Six Steps to a Girl (8 page)

He slouched off up the road. I watched him go, an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. I liked Ryan. But he wasn’t like any other guy I’d ever met. There was all the stuff he knew about girls. And then this mystery babe business. I mean, it wasn’t like Ryan not to boast about the girls he’d been with. And on top of all that – the way he went out of his way to help me. I mean, what was he getting out of it? It just didn’t add up.

Not particularly wanting to go home, I strolled over to the glassed screens in front of the Town Hall and looked at the advertisements for local events. Nothing very interesting. Posters for band gigs, notices about local theatre group plays and postcard ads for au pairs and cleaners.

My mind drifted to Eve. Tomorrow was Friday. The last day before half-term. My last opportunity to speak to Eve for ten days. Possibly my last opportunity before her birthday.

An exhibition poster showing a woman with blonde hair caught my eye. I stared at it. And then it came to me. A wholly brilliant idea.

I smiled.

Suddenly, I knew exactly what to do.

I watched out for Eve all Friday morning. No sign. I was starting to think she wasn’t even at school today, when I saw her in the cafeteria.

Ben had his hands all over her in the lunch queue.

I walked off in disgust.

I rushed outside when the bell rang at the end of the day. People streamed past me. My heart thumped. It was too noisy. Too busy. I was going to miss her completely.

And then I saw her, chatting to her two Art Club friends. I hadn’t envisaged doing what I was about to do with an audience, but the three of them were all moving towards the school gates. If I left it any longer I’d be following them down the road like a stalker.

I tried to saunter ever so casually in Eve’s direction, hoping she’d see me and acknowledge me in some way. She didn’t. I had to walk up to the whole group before she even noticed me.

“Hi,” I said.

They all turned round. Eve gave a half-hearted sort of smile; the other two glared at me.

Great.

Well, I was here now. I might as well go ahead with it.

“Thought you might like to know,” I said, trying to control the shake in my voice, “there’s an exhibition of Eighties’ stuff on at Finlays Gallery near the Town Hall. I know you’re interested in all that.”

See Ryan? I
was
listening.

Eve said nothing. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck.

“It closes on Monday,” I lied, ultra-casually. “Just thought it might be useful for your coursework.”

One of the other girls sniffed impatiently, but my eyes were fixed on Eve’s. What she did now determined everything.

“What time does it close?” she said slowly.

“Midday Monday,” I said. “I’m going there Monday morning.”

Please be there.

“Right, thanks,” Eve said.

I stared at her. What had Ryan said?
It’s not just what they say, it’s the way they talk and how they look at you.

It was no good. I couldn’t read the expression in Eve’s eyes at all. Her friends were starting to shuffle about, staring at me.

I turned on my heel and walked off, my hands coolly in my pockets, my heart pumping like a train.

I knew the gallery opened at ten on Monday morning.

I was ready at nine.

It had been a long, boring weekend. I’d played football with some of my old mates on Saturday, then Ryan had come round on Sunday. Mum asked him if he wanted to stay for lunch, and for once, we had a meal that didn’t end with Chloe storming off to her room.

It was like before Dad died. Everyone laughing and getting on. And then Ryan had to leave and, within seconds, Mum and Chloe were fighting again – this time over the washing-up.

It was like they were so strung out with each other that one word from either of them was enough to set the other one off.

I was sick of it.

I spent the rest of the weekend shut up in my room. Eve was always there, in my head. But it wasn’t enough anymore.

I wanted her. I wanted the real thing.

I didn’t let myself think about the possibility that she might not show up at the gallery.

I’d never taken so much trouble getting ready to go out before. First off, I showered and tried a bit of Chloe’s wax in my hair. Course, I used way too much and my hair went like cardboard. So I had to shower all over again. Then I spent fifteen minutes trying to decide what to wear. I had no idea what Eve would think looked good. I badly wanted to ask Chloe, but a) she would have totally sussed me if I had and b) she hadn’t yet emerged from her own bedroom.

