All of the Above Read online

  My face baked. ‘Oh god. Was it that obvious?’

  ‘There was an element of hair tossing and eye fluttering.’ She re-enacted said movements.

  I cringed. ‘I didn’t even realise I was doing it.’

  ‘Our Nico is a very handsome young man. You’ve got eyes. I wouldn’t feel too bad about it – you wouldn’t be the first girl to find him on Facebook and **** herself off.’ Despite her smile I sensed Polly was disappointed, like that she’d maybe thought I was special but falling for the obvious hunk was crushingly predictable.

  I couldn’t help myself. It was like picking a cornflake scab. ‘Does he … have a girlfriend?’

  ‘How do you know he doesn’t have a boyfriend?’

  No way – I’d have picked up on something. ‘Well … does he have either?’

  ‘Nope. He’s a free agent. For now.’

  I couldn’t keep the joy off my face. Polly rolled her eyes.

  ‘Has he said anything about me?’

  ‘No.’ Polly must have sensed my impending woe because she added, ‘Although I haven’t spoken to him since last night. He did stick by your side all through the ******* game of golf, so I’d take that to be a good sign.’

  ‘And he invited me to the gig on Friday.’

  Polly smiled. ‘Look at you all smitten! There is smit all over your face. C’mon, ****, let’s get to assembly and save seats for the others.’

  My single-minded obsession infiltrated periods one and two, and then I had a free with Daisy, so she had to bear the brunt of my incessant Nico chatter. Sixth-formers had a study room off the main library, which a lot of students couldn’t be bothered to walk to, so it was a better, quieter, alternative to the common room.

  ‘Do you think I should add him on Facebook or something?’ I asked Daisy. I’d spoken of little else since Literature finished. I was aware that this probably wasn’t doing a lot to endear me to my new friends, but it also made me feel like part of them as it were – I wasn’t just New Girl any more.

  ‘Yeah, why not? He’s on Facebook all the time.’ Daisy whipped out her French homework with a sigh. We had to translate a whole chapter before next lesson. The study room was in the old part of the school so it was more Hogwarts-like – high leaded windows, red wine carpets and soaring bookcases. It smelled of proper library: well-thumbed pages and index cards. On this side of the wall sixth-formers were allowed to talk, as long as we did so quietly. ‘Nico is super friendly. You should be his friend.’

  ‘But I want to snog his face!’

  ‘You should still be his friend. He’s a good egg.’ Daisy smiled. It was toasty warm in the library, but Daisy wore a chunky-knit sweater and a peacock-print scarf.

  I hadn’t really thought of that. I didn’t want to make a mess and, from what little I understood of dating, you should never poop where you eat. But I really did want to snog him a lot.

  Daisy yawned and I hoped I wasn’t boring her. She looked tired, like she hadn’t slept. There were dark circles around her saucer eyes. With sun pouring through the window and hitting her face, she glowed, a fine layer of tiny white hairs showing on her cheeks.

  One last Nico thought before I got on with my French. ‘I think Polly was pissed off when I said I fancied him.’

  There was a twinkle in Daisy’s eye. ‘I wondered if she was OK with it. She said she was.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Nico and Polly went out with each other for about five minutes last year after we first met him.’

  The bubble burst, taking my heart out in the process.

  ‘Oh.’ Big, sad pause. ‘She never said.’

  It was over then. No wonder Polly hadn’t seemed impressed; I was moving in on her ex-boyfriend. There are golden rules of friendship. However much I wanted to snog Nico, I had met Polly first, I liked her and wanted her to be my friend. I was sure there were plenty more guys as divine as Nico in Brompton. I knew there weren’t, but I needed to anaesthetise myself with a white lie.

  I must have looked like an emoji sad face because Daisy jumped right in. ‘Oh no, nothing like that. It wasn’t serious at all. Nico has been out with plenty of girls since Polly, and she really doesn’t care.’

  I didn’t care for her use of the word ‘plenty’, but I let it slide. ‘I don’t know, Daisy. You can’t go out with your friend’s exes.’

  ‘He’s not like a proper ex. It was more like an experiment. They were just playing around.’

  See? Drama sprouts up through the cracks. ‘Do you think I should talk to Polly about it?’

