Pride & Princesses (24 page)

   
‘It’s like he was missing a sensitivity gene,’ I told Mouche.

   
‘C’mon,’ Mouche said. ‘let’s just leave. I don’t want to go to their stupid post-fling bash anyway. Who ever heard of such a lame idea? Some boys think they are so entitled. It’s time girls took a stand.’

  
Mr Frames was standing at the school gate as we left, chatting to the future Mrs Frames who was also checking IDs. He was about to ask her to slow dance in the moonlight and I was really glad we were leaving now that we were surrounded by all this lovey-
doveyness
.

  
‘Something wrong, girls?’ Miss Love asked.

  
Mr Frames added, ‘you are both looking extra nice. Why are you leaving so soon?’

  
‘We just need to get home early to...babysit my little sister,’ Mouche replied.

  
‘Couldn’t your mother do that?’

  
‘Probably,’ Mouche added making us both sound slightly stupid.

  
‘We gotta go,’ I said.

  
Mrs Mouche always made sure we had enough money for a cab but just as Mouche was dialling the number on her cell, we noticed someone tall and dark-haired walking out from under the entrance street lights. It was Joel.

  
‘Hey, Phoebe,’ he said, ‘where to so soon?’

  
‘Home,’ I said, wiping my cheeks. I was grateful he pretended not to notice.

  
‘This is not exactly our idea of a
rockin
’ time,’ Mouche added sarcastically. We could see Jet and Mark walking out to the top of the driveway wondering where we’d gone. Jet had been oblivious to the overheard conversation but Mark had noticed me as I fled. He could fill Jet in on all the details.

  
‘You so shouldn’t be smoking, Joel. It’s bad for your lungs.’ Mouche added.

   
‘So is incorrect grammar, apparently,’ Joel replied. ‘Phoebe taught me that.’

  
‘Very funny,’ I said. Then I looked at him with scorn and derision but he didn’t seem at all offended.

  
‘I have younger sisters,’ he said. ‘I know how cruel girls can be.’

  
‘Not just girls,’ Mouche said.

  
‘Sounds like you both had a bad night.’

  
‘You could say that.’

  
‘Well, I’m at your service ladies. Unless you have a better offer,’ Joel said with a vitriolic intonation as Mark and Jet stood atop the hill like statues.
 

  
‘We have no plans for the rest of the evening,’ I said.

  
‘Mmm...we can change that. I was thinking of leaving early anyway.’

  
‘Really?’ I said. ‘Well, that’s okay, we were going to take a cab...’

  
‘That’d be great,’ Mouche interrupted.

  
So we piled into Joel’s mom’s old station wagon and sped off as Mark and Jet wandered out of the school gate looking for their manners.

   
We stopped off at the only hangout still open in Sunrise after 9pm – the
Sunrise
Cafe
which was on the corner of Main and West Streets in the centre of the town square
.
Joel knew the waitress because he worked there and gave her a tip in return for the best booth in the place overlooking Sunrise library. When we ordered she looked around for the manager (he was absent) and said, ‘on the house,’ and Joel gave her a wicked smile.

   
When we were seated, Joel told Mouche and me how much he’d taken to reading, ‘all the classics’ lately and, ‘all the stuff on the senior English class list – I couldn’t have done it without Phoebe’s
 
help,’ he beamed.

  
‘And Tory’s and Brooke’s,’ Mouche added under her breath. It was still only nine-thirty, so we had plenty of time to eat and go home. Mouche texted our moms just in case they were worried. It turned out after a late game of cards the ‘boys’ were going home and ‘could we please be quiet when we arrived so as not to wake Wednesday?’

   
We’d have a lot to tell Trish and Mrs Mouche the next day because the night hadn’t exactly gone to plan.

 
‘We had plenty to write about in the dating diary, that’s for sure,’ Mouche whispered optimistically, after we’d ordered.
 

  
When Mouche got up to ‘play a song on the old-fashioned juke box’ Joel took my hand which I thought was a little bit bold and said, ‘so, what’s with your dates for the evening?’

  
I pulled my hand back.