In the end I settled on a blue T-shirt, a thick, black jumper and jeans. I put it all on, then – remembering something Ryan had said weeks ago – took off the T-shirt and ironed it, just in case.

When Mum walked into the kitchen and saw me bent over the ironing board she blinked with surprise.

“Oh, Luke.” She sat down at the kitchen table with a sigh. “Why is it you’re coping so well and Chloe’s gone to pieces?”

I hate it when she asks me questions like that. I mean, there aren’t any answers, are there?

I shrugged and unplugged the iron.

Once I was ready, I mooched round the house for about half an hour. It was only going to take about fifteen minutes to get down to the gallery.

At last I decided it was time to go. I yelled goodbye to Mum, but before I was out the front door, she appeared in the hall.

“Before you go out, sweetheart,” she said, “there’s something I’d like you to do.”

Crap.

“Mum, I’m busy. I’m meeting someone.”

She twisted her hands together. “It won’t take long. It’s just . . .”

“What?”

“It’s Chloe. I’ve been banging on her door and she’s not answering. And she’s locked it
again.
Even though I’ve told her not to a hundred times.”

Mum’s eyes were filling with tears. I put my arms round her and hugged her, silently cursing Chloe for being such a pain in the arse.

“She’s probably still asleep, Mum. Look, I’ve really got to—”

“Will you get up on the porch and look through her window?” Mum asked.

I stared at her. “
What
. . .
?”

“It’s just occurred to me,” Mum sniffed, “she could be getting out of the house without me knowing, then leaving her door locked from the inside, so that I’ll think she’s still in there.”

“And you want me to get on the roof and spy through her window?” I said. “Jesus, Mum, that’s going a bit far, isn’t it?”

“Luke, she’s totally out of control. I wish to God I hadn’t grounded her for as long as I did. I should have realised that that party of hers was just a reaction to Dad dying. Maybe if I’d gone a bit easier on her, she wouldn’t have gone off the rails like this.”

“I don’t think—”

“Please, Luke. You know I’ll get all dizzy if I go up there myself. I could ask Matt, but if—”

“No, I’ll do it,” I said.

Anything to keep Uncle bloody Matt out of our business.

I checked my watch. Twenty to ten. It would only take a couple of minutes to get onto the porch roof. Still plenty of time to make it down to the gallery by ten.

I clambered onto the porch wall, then hooked my arm over the roof. I heard a rip as the jagged edge of a tile caught in my sleeve and tore up a line of wool.
Excellent.
I hauled myself onto the roof, thinking there was no way Chloe would ever consider doing this. She goes nuts if she chips a nail.

“Be careful, sweetheart,” Mum called up from the front garden.

The roof sloped upwards slightly, and I had to lean into it so as not to slip down. I took two tentative steps across to Chloe’s window. It was open just a finger’s width at the bottom. I grabbed the ledge with my hands and peered into her room, convinced she would still be asleep. But the bed was empty. It wasn’t a large room and I could see every corner from where I was standing. Chloe wasn’t there.

“Well?” Mum called.

I thought quickly. If I told her the truth, Mum would totally lose it. She’d almost certainly call the police – after all, Chloe could have been gone all night. I looked round the room again. No, I was sure she’d at least slept in the bed. The duvet was all ruckled up and a pair of pyjamas lay strewn across the floor between the bed and the wardrobe. Anyway, Chloe could look after herself. But Mum wasn’t likely to see it that way, which meant there would be no chance of me getting away to the gallery. Plus, once Chloe reappeared, Mum would ground her again. Which would mean no end to all the rows that were doing my head in.

It was an easy decision to make.

“She’s asleep, Mum,” I shouted, “with her headphones on. That’s why she can’t hear you knocking.”

As I clambered off the roof I eased my conscience with the thought that when Chloe finally came home, I would tell her how I’d covered for her – and demand that she stopped sneaking out.

Mum hugged me. “Thanks, sweetheart,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Feeling guilty, I jogged off down the road.

