Stuck on Me (17 page)

‘Don’t be alarmed,’ says Rosie, ‘but we’re staging an intervention!’ It sounds like she’s copying a line in a film. If I weren’t so miserable and
my arms weren’t being tugged out of their sockets I might even laugh.

‘A what?’

‘An intervention. It’s what they do to get celebrities to go to rehab when they don’t want to.’

‘But I’m not a celebrity. And I don’t need rehab.’

‘Yeah, that’s what they all say,’ says Rosie, dismissively. ‘If anybody needs this, you do. So stop arguing. Either you come with us voluntarily, or we’ll have to
kidnap you.’

‘Or torture you again.’ Vix raises her eyebrow provocatively.

No! Anything but the tickling . . . ‘OK, OK, I give in.’

‘Trust us,’ says Vix. ‘We only want to help.’

‘I don’t need help,’ I mutter, under my breath. Vix and Rosie exchange ‘she’s deluded’ glances. They think I can’t see, but I can, and it niggles
me.

I let them lead me down the stairs and out of the front door. We walk up the street, arm in arm, silently. I look straight ahead, feeling sulky and irritated. Halfway along, I contemplate making
a run for it, and then think better of that idea. Whatever it is they have planned, I might as well get it over with.

‘Here we are,’ says Rosie, as we reach her house. Anyone would think I’d never been here before. She loosens her grip so she can fiddle with the keys and open the front door.
Once we’re inside, she and Vix take me straight upstairs. They pause on the landing, outside Rosie’s bedroom door. ‘Right, Sky. Close your eyes and walk slowly into my bedroom.
I’ll tell you when you can open them.’

‘O . . . K . . .’

‘No peeking.’

‘I said OK!’

Vix takes my hand and leads me into the room. I hear the door being shut gently behind me.

‘You can open your eyes now,’ says Rosie.

I’m not sure I want to. I open one eye, then the other and blink hard. The room comes into focus. Laid out before me on Rosie’s bedroom floor are dozens of printed A4 sheets, all
lined up from one wall to the other. As I walk closer I can see that the sheets have images on them, then that they are all portrait photographs of a girl with dark hair. I bend down to pick one
up. ‘Who’s that?’ I ask.

Rosie snorts. ‘It’s you, silly!’

‘No it isn’t.’ I study the picture. It’s me, but not me. My face, but not my face. I really don’t recognise myself. The girl doesn’t look like my dad or my
mum or anybody else I know. If this girl turned up at a family reunion, they wouldn’t let her in. She looks weird, bland, like a doll or an identifit photo. ‘I don’t
understand.’

‘This is you after your nose job,’ says Vix. ‘We sent your pics to a virtual plastic surgery website. It shows you what you’d look like if your features were
changed.’

‘It’s the same software that the FBI uses,’ Rosie interrupts. ‘Like in
CSI.
Like when they’re trying to find kids who’ve gone missing years ago, or
criminals who’ve had plastic surgery to evade justice. We just had to send in a pic of you and tell them what you wanted done, and then they doctored your photo so you could see what
you’d look like after the operation.’ She smiles at me. ‘So what do you think of your new nose?’

‘I . . . I’m not sure.’ I concentrate on the picture again. My new nose is straighter, smaller, more refined, but it seems to throw all my other features off balance. It
changes my whole face. My cheeks look fatter, my eyes less expressive, my mouth too big somehow. My face no longer has any character.

‘You look weird, don’t you?’ Rosie says. She bends down and picks up some more pictures, handing each one to me in turn. ‘We did tons of variations – gave you lots
of different noses.’

‘I don’t like any of them,’ I admit, ‘but maybe it’s because they’re just pictures. Real surgery would be different.’

‘No it wouldn’t,’ says Vix. ‘Surgeons use this program. It’s realistic. Sky, can’t you see that you’re really pretty without anything changed? Much
prettier, in fact.’

She shows me the photo she took on her phone earlier, then hands me another sheet, with a photo on it that I do recognise. It must be the original picture that they sent in to the website. I
don’t look pretty in it, but at least I look like me again. And, though I can’t say it out loud, I do prefer my face the way it’s meant to be. Maybe it isn’t possible for me
to get rid of my nose and still look like ‘me’. That’s not something I’d considered before.

Vix is waiting for me to say something. When I don’t, she picks up some more sheets and giggles to herself. ‘Sorry, but we wanted to have a bit of fun too. Look: this is you with new
nose and new eyebrows. We got you Botoxed!’

I stare at it, open mouthed. ‘Oh God, I look like Mr Spock out of
Star Trek
.’

‘Ha! You’re actually making that expression right now.’ Vix laughs.

‘Want to see what you’d look like with cheek implants and a chin implant?’ asks Rosie. ‘Oh, and with Angelina Jolie’s lips?’ She hands over a bundle of
sheets.

‘Oh my God! I look like the elephant woman! Frankenstein’s monster! It’s hideous.’

‘Yeah,’ says Rosie. ‘Oh, and we had you aged as well. Want to know what you’ll look like at seventy?’

‘I’m not sure that I do . . .’

Rosie ignores me. ‘Here you go.’ She hands me another picture and, there, in front of me, is an old crone, with wrinkles, eye bags and saggy jowls. I look like my grandma . . . in
about twenty years.

‘I don’t look seventy, I look about a thousand! I thought you guys were supposed to be making me feel better, not worse.’

‘Sorry, hon,’ says Vix. ‘We couldn’t resist. They said you won’t look quite that bad if you keep out of the sun, and if you don’t smoke or drink. Anyway,
listen, why don’t you take the pictures home with you and have a think about them?’

‘What, keep them in a drawer so that I never age?’

‘Yeah, something like that.’

‘OK . . .’ I sigh. ‘But you do know that I still hate my nose, right? It’s not going to be that easy to make me change my mind.’

