Girl, 15: Charming but Insane (21 page)

She hadn’t exactly stopped being crazy about him. Not altogether. But it had changed. He often chatted to her. But whenever she was with him, she seemed kind of the opposite of excited. He was so laid back. Ben’s blue eyes and lazy grin were still a great sight in the mornings, but then what? Ben seemed more interested in talking about Flora and Mackenzie than in mapping out a future in which he and Jess were going to enjoy snorkelling and snogging on a Caribbean beach.

Ben found her sitting on a bench by the sports field one morning at break. ‘Yeah – er, Flora and Mackenzie are having a row,’ he said. ‘So I cleared off.’

‘A row?’ asked Jess. ‘What about?’

‘Oh, loads of things,’ said Ben with a shrug. ‘They’re always on at each other in band practice.’

‘Really?’ Jess found this interesting, though not as interesting as her monologue, which she had been thinking about when Ben arrived. ‘Aren’t they getting on, then?’

Ben sighed and shrugged. ‘You tell me,’ he said. Then he turned his face to the sun and closed his eyes.

‘What are they rowing about?’ asked Jess.

‘Oh, it’s the band,’ said Ben. ‘Mackenzie says, er, because the band was, like, his idea, he’s got to have the final word on everything, yeah? But Flora’s not the kind of girl you can just, like, dominate. You know – she’s intelligent ’n’ stuff.’

Jess did not know whether to be pleased that Ben was praising her friend, or jealous. She decided on jealousy because it was more interesting.

‘Unlike me,’ she observed with an ironic laugh.

‘You?’ Ben turned back to her, open-eyed with astonishment. ‘You gotta be kidding. You’re, like, light years more intelligent than any of us.’

Wow! This was almost enough to make Jess fall for Ben all over again. However, even though he may have thought she was super-intelligent, somehow he still didn’t hold her hand, or play with her hair, or stare into her eyes or any of that stuff that Mackenzie did with Flora.

‘Flora,’ he continued, staring into the middle distance, ‘wants to do it, like, her way. She wants to play keyboards and sing from there. Mr Samuels says he can fix up the mikes that way, no problem. But Mac thinks she should be, er, well, standing up and dancing, you know – like, well, doing the whole pop video thing.’

‘I see,’ said Jess. ‘What do you think?’

‘Um – I guess I’m on Flora’s side,’ said Ben. ‘She doesn’t have to, like, prance about wearing a short skirt. It’s – well, tacky. I prefer the idea of her, you know, like, at the keyboards. It looks more, um – classy.’

Although he looked like an angel newly dropped from above, Ben Jones did seem to talk good sense. Even if the words came out rather slowly.

‘But, well, um – there’s a worse problem even than that, yeah?’ he said. ‘Basically we’re
bad
. We’re gonna look rubbish. The band sucks. In fact – um, er, well, will you do something for us, Jess?’

A spear of fear went through Jess’s heart. Not, please not join the band! No, no, no – not now she’d got her monologue coming along so well. Not now the band seemed torn with arguments and possibly also sucked. But would she have the guts to say no to Ben Jones, if that was what he asked?

‘Could you, like, come and watch us rehearse tonight? Maybe come up with some, um, ideas how we can get it together?’ said Ben. ‘Otherwise, we’re, like, doomed.’

‘Of course!’ said Jess. ‘But tomorrow, not today, yeah? I need to talk to Flora about it first. Make sure she’s cool about it.’

‘OK,’ said Ben Jones. ‘And when you’ve seen what we’re like, don’t be, like, polite. Tell us like it is, OK? Give it to us straight.’

‘Sure,’ said Jess.

Ben got up off the bench.

‘Thanks,’ he said, and reached down and patted her shoulder. ‘You’re, um, immense. Gotta go now – football practice.’

And he strolled off. The place where his hand had been sort of glowed. This was the first time Ben Jones had ever touched her. If Ben Jones had touched her shoulder a few weeks ago, she wouldn’t have washed for a month. Possibly even a year.

Her shoulder would have become a Holy Relic, preserved in a glass case and dressed with fresh flowers each day. She could have made a fortune offering it to girls to kiss. She would have made a sign, saying:
Ben Jones touched my shoulder – see the miraculous imprint of his fingers – or pay a small charge up front to kiss the place brushed by the palm of his hand
. But now it had happened, Jess couldn’t help feeling he had patted her in the way he might have shown his affection for a faithful old dog. And rather a smelly one, at that.

The way he talked about Flora, on the other hand, suggested something else. Ben was always talking about Flora. The very first time he and Jess had had coffee together, he’d asked about her. Probably the whole time he’d been with Jess, apparently just chatting casually about this and that, he’d been secretly trying to get the conversation around to the subject of Flora, to find out more about her. Perhaps just to hear the divine music of her name. Ben had got the hots for Flora! The name of a goddess. Jess’s only comfort was that it was also the brand name of a margarine.

Man, did she feel sick! Maybe she had still cherished some hopes of a relationship with Ben Jones. But she had been so preoccupied recently. There had been the trouble with Fred (who hadn’t spoken to her for ages), the struggle to write a comic monologue and the huge task of catching up with all the schoolwork she had somehow failed to hand in. And in her spare moments she had wondered why her parents had split up. There hadn’t really been much time to focus on Ben Jones.

