‘Edie! Where have you been?’ Shona yelled at me as she opened the door of our room. ‘I’ve been worried sick about you. I thought you’d been kidnapped or something.’
‘I’ve been shopping,’ I squealed. ‘I didn’t fancy the church and I was all depressed and I bought this fantastic dress.’
‘Ooh, let’s see!’
I took The Dress out of the pink carrier bag and held it out for Shona’s approval.
She gave a long whistle. ‘C’est très, très erm, groovy! Can I try it on?’
We were going to a French version of Pizza Hut for dinner but I still decided to get all dolled up. I mean, it was my birthday. But really I just wanted an excuse to wear The Dress. I was just zipping up my black, knee-high boots when I looked up to see that Shona had a really serious expression on her face.
My heart sank. She was going to talk to me about Dylan, I just knew it. And I’d almost managed to stop thinking about him. ‘Look, Edie,’ she began uncomfortably. ‘I know it’s your birthday but I haven’t told anyone.’
‘Er, OK. Why?’
She sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Well, it’s just nobody’s got any money and well, I didn’t want them to be embarrassed about not getting you a present. I hope you don’t mind.’
To be truthful, I did mind a little but I could also understand where Shona was coming from. Sort of.
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said, giving her a smile. ‘But you got me a present, right?’
Shona rolled her eyes at me. ‘I wondered how long you’d last before you asked!’ She rooted round on top of the wardrobe (I hadn’t thought of looking there) and handed me a small parcel. ‘Here you are, kid.’
I tore off the glittery paper excitedly and opened the tiny box I’d uncovered. Inside was a gorgeous silver necklace with tiny pink stones strung on it.
‘Aw, it’s beautiful,’ I gasped. ‘And it matches my dress. Thanks, Shona.’
I jumped up and gave her a hug.
‘Happy birthday, Edie.’
I was determined to have a good time at dinner. But it was difficult. It really wasn’t me being paranoid; everyone was being dead whispery. And Dylan looked like he was carrying the weight of the world (and the whole damn solar system too) on his shoulders.
He sat on the next table to me and I could see Simon trying to talk to him and getting ignored. I don’t know how Dylan could think he was less moody than me. He could win Olympic medals for moodiness. I didn’t flatter myself that Dylan was upset over what had happened between us – I think we’ve already established that he’s king of the moody boys – but I wished that we could be friends. I was dying to tell him about the street artists and the jugglers (Dylan thinks that the only good juggler is a dead juggler), but it wasn’t going to happen.
There was a hairy moment when Tania demanded to know why I hadn’t made it to the Sacré-Coeur but I muttered something about how I’d wanted to take photos of normal Parisians and Martyn was so chuffed that one of his students had shown a bit of initiative that she’d had to let it go. Also Nat and Trent had slipped me a gift as I passed them on the way to the loo. The pack of feminist fridge magnets was just what I needed!
‘I love the magnets,’ I hissed at them as I sat down again. ‘So, shall we go to a club after this?’
They exchanged a look, like they’d been doing for the last couple of days.
‘Do I smell or something?’ I demanded to know.
‘What are you on about?’ asked Nat.
‘Everyone’s being really odd,’ I said darkly.
‘You’re the one who’s being odd,’ teased Trent. ‘Anyway, I’m knackered, I don’t think I can be arsed to go to a club. I know it’s your birthday an’ all… Ow!’
He looked at Nat and they both giggled.
‘You two can be so immature,’ I said crossly.
Shona and Paul wanted to go back to the hotel as well. I wasn’t about to ask Dylan if he fancied clubbing it. I mean, I know we weren’t friends any more but it wouldn’t have killed him to wish me a happy birthday, as I said to Shona as we strolled arm in arm back to Hôtel Du Lac.
‘Dylan’s not very good about remembering people’s birthdays,’ she said lightly. ‘I’m still waiting for my birthday present and that was, like, months ago.’
‘He hates me,’ I commented.
‘He doesn’t hate you Edie,’ Shona contradicted me. ‘You’re just not his favourite person at the moment.’
‘Same diff— The hotel’s down there,’ I added as she took a left.
‘Short cut.’
‘Are you sure, Shona?’ I said worriedly. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Trust me,’ she insisted.
We walked along the street for a bit and I realised that we were on our own.
‘Shona, I think we’re lost,’ I hissed. ‘The others have disappeared.’
‘D’you reckon?’ she said, sounding remarkably unbothered.
‘What are we going to do?’ I whined.
‘You know, I think we should go to a club after all. Just the two of us. What do you think?’ she suddenly announced.
I wasn’t convinced. ‘Not on our own. Not in the middle of the red-light district,’ I said gloomily.