‘Course not,’ says Vix. ‘And we know you’re still down about Rich and everything. Just think about it, OK?’

I nod. ‘I promise. Can I go home now?’

‘Not if you’re going to get all depressed again,’ says Rosie. ‘Only if you promise to switch your phone back on, log back into Facebook and agree to meet us for coffee
after school tomorrow.’

‘Maybe,’ I say.

Rosie steps in front of me, to block my escape. She shakes her head.

‘OK, OK, I promise.’ I place my hand on the door handle, before she can change her mind. ‘I do love you guys, you know that?’

Vix smiles. ‘Yeah, we do. You don’t have to thank us.’

I laugh. ‘I wasn’t going to.’

I’m halfway down the stairs when I hear Rosie coming after me. I quicken my pace, worried that she’s going to try to kidnap me again.

‘Hey,’ she calls out, ‘don’t forget your photos . . .’

he Blues Kitchen is on the corner of Camden High Street and Delancey Street, halfway between Camden Town and
Mornington Crescent tube stations. It’s bigger and brighter than the Dublin Castle – more a theme venue and restaurant than a pub – with a bourbon bar, pictures of blues stars on
the walls and a menu of barbecue ribs and buffalo wings. I haven’t brought Vix and Rosie this time, even though Dad invited them. They’d only have got bored again, and I’d have
felt bad if I wanted to leave them to talk to Dad alone. Saying that, we probably wouldn’t even have got in. When I arrived I had to tell the bouncer I was ‘with’ the band, and he
only let me in because Sarah happened to be coming in at the same time, and vouched for me.

I’ve told Mum that I’ve gone round to Rosie’s house and that I’ll be home by eleven-thirty. Rosie really is seeing Laurie tonight. Vix is staying with a friend and has
been warned not to ring me on the home phone. I’m not too happy about the indelible ink stain on the top of my hand, which was stamped on me to prove I’d paid to come in. Somehow,
I’ll have to scrub it off before Mum notices. I hate having to make all these complicated arrangements, hate telling all these lies, but I don’t have a choice, do I? And, compared to
the biggest lie of all – the fact that I’m seeing Dad – they’re nothing.

The River Runners are on the small stage at the back now, playing almost exactly the same set as last time. I look around me and see many faces that are beginning to become familiar. The
dark-haired girl is here again, swaying in time to the music, mouthing the words. She seems to know nearly all the songs off by heart. I wonder how long she’s been going out with Dad.
She’s probably just like the woman he left Mum for: young, good-looking, with no children or responsibilities. I’m sure he’ll dump her too, soon enough. I’m going to ask him
about her tonight.

I’m feeling much better than I was even just a few days ago, missing Rich less (as I dislike him more), spending time with my friends, feeling like myself. I wouldn’t say I’ve
fully got my appetite back, but chocolate tastes good again. Even my nose is featuring less prominently in my thoughts (although, unfortunately, not on my face). Every night, I take the pictures
Rosie and Vix gave me out of my bedside drawer and study them. At first I did it to try to get used to my new face, so that I’d be prepared for how I’d look after the operation, but
that didn’t really work. Rosie and Vix have been keeping up their campaign. They did some more internet research and found several scary web forums about Dr Sierra, with former patients
saying he’d butchered them and that they were suing. Rosie made me swear that even if I do decide to have a nose job one day, (‘which you DON’T need’) I will find someone
else to do it. I said that they don’t have to worry: until I can afford to pay for surgery, there’s nothing I can do about my nose, except live with it. And breathe through it. And blow
it, too, occasionally. Vix says the fact I can make jokes about it again is a very good sign.

Dad’s coming offstage now. I caught his eye while he was playing and he winked at me, and it made me feel special, like he did care and he was pleased I’d made it. But he isn’t
coming over to me now; he’s going straight to the bar to get a drink and talk to his friends. I haven’t managed to chat to him at all since the last gig, even though I’ve rung a
few times. He did pick up once, told me he was rehearsing and that he’d call me back later. He didn’t.

I stand on my own by one of the booths, feeling like a misshape in a chocolate box, wondering whether I should go over to him. Eventually, Shane spots me and beckons me over to join the
group.

‘Hello again, Sky, can I get you a drink?’

‘Yes, please,’ I say, gratefully. ‘Just a lime and soda.’ I think it sounds more sophisticated than a Diet Coke.

‘Coming right up. So did you enjoy the gig?’

‘Yes, it was good.’

He laughs. ‘I guess it’s not really your type of music. You don’t have any blues on your MP-wotsit player?’

I’m embarrassed. ‘No, but I kind of like it. I remember some of the tunes from Dad’s CDs when I was little.’

‘There’s hope for your generation yet, then. Hear that, Connor, your daughter likes a bit of blues.’

Dad turns around and puts his arm across my shoulder. ‘Course she does.’

I sip my drink and join in with the banter for a while, wondering how I will ever get Dad on his own for a proper conversation. When he announces that he’s going outside for a cigarette, I
seize my opportunity. ‘Can I come out with you, Dad?’

‘Sure,’ he says. ‘Do you want one?’

‘No! I’m only fourteen, remember. I don’t smoke. I just want to talk to you.’

‘Ah, aye. OK.’

I follow him outside and we stand with all the other smokers, puffing away. I wonder how I’m going to explain to Mum why my clothes stink of smoke. I’ll have to tell her that Rosie
has started smoking.

‘So what did you want to talk to me about?’

‘You know, just stuff.’

‘Stuff?’ He seems uncomfortable. In fact, the expression on his face is just like the one Rich used to make when I told him I wanted to talk. Are all guys like that? Or am I just
unlucky?

‘About you, me, life . . . You haven’t really told me anything about what you’ve been up to since you left.’