Live and Fabulous! (14 page)

Okay, I know it was her birthday and you were just being friendly, but I was absolutely livid.

And I was annoyed when you canceled dates at the last minute. And you used to get narky when you wanted to be “spontaneous” and take me out when I'd prearranged slumber parties and movie nights with the LBD. And okay, the fact that Fleur began to hate your guts didn't help. I could never choose between you both.
Gnnnnnnngn.

So, all told, it's more than a pain in the ass that I'm completely, madly in love with you.

Especially as you don't feel the same way.

“All set?” says Mum, poking her head, without knocking, around my bedroom door, disturbing me from my woes.

“Oooooooh, Mum! Why does nobody ever knock?!” I snap. “I could have been naked or anything!”

Mum doesn't even turn a hair at my tantrum. “Oh, dang! Because seeing your bare ass would be such a novelty for me, wouldn't it?” Mum says dryly. “Jeez, until you were four we couldn't keep clothes on you. You were always tearing about in the nude.”

“Mother, I thought we saved anecdotes like that for when my friends were in?” I mutter.

“Oooh, I've got far bleaker ones than that,” smiles Mum, looking around my room. “So ... you're still going then? Not changed your mind and staying home with your old, decrepit mum who loves you?”

Mum says this jokingly, but I know she's sort of not. She's really edgy about this whole trip.

“Nah, sorry, Mum.” I smile.

Suddenly it hits me that I should forget about all of this Jimi stuff.

There's a whole new chapter of LBD history waiting to be written tomorrow. That's more than a bit neat.

“I'll give you a shout at seven A.M. then, okay?” says Mum. “Gotta go and sort the cash registers out now while Seth's asleep. Enjoy your last night in a proper bed, cupcake.”

“Night, Mum.”

I prop my rucksack against the wall, then change into my pink cotton pajamas. Slipping under the duvet, I reach across and press “repeat play” on my Amelia Annanova CD. The first rather feisty song, “Escape,” cranks up as I examine the CD box where Amelia sits smoldering on the back of a Harley-Davidson, wearing a skintight white vest and indigo snakeskin trousers. Her long brown locks are ironed straight with blunt-cut ends dyed gold, a bright red streak falls down the right-hand side of her face, and her deep green eyes are breathtakingly beautiful.

 

The packing has exhausted me. Quickly I'm drifting into a peaceful state. And just as I'm nearing the threshold of the Land of Nod, my phone beeps loudly on my bedside table. A text message:

I'm just about to reply when I notice that the memory on my phone is almost full and needs texts erased. I go into the in-box, scanning the list of previous texts, lingering sadly on one from almost two weeks ago.

I glare at the message for ages, really, really wanting with every fiber of my being to type back:

However, I don't.

I switch off my bedside lamp. And after what seems like an eternity, I fall asleep.

If the incessant honking of Daphne's car horn hadn't dragged me to my window, then Fleur and Claude giggling and squabbling as they rearrange rucksacks in the jam-packed, newly waxed, silver Mini Cooper certainly would have. Daphne's fabulous car, a present from Paddy and Saskia for her eighteenth birthday, is parked up in the Fantastic Voyage's delivery area.

“Claude, dah-link? You've forgotten the emergency anvil!” shouts Fleur, clad in a saucy black halter neck and denim mini shorts. “And what about the kitchen sink? Were they not on your list?”

“Shut it, Swan,” Claude says primly. “There won't be all this lip service when you're begging to borrow my stuff.”

I open my bedroom window and yell down from the first floor. “Errrr ... am I going on the roof? It looks a bit cozy down there.”

“Hey, Ronnnnnnnie!” shouts Daphne, looking extremely pretty in army combats and faded antique silk shirt. “Hurry up, I need somebody sane to talk to!”

“I'm in the front, though!” butts in Fleur. “I've got the longest legs!”

“No,
Fleur,
Claudette is sitting in the front,” Daphne argues. “She's good at map reading.”

“Precisely,” beams Claude. “I was top of my pack in Brownies. Anyway, Fleur, you can sit in the trunk with the other cumbersome objects.”

