Playlist for a Broken Heart (12 page)

FB and I spent an hour or so pouring over all his findings about masks. He did have some great images and looking at them gave me lots of ideas for my project. He was also generous about lending
me some stuff to take home to study further.

I pointed at the masks on the wall. ‘Did you make those?’

He nodded. ‘Most of them.’

I pointed to two simple masks that were next to each other – a white one showing a happy face and a black one with an exaggerated sad face. ‘I like the Shakespearian ones,’ I
said.

FB nodded. ‘Ah. The only two I didn’t make. Those were made by a mate. He gave them to me when he realised that I’d been making and collecting them. The whole thing about masks
resonates with me. I’m interested in the psychology too. We wear masks for different people, to hide our thoughts and feelings, a protection of sorts, don’t you think?’

‘I do,’ I replied. ‘That’s the angle I want to take in my project. I’m not going to make actual masks. I want to draw and paint the more subtle masks that people
wear. Like that saying, put on a brave face. I’ll do a series of brave faces . . .’

‘Cheery faces, happy faces, flirty faces. My mum always used to say, “Put on your happy face”,’ FB added.

‘My mum’s been doing that lately with all the changes that have been happening in my life. Her and Dad.’ I’d told him a bit about the move from London when we were
chatting at the festival.

‘What about you?’ FB asked. He had a gentle expression in his eyes and looked at me as though genuinely interested in what was going on inside me. For a moment, I thought I was going
to cry but didn’t feel that I knew FB well enough to let him know what I’d been going through.
And things are getting better
, I told myself.

‘I’m OK,’ I said.

He sat next to me on the bed, put his arm around me and gave me a squeeze. ‘And there’s your brave-face mask, right there,’ he said.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about him having his arm around me but he didn’t keep it there for long. He got up and went to the door. ‘Fancy a drink? Tea? Coffee? Juice?’

‘Juice, thanks,’ I replied. While he was away, I flicked through a file he’d pulled out with the others. Masks in Shakespeare. The pages were full of quotes and sketches of
masks used in various plays.

FB came back with a tray with glasses, a carton of apple juice and plate of biscuits. ‘Help yourself,’ he said as he put it down on the cabinet next to his bed. I was about to ask
him about the notes in his file when he asked, ‘How about we listen to this CD of yours?’

I got it out of my bag and he put it into his computer then we both lay back. He gave me the bed and he lay on the floor, his head resting on a beanbag. Callum Casey’s voice filled the
air. FB only spoke to say, ‘My band,’ when his track played.

When the last track had finished, FB sat up. ‘So you like this CD, do you?”

‘I do. I really do.’

‘It’s a good compilation. It tells a story, doesn’t it? A love story – guy sees girl, falls in love but did she feel the same? Or was it about a fantasy girl.’

‘I know. I wonder what happened.’

He glanced at the cover and I told him all that I’d worked out about how it was put together. Like Tasmin and I had done, he reached for a magnifying glass to see if he could find any more
clues. ‘Tell you what, I’ll scan the cover in on the scanner at school,’ said FB. ‘Then we can blow it up and see if there are any more clues on there. Apart from that, all
I can help with are the bands. I know all of them. All local. Yeah, whoever put this CD together has good taste in music especially as my band is on there.’

Excellent, we’re making progress
, I thought as I drank my juice.

Mystery Boy

The deed is done. She has the CD and I know her name. Sarah. It happened by accident. Maybe fate? I was in Costa Coffee down in town and she came in. My first instinct was to
turn away but didn’t because she doesn’t know me yet. I watched as she joined friends. A bunch of girls from Kingswood school who’d been checking me out before she came in.
‘Hey Sarah,’ I heard one of them say.

Sarah was a pickpocket’s dream because she left her bag behind the chair she took. It was gaping open. I’d be able to drop the CD in there no problem. I got up to go to the loos
– once in there, I pulled out the envelope with the CD in it and wrote ‘Songs for Sarah’ on the envelope and the spine of the CD cover.
Perfect
, I thought. It made it all
the more personal. When I came out, I saw she’d gone with the girls to the counter and her bag was still there on the floor. Cupid was smiling on me. I dropped the envelope into her bag. Easy
peasy. Job done.

Best day of my life,
I texted Allegra on the Friday of the bank holiday.
New home, new chapter.

Can’t w8 to see you tmro. Call me l8r. I have nws of Alex,
she texted back.