‘Oh come on, it’ll be a laugh,’ Shona said, grinning. ‘Look, let’s try that place down there.’ She pointed to a neon sign further along the street and started dragging me, protesting, towards it.
‘I’m not sure, Shona. It could be full of weird people,’ I said.
But Shona was already pulling me towards the entrance. ‘Look, we’ll just poke our heads round the door and if you don’t like it we’ll try somewhere else,’ she promised.
‘Well, it doesn’t look very busy,’ I pointed out as we entered the lobby. ‘And it’s dead quiet.’
I pulled open a door which I thought might lead to the main room of the club and then everything exploded around me. The lights suddenly blazed on, streamers were going off over my head and Nat and Trent and Paul and Simon were hugging me and shouting.
I turned to Shona who was laughing at me.
‘Jesus, Edie, you can be so dopey sometimes. It’s your surprise birthday party, you idiot!’
Monday, late
I was so relieved! Not only was I going to get a proper birthday but no-one hated me. All the whispering had been about the party.
‘I can’t believe you managed to keep it a secret from me,’ I said to Shona as she led me to a table.
‘I can’t believe it was so easy,’ she said, cackling. ‘I’ve never realised how unaware of stuff you are. You were so busy angsting over you-know-who, that everything else just passed you by.’
‘Is he here?’ I couldn’t help myself asking, though I didn’t really want to know the answer.
‘I don’t think so. Do you want me to ask Paul?’
‘No, it’s all right,’ I muttered. ‘I can understand why he’s ducked out.’ I managed to smile at her. ‘I’m going to have a good time, with or without him.’
Funnily enough, I did have an ace time. The DJ played lots of shouty, dancey music, Nat and Trent carried in a birthday cake with seventeen candles on it and Martyn let me have a couple of glasses of fizzy wine that he pretended was champagne. As if!
Maybe it was my beautiful new dress or the fact that everyone had made such an effort to plan a surprise party for me, but I felt like the girl with the most cake. Almost.
I think I danced with every single art boy at least twice and I was mucking about on the dancefloor with Nat and Trent when I looked up and thought I saw Dylan standing by the DJ booth. When I looked again, he’d gone. Then I saw him. He was standing slouched against the wall, frowning at me.
It was my birthday and I didn’t want it to be like this between us.
I adjusted my resolve face and marched over.
‘Hey,’ I said.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Hey, yourself.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Do you want to dance?’
> Dylan shrugged. ‘I don’t do dancing.’
He wasn’t going to make this easy for me but it was one of those moments when I knew that what I decided to do next would change the whole pattern of my life forever. I could either walk away and forget about Dylan or I could do what I did, which was grab his hand and pull him towards the dancefloor.
‘Oh, leave me alone, Edie,’ he groaned, but he didn’t pull away.
‘It’s my birthday,’ I pleaded. ‘Do you hate me so much that you won’t even dance with me?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t hate you. You annoy the hell out of me sometimes but I don’t hate you.’
That was as good as it was gonna get but then the DJ started playing Here Comes The Sun by the Beatles and Dylan took my hands and we started dancing.
Well, I say dancing but mostly I just kept my feet moving and hoped that I was kind of in time with the music. But I figured, what the hell, I was wearing a magic dress and Dylan was holding my hands and the Beatles were singing, ‘It’s all right…’ and in that moment I knew that things were going to be OK.
The song seemed to finish as soon as it started but Dylan didn’t let go of my hands.
‘I think the club closes in a little while,’ he said. ‘Shall we get out of here?’
I thought about it for a fraction of a second before nodding.
‘Wait for me by the door and I’ll go and get your coat.’ He let go of my hands and gave me a little push towards the exit. I stood there and watched Dylan hunt for my coat and have a word with Shona. She seemed to be giving him a hard time, but he didn’t look too bothered. Then he started walking over to me and I stared at the floor like it was the most interesting floor I’d ever seen. The sight of Dylan loping across the dancefloor with his loose-limbed walk was doing flippy things to my stomach.
He held out my coat and helped me into it, just like the men do in those black-and-white films they always show on BBC2 on Sunday afternoons.
‘You ready?’ he asked but it wasn’t a question, more like a statement.
‘What about my stuff?’
‘Shona will sort it out,’ he said, grabbing my hand again before leading me through the door and up the stairs to the street.
‘I don’t think you’ve ever walked me home before,’ I said as we walked along the road.
‘Oh, I thought we’d find a café,’ said Dylan casually. ‘Y’know have a drink, or something. We need to talk, don’t we?’
I hate it when people say that. It’s the phrase that my mum always uses when she’s about to lecture me about my bad attitude or lack of motivation: ‘We need to talk.’
Dylan took my lack of response as a yes and was already pulling me across the street towards the same café that Shona and I had gone to a couple of nights before.
‘D’you want a beer?’ Dylan asked me, once we got inside.