 
‘Oh, Jet and Mark weren’t really our ‘dates.’ We were just together as a group – sort of.’

 
‘That’s good because I’m not really Mark’s hugest fan.’

 
‘What do you mean?’

 
‘Well, my mom used to work for his dad’s company and his father ripped her off, then gave her the sack. We were homeless and had to live in our car for a few weeks because his family behaved so badly.’

  
‘That’s terrible, no wonder you’ve had trouble staying in school.’

  
‘Well, my brother, who’s three years older than me, left home and went to live with our father in New York. You know, I could blame my family’s break-up on the whole business fiasco with the Knightlys. They really treated my mom harshly. It was kind of a shame because Mark and I grew up together. My parents ran the office of their company in Bristol for a while. His Dad was my Godfather.’

  
‘Really? That’s amazing...so, you’re from England?’

  
‘Yeah, kind of. I mean, I wasn’t born there, but my family is from Europe so we lived there for a few years. My Dad is Croatian but we’re American citizens now.’

  
‘Wow,’ I said.

 
‘Must be why your accent’s weird sometimes...’ Mouche added.

 
‘Mouche, don’t be rude.’ I whispered.

 
‘No offence intended. Hey, what happened to your dates?’ Mouche asked.

 
‘They got a better offer,’ Joel replied.

 
‘Oh,’ Mouche replied.
   

 
‘So how’s Petra?’ Joel asked me, changing the subject.

 
‘Petra?’

 
‘Yeah, Mark’s sister, we all used to be friends until Mark got his head up his...’

  
At that point Mouche came back to our booth and the music started playing.

  
It was some slow dance of a song that Mouche liked.

  
After our food arrived, and since Joel ate quickly and Mouche didn’t eat much at all because the dates had ended so badly, I was really happy when Joel held out his hand to both me and Mouche in a very debonair manner and said, ‘anyone wanna dance?’

  
Mouche looked over at me.

  
‘Sure.’

  
‘Okay’, Mouche said, jumping up. The waitress started clearing the tables as the last of the customers left. Even the chef pulled off his chef’s apron and joined us as the juke box played one of my mom’s favourite songs from years ago. We all danced for a few minutes in the half-light and then the chef started closing up the shop for the night.

   
‘Uh, oh,’ the chef said, as he opened the door to let us out only to find a huge bundle of what looked like old clothes in a garbage bag on the doorstep.

  
‘What’s that?’

  
‘It’s for the Sunrise goodwill shelter, right next door. For some reason the stuff is always left at the wrong address.’

   
I shivered. It was late and getting cold. Tonight hadn’t been at all what I expected.

   
‘Here,’ the chef said. He was young and smelt like food.

   
The chef handed me a black sweater, in good condition, just like the one we wanted; the one on our list.

  
‘Are you sure?’

  
‘Yeah, take it. No one will miss it and it’ll keep you warm.’

  
‘Thanks.’ His hands were freezing cold when he gave it to me. I remembered my grandmother once described a good person as having, ‘cold hands and a warm heart.’

Chapter 14

Apologies and Whispers

   
The year was half over. Mouche and I had not really been on any successful dates, and the treasure chest prizes all came about in unexpected ways. We didn’t mind. The ‘treasure’ was all part of the game. We stopped being so strict about how we obtained the items, which resulted in multiple sweaters and pens hoarded in a spare locker awaiting transfer to the real chest in Mouche’s room. We could sort out what we needed at a later date. I hand washed, dried and ironed the black sweater and sewed a row of sparkling sequins around the edge. It would be perfect for New York.
 

   
When we arrived back at school the following Monday it seemed obvious that Jet had hooked up with Teegan after we left. We also noticed Tory had her hand hooked firmly into the pocket of Mark’s jeans as they all walked down the hallway together.

  
‘Men can be dogs,’ Mouche whispered.

   
I ignored the foursome, but I felt Mark’s stare in the small of my back as Mouche and I walked past them.
 

  
‘Hey, Phoebe...’ Mark said as I passed him, trying to disassociate himself from Tory.