  ‘No. Polly doesn’t talk about feelings.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘She really doesn’t. She thinks it’s a waste of time.’

  I laughed, because I imagined that was a hundred per cent true, but I also felt stupid. For a moment I’d truly believed it could be easy. It’s never easy.

  ‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘Who are you into?’ It occurred to me that Daisy hadn’t once mentioned a guy – or a girl – in that way. ‘Who’s on the Daisy Weekes crush list?’

  Daisy looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘No one. I am asexual.’

  ‘What?’ She said it in the same way I say, ‘I’m a Capricorn.’ She held my gaze. ‘Are you for real?’ I’m not a Tumblr virgin, I know all about asexuality, but I couldn’t work out if she was kidding or not.

  Daisy being Daisy, she simply smiled. ‘Yes. I don’t want to have sex with anyone just now, thank you very much.’

  And that was that.

  Later that night, I added Nico on Facebook and waited. I chatted to Marianna, my friend in California, for a while, but he still hadn’t accepted the request by the time we’d done. What if he thought I was a super-needy cyber stalker? Once you send a Facebook friend request, you can’t undo it – what if he’d seen the request? He’d also see me remove it – oh, it’s a house of cards.

  My poetry book was sat on my desk where I’d abandoned it the week before. Lifting the mug of cold tea off it, I took the book to my bed and sat where I could see Facebook. Then I did something I hadn’t done in YEARS: I picked up a pen and started writing.

  I wrote about the Pot-Pourri girls. Well, not just them. I wrote about those type of girls – the ones who want to be famous for nothing. You know the ones I mean.

  Dolly

  Bisque china bulb head

  Two-way mirror eyes

  So you can see inside.

  Tip-back blink action

  And tiny tears

  To get her way.

  Stewardess smile, bottle-hole O.

  One hand closed for grip

  The other open for goodbyes.

  A cotton thread away from broken

  Polyester flesh

  No pendulum organs

  Meat spoils.

  Sugar and spice, free from vice

  Or voice.

  Sold her tongue for coin teeth.

  Child-pageant hair drilled into her skull

  Holes hidden with roses and white ribbons

  For surrender.

  Faux coy, real naked

  Dress her in calligraphy

  And exclamation marks.

  Decorative, and tea-party ready

  She waits with cup and saucer.

  Somehow two hours passed. How? My eyes were tired and my right hand claw-like from pen-grip. It felt good though. Really good. I’d forgotten how much fun words could be when teachers weren’t telling you which ones to put where. I blinked, looked up and saw I had a notification:

  Nico Mancini accepted your friend request. Write on Nico’s Timeline.

  * * *

  Friday came around pretty quickly. This is going to sound deranged, but I was actually enjoying school. Daisy was in all my lessons, but I also had a few with Polly or Beasley. I had one free a week with Alice and (thank god) we liked a lot of the same manga stuff so we had something to talk about. I think now she’d heard about my crush on Nico she believed I wasn’t trying to steal Alex
out of her nest.

  Beasley was just adorable. It turned out he lived a few streets away from me so we could walk to and from school together. He had to be Brompton’s leading authority on horror films. By the time we’d walked together a few times, what I hadn’t learned about Hollywood Hexes – film sets where people died – wasn’t worth knowing. The Crow, Poltergeist, The Exorcist … I’d never seen any of them, but Beasley was obsessed and made me promise we’d have a film night soon.

  The only thing was his propensity to, shall we say, ‘stretch the truth’. I did not believe, for example, that his father had once had sex with Kylie, or that he’d spent some of his childhood living in Disneyland. I guessed he was only telling such tall tales because he wanted people to like him, and I wanted to like him so I let them slide.

  It was official. I had friends. Go, me. The only downside of hanging out with Polly and the gang was that the Hollister Sons sniggered at me every time I entered a room. I had no idea what I’d done, but from what I could gather they either thought I was a lesbian or a gypsy or both. To be honest, either of those things would at least serve as a USP. I had nothing. If you’re not an emo, a Goth, a jock, a princess, a freak or clever enough to be a geek, what are you meant to call yourself? Don’t you dare say ‘normal’.