I pulled a face. I hate the taste of beer. ‘A cup of tea please,’ I said. ‘I’ll go and find a table.’
I chose a table pushed far into the corner where it was dark so I wouldn’t make a show of myself if I started crying and sat down with my back to the wall. Dylan was at the counter, pointing at the beer in the chiller cabinet and trying to mime the actions for a cup of tea. It was comforting that he didn’t always get to be the cool one.
He walked to the table, rolling his eyes at me as if to say, ‘I was a bit crap then, wasn’t I?’
As he put the drinks on the table and sat down I noticed an envelope balanced on my saucer.
‘What’s this then?’
He smiled warily at me. ‘You didn’t think I’d forget your birthday, did you? Open it.’
I tore open the envelope and pulled out a card. It had a fluffy kitten chasing a bauble on the front of it. I gave him a look.
‘It’s meant to be ironic, OK?’ he murmured.
I opened the card and a Polaroid fell on to the table-top.
Dylan picked it up and handed it to me. ‘This is your birthday present. I was going to give it to you when we got back home.’
It was a picture of me! Dylan had taken a photo of me, reproduced the image twelve times, each time painting my hair and my eyelids and my mouth a different colour. It was like those famous Andy Warhol silkscreens of Marilyn Monroe.
‘Wow!’ I whispered. ‘I don’t know what to say. It’s fantastic.’
‘I figured you’d like it,’ Dylan commented.
I opened the birthday card again to read the message inside. Dylan had written, ‘To Edie, Happy Birthday. I wish you everything that you’d wish for yourself. Dylan.’ Cryptic much. There were no kisses after his name.
I took a sip of tea. Dylan was looking at me from under his lashes; it was a cool, considered look, as if he was weighing me up, trying to judge what kind of mood I was in. It made me feel very awkward. I started burbling on about what I’d been doing that day, the jugglers and the pink shop. I rattled on and on but I got no reaction from Dylan. Eventually I had to pause for breath.
‘What are we going to do?’ he said bluntly.
‘About what?’
His lips twisted. ‘About us,’ he stated firmly. ‘We can’t go on like this, can we?’
I shook my head. ‘I guess not. So, do you think we can be friends? Do you think we can, sort of, um, stop kissing?’
Dylan stared at me and for a moment I didn’t think he was going to reply.
‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said with a sigh.
‘You don’t think we can be friends any more?’ I asked in a broken whisper. My right hand, which had been resting on the table, started shaking. Like, I had no control over what it was doing. Dylan reached out and gently covered my cold hand with one of his.
‘No, I don’t think we can stop the kisses,’ he told me. ‘They’re too good. I feel like my life is just periods of waiting before I get to kiss you again.’
I think, at that point, my heart missed a beat. And then I said it right away while I still had the guts to say it.
‘I love you,’ I choked out. ‘I can’t help it. And I know you’ll come up with a million reasons why we can’t go out with each other, but that’s my one good reason why we should.’
I looked Dylan right in the eye and he looked straight back at me. It was impossible to suss out what was going through his head. He was stroking the underside of my wrist in an absent-minded way before he grabbed both of my hands and gave them a little shake.
‘Listen to me Edie,’ he said urgently. ‘I think you’re amazing. You’re, like, the most alive person I know. Everyone else seems to move at half their natural speed compared to you. And when I’m with you, you make me realise things that I’ve never even thought about before. Like, when we were on the ferry and you were talking about the wind and the sea and stuff.’
‘But I feel the same way when I’m with you,’ I interrupted, but Dylan shook his head.
‘No, let me say this,’ he ordered. ‘I can’t get you out of my head. I just imagine what you’re going to be like ten years from now and all the brilliant things you’ll be doing and, like, how if you ever have kids how cool they’ll be. And I think that if I went out with you, I’d make you lose all the things about you that are so special. You see the good in everything and all I can see is the bad stuff and the darkness. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
I nodded my head. I understood what he was saying, even if I didn’t agree with it.
‘But you’re wrong, Dylan,’ I insisted. ‘Before I started being friends with you and Shona, I didn’t have anything to say to anyone. I was shy and boring. And all the stuff that you’ve just said about me, that amazing stuff, you’re the one who’s inspired me to be like that. You’ve made me realise that I don’t have to be frightened to tell people about what’s inside my head.’
Dylan looked even more miserable once I’d spilled out my little speech.
‘But there’s other reasons why I won’t go out with you,’ he bit out. ‘It’s too much responsibility, I’d hav
e to spend all my time being someone else because if I’m myself I’ll just end up hurting you. And you’re too young and I’m used to older girls…’
‘Because you can sleep with them!’ I snapped. ‘That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? You want a girlfriend who’ll have sex with you and you know I’m not ready for that.’