And Then He Kissed Me Read online

  “I should dump Simon. I know I should. He’s way more trouble than he’s worth.” Molly flops down on the sofa, a cola in her hand and an unhappy look on her face. “More trouble than anybody’s worth.”

  “Don’t tell me. Let me guess,” says Schuyler. “You and Simon had a fight.” He slaps his forehead. Mock-dramatically. “What’s next? Flying cows? Raining rabbits?”

  “Ha ha ha.” Molly kicks off her shoes. “That is what you think, though, isn’t it, Sky? You think I should dump him.”

  In the middle of the ocean would be nice.

  “I never said you should break up with him,” says Schuyler. Not that he hasn’t had plenty of opportunity to say that – or something similar. He hears all about it whenever Molly and Simon have a fight. And, since their relationship is like a war that is occasionally interrupted by periods of peace, he hears about it a lot. But it’s none of his business, not really. He listens, but he doesn’t want to interfere. He doesn’t think he should.

  Schuyler sets the snacks on the coffee table and sits down beside her. “It’s up to you, Mol. It’s your life.”

  Molly groans. “But everybody must think I’m nuts, right? Putting up with him and all his crap.”

  Barking mad. Certifiable. Ought to be locked away for your own good.

  “I think you’re the only person he annoys so much.” Schuyler picks up the remote. “Everybody else likes Simon well enough.”

  Even Schuyler would probably like Simon if it weren’t for Molly. Not love him, not want to be stuck in a lift with him for more than two minutes or give him a kidney, but not want him stranded in the middle of the Atlantic, trying to drink seawater and fish with his hands. “He may grow up to be a serial killer or a hedge fund manager or a politician or something else pretty reprehensible, but right now he’s just a regular bloke. You know, he’s OK.”

  “So you want to know what he did this time?”

  Schuyler has noticed that a lot of girls look like deformed potatoes when they scowl, but Molly still looks pretty.

  “He broke our date so he can watch football with his mates.”

  It’s obviously Simon who is out of his mind. Schuyler wouldn’t break a date with Molly if he had appendicitis. He’d rather die in her arms. Even if they were in the town centre when it happened and pigeons were pecking at spilled chips and half-eaten burgers all around him and shoppers were taking pictures on their phones.

  “But that’s what guys do. It’s a big game.” Schuyler only knows this second-hand. He’s never watched a game in his life.

  “And what am I, Pot Noodles?” Molly scoops up a handful of peanuts. “And anyway, it’s Saturday night. Saturday night is date night.”

  Not for everyone.

  “Oh, hey.” A new thought makes Molly’s eyes widen, so they look even bluer. “You didn’t change your plans to hold my hand, did you?”

  “Nothing important.” The band can practise another night. They’re playing Lucy Furimsky’s party at the end of the month, not The O2. Schuyler waves the remote at Molly. “I’d rather have double-bill cheesy sci-fi night.”

  Molly leans against him the way a cat would – scattering peanuts on him and the sofa the way a cat wouldn’t. “Simon always lets me down, but not you. You’re always there for me.”

  Both these statements are true. Something’s always coming up at the last minute for Simon. Or he forgets he’s seeing Molly and makes other plans. Or he strains something playing football or climbing up a wall or jumping between buildings. Or he and Molly have a fight. And Schuyler always steps in. He’s always drawn the line at shopping, though – no way is he going shopping with her; that’s what her girlfriends are for – but he’s there to walk around graveyards in the rain taking photos for an art project, or to break into her flat when her parents are away and she locks herself out, or to help blow up sixty balloons for her grandmother’s birthday. Or to lend a shoulder to cry on. Good old Schuyler, faithful and loyal. He was probably a dog in his previous life.

  She squeezes his arm. “What would I do if you weren’t my best friend?”

  Schuyler presses the power button. “I reckon you’d have to marry me.”

  Molly laughs.

  After Molly goes home, Schuyler stares at himself in the bathroom mirror for a lot longer than boys who look like a bird made human usually do. The medley of songs he thinks of as the soundtrack to his life plays in his head. Ray Charles … Roy Orbison … Linda Ronstadt … Billie Holiday … The Everly Brothers … Conway Twitty … Charlie Patton… It’s a long list. There is no shortage of songs about unrequited love.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he asks his reflection.

