Growing Up Twice (38 page)

When Josh and I kissed I felt that knife edge of hungry passion that I had forgotten I could feel.

But for Josh? Josh who is my best mate’s big brother. Josh who is a disaster with women and has stupid stripy trousers and a rainbow scarf? It can’t be Josh who makes me feel that way. It can’t be Josh for two reasons.

Firstly, he’s Josh, who I have sensibly forbidden myself to get a crush on.

Secondly, he was obviously so mortified by the whole thing, so embarrassed and horrified that I could be so needy, that I probably disgust him now. And if he’s sweet enough not to be disgusted by me then he obviously didn’t get the same kick out of that kiss, judging by the way he fled out of that front door.

I just have to face up to the fact that I’ve been a fool and put it behind me. The next time I see him I will be polite but distant, I will not embarrass him, gradually we will get back to normal, just as we did after the sex-with-Dan episode. But to put him in a position like this, when he really needs me to be a friend and not a potential embarrassment, well, that’s priceless of me, isn’t it? That tops off pretty nicely my latest catalogue of adventures that involve hurting people I care about and alienating my friends. Good old me.

Flashes of Ayla’s face as she saw me from across the road go off behind my closed eyes.

The rest of the week has passed in a blur, between the routine of work and the largely empty evenings in the flat. I opened my eyes this Saturday morning almost with regret. Tonight is the night of Josh’s exhibtion, and either I go on my own and try to sort things out, or I don’t go and sit cocooned in this flat for another day waiting for things to happen to me. I’ve got to go. I’ve got to find some way to make all this better.

I stretch out my fingers and toes under the sheets and listen for the traffic outside. As has happened so often over the last week, I find myself remembering the firm grip of Josh’s fingers on my back, with a short sharp intense burst of pleasure, and then for a few seconds more I let myself remember his kiss, the feel of his hot breath, that little sound he made. He had sounded then, had felt, as if he’d wanted that kiss just as much as I had. But then he’d rushed away so quickly, was so mortified, that it must have been a momentary physical impulse, an impulse he was quickly ashamed of.

The tingle of pleasure of the memory quickly evaporates into a cold horror. Oh God, is no one safe from my questionable kissing choices?

Of course, I’ve replayed the scene with different endings.

‘Well, Josh, we kissed. It was fantastic. So what do you want to do about it?’

‘The thing is Josh, I never really realised how
tall
you are until just now and how much I want to lick your neck. Oh, you feel the same? Super.’

‘Josh, let’s be adult about this. We kissed. It was pretty hot. But we don’t have to get embarrassed, we can simply put it behind us. We could just have sex, though to make sure the whole chemistry thing wasn’t a fluke.’

And once I let myself think, ‘The thing is, Josh, in those few moments you made me feel complete.’

Believe me, I have thought about nothing else over the last week – what else has there been to think about between invoicing clients, picking up calls and rolling my eyes at Jackson over Carla’s head? Selin has continued to be out of the picture and perhaps she wouldn’t be the best person to talk the incident over with, even if she wasn’t incommunicado, given that I’ve messed with her recently bereaved and vulnerable brother. Rosie’s three visits to the flat have been brief and all but conversation-free and I bet she’d just love to hear about another one of my romantic disasters to stack up as proof of my questionable eligibility to have an opinion about her love life. And she’d be right, damn her. In some ways I’ve thought about nothing else because it has distracted me from everything else there is to think about. But boy, what a distraction.

So I’ve thought about that kiss a lot. I’ve relit it, reshot it, I’ve analysed it from a different angle. I’ve retraced the conversation leading up to it, the moment just before it and those few delicious moments during it. The awkward tense moments after it. I’ve thought a lot about the Josh I thought I knew and the Josh I think I would like to know. I’ve thought about his brown eyes watching me with concern in the pub when I talked about Owen, the way he really seems to worry about me. During team meetings I’ve found myself thinking about the way his long slender fingers always have traces of paint on them. Things I’ve always known but didn’t really notice until those fingers traced their pattern on my skin. I’ve remembered the rise and fall of his chest the night we slept side by side, the way the rhythm of his heart lulled me into my first dreamless sleep in ages. The creases of his smile that fill with stubble when he laughs, his long legs and slim hips, the way his V-neck jumper reveals just a promise of the hollows at the base of his neck. I’ve often thought about the day he stood between me and Owen to protect me, about his loyalty and his kindness. The gentle way he’s dealt with his family’s grief and the bravery with which he has confronted his own, and then I think to myself, well, now you’ve gone and done it.

