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‘I guess …’ I sucked in a deep breath and blinked back the tears. ‘Plenty more fish in the sea and all that, right?’
‘Right.’ Gemma’s eyes took on a glazed look and her head tilted in such a way that spelled danger.
‘Gemma,’ I said, adopting my stern tone. ‘What’s going through that scary brain of yours?’
‘Hmm?’ she said, the picture of innocence.
‘Don’t give me that. I’ve known you too long; the butter-wouldn’t-melt routine doesn’t work on me any more.’
‘I have no idea what you mean.’
‘You … that look … you were scheming again.’
Gemma dragged herself back from her stupor. ‘No, no, not scheming, just thinking.’
‘Same thing. Now spill!’ I said. She ignored me and slipped the car into gear, released the handbrake and pulled back onto the empty road. ‘OK, so what exactly were you thinking about?’
‘I’m not sure yet, Lena,’ she said, flicking a glance at me. ‘I need to sleep on it.’
‘Now you’re really scaring me.’
A smile broke over Gemma’s face and she laughed. ‘Just leave it with it me, OK? Right now, I’m more interested in getting you home in time for curfew.’
Damn it, she was right. I had only minutes left to get home, which meant I couldn’t keep pestering her about whatever plot was forming in that mind-boggling brain of hers. When she pulled up outside my house, I didn’t even have time to do more than shout goodbye and wave as I made a run for the front door.
I was still trying to figure out what she was thinking when the college bus dropped me off the next morning. Not paying attention to what was going on around me, I took a while to notice the girl blocking my locker. The shoes were the first thing I noticed. Nobody in their right mind wore three-inch peep-toe shoes to college. Correction: only one person would wear a pair of high-heeled peep-toe shoes to college.
A groan worked its way up my throat but I swallowed it back down. I really didn’t want to be proved right, but as I swept my gaze up and over a pair of skinny legs covered with thick nude-coloured tights, finally spotting a mini denim skirt that might as well have been a belt, teamed with a top she must have bought from the same shop I worked Saturdays in, the plunging neckline too memorable to forget in a hurry. I was in no doubt about who was waiting for me.
Alice Taylor.
Great!
I didn’t need to see the peroxide-blonde mane and trowelled-on makeup to confirm it: my eyes were already burning from seeing far too much of her. What the hell had I done to upset her this time?
‘Excuse me, Alice, I’d like to get to my locker.’ I figured it was worth a try.
Alice didn’t budge an inch. ‘You know, your parents totally screwed up when they chose your name: they should have called you Virginia instead.’ Her fake tinkly laugh rang out and her crones dutifully joined in, hovering around her like flies, their guffaws drawing even more attention to us.
‘Just do one, Malice,’ I said, in no mood for her bullshit. I looked her in the eye for the first time and had to stop myself laughing. She’d gone even more overboard than usual with the liquid eyeliner and resembled a panda. A panda who had been pulled through a hedge backwards judging from the bird’s nest that was her hair. The sad thing was, she’d actually be really pretty if she toned it down and wiped the permanent sneer off her face. ‘Why not run along with your little posse and find someone who cares for your little jokes?’
‘Aw, come on, don’t be like that,’ she said, her voice grating on my very last nerve. ‘Virginia has a far better ring to it, don’t you think? More suitable, like? You know. For someone like you.’
‘You’re hilarious. Really. I’m laughing so hard my insides hurt. Can’t you tell? Now will you shift so I can get to my locker? Please,’ I added for good measure.
‘Damian said you were a stuck-up bitch. No wonder he dumped you and came looking for me.’
Ouch!
‘Wow, really? He came looking for you? I could have sworn he said he was looking for a real girl. Mind you, he did seem more concerned about getting laid. Your reputation clearly precedes you.’ I wasn’t usually so bitchy but she’d caught me by surprise and pushed too many of my trigger buttons in the space of thirty seconds. Damian in particular was still a particularly touchy subject, after all.
‘And just what is that supposed to mean?’ Alice squared up to me as if she wanted a fight.
‘Let me put it this way …’ I said, matching her stance. Hell could freeze over before I let a troll like her intimidate me. ‘I’d rather be known as someone who doesn’t put out for anyone, than get a reputation as someone who puts out for everyone.’