  As if he doesn’t know.

  Schuyler’s had a thing for Molly from day one. The first time he saw her she was sitting by the window in their tutor group. She smiled (not at him); Schuyler walked into a desk. Meeting Molly was like being struck by lightning, only without being killed. Silent, eternal suffering instead of instantaneous death.

  Besides his tutor group, she was in his science class and his English class that year. So it should have been easy to get to know her. Only Molly is smart and funny and outgoing and one of the prettiest girls in their year, and Schuyler is a serious brainbox and shy and looks like a geek. He could never get up the nerve to talk to her. Until that class trip to the theatre when fate decided to help him out.

  At the end of the play, everyone else in their group left by one set of stairs and he and Molly left by another. They came out onto an unfamiliar street and Schuyler sat down on the kerb. Molly wanted to know what he was doing. The others had to be just around the corner. Schuyler said that losing two students had to be the most exciting thing that had happened to any of them all day and he didn’t want to spoil anybody’s fun. Molly thought that was hilarious. She said she didn’t know he had such a wicked sense of humour.

  They sat together going back on the bus. It turned out they both liked old music, and really bad old B-movies, and the Hitchhiker’s Guide books, and about a billion other things. They talked all the way home.

  He could have asked her out dozens of times. He even came close once or twice. Like that time they got caught in the thunderstorm. He put his jacket over both of them and they huddled against a wall. He could feel her breath on his cheek. She was as close to him as skin; so close he was sure she must be able to hear his heart pounding. Do something, he told himself. Kiss her. She was looking at him as if maybe he was going to kiss her – as if maybe she might even kiss him back. But he didn’t, and the moment passed. Just like all the other moments.

  And then they were best friends, and he didn’t say anything because he didn’t want to risk losing her completely. In case, after he told her how he felt, she threw up, or ran away shaking and screaming with tears streaming down her face. In case she would never say so much as “Hi” to him again. Never. Not even if it would end world hunger.

  And then along came Simon. He wasn’t the first boy Molly ever went out with, but he was the first who got the words “boy” and “friend” put together.

  Schuyler can’t stop the thought: It should’ve been me.

  He blows out a fist of air. “This is it,” he tells his reflection. Sternly. “I’m giving you an ultimatum. You either say something to Molly, or you stop thinking about her like that. There are plenty of other girls around. Ask one of them out.”

  His reflection gives him the finger.

  He doesn’t want to go out with anyone else.

  Schuyler is standing a metre or so from the women’s changing room, trying to look interested in the racks of something called “leisurewear”, though he would call them pyjamas. Schuyler is waiting for Molly, who is looking for a “frock that rocks” for the Valentine’s Day dance. This is shop number four. Molly says that all the frocks she’s tried on so far haven’t rocked; they’ve just hung there and wobbled. Schuyler shifts uncomfortably. There are no other blokes in this part of the store. Just Schuyler, holding Mol
ly’s handbag in his arms like a sleeping pig. He wishes he’d worn a suit. If he’d worn a suit people might think he’s a bodyguard. And not a nerd.

  So far, the ultimatum hasn’t worked. Not only has he still not said anything to her, but when she asked him to come shopping with her because Sylvia, her other best friend, has been grounded for the next two hundred years, he didn’t say no. No, Molly, you have got to be out of your tiny mind. Men don’t like shopping; they’d rather be in combat. He hummed and hawed, but he couldn’t quite get the “N” word out. She begged. She said she knew it was a lot to ask but this was important. She’s really excited about the dance and she couldn’t find the right dress without some help.

  “It’s the first Valentine’s Day I’ve actually had a real boyfriend.” Needless to say, she didn’t dump Simon. “Me! How historic is that?”

  “World War Two pales into insignificance beside it,” said Schuyler.

  “Don’t be so cynical; it’s romantic. It’s the first time anything romantic’s happened to me. Maybe you’re not into romance, but I think it rules.”