  Thankfully, as I’d thought of little else, the night of the gig came around swiftly and Polly invited us to hers to get ready. She assured us that the getting-ready part would be ten times better than the gig. I’d resigned myself to the fact that, despite the bubbles in my tummy, Nico and I would just be friends. This was better – less messy. Easier.

  Polly, it turned out, lived in a mansion. A full-on Addams Family mansion. There was even a little turret room and it overlooked the sea. It made sense: if her mum was Satan, why wouldn’t she live in a haunted house? Thankfully I walked there with Beasley, otherwise I’d have never dared ring the bell. You couldn’t even get to the front door unless you rang the bell at the gates. I fully expected there to be a slavering hellhound guarding the perimeter.

  ‘Her mum is a head teacher too,’ Beasley explained as we entered through the creaking gates. ‘Polly is the by-product of too-excellent parenting: clearly defined boundaries and numerous reward systems. She was bound to go nuts. It’s the equivalent of those dog people who only buy the really clinical dried-food pellets.’

  ‘Polly’s not nuts.’

  ‘You have met Polly, right? She’s crayfish, but I love her. We all go a little crazy sometimes – that’s from Psycho. And Scream.’

  Polly met us at the door, her endless legs in denim cut-offs. ‘Hey *****, come on up.’

  It was clear that Polly didn’t want Beasley or I spending any more time than necessary in the main part of the house, which was decorated like (and as quiet as) a museum. Her parents must be into antiques; there were old things sat on top of old things inside of old things everywhere. My mum wouldn’t stand for it; she’d call them ‘dust collectors’.

  I followed Polly and Beasley to what could only be the turret room – up one flight of stairs and then another shorter flight. ‘I live in the tower,’ Polly said. ‘I’m ******* Rapunzel. When is some ****** gonna rescue me? I’ve been waiting seventeen ******* years.’

  Polly’s room was awesome cool though. It wasn’t what I’d been expecting at all. I’d been expecting something dark and chaotic, but there were no posters, trinkets or photos – everything was pale, calm and zen. There was an intricately woven wrought iron bed on a shaggy rug, fairy-lights coiled around the bars, filling the room with an almost enchanted glow. Other than the whitewashed walls and floors the only colours were the spines of her hundreds and hundreds of books – one whole wall was dominated by sleek modular bookshelves.

  But none of those things really mattered. Up in the hexagonal tower, windows curved across one whole side of the room and, with the shutters open and even though it was night, I could see out over the sea for miles and miles as far as the lighthouse on the cliffs. The ocean rippled like black satin and I could hear the sad clanging of the buoys.

  ‘Your room is so cool,’ I breathed.

  ‘Thanks.’ Polly dived onto the bed on which Daisy was already sat. Beasley grabbed her computer chair – itself cool – leaving me with a furry beanbag. It’s very hard to be elegant on a beanbag.

  ‘Seriously, this could be in an Ikea catalogue.’

  Polly laughed. ‘How ******* dare you!’

  ‘That was a compliment!’

  We listened to music for a while. Polly’s taste was pick ‘n’ mix: K-pop, Bowie, Kate Bush, Siouxsie and the Banshees, but also Girls Aloud, One Direction and Kanye. I started to wonder how much thought and energy Polly put into being so eclectic. It looked effortless, but I was starting to suspect a carefully cultivated randomness. I’m pretty tidy, but I’d never seen a bedroom so neat – and that included my parents’.

  ‘God, I suppose we should get ready.’ Polly dragged herself off the bed. ‘What time are Judas Cradle playing?’

  ‘About ten,’ Beasley said.

  ‘Oh, that’s ages,’ I said.

  ‘Can we do you a makeover?’ Daisy squealed, fluttering around me like a butterfly on Red Bull. ‘Please?’

  ‘On me?’ I said, horrified. ‘Why? Do I look like crap?’

  ‘No! I just like playing with hair and stuff! Please please please? It’ll be fun, I promise.’

  I looked to Polly, who shrugged. ‘You should let her. She does amazing make-up.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Beasley added. ‘She made me up as “Born This Way” Lady Gaga two Halloweens ago. It was uncanny. I tweeted Gaga a picture and she totally said she loved it.’

  I didn’t want to say, but I suspected the last part was a lie and there is no amount of make-up in all of MAC that would have made pudgy Beasley look like Gaga. Instead I resigned myself to this terrible fate. ‘OK, but don’t make me look like a drag queen.’

