3: Chocolate Box Girls: Summer's Dream (21 page)

29

My family are good at celebrations. When Miss Elise drops me back at Tanglewood that afternoon, someone has dug out the wedding bunting and hung it all around the garden and my little sister Coco is sitting in a tree playing the music from
Swan Lake
, very badly, on her violin. It’s painful, but it makes me smile.

‘Your mum will be proud,’ Grandma Kate tells me. ‘We’re ALL so proud, Summer!’

‘It’s not definite,’ I remind them. ‘I won’t believe it until I see it on paper, in black and white …’

‘It sounded pretty definite to me,’ Skye says. She hugs me tight and I don’t care any more about Finch because I love my twin, always, no matter what.

I am lucky, I know, a hundred times luckier than I deserve.
Neither Jodie nor Sushila were told they could expect good news, so I kept quiet about what Sylvie Rochelle had said to me. To boast about it would have felt like tempting fate, and besides, I can’t help feeling sad for Jodie and Sushila. They wanted a place as much as I did.

‘One of them may still be lucky,’ Miss Elise mused in the car driving home while Jodie and Sushila travelled back with their families. ‘It’s always possible. Jodie danced really well.’

I remember Jodie’s kindness earlier, and I wonder how I ever thought she hated me, was jealous, wanted me to fail. I think perhaps I got that wrong. But at the end of the day, Sylvie Rochelle had the choice between a slim girl and a curvy girl, and she chose … me. I didn’t fail … not this time.

My future is opening out before me, the way I always dreamt it would. I should be jumping up and down with excitement, but somehow I feel flat and numb and empty. I need time to take it in.

This audition will change my life. From now on I will live and breathe ballet, from morning to night. If I think I have worked hard to get to this point, I know I will need to work
harder still to stay there. Suddenly, that knowledge feels heavy, stifling. Whatever Skye and Alfie think, this audition doesn’t mean the end of practising every chance I can, but the start of stepping things up to a whole new level.

It won’t be the end of dieting either. One of the panellists called me ‘very thin’, and now that phrase is lodged in my head. A glow of pride warms me whenever I think of it, even though I am not totally sure it can be true. If I am thin, I need to make sure I go on looking that way … and that means being careful about what I eat.

We have a picnic tea on the lawn. I eat most of a hard-boiled egg and some salad leaves, and then Grandma Kate brings out a cake iced with white chocolate buttercream and topped with strawberries and edged with the Summer’s Dream truffles Paddy invented for my thirteenth birthday. The sight of it makes my stomach growl with hunger and my heart race with panic.

The cake is beautiful, but it scares me. There’s no way on earth I want to even touch it.

‘It’s lovely, but I’m full,’ I argue. ‘I just couldn’t …’

‘You ate one boiled egg and a couple of lettuce leaves,’ Honey says harshly. ‘So yes, actually, you could.’

‘Grandma Kate made it,’ Coco chips in. ‘Especially for you!’

Honey looks angry, but Skye’s eyes are scared. ‘Summer,’ she says softly. ‘Come on. Just one slice.’

So I cut the smallest slice ever, my hands shaking. I do not want to taste it, but I cannot drop it and run away, no matter how much I’d like to. I take a bite, and the rich, sweet icing melts in my mouth. It’s good, better than good. I take a second bite.

How could something that tastes so good be so bad? Have I somehow got this wrong? This is a cake made with love and pride by my grandma, decorated with the truffles Paddy created for me using my favourite strawberries and cream filling. Can that really be so awful?

It’s like a drug
, the voice in my head hisses.
Are you going to let it unravel all your hard work? Have you no willpower at all?

I put the slice of cake down.

‘Hey,’ Skye whispers. ‘Don’t worry. You did OK.’

The beach party that night is the best one yet. Grandma Kate has extended our curfew to midnight and my sisters have invited everyone within a five-mile radius, even
Anthony. Finch is still dressed as a gypsy boy after the day’s latest filming; he and Skye look like they were made for each other. Coco and her friends are fussing over Humbug, who has been brought down to the party specially from her home in one of the old stables. A whole bunch of film crew people are here, including Chris and Marty and some girls I remember vaguely from the props and make-up departments.

Honey comes over to me, slipping an arm round my waist like I am her favourite person in the whole world. My big sister is mercurial, shiny one moment and bright and blazing the next, but lately, I just find her mood swings exhausting, infuriating.

‘This is our last chance to have fun,’ she shrugs. ‘Live a little. Tomorrow night Mum and Paddy will be home and we’ll have no freedom at all …’

I roll my eyes. Mum and Paddy give us plenty of freedom, but it could never be enough for Honey. Sometimes I think she is actually looking for rules to break.

‘Anyway, we’re celebrating! Here’s to my little sister, the famous ballerina!’ Honey hands me a paper cup of something fizzy and apple-ish.

‘Drink it,’ she says. ‘It’s only a cider shandy! Not even very strong!’

‘I can’t!’ I say. ‘I’m thirteen, Honey! What are you playing at?’

Her eyes narrow. ‘I’m trying to loosen you up,’ she says. ‘Relax you a little bit. Is that a crime? You’re wound up so tight these days you’ll snap any minute. I’ve been watching you, Summer. You practise every hour of the day – that’s not passion, it’s obsession. And you’re frightened to eat, which is crazy because you’re wasting away …’

Her eyes soften, suddenly sad. ‘You’re a mess, Summer, and trust me, I know what that feels like. It takes one to know one.’

