Peppermint Kiss (15 page)

By the end of the weekend, the transformation was almost complete. Yes, Liam's electrician mate still needed to come in and wire up the lights, and the shelves had to be painted and fitted, and there were about a million other tiny jobs to finish off, but the reception sofas, treatment couches and chests of drawers were in place and Liam had almost finished fitting the juice bar. By eight o'clock on Sunday night we were all completely knackered. As we sat in the middle of the floor with cups of tea and fish and chips, I felt filled with this kind of sparkly glow.

Rainbow Beauty was real. With vision, creativity, a little help from our friends and a lot of hard work, we'd made it happen.

Now we just had to make it a success.

We were busy all week making products, putting the finishing touches to the parlour, and delivering the leaflets Summer and I had designed around the neighbourhood. Saff did a two-day manicure summer course at the college and came back with a diploma so that she could help Mum with clients' nails when we opened. By Wednesday night the phone line was connected, we'd finished all the painting, the till was set up and Liam's electrician had checked over the wiring (luckily it wasn't as bad as we'd thought). He'd also put the new lights and smoke alarms up for us, in return for free treatments for his wife when we opened. Once the washing machine had been plumbed into the little kitchen (for free, thanks to Liam's mate Gordon the plumber, now the proud owner of a complete set of Rainbow Beauty products for his new girlfriend), Mum had washed all the new towels and arranged them in the chests of drawers.

The shelves were up but we still had to stock them with products. We'd passed our health and safety inspection with flying colours (phew!) – they just needed Mum to send them the electrical safety certificate and we were in business. We weren't setting all the stuff up in the fridge unit until Friday, but the smoothie bar was finished, with the juicer and blender gleaming on the granite counter. Summer's handwritten chalkboard sign telling customers all about the juices and smoothies hung on the wall above it.

Things were coming together for Grace and Saff too. Grace told me that when Mr. Hayes had announced to the entire class that he was setting up a lunchtime Extended Maths group because “Grace Green has asked for extra work”, she'd wished the ground would open up and swallow her. But then two others, Aran and Maisy, had hung back after class and asked to join. Grace had been to lunch with them that day, and again the next, and she was beginning to believe they might want to be friends with her.

As for Saff, she'd had a call from Sally, the tutor she'd hit it off with at the college. Apparently she'd done really well on the practical tests as well as the interview bit and they were offering her a place. She was still panicking about her grades, but Sally had told her just to wait and see, and that if they weren't up to scratch they could still discuss options like Saff retaking her Maths and English GCSEs alongside her first year on the course. So she was much happier after that, knowing that there would still be options even if she hadn't done that well in her exams.

Every day I woke up and the first thought I had (apart from
Curse this spiny mattress!
) was:
Five days till the grand opening… Four days… Three days…
I hardly noticed that it was the last week of term, despite the special prize-giving assembly, mass shirt-signings and silly-string battles erupting everywhere. Preparing for the launch of Rainbow Beauty was taking up most of my time – Summer and I spent every break and lunch doing the labels and typing up the product information sheets for Grace's master file. Writing the labels was taking ages, as we had to look up all the official ingredient names, but luckily Mrs. Warner in the library had been brilliant, showing us how to scan our label designs into the computer and then print pages of them straight out onto sticky labels rather than using the photocopier.

After school each afternoon we were all busy sitting round the kitchen table working out the timings and pricing for the treatments, or making more products, or downstairs putting the finishing touches in place, like pictures and plants. So I didn't have much time to think about Marco. We still worked together in class sometimes, and Summer and I grabbed lunch with him and Ben before heading to the library, but that was it. Still, the just-being-friends thing seemed to be going okay.

At least, I thought so, until we were on our way to Geography on Wednesday after last break. We just happened to be walking together, and suddenly Marco said, “Do you fancy going to the cafe tomorrow night? Just for something to eat. No big deal.”

Well, that caught me completely by surprise.

“What, on our own?” I asked.

“Well, I was thinking more
together
,” he said.

“Oh, right!” I said. “Sorry, I meant, as in not with Summer and Ben.”

“I know, I was joking,” he said.

“Oh,” I said. “What, about the Summer and Ben thing, or about us going in the first place?” I know! What an idiot! But I had to check.

“The Summer and Ben thing,” he said. He laughed nervously. “Oh dear, this isn't going too well, is it?”

“It's fine,” I mumbled. “It's just I…” I was about to say no, after what had happened at the gig and everything, but then I thought,
Why not?
I mean, it's only the cafe. I probably won't even bother getting dressed up.

“I just have to go back to the flat first, so I can't come straight out after school,” I told him. “We've got stuff to do, for the opening.”

He smiled at me. “So that's a yes then, is it?”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” I said, finally managing to dredge up a bit of cool from somewhere, even though it was way too late for that.

“Great. Well, I've got band practice till six, but I'm free then if that works for you.”

“That's fine,” I told him, just as we reached our lesson and I realized we'd been dawdling so much that everyone else was already sitting down with their books out.

As I hurried to my seat, I told myself firmly that I was only giving Marco one final chance – if he blew it again, that was it. I knew that Summer would think I was a pushover, so I decided not to mention it to her. I was planning to see how it went first. If he told her, fair enough (although I didn't think he would somehow!). It'd be such a different situation from the gig, with just me and him, and we'd get a chance to properly talk to each other on our own. It wasn't even like an actual
date
anyway – just a hanging-out kind of thing.

Of course, when I got back to the flat and told my family, they didn't take it as just a hanging-out kind of thing – they took it as a MASSIVE BIG DEAL kind of thing. I had to tell them that what had happened at the gig was just a complete misunderstanding (okay, not exactly true, but easier than persuading them to give Marco another chance, especially Saff). Once I'd done that, they were totally on board (well, mostly).

