My Invisible Boyfriend (16 page)

“They hear anything else?”

He looks through me, past me, to the gray of the lake. He’s nothing like the guy who sat here weeks ago in ITP, curling his lip over Girl A and Girl B. He looks nervier somehow, like a spooked horse.

Maybe Ludo yelled at him. She can be pretty terrifying when she loses it.

I ought to be on her side, I realize, all moral indignation and grrlpower and yay sisterhood! She was the dumpee. She’s my friend. All I know about Peroxide Eric is his taste in hair dye and his usage of the word “bazoinkas.” And that he smokes, and knows where to get alcohol, and I kind of
want his coat because mine supposedly belonged to my ex-boyfriend so I’ve left it at home, and now it’s beginning to rain.

He flicks his eyes at me, then, and I remember he asked me a question.

“I didn’t hear anything else,” I say.

He smiles sadly, and burrows down a little in his collar.

“What? What should I have heard?”

He stays nestled in the warmth of his coat, but his eyes track back to mine. Gray eyes: gray like the lake, gray like the sky.

“Nothing, Heidi. Nothing at all.”

Would Miss Ryder please come to the departure lounge? The Clue Bus is now ready to depart.

I’m starting to think I must have been missing a lot of Clue Buses lately. Standing at the wrong stop, on the wrong side of the road, with last year’s timetable.

Could Mysterious E be…Mysterious
Eric
?

It’s kind of obvious. If I were coming up with a cunning disguise so I could wind me up for a little while, I’d probably not call myself H.

But what if he
wants
to be obvious? E’s pretending to be a bit of a Mycroft Christie himself, after all. He’s got to give me a couple of clues to go on.

I wait for the Mothership to drive me home in a giddy daze, waiting to be swept away from my stupid braids, from the Finch, from Heidiworld completely. I run up to the attic and read his e-mails again, hunting for more clues.

Until circumstances allow, I shall have to be content with playing your game, with the rules you devised.

Until circumstances allow.

Until after he’s broken up with his girlfriend, perhaps?

Until he knows his Girl B has broken up with her gingerbread man?

The Clue Bus is now pretty much running me over, tootling
helikesmehelikesmehelikesme
on its horn. (Clue Buses can do that. Like ice-cream vans playing “Greensleeves” all wonky.)

Peroxide Eric sits at The Logs, in the cold and the rain, where I’m guaranteed to walk on my way back from the music rooms, and makes meaningful conversation of the sort I totally didn’t get at the time but now seems made of purest meaning.

I definitely detect circumstances. Multiple circumstances. Circumstances coming out of
all
the orifices.

I mean, it’s not exactly how I pictured Mysterious E. I haven’t been thinking of Peroxide Eric in that way at all before now: He was with Ludo, for starters, and I’ve been completely boyfriended up for quite some time now and very happily, thank you for asking. But this isn’t the same as Gingerbread Ed. This is
a real boy
: the very first real boy who has ever, in my entire life, liked me. More than liked me. He could probably have three heads, and I’d still be doing cartwheels, and Peroxide Eric doesn’t have three heads at all. He’s pretty cute. I mean, he’s not
Teddy.
But I probably always thought he was cute. I like his coat. The hair
and the piercings and the snarly way he smiles. He’s got those stubby fingers from where he’s bitten his nails down too much: I noticed it in the Little Leaf that first time he came in there, when he was twirling his lip stud around. You don’t notice fingernails of people you aren’t at least curious about. Or lips.

He’ll taste like cigarettes when we kiss. I’m OK with that. It’s not a deal breaker. Maybe we can discuss those patch thingies.

Maybe I’m getting a teensy bit ahead of myself.

He only just broke up with Ludo. I have Friendly Responsibilities to her: ice-cream consumption, crappy rom coms, lots of stern pouting at the mention of his name.

He doesn’t want to be unmasked yet. He’s
enjoying the dance.
Who is Dearest Heidi to stop him doing the woo-the-girl boogaloo?

And I don’t
know
know it’s Peroxide Eric. I just kind of sort of definitely know it’s him.

Fortunately, I’m on excellent terms with my ex, who’s pretty good at finding things out on the sly.

to:
[email protected]

from:
[email protected]

dear fili,

sorry to hear things aren’t go so well between you and that simon guy. heidi always thought of you two as the perfect
couple, did you know? but i suppose things are never really the way they look from the outside. they definitely weren’t with me and her. i think she’s seeing someone else, now, actually.

are you feeling any better? if there’s anything anyone can do, just ask.

take care,

ed

to:
[email protected]

from:
[email protected]

Dear Ed,

I’m probably not the person to ask about Heidi’s present love life: seems like you know more than I do. Did she really see Simon and me as perfect? That explains a lot. I love her (I hope she knows) but she is awfully naive. I’m almost envious.

Sadness is my default setting: sorry. I emerge blinking into sunlight from time to time, but there are usually clouds in my sky. At least this time I have good reason to be dripping with self-loathing. It doesn’t make it any easier to get out of bed in the morning, but the pure rationality brings its own strange sense of consolation.

I hope I’m not boring you. It must get dull, all this moping.

