y’know, sort of doing it?’

  ‘Well, yeah,’ she laughed. ‘We’re both nineteen. I forget what a baby you are.’

  ‘I’ll be seventeen next week,’ I pointed out.

  ‘So, you’re sweet sixteen now and never been kissed! Well, Dylan had something different to say on that particular subject.’

  I glared at her, but she was lying back on the bed, giggling at her own wit.

  ‘Are we going to do this packing or what?’

  Shona and I realised that if we combined our wardrobes, we’d both have twice as many outfits to go away with, but it was impossible to narrow down our fashion selections any further.

  ‘Do you really think we need to change for dinner every night?’ I asked doubtfully.

  ‘’Course. We need daywear for all that mooching around art galleries and evening wear for dining and clubbing.’

  ‘But jeans and leggings and jumpers are daywear, Shona, not cocktail dresses,’ I protested. All she’d packed was my entire collection of vintage frocks and beaded cardies. In her suitcase.

  ‘Huh! I laugh in the face of daywear,’ said Shona grandly.

  I started taking some of my stuff out of her suitcase. ‘I know we agreed to share our clothes but I seem to be the only one giving here.’

  Shona was idly flicking through my old CDs. She turned round to look at me, her eyes narrowing slightly.

  ‘What?’ I asked defensively, wondering if she’d found the McFly album that I’d hidden.

  ‘I was just thinking about how much you’ve changed since I first met you,’ Shona said. ‘You used to be really quiet, you wouldn’t say boo to a goose. And now you’re very mouthy. But in a good way,’ she added hastily when I shot her a look.

  ‘It was really hard moving to a new town,’ I muttered, sitting down on the bed again. I was suffering from severe packing fatigue. ‘When I started at college, Mia was the only person who talked to me, then she turned out to be a complete psycho. I felt like I had nobody to talk to, that everyone hated me. And I was really in awe of you, and Dylan, and Paul and Simon.’

  Shona sat down next to me and chuckled. ‘God, we thought you hated us. You always seemed to be in your own world. Sometimes I’d catch you looking at me like, like I’d just crawled out of the nearest rubbish dump.’

  ‘No I didn’t! I guess I’ve just got one of those faces. Besides, Mia told me that you and Dylan had some weird relationship where you’d get off with loads of people to make each other jealous.’

  ‘Mia!’ Shona said disparagingly. ‘How does she think of these things? Look, Dylan and I have known each other since nursery school. Snogging him would be like sucking face with my brother.’

  ‘Ewwwww.’

  ‘Exactly!’

  The packing took forever. I was so intent on organising the right combination of clothes and ripping tunes onto my iPod to listen to on the coach that it was two in the morning before I finally finished. Shona was already taking up most of the bed. She raised herself up on one elbow to survey my stuffed suitcase.

  ‘I can’t get the stupid thing to shut,’ I snarled, trying to force the top down.

  ‘Edie, this might be a really stupid question, but have you actually remembered to pack your camera?’

  Doh! ‘I knew there was something I’d forgotten.’

  Shona rolled her eyes. ‘And the fact that it’s primarily a trip for your Photography class just flew out of your head, right?’

  ‘You got any room in your suitcase?’

  It took another half hour to take everything out and start again. By the time I got into bed, Shona was fast asleep. I pushed her over to her side and re-claimed half of the duvet that she was hogging and tried to get myself into a sleepy frame of mind, but my head was buzzing.

  ‘Shona, you awake?’

  ‘No. What is it?’

  ‘Do you think Dylan fancies me?’

  ‘Um…’

  ‘I mean, has he said anything to you?’

  ‘Go to sleep, Edie.’

  Diary Two, Paris

  I know I’m going to get a severe dosage of repetitive strain injury but I have to write down everything that happened in Paris now that I’m finally back. Everything. Not how things tasted and looked and felt; all that travelogue malarkey. But the important stuff. What was said and done and every nuance and inflection of the saying and the doing. Just so I have proof that I was there and it wasn’t a dream. Although I guess at times it seemed more like a nightmare. And now everything’s different; things can’t go back. It’s like I’m not the same person any more, I’ve changed in all sorts of huge, important ways. But if you looked at me, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to tell.

  Plus there was serious shopping. So I’m going to write it all down now. In one go. And I’m not going to skip bits.

  Friday

  So it started like this.

  One minute I was looking at the clock and it was four in the morning, the next I could hear my mother yelling at me to get up.

  ‘Go ’way,’ I groaned, burrowing further into the pillows.

  ‘Edith! I won’t tell you again. It’s seven o’clock; you have to leave in half an hour. Shona’s already up and dressed.’

  I opened one eye. Mum and Shona were standing over me.

  I showed willing and inched one leg out from under the duvet.

  Mum sighed. ‘I haven’t got time for this. Shona, see if you can get her up, love. I’ll go and finish making breakfast.’

  Shona obviously didn’t believe in Mum’s gentle approach to getting me up, which is why I was shocked into full consciousness by what felt like a bucket of cold water being thrown over me.

  ‘You bitch!’

  Shona physically hauled me out of bed. ‘I didn’t kno
w your name was Edith,’ she grinned.

  ‘And nobody else had better find out,’ I hissed, staggering to the bathroom.

  ‘You’re not a morning person are you, kid?’

  I just had time to give her the finger before I slammed the bathroom door.

  We were the last ones to get on the coach. We’d held everyone up for fifteen minutes and clambered on to a round of sarcastic applause.