My Secret Rockstar Boyfriend (27 page)

‘I just wish I could tell Anna about it,’ Nish says, in a wistful tone I have never heard before. ‘She loves Sour Apple; she’d go crazy if she knew it was all true. But I
messed that one up, didn’t I? I didn’t even tell you, Chew – the whole thing was my fault. I’m even more of an idiot than you are.’

My stomach lurches and I nearly choke on my tea. It should have occurred to me sooner that this was too good to last. Nishi is being so lovely that I almost forgot that I am the worst friend
ever.

‘Look,’ I whisper, ‘there’s something I need to talk to you about. Something else.’

Nishi’s face instantly shuts down into the defensive mask that I have seen so many times before.

‘It’s about Anna,’ I go on. ‘I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have gone behind your back, but you were being mental and taking Seymour’s side, and . .
.’

‘Spit it out, Chew.’ Her voice is stone cold.

‘That night that Anna and I walked home together from Moshi Munchers . . . She was the only one who believed me about Jackson Griffith. She was the only one I could talk to about it.
Jackson said I could bring a friend with me to Glastonbury . . .’

‘So Anna was with you,’ Nishi states. ‘You and Anna went to Glastonbury together. She was in on it the whole time. You went behind my back and you didn’t even bother to
tell me until now.’

‘Yeah, but . . .’ I protest feebly. ‘You said yourself that friends can do stupid things and still stick up for each other, no matter what. I can see now that it was a really
stupid thing to do.’

‘It wasn’t just
stupid
, Chew. You know, that’s always been your problem – you do these things and then you go, “Oh poor me – I’m just so
stupid. Isn’t it funny?” Well, it’s not funny and it’s not
just stupid
. It’s
wrong
. You went behind my back. You lied to me. I know I’m not
perfect, but I have never, ever lied to you.
Never
.’

She’s right. I know there is nothing that I can say as she walks out of the door and slams it behind her.

By the time my mum gets home from work, I have cleaned the house and put all my washing away. I have made dinner; the table is set, optimistically. I am dreading more of the
cold-shoulder treatment, but I am also counting on the fact that both my mum and I are really crap at staying cross. I know I’ve done a terrible thing – well, probably quite a few, if I
really think about it in detail – but, throughout everything, my mum and I have never really fallen out before. I can’t bear the idea that we’re going to start now.

I know that none of this is going to fix what I have done, but I hope it will help a little bit – it can’t hurt to try to make an effort. Besides, I had to do something to keep
myself busy all day.

‘Mum.’

‘Oh, Tuesday . . .’

I was determined not to start crying again, but her tone of voice instantly makes me well up.

‘I’ve made dinner, and cleaned up and . . . Well, I know that there’s nothing I can do to make this better, but I am so sorry.
So
sorry. You have no idea how sorry.
Can we sit down and talk about this?’ I ask. ‘Please?’

My mum and I are also both crap at talking about things. We’re much better at just getting on with it. Keep on keeping on. Thankfully Mum sits down at the kitchen table.

‘So did you have a good time?’ she asks me directly.

‘It was . . . up and down,’ I reply as honestly as I can.

‘Was it worth it?’

‘I don’t know. No, I don’t think it was. It was stupid. I mean, it was
wrong
.’

Laid out like this, the whole thing just sounds incredibly sad.

‘Did you go to your exam this morning?’

‘Yes.’ I pause as I realize that it would be even more stupid to try to bluff my way through this. ‘But I might as well have not done. I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t
even have the books with me. I
did
try to come back yesterday, but it all went . . .’

The look on my mum’s face tells me that there’s really no point in trying to justify any of this now. I know she’s right.

‘So,’ she asks with a sigh, ‘Jackson Griffith is your boyfriend?’

‘Yeah. Kind of. I don’t know.’

‘Are you in love with him?’

‘I . . . I don’t know.’

If I could answer the last two questions with a bit more certainty, maybe the whole thing wouldn’t sound so bad. None of the hundreds of messages I’ve got since I’ve been home
was from him. I don’t even know if he’s OK; I so want to speak to him. I can’t explain to my mum how small and stupid I feel. That I was so sure there was something really special
between us I was prepared to stake my whole future on it. For nothing.

‘Did I ruin your whole weekend?’ I ask.

