Eighteen Kisses (12 page)

I smiled. I was so glad he was coming up. Things had been so weird between us lately – seeing him would hopefully help clear the air.

Of course. I’d love that x, I texted back.

‘Was that your boyfriend?’ said Hazel, dramatically inflecting the last word.

‘Yes,’ I said sheepishly.

‘What’s his name?’ she asked.

‘Nick.’

‘Is he hot?’

I laughed. ‘Yes.’

‘Nice work.’

‘Do you have a boyfriend?’ I asked. I was pretty sure I knew the answer though. I couldn’t imagine that somebody like her wouldn’t have one.

‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘I do. His name’s Barry. I haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks though; he’s in the army, so he’s away a lot.’

I remembered Ellie had mentioned him. She’d said that he’d been manning the door at the party. I guess if you’re in the army then you’d make a pretty good bouncer.

‘When does he get back?’ I asked.

‘July,’ she said. I thought that must be pretty hard. It made me feel bad for moaning about not seeing Nick that much. At least he was never too far away. And I was so delighted he was coming up to Dublin. Maybe we’d go to a gig or go to the cinema or just hang out, only the two of us. I was starting to make plans when it suddenly hit me. We wouldn’t be going to any of those. We were going to see
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. With Special Effects.

‘I thought we could do something together,’ said Nick. ‘Just the two of us.’ He’d hardly touched his bacon and cheese fries. I put down my burger and looked out the window on to Dame Street, watching people walk past the diner. The Kinks were playing on the jukebox, my boyfriend was here, we were eating some of the best fast food in town. It should have been fun. And yet, we were fighting. Again.

‘I have to go to this play,’ I said. ‘I told Hannah I’d go, and Colin is coming up for it. I can’t not go, she’ll kill me.’

‘Didn’t you go to see her in this before Christmas?’ he asked, stabbing his fork into a piece of bacon.

‘It’s a different production,’ I said. ‘It’s sold out, but I managed to get you a ticket. Come on, it’ll be a laugh.’

Nick raised an eyebrow. ‘You should have just told me to come up tomorrow instead; I’ve told the lads I’ll practise tomorrow now, so I’ll have to go home in the morning.’

‘Come on, Nick, I totally forgot, I’ve been really busy.’

He sighed. ‘Right, fine. I’ll go to it.’

I felt kind of bad. I’d been so busy that I’d totally forgotten. I wanted to talk to Nick too, and it was so nice of him to come all this way. But I knew if I ditched Hannah’s play to hang out with him that I’d never hear the end of it from her. Besides, I was kind of looking forward to it. Sophie and Ross and Colin were all going too.

‘At least we’ll have a few hours alone before the play,’ said Nick.

‘Well actually, I …’

I didn’t need to explain. Nick looked to his right, to see Colin’s face pressed up against the restaurant’s window. A few seconds later he was inside.

‘’Sup?’ he said, stealing one of Nick’s fries. ‘Ready for some drama?’

‘Hey!’ I said. ‘How’d your date go?’ Colin and James had got on so well on their second date that they’d already gone on a third. I was so glad that it was working out. They looked so cute together – I had high hopes for them and I really wanted to hear all the details.

‘Oh yeah, it … it went well.’

We exchanged glances. I could tell he was holding back because Nick was there.

I think Nick sensed it too. ‘I’m going to the bathroom,’ he said, with a roll of his eyes.

‘Well?’ I said.

Colin scooched in closer to me.

‘It was great,’ he said. ‘We went to an exhibition in Sligo and then for a walk on the beach. It was so nice. But then I just, kind of, you know, jokingly suggested we were, like, a “couple”, but James said he didn’t want anything serious. Like, he wants to keep it casual.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘So he doesn’t want a boyfriend?’

‘He says he’s not big into labels,’ Colin explained. ‘With his last boyfriend, he says they got serious too soon and that they both just ended up getting hurt. He doesn’t want that to happen to us.’

‘And you’re OK with that?’ I asked. I couldn’t help but think that this was hurting Colin.

‘I told him I was OK with it.’

‘But you’re not?’ I said.

‘Of course I’m not!’ exclaimed Colin. ‘I’ve never had a boyfriend. I want one – I don’t care if I get hurt! Maybe he’ll change his mind …’

‘I dunno,’ I said. ‘If he says he doesn’t want to get serious then –’

Nick came back to the table and Colin started to talk about what dessert he was going to order. I don’t think he wanted to talk about it in front of Nick, so I decided to leave any further questioning until later.

