What if you could change the girl you were in school?

Cara loves to lose herself in the magical world of films. But the Molly Ringwald classics she watches on repeat just keep reminding her of the high school regrets she can’t seem to shake.

While stars on screen are immortalised in celluloid (or Blu-Ray, now that she thinks about it), Cara needs to take charge of her own destiny before life passes her by in a blur of John Hughes re-runs.

Determined to right past wrongs at her high school reunion, will Cara finally achieve her Pretty in Pink moment? Or will the elusive happy ending she’s chasing have been right in front of her all along?

Perfect for fans of Hannah Doyle and Anna Bell, Don’t You Forget About Me is a hilarious and heartwarming story of self-discovery and true love.

Also by Liz Tipping

Five Go Glamping

Don’t You Forget About Me

Liz Tipping

Copyright

HQ

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2016

Copyright © 2016 Liz Tipping

Liz Tipping asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

E-book Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9781474049559

Version: 2018-02-15

LIZ TIPPING

writes romantic comedies. As well as reading and writing novels, Liz enjoys John Hughes films, science fiction box sets, reality television, Irish sausages and ginger beer. She lives in Birmingham with her husband and their beagle, Mary. You can say hello to Liz on twitter @LizTipping and facebook facebook.com/LizziesBooks/

For Kirstie

Contents

Cover

Blurb

Book List

Title Page

Copyright

Author Bio

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Excerpt

Endpages

Chapter One

Saturday 14 May 2016

8.47 a.m.

The Battered Sausage Revelation

I assumed it was going to be another humdrum day in the shop, so you can’t imagine how thrilling it was for me for to find the battered sausage in the video rentals returns box.

I hoped we’d at least have one or two customers, something to keep me occupied and interrupt the troubling, monotonous thoughts in my head such as “What am I doing with my life?” and “How the hell did I end up back here?” and “Is it still okay to fancy Tom Cruise?”

I still checked the returns box every day even though it had been weeks since anyone had borrowed anything. No one really borrowed films any more, but sometimes there would be returned DVDs, which someone had borrowed months ago. Occasionally letters were delivered there by mistake or there was the odd bit of litter, but this was the first and only time I had found a battered sausage. It had been delivered in a polystyrene carton and fully wrapped in paper. I peeled back the layers and there it sat, sprinkled with salt over the now greying batter. It was a bit like opening a present and I could barely contain my excitement.

Olivia blew in from the street, pushing the door open with her backside while she wrestled with her umbrella.

“Look at this, Liv, a battered sausage. Fully wrapped. Jumbo sized. Isn’t it brilliant?” I said.

Liv inspected the tray. “Euw. You’re not going to eat it, are you? How gross.” She recoiled, her blond curls still bouncing even when she stopped. She frowned and her eyes narrowed so much and for so long that I wondered if her mascara had stuck together.

“No, I’m not going to eat it. It was in the returns bin. Where do you think it came from?” I said.

“Erm…the chip shop? Maybe?”

I nodded. “Well, yeah, obviously, I know that, but who would have posted it through the door?” I was sad that Liv wasn’t as excited as me.

Olivia shrugged, shook her brolly and headed to the kitchen leaving me alone to ponder the mystery with the cast of The Breakfast Club.

“Any thoughts on this one?” I said, addressing the giant cardboard promotional cut-out. I showed the battered sausage to Molly Ringwald.

“Stop talking to the Breakfast Club,” shouted Liv, over the boiling kettle.

“I’m not,” I mumbled, turning away from the cardboard cut-out, which had seen better days. I took the mystery fast food package to the bin on the other side of the shop. I paused at the Cocktail poster to see what Tom Cruise thought but before I could ask him, Liv was returning from the kitchen with our coffees. “And don’t even think about talking to Tom Cruise. We’ve talked about this.”

“Fine,” I said. Liv didn’t approve of me talking to the promotional posters. But now that we didn’t have any customers at all I found myself doing it more and more. This was the first week since I’d been back that we’d had absolutely no customers whatsoever. The only thing that had kept the shop going for as long as it had was no one seemed to pay any attention to our little Worcestershire town.

Cable television arrived here ten years after everywhere else so the shop had trundled along quite nicely. The only time anyone had ever heard of Broad Hampton was when a newspaper revealed we had officially the worst broadband in the country. The town wasn’t close enough to the city to be a suburb and not far enough away to be considered rural and had been pretty much overlooked by everyone for years. We kept the “worst broadband” label for a good few years, which meant no one was able to stream films so the shop kept its customers. But eventually, broadband arrived and the customers had been dwindling ever since. We hadn’t even had anyone buy anything out of the fifty-pence VHS bargain bucket recently, and as far as we could tell, no one had even stolen anything.

At nine o’clock, I turned the sign on the door around to open, and pulled the bargain basket outside onto the street. Looking around the Broad Hampton High Street, which hardly seemed to have changed at all in the last ten years or so, I again reminded myself this was only meant to be temporary.

“I think it’s okay to fancy him in Cocktail still, and maybe in Mission Impossible, but you can’t fancy him when he’s doing a red carpet or on Graham Norton or whatever. What I mean is, you can’t fancy actual Tom Cruise, but you can fancy the characters he plays,” said Liv when I came back in.

I nodded in agreement although I preferred Judd Nelson anyway. He was more my more type.

I took a long look at Judd as Liv settled herself at the desk with her laptop out, ready to stream whichever box set she was currently addicted to from Netflix. Liv said it was the best thing she’d ever watched and we should get the box set for the shop. I’d rolled my eyes at that and I could tell by the look Judd was giving me that he thought the same.

After a little bit of dusting to clear a few cobwebs from Molly Ringwald’s head and then tidying the already tidy covers and drinking more tea, it was almost ten a.m. Right on cue Weird Roger with the greasy hair and the shopping trolley showed up. He pushed open the front door of the shop and shouted “Have you got Free Willy 2?” like he did every day before making his hur hur hur sound. I was pretty sure he’d been doing that every day since the film came out – or at least as long as I’d been here, which apart from a gap of a few years where I attempted, and failed, to do something interesting, was a very long time.

At eleven a.m. the phone rang and Liv answered and said, “No. No such film.” She hung up. When I asked her what they wanted, she explained someone had asked for “Shaw Hawk’s Red Temptation” and said if they couldn’t even be bothered to find out what things were called, they didn’t deserve to watch films in the first place.

Neither me nor Liv could understand why the owner continued to keep the shop open. We thought it was because he had so many other small businesses he had perhaps forgotten it was there. We also speculated that it was some kind of “front”, but while he continued to pay our wages we decided it was best not to mention it to him, and if he wasn’t concerned that the shop wasn’t making any money, then neither should we be.

I slumped over the counter and pressed the side of my face against the cool surface.

“I’m fed up, Liv. We’re going to have to get other jobs. This can’t go on much longer.”

“I think we both will.” Liv shook her head.

“It is so boring in here. When I was in Cardiff—”

“Stop right there,” said Liv.

“What?” I lifted my head up from the counter.

“Is this another story about how when you worked at the hotel in Cardiff and everything was brilliant and much better than here?”

“No,” I said.

“You sure?” she asked sternly.

“Well, maybe.” I sighed. Obviously things didn’t go that spectacularly for me otherwise I wouldn’t have ended up back here, but I had loved simply not being here, where no one knew me and I could start again.

“Anyway,” said Liv. “It’s cool working here.”

“No, Liv, it is most definitely not cool, not cool at all. It might have been cool when I was a Saturday girl fifteen years ago; in fact, it may very well be the coolest thing I have done, but it is not cool being thirty and having a glorified Saturday job.”

I loved it here when I started. It was like working in Empire Records but with films instead of music. There were ten staff and the shop was busy all the time. It was the first place and the first time in my life I felt I could be myself, instead of trying to stay under the radar like I did at school. I loved it. The customers were excited to get the latest releases and I got to talk about films all the time. There’s a joyous moment when you talk about “that bit” in a particular film and the experience is shared, like you and the other person are sharing in the magical movie moment. But now it was about as glamorous as working in Open All Hours. It was depressing. How had all these years passed and I was still here?

