Diamonds Are a Teen's Best Friend (8 page)

But me, my eyes stay on my father. What is he doing here? He starts along the row, goes to sit down, finds a spot and then does the in/out/in of the program thing again. There’s a word or two with the woman sitting next to him, who points out a line on the program and then he … oh, no … glances up.

Oh, no.

No.

He squints first at me, then at Holly, then looks back down again and does the in/out/in of the program one more time. And then, just when I think my time has run out, without a backward glance (honestly, I can hardly believe my luck) he gets up and starts to leave.

What? Hello? Dad! Over here! Daughter to be grounded! Maybe even for years!

I watch him come towards me, passing through the people in his row who obligingly lift their knees up (again) so he can pass. He’s walking, walking, walking. Um, and the totally weird thing is – I don’t think he’s noticed I’m on stage at all.

‘Diamonds!’ I keep singing, trying not to rush through the song, even though my voice now sounds strangely wooden.
Step, kick, twirl …
There’s another flash of Ted’s camera and I decide just to go for it. To go for it and get off stage as fast as possible. I mean, what’s going to happen is that my dad’s going to look up right now. He’s going to look up right now and see me, and reach up and drag me off the stage.

But he doesn’t. He keeps moving along the row. Oh. Well, okay then. May as well go out with a bang.

And I do.

‘Are a girl’s best …’
Da, da-da, da, da, da-da, da, dada, daaaaa
, the music fills the room and I fling my arms out, ready for the final pose.

Which is when it happens.

My dress pulls down as my arms go up and one of the chicken fillets goes flying through the air and lands …
thwack …
on my dad’s balding head as he passes right in front of me on the stage.

‘… best friend.’ I squeak my last line as Dad’s eyes meet mine with another squint. Beside me, Holly is silent, her mouth in a small O.

There really is silence then. The music cuts out and, for a second, Holly and I just stand there on stage. Paralysed in our final pose.

And I might have stayed there forever if Holly hadn’t pulled herself together, reached over, grabbed me, hoisted me up and dragged me off the stage. It isn’t until we’re peeking out from behind the curtain that the entire audience cracks up.

Clinging on to the black curtain again, I groan. I groan long and loud. ‘I just want to die. I want to die right now. Please. It’s not fair to keep me alive. It’s not kind.’

Holly looks over at me, still silent, her eyes wide, like before, but now not Marilyn-like. Instead they’re more ‘I can’t believe what just happened’. ‘Well …’ she starts, but then pauses. ‘I guess I’m lucky I did bring a pair and a
spare. I’ll be needing that spare,’ she continues. And then she cracks up.

But me, I’m not ready to crack up.

The audience was ready years ago, however. Out in the ballroom, they keep laughing. And laughing. And laughing.

Really. I wouldn’t complain if I dropped dead now. I really wouldn’t.

‘Oh, Nessa.’ Holly pats my arm. ‘Lighten up, sweetheart. You know something?’

‘What?’ I look over at her.

‘Worse things have happened at sea.’ She cracks up again.

Damn. But I can’t help but force back a chuckle when she says this. It’s one of my dad’s favourite sayings.

‘At sea! At sea!’ Holly’s practically wetting herself she’s laughing so hard now. I hope she brought other spares as well – like spare undies.

I shake my head, but as I watch her, I just can’t help myself. My little chuckle turns into a big chuckle and then I start laughing. First normally, then harder and harder as I think about that chicken fillet flying through the air.
And I may as well have a good laugh. When my dad finds me I probably won’t just be grounded, I may never be allowed to laugh again. Anyway, we laugh for ages. Until we almost
do
wet ourselves.

‘You chicks are weird,’ the ventriloquist dummy guy says as he pushes past to go on stage. We stop laughing. Then …

‘Chicks! Chicks! Chicken fillet!’ Holly says, and we crack up all over again.

It takes us less than a minute of his act (that ugly dummy would sober anyone up) to pull ourselves together properly.

‘Oh, boy …’ Holly takes a deep breath, then another one, and leans against the wall, wiping a tear or two away from her face. ‘I don’t think I’ve laughed that hard since … I don’t know when.’ She leans forward, peeking out into the audience again. ‘Hey,’ she says, turning back towards me for a second. ‘Your dad’s not there. He’s gone.’

I take a look myself. She’s right. And then I groan again. ‘Probably because he’s making his way back here to roast my drumsticks.’

‘Ha!’ Holly laughs again, but then she stops. ‘No, wait.
I was wrong. He
is
still there. He’s waiting for the elevator.’ She turns back towards me again, a big grin on her face. ‘But it doesn’t look like there’s anything wrong. Nessa, I don’t think he saw us!’