For the fist time in your life you’ve fallen for Mr Nice. And he is categorically and totally the one you absolutely can’t have.

Well done, Jenny Greenway.

Why not? Well, during all the thinking I’ve been doing over the last few days a few things have become crystal clear. I am a mess, as you may have noticed. Even
if
Josh fancied me, which he might well not, I’m not the sort of person he’d want a relationship with. He doesn’t even know about Michael yet, he’s bound to find out and when he does, well, that would really kill off any chance I had with him. Mad Girl Seduces Teenager for Plaything. Very appealing. He doesn’t want to be with someone whose life is in such a state of suspended animation, and I don’t want him to be either.

Which is some kind of revelation. I find that because I have cared about him for so long in one way, I just can’t and I
won’t
risk flinging myself at him again and losing all that. I won’t risk hurting either of us in that way and I can honestly say that this refusal to fling myself into fate’s deepest crevasse just for the sake of it is really a first.

The thing is this, I’ve had crushes on people before, like the friend I was in love with all those years ago who wasn’t in love with me, and I’ve got over it eventually, so that’s the worst-case scenario, you know the drill. Every time I see Josh for the next few months my tummy will do little flips, every conversation will have a double meaning, every pop song will relate back to him, even ‘Steps’, and then one day it will just go away, probably in the wake of a new unrequited crush. Bearable for a worst-case scenario.

On the other hand, there is the best-case scenario.

For once in my life I sort myself out. I have the guts to pack in my job and try to be something I’ve always wanted to be. Have a go at finding a place in the world of journalism. I take control, I get over Owen once and for all and maybe I’ll get over my dad. I’ll start to make my life have the sort of promise that Ayla had thought was just beginning for her. But instead of waiting for it to fall in my lap I’ll make it happen.

And I’ll start at the exhibition tonight by bringing Rosie and Selin and me back to the closeness we seem to have lost. Somehow I’ll find a way to put my differences with Rosie behind us and knit back our old support group.

First, I’ll find Josh and we’ll talk about what happened, in an adult way, in a grown-up way. I won’t embarrass him with how I feel but I’ll make it OK for him and then our friendship can pick up where it left off.

And then maybe, just maybe, in a few months when I’ve sorted myself out, when I’ve rediscovered a sense of pride, Josh will think about that kiss and see the new me and he’ll think again and maybe something might happen.

And here is the really important thing; if it doesn’t happen it will be OK because I will be OK with myself.

Ayla was young enough to believe that life hadn’t begun yet, she was young enough to expect her future just to arrive when she was ready for it. But it was taken from her before she had a chance to find out that life is all down to oneself. I know,
I know
I only have one chance to make it happen and I’m not letting it slip away.

Before anything can happen with anyone else, it has got to happen with me. Starting from now.

I love getting ready to go out. I have always loved it since the days when I used to go on first dates; I used to love getting ready for a first date, full of anticipation and nerves. Tonight is no first-date scenario but I am just as nervous and need to feel just as confident so I start to get ready a full two hours before I need to leave the flat. I haven’t got ready for a night out in any longer than fifteen minutes since I was twenty-five. It’s therapeutic.

I spend thirty minutes in a bath brim-full of hot water and bubbles, shaving my legs and applying every lotion I can find. Then I use both shampoo
and
conditioner and some of Rosie’s shine serum on my hair, combing it through before leaving it for the central heating to dry out naturally. I look at the clock. An hour and fifteen minutes before I have to leave, too soon really to put on any make-up or choose what to wear. In the steamy heat of the bathroom I open the cabinet door and scour the shelves, looking over the years of impulse products I have bought and only used once, looking for something else to do to myself. I could apply a face mask but it’s too risky, knowing my luck I’d just erupt in spots fifteen minutes after washing it off. I don’t think I need to add more spray-on conditioners to my hair or give it a deep-heat vitamin treatment, it would just end up going limp and greasy looking. I have already given my face a blast of pure Retinal A (or something) in the hope that it will kill all the free radicals, which conjures up a mental image of a load of tiny little anarchist freedom fighters battling for the right to be wrinkly on my skin. I have plucked my eyebrows, I have selected my make-up. I have unwrapped yesterday’s lunchtime purchase of a shiny highlighter stick thing that is supposed to make me glow (and not look damp and sweaty). There is only one thing left to do. I decide to wax my bikini line.

