He stood up, shaking grass from his band T-shirt. “That’s right near me. I’ll walk with you.” It was a statement, rather than a question. He held out his hand to pull me up off the ground. I took it gingerly.
“Okay, I guess,” I said, wondering what the hell we were going to talk about for the thirty minute walk.
For the first ten minutes, apparently absolutely nothing…
We veered along the pavements in a hazy sunshiny stupor. The awkward silence hung heavily over us like a cloud of conversational napalm. It only dispersed when Guy brazenly lit up a cheeky spliff and I sighed dramatically.
“What is it?” he asked, blowing out the smoke slowly.
“Don’t you ever wanna, like, live in reality?”
He looked bewildered for a sec, before looking at the small rolled-up flaming paper in his hand.
“This is reality. It’s natural!”
“It’s a mind-altering substance.”
“It’s a plant.”
I sighed again. “Whatever.”
The fragrant smell floated past me on the wind and I tried not to cough. Silence descended once more and I wondered why he’d walked with me. Especially as he seemed a bit pissed off. He spoke first.
“So, you looking forward to this date then?”
I gave him a sideways look. “I guess.”
He took a drag and giggled a bit under his breath. “And this one’s not a nympho?”
I glared at him. “Not that I know of… No.”
“He’s just a pussy.”
My glare intensified. “I object to that word.”
“What word? Pussy?”
“Yes. It’s sexist. And vulgar. What’s having a vagina got to do with not having any courage? You’re a misogynist.”
“I’m an a-what-a-nist?”
“If you don’t know what it means, then you definitely are one.”
He giggled again in response. “You’re funny.”
“I’m not trying to be funny. I’m trying to be angry.”
“That’s what makes it so funny.”
“It’s only funny to you ’cause you’re high. Alone. On a Thursday.”
He laughed again, his eyes already red. “I’m not alone, I’m with you.”
“That’s not what I’m telling the police if they pull over and arrest you.”
His laughter got more and more amplified. I let him giggle himself out and watched him finish his joint and flick it into a bush. Younger girls had started crushing majorly on Guy since the big church gig. I’d heard some girls from the local secondary school, my old school, discuss his fitness in the fish and chip shop, and some of them followed him and Joel around in town. I examined him now. The sun lit his face from behind, giving him his own little golden lining, detailing his unruly mop of hair. He was attractive, I guessed.
He muttered something under his breath.
“What was that?” I asked.
“I said, I’m not a misogynist.”
“I’d believe you more if you weren’t laughing as you said it.”
He ignored me. “Anyway, the context of the word ‘pussy’ isn’t in relation to a vagina. It’s pussy as in ‘pussycat’. Put that” – he flicked out his hand towards my face – “in your pipe and smoke it.”
I gave a wry grin in defeat. He was right. Pussy came from pussycat. “I can’t smoke it. You’ve smoked it all.”
And I lost him again in splutterings of laughter.
The sun beat down on us. The leaves were glowing golden, our jackets hung off our arms. As we neared my house, we conducted an epic game of “Would You Rather?” which had us both tearing up with hysterics.
“Okay, okay, okay,” Guy said, hands flailing dramatically, barely able to talk. “If you HAD to…would you rather have two bollocks the size of watermelons, or twenty the size of grapes?”
I snorted. “That’s disgusting. I don’t even know what it’s like to have balls in the first place.”
“Oh, it’s great. Trust me.”
I suddenly found myself thinking of Guy’s balls, and went a bit red. “Umm…two the size of melons, I guess.”
He pointed at me. “Why?”
I shrugged. “I dunno. They’d be easier to tuck into my boxers?”
It took a while for him to calm down. It was hard to tell with Guy how much of his laughter was my natural wit, and how much was his cannabis habit.
When he calmed down, I said, “Right, I’ve got one.”
He raised both eyebrows, his dark eyes almost glowing hazel in the sun. “Okay. Hit me.”
“Would you rather have…incurable full body acne…” I paused for comic effect.
“Or…?” he prompted.
“Or, a full body Celine Dion tattoo. Her face was your face. Her arms were your arms. Her legs were your legs.”
He dissolved into hysteria again, sitting down on the wall of someone’s front garden and whacking his thigh like an old man.
“No…neither.”
“You HAVE to choose,” I insisted. “I told you about my melon balls.”
More hysteria. “Okay, okay, okay… The acne. Oh God, it would have to be the acne.”
I sat next to him and laughed too. For one moment, he rested his head on my shoulder. Then his head was gone. We stopped laughing abruptly and earlier’s convo napalm descended again instantly.
“I’m almost home,” I said. For no real reason.
I felt Guy turn to me on the wall and instinctively turned towards him too. The tips of our knees touched and it made my heart do a…thing. A thing I didn’t quite understand. My face tingled with the dappling of oncoming sunburn.
“So you coming to this party on Saturday then?” Guy asked, all serious.
“Yeah. I guess.”
“And you’re bringing this guy?”
“Oli.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, maybe, I guess. We’ll see.”
“The pussy…cat?”
I shot him a look. “Why do you care?”
He leaned back off the wall, balancing his weight in mid-air, and put his hands behind his head.
“I don’t care. I don’t care about anything.” He said it with pride.
“Right, well, see you Saturday.”
“See you then.”
Fourteen
It was date time. Time for the date. Another actual date! My heart was going boom badda boom badda boom badda BOOM.
“Are you okay?” Rose asked, poking her head around my bedroom door halfway through my wardrobe-meltdown. She was holding a toothbrush and pyjamas, packing for a sleepover she was going to that night.
“No,” I told her. “I am supposed to be going on a date but all my clothes hate me.”
Rose looked at the fashion concoction I’d draped myself in. “You’re not wearing that, are you?” And she made a little face.
“I’m not now you’ve made that face.”
“Flared jeans and a dress? Umm…why?”
“BECAUSE I WANT TO WEAR THE DRESS BECAUSE IT’S PRETTY BUT WE LIVE IN STUPID ENGLAND AND IT’S TOO COLD OUTSIDE.”
Panic took over – stupid overwhelming panic, over a stupid underwhelming wardrobe crisis. My chest tightened and I flopped back onto the bed, focusing on my raggedy breathing.
Rose instantly rocked into calm-down mode. “Shh, shh,” she said, joining me on the bed and stroking my hair. “It’s okay. We’ll sort your outfit out.”
Tears bulged up in my ducts at her kindness. “You’re not supposed to see me like this. Mum will go nuts.”
“I don’t care what Mum thinks.”
“I just…I…I know it’s just a date. But the other one went so badly…and…and…”
BAD THOUGHT
I’m corrupting my little sister and she’ll go mad and it will be all my fault.
BAD THOUGHT
This date is going to go awfully and I’m going to get sick from the filthy cinema and die alone.
“Shh, Evie, it’s okay. Everyone gets nervous before dates. You’re not going mad, you get that, right? This is normal nerves.”
I sniffed. “Is it normal to put jeans on under a dress?”
Rose giggled. “No, that bit’s just you.”