Of course, on reading the part about Alex, I couldn’t wait and called her straight away, but she must have just switched her phone off after she’d texted me because it went to
messages. It was bank holiday weekend and she was coming down on the train for the day with her mum. The plan was that her mum was going to head for the spa and I was going to show Allegra round. I
couldn’t wait.

‘You got everything you need?’ asked Mum.

‘Yep,’ I called back. We were in the new flat. Mum and Dad had moved in during the day and after school, instead of heading back to Aunt Karen’s, I’d made my way to our
new home where I’d spent a glorious evening arranging my bedroom. I’d packed my bags last night and Mum and Dad had brought them over first thing in the morning so that they were there
when I arrived. Removal vans had been in the morning too and when I got there, it gave me a warm glow to see familiar items from our old home in Richmond piled up in the sitting room ready to find
their place. I soon got busy helping Mum empty the boxes, filling kitchen cupboards, making beds (lovely, lovely soft cotton) and putting clothes away.

‘It’s weird,’ I said to Mum as we unrolled a blue and taupe Persian rug out in the sitting room, ‘it’s like we’ve been in a parallel universe for a month but
now we’ve come back to reality.’

Mum nodded. ‘I guess,’ she pointed at the rug, ‘we’ve landed alright but somewhere different.’

‘It’s going to be OK though, isn’t it?’

‘I hope so.’

‘How’s Dad’s business idea coming along?’ I asked.

Mum glanced at the door to check if Dad was nearby. ‘Slowly,’ she said. ‘I’m not supposed to say anything but . . . he’s found some premises that are coming up for
rent. A shop to be precise. He’s been researching where there might be a gap in the market here in Bath but that’s the problem. Everything’s just about covered –
cafés, shops selling merchandise, knick-knacks. It has to be the right product.’

‘He’ll think of something,’ I said. ‘How’s he going to finance it?’

Mum rolled her eyes. ‘Loan of course.’

‘I thought he couldn’t get a loan any more.’

‘He can’t but your Aunt Karen and Uncle Mike can. They’ve agreed to be investors if they like his ideas.’

‘Wow. That’s good of them.’

‘I know but they also stand to make some money if things work out, which will be good for them as they both only have small pensions. They believe in your dad. None of what happened was
his fault and he still has a brilliant business head on him, if only we can think of the right product. There are a million tourists piling off buses here every day, even in the winter. There has
to be something we can provide.’

‘Ice cream?’ I suggested. ‘No, bad idea, there are loads of ice cream places near the centre. Loads of fudge shops too.’

‘We’ll think of something. It’s not something for you to worry about.’

Too late, my mind was already whirring with mad ideas as I went back to my room. Masks? T-shirts? I wanted to help.

Dad had arranged for my old dressing table and mirror to be brought out of storage, a desk that used to be in a downstairs study, a bedside cabinet and a bed that used to be in one of our spare
rooms in the Richmond house. My old bed was much too big for the new room but I didn’t care. Anything would be more comfortable than the camp bed I’d been sleeping on. By bedtime, I had
made the room my own. My wine-coloured bedspread and cushions were on the bed, curtains up across the window (they were a bit long but Mum said she could shorten them easily), a Turkish rug on the
floor, my clothes folded and put away in drawers or hanging in the built-in wardrobe in the corner and there was a bedside lamp casting a soft light into the room. It looked fab.

I put my laptop on the desk, lit the scented candle that Mum had bought me as a house-warming present, arranged a few books and files, then lay back on my bed for a few minutes. I felt like I
could breathe again and stayed there for a while, savouring the moment. Order had been restored in my life, I felt a wave of happiness surge through me.

My phone beeped that I had a text. It was FB asking how the move had gone. I texted back:
happy, feel like I’m at home again.
He was proving to be a good friend and we’d met
up a few times to hang out, have a coffee or talk about what we were into. I liked the fact he was so into art and we could talk about that – something I could never do with Tasmin.

When I got up to get a drink before going to sleep, Mum and Dad were still arranging and rearranging furniture in the sitting room.

‘I love it here,’ I said.

Dad laughed. ‘It’s an eighth of the size of our old house and has no garden but I know what you mean. I love it too.’

Tasmin and Clover came over the next morning to have the flat tour and both gave it the thumbs-up. They’d brought house-warming presents too: a bunch of flowers from
Clover and a couple of mags from Tasmin.

‘She’s read them both,’ said Clover as she flopped on my bed.