‘Not the whole weekend. It was fine until Sunday morning; it was great. Then I woke up to about twenty text messages informing me that my daughter is in the papers because she’s got
married to a quote-unquote
rockstar
at Glastonbury.’

‘Oh my god. I am so sorry.’

‘Well, the thing is – then I realized it’s probably all my fault. I mean, you haven’t had it easy. I know I haven’t been able to give you the most stable family, or
any sort of father figure. I gave you more credit than I should have. I can’t believe that I went away before your exams had finished. If I had been here, none of this would have
happened.’

‘Mum, no,’ I protest, panicking. ‘It’s not like that. It’s not. Please.’

‘Stop. Just stop, Chew. Things have got to change around here. I need to stop treating you as an equal and start acting like a mother. You’re still a teenager after all. I’m
going to start keeping a much closer eye on you. Richard and I have broken up, so—’

I know I should keep my mouth shut, but I just can’t do it. ‘Well, I’m sorry, but if he broke up with you over this, then he’s a loser anyway.’

‘Actually it was the other way around. This has made me realize that I can’t pursue a new relationship right now. It’s as simple as that.’

‘But, Mum—’

‘No buts, Chew. We can talk about this later. I’ve got a terrible headache; I’m going to bed.’

I sit alone at the table after she has gone. My mum might be wrong this time, but Nishi was right. Her words are still echoing around my brain.

I have been crashing through life thinking I am this nice person who sometimes makes mistakes and messes things up. Oh, that’s just me – a bit fat, a bit of a loudmouth; I
don’t think before I speak. Poor me.

I’ve hurt not just myself this time, but the people around me. The people I love. Something’s got to change.

To: jackson evan griffith

From: Tuesday Cooper

Jackson,

Where are you? Are you OK?

RT x

In the morning my mum heads out to work while I cower in bed, not wanting to talk to her after last night.

I’m biding my time, but I can’t just lie around thinking about my sad, sad life all day. As soon as I hear her car pull away, I spring into action. When she gets home tonight, this
time I will be ready for her. I have a long list of things to do.

I don’t stop all day. When I hear her key in the door, I’m wearing my most mature outfit (it’s not even from a charity shop) and I hand her a glass of wine immediately. She
looks confused as she walks into the kitchen.

‘Wine? Flowers on the table?’ she says. ‘Chew, I feel like I’m on a date. This really isn’t necessary. I think you’ve missed the—’

‘Well, actually,’ I interrupt, ‘you are kind of on a date. Or you will be soon. Richard’s coming round for dinner.’

‘What?’

‘I rang him at lunchtime. We had quite a good chat. I thought I’d better apologize to him myself for wrecking his romantic weekend away in such catastrophic style. Not to mention
getting him unfairly dumped. He’s quite a nice bloke, isn’t he?’

Mum’s mouthing like a goldfish.

‘You look nice as you are,’ I continue, smiling at her hopefully. ‘But if you did want to get changed out of your work clothes, you’d better hurry up because he’s
going to be here in twenty minutes. Excuse me, I’m just going to go and stick the lasagne in the oven.’

My mum is so shocked that she doesn’t move, and she just stays in her work clothes; all she does is put on a bit more lipstick. She looks really nice in her smart dress, but it’s
quite unlike her – usually she would never want a man to see her in an outfit she’d been wearing all day. I think this might be a good sign actually.

I’m feeling much more kindly disposed to Richard Jenkins all round since our chat earlier. I thought he was boring, and he is, but he’s sensible – and maybe sensible’s
what we need around here. He’s also prepared to forgive me
and
my mum.

When he arrives at the door he’s wearing glasses that I think are the same as the ones Seymour wears, although in a less ironic fashion, plus a short-sleeved shirt with a tie, which is
kind of one of my pet hates in life. But I decide that I can let it slide. There are worse crimes, it must be said.

‘Glad to see the prodigal daughter back in one piece,’ he whispers to me on the doorstep, in something of a conspiratorial tone.

I don’t know what he says to my mum, as I hang back for a minute and leave them alone in the kitchen. But whatever it is, it seems to work. They look so crazy about each other that
I’m sure they would have got back together eventually even if I hadn’t interfered. Luckily for me, my mum doesn’t even look too unhappy that I did. She tries for a minute, I can
see, but she can’t keep it up.