Fili

Message from: gingerbread@ed
hey dai,

ok, so i feel like a dork for asking this, but i was wondering how h is? i know, i know, pathetic ex-boyfriend syndrome. you don’t have to reply if it seems too weird.

ed

Message from: dai_fawr
Hey dude,

No sweat, mate. I know how it is, you get used to talking to someone every day and then suddenly they aren’t there anymore, right?

She’s fine anyway. Looks like she’s moving on, if you know what I mean? Though I’m not exactly thrilled about the direction she’s moving in…

Later dude.

to:
[email protected]

from:
[email protected]

Dearest Heidi,

I know your schedule is terribly full, but it’s a challenge to dance this particular tango alone. Perchance you’re simply so overwhelmed by my charm that I’ve rendered you unable to respond? If so, I do hope it’s not permanent: The Heidi I’ve fallen in more-than-liking with is quite the talker.

Not even a gingerbread crumb of fond attention for your real boy? You’re a tease indeed.

Nevertheless, you still have my

love & affection,

E

to:
[email protected]

from:
[email protected]

Dearest E,

OK, OK! My fond attention is all yours.

(I am
so
not a tease, btw.)

H

Mrs. Ashe’s Secrets Box could get filled up pretty quickly if it accepted multiple submissions.

Did Fili always think I was naive?

If he doesn’t like the direction I’m moving in, did Dai never like Peroxide Eric?

Does ickle pretty Ludo actually go round cutting people?

Does this include me?

Might I actually deserve that for moving in on her ex?

How long does the ex-boyfriend-hands-off rule apply anyway?

And have I got this whole thing totally wrong, because I totally tried to give Eric a gingerbread crumb of attention yesterday after lunch and he was the one hiding from me, and I think perhaps this is not a very secret secret now at all?

I linger in the doorway of the ITP classroom, trying to figure out what to write on my card before we embark on today’s thrilling wall display construction (Things That
Make Us Happy—which apparently may only include pictures that can be cut out of Mrs. Ashe’s prehistoric dodgy magazine collection, so there’s going to be a suspicious absence of nipples, alcohol, and Mycroft Christie in favor of knitted baby bootees and Great Recipes To Lower Your Cholesterol). Fili, Yuliya, Honey, Jambo, Brendan, and The Ashe are flipping through the magazines; Fili using hers as a sort of face mask so she doesn’t have to meet my eye.

No Eric, I notice with a little pang.

No Henry, either, until he appears, breathless, coming from a lead cast PAG rehearsal, and dropping down beside me to share his own little secret.

“Finally I get you on your own,” he says, dipping his head close. “Bless him for it, Dai’s not an easy guy to shake off. Anyway, you know it’s his birthday in December? I want to do something. A party? But I could use a hand with ideas, and I feel like you’re closer to him than anyone else here.”

Another little pang. According to what he’s told Ed, Dai is actually kind of narked with me right now. But I guess this is my chance to redeem myself. And I know one thing: Dai doesn’t do birthday parties. Not since he was ten and he ended up celebrating by being shoved in a bin and rolled down a hill till he smashed into a lamppost and cracked his skull open. It’s not a story he tells very often. Not one he’s told Henry, either, apparently.

“Party? Not such a good idea. But he’d like you to do something, I bet. Actually he’d probably be gutted if you didn’t. Just not anything too…birthdayish.”

Henry nods, slowly. “Right. So, a birthday party, without a party, or any reference to birthdays?”

I nod sympathetically. “I’m sure you’ll think of something?”

Then Ashe bellows at us both to sit down and do the Happy-Making Things, and Henry gets dragged off to sit with the guys.

Eric shows up ten minutes late, strolling in like he wants everyone to know he’s just dropping by because he feels like it, but I can tell he’s bluffing extra hard. The swagger’s not so convincing if you keep your coat on like some kind of comfort blanket, and take a seat near Mrs. Ashe, where no one’s going to go and join you. He keeps his eyes lowered, just darting them around occasionally, like he doesn’t want to risk any eye contact.

I miss his eyes. His deep, pool-like gray eyes. But he has nice eyelashes, I discover. They’re long: sort of girly. But in the good way.

And I get it anyway. I’m probably doing the same thing: not quite knowing where to look. Halfway between smiling goofily and running away.

I cover up by cutting out a picture of a severely dubiouslooking bloke with a handlebar moustache, and gluing him enthusiastically to the paper, adding the caption SEXY FACIAL HAIR.

Even Fili smiles at that.

Mrs. Ashe comes over and demands I stick another picture over the caption, which starts Henry off on an
Ashe-baiting freedom-of-expression spree, followed by a lengthy debate on the sexiness of moustaches versus the sexiness of beards (conclusion: Santa Claus is one hot piece of ass). And then I find a picture of an orange teapot with purple cows on, which so genuinely Makes Me Happy I sort of have to stick it on.

We waste a little time staple-gunning the lunatic wall chart to the wall (Cooper never used to let us do that: staple guns and Finches are an unholy combo), then we’re pushing the tables back to sit on the floor in a circle, because apparently Sharing is always best performed uncomfortable.