Picture Perfect (Geek Girl, Book 3)

  “What do you mean? You’re always everywhere, Nick. You’re like some kind of magic genie.”

  “I’m not magic,” he says, rubbing his eyes. “And I’m definitely not a genie. That’s kind of what I’m talking about. Always being everywhere means never being anywhere. I’ve been a model for more than three years, and I’ve spent most of my teens living out of a suitcase.”

  I don’t know what to say.

  It suddenly hits me that Nick has always felt slightly other-worldly to me. It hadn’t occurred to me for a single second that he’s just a normal seventeen-year-old boy, and to pop up around the world constantly must take quite a lot of effort.

  “I’m tired, Harriet,” he admits, finally looking at me. “I’m tired of photo shoots where no one knows my name. I’m tired of flights and taxis and waking up in the morning, not knowing where I am. I’m tired of parties I don’t care about. I’m tired of having to pack my bags. I’m tired of having my life broken into little sections that don’t join up. I’m tired of always leaving.”

  I can suddenly see his face on the catwalk again. The blankness, the anger, the resentment. Every time he called to say he couldn’t see me because he was in Africa, or in a casting, or in California or at a fitting. I didn’t see his frustration for what it was, because I thought it was aimed at me.

  And it wasn’t. Nick doesn’t like being a model.

  He loathes it.

  “You’re tired of not having a home,” I say as finally I begin to understand.

  He nods. “And you kept running away from yours, and that made me angry. I’m so sorry.”

  I duck my head in shame as the truth hits me: my family don’t just ground me. They are the things that keep me grounded. They’re what I’ve run from, but they’re what I come back to every time. They’re how I know I’m me.

  And I didn’t understand until right this moment that Nick might need that just as much as I do.

  “The falcons,” I say, looking up and remembering his silence.

  “As you said.” The corner of his mouth twists down. “Peregrine means wanderer. But even they have somewhere to come back to.”

  I’ve never seen Nick like this before. He looks so … lost. I shuffle a little bit on the pavement so my knees are touching his.

  “I haven’t been home for more than ten days in three years,” he says quietly. “I miss being shouted at by Mum because I haven’t taken my shoes off at the front door or because my dirty laundry is in a smelly pile in the corner of my room. I miss my friends. I miss surfing and sunshine and playing the piano and waking up knowing where I am and who I am. I miss being in one place.”

  After the last few weeks, I think I can finally understand that.

  “You play the piano?” I say in surprise.

  “Used to. They’re not that easy to fit on an aeroplane.”

  “You could have got a mini keyboard. Or one of those electronic piano T-shirts.”

  Nick laughs. “Should have thought of that.” Then he frowns. “But I’m not tired of you, Harriet. I can’t imagine ever being tired of you. So what can I do? If I stop modelling, I can’t be physically with you. But if I continue, I’m never here either. I don’t know what to do.”

  And suddenly I know just how much I love Nick.

  I love him with every single atom of me. With every one of my thirty-five billion cells; with every skin cell, hair cell, liver cell, kidney cell, heart cell and bone cell.

  I love him with every single one of my old atoms, and I know I’ll love him with every one of my new atoms too. However many times I’m replaced, whoever I become, I will still love him.

  Because I love him enough to say this:

  “You need to go home.”

  Nick stares at me for a few seconds, and then his face twists up. “But I can’t, Harriet. Because that means—”

  “I know what it means,” I say, because Australia is over 9,000 miles away and Nick can’t be there properly if I keep any part of him with me.

  “Shoot,” he says, putting his head against mine.

  I laugh. “You really have choice moments of using that word, you know.”

  There’s a long silence while we sit with our heads together.

  That’s the thing with breaking up. There’s no need for language. No need to reduce emotions to basic words, to limit the immensity of how you feel to the paltry confines of the English—

  “I love you, Harriet.”

  Oh. So, maybe there is.

  “I love you too,” I say, nudging my nose against his. “No biggy.”

  ad and I sit in silence all the way back to Greenway.