Twenty very painful minutes later and I’m looking through my wardrobe for an outfit that will take my mind off the searing pain I am currently experiencing in the groin region. Whose bright idea was that?

Now, I’ve been to these kinds of thing before and I am fully aware that I don’t have the regulation sixties print dress, Nana Mouskouri black-frame glasses or suspiciously short fringe to compete with the other artist women. I do have a Whistles floral-print silk dress that I haven’t worn for a long time and which is strictly speaking a summer dress, but which I could team up with a flouncy black cardigan and a pair of burgundy kitten-heeled pumps. It’s a good cleavage dress.

Wardrobe assembled, I now put on my make-up. I use the shiny stick thing. Then I take off all of my make-up and begin again
sans
shiny stick thing, which, surprise, surprise, makes me look sweaty and hot. I even put on eyeliner and two coats of mascara, like it says on the tube. I take my eye make-up off again and reapply it, this time with one coat of mascara, as it made me look as though I had clumpy falsies stuck on. Finally I am ready to get dressed.

Ensemble complete, I look at myself in the mirror. I can’t say for sure if I look any better or any worse than I do when the whole thing takes me less than half an hour but I feel ready to meet the evening. Ready, if a little bit sore due south.

I have never liked Hoxton, something about it makes me nervous.

It might be the tall, narrow streets of warehouse conversions that seem unnaturally silent most of time, or the fact that it is home to some kind of school for clowns which could easily be the premise of a Stephen King novel. Or it might be the arty types who spill out of the quiet street-corner pubs and clubs with periodic bursts of smug camaraderie and fake flowers in their hair. Or it could just be that any time I have got into a conversation with Josh’s art friends they glaze over faster than a puddle in arctic conditions as soon as I tell them what I do. It’s not even that they just can’t think of anything worth doing other than making art. It’s that they’d never think of doing anything as mundane as my job. As if my job defines who I am. Well, they may have had a point up until now, but not any more!

This particular street where Josh and his friends have rented their exhibition and studio space is a quiet, cobbled back alley and I would think I’ve got the address totally wrong except that I can hear a faint pulse of garage coming from one of the tall dark buildings and I follow it like a beacon. I have arrived an hour after the opening was due to start, hopeful that everyone else would be here already, but afraid too that they will all have ganged up on me by now. The bass gradually increases in volume and evolves into a full-on hardcore track. I check the open doorway for any sign of a number but there is none, so I just head on in, hoping that I’m not attending the wrong party.

It seems that the exhibition is up four flights of metal stairs, and in order to make it to the top I have to push my way through hordes of already drunk artists swaying or leaning, drooping or lounging against railings and walls like a fashion spread for
Dazed and Confused
or
Wallpaper
. I don’t find anyone I know on the stairs but as soon as I enter the main space, Dan grabs my arms and plants a wet vodka-flavoured kiss on my lips. I resentfully rub them dry, picturing the remnants of my lip gloss.

‘All right, darling?’ he says, looking down my top. ‘You’ve scrubbed up nice tonight.’ It seems that he has adopted his fake cockney persona for the night. I have noticed that it’s not uncommon amongst artists to decide to lose their pleasant home-counties village middle-class accent when confronted with others of their species who might have more working-class cred than they. If only they all sat down together and worked it out in advance they’d probably find out that everyone else here is probably the offspring of a viscount or something. I mean, how many children of coal miners or chip-shop owners do you know who can afford not to have a real life, with real bills, and spend all day faffing around with acrylics? That’s not entirely fair, Josh isn’t like that, he works hard to support his art so there must be others. It’s just that they’re probably not here.