“I miss it, Liv, how it was. I miss how people loved films.”

“People still love films, Cara.”

“I miss talking about them. I miss talking about the little moments of magic. The bits that make you go ‘ahh’ or the surprising bits, the twists that no one saw coming and the happy endings that everyone did see coming, but still loved them anyway.”

“People still talk about them. I’m talking about what I’m watching now.” Liv turned her laptop round to show me she was two-screening with her box set and Twitter.

“It’s not the same, Liv. When I first worked here people were so excited to come and get the latest releases, it was like handing them little parcels of magic.”

“You’ll have to look for another job, then.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I will. Again.”

I folded my arms. I hadn’t planned to stay in Boring Hampton as long as this anyway. It was just a little breathing space while I gathered my thoughts.

When I left here, I decided I would never come back and live in this town, which no one noticed and where no one noticed me. My distinctly average school grades meant I couldn’t go to university, so I took a job as an assistant in events management at a hotel chain in Cardiff, but realised that I was about as good at managing events as I was at managing myself.

I imagined I would be organising glitzy events like weddings and proms where magical things would happen like at the end of a John Hughes movie. I’d be creating little magical moments for others, moments so spectacular, the guests would be astounded by it all. Instead I found myself organising corporate events and product launches. It was all PowerPoint presentations in beige boardrooms and ordering croissants for breakfast meetings whilst making sure the urns of tea were hot.

When I did get an opportunity to plan a wedding or special event, I was so stressed by wanting to create the perfect occasion that I crumbled. The pressure got to me and I couldn’t stand being the centre of attention with everyone looking to me to make decisions. When the hotel chain was bought out, they brought in new staff, leaving me without a job at all.

“You could work in another video shop,” said Liv. It wasn’t exactly my career plan of choice.

“I don’t think there are any, Liv.”

I could tell by the look Anthony Michael Hall was giving me that I was right. He was The Brain after all.

Liv went back to her Netflix and the battered sausage was the only truly memorable moment of the day.

We only had one customer and he wasn’t really a customer at all; it was sneery Derek from the bookshop who made a visit now and again to show us how clever he was.

“Ladies,” he said, doffing an imaginary cap. He really shouldn’t have done that because it drew attention to his strange woman’s haircut. He looked at the display of covers on show, pinched the brow of his nose, rubbed his forehead and muttered the words “dumbing down” a lot.

Occasionally he would ask for some film no one had ever heard of, but usually he just ranted about Hollywood and how it was making us all stupid. He behaved like an old man even though he was only in his thirties. He could have been good-looking if he wasn’t always pulling a face because popular culture offended him so much. Everything seemed to make him so cross. Liv said it was because he was so brainy and read so many books that there was no room left in his head for fun. Most of the time, he was fine, I suppose, but a lot of the time I wanted to throw a brick at his head. Like just then when he picked up the cover of Dirty Dancing and said, “Vacuous, my dear. It is all so…vacuous.”

“It’s better than Free Willy,” I muttered under my breath, which raised a giggle from Olivia.

“No wonder you have no customers with this dross,” he said as he left. He flicked his university scarf over his shoulder. I could tell Molly Ringwald did not like Derek at all. I didn’t go into his dusty old shop telling him all his books were boring.

Liv folded her arms and scowled at him as he left. “What was he on about this time?”

“Dumbing down,” I said.

“Again? You’d think he’d give it a rest.” Liv launched into an impression of him and started doing a funny voice, repeating all the things he normally said.

“Liv,” I said. “Do you reckon Derek put the battered sausage in the returns box?”

“Why would he do that?” she said.

“Because he’s a weirdo?”

“Yeah, maybe. I wonder if we’ll get another one tomorrow?”

“That would be exciting,” I said and I meant it.

Just before home time, the pirate DVD lady stuck her head round the door, shouting, “Blu-ray, new release.”

“We’re fine, thanks,” I said, waving her away.

“You sure? All the latest films?” She grinned and shook her carrier bag at us.

“Quite sure,” I said and she left.

I picked up three John Hughes films and I called my friend Verity to say I was too knackered to go for a drink in the social club with her. I rang up my film rentals in the till and paid for them, so it looked at least like we’d had one paying customer that day, and then I had a revelation. The battered sausage had been the only interesting thing that had happened in the shop in months. It was certainly the most exciting thing that had happened in my life that day – possibly all week – and if this was the most exciting thing that had happened in my life all week, I was going to have to do something about it. I’d had a battered sausage revelation.

Chapter Two

The one thing this job had going for it was that it didn’t come with a commute. I took the short walk past our row of shops and round the back to the entrance to the flats. Verity insisted on coming over anyway even though I didn’t want to go out. She said she didn’t want to waste her babysitter. She arrived shouting about how she wasn’t going to let David Cameron oppress her because she was a single mum so she’d been shopping at Marks and Spencer’s because, she said, that would be the last thing he wanted. She’d bought us an M&S Dine in for Two. She also said she wanted to eat grown-up food for a change instead of “sodding fish fingers and chicken nuggets.”

“Talking of meat in batter,” I said.

“Yes?” said Verity.

“I had a battered sausage revelation today.”

“A revelation, eh? Okay. Tell me more.”

I told Verity about the special delivery and how exciting I thought it was and she agreed that I was demented and sad and needed to get a life.

Verity was the very best thing about coming home again. She pressed play on the remote control and for the next hour and a half or so we watched Pretty in Pink completely absorbed, mouthing all the words like we used to when we were at school.

“You know what the problem with this film is, don’t you, Cara?” asked Verity, as we watched the final scenes. She was pointing at different parts of the television with her cutlery, waving her knife around while she delivered her lecture.

“Yes.” I did know what she thought the problem with this film was, because every time we watched it, she said exactly the same thing. I shovelled a mouthful of mushroom tagliatelle in because I knew I wouldn’t be required to talk for a while.

“Not only does she ruin one, she ruins two, two perfectly good vintage dresses and turns them into that monstrosity…” She paused briefly to jab at the screen with her fork before continuing. “And instead of leaving with Duckie, she gets off with someone called Blane, who, quite frankly, has behaved like a complete arse. But apart from that, do you know what else gets me about these films?”

I nodded and polished off the rest of dinner. She was part way through her list when I tuned back in. I’d missed the bit about how come if they were the kids from the wrong side of the tracks they managed to own and run cars, and her thoughts on why on earth they simply did not ignore peer pressure and go out with whoever they liked.

I started on the raspberry and passion fruit choux fresh cream dessert.

“I like Blane,” I said. “He’s so kind and sweet. Plus he’s rich, so that helps. If you went out with Blane, you’d be able to eat Marks and Spencer’s meals for your tea every night! Imagine that!”

Verity tutted, but I still lived in hope that one day my Blane would turn up or even better my Judd Nelson. But I accepted neither of them or anyone like them were likely to turn up in Broad Hampton.

“And why, just why were all the high school senior boys played by thirty-five-year-old men? I mean that’s just weird, isn’t it? See him? He was twenty-seven years old when he was in this, you know.”

“I don’t care. Shut up,” I said. I grabbed the wine in one hand and the choux ring in the other and snuggled back into the corner of the sofa. “I love them. All of them. And you do too, so shut it. It’s the ending, my favourite part. It’s perfect.” I gave her the gentlest kick in the shins.

I’ve always loved endings, especially the happy endings that come at the end of a film. In no particular order, my favourite ones are Blane and Andie kissing at the prom in Pretty in Pink, Judd Nelson air punching after he’s kissed Claire at the end of The Breakfast Club and Keith giving Watts the earrings at the end of Some Kind of Wonderful.