  He puts his arm around me, and I curl up tightly on the leather seat and stare blankly out of the taxi window.

  I watch the bright lights of New York getting smaller, the buildings shrinking, the noise fading and the world I thought I wanted evaporating behind me.

  It’s way past 11pm when we finally get back, staggering with tiredness up the driveway.

  The front door swings open before we even knock.

  “Hello.”

  “Hi, Annabel,” I say without meeting her eyes. “I think there might be a few things I need to tell you.”

  “Yes,” she says, stepping back into the hallway. “I would imagine there probably are.”

  Like with Dad, I make no excuses.

  I don’t fantasise how the story was supposed to go, or how I wanted it to go, or what I thought my role in it should have been. I don’t dramatise, and I don’t paint it in a way that will get me out of trouble.

  I just tell Annabel the truth.

  All of it.

  Then I stand anxiously on the carpet in front of my stepmother and clutch my hands tightly together.

  There’s a long silence while Annabel takes in the state of me: the smeared and tear-swollen face, the ridiculous outfit, the blisters on my bare feet, the fact that I’m so tired I can barely stand up straight.

  Finally, she says, “Take your sister, Harriet,” and holds out Tabitha. “My bicep muscles are nowhere near as developed as I’d like them to be and after a while babies are really heavy.”

  I hold out my arms and Tabby immediately curls into my chest with a little squeak. I bury my nose into her milky curls and a wave of love abruptly washes over me. I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed my little sister.

  “This is all very illuminating,” Annabel continues calmly. “Considering I thought you were in your bedroom the whole time.”

  I look at the floor. I am going to be locked in my bedroom so long this time there will be thorn hedges growing around the house like Sleeping Beauty, except I’ll be wide awake.

  “So let’s address the first point, shall we?” Annabel leans back on the sofa. “You are not stupid, Harriet. Or academically challenged, or weak, or unremarkable, or whatever it is you were told. Your tutor was a fraud.”

  “What do you mean a fraud?” A rush of guilt washes over me. “No, Miss Hall was only covering for me, Annabel, and it’s not fair if she gets blamed for—”

  “She was covering for herself, actually, Harriet. And I mean a fraud. A fake, a sham, a charlatan. A trickster, a hoodwinker. The woman doesn’t have a single real qualification to her name. Not one.”

  I stare at Annabel, and suddenly the relief is so huge I have to sit down before I drop my baby sister.

  “So I’m not –” I swallow – “totally failing?”

  “Harriet, nobody can be expected to teach themselves advanced A level physics. If they could, there probably wouldn’t be schools in the first place.”

  Oh thank God. I knew damping was quite a tricky topic to grasp completely in ten minutes.

  “But how did you …”

  “She popped over to drop off some books for you this afternoon but I found her in my bedroom instead putting my brand-new leather Filofax into her backpack. Let’s just put it this way: Miss Hall won’t be ‘teaching’ in America again.”

  I blink.

&nbs
p; My admiration for Annabel just climbed another notch. Miss Hall must be at least a foot taller than her and several times wider.

  “And second of all,” she continues gently, “I think you’ve had punishment enough, don’t you, sweetheart? I forgot your sixteenth birthday. I forgot to do a background check on your tutor. I was too tired to make sure you made new friends here or to notice how miserable you were. I can’t blame you for feeling forgotten about and I’m incredibly sorry that you do. And I promise you, this will never happen again.”

  Of all the things I predicted Annabel would say – which was quite a few – this wasn’t even in the Top Ten List. I’m starting to think I should probably stop writing them in the first place.

  “Does that mean I’m not being grounded again?”

  Annabel grimaces. “No. We were too harsh in the first place: five days is far too long. I guess we’re new to this as well. Plus we’ve made some rather large mistakes too.” She sighs. “Perhaps you would like to ground me instead?”

  I shuffle slightly closer on the sofa. “OK. But you can use the kitchen.”

  “And the bathroom?”

