Chapter 17
And it is all ours.
Lowe and I spend the summer back to back, side by side, sun on our skin, grazing away hours, sharing headphones and chatting shit. I’m certain I’ve failed my exams because I didn’t know a single answer to any question. My only knowledge is pointless facts about Lowe Archer – unsurprisingly really, given that I’ve dedicated the past two years of my life to studying him, like a rare species I’ve discovered. But it’s OK, because I smashed the interview at the Performing Arts School by talking ‘passionately’ about song lyrics being poetry, the beauty of radio, the wonder of everyday storytelling, conversation, making up plays with your siblings. How everything begins with a story …
Anyway, Mum’s not mad. Mum’s cool. Because Mum’s met someone.
Mum towers over Ears, Nose and Throat doctor Adam, who wears fish-finger beige V-neck jumpers and has 14,000 degrees in every form of science you can imagine. He’s the sort of person who does online IQ tests for LOLs. He can’t get enough of the falling apart house and the wild garden. He doesn’t have kids himself so his head is pretty much wrinkleless.
Once, when turning down a second bottle of beer, just in case, I hear him joke, ‘No need for drugs and booze in this house! Every moment is a trip.’
I see my family as Adam probably does: psychedelic Austin Powers’ extras, dancing in orange platforms, combusting into sunflowers. He watches on, gripped to the couch, tripping, in his mustard corduroy.
‘Ha,’ I reply. And we all know what ‘Ha’ means. It means no offence but please stop talking.
Adam takes Mum to lovely restaurants and wine bars. It’s weird seeing Mum in a dress. They go to Paris for the weekend. When he buys me an iPod and the house a solar panel espresso machine and two Weimaraners, I realize neither he nor these great big hounds are going anywhere any time soon. I want to challenge Mum on this shift, given that it contradicts all of her morals but I instead use her good mood to my advantage and am allowed to attend the Performing Arts College – ‘so long as it’s free’ warns Mum, which it is.
Both Lowe and I are moving schools for Sixth Form and on a night call our nerves are clearly showing.
I ask, ‘Do you reckon everybody at college will have, like … you know?’
‘ … What?’ We’ve never spoken about sex before. But it’s ten o’clock on a Friday night and I’m a sixteen-year-old with everything to lose.
‘You know … ’
I laugh and he laughs and I laugh and oh we’re so funny. ‘Lost their virginity?’ I whisper into the phone so my stupid family don’t hear.
‘Doubt it!’ Lowe says reassuringly.
There is an awkward beat. My heart, pounding. I’m listening so hard I hear sparks of magic.
He asks, ‘ … Why, have … you … ?’
‘Why? Have you?’ I tell myself he hasn’t.
‘I asked first,’ he says.
‘OK, let’s both say after the count of three … ’
‘Haha, OK … ’ He laughs; I consider lying.
‘Three, two, one … ’
‘No!’
We both cackle with laughter. I laugh because I’m relieved. That it isn’t just me, yes, but also that he still is, so much so that I say with way too much gusto, ‘LOL! We should make an agreement that if we haven’t lost our virginities to anyone by the time we’re eighteen, we should lose it to each other.’ But I make sure I laugh loads so it means it could be a joke. ‘AHAHAHA!’
‘Ummm … OK.’ Lowe breathes deeply into the mouthpiece. He isn’t laughing.
Something stirs. And I wanted to reach my eighteenth birthday totally preserved, having not a finger on me. A handful of fresh snow.
We hold the line. Why wait?
I get hot and bothered and do a stress yawn. ‘Aw, K, well, I should probably be getting to bed … ’ even though I’m absolutely wired; my blood is on cocaine after that steamy exchange. We say goodnight and hang up.
When I turn around, Violet’s Furby is staring at me with those awful crazy eyes Furbies have and Yes I Will Be Telling My Master All About Your Disgusting Conversation. I do the right thing and take out its batteries.
On the limbs of a bright shining silver star, I make a wish. I ask the star to please let Lowe love me back. Please let him feel the same way about me. Please don’t put me through all of this for no reason. I stare into the star so hard I don’t blink once; my eyes water. A tear streaks down my face – oh, this is dramatic as fuck, perfect. Then, because I’ve seen the film The Craft once, I utter, light as a feather, stiff as a board, and it feels right at this point to burn something to make it ceremoniously witchy. To close the spell. So I write Lowe’s name on the back of a Domino’s Pizza flyer using one of those tiny blue Argos pens and set it alight using the little box of matches I’m allowed for my incense. It burns up into a hypnotic technicolour flame, shit, shit, shit, it contorts, until I have to stomp it out. It crumbles into ash, and I have to kick and blow the grey shreds towards the fireplace. I’m not sure the star is going to even receive let alone accept that wish.
I dream of us living in the map house I drew, doing normal life stuff – making toast, lifting our feet so the other can hoover, reaching my hand out of the window, picking fresh fruit from the trees.