My favourite thing about endings, at least the ones in films, is you know that by the time the end credits roll, all of The Worst Stuff that happens to the guys in the film is out of the way and The Good Stuff is beginning to happen.

“The only thing they get right in these things is just what arseholes the rich kids are.” She harrumphed. “And I know that to be a scientific fact.” Verity did indeed have first-hand experience that ending up with someone well off was never a good idea, and neither of us had the best time at school at the hands of the more well off kids.

Me, Verity and two other kids – Stubbs and Divvy – all lived on a road that linked our outer city estate to one of the “nice” parts of town. The way the school places worked meant we were the only four kids from our estate to go to St Veronica’s. People said we were lucky, but we were anything but. The other kids from our estate mocked our school uniforms and the kids at St Veronica’s pretty much ignored us. When things were going well, they ignored us, but when things weren’t, we were teased about charity shop shoes and school bags and threadbare uniforms patched up to last longer than they were designed to. So I did everything I could to stay under the radar.

“Blane is boring,” said Verity.

“He’s not. He’s perfect,” I said.

“Okay. Pick the next film then.” She fanned out the DVD cases for me to make our next selection.

“Breakfast Club,” I answered quickly.

“Really?” she asked. “Why?”

“Because I like the idea of spending Saturday morning in detention with Judd Nelson instead of sitting in a shop with no customers being surprised by processed pork products. And I like how they all know what they are.”

“What?” Verity asked taking the disc out.

“Yeah, you know, like you have the arty one or the brainy one. Must be nice being brainy or arty or athletic instead of just being average.”

“Average?” said Verity.

“Yeah. My thing is being average, always has been, always will be. That and talking to 80’s movie stars because I haven’t got any customers. Pretty sure I’m more like a basket case than any of the others in this film though,” I said.

“It’s probably more interesting talking to cardboard cut-outs than talking to my two all day. Do you know how many conversations I have had about Frozen today? A million. Two million probably.” Verity started chugging her wine back. “Bloody Frozen. Christ.”

“And you see in The Breakfast Club, they don’t have to pick what they want to be when they grow up. They already know. How am I meant to know what I am supposed to be?”

“They’re not real, Cara. It’s just all stereotypical. Hate to break it to you but it’s all fictional this, you know.”

“Yeah, but how do you know what you’re meant to do in actual real, real life?”

“You don’t. You just accept your lot and get on with it. I don’t believe in all this controlling your destiny business. Shit happens and then you get on with it. Simple as.”

I didn’t agree with Verity on that one. Surely we could have everything we wanted in life, just the same as everyone else. I wasn’t sure I was happy to give in and accept my lot.

“Yeah, I know they’re fictional, but at least they have a clue where their life is leading. I haven’t got the foggiest! I’m not academic; I’m not sporty. I never once got an A in anything and was never picked for the netball team. So what have we got left after The Brain and The Athlete? Oh yeah, The Basket Case and The Criminal.”

I contemplated whether a career in the pirated DVD sector would suit me. Okay, yes, it was highly illegal, but the pirate DVD lady always looked so happy, it was clear she had an enormous amount of job satisfaction. It might almost be worth going to prison for. Something will come up, I thought to myself. I’d find another job, one I liked and one that wouldn’t get me arrested.

“Then there’s Princess,” said Verity.

“Come off it. We are too skint for that. And we couldn’t really be any of the other Molly Ringwald characters in any of the films because we were crap at art and we didn’t like The Smiths, plus we hadn’t even heard of sushi in those days – let alone take it into a detention. What I would have given for a Saturday morning in detention with Judd Nelson!”

“We’re the skint ones,” said Verity. “That’s who we are.”

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to watch The Breakfast Club any more. It made me think about what school was really like. I’d often landed myself in detention, but it was nowhere near as fun as a detention in Shermer High School, Illinois. I’d never had a gun in my locker or taped Larry Lester’s arse cheeks together or any of the other things I aspired to do. I was just often late for registration, which meant spending first break picking up litter on the playing fields while Sister Mary Margaret shouted at us. I didn’t try as hard as I could not to be late, as it meant I didn’t have to spend much time in the social areas where the popular girls like April Webster and her cronies would mock my charity-shop and hand-me-down clothes.

At primary school April and I had been friends. Mum used to take me with her in the school holidays when she cleaned houses in the nicer parts of town. April’s mum was one of her customers and me and April would play for hours in her garden while Mum cleaned and did the laundry. Her mum was kind and brought us out jugs of orange squash with ice while April and I played on the swings or shared secrets in her tree house. April had an older sister and when it was time for secondary school to start, April’s mum gave us her old school uniform and school shoes. It was like new, and no one would have known except April must have told her friends. On the first day at school, every time I walked past one of April’s friends, they would whisper about my shoes and my second-hand clothes. April wouldn’t say anything, but she went along with her friends laughing.

I couldn’t tell Mum how they teased me or ask if I could have new clothes, but I cried on the way home, walking ahead of Verity and Stubbs until they caught me up. Stubbs made us laugh in between kicking a ball about between him and Divvy, so by the time I got home I had stopped crying. By second year, I’d had enough of the taunts of “bag lady” and I did everything I could to make myself invisible. I didn’t put myself forward for anything. I didn’t speak up in class to avoid drawing attention to myself and I didn’t try to make other friends. I just stuck with Verity, Stubbs and Divvy. I missed out on so many moments: the school plays, the discos, the school trips, as I did everything I could to be as inconspicuous as possible.

“Imagine if we’d had a high school prom like that,” I continued.

“We did have a prom, sort of,” said Verity. “The leaving disco.”

“I didn’t go to the leaving disco, not after the awful Christmas disco we had the year before,” I said. I hadn’t gone like I didn’t go to most things.

“Yeah, well you didn’t miss much. All we did was drink squash from plastic cups in a school dining hall that smelled of gravy and onions. I don’t think anyone even actually danced. It was hardly like a John Hughes film.”

I wondered where my perfect moment was and if it would ever arrive, and I began to bristle thinking about that school disco.

“Shall we go to the social club, then?” I asked.

“I’ll get my coat,” Verity said. “Think we’ll find your Blane or your Judd Nelson in there?”

“Doubt it very much,” I replied and laughed.

“That’s good. Because you don’t need a Blane; you need a Duckie. Everyone does,” Verity said as we left the flat.

I shook my head. I still had hope I’d get my happy ending. I’d find my perfect job, one where magic happens, and if my Judd Nelson came along, all the better. I still believed I could find the job of my dreams, creating little moments of magic for people. I just knew I would be able to create events that had that wow factor, moments people would talk about for ever. I had the battered sausage to thank for that. I knew that if a chip shop pork product was the most exciting thing that had happened in my week, I had to make a change. I made a resolution to myself I would start applying for events jobs first thing on Monday and vowed to myself I wouldn’t let my previous experience put me off. It was time to start again.

*

The social club was in the old cinema. Even though the building tried to stand majestic, the gaudy “Bingo” sign mocked the building. The bingo ran in one room and there was a tired-looking bar in the other. Verity worked there at lunchtimes, serving pints of mild and cheese rolls to pensioners.

An old man sat in what used to be the cinema ticket booth and asked us for our membership cards even though he knew we didn’t have any. We decided we would never become members, as that would make us sad and socially inadequate, so each week we forked out the fifty pence visitor’s entrance fee.

We walked through, past the main bingo hall and up into the bar where Stubbs was taking advantage of the lack of customers and leaning on the bar pencilling answers into a crossword in the newspaper. I glanced around at the ceiling in the bar area. It was so ornate, beautiful really – all intricately carved cornices and light fittings, which must have once held chandeliers. I loved it here even though it wasn’t a cinema any more.

Me and Verity, already a bit tipsy from the wine, demanded that Stubbs answer our questions.

“Stubbs, when we were all at school, would you rather have been an athlete or a basket case with dandruff?” Verity giggled.

“Not following you, ladies,” he said.