‘You little bitch.’ She made a lunge to grab my hair but her expression and body language were far too easy to read, and her balance was hampered by her ridiculous shoes. I sidestepped and dodged her easily.
‘Come on, Malice, you can tell us,’ I said, raising my voice so that everyone in the rapidly filling foyer could hear. ‘Have you ever actually said no to anybody?’
Alice looked at the crowd gathering around us, then stared back at me with eyes filled with hatred. I’d really made it into her bad books this time.
‘I don’t have to put up with this,’ she spluttered, putting on a good show for the audience. She leaned in closer to me and dropped her voice. ‘You might just want to watch your back from now on, Virginia. Nobody pisses me off and gets away with it. Capiche?’
Did she really just ‘capiche’me? Like she’s some hotshot gangster now? I would have laughed if her cloying perfume hadn’t already attacked my nostrils, giving me an instant pounding headache.
‘Yeah, whatever, Malice. You know, there’s a name for people like you, too, but it’s not nice so I won’t say it. You’ll just have to figure it out for yourself.’ I didn’t think her eyes could get any wider, or wilder, but, if looks could kill, I’d be a corpse already. To be honest, I was past caring. I just wanted to be rid of her and her revolting perfume so that I could draw breath again. ‘Now will you please get out of my way? Some of us are actually here to get an education.’
Gemma timed her entrance to perfection, the crowd parting to let her through, with Chloe and Piper in position as her wingmen. Gemma looked formidable, and ready for battle. There was no love lost between Gemma and Alice, not since Alice had made a move on Ben and fallen flat on her face. Ben had not only rejected her, he’d gone straight to Gemma and told her all about it.
‘Quick, somebody call the caretaker!’ Gemma’s stage voice rang out loud and clear. ‘There’s some trash here that needs to be taken out.’ She earned a chorus of laughs as she walked towards us, then came to a standstill right beside me. ‘Christ, it reeks, too,’ she said, pinching her nose. ‘What did you do, Malice? Douse yourself in the whole bottle? Oh, never mind. I don’t expect you to have heard of the adage “less is more”.’
Outnumbered and outwitted, Alice liked confrontation only when she had the upper hand. With a toss of bird’s-nest hair, she and her crones took off, strutting towards the canteen. Rushing from the same direction, Flick dashed into view, red in the face as if she’d been running. She arrived at just the wrong the time, shoulder-barged aside, bearing the brunt of Alice’s frustration.
‘Hey,’ Flick protested, giving Alice daggers before joining us at the lockers. ‘Don’t tell me I missed it again!’
I shrugged. ‘Yep, sorry, Flick. The show’s over.’
‘Oh, man!’ she said, flopping back against the locker theatrically.
After Gemma, Flick was my second-best friend, which was handy, seeing that she was taking two of the same subjects as I was, but even thinking in those terms was too much like primary school and wreaked havoc with my newly acquired ‘adult’ mentality. A grin broke out on my face when I knew just what to say next to cheer her up.
‘Don’t worry, Flick, I’m sure there’ll be an encore. Alice did the whole gangsta capiche thing on me.’
‘No way. She actually capiche‘d you? Damn it, I miss all the best bits.’ Flick fixed her huge doe eyes on me before taking in the rest of the group. ‘Please tell me I wasn’t the only one to miss it this time.’
‘You weren’t,’ Gemma said. ‘None of us saw that one. Alice would be sporting a black eye if I’d been here for it.’
‘That would go down well on your college record.’
‘Be worth it, though,’ Gemma mumbled.
Finally able to get into my locker, I grabbed the textbooks I’d need for the morning classes as the girls swapped theories about what they would like to do to Malice. I tuned out, noticing only when they fell silent, the collective weight of their expectant stares boring into my back. I closed the steel door and slowly turned to face the people I considered my closest friends.
A ricochet of pointed glances darted around the group until Gemma stepped up as spokesperson, as usual. ‘So what did she want?’
Time to face the music, then …
‘It turns out Damian went straight off in search of her—’ I nodded towards the corridor Malice had stormed down ‘—straight after dumping me. She was just gloating, that’s all. Trying to wind me up.’
‘Well that sucks.’ Flick said.
The other girls murmured their agreement and all four of them placed their hands in a line on my uppermost arm—I didn’t even remember having crossed them in a show of solidarity and friendship.