‘No. I’m sure he did. He looked right at me.’ I move forward, jostling for space. It only takes me a second to spot him. He’s waiting for the elevator now, the program doing the in/out/in thing again. ‘Oh my god!’ I grab Holly’s arms. ‘He really
didn’t
see us! The thing is, he doesn’t have his glasses, and he’s as blind as a bat without them! Blind! All he would have seen is two big pink blobs!’

‘But he was so close …’ Holly peers out.

‘I know! I thought he saw me when he passed in front, but the lights must’ve been too bright. Holly! He didn’t see us!’ I reach over and grab my pink partner in crime.

And then, with this realisation, Holly and I spend the next thirty seconds dancing a little jig around the backstage area, dodging the next lot of contestants. ‘Oh, but stop!’ Holly cries out as we go to take one more turn around.

I stop. ‘What?’

‘We’ve got to get out of here. And quick. If your dad
sees you in pink tonight and remembers what the song was, you’re probably done for.’

I nod. She’s right. We take off fast. And we don’t stop running until we get to Holly’s suite.

It takes us all of two minutes to wrench our clothes off, pull the wigs and bobby pins off our heads, take Holly’s jewellery off (still on my neck and wrist, thank god), wrestle some jeans and shirts on, and slap baseball caps over our flattened hair. We look like we’ve spent the evening watching DVDs in Holly’s suite. Just like I’d told my dad I would be doing.

We’re tissuing the last of the make-up off when there’s a knock on the door. Still hyped up and jittery, the first thing we both do is panic. ‘Who could it be?!’ I grab Holly’s arm and our eyes meet in the bathroom mirror.

‘I don’t know! I don’t know!’ She grabs mine back.

‘Should we answer it?’

Holly opens her mouth to answer, when a voice calls out. ‘Delivery, Ms Isles.’

Our bodies relax. A delivery? Well, phew.

Shaking her head, Holly goes over to open the door while I wait in the lounge room. ‘Yes? Oh! No, I’ll take them …’

She comes back inside carrying two bunches of flowers. One absolutely gigantic bunch and a smaller one, which is still huge. They’re both stuffed full of pink flowers. All kinds of pink – shocking pink, pastel pink, lolly pink, and so on. On the way back over, she reads the attached card out loud: ‘For the most exquisite pink petals … Love always, Antonio.’ She brings the larger bunch up to her face to smell them. ‘Oh, aren’t they gorgeous, Nessa?’

I nod. ‘They’re beautiful. I can’t believe he sent me flowers as well. And I can’t believe how quickly they arrived.’

Holly nods. ‘Those Italians, they don’t mess around, do they?’

This time, I shake my head. ‘If this is anything to go by, we should have you engaged in the next half-hour, married tomorrow morning and your first child graduating from college by the end of the cruise.’

Holly laughs and comes over to give me the smaller bunch of flowers. ‘For a moment there I was sure it was going to be your dad.’

‘You and me both.’

Her eyes move towards the phone on the bench beside us. ‘You know what? You should call the cabin and see if he’s there. At least it’ll put your mind at rest.’

‘You think?’

Holly nods and passes me the phone. ‘Here,’ she says. ‘I’ll take the flowers and put them in some water.’

‘I’d better leave them here, I think,’ I tell her. ‘I can’t take them to our cabin. Too many questions. Anyway, I don’t think they’d fit.’

‘Good idea.’ Holly moves off as I dial. ‘I hadn’t thought about that.’

My dad picks up after half a ring (like I said, that cabin is
small
).

‘Hey, Dad, it’s me!’ I say before he can even get a word in. ‘How’s it going? Working away? I thought you might be bored. Did you want to come up and watch another DVD with us?’ (I try not to brag about it, but I’m an excellent liar. It comes with being an only child.)

‘Oh, Nessa. You know, the strangest thing just happened …’

I hold my breath, my eyes fixed on a certain point on
the wall in front of me. Here it comes. He knows. He knows, and I’m grounded forever.

‘I went up to the talent quest they’re having tonight – one of my subjects is participating in it and I thought I might be able to include it in my research as she’s never really done anything like this before. Anyway, I got all the way up there when I realised I’d forgotten my glasses.’

‘Oh, um, really? Isn’t that strange. Ha ha.’

‘Hmmm? Not really. That’s not the strange thing, you see. I took a seat, just for a minute. There was some very silly act on. Two floozies dancing around the stage. But I stayed in case my subject’s act was the next one on as this one was ending.’

Floozies? Hey! That’s not very nice. But I hold my breath again. Sometimes my dad likes to play this game – he holds off and holds off, seeing if I’ll confess to whatever I’ve done before he gets to the kicker. It’s torture. I’m sure they used something like it in the Spanish Inquisition. Torture by father.

‘And then you know what happened?’

I shake my head, then realise my dad can’t see me. ‘No,’ I squeak, just like I’d squeaked my last line on stage. ‘Um,
no,’ I cough, repeating the word in my normal voice.