  “So does that mean I don’t have to send you a secret admirer card this year?”

  She laughed. “I should’ve known that was you!”

  But she hadn’t.

  Schuyler rocks on his heels. How many dresses did she take in with her? He’s been standing here a long time. A couple of the saleswomen are giving him curious looks. They think he’s been standing here a long time too. Maybe they think he’s some kind of pervert for hanging around ladies’ leisurewear holding an overstuffed bright red tartan handbag with a string of charms and beads wrapped around the handle. He’s just about to text Molly to see if she went out the wrong door and ended up in the Megabrantis Cluster, when she suddenly appears in the entrance to the changing room. Looking like she wants to break his heart.

  “Sorry,” she says, “but I had to try on everything like three times. What do you think about this?”

  “It’s swell.” Too good for Simon Kendrick. “You look really gor— really good.”

  “What about my bum?” She turns slowly round. “Is my bum OK?”

  “It looks OK to me. You haven’t grown a tail or anything.”

  “You think Simon will like it?”

  “He’ll love it.” Unless there’s more wrong with him than I think.

  She holds out the skirt. “You swear I look all right?”

  She looks like a butterfly. One of those exotic butterflies that are more a work of art than an insect.

  “Yes.”

  “Brilliant!” Molly turns back towards the changing room. “Now we can look for shoes.”

  “This time I mean it,” sobs Molly. “No way am I ever going to have anything to do with Simon Kendrick again. Not even if the earth’s hit by an asteroid and we’re the last two people left alive.”

  Schuyler slaps the side of his head as though trying to clear it. “I’m having the weirdest sensation, Mol. Almost like I’ve heard this all before.”

  Only Molly’s not in a laughing mood right now. “You have heard it before. But you’ll never hear it again. I swear on the grave of Boudicca; this is it. I don’t care if he crawls over broken glass to apologize; this time we’re through. Finished. Dead as the dinosaurs.”

  Schuyler holds out the box of tissues. Her eye make-up has run so much she looks like a raccoon. A very pretty raccoon wearing dangling earrings, but a raccoon nonetheless. “You’re upset. When you calm dow—”

  “No, I really mean it, Schuyler. Simon Kendrick is now officially dumped. The only word I want to hear from him is ‘goodbye’.”

  They’ve had a fight. Again. Simon went into nuclear meltdown because she was talking to another boy.

  “Talking?” says Schuyler. “You talk to me all the time.”

  But Simon’s not jealous of Schuyler. He is, however, jealous of Lucas Adamani. Lucas Adamani doesn’t look like a pelican. Wearing glasses.

  A bunch of them were hanging out at Starbucks, and Molly wound up next to Lucas. Simon claims she ignored him completely. Simon says she was flirting with Lucas.

  “Flirting!” wails Molly. “Gar! I wasn’t flirting. I was just chatting. And I have known Lucas longer than I’ve known Simon. I have talked to him before.”

  Simon said if she liked talking to Lucas so much she could go to the flippin’ Valentine’s dance with him.

  Molly reminded him that Lucas has a girlfriend.

  “And you used to have a boyfriend,” said Simon.

  Schuyler’s almost afraid to ask. “So…?”

  The dance is only two days away.

  “So I’m not going, am I?” Fresh tears fill her eyes. “I wish I’d never met him. I wish he’d be abducted by aliens. Why do I always fall for such hooples?”

  Simon manages not to say, “Don’t ask me.”

  “Some romantic evening,” mumbles Molly. “Sitting at home by myself.”

  “There’s no need for that,” says Schuyler. “You’ve still got me.”

  Schuyler’s new motto is “Do or die.” Molly thinks he’s sarcastic and cynical and as romantic as boiled cabbage? Well, he’ll show her she’s wrong.