“Ah, but you see, Verity…” I pointed at Stubbs “…Stubbs was always good at art, good at everything really and he likes cool bands, so for all intents and purposes he is Molly Ringwald out of Pretty in Pink. And you lived in the rough part of town, so Stubbs, you are Molly Ringwald.”

“I am?” said Stubbs, mildly irritated by our line of questioning. “Well, thanks for that, you pair. You learn something every day.”

“I’m trying to find out what my thing is,” I said. “The choices are basket case, athlete…”

“Basket case,” Stubbs interrupted.

“Hey, I hadn’t finished yet! Criminal, princess…”

“Basket case,” said Stubbs.

“Oh shut up, you. What would you be? What’s your thing?” I said. I probably would have said Brain. Stubbs had been to uni.

“I didn’t know I had to have a thing,” he said. Stubbs totally didn’t have a thing either. I doubt he would want one. He was quite happy trundling along, not wanting to seek out anything new.

“Did you ever wish you were one of the popular kids at school? Or the rich kids?” I said.

“Nope,” he said firmly. He folded his newspaper up and moved behind the bar to pour our drinks.

Verity and Stubbs and I had been in the same form at school and sat at the same table. Verity and I had bonded immediately over knowing all the words to every single John Hughes film. While Stubbs didn’t really like those movies. He’d roll his eyes at us as we flicked through magazines, but he didn’t say much. He was always quiet and hid behind his too long fringe. It seemed like a lifetime ago now.

Stubbs had moved away too after sixth form and had gone to art school in London for a while. He’d met his girlfriend there on his first day and they had been together ever since. Until he’d decided to move back to the Midlands and she’d decided to stay in London. He didn’t hide behind his fringe any more; his hair was still longish, but brushed back off his face. He was taller than he’d been at school and despite working in the bingo hall, he always managed to look tanned.

“Do you wish school was different, Verity?” I asked. “Don’t you ever wish it was like a John Hughes film?”

“You and your bloody proms again. I don’t really think about school much,” she said.

“I do. All the time.” All the time I was at school, I couldn’t wait to leave, but I often wondered what it would be like to go back, do things differently.

I turned to Stubbs who was looking at me with his head cocked.

“I suppose what I really want to know is,” I continued, “if you could have your time at school again, would you do things differently?”

“I suppose, there is one thing I’d do if I had the chance.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” And he nodded his head towards the corner table where April Webster and her friends were sitting.

“What is she doing in here?” I said.

Having caught Stubbs looking over at her, April advanced towards us, Luis Vuitton handbag swinging at her side, blood-red lipstick, meticulously applied eyeliner, and false lashes, which were much longer than her dress.

“I wonder if Barry M know she’s raided their warehouse?” Verity whispered. I shushed her as April’s march came to a halt at the bar. Stubbs suddenly seemed tongue-tied and I got a bit flustered myself.

“So. Are you three coming then?” she asked.

“To what?” asked Verity, abruptly.

“To my ball. It’s going to almost be like a school reunion. It’s nearly fifteen years since we left school,” April said.

“A school reunion? What exactly is the point in having a school reunion when everyone I spoke to at school drinks in here all the time anyway?” said Verity with a sneer. It was actually a very good point and as if to prove it, Divvy McDavidson swaggered back in from the pool room. He pulled down the hood of his parka. I think he was trying to pull off a Liam Gallagher swagger, but in reality, he looked more like Frank. He’d clearly had a skinful again. He pulled up a stool, sat down and slumped over the bar.

April wrinkled her nose in disdain. “You can see everybody else.” I think she wanted us to thank her for honouring us with her presence and inviting us to mingle with the important people. “It’s to help the less fortunate. All the proceeds are going to charity,” she said smugly. “I’ve booked an amazing venue. It’s going to be spectacular.”

“When is it?” I said, wondering how good April’s event management skills were. I guessed they were impressive and much better than mine. April would be able to handle being the focus and would love being the centre of attention, I reckoned.

“Two weeks on Saturday,” she said, stroking her sleek black hair.

“Isn’t that’s a bit short notice?” I asked.

“Why, what else are you doing? Anyway, I’ve been planning it for months.”

Funny she hadn’t thought to mention it to us before, but she was right – I didn’t exactly have a scintillating social life.

Stubbs still wasn’t saying anything. He was looking at the floor, hands in his pockets. His hair fell over his eyes and it reminded me of the shy boy I had known at school.

“You’ll come, won’t you, sweetie?” she said, reaching over the bar and touching his arm. He looked up from beneath his hair, raised his eyebrows a little to indicate a yes.

Then, still digging her claws into Stubbs, she turned to me and Verity. “Oh and you know who else is coming don’t you?”

“Oh let me guess, is it Divvy by any chance?” said Verity motioning with her head to the crumpled parka in the corner. We could just see his head poking out as he snored on the bar. “Because if it is, then I’m definitely coming. Who wouldn’t want to spend an evening with him?”

Divvy lifted his head, but it seemed like too much effort to keep it there, so he slumped back down again.

“No, it’s not Divvy. I doubt he’ll be able to stand up that long. So do you want to know who it is then? Someone else who got back into town recently?” she asked.

“I’m guessing you’re going to tell us anyway,” said Verity, knocking back the last of her wine while I nervously sipped mine.

Don’t say his name. Not him. Don’t say it.

And then of course, almost inevitably, she did.

Chapter Three

Daniel Rose.

I remember the very first time I saw him. It was just after autumn half-term break in year eleven. Dad was back at work but things were still tight. That year, I had April’s old school cardigan from the year before, but if April knew, she didn’t tell anyone and I’d been able to keep myself under the radar.

But then I’d been late for registration again and Sister Mary Margaret was waiting outside the Science block for me at break time. She gave me a clear polythene bag along with some sharp words and pointed me towards the playing field. If I got back to Sister with a full bag before the end of break, I might have still had time to join Stubbs and Verity for a piece of soggy cheese and tomato pizza in the steamed-up dining hall. If I didn’t manage a full bag of litter within the first few minutes, I’d have to spend the whole of break out there freezing my backside off. I made my way towards the fence where the crisps packets gathered.

That’s when I first saw Daniel. He was leaning on the fence drawing on a sketch pad and as I approached he looked up, ran his hands through his Judd Nelson–style curtains of hair and indicated my litter bag with his pencil. He nodded at me in acknowledgement. He wore a checked flannel shirt over his uniform and I thought he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

He walked over. “What you in for?” he asked, eyeing me up and down as if to assess my crime.

“Late,” I said.

“Yeah.” He nodded wisely, looking deep in thought, and gave another flick of his curtains.

“What about you?” I asked.

“This,” he said. He pointed to his blazer pocket where he had torn off his school badge and sewn on a Nirvana patch. “They’re so oppressive here. They don’t let us express ourselves, you know? They said I’ve got detention every break until I take it off and wear their school propaganda, but I said this place was an oppressive regime and it was symbolic of that, you know?”

I nodded, even though I didn’t have the foggiest what he was going on about. I studied him and noticed his trousers were ripped – not through wear and tear; I suspected he had done it himself.

“So, do you want to split this lot between us then?” I asked, pointing at the crisps packets. “We’ve still got fifteen minutes of break left. Or are you just going to stand there and doodle?”

He shook his head. He ripped a page out of his sketchbook, screwed it up and threw it among the other litter.

“Didn’t you like that one then?” I asked, picking it up and putting it in my litter bag.

“Art is meaningless,” he said, motioning his head towards his crumpled-up paper. “And it means everything. You know?”

My God, he was amazing. He was different to all the other boys at school, apart from the curtains haircuts – they all had those, of course, but Daniel was different. Daniel looked like a rock star and he had noticed me. I had spent years trying not to be noticed, but here I was enjoying the attention.

“I don’t know really,” I said. “I wasn’t allow to do art because…well, I can’t draw to save my life and there was that time in pottery where I made the My Little Pony penholder that exploded in the kiln, so I don’t think Mrs Kelly likes me much. So I do Office Studies and Information Processing.”