It was five past ten when I arrived at the gallery. There was no sign of Eve outside, so I went in and had a quick look round. It was a small building with just three rooms full of pictures and posters and a bored-looking woman at the front desk. There was no one else there. I sat outside on the steps for a while, staring up at the advertisement for the exhibition.
Faces of the Eighties.

By eleven o’clock the exhibition had had fewer than five visitors and there was still no sign of Eve. I was hungry and freezing and trying not to listen to the voice in my head which kept telling me she wasn’t coming. I decided that as long as I was here, I might as well go inside and look at the posters.

The woman at the front desk was reading a magazine. She didn’t look up as I went through to the first room. I wandered from picture to picture, looking at the faces with their weird hair and old-fashioned clothes. I grinned as I walked past a picture of a man naked to the waist, holding a baby. A pair of old ladies – the only other people in the building at the moment – had been standing in front of it for several minutes, tutting about how disgusting it was that he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

I stopped in front of a poster of a mini-skirted woman with straggly blonde hair. The caption underneath said:
Deborah Harry, lead singer with the band, Blondie.
I vaguely remembered one of Dad’s records was by Blondie. The woman was hot. Massively.

I stared at her, wondering if my dad had ever fancied her.

“You can put your tongue away,” said a soft, raspy voice in my ear. “She’s about a hundred now.”

I spun round. Eve was standing behind me, her lips curled in a mocking smile.

My stomach did several somersaults in quick succession. I could feel my face reddening. Eve’s smile broadened with delight at my embarrassment.

“Come on, there’s something I want to show you,” she said.

She grabbed my arm and dragged me into the next room. I was still in a state of total confusion when she stopped at a picture halfway down the wall. It showed the face of another blonde woman, this time on the cover of a magazine – I didn’t notice the title. I stared at the woman. Her pale blue eyes looked coyly up out of the picture through thick, black lashes.

I knew immediately who she was.

“She’s beautiful,” I said.

“That’s my mum,” Eve said, proudly. “When she was twenty-one. I wish I looked like her.”

I glanced at her. “You do,” I said.

Eve flushed slightly, but didn’t say anything. We walked together round the whole exhibition. Neither of us mentioned the fact that we both knew it wasn’t closing at midday. Eve knew loads about some of the pictures – she’d already been round last week with her mum. It crossed my mind to ask Eve why she was here again, but she soon supplied the answer herself.

She loved the exhibition.

We walked round slowly, Eve chattering away, her eyes shining. Most of what she said about the pictures wasn’t very interesting, to be honest. But I tried hard to listen. Or, at least, to look as if I was listening. It was difficult not to be distracted by her face, especially when her lips stretched into that slow, sexy smile of hers.

At last we came to the final picture. And then there was nothing else to do except leave. We strolled out to the front desk.

There was an awkward silence.

“I’ve got to meet my mum,” Eve said. “I was supposed to be shopping with her all morning. I had to make an excuse to come here.”

She looked at me. I tried to work out whether there was some kind of hidden message in what she was saying.

“Ben’s away all half-term on some football trip,” she said.

Oh, good, let’s talk about Ben again.

“Right,” I said, determined to turn the subject away from her stupid boyfriend. “Chloe’s grounded all half-term. It’s her third week, she’s going mental with it. I think she’s even sneaking out of the house.”

But Eve didn’t seem to want to talk about Chloe any more than I wanted to talk about Ben.

We walked outside onto the pavement. We were on a side road off the high street. Where the two roads met, about thirty metres away, traffic was zooming past. It filled our silence with a noisy hum.

“Well I guess I’d better get off and meet my mum,” Eve said, again. She was staring at me, as if waiting for something. I started to panic. Jesus, what was she expecting me to do now?

Ask for her phone number?

Surely not, after she just mentioned Ben.

Ask her if she wants to go for a coffee?

No, you idiot, she’s already said she’s got to meet her mum.

What about seeing her later?

Suppose she flips out again and runs off? No. Get a grip. Be cool.