  She wants romance; she’s going to get romance. Instead of one of their cheesy sci-fi nights watching an old black and white film featuring an alien monster wearing shoes, or a cardboard spaceship that shakes when someone walks near it, they’re having the Alternative Valentine’s Day dance. Fate’s decided to join Schuyler’s team again: his parents are away for the night so he doesn’t have to explain what he’s doing to them. He asked his mother to name three really romantic movies, and he got all three. He’s lugged the fairy lights out of the loft and strung them all over the living room. He’s bought enough candles to torch Rome, and burnt himself lighting them. He’s got those corn nut things Molly likes, and olives instead of boring old peanuts and crisps. He’s rehearsed what he’s going to say so much, you’d think he were addressing the United Nations. He’s cut himself shaving, changed his shirt three times and got a song ready to play that will tell her everything she needs to know even before he opens his mouth: Ray Charles singing the classic “You Don’t Know Me”, about someone who’s always been just a friend to the person he loves.

  By seven, when Molly should be turning the corner at the end of the road, Schuyler’s so nervous he thinks he may be having a stroke. He turns on the stereo when he hears the bell, and takes several deep breaths. He wipes his hands on his jeans and takes a few more breaths. There’s another ring.

  Damn. There aren’t any lights on in the front room. What if she thinks he’s forgotten the way Simon always did and isn’t home? He rushes to the hall, and trips over the cat. He’ll be lucky not to kill himself before he gets to the door.

  As soon as he opens it, he wishes he had.

  Molly’s talking on her phone, but that isn’t really what he notices. What hits him like a very large truck is that she’s dressed up: rocking frock, new shoes and her good coat, not the jacket she wears every day.

  She’s going to the dance.

  Schuyler steps forward to block her view into the house.

  “Bye-bye,” she says in a voice she never uses with him. “See you soon.” She snaps the phone shut and looks at him. “Schuyler!”

  “You didn’t have to dress up for me,” says Schuyler. He hopes she doesn’t realize he’s wearing his good-luck shirt, the one he only wears for gigs.

  “Oh, Schuyler…” Molly makes a sad, apologetic face. “I’m really sorry. I tried to ring you before, but you didn’t answer.”

  “So you and Simon made up?” If Schuyler holds onto the door frame any more tightly he’ll break it.

  “Yeah. You know…” She shrugs. As if it’s something that’s happened to her, like getting a cold. “It looks like it.”

  “Right.” He takes a small step back, already starting to shut the door. “Well, you don’t want to keep him waiting. Have a swell time. I’ll see you—”

  She’
s peering under his arm. “Why is it so dark in there? What’s with all those fairy lights?”

  “You’ve seen fairy lights before.” Why didn’t he shut the living-room door?

  “Not in February. It looks like Christmas in there.”

  Could be; it’s definitely snowing in his heart.

  “No, it’s only—”

  “What is that?” Her nose is twitching. “Do I smell jasmine?” Twitch-twitch. “Sandalwood? Patchouli?”

  “It’s just some scented candles.”

  “Candles?” And suddenly she pushes past him into the hall. “Oh my God.” Molly stares into the living room, listening. “Is that Ray Charles?” She recognizes the song. She moves her stare from the living room to him. She looks as if she’s not sure who he is. But she’s thinking about it.

  “What is all this, Sky? What’s going on?” But he can tell from her expression that she has a pretty good idea.

  Say it, Schuyler tells himself. This is your chance. Tell her the truth. I’m crazy about you. I think about you all the time. Open your arms.

  Ask her to dance…

  Into the silence, the phone Molly’s still holding starts to ring.

  First day back. Last class. English. I know something’s going on behind me but I don’t turn round. It’s probably Nessa Winkleman slagging me off again for sitting up the front and being teacher’s pet. Nessa’s a wagon of the highest order. Unfortunately she’s also the most popular girl in our year. Go figure.

  When our teacher, Miss Carmichael, walks into the room, all curves and curls, she smiles warmly at me. Disaster. I know she means well but I wish she wouldn’t single me out. She doesn’t get that I just want to lurk under the radar like everyone else (except for Nessa, who has to be the centre of attention). I want to be anonymous. Normal.

  Miss Carmichael stands at the front of the room and looks at us, blinking a few times. She seems nervous. “Welcome back, everyone,” she says. “I guess we’ll get straight to it.” She picks up a pen and writes “Functional Writing” on the whiteboard. “Can anyone tell me what functional writing is?”