‘This … this thing flew out and hit me on the head. I’m holding it now. But, Nessa, for the life of me, I can’t make out what it is. It’s pink and made of plastic – a soft plastic – and on one side there’s a little raised lump. Very strange. A very strange object indeed.’

I suck my breath in hard. Oh boy. He doesn’t know. He really doesn’t know. And this is too much. Too much! I try very, very hard not to laugh now. Because my dad might not know what that raised lump is, but I do – he’s talking about the little fake nipple! Oh, no. I’m going to crack up again any second now. And just when I think I’m going to lose it, the phone is wrenched from my hand.

‘William, how
are
you?!… Yes, we’re having a lovely time thanks … No, she’s not being any trouble at all … Really? That’s strange … Soft plastic, did you say? With a raised lump?… Well, my advice would be to throw it out. After all, you never know where it’s been. Anyway, must go. Nessa’s starting the next DVD up. I’ll see you later!’

I sink down to the floor, as does Holly when she’s put the phone down. It’s like our knees can’t hold us up anymore.

‘Soft plastic!’ Holly looks at me.

‘Raised lump!’ I look back.

‘Nipple!’ we say together. And I think we’re about to crack up one more time (seriously, I think I’ve broken several ribs from all the laughing I’ve been doing this evening), when there’s another knock on the door. This time from the door that joins Holly’s room to Marc’s.

That shuts us up. Fast.

‘Holly! Holly Thelma Isles! Are you in there?’ It’s Marc.

‘Thelma?’ I look over at her. ‘
Thelma
?!’ It’s nice to know someone else gets the middle name treatment besides me. But
Thelma
? And from her
nephew
?!

We do the paralysed thing again. Honestly, we’re like a pair of deer in the headlights (or should that be spotlights!) tonight.

‘I know you’re in there! I’m coming in!’

Still paralysed, sitting on the floor, the two of us watch the doorknob turn. As the door itself starts to open, Holly accidentally snorts. Which, of course, sets me off again.

When I finally finish with my latest set of giggles, Marc is standing over both of us.

‘What are you doing?’ he asks, looking first at Holly,
then at me. From the tone in his voice, you’d think we were doing something criminal. Not sitting on the floor in Holly’s suite yukking it up.

‘We’re … we’re just …’ Holly starts.

‘We’re just having a good time.’ I give him an exasperated look.

He gives me one right back. ‘Oh, come on, Nessa. How dumb do you think I am? It’s all over the ship. I didn’t mean what are you doing here, in Holly’s suite, on the floor, laughing like a pair of hyenas. I know exactly what you’re doing here. You’re hiding out. What I meant was, what do you think you’re doing making complete asses of yourselves at the talent quest? I mean, honestly, Holly. You’re supposed to be lying low. Not shaking your booty all over the boat.’

Holly and I collapse into a fit of giggles again. Shaking your booty? And what’s the plural of booty, anyway? Booties?

‘Oh, stop it,’ he says, crossly.

Holly and I both bite our lips and do as we’re told.

‘I can’t believe you!’ Marc throws one hand up.

Holly sighs then. ‘Marc, it was completely innocent. Well, except for the bit where Nessa lost her breast!’

Marc’s eyes move to my chest for a second and then zip
away again. Hey! Do you mind? ‘Thanks a lot,’ I say, and hit Holly on the arm.

‘Sorry.’

It’s Marc who snorts now. ‘Yes. You’ll definitely be sorry tomorrow. When the photos are all over the papers.’

There’s a pause and then Holly shrugs. ‘They’re always all over the papers whatever I do. At least I’ll be looking like I’m having a good time after this break-up. Last time it was all horrible photos of me looking cold and miserable in coffee shops in Vienna without make-up on.’

I watch her expression as she says this – the flip of her hand, the toss of her hair – and realise this is what she was talking about before. The ‘devil may care’ thing. Ah, so that’s what she meant.

‘Holly, you just can’t …’ Marc shakes his head and I turn to see him looking really quite angry now, when there’s a knock on the door to the suite. All three of our heads whip around to face the sound. Holly goes to get up, but Marc shakes his head again. ‘I’ll get it.’

He goes over, opens the door and I hear him talking to someone who replies curtly. There’s no mistaking the voice, though.

It’s Antonio.

When the door opens fully and he sees us, he ignores Marc, pushing past him to get into the room. He strides over to us (Antonio seems to do everything at great speed, even walking and talking and flower sending) and when he reaches us, claps his hands in delight. ‘
Bellissima! Bellissima!
The performance of the century! Now, we will go out and celebrate. Yes? The night, she is young and full of promise!’

‘Uh uh, not so fast. I don’t think anybody’s going anywhere.’ Marc steps between him and the two of us on the floor.