“Yeah?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah. It’s perretttty cool,” I said, trying not to cringe over telling him about the penholder and not sounding like I was cool at all. My social skills were underdeveloped as it was and here I was trying to talk to this rock star of a boy.

“Yeah,” he said, nodding and staring intently. The wind whipped up around us sending the litter up in the air and I instinctively tried to grab them like I was a Crystal Maze contestant. I grabbed a drinks carton and a pickled onion Monster Munch packet and then I stumbled trying to reach for a Wham bar wrapper, which left me nearly upside down.

“Stay there! Stay still,” he shouted.

“What? Right here? Like this?” I was bent over, nearly upside down, unsteady on my feet and talking to him through my legs.

He used his hands to frame me like a film director and then frantically sketched. “Don’t move,” he said, “I’ve nearly got it.”

I could feel blood rushing to my head due to the whole being upside down business. I tried to steady myself by placing my hands on the ground, but the grass was wet and my hands slipped forward, taking the rest of upper body with them. My feet stayed where they were so I landed on my knees.

“Sorry,” I said, wondering what the hell I was playing at. “I slipped.”

He tore the page from the book and handed it to me.

“Erm…thanks?” I said, staring at the page.

“It’s the wrong way up,” he said.

“Oh right.” I turned the page the other way round. “What is it?” I asked squinting.

“It’s how I see you,” he said. And then he left. He was walking off towards the school gates when Sister Mary Margaret went chasing after him.

*

“And what the bloody hell is that supposed to be?” said Verity after break when I passed the drawing to her in double English.

“He said it was how he sees me.” I think Daniel was the first boy ever to notice me.

“He sees you as a weird egg-shaped head, standing underneath a climbing frame?” she asked.

“They’re my legs,” I said, trying to wipe my still-dirty knees with soggy school toilet paper.

“Why are you holding a giant Wham bar?”

I shrugged.

April Webster turned round from the seat in front of us, talking to me for the first time in over a year.

“What are you two looking at?” she sneered and snatched the drawing.

“Daniel drew it,” I said.

“Daniel Rose?” she asked.

“Yes, Daniel Rose.”

Daniel, the only person to notice me.

*

After April had very slowly and carefully enunciated every single syllable in his name, and added in a few extra ones for good measure, she smiled a tight grin. She stared directly at me for longer than was comfortable, and said, “I’ll get you some tickets. We can sell them behind the bar.”

As she flounced off she took another glance back over her shoulder. She walked away towards her friends who were all sniggering and whispering behind their hands and I felt, once again, like I did at school.

The news that Daniel Rose was back in town filled me with a sense of unease. “Well, that sounds about as much fun as sticking hot needles in your eye,” Verity said. “You can count me out, for a start. What a waste of babysitting fees that would be. Talking of which, I’ll have another please, Stubbs. Time is money and all that. You’re not going are you, Cara? Cara?”

“What?” I said, still distracted. “Oh, no.” I shook my head. “Absolutely not. Especially not if he’s going.” I shivered and my face went hot all at the same time.

“Oh come on, you’re not still bothered about what happened all those years ago are you? It’s such a trivial little thing. I don’t know why you’re so fixated on it!” said Verity. She tutted and looked more than a little disappointed in me.

“Hey, I might go, you know,” said Stubbs whose gaze was still drawn in April’s direction, his tongue almost hanging out.

“What? You’re joking aren’t you?” I said, in disbelief. “I thought you didn’t like her.” I felt like Stubbs was being disloyal.

“She’s all right,” he said. “Okay she was a bit of a dick at school, but she’s okay now. People change you know.”

“I suppose so,” I said, still feeling hurt. Stubbs and April together? It seemed preposterous. “You’re seriously after April? You?” As soon as I said it, I realised how it sounded. I could tell by his face I had hurt his feelings. He thought I was saying he wasn’t good enough for her. “I didn’t mean it like that, Stubbs. I just meant that I didn’t think she was your type.”

“I know exactly what you meant, Cara.” He walked off to the other end of the bar where one of April’s friend was demanding cocktails no one had ever heard of.

“Ouch,” said Verity, wincing. “That was a bit harsh, Cara.”

“It just came out,” I said. “I didn’t mean anything by it. But she wouldn’t go for someone like Stubbs would she? Stubbs and April? Come on. Doesn’t seem right does it?”

“I dunno,” said Verity. She looked over at Stubbs. “He’s not bad-looking, Stubbs. He’s just a bit rough around the edges, like there’s something missing. He needs a bit of confidence, yes, but he could totally get off with April if he wanted.”

Although he had been shy, he used to be so passionate about so many things like music and art, and he loved photography. He’d always had his camera with him. Now he seemed to be content calling bingo numbers. It had taken the battered sausage revelation to make me realise my ambition had been diminishing rapidly ever since I had returned. I reckoned Stubbs would need a battered sausage revelation of his own if he was to get anywhere career wise and I wondered for a moment if I could make that happen. He’d certainly need a bit of oomph if he was to get anywhere with April. April had made such a success of her life and I couldn’t see her wanting to so much as look at Stubbs. I watched him with April’s friend as she giggled when he offered her alternatives to cocktails.

“Whereas me, I don’t think anyone would ask me out,” added Verity checking herself out in the mirror behind the bar, pulling at her imaginary wrinkles. “I look so knackered, I don’t think even Divvy would want to get off with me.”

I hadn’t even considered any of the guys from round here as possibilities for romantic potential. I wasn’t staying anyway, I told myself, so I had no time for that. I’d be leaving as soon as I’d worked out what I was going to do. I wanted some magic in my life, my own special moments, and I wasn’t going to find any round here. Maybe it was time for me to leave? Daniel Rose did hold a bit of an appeal but he’d moved on. He’d done something interesting, unlike Stubbs or Divvy.

“As if you would even consider Divvy,” I said and laughed.

Poor Divvy. He did seem to be in a worse state than usual, even for a Saturday. Verity gave him a quick prod to check he was still breathing.

“I don’t think I could bear it – a school reunion, Vee,” I said. “Can you imagine it? It will be all: What do you do? Where do you live? Are you married? Didn’t you move away? How come you are back here?”

“We don’t have to go,” said Verity.

“I don’t want to go and admit I am a complete loser who has been working in a video shop as a Saturday assistant. That’s if anyone even remembers who I am. I need to sort myself out a proper job before I go, but yeah, sod it, I’m going. I’ve missed out all these years. I’d quite like a send-off. And I wouldn’t mind seeing Daniel Rose,” I said.

Verity shook her head. “Really? You’re going there?”

“Why not?” I said. I could think of plenty reasons why not, the main one being that Daniel Rose might not even know who I was.

April and her friends giggled as they left, probably off to the swanky café bar along the High Street. Then Verity declared wearily that it was time for her to leave too.

Verity loved being a mum but always said she resented having to be home by eleven-thirty on a Saturday night so her babysitters could go out on the town. I usually stayed and helped Stubbs clean up when she left, but after what I’d said earlier, I wasn’t sure that was a good idea, or that he would want me around. So as Verity put her coat on, I pulled mine on too.

“And where do you think you’re going, Dunham?” Stubbs said. He was still not smiling, but I didn’t think he was cross with me any more.

“Verity’s going, so I’ll walk back with her now,” I said, studying his face for some kind of reaction or a little tell.

“Take your coat off, Cara. You haven’t paid for that drink yet, so you’ll have to work it off. Go and get some glasses in.” And then came the wink, the one that let me know I was off the hook, and then a little smile that let me know we were friends again.

“Do you mind if I stay a bit?” I asked Verity.

“Go for it,” she said. “I’d be demanding a lock-in if the kids were at their dad’s tonight. Have fun.”

Verity hugged me and left. After everyone else had gone home and Stubbs had locked up, he poured us both a pint of cider and black. “For old time’s sake, let’s relive our youth,” he said as he came and sat at the other side of the bar with me.