  “I might even allow you to take turns around the garden, like a Victorian lady with consumption.”

  “You’re so very generous.”

  We smile at each other, and I suddenly realise that maybe the reason I’ve never missed my mum is because I’ve always had one.

  “So what happens now?”

  “Well,” Annabel says more brightly. “I’m glad you asked because I’ve made this.” She pulls a piece of paper out of her briefcase and crosses off the first thing on the list.

  I look at the list with a swell of admiration and approval.

  If there’s ever been an argument for nurture versus nature, Annabel and I would be it. We’re like non-genetically related peas in a pod.

  And, yes, I’d have preferred a double-lined heading and maybe a different-colour pen, but I can’t just go around forcing my plans on other people.

  Ooh.

  Maybe I’ve learnt something in the last few weeks after all.

  I smile. “Do you think they have a Paleontology group? They’ve just found a fossil of a brand-new miniature T-Rex in Alaska.”

  “Let’s pop that on the list.”

  Annabel gets out a pen and starts scribbling at the bottom of the paper.

  At which point Dad clears his throat.

  We both look up in surprise. He’s never normally this quiet. In fact, I think we’d kind of forgotten he was even in the room.

  “That list won’t be necessary,” he says calmly.

  “I think it will,” Annabel says, glancing at it again. “Harriet isn’t a little girl any more, Richard. We can’t just make her sit in Greenway with nobody to talk to except for her parents and a baby. It’s not fair.”

  “I know. And that’s why we’re going home.”

  ’ve never seen Annabel speechless before. Today is just packed full of unexpected firsts.

  She stares at Dad for a few blank seconds, and then says,“I’m sorry: what?”

  “We’re going back to England. You’re exhausted and miserable, darling. You shouldn’t be stuck out here on your own any more than Harriet should.”

  “But … what about your job?” Annabel objects. “I thought you loved working in New York.”

  “It’s OK,” Dad says, shrugging. “But I love you both more.”

  Apparently it takes seventeen muscles to smile, and forty-three muscles to frown. I have no idea how many Annabel is now using: her entire face is crumpling like a piece of paper.

  “Really?” she says quietly.

  “Really really,” Dad says.

  “We can go home? Back to our house and our friends? You’re serious?”

  “I have never been serious in my entire life,” Dad says indignantly. “But yes.”

  Annabel puts her hands over her face.

  “Oh …. thank GOD. I hate it here, Richard. Hate it. I love Tabby but I’m so bloody bored. Sometimes when nobody’s looking I put on my suit and make fake appointments in my Filofax and pretend to sue people on the phone. I even brought a little hands-free set so I could call up my office receptionist while I was out on buggy walks.”

  She pulls a little earpiece out of her pocket and holds it up guiltily. “Audrey’s getting really sick of me,” she adds sheepishly.

  “My lovely lawyer wife,” Dad says, grinning and kissing the top of her head. “That’s why I’m going to freelance. When Tabby’s on the bottle we can take working in turns. After all, I did it with Harriet and she’s turned out OK.”

  “Hey,” I object. “What do you mean OK?”

  Dad lifts his eyebrows. “Don’t push it, kid.”

  I obediently close my mouth.

  I’ve never seen my father look so in control. So … wise. So … knowing.

  I think I may have underestimated him.

  “Because here’s the thing,” Dad says, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a little purple sock, “we aren’t three separate colours, Annabel. And if one of us isn’t happy, none of us are.”

  OK, maybe I didn’t.

  “Seriously?” Annabel says, mouth twitching slightly. “You just have to take the red and the blue things away from the white things, Richard. It’s not that hard.”

  “Yes,” he says, lifting her chin with his hand and kissing her. “When they’re stuck together, it is.”

  They smile at each other and something unspoken passes between them. And – for the first time in my entire life – I think I might know what it is.

  “Now,” Dad says, flinging an arm out. “Thanks to my probationary period, we can be out of here in a week. So let’s get moving.” He flings his arm the other way. “We have curtains to bring down.” He starts pointing madly at them. “Plates to pack.” He pretends to pack up plates. “Driving to do.”