Antonio takes a step back and he and Marc look at each other for a moment or two as if they’re about to butt horns. Before they can, however, Holly stands up and then gives me a hand up as well. ‘You know what?’ she says to no-one in particular. ‘I’ve had a really good time tonight. I’m sick of worrying about what people are going to say, or think, or write about me. If I worried about that, I’d go to bed right now, like a good girl. But I don’t feel like going to bed. So I’m going out, with Antonio.’ Her eyes flash rebelliously at Marc when she says this. ‘And I’m going to have a good time.’

Antonio takes a step towards Holly and claps his hands again joyously. ‘But of course we will have a good time! Everyone has a good time with Antonio!’

So I’ve heard, I think. (Cruise gossip travels fast.)

Holly turns to me now. ‘How about you, Nessa?’

I pause. Like they say, two’s company, three’s a crowd. ‘Oh, no. I can’t. I have to go back and check in with my dad and get my good girl hours up. Thanks for the flowers, though, Antonio. They’re beautiful.’

‘Oh!’ Holly jumps and we all turn and look at her. For a second, I wonder if something’s bitten her. ‘Oh, um, yes, I just meant …’ And then, right before my eyes, all of our eyes, she changes again. Morphs into this completely different person. ‘
Darling
, they’re beautiful!’ she simpers. ‘They smell divine. You’re a pet. A complete pet.’ She reaches over and rests a hand on Antonio’s chest for just a second too long. ‘I’ll just pop off and freshen myself up for you.’

I look over at Antonio and see that he’s happily lapping up every word and is ready to go back for at least six more courses. But Marc … uh oh. His face is scrunched up to the point where he looks like he needs his appendix removed in under thirty seconds, or else.

As for me, I don’t quite know what to think. It’s like when I was watching Holly this afternoon, at badminton. Holly was putting Nessa’s Lessons in Love into action and they seemed to be working on the guys. A little too well, in my opinion. So why, if everything is working out as planned, and everyone’s getting what they want (well, except for Marc), does it feel so wrong? Maybe I should have tried harder to talk to her about it earlier tonight?

‘I won’t be a minute.’ Antonio gets a hug now (and, um, it’s not from Marc).

Hmmm … time to go, I think.

‘Yes, thanks for the flowers, Antonio,’ I say again, quickly this time, and Antonio looks down, remembering there are other people in the room besides him and Holly.

‘It is my pleasure, littlest petal.’ He bends over and, before I know what’s happening, has kissed me first on one cheek, then the other, then on the first cheek again.

‘Oh, thanks …’ I’m not quite sure where to look. Note to Nessa: In future dating life, beware of Italians. They make your head spin. ‘I’d, um, best be going.’ I start towards the door. ‘Thanks for the great evening, Holly. Bye Antonio. Bye Marc.’ I wave at Holly and Antonio and
then walk even faster towards the door when I see Marc’s expression. Now he’s moved on from appendix-removal land and looks like Vesuvius on a hot summer’s day.

When I close the suite door behind me, I breathe a sigh of relief. Phew. What an evening. In fact, it’s turned into such an evening I have to stand there, leaning against the door for a minute or two, trying to get my head together as I think back over Holly and my number at the talent quest, my dad turning up, the flying chicken fillet, Dad not spotting us (hello?! I still can’t believe my luck!), the flowers and, now, Marc having a tanty. Definitely an evening to remember! And I guess we’ll see how successful our song and dance routine was tomorrow – when just about every guy on the boat will have an icebreaker to approach Holly with. I can almost see it now: ‘I loved your act, Holly!’, ‘That number was a scream, Holly’, ‘I had such a laugh, Holly!’

Right. Feeling a bit more on top of things now, I push myself off the door and start down the corridor. But I only get as far as the elevators when I hear footsteps running towards me. I turn to see Marc. ‘Oh, um, hi.’

‘Don’t “Um, hi” me.’ He still looks furious.

‘What?’

‘Was this all your idea?’

I look at him, but don’t say anything. After the show we’ve just witnessed in there, it’s probably not the best time to tell Marc about Nessa’s Lessons in Love. One, it’s a girl thing, however misguided it’s starting to feel. Two, I don’t think he’d be very understanding.

‘I thought as much.’

I watch him for a moment longer (waiting for either lava or steam to come out of his ears) and then I shrug and try to play it cool. ‘I just thought the talent quest would be fun. We both had a good time. I don’t see what the problem is.’

‘The
problem
, littlest petal,’ Marc spits, ‘is that Holly’s not supposed to be making an exhibition of herself. The
problem
is that she is, like I said, supposed to be lying low.’

I shrug again, which I can see just makes Marc even more furious. ‘I take it Holly knows that. Isn’t it her decision to go in the talent quest or not then?’ I feel a little bit bad saying this, because I know Holly didn’t enter the competition for all the right reasons, but Marc’s over-reacting a tad, too.