“Ha, and indeed, ha,” groans Fleur.

I lug my fourteen-cubic-ton (or so it feels) rucksack downstairs. Loz and Magda follow me through the back doors to bid me adieu.

“My little girl! Off by herself for the first time,” rasps Mum, pretending to sniffle. “I can't bear to watch! Just go! Go quickly!”

“Hey, look after yourself, ladies,” Dad says sagely through the car window as I cram myself in beside Big Bird Swan and her endless miles of thighs. “And remember those rules we all agreed on, eh?” Dad says, tapping the side of his head. “Keep them up there, will you?”

“Of course we will,” chorus Daphne and Claude.

“You can count on us, Mr. Ripperton!” winks Fleur.

Daphne zaps the switch on the electric windows and we begin negotiating the Mini down the narrow cobbled back lane. The LBD are waving and grinning like mad. I almost feel tearful. We're off! I can't believe this is actually happening, I've imagined this so many times before. My heart is really thumping! Then suddenly, before we've even reached the comer to the main road, a male figure seems to appear from nowhere, literally chucking himself in front of the car, thrusting his hands on the hood as if to stop it.

We all jump and scream.

“Stop!” shouts Claude.

“Ronnnnnnnie!” shouts an agitated voice. “Sttttttttop, Ronnnnie!”

“Oh, no,” groans Claude, spying who it is immediately.

“Ugggggghggh,
this guy again?”
announces Fleur, turning up her nose. “Just drive over him, Daphne!”

Instead, Daphne pulls up the emergency brake.

“Oh my God! Is that my Jimi?!” I shout, grabbing frantically for the window buttons. “Jimi, what are you doing here!?”

“Aside from ruining our day?” grumbles Fleur.

Jimi gazes at Fleur, but doesn't retaliate. He looks about ten pounds thinner than usual, sort of more little-boyish. Tired. Bess, his prized skateboard, is sitting in the gutter looking similarly disheveled.

“Where are you going!?” he says.

“Away,” I say. “We're off to Astlebury Festival.”

“What!?” he says. “How?! When did all this happen?”

“It's a long story,” I say.

“Er, but ... but.” Jimi looks dumbfounded. “You ... you can't go! You've got to stay. Stay and talk to me, Ronnie!”

“Oooooh, I've heard it all now!” butts in another familiar voice. Oh, no, it's only my mother, who's spotted the commotion and decided to wade in.

“Look, what do you want exactly?” Mum shouts at Jimi.

I look at Jimi and then Mum quite hopelessly, not knowing quite what to do.

“I'm trying to tell your daughter, Mrs. Ripperton, that ... that she has to stay here and sort out whether she's my girlfriend anymore!” Jimi garbles, sounding totally exasperated.

“Ronnie doesn't
have
to do anything! She's her own free agent now!” yells back my mother.

God, this is soooooo embarrassing.

“And she's off now to have the time of her life, hundreds of miles away, without you driving her crazy with your stupid antics!”

That sounds kind of cool, actually.

“Exactly!” Fleur says, putting her arm around my shoulder, shouting ahead to Daphne, “Drive on, driver!”

“Come on, let's get going before we have to pitch the tent in the dark?” says Claude tactfully. “We'll see you sometime, Jimi, eh?”

“Bye,” I mouth, feeling totally choked.

Daphne puts her foot down and we turn into high street, picking up some speed. Claude unfolds her map, slamming Amelia Annanova into the CD player to break the awful silence. In the backseat, I wipe away a tiny tear, then crane my neck to grab a final glimpse of the Fantastic Voyage. Very quickly Mum and Jimi have become such small dots on the horizon, I've no idea whether she's let him out of that headlock.

“Oh my Gaaaaaawd, I can't believe this,” gossips Fleur, avidly reading her
Red Hot Celebs
magazine. “Amelia and Giovanni are actually flying into Astlebury on Saturday night from their yacht harbored in Salinas Beach in Ibiza! They're on their European vacation! And they've got a helicopter pad on their yacht! And a recording studio so they can lay down tracks as they travel! How megarich must they be!?”