Read Me Like a Book (24 page)

“What d’you reckon?” Cat asks.

I look at her without replying. I feel like I’ve come home.

“I thought you’d like it,” she says, grinning.

“I don’t know what to say.” I grab her and hug her tight.

“Oi! Watch it.” She pulls away. “Don’t want people getting the wrong idea about
me
. Might spoil my chances with the boys.”

I look around to see two men leaning against a pillar on the edge of the dance floor, their mouths pressed as tightly together as their bodies.

“Cat, I don’t think you’ve got much of a chance with —”

“Joke, Ash!”

We knock back our beers, then Cat pulls me onto the dance floor. “C’mon, let’s have a dance,” she says as a new tune comes on with a deep dance beat.

We dance to about five tracks before I need a break and a drink. I get the next round and Cat and I stand, watching and drinking. The place is getting busier and busier.

I’m just finishing off a bottle when the unmistakable opening words to a new song come on.

“Gaga!” Cat shrieks and grabs me again. Loads of people get up from their tables, and we’re swept along onto the dance floor.

The alcohol has loosened me up, and I’m spinning and jumping with the rest of them and grinning like an idiot at virtually anyone who catches my eye.

I close my eyes and sing every word of “Born This Way” at the top of my voice.

For a moment, I think I’ve fallen in love, but I don’t know what with — just all this: the music, the dancing, all the gorgeous women on the dance floor, the hot, sticky air closing in around us, everyone in it together.

I don’t stop dancing all night, except to fill up with beer. Cat and I are mucking about, twirling each other around like kids. At one point, Cat goes to the loo and I’m on my own. I don’t care. I just keep dancing.

There’s another woman dancing alone. She moves across the floor and inches toward me as a slow track comes on. She’s centimeters away, smiling at me. I don’t know what I’m meant to do, so I just carry on jigging about as though she was the usual foot or two away. Our bodies are almost touching, and we’re both pretending they’re not. At the end of the dance she gives me a quick smile before disappearing into the crowd.

I look around to see Cat laughing. Stumbling back toward her, I fall into two boys. “Oops, sorry.” I look up at them. “Jayce!”

Jayce jumps away from Adam. “Ash! What are you doing here?”

I laugh. “What do you think? Same as you.” Then I look at Adam’s arm, still around Jayce’s neck. “Or maybe not quite.”

Jayce wriggles farther away from Adam, who suddenly hugs me. “I knew it!” He turns to Jayce and taps his forehead. “Told you, didn’t I? My gaydar never lets me down.”

I laugh. Did
everyone
know I was gay before I did?

Jayce grins. “Really? Ash, that’s brilliant!”

“I wonder if our parents would agree.”

Adam grimaces. “Oh, my God, it’s perfect! You could be his beard.”

“His
what
?”

“His beard — his pretend girlfriend,” Adam explains. “That might get Elaine off our backs.”

“Well, I’d like to help.” I look Jayce up and down. “But he’s not my type.” They both laugh.

“Look, I’d better get back.” I point in Cat’s direction.

“Brilliant to see you, Ash.” Jayce hugs me.

“Let’s meet up soon.”

As I head back to Cat, I think about the first time I met Jayce, his argument with his mum about deferring his university place and staying at home. He didn’t want to leave Adam. It all makes sense now. But then,
everything
makes sense now.

A long while later, I look at my watch: twenty to two. How on earth did that happen? I’m not even tired, but I come off the floor for another refill, and I see someone familiar. I can’t place her for a minute, but then it hits me — it’s the blond-haired girl from the pub the other day!

She’s standing on her own, hands in her jacket pockets as she leans against a pillar at the edge of the dance floor. She looks up as I pass, a hint of recognition in her eyes.

“Left your book at home, then?” I shout over the music. Oh, for heaven’s sake, Ash. What a pathetic thing to say.

“It’s a bit dark for reading,” she replies, looking at me briefly before turning away. Oh, my God, her eyes are beautiful. They might be blue. They’re big and wide and she’s got long, thick eyelashes.