‘Thanks. You guys are the best,’ I said, forcing a smile onto my face. ‘So Gemma—’
The bell went, cutting me off before I could resume my interrogation. Thanks to Malice, I’d run out of time and lunch break was hours away. I very nearly screamed. Aside from Flick, the others were in different classes from me, which meant more waiting. Just what I needed.
After a hasty goodbye, Gemma, Chloe and Piper set off in their variations directions, leaving Flick and me to wander off to our French class. Walking beside her, I could swear she’d grown even taller since Friday. I shot a glance down at her feet but she was in her usual flats, going for Mary Janes today rather than ballet pumps. Her long legs were encased in skinny jeans teamed with a floral floaty top, and her ebony hair was tied loosely in a bun to highlight her long neck.
Yep, Flick was the epitome of your typical ballet dancer. There had to be some Latino in her family somewhere: the girl had a permanent tan to make us all jealous. Her natural grace and elegance was misleading, though, and, if you went by appearances alone, you’d think of her as aloof and snooty, when in reality she was more like a tomboy trapped in a dancer’s body. Between her and Gemma, it’s a wonder I had any self-esteem at all, yet somehow it worked, and we all complemented each other.
Gemma was the cutesy bombshell with the wicked tongue and quick temper, most likely to marry rich and become famous some day; Flick was the elegant dancer with a mischievous streak and a steely ambition to get into the English National Ballet; Piper was the brainy academic, complete with designer glasses, and could easily become prime minister one day if she overcame her shyness; Chloe was the cuddlier maternal figure with a heart of gold, the one most likely to be married and surrounded by children before she was twenty-five; as for me, I had somehow fallen into the role of sporty, not that I was affiliated with a club any more, nor did I have a clue what I would end up doing when I was older.
The five of us could have been the newest girl band, a rival group to the Saturdays or Little Mix, apart from the fact half of us couldn’t sing. Or dance. And certainly not perform in public, since Piper would have a coronary. That thought alone was enough to put the grin back on my face as I took my usual seat and pulled out my books.
‘Bonjour, mesdames et messieurs,’ said Madame Clarke, the last to arrive as usual, calling the class to order. She wore a particularly flamboyant chiffon scarf around her neck today that didn’t go with the rest of her outfit at all. Yet more of her eccentric charm on display. I caught Flick’s eye and we shared a knowing smirk as Madame Clarke scurried between the rows of desks to take up her position at the front of the class. ‘Pouvez-vous tourner à la page deux-cent-soixante-dix-neuf, s’il vous plaît?’
French went well, even though I didn’t give two hoots about what Chantal and Jean-Pierre got up to in La Rochelle, and I scored the top mark of eighty-seven percent in my last essay. Result! English was next up, language rather than my preferred literature, but we were learning about the iambic pentameter, which meant dipping into Shakespeare, another of my favourites, finishing up with Romeo and Juliet.
By the time lunch came around, my good mood was back with a vengeance. Damian was history and Malice was welcome to the low-life. The Little Mix earworm I’d had in my head all morning had been replaced by the Montagues and Capulets theme, which of course made me think of StreetDance the movie, and brought with it images of the hunky actor-slash-dancer Richard Winsor who played lead, and gave me an idea.
I dashed to the canteen to find Flick—the only other person who actually knew who Richard Winsor was—to invite her back to my house straight after college. It must be months since we’d last seen the movie and a refresher was long overdue. I could ogle the men in their tights, and she could ogle the school building, just like old times. Win-win all around, if you asked me. Except I reached the canteen first, which struck me as a bit odd when my classroom was further away, and Flick was nowhere to be seen.
Thankfully, there was no sign of Malice, either. Hopefully too embarrassed to face everyone, unless she was just stuck in detention or sucking some schmuck’s face off somewhere. I wouldn’t put it past her to have blown college off after this morning’s botched showdown, either. Where she’d go was open to debate, and the rumours about her home life were rife, ranging from her living in a caravan in true ‘trailer trash’ style, to living with her mother and her mum’s sugar daddy in some fancy mansion. To be honest, I didn’t really care where Alice lived so long as she stayed out of my way and kept her nose out of my and my friends’ business.
At least our usual table was still free. I dumped my bag on a chair and joined the line of people queuing to get some food. The others still hadn’t shown up when I carried my tray back to the table. After another glance around the canteen, I was certain they weren’t just sitting somewhere else instead, and the first flutter of concern hit me, so I reached into my bag, grabbed my phone and checked for messages, but there was nothing. No new texts and no voicemail.