  I want to stress that this was not the type of ‘makeover scene’ where they pulled out my ponytail and took off my glasses, but I did look good afterwards. Polly did something with my ever-lank hair, making it look voluminous while Daisy saw to my face. I had never had a proper ‘smoky eye’, thinking it was something my mum would do for a grown-up work party, but I have to hand it to Daisy, I looked amazingly femme fatale. While they got me ready, Beasley DJed and took photos. I obliged – pouting and posing with duck face like a glamour model whose rent is due in the morning.

  I wish there was a simple way to describe the lightness of those early days before the trouble started. When I think of them now, the memories are fuzzy and delicate, like we were chubby little cherubs hanging out on powder-pink clouds or something.

  By the time the ‘makeover’ was done, we were running late. After we’d hurried down the hill to The Mash Tun, Nico’s band had already started playing. Damn. On the way in, we were stamped with big red NO BOOZE ink on our hands because we didn’t have fake IDs. That sucked.

  The Mash Tun was a total dive. Every town has a scummy music venue. It smelled of beer, vomit, BO and wee. It was about half-full, with most people there around our age. I guessed most were from the uni – the same one Dad worked at – although they had bands play at the Union too.

  ‘My god, this place is gross.’

  Daisy pulled a toilet roll and some hand sanitiser from a giant handbag almost as big as she was. ‘Not our first time.’

  ‘Ah I see. I wondered why you were dragging that thing around.’ I had to stoop to shout in her ear.

  Polly was already pushing her way through the crowd, not that anyone seemed to mind. Most people were loitering, pints in hands, with only a handful of hard-core listeners crowding at the front of the stage.

  Here was the big surprise of the night. Judas Cradle were actually very good. Nico stood slightly back, keeping time on the bass. He wore a tight NIN T-shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal hard little arms. I wanted to lick one. I know! I understand these thoughts were not entirely
right. Maybe I’m not entirely right. On his left forearm was an intricate tattoo of a black cartwheel thing. I wondered what it signified.

  Zoë played the keyboard and synth – the current song had a dirty, angry bee buzz throbbing underneath it – it was a lot more electro than I’d been expecting. Every town has a Next Big Thing garage band and usually they want to be a) Radiohead, b) The Velvet Underground, or c) The Sex Pistols. Judas Cradle were none of the above and a lot more polished than any I’d seen back home. They were good.

  For one thing, you could actually hear what the singer was singing (I always think the vocals should be highest in the mix at gigs – otherwise how do you know what the lyrics are about? Surely songs are just poems with music?). The lead singer was the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen. Not beautiful like Nico, beautiful like an androgynous alien from the planet Bowie. Bleached white-blond hair, glass-fine features and more eyeliner than me, Polly and Daisy combined. You couldn’t take your eyes off him – well, for at least a minute, and then mine strayed back to Nico.

  ‘He’s called Etienne,’ Polly screamed in my ear, nodding at the singer. ‘I have been in love with him for two years. He doesn’t even know I exist.’

  ‘That sucks!’

  ‘Why doesn’t he love me?’ Polly whined before snapping out of it. ‘**** it. He says he’s saving himself for marriage anyway.’

  ‘For reals? He doesn’t look entirely human.’

  ‘He gets that a lot.’

  Most of the set was grimy, sleazy electro-y stuff. There was one standout ballad – it was called ‘Papercuts’ and Etienne went from wild-eyed (allegedly celibate) sex kitten to heartbroken fragile waif. ‘A favourite book, all I want to touch, but you leave me with cuts, these sweet papercuts.’ The song reminded me of snow, of winter. It was my favourite.

  They finished the set on their most popular number, ‘Gasoline Caroline’, before heading off to cheers and screams. There were a few Judas Cradle groupies packed around the stage like horny sardines, and I felt irrationally jealous of them. GET AWAY FROM MY NICO.

  (I will look into therapy.)

  After what felt like an eternity of hanging around, Nico and Zoë came to find us in the crowd. Most of the audience had left as soon as the set finished, but a few (including the groupies) hung around. I was thrilled to see that Etienne seemed to be the big draw, not Nico. Were they visually impaired?