“D’you want a drink?” I ask without thinking, but she shakes her head.

“I can’t. Sorry.” She taps her watch. “I’m going to miss the night bus if I don’t leave in a minute.”

“Oh, right.” I’m glad it’s too dark for her to see my cheeks redden. “Sorry. See you, then.” I turn to leave.

“Hang on.” She’s rummaging in her jeans, pulling out a scrap of paper. It’s a Topshop receipt. She scribbles something on it and shoves it at me. For a second, I feel the heat of her hand on mine as she passes it to me, and I could almost close my fingers around hers. I look up at her and an electric tingle shoots up through my chest and into my mouth. Her mouth’s slightly open. I want to kiss her. What the hell am I thinking? I don’t even know her.

And then her hand’s gone and she’s moving away. “I’m Taylor, by the way. See you,” she says, and I shove the paper into my pocket and go to find Cat.

As we leave the club to flag down a taxi, my voice is hoarse and my cheekbones ache from smiling.

The first thing to hit me is the crying. Everywhere. The school entrance hall is full of students, huddled in groups or in pairs, a few with parents. It seems as though at least half the people I can see are bawling their eyes out.

Annabelle Stewart, one of the smartest students in the school, is standing with her boyfriend. He’s got his arms around her and her shoulders are shaking.

“Who’s going to let me do medicine now?” she’s sobbing.

“Look, you’ve still got three As and a B.”

“That’s useless! I needed four As,” she says, gulping.

A boy in my law class who did about as much work as I did is talking into his mobile. I smile as I pass, but he doesn’t smile back, just gives a halfhearted wave. “No, not one,” he says into the phone. “I’ve said I want them regraded but I don’t know if it’ll make any difference . . . I know, I feel sick.”

I’m like the hero in an action film, walking toward my fate, my doom. People falling by the wayside all around me. As I pass the staff room, I take a quick look through the glass door. It’s full of students. On their phones, talking to teachers. Some grinning. Some panicking. A few of them crying. I wish Cat was here. I begged her on the phone this morning, but she wouldn’t come. Said she knew she’d failed everything and didn’t want to give Mrs. Banks the satisfaction. Robyn’s coming this afternoon. We said we’d meet up later, either to celebrate or commiserate.

I head toward the scrum at the far end of the corridor. It’s like last call at Feathers on karaoke night. Eventually I push and wriggle my way to the front of the crowd and start looking down the list. I see Cat’s results before mine. History: X. That means she didn’t turn up. General studies: X. Law and geography: both E, the lowest grade that could technically count as a pass. Maybe she’ll be pleased.

I spot Robyn’s results too. She’s got a B in English. She’ll be well pleased with that.

Then I see my name: Ashleigh Walker.

Law: D. Could have been worse. Sociology: E. It’s a pass, at least. General studies: C. How the hell I managed that, I don’t know. Then I rub my eyes, glance around for a second to check that this is real, and look again at the last one.

English: A.

I keep staring at it. I’m scared to believe it in case I get home and there’s a letter saying they’ve made a mistake.

I scribble my results down on a scrap of paper and push my way through the crowd. I walk back down the corridor in a daze. Who can I talk to about it? I need to make sure it’s right. I want to laugh and jump up and down. It’s only now I realize how much I wanted it.

The only person I want to see is Miss Murray. I know I’ve not thought about her as much lately, but, being here and seeing those results, she’s the only person I want to share this moment with.

I don’t notice anyone around me as I walk down the corridor on my own. I need to get out of here.

But as I turn the corner, I look up — and suddenly the entrance hall is spinning around me.

When we were about thirteen, Cat and I used to go to the fair on Saturday afternoons in the summer, once we’d gotten bored with the poolrooms and the local arts center. It was just another place to hang out, thinking we looked grown up, chewing gum and wearing too much eyeliner. It was always the Tilt-A-Whirl, or the speedway if you wanted to look cool. That’s where you sat on a motorbike, or if you were
really
cool you stood by the side of it while the ride simply went round and round. Basically it was a carousel, only with bikes instead of horses, and it went a tiny bit faster.