“I’m sorry, Stubbs,” I said and moved a bit closer to him. “I didn’t mean what I said; it just came out wrong. I was just surprised, is all. I didn’t think April would be your type?”

“My type?” he said. “I should be so lucky as to have a type. But it’s all right. You’re probably right, anyway.”

“It’s just how her friends teased us, do you remember?”

“We were just kids, Cara. Anyway, I probably won’t be asking her out because apart from anything else, I wouldn’t even know how to ask a woman out. You know I’ve never asked a woman out in my life?”

“What? Seriously? You must have done. What about Kim at uni?” I was surprised by his admission. Verity was right; perhaps he did just need a bit of confidence.

“Nope,” he said taking a swig of his drink and pulling a face. I wasn’t sure if it was the taste of this once-loved cider and black or his revelation. “It just sort of happened. And she’s the only girlfriend I ever had, so there was never a call for me to ask anyone out.”

“I can’t believe you’ve never asked anyone out! Maybe you ought to try it. Just to see what happens.”

“Yeah? All right then.” He raised an eyebrow, took a breath in and took my hand. “Cara Dunham. Will you please, please, go out with me?” he said.

I had to stop myself from spitting my drink out. After a moment or two when it was touch and go, I managed to swallow it, regain composure and then I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. Stubbs pulled his hand away and folded his arms.

“You see, that’s exactly the reaction I would get if I asked a real woman out. You’ve crushed me, Cara. Besides, you’re right. April is fit as. And if you won’t go out with me, there’s no chance she would.”

“Thanks a bloody lot.”

He was now feigning devastation and clutching at his heart. He made me laugh so much. “Okay, what about you then? I saw your face when April mentioned Daniel Rose.”

“Oh I know. I don’t know if I could stand seeing him, Stubbs. It would remind me of how awful things were back then – plus I reckon I’d probably go weak at the knees or something or have a nervous breakdown.” I was cringing just at the thought of it.

“Weird how some people get you like that isn’t it?” said Stubbs.

“I know,” I said laughing. “I can’t help it. Just hearing his name makes me crush all over again like a teenager.”

Stubbs laughed. “Come on then, I’ll walk you back.” He drummed on his thighs to spur himself into action. “I’ll just get my coat and wake Divvy up.”

Stubbs bundled a protesting Divvy into a taxi outside. He paid the driver and gave him Divvy’s address. We walked past a group of teenagers on the way. The boys were full of beer and bravado and one swung from the roof of the bus stop as the girls giggled. The last bus heading out into the nearest city centre arrived and took them all off on an adventure.

“Fancy joining them?” asked Stubbs.

“Nah. Not really dressed for it. Anyway, too many people, all queuing up for half an hour to get served, over-the-top prices. Can’t believe I am actually saying this but I think I prefer the social club,” I said.

“Well, the Broad Hampton social club does have its good points.”

“The staff not being one of them.”

“Right, that’s you barred, Cara.”

“Anyway, you’re not exactly dressed for it are you?” I said pointing to his bingo caller’s uniform.

“So, Daniel then?”

“Yeah, Daniel,” I said. “Are you going to go? Shall we go to the reunion, just to see what it’s like?”

Stubbs shrugged. “Maybe. It might be fun.”

“I’m going to go,” I said. “I have to go. I can’t keep being afraid of what people will think. I’m applying for jobs first thing on Monday. Don’t you ever want to move away again?”

“No, I like it, here.” He was telling the truth; it seemed enough for him. “Like, today, oh listen to this right, we had a right laugh because one of the bingo balls went missing and turned out Jim had it in his pocket all along.” He chuckled to himself.

“Stubbs, that’s quite possibly one of the most boring stories involving a bingo ball I have ever heard.”

Stubbs stopped laughing. “Yeah, it is, I suppose. You had to be there.”

“No, I didn’t,” I said. “I can tell that being there would possibly make it even more boring.”

Stubbs laughed. “Yeah, you’re right. I suppose it was really boring.”

I wondered if Stubbs was having a battered sausage revelation as well.

“You used to want to do so much, Stubbs. So did I. And look at us, still here.”

“Yeah, well things change,” said Stubbs. “And I like working at the club. I like seeing people’s faces when they win. It’s nice; I like making people happy.”

He tilted his head to the side and looked at me quizzically.

“But you’re definitely thinking of leaving again?” he said.

I nodded.

“Reckon you’ll still be here for April’s party?” he said.

“Yeah.” I wasn’t convinced it would be such a good idea. Being the invisible girl at school, I wasn’t sure if anyone would even know who I was. At least Stubbs had an identity of sorts, even if he was the original geek.

“It will be fun,” he said, trying to convince himself.

“Will it?” I said, very much unconvinced, but I didn’t want to miss out this time. “I just don’t want to go and feel like a complete loser with my glorified Saturday job, not having achieved anything.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” he said, stopping in the road outside the chippy. He gestured up and down himself. “Look at me, I’m an even bigger loser than you. At least you went out there and tried to make a go of it and you’re thinking of trying again.”

“You could too,” I said.

He shrugged. “Think I’ve missed the boat on that one.”

I felt like Stubbs could begin to do the things he enjoyed again. He was just lacking in confidence. Maybe it was the same for me. I got the impression from a few of the things he’d said that he’d been so busy supporting Kim in her career when he lived away, that he’d slotted into her life down south and there wasn’t much room for Stubbs to flourish. I studied him for a while and he looked distracted like something was troubling him. His face slightly screwed up. I think that’s what your face looks like when you are having a battered sausage revelation.

Stubbs could do whatever he wanted. We both could. We could both have our John Hughes moments, our scene at the end when everything was perfect. And I’d go to April’s stupid ball as well, even though it would be such a hard thing to do. Like Andie in Pretty in Pink, I needed them to know they didn’t break me.

Chapter Four

I woke on Sunday feeling like I’d barely slept at all and my head was whizzing with thoughts of school reunions, Daniel Rose and disappointing school discos. I was shattered from too much wine and that vile cider and black. I was convinced I would go straight to sleep, but I lay awake for ages and everything came flooding back as though it was yesterday.

I’d made myself invisible nearly all the way through school, then when Daniel appeared suddenly I didn’t want to be invisible any more. I had tried so hard for no one to ever look my way and Daniel had noticed me anyway. He made me think it would be okay for people to see me.

By the time the Christmas disco came around, Daniel Rose had flirted with and asked out every girl in our class apart from me. I told myself I’d been foolish to think he’d even noticed me, but sometimes I caught him looking over in class and he spoke to me in detention every day. Verity said he was probably waiting to ask me to the disco. She thought he liked me too. We both walked home for weeks, saving up our bus fare so we could buy clothes for the Christmas disco, and I lived in hope that Daniel was going to ask me out. I was fed up of not joining in, not taking these moments for myself.

I walked into the hall where Daniel was standing near the door. I thought he might be about to come over and ask me out. Then I was jostled by one of April’s friends who laughed out loud and then muttered “bag lady” as she walked past. I hadn’t heard it in years and it cut deep. Bag lady. How could she be so cruel? This was the moment I had been waiting for, for Daniel to notice me and ask me out. I felt so vulnerable stood in front of all those people. Tears rolled down my face and I couldn’t speak. Daniel Rose was looking right at me. Was he going to save me from this humiliation with a kind word or a look? He looked down at the floor and walked away. I felt Stubbs pull my hand from behind. I wondered if he had heard the unkind words. I wasn’t sure, but I felt his pull and walked away with him.

The following day there were sniggers again, chattering about me barely out of earshot. I should have known not to draw attention to myself.

After that, I went back to being invisible again. It was easier that way.

*

When April had first invited us to the ball, I knew I had to go. I wanted to prove to everybody that all those years of hiding away meant nothing – that I was just as good as everyone else. I’d spent so long feeling invisible and trying to be average, I felt I’d never really had a chance to shine at anything and I hadn’t found my thing.