In all the excitement, it was somehow decided that as we needed to do a test run of Rainbow Beauty, and that as I had a (just hanging-out kind of) date to get ready for,
I'd
be the pretend customer.

So when Grace and I got in from school on Thursday (where I'd managed to play it cool with Marco
all
day – what a miracle!) they made me put down my bags and get changed into an outfit Saff had created. It was my purple dress and black leggings, with a skinny ribbed cardie of hers and Grace's Converse. I have to admit, it looked pretty cool. Then Saff handed me my strappy handbag (lovely Mum had slipped a tenner in it for me, too), and they sent me downstairs. Mum was serious about doing a proper start-to-finish test run, so I was told to wait outside for a couple of minutes and then come in like an actual paying client.

The sign writer was up a ladder doing one of the final jobs – painting
Rainbow Beauty
in gorgeous purple curly lettering on a gold background above the door. That made it seem more really truly
real
to me than anything else we'd done so far, and I couldn't help smiling. It had just been an idea, a dream. Now it was actually happening and I was about to become the first customer. I carefully avoided walking under the ladder as I came in.

And there they all were, beaming at me.

Grace was on reception and she welcomed me and checked my appointment time on my little card, then invited me to take a seat on one of the purple velvet sofas (I was the first to be allowed to sit on one!). Then Saff came up, took my jacket, asked if I'd like tea or coffee and informed me that we had a selection of herbal teas too.

It was so funny, them pretending they didn't know me, and calling me
Madam
and stuff. Saff did my nails at the manicure station, and we couldn't help getting into hysterics when she asked me if I had any brothers or sisters and I made out like I had these two awful wicked older sisters, like Cinderella or something. Then she did my make-up while Mum whizzed up some delicious mango smoothies with apple juice, lime and honey in, and Grace set up one of the new CD players. She put on “Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves” and soon we were all dancing round the shop, smoothies in hand, singing at the tops of our voices.

And then the phone rang.

I shimmied over to the reception desk and picked it up. “Good afternoon, Rainbow Beauty,” I said in a posh telephone voice, and they all whooped and cheered.

“Abs? Is that you, love?”

My heart stopped. “Er, hello, Dad.”

Mum, Saff and Grace fell silent. Grace ducked behind the desk, snapped off the music and then stormed out. Mum dashed after her.

“Are you okay, love? It's so good to speak to you,” Dad was saying. “I've missed you girls so much, and I've been desperately worried about you all, but I didn't have a number for you till today. How is everything? Where are you? This is a Devon area code, isn't it? What on earth are you doing down there?”

“I, erm…” I stuttered. It was such a shock, and too much to take in, and there was so much to say that I didn't know where to begin.

“Abs? Hon? Listen, love, this is a pay-as-you-go and I don't have much credit. Take the number down just in case I get cut off, could you?”

“Oh. Okay.” I grabbed a scrap of paper and he gave me the number.

“Could you put Saff and Grace on too, love?” he said then.

I gestured at Saff to come to the phone but she shook her head. Then she stalked off after Grace and Mum.

“Erm, they aren't here,” I mumbled.

“Oh, but they were a minute ago, I heard you all. Where have they gone? Don't they know I'm on the phone?”

Pause.

“Oh.” He sighed. “But…you're my
daughters
.”

You should have acted more like a father then
, I thought but I bit my lip, then mumbled, “I'll get Mum.”

“No, don't,” he said quickly. “I'm not ready to speak to her.”

“Well, I guess that's how Saff and Grace feel about you,” I snapped. I couldn't help it, it just came out.

I winced as Dad made a sound like I'd punched him in the stomach. “Well, so anyway, how have you been?” he asked again, trying to sound upbeat. “What's Rainbow Beauty?”

“It's our…business thing, this thing we're doing, with beauty stuff. We're opening a shop with…” But I couldn't get the words out. My head was all buzzy and my mouth didn't seem to be working properly. “It's the grand opening on Saturday and so we're—”

“Oh, wow, so soon? How did that happen? That's brilliant, good for you,” he said. “I can't miss the big day. Listen, how about I try to borrow a mate's car and come down?”

I didn't say anything for a long time, but my brain was whizzing round and round, thinking,
How can I tell him not to come?
I was so confused, because on one hand I'd have loved him to be there for the opening, but on the other, I was furious – did he really think he could just rock up and expect us to welcome him with open arms? In the end I didn't have to speak. My silence said everything.

“I'll take that as a no then,” he muttered. It sounded like he was going to cry at any minute. I felt the same.

“Dad, it's not that I don't want… It's just…”

He cleared his throat. “Look, you've obviously got a lot going on down there, so I'll leave you to it. Good luck on Saturday, I hope it goes really well, and say hello to everyone from me.” Pause. “I love you.”

I tried to say it back, I really did, but the words just wouldn't come out, and then the line cut out and there was silence. “I love you too,” I croaked, then put the phone down.

Suddenly I just felt so exhausted, like I wanted to lie down and sleep for a week.

They all piled back in then.

“He didn't want to speak to me, did he?” Mum cried. “What a coward!”

“How did he even get this number?” Saff demanded.

“I had to ring Roger and Laura about our stuff, so I asked them to pass it on, love,” Mum explained.

“What?” Grace shrieked. “You
gave
it to him?”

Mum sighed. “Yes, and our address. He's your father, he has a right to know where you are.”

“Well, he doesn't have a right to speak to me, not any more,” Saff snarled. “After what he did, I never want to see him again!”

“I'm not speaking to him either,” said Grace, “and you can tell him that if he calls again, Abbie. I don't care what he's got to say.” Then she clenched her jaw and sank into a dark, brooding silence.

I felt terrible for Dad then. “Don't say that, he's still our dad,” I half-whispered, and they instantly jumped down my throat.