Where the hell were they?
For all four of them to be missing was just plain weird, ominous even, assuming they were all together somewhere. My stomach flipped, leaving me with a bad feeling and threatening to put me off my salad. The thought of their colluding without me was never a good thing. I dashed off a quick text to Gemma to check she was OK, my fingers flying across the touch-screen keypad, then propped my phone up against my bottle of water where I couldn’t miss it when—if—it went off.
Oh, well, there was nothing for it but to start without them. I snatched up my fork up and stabbed a piece of chicken with enough force to send the cherry tomatoes flying. Damn it! As I chewed, I popped them back onto my plate and stared at my phone, willing it to buzz. Ever hopeful—or delusional—I kept my eye on the main entrance but they still hadn’t turned up by the time I’d finished my salad.
Stuff them, then.
I had far better things to do than sit on my own getting pity looks, and I was done waiting. The sun was out for a start and I could be out in the fresh air rather than being stuck inside. As I pushed back, my chair made a dreadful scraping sound, like nails down a blackboard, attracting even more unwanted attention. The burning sensation in my face told me I’d gone as red as the tomatoes, so I bent my head and stowed my phone back into my bag to avoid making eye contact, then grabbed my apple.
Definitely time to get out of there.
I was halfway to standing when Gemma appeared through one of the side doors, closely followed by Flick, Chloe and Piper.
Gee, thanks for the invite, girls.
They made Charlie’s Angels look tame as they strode towards me en masse. My pulse spiked and I eyed the doorway, ready to flee, but there was no way I could get there in time.
‘I was just leaving,’ I said, trying to sound as if I didn’t give a damn, but my voice cracked and betrayed me. I collapsed back into my seat and glared at them instead. It was either get angry or burst into tears. ‘Where have you been?’ I demanded, my tone getting more high-pitched with each syllable.
‘Sorry,’ Gemma said, not sounding the slightest bit sorry. ‘I thought I’d texted you to say we were going to be a bit late, but I’ve just spotted the failed-delivery message. I must be out of credit after calling Ben during first break.’
‘So where were you? I asked, as Gemma plonked herself in the seat opposite me. Chloe and Piper took up the seats either side of me, and Flick chose the chair next to Gemma. ‘And what were you doing that took so long?’
Gemma quirked her perfectly plucked eyebrows at me. ‘This, my dear Lena, is an intervention.’
Chapter Two
INTERVENTION
‘A what?’
Heads turned to look at us, my words coming out louder than intended.
Gah!
Gemma waited until everybody had gone back to minding their own business. ‘An intervention,’ she said, completely matter-of-fact, using the same tone she’d use to tell me I had lettuce stuck in my teeth. ‘We, as in all four of us—’ she paused for dramatic effect and waved her hand to include Flick, Chloe and Piper ‘—are all agreed that you need our help.’
‘Is that so?’ I asked.
Flick suddenly seemed determined to avoid eye contact but I refused to let her off the hook. She finally gave in and offered me a small shrug, along with a resigned smile.
Not good.
The heavy feeling in my gut got even worse. ‘Help with what, exactly?’
Gemma met my glare head-on. ‘You need to lose your virginity.’
‘Pardon?’ I hissed, unable to believe my ears.
‘Don’t you see, Lena?’ she said, not backing down so much as an inch. ‘You have so many hang-ups about sex, you’re like a faulty telephone.’
‘You’re joking, right?’ I forced out a laugh. Gemma jutted out her jaw even further, not even a flicker of a smile. My nails pierced the apple, the juice running down my fingers to form a satisfying puddle on the table. ‘Don’t tell me this is your big plan.’
‘It’s a damn sight better than being dumped.’
‘Whoa, hang on,’ I said, narrowing my eyes to accuse each of them. ‘Are you all saying I should have slept with Damian?’
‘No way.’
‘Eww, no.’
‘Not at all.’
‘Nuh-uh.’
They all answered at the same time, their voices jumbled together so I couldn’t be sure who said what. At least we were all agreed on something.
‘You can do a million times better than him,’ Flick said.
‘Which is exactly what I said,’ Gemma said. ‘And that’s where we come in.’