All the years of missing out on social activities meant I spent a lot of time at home watching films, experiencing all my important moments watching John Hughes films, not having any of my own. But it wasn’t too late to find out what my thing was.

I dragged myself to the convenience shop on the corner of the High Street, just before midday, to seek out some Sunday lunch. In the shop, I found myself browsing the Pot Noodles – such was my glitzy life. I bizarrely found myself wondering what April would be having for her lunch. Something expensive, most probably. April had made a success of things here in Broad Hampton whereas I couldn’t even make a Sunday lunch. I was pleading with Mr Sidhu because last week, I had made him promise never ever, ever to sell me a Pot Noodle on a Sunday again no matter how hung-over I was and how much I begged.

He folded his arms and shook his head slowly, resolutely. He wasn’t going to budge.

“Just this once,” I said, “then I am quitting.”

“This is the last time,” he said. “You said you were quitting. How about a nice microwave meal instead? Have a look in the freezer. I’ve got some nice frozen chicken dinners for you.”

He gestured to the chest freezer, which was half full of 10p freeze pops and the rest full of boxes covered in so many ice crystals you couldn’t really tell what they were.

I was peering in the freezer when I heard Stubbs.

“You won’t find a Pot Noodle in there, Cara,” he said, laughing. Judging by the grey sweatpants and white vest, I assumed he’d been for a run over the rec.

“Have you really been up at this hour running?” I said.

“It’s nearly lunchtime,” he said.

“Why do you do it though? Running?” I asked as he paid Mr Sidhu for his water.

Stubbs was never really a sporty type at school and here he was dressed just like Emilio Estevez. Perhaps Stubbs was now an athlete and had found his ‘thing’.

He shrugged. “Makes you feel good.”

“You should listen to your friend,” Mr Sidhu said. “Some fresh air, exercise, good food. Just what you need.”

I thanked Mr Sidhu for his unsolicited and unwelcome advice and me and Stubbs made our way out of the shop. But he had a point.

“So would you say it’s like your ‘thing’ now, being an athlete?” Maybe it could be my thing too? Then when I went to the ball, I could tell people how sporty I was and everyone would marvel at my athleticism. I wondered how long it would take for me to fully athleticise. More than a fortnight, I imagined.

“Why do I have to have a ‘thing’?”

“Like in The Breakfast Club,” I said. “It’s what makes them all cool. Can you teach me how to run in a fortnight?”

Stubbs laughed and stopped in his tracks, nearly spitting his water out.

“How did you get to thirty years old and not know how to run? You don’t know how to run! Have you heard yourself?”

“Well, obviously, I could run, but I don’t have special clothes or anything.”

“You are a moron, you know that, don’t you?” he said, grinning.

I gave him a gentle dig in the arm.

“Go on, please, show me how to run. I want to see if I’m an athlete. Maybe I could have been if I’d been able to afford to go to the clubs and buy the kits,” I said.

“Okay, if you really want to know how to run, meet me in the park later. And I will teach you the noble art of putting one foot in front of the other. And maybe how not to be such a moron.”

“I think I could totally do it. Being an athlete would suit me. Like Emilio Estevez in the film. Except not a wrestler because that would be weird, but yeah, you can show me how to do running later.”

He repeated everything back to me, sarcastically. “You want to be an athlete, like Emilio Estevez in the film? And you want me to show you how to do running?”

Now he said it like that, it did sound a bit stupid, but I persisted and pretended it was perfectly normal. “Yes please,” I said. “You can help me because you are good at everything. Even PE.”

Being from our estate hadn’t seemed to hold Stubbs back in exactly the same way it did with me, but I still felt he hadn’t achieved all he could. He’d always seemed to rise above any teasing, laughing it off or batting it back with witty remarks.

“PE?” Stubbs laughed. “Yeah, well, I don’t really call it PE any more, you know. I tend it call it exercise, like normal people do. But okay, whatever, Dunham. I’ll see you later.”

I phoned Verity as soon as I got in.

“I’m going to be an athlete,” I said. “It’s going to be my thing. Stubbs is going to teach me how to run. Want to come?”

“I’d love to but it’s Sunday and I have to watch Frozen four hundred times. Why are you going to be an athlete, by the way?” she said as an afterthought.

“So I don’t look like a loser at the school reunion. It’s part of finding my thing; then I’ll go to the school reunion, Daniel Rose will find me scintillating and magnetic and I’ll have my John Hughes moment and then I can get on with life. It will be a turning point, like in a film.”

“Right. Well I’m glad you’ve sorted that out. You’re going for a run in the park with Stubbs and then your life is going to magically change?”

“Exactly,” I said. Listening to my plan remixed with Verity’s cynical words didn’t make it sound the most convincing, but it seemed as good a place to start as any. Besides I thought it would be fun going to the park with Stubbs. I still wasn’t fully convinced the athlete’s life was for me. Maybe I needed to up my game and rethink my nutrition? I stared at my Pot Noodle on the kitchen worktop and swiped it away into the bin. I was having a Pot Noodle moment to go with the battered sausage revelation.

*

“Are you still hung-over? You’re hung-over, aren’t you?” Stubbs looked like a proper runner, alternately stretching his arms across his back and stretching out his thighs, which I may have by accident had a look at for slightly too long.

“No,” I insisted. I gulped down some water and squinted in the sunlight.

“Sure?” he said.

“Positive! Though I may avoid cider and black for a little while.”

I could not believe how many people there were in the park, doing exercising stuff. Walking their dogs, having picnics with their families, power walking. “Why aren’t they all lying on their sofas watching hangover telly?” I said. “These people are sick.”

“It was your idea, Dunham. You’re the one who wanted to come out running. So when was the last time you ran?”

I had to think. “Well I ran for the bus a few weeks ago when I was going into Worcester. Although actually, that’s probably a few months back now.” I felt slightly alarmed as I thought it might have been even longer than that and I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I had left Broad Hampton. Perhaps I was going to be stuck here for ever.

“You need to stretch first,” he said. “Come on.”

I started copying what he was doing and stopped almost immediately.

“I feel like a twat – everyone is looking at me.”

“Come on, Cara,” he said sternly. “Just do it; no one’s looking at you.”

I placated him with a few half-hearted calf stretches.

“Come on then, let’s go,” he said and shot off at such a pace I considered giving up and just turning round and going the other way.

“Come on,” he shouted from ahead and I started running. He jogged back towards me and round in a circle. When I had been going for all of about forty seconds, I said I needed to stop for a rest. It was exhausting.

He continued circling around me for a while as I stood there with my hands on my thighs, head bowed like I had just finished a marathon.

“Can we walk for a bit?” I said.

“Sure,” he said. He put an arm around my shoulders and hauled me upright.

Now that I wasn’t trying to run at Usain Bolt speed, I was able to take in the sights and sounds of the park. The daffodils, the lake. “It’s nice here, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I come most mornings.”

“Do you?” I said. “Well I did not know that.”

“There’s loads of stuff you don’t know about me.”

“Is there?” I said. “Well, it must be nice to have something to be passionate about.”

“Yeah, well I’m passionate about loads of things.”

“Like what?”

“Like you, my love,” he said in an over-the-top voice. He took my hand and spun me round and before I knew it, he had bent me over in some elaborate dance move and I was relying on him to keep me held up because my knees had somehow got lost beneath me.

“Stubbs! Get off me,” I said, giving him a whack on the arm. He pulled me up and I looked around to see if anyone had seen what a massive idiot he was being.

“What’s wrong with you,” he said, laughing hard.

“Everyone’s looking,” I said.

“Oh here we go again. Don’t want anyone looking at you, but always moaning that nobody notices you.”

“Nobody does notice me,” I said, feeling a little bit hurt and embarrassed that Stubbs seemed to think it was funny.

“Yeah, right,” he said.