‘Sophie, can I sit there?’ said Ross. ‘I want to sit beside Jacki.’ People were starting to wander into the auditorium. We were some of the first there, so we’d got really good seats.

‘Why?’ said Sophie.

‘Because I haven’t seen her in ages.’

‘Neither have I,’ said Sophie.

I laughed. ‘He wants to sit there in case a hot girl sits next to him,’ I explained.

‘What?’ said Sophie.

‘Sophie,’ said Ross, standing up straighter as if about to give a lecture. ‘This is a Shakespearean play. Which means there is about a seventy-five per cent chance that a female is going to sit in that empty seat next to you. Out of that seventy-five per cent, considering this is a youth theatre production, there’s about a forty per cent chance that female will be between fifteen and nineteen years old. Out of that forty per cent, there’s a twenty-one per cent chance that girl will be single. That’s a chance I’m willing to take.’

‘Those statistics are completely wrong,’ said Sophie.

‘What’s wrong,’ said Ross, ‘is that
you’re still sitting in my seat
.’

Sophie sighed and stood up, then shuffled in past Nick and Colin and me. The auditorium was filling up, mostly with friends and family of the cast. I recognized a few of Hannah’s friends from drama class, and there were a couple of guys we used to hang out with sitting in the front row. I waved over at them and they waved back.

‘I’ve really missed you,’ whispered Nick, playing with the bracelet on my wrist.

‘I’ve missed you too,’ I said.

‘Shhh,’ said a woman in the front row as the curtain rose, and we couldn’t say any more.

Sophie, Colin, Ross, Nick and I were standing in a circle when Hannah came skipping across the lobby.

‘Well?’ she said. ‘What did you think?’

‘
You
were brilliant,’ I said, which was a nice way of saying ‘The play kind of sucked, but you didn’t.’ She was brilliant though – she always is. Hannah wants to do drama at Trinity, and her entire life seems to be devoted to this goal. She gets involved in as many plays as she can manage – her CV must be a hundred pages long at this stage. If she doesn’t get in, I’m not sure what she’s going to do. Ross has always said he’s going to emigrate the day our college offers come out because he’s scared of what sort of destruction she’ll cause if she doesn’t get in.

‘I really liked the costumes,’ said Colin. He sounded a bit more cheerful than earlier, which was good.

‘Did you all get a programme?’ asked Hannah.

‘Yep,’ we said in unison. ‘Will you sign mine?’ I said, just because I knew she was dying for somebody to ask.

‘I think I’m gonna head on,’ Nick whispered.

‘What?’ I couldn’t believe he was bailing so early. ‘But we’re going out after. Can’t you stay for another little while? We haven’t really had a chance to catch up properly.’

‘I’m crashing at my aunt’s house and she doesn’t like it when I come back too late. Besides, I didn’t realize I’d have to come to
this
tonight.’

‘Aw, Nick, I’m sorry the evening didn’t work out,’ I whispered. ‘I couldn’t wait to see you. But I couldn’t
not
go to Hannah’s play, she’d have killed me.’

‘Back in a sec!’ said Hannah. ‘I think I see some of the girls from dance class over there.’

‘I’m just really tired,’ said Nick more loudly.

‘Jesus, Nick, would you ever man up,’ said Colin jokingly.

‘What?’ said Nick.

‘C’mon, stop moaning.’

‘Will you just stay out of this,’ said Nick. ‘I’m going,’ he added, turning to me. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’ He kissed me quickly on the cheek and walked out of the theatre. I couldn’t believe what had just happened. I looked at the others, who all seemed equally stunned. I ran after him, but he was already out of sight by the time I’d pushed my way through the crowd. I couldn’t hold back the tears; I was so upset that he’d just left like that.

Colin came out after me.

‘Why did you have to say that?’ I asked. ‘He was already in a bad mood; you’ve just gone and made it worse.’

‘Why are you even still with him?’ said Colin. ‘How the hell do you listen to that?’

‘You can’t choose who you love, Colin. Your heart chooses it.’

‘Well, tell your heart to catch up with your head. You can choose when to let go of them. And you need to cut that loose, Jacki, because he’s not treating you right.’

‘How dare you say that!’ I was getting angrier by the second. ‘You’re just jealous because you’ve never had a proper boyfriend.’ The moment I’d said it I wished I could reach into the air and snatch it back, but it was out there now, and I saw Colin’s reaction. He was really hurt.