It was harder to be cool on the Tilt-A-Whirl, as they’d always choose our car to keep spinning. “Push us faster!” we’d shout.

“That’s what me girlfriend said and now she’s pregnant,” the long-haired Tilt-A-Whirl guy would say and we’d laugh, although I never quite got it. And then he’d spin the ride and my head would be thrown back and my stomach would feel cold and empty and I couldn’t help screaming and laughing. Then I’d step off the ride and the ground would be spinning. I couldn’t walk in a straight line. If I stood in one spot and closed my eyes, I was at the center of the universe with the whole thing revolving around me. It was brilliant, for a second. Then I’d open my eyes and feel sick.

Now, I’m right back there, the floor rotating away from me. Because she’s standing right in front of me.

I reach out for something to steady myself. The only thing I’d wanted, the only thing I’d thought about, every single moment of every day for weeks. And now she’s just here, in the same room, chatting to a couple of students as though nothing has happened, as though she never left.

I stumble toward a chair, shuffling sideways like a crab so I don’t need to turn away. I know she’s going to look across in a moment and, when she does, she’ll see me. And I’m sitting on a plastic orange chair in the middle of the entrance hall, on my own.

So I stand up again. Then she spots me. She glances my way for a split second and catches my eye, but she doesn’t hold it long enough for me to do anything. What would I do anyway? Smile?
Oh, hi there, long time no see and all that
. I don’t think so.

She carries on talking a bit longer, then breaks away. She’s coming toward me. What am I going to do? My legs are turning into liquid and my cheeks are on fire. My arms feel six feet long, hanging uselessly by my sides.

“Hello, Ash.” She looks at me seriously, as though she’s a police officer who’s caught me red-handed burglarizing someone’s house. It takes me a second to remember that I haven’t done anything wrong. At least, I don’t think I have.

I can’t speak. I’m like one of those contestants on a daytime quiz show who can’t answer a simple question. “It’s always harder when you’re in front of the camera,” the host tells them when they don’t know the capital of France.
Bollocks, you’re just thick,
ten million people around the country are thinking. Well, now I know how it feels. I can’t remember the appropriate reply to “Hello.”

Miss Murray’s rummaging in her bag. She pulls out an envelope with my name on it.

“Here. I was going to send it if I didn’t see you.”

I take it. It feels like a card.

“I wanted to say well done,” she says while I stare at the envelope. I don’t know whether to tear it open or save it forever.

I look up. “Thanks.”

She smiles. “I always knew you could do it.”

“Not without you, I couldn’t.”

“Annie, wonderful to see you,” a familiar voice rumbles behind me. Mrs. bloody Banks.

“Hello there, Mary.” Miss Murray returns Banks’s wooden smile.

“I think congratulations are in order,” the principal continues. “You did a fine job there. A fine job. One hundred percent pass rate. Well done.”

“Thank you. That’s very kind of you,” Miss Murray says, “but, really, the credit must go to the students.”

“Of course, of course. And well done to you too, Ashleigh,” Mrs. Banks says, wiping a piece of invisible fluff from her skirt. “Anyway, mustn’t keep you.”

Miss Murray looks at her watch. “I’d better be going myself, actually.”

“All the best, then,” Mrs. Banks says and walks off as though I wasn’t there.

“So, are you coming back?” I ask casually once Banks is out of earshot.

“I’ve got a new job.” She looks away and runs her hand through her hair. “In London.”

“London? That’s about a million miles away.”

She smiles. “I think it’s a bit less than that, actually.” Then she stops smiling. “You’ll be fine, Ash.”

“How do you know?”

“You can do anything you want, so make sure you do. Don’t let anything stop you. Or anyone.”

I nod. I don’t reply. What can I say?

“You’ve got a great future ahead of you, I promise.” She puts her bag on her shoulder. “I’ll see you,” she says.

“Will you?” I whisper.