‘It’s the thought,’ said Tasmin as she opened my wardrobe and had a nosey inside. ‘Tidy huh? So, new house. I can’t tell you how fab it is to have my room back as
well.’

‘I can imagine,’ I said.

‘And we have some news for you,’ said Tasmin. ‘Well not exactly news but I managed to persuade Jess Bendall to ask her mum, who’s school secretary, to let me have a list
of all the names of girls at our school.’ She pulled out a sheaf of A4 paper and gave it to me.

‘We trawled through it last night,’ Clover added. ‘You wouldn’t believe how many Sarahs there are at our school. Forty.’

‘Do you think we should contact them all?’ I asked.

‘Yep. We found a few on our school’s Facebook page and we’ve sent them messages. Eight have replied. Not them, so they’re off this list.’

‘Wow, thanks,’ I said. I was really touched that they’d spent so much time looking for me.

‘We’re a team,’ said Tasmin. ‘And you’re not the only one with detective skills.’

‘And if Sarah’s not at our school, we can start on the others in the area,’ said Clover. ‘There are loads of schools in Bath.’

‘That’s if she lives in Bath,’ I said. ‘What if she’s from Bristol?’

Tasmin gave me a stern look. ‘We have to start somewhere,’ she said.

‘Hey, why don’t we start a detective agency when we leave school?’ I said. ‘With our combined skills, we’d be brilliant.’

‘Nah. I want to go on my gap year,’ said Tasmin.

‘And I want to open my vintage shop,’ said Clover. ‘Or do something in fashion.’

‘Talking of which, we were thinking on the way over that we should do a makeover on you,’ Tasmin continued as she pulled out a few of my clothes. ‘Get you wearing some
colour.’

‘
You
were thinking,’ said Clover. ‘I think she’s fine as she is.’

Tasmin rolled her eyes. ‘You’re joking. I mean look at this stuff in here – navy, cream, white, navy, navy, navy, boring. You dress like a nun, Paige.’

‘Thanks, Tasmin. I’m glad you approve. But makeover? To what?’

Tasmin looked me up and down. ‘Not sure yet. You could be really good-looking if you tried.’

Clover burst out laughing. ‘You have some cheek, Tas.’

I laughed too. I was getting used to Tasmin’s outspokenness and decided to give her some of her own medicine. I looked at her in exactly the same way she’d been looking at me. Up and
down. Critically. Her orange face. Make-up. The hair extensions.

‘What?
What?
’ she asked.

‘OK. A makeover. If I let you do a makeover on me, you have to let me do one on you.’

Tasmin looked shocked.

‘Touché, Tas,’ said Clover. ‘You’ve met your match.’

‘Yes but
I
don’t need a makeover.’

I gave her a look as if to say, ‘Yeah right’. ‘OK, but you could be a very attractive girl if you wanted.’

Clover cracked up. ‘Now then girls,’ she said.

‘So what do I need to change?’ asked Tasmin. ‘Seriously, come on.’

For a moment, I hesitated. I didn’t want to upset her but then I knew she wouldn’t hold back when it was my turn. ‘OK. Mainly I’d tone it down. The make-up for a start.
You wear too much and you really don’t need to. I’ve seen you first thing in the morning and know that you’ve got a very pretty face.’

‘Don’t try and sugar it. What else?’ Tasmin demanded.

‘Your hair looks scruffy with those extensions. I’d like to see it with a gloss on it. Get rid of them.’

Clover gasped. ‘Go girl. And . . . actually I agree.’

Tasmin turned to her. ‘You’re supposed to be my friend!’

‘I am,’ Clover replied, ‘but if you’re going to dish it, you got to eat it too.’

Tasmin made a rude gesture with her fingers by way of reply.

‘And I’d put you in something prettier too,’ I continued. ‘Not girlie but . . . mm, I’m not sure about the dress style I’d pick for you, but I’d
definitely get rid of the heels you wear outside school. You struggle in them, they’re throwing your back out and you don’t walk in an attractive way because of it.’

When I saw that Tasmin’s jaw was on her chest, I thought I’d better stop. The part of me that was growing more confident seemed to be coming more to the fore lately but I
didn’t want to lose friends over it. I was going to mention the fake eyelashes, but all in good time. I glanced at Clover who had suddenly decided that there was something really interesting
out the window and started humming in a casual way, though I could see she was really having a hard time not cracking up laughing again.