“Anyway, I thought you wanted to ask April out. Isn’t she the one you’re passionate about?”

He scratched his head and looked off into the distance and kind of mumbled a bit.

“Maybe,” he said.

“Well, why don’t you then?”

“I dunno. I don’t know what she’ll say.”

“She’ll say yes. Or she’ll say no.”

“Nah, was a silly idea really. She wouldn’t go out with someone like me.”

“What do you mean, someone like you?”

“You know what April is like, she’s all bad boy bikers or corporate bankers. She goes for anyone with a bit of drama attached. I reckon I’m just too ordinary for her and just not popular enough. She is fit though.” I reckoned he added that bit about her being fit because he was worried he had almost revealed his innermost secrets and fears and had to change it at the last minute to blokeify his statement.

“Yeah, she is. Fit.” I thought, unlike me who wanted to keel over after a forty-second run. I didn’t think that being an athlete was my thing at all.

“I’m bored of this now,” I said. “Can we go for a cup of tea instead?” I motioned with my head to the tea rooms.

Stubbs reluctantly agreed and we sat near the window with a pot of tea and piles of toast.

“So the athletic life isn’t for you, then? What’s next on your plan?”

“Brain,” I offered. “Or criminal?”

“Do you want to leave without paying then?”

“No way,” I said, looking round to see if the staff or one of the customers on the nearby table had heard us.

“Brain it is then.” Stubbs reached out behind him and picked up one of the newspapers from the rack. He flicked through to the crossword page and said, “Nine down…”

“Stop,” I said. “I can’t do crosswords.” Brain was probably the least likely fit for me, I reckoned.

“How do you know you can’t? When did you last do one? Here try this one. Nine down: ‘month for fools’.”

I tutted and decided I wasn’t going to go along with it but then he said, “It’s easy.”

“April,” I said. Stubbs grinned and raised his eyebrows.

Bloody April again. Popping up everywhere to remind me how cool and popular she was. I’d always assumed things were easy for April at school. She must have had a blast, everyone liked her and she was at the centre of everything. I thought back to watching The Breakfast Club and wondered if being popular had been a curse for April, like it was for Molly Ringwald. Maybe this life as a princess wasn’t that comfortable for April after all. I wondered if she was like me and was finding it hard to shake the past or if she was satisfied to live the life she had been assigned at school. It was like April hadn’t moved on at all, trying to cling on to her popularity. It made me even more determined to move on from being the invisible girl.

Chapter Five

“How old are you, Liv? Nineteen? Twenty?” I’d barely given chance for her to take her coat off. I don’t suppose it was very fair of me to bombard her with questions this early on a Monday morning. I was sat at the desk, updating my CV. I was determined to have something in place before April’s reunion, to be doing something I was proud of.

“I’m twenty-five,” she said.

“Oh,” I said.

“I’ve worked with you for years,” said Liv, pleading with me to understand. I knew that she had, but sometimes I struggled to comprehend how the years had gone so fast. How had so much time passed and nothing really happened?

I wondered how things had been at school for Liv. She didn’t seem to fit into any particular type.

“Oh yeah, course,” I said to Liv, studying her for a while, wondering if she had been popular at school, wondering whether Daniel would have asked her out. She certainly fit the part: glamorous, fashionable but with her own quirky colourful style. I looked down at my own clothes: a long black tunic over a pair of trousers and another pair of block-heeled shoes. When I started working here in the summer before sixth form, it was the first time I’d been able to buy my own clothes and it felt so good to choose things for myself, but I hadn’t really changed my look since. Fashion struck me as particularly exhausting and yet here was Liv who made it look effortless. She must have been popular at school.

“So were you one of the popular girls at school?” I nodded, waiting for her to tell me like Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club how it was such a challenge being so popular and having to fit in with her friends.

“No. Goth.”

“Goth!? Like full goth? Black hair, eyeliner, the lot?”

“Yeah.” Liv nodded and laughed. “I had a long leather coat with Sisters of Mercy painted on the back and I wore German army boots and hardly anyone talked to me, but I didn’t talk to them either.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How could Liv, this religious follower of YouTube beauty bloggers, ever have worn black lipstick?

“So,” I said taking a sidelong glance at Ally Sheedy, “were you, would you say, a basket case?”

Liv laughed. Being the athlete clearly wasn’t for me, and I wondered whether you were allowed to suddenly turn into a goth in your thirties.

“Probably yeah. Come here,” said Liv, “I’ll show you the pics.”

Liv scrolled through Facebook on her phone, and showed me a photo of her in full goth make-up at what looked like a family meal in something like a Toby Carvery. She was sat on the end of the table, everyone else smiling and raising their glasses in a toast, while Liv looked like the undead. I burst out laughing.

“So what happened, Liv? How did you escape from the goth cult?”

“Spots,” she said.

“Eh?”

“The main reason I started wearing loads of white make-up was because I had acne at school. It was the only thing that covered it up and stopped people noticing, and then one thing led to another and soon I was full goth with a mop of dyed black hair to hide behind every day. Once I left school, the spots cleared up and I could wear what I liked, which is good because I can’t stand the Sisters of Mercy. Give me Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber any day. But it did the job at the time. I’ve still a few scars, mind, so I still have to have big hair,” she said giving a flick of her curls, smiling and making herself smaller in her seat.

“Well, I think you look lovely, Liv. And I don’t think you are a basket case at all. And you were a very pretty goth. I wish I’d been a goth. Or something.”

Liv smiled shyly and shrunk even further down behind her computer before popping up and brightly saying, “Well this is the thing about school isn’t it? No one’s who they think they are. Hey, do you want me to goth you up?”

“Erm…” While I had thought about trying to see if some Ally Sheedy eyeliner was my thing, I wasn’t sure about going full goth.

“I can’t, Liv, I have all these jobs to apply for,” I said. Before the shop had opened, I’d already filled in two application forms and contacted a number of agencies. There was an assistant events job in a stately home nearby and an agency in Worcester had advertised a receptionist job with responsibility for events. It was in Penarth, near Cardiff, not far from where the hotel chain was. It came with live-in accommodation and the start date was soon – the week after the party.

“Come on, it will be a laugh,” said Liv, giggling.

“Go on then,” I said.

Liv rifled through her make-up bag and pulled out loads of eyeliners and some white colour correction cream and highlighter.

“I tend to go for more neutral colours now,” she said and winked. She got out of her chair and offered it to me and I sat down.

Ten minutes later, she showed me my reflection in her mirror. She’d made my face so pale by covering it in Touché Éclat and face powder, and had drawn on some ridiculous dark eyebrows and used an eyeliner to colour my lips black. Once I had gotten over the shock, I laughed so much I was shaking. There was no way I was going to be a weird goth basket case. If I turned up to the ball like this, they’d think I’d gone in fancy dress.

“Ooh, hang on a bit,” she said before grabbing some liquid eyeliner and painting on my face. “Finishing touches.” She showed me the mirror again when she’d finished.

“Liv!” She’d drawn a huge pretend Frankenstein scar on my head. I didn’t look like I was a goth and instead looked like I was going to a Halloween party. Perhaps it was time to give the whole finding my subculture a rest. I screamed laughing and so did Liv when the shop bell rang and in walked the owner, Alan.

“Having fun girls?” he said.

“We’re just…” I started. I should have kept my mouth shut because me talking had attracted attention to myself and Alan was now staring at the pretend eyeliner scar on my head.

“…doing a Halloween promotion.”

“In May? I see,” he said. “Well, you’ll need to do a lot more than that, girls. Sorry to tell you but I’ve had an offer.”

Liv looked at me with a concerned face. “What kind of offer?” she said.

“For the building. From a big supermarket. They want to open one of those little convenience branches.”

I let out a deep breath. It was no surprise the shop would close at some point. Even in Broad Hampton, things had to change. I couldn’t help feeling sad but this was another kick up the backside I needed. If they wanted the building, the flat would go too. I’d have to move on.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.