Anger pulses in my throat. My big sister Honey is beautiful and talented, but her life is a car crash, chaotic, disastrous. She lives so close to the edge she is in constant danger of falling, and I think she actually likes it that way.

‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ I snap. ‘I am not like you, not one little bit. I am not a mess – my life is under control. I’m slim, I’m disciplined, I’m successful – everything is right on track. What’s the problem, Honey, are you jealous?’

Her face crumples. She snatches the cider shandy from my hands and drinks it down in one, throwing the paper cup into the bonfire as she walks away from me.

30

Did I really say those things? My heart is thumping as I try to gather my thoughts. Rude, cruel, careless, unkind … maybe I am more like Honey than I’d care to admit.

Tia and Millie and Skye pull me into the crush of people, quizzing me on today’s audition, going over and over how much they will miss me. ‘I don’t want to think about that,’ I tell them. ‘Not yet.’

‘You’ll have to,’ Tia shrugs. ‘It’s only a couple of weeks until school starts again. It won’t be the same without you.’

‘Shhh,’ I say, pulling my friends up to dance on the sand. Someone has set up an iPod with portable speakers, and I dance for hours, long after Millie and Tia and Skye give up, exhausted. I kick off my shoes and dance with the warm sand in between my toes, whirling around in the dusk, trying
to shut down the uncomfortable thoughts about the future that keep sliding into my mind.

When the speakers finally run out of charge, Shay plays guitar and Chris and Marty fetch African drums and a mouth organ from their caravan in the crew field, and it turns into a late-night jam session. There are toasted marshmallows and fruit punch and Honey’s not-so-secret cider shandy, and people splinter away into little groups. Chris and Marty have paired up with a couple of the crew field girls, Skye and Finch are smooching down by the water’s edge, Honey and JJ are holding hands by the fireside, and even Tia and Millie are doing some serious flirting with every unattached boy in the vicinity.

Coco’s friends have gone home now and she is hanging on alone, arms wrapped round Humbug the lamb, stifling a yawn.

‘Go up to the house, Coco,’ I tell her. ‘Take Humbug back to the stable.’

‘Mmm,’ Coco says. ‘In a minute …’

I spot Alfie and Anthony sitting on a driftwood log a little way from the bonfire, and sit down beside them, worn out from dancing.

‘Hey,’ Alfie says. ‘Me and Anthony are setting the world to rights. Wanna join in?’

‘Maybe. What are we talking about?’

‘Your sister,’ Anthony says heavily. ‘I’m wasting my time with her, I think.’

‘Honey?’ I blink. ‘I thought you were friends?’

‘We are,’ Anthony agrees. ‘But that’s all we’ll ever be.’

‘Never give up, mate,’ Alfie says. ‘There’s always hope.’

We look across at Honey, who is leaning against JJ while talking to Marty and his girlfriend, twirling a strand of jaw-length blonde hair round her finger. Honey in full-on flirt mode is quite something. Marty seems to have forgotten he has a girlfriend, and Honey certainly seems to have forgotten about JJ.

‘Maybe not,’ Anthony says. ‘It’s late … I’m going to head off. Well done on the audition, Summer. G’night.’

Anthony mooches off into the darkness, and Alfie sighs. ‘Not sure if that story’s going to have a happy ending,’ he says. ‘But I am happy for you, Summer. I know how much you wanted that scholarship place.’

‘It’s not official yet,’ I tell him.

‘As good as,’ Alfie says. ‘I’m pleased for you, but I will miss you, y’know.’

‘Nobody to play practical jokes on?’ I tease. ‘Nobody to help you with your eyeliner?’

‘I’m being serious,’ he shrugs. ‘No more trampoline marathons, no more heart-to-hearts, nobody to make daisy chains with …’

‘You’re rubbish at daisy chains anyhow,’ I point out. ‘Besides, I’ll be back in the holidays … it’s not like I’m emigrating!’

Not like my dad did, I think.

‘I know,’ Alfie grins. ‘But … well, I have loved these last few weeks. I know it’s been rough for you, with your mum away and what happened with Aaron and all the extra practice and … well, other stuff. But it’s like I’ve had a chance to get to know you a bit. You’ve always been kind of distant, very ice princess …’

‘Me?’ I frown. ‘Really?’

‘Yup,’ Alfie confirms. ‘You’re like the perfect girl, y’know? Cool, clever, endlessly talented, girl most likely to succeed … that stuff can be kind of daunting for us mere mortals.’

‘I am so not perfect,’ I say.

‘You are to me …’

Alfie takes my hand in the darkness, and the tiniest crackle of electricity fizzes between us. It doesn’t mean anything, of course. There could be no spark, no magic, with a boy like Alfie. Could there? And then he leans towards me and his lips are on mine, soft as velvet, warm as the night. Alfie tastes of sea salt and woodsmoke, and yes, there is a spark, a sizzle of fireworks that makes my heart race. How can that be? How can this kiss feel so different from my clumsy struggles with Aaron, me fending him off, him pushing closer? I was never good enough for Aaron, no matter how hard I tried. I was never enough, full stop.

Alfie’s kiss is different, as different as the sun is from the moon. I don’t want to push him away, I want to pull him closer – because with his arms around me I feel safe, calm, happy. Alfie’s fingers stroke my hair, trace a path down my cheek, making me shiver.