  He energetically mimics driving.

  “Give me your Powerband,” Annabel says drily. “All these hand gestures are making me feel seasick.”

  Dad grins, takes it off and hands it to Tabitha instead.

  “That’s my girl,” he says proudly as she starts shaking it up and down. “Earn Powers for Daddy. A few more and I should be able to fly us home on my bare shoulders.”

  Annabel stands up and takes off her dressing gown.

  Underneath it she is wearing a pinstripe suit.

  “Don’t say anything,” she says as Dad and I stare at her in amazement. “Just … don’t.”

  And as we start to pack our bags, I can’t help wondering if after all our adventures, maybe the biggest one is going home.

  abitha screams all the way back to London too.

  It turns out she just really doesn’t like planes that much.

  I’m so delighted to be back in England, I don’t even mind when my face is crushed into a patchouli-scented left breast seconds after entering the arrivals lounge.

  Even if it does mean I now have a permanent embroidery elephant outlined on my cheek.

  “Darlings!” Bunty says, letting me go and kissing everyone vigorously. “Look how tanned you are! Doesn’t the exotic beach life suit you!”

  “The exotic beach life?” Annabel says, clicking Tabitha back into her car-seat. She’s worn herself out and is sleeping ‘like an angel’, according to the airport security guard who clearly wasn’t on our flight. “Mum, we were in Upstate New York.”

  “Were you?” Bunty says. “I thought you’d emigrated to the Bahamas.”

  Dad looks at Annabel hopefully.

  “No,” Annabel replies. “We are not emigrating to the Bahamas, Richard. But nice try.”

  “I can understand why you’ve come back in that case,” Bunty says, retying her pink bun and sticking a loose twig into it. “But what an adventure. You’ll have to tell me all about it in three or four or five months’ time.”

  We stare at her. “Where are you going?”

  “Rio,” Bunty says, gesturing at her ta
sselled leather bag. “I’ve done my bit, and I’m off again. Not a big fan of this staying in one place malarkey. Bor-ing.”

  Annabel leans forward and gives her a kiss. “Thanks for looking after the house for us, Mum.”

  “You’re welcome, darling. Just don’t look at the curtains in the living room too closely.” Bunty pauses. “Or open the cupboard under the sink. Or the store cupboard. Or the shed. I may or may not have set just a little bit of it on fire during a very spiritual experience with an incense stick.”

  Dad and Annabel say nothing.

  I am very impressed by their serenity and calmness.

  “Also,” Bunty adds cheerfully, “how many cats did you have when you left?”

  “One,” Annabel says, putting her hand over her face.

  “You have three now.” Bunty swings her bag over her shoulder. “See you at Christmas, lovelies!”

  And my grandmother disappears as abruptly as she arrived.

  For the first few minutes after opening the front door, our house feels strange.

  This is partly because it smells of patchouli and vanilla, partly because there are mirrored, feathered objects hanging from every wall.

  And partly because I know every single inch of it.

  I know the squeaky sound of the first stair.

  I know the bit of flaky paint behind the door where it rebounds when I slam it.

  I know how many steps it takes to get from the living room to the kitchen; I know exactly where to angle the shower controls to get the perfect temperature; I know the round greasy stain on the ceiling from where Dad threw a pancake too enthusiastically, five years ago.

  I know where the light switches are with my eyes closed, and how the tree outside makes different noises with every month of the year, and just what angle I have to roll out of bed to land on the fluffy rug.

  I know the warmth of the beam of light, pouring through the front door. I know the sound of our neighbour’s lawnmower, and the stain on the carpet Annabel still doesn’t know was Nat, laughing Fanta out of her nose four years ago.

  Dad puts our suitcases down and I start walking round the house with a lump in my throat.

  I touch the walls. I touch the stair banisters. I touch the doorframes and the sofa. I touch the remote control and the kitchen taps.