‘Oh yeah, I’m so jealous that I don’t get to stand in Temple Bar with mascara smeared down my face, running after some guy in a Ramones T-shirt with crap hair and an even crappier band.’

‘Why do you hate him so much?’

‘I don’t hate him, I love you! And I can’t stand watching you get walked all over by him. The others are happy to stand on the sidelines and nod and smile while you make excuses for him, but I’m not. You have to wake up!’

‘I don’t understand why you’re being so horrible to me.’

‘I’m not the one being horrible to you, Jacki. Call me when you cop on to that.’

Colin stormed off in the same direction as Nick, and I was left standing there, alone.

The next day I went into a coffee shop in town to meet another person who’d been at the party – Sasha Finnigan. She had an alibi, but had heard about me from Ellie and wanted to help in any way she could, so I decided to meet with her. I figured it would do no harm to hear about the party from somebody who wasn’t a suspect. I tried to forget about last night, to concentrate on the case and get the image of the hurt look on Colin’s face out of my head. And, most of all, I tried to forget how angry I was at Nick.

We’d arranged to meet in the coffee shop in Tower Records, one of my favourite places in the entire universe. I was early so I had a look at the EPs on sale down the back of the shop. I really wanted a turntable. I had an old record player that had belonged to my dad, but it was very temperamental and didn’t always work. That didn’t stop me buying records though. I saw lots that I wanted, but I was trying to save some money to buy a new amp, so didn’t make any purchases. I also had a look in the book section and flicked through Bob Dylan’s
Chronicles
until it was four thirty and time to meet Sasha.

When I went upstairs, she was already sitting at one of
the tables. The coffee shop was decorated with mismatched furniture and had a 70s vibe. The milk was in glass bottles on the tables and the armchairs were like something you’d expect to find in your grandparents’ back room. On the ceiling there were framed posters of classic movies, and stacks of film magazines were scattered about.

‘Hi, Sasha,’ I said. ‘I’m Jacki.’

‘Hey,’ replied Sasha, giving me a welcoming smile ‘It’s nice to meet you.’

‘Can I get you something?’ I offered.

‘Oh, yes, please, I’ll have a chai latte,’ she said.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back in a second.

‘How long have you known Kayla?’ I asked, after the lady had brought us our drinks.

‘Since first year,’ said Sasha. ‘We ended up in the same class, and we’ve had the same group of friends since then. I’m not as close to her as some of the others, like Kev and Amy, but I know her really well.’

‘How would you describe her?’

‘Enigmatic,’ she said. ‘But not in a stand-offish way. It just makes you want to get to know her even more. She’s also unbelievably pretty. Probably the prettiest girl in our year, after Libby. But she’s different pretty to Libby. Libby is always immaculately put together, whereas Kayla is just effortlessly beautiful … but don’t tell Libby I said that.’ She laughed nervously.

‘I won’t,’ I said with a smile.

‘Was Kayla dating anyone?’ I asked. ‘That you know of.’

‘I hadn’t heard of her dating anyone since Kev. I think
that break-up really hit her hard, even though she was the one to end it. He just pushed her too far. It came out later that she was actually seeing Luke, although none of us knew. She was a fairly secretive person – she didn’t reveal too much of herself.’

I nodded. I understood that, considering there were only a few people who I was really open with.

‘How is her relationship with Amy?’ I asked.

‘They’re best friends and never really fight – only about one thing. Everybody knows that Andrew was obsessed with Kayla, like, for years. Kayla didn’t fancy him, but they ended up hooking up one night at a party. It never went any further though. Amy knew about all of this, of course. And she acted like it didn’t matter at first, but she’s kind of insecure, and she was jealous that Andrew and Kayla had this history. She was doing so well too, but then one night Andrew called her Kayla by mistake. In front of everyone. And she just flipped. I guess she’d been holding it inside for so long that it all came out there and then. Of course Kayla had no idea that Amy felt like this. Things were weird between them for a while, but then they were fine again. Kayla kind of kept her distance from Andrew, stopped going to stuff alone with him and all that. But, like I say, that was the only thing they ever fought about.’

Andrew hadn’t mentioned that he’d liked Kayla, but I suppose he wouldn’t, not in front of Amy. This gave me a reason to be suspicious of him. If he’d been obsessed with her for years, then maybe he was still obsessed with her the night of the party. Maybe he was jealous that she’d found happiness with somebody else. Maybe he was jealous of
Luke, or if he didn’t know about them then Calum, perhaps?