‘Tuesday Cooper, you are going to be the death of me,’ is all she says out loud.

‘Well, I for one was rather pleased that she got in touch,’ Richard tells her. ‘And I hope you might be as well, secretly.’

He’s really good company throughout dinner. Most of all, he obviously thinks that my mum is the bee’s knees, or the cat’s pyjamas, or some other nonsensical cliché
– as he rightly should. I can forgive him the summer-shirt-and-tie combo just for that.

‘Oh, Chew – what are we going to do with you?’ my mum groans, apropos of nothing, as she finishes her second glass of wine.

Fair enough, I suppose – I’m prepared to take this sort of thing on the chin for a while. She’s earned it. But I can’t help thinking it’s not exactly helpful.
Fortunately for me, Richard Jenkins seems to agree with me.

‘Well, Carrie,’ he says, managing not to sound too pompous, ‘I think the more productive question is: what does Tuesday
want
to do?’

I am slightly dumbfounded that anyone is actually asking me this right now.

‘Tuesday . . . ?’ he prompts.

‘Well . . . I want to go to university and I want to be a writer.’

‘Right. So you’re holding some conditional offers – after yesterday’s disaster, do you think you’ll have got the grades?’

I look apprehensively over at my mother before I have to shake my head, no.

‘I got A’s on all my coursework, but – I’m really sorry to say – I didn’t write anything at all in that last paper, except my own name, and then I walked out.
I knew there was no point. I’m well aware it’s my own fault.’

‘It doesn’t matter whose fault it is,’ Richard says. ‘It’s happened. It would have been better if it hadn’t, but there’s nothing you can do about it
now. The point is how you deal with it.’

‘So what should we do?’ my mum asks, hanging on his every word.

Richard laughs. ‘That’s up to Tuesday, not us.’

‘What should
I
do then?’ I ask back, only half joking.

‘First of all, talk to your tutor as soon as possible about what you might get overall, as you’ve done so well on all your coursework and you think the other papers went well too. If
you really haven’t got the grades, of course there are always retakes. You know what they say: “there’s no such thing as no, just not yet”. I’m not sure if
that’s strictly true, but it’s a good saying nonetheless.’

I can’t bear the thought of my life grinding to a halt for another year. If these past few days have taught me anything, it’s that I really am ready for a bigger world. My thoughts
on the matter must be written all over my face.

He had better not even get me started on ‘travelling’. I have spent at least the past six months of my life being completely irritated by anyone who even mentions the word. If anyone
at college plans to do it, and insists upon calling it ‘travelling’ rather than ‘going on quite a long holiday’, then I know we could never be friends. You can guarantee it
just means they want their mum and dad to pay for them to have yet another year of getting drunk with other eighteen-year-olds from England. Maybe a few from Australia. Then they will call it
‘a cultural experience’ and bore everyone stupid about it when they get home. Even if I could afford it, I like to think that I would never want to ‘go travelling’. If I was
still doing that sort of thing, maybe I’d write a blog post about it.

‘Otherwise,’ Richard goes on, ‘my only advice is this: be proactive. It doesn’t have to be a foregone conclusion. Do whatever you can do; don’t just sit there and
wait. It’s your life. There’s clearing, and don’t forget there’s also just plain old talking to people. See what you can do.’

A smile comes to my face for the first time in a while as I think about this. Meanwhile, my mum takes the opportunity to voice the words that have obviously been playing on her mind.

‘So you’re not going to forget all about university and elope to America with Jackson Griffith?’

‘No,’ I say very levelly, looking her in the eye, ‘I’m not. We don’t know each other that well, and I really have no idea what’s going to happen. If he really
likes me, I don’t have to go running halfway around the world for him, right? He’s the one who chased me.’

‘Bravo,’ says Richard, and my mum looks mildly surprised.

‘Now,’ I announce, ‘I’m going to leave you two cats to it. After I thoroughly disrupted your romantic weekend, it’s the least I can do. Don’t worry –
I’m not eloping. I’m just going to meet Nishi and Anna for a coffee and I’ll be back in hour. So behave.’

This is not strictly true. I don’t want to worry them with the truth while things are going so well here. I’ve gone behind Nishi’s back again today, and I’m about to find
out if she’s going to thank me for it this time.