OK, he had often chatted to her. But it had never been anything remotely like being chatted
up
. Jess had got used to the way things were with Ben. But she had been sort of hoping that he was just a slow starter. That after, say, six months of talking about the band, and football, and Flora, and Mackenzie, he would put his arm round her and say, ‘You really look fantastic today.’ And then – a girl can dream – actually kiss her or something. Before she went senile and died of extreme old age.

But this was never going to happen now, because all the time he’d never really been interested in her. Only in Flora. Jess felt so extremely sick, she had to take an instant mental trip to New York, where she admired all the beautiful glass and enamel in Tiffany’s and finally bought an exquisite table lamp for $50,000. And even then she still felt faintly nauseous for the rest of the day.

That evening she phoned Flora. She guessed she would be back from band practice by now.

‘Oh Jess!!’ cried Flora. She who is adored by millions. ‘I’ve had such a bum day. Mackenzie is really getting up my nose. He wants me to sing standing up and prancing about like a tart, but I want to do keyboards. B.J. says he thinks it’d be a good idea if you looked in on one of our rehearsals and gave us some advice. He really, like, respects your judgement, and so do I. So we insisted and Mackenzie had to back down. Please say you’ll come and listen to us tomorrow night after school. Oh please! Only you can save us from TOTAL HUMILIATION!’

Jess was tempted by the thought of them writhing in total humiliation. A part of her wanted to be there in the front row, enjoying the spectacle. But she couldn’t, in all conscience, let her oldest friend down. It wasn’t Flora’s fault she was irresistible, exquisite, the Queen of Hearts. They had had quite a few laughs over the years. Jess felt she must be loyal to Flora, come what may. And she didn’t like the thought of Ben Jones being made to look an idiot, either. Even if he did love Flora instead of her. Heck, who didn’t?

‘OK,’ said Jess. ‘I’ll come.’

‘And maybe after you’ve told us how we can improve our performance, you could do your monologue for us,’ suggested Flora. ‘And we could, like, tell you how to improve it.’

It was a good job they were talking on the phone, not person to person. Or at this point Jess would have killed Flora deftly with a small piece of paper, an empty yoghurt pot – anything handy.

‘Maybe,’ replied Jess. But secretly she thought,
I would sooner see my mum dancing naked in front of the school than let Flora and Co. hear a single word of my monologue, or presume to tell me how to improve it
.

She sighed. That was one of Fred’s favourite phrases:
I would rather my mum danced naked
. . . He certainly had a way with words. But as he hadn’t addressed a single word to her for such a long time, Jess had to assume they were now mortal enemies. Her terrible revenge would be to make him laugh so much at her monologue that he would wet his pants. Her monologue was Jess’s secret weapon. With it she was going to blow them all away.

Chapter 24

Serena’s uncle’s garage was way out on the edge of the city, surrounded by building sites and the station car park, so it was a good place to practise: no neighbours to complain about the noise. Serena’s uncle was divorced and worked long hours as a truck driver, so the band virtually had the place to themselves. And because he was a truck driver, the garage was enormous – it wasn’t a one-car garage, or a two-car garage, but a three-truck garage. In fact, there was a big truck parked in there, awaiting repairs, and still a huge amount of space for the band to perform.

Jess waited for them to get ready. Mac and Ben were tuning their guitars and fiddling with amps; Flora was getting changed into her performance outfit. Because, of course, clothes advice was just as important. Even Mac had climbed into his Gothic gear for the occasion. While she waited, Jess got her notebook out and jotted down a couple of ideas for her monologue.

Why do people in Lonely Hearts Ads describe themselves as
‘
attractiv
e
’? If the
y
’re so incredibly attractive, why are they advertising in Lonely Hearts anyway? And if male heart throbs are supposed to be tall, dark and handsome, why do I fantasise about a life of lethargy and flatulence with Homer Simpson?

‘OK, I’m ready!’

Flora appeared. Jess looked up, and her eyeballs nearly fell out. Flora, who normally looked so classy, had got herself up like a trashy drag queen. She was wearing leopard-skin high-heel boots, leather mini, basque, cleavage, suspenders, a spiky Gothic necklace, hair sticking out all over, black lipstick in a massive pout and purple eyeshadow that made her look as if she’d gone twelve rounds with a pack of Rottweilers. It seemed that Flora had abandoned the idea of being on keyboards and had reconciled herself to fronting the band.

‘It’s trash-cart chic,’ she announced.

‘Amazing!’ said Jess, choking back a giggle.

‘OK!’ said Mackenzie. ‘Let’s get on with it.’

Ben Jones picked out a few random notes on his bass guitar, then they all took up their positions, Mackenzie tweaked the synthesiser, and a terrible deafening noise broke out. Jess, though used to loud noises, couldn’t help flinching as if an express train had thundered past three inches from her face. Flora abandoned her usual grace and composure, crouched like a baboon and began to scream. Though what exactly she was screaming was a mystery.

‘
I got da aaaaarnkh! I faaaaaarchla plaaaaaanch! I wanna grukkkkka plukkka faaaaaaachnyna raaaaaaaaaaaatch!
’

Then she started jumping up and down, while somehow still crouching, and shaking her head violently from side to side. There was a strange expression on her face. She was sticking out her top teeth and squinting her eyes. Then she swept an imaginary audience with a pop-eyed gaze, stuck out her tongue and waggled it violently.