Emma hearts LA (12 page)

The kitchen’s small and clean and painted bright yellow. Oscar passes me a Coke out of the fridge – a bottled Coke; he takes the lid off with a bottle opener mounted on the wall – and then opens French doors to the garden. It’s lovely. Enclosed and leafy, with raised decking and a chimney thing like we have on our terrace. We sit at a little round table on chairs covered with red-and-white-striped fabric.

‘Thanks for the T-shirt,’ he says again. ‘It’s great.’

‘I thought you’d like it,’ I tell him. ‘It’s good to know you haven’t changed completely.’

‘What? This is clean on,’ he jokes, feebly. ‘What do you mean? You think I’ve changed?’

I laugh. ‘Definitely! You’re loads more confident. You used to be really self-conscious, but now you’re chatting away to Mum, driving in LA, ordering in cafés…’

He wrinkles his nose. ‘I don’t know. I think I just grew up a bit, maybe. Stopped worrying about what everyone thought about me. Working at the Wok definitely made me more confident, and busking…’

‘Busking? You…busk?’

He’s blushing again. ‘I didn’t mean to mention that, it just slipped out. Yeah. I do a bit. That’s my other job.’

‘What do you do? You sing?’

‘Yeah. Just stupid stuff I’ve made up, mostly. And I play the ukulele.’

‘Show me!’ I say, bouncing up and down in my seat.

‘Hells no!’

‘Oscar! Show me!’

He shakes his head. ‘You’ll see me one of these days – I do it on the Boardwalk – but I’m not doing it now.’

‘Why not?’ I ask.

‘Too shy,’ he says, in a tiny voice, looking up at me from under his red fringe.

‘Yeah, right.’

‘And I’ll say no more about that,’ he says. He mime-zips his lips, locks them and pretends to throw away the key.

Grinning – he’s such a dork – I look around the garden. There are orange and lemon trees and I’m about to ask Oscar if you can eat the oranges when I see him ‘unlock’ and ‘unzip’ his mouth, before swigging his Coke.

‘Did you just unlock your mouth?’ I ask him.

He blushes again and then nods.

‘Ha! That’s fantastic! I’ve never seen anyone do that before.’

‘Well, you weren’t meant to see,’ he says.

I laugh. ‘I’m sorry to have intruded on a private and not at all mental moment.’

We sit in silence for a couple of minutes and then I blurt out, ‘So what’s going on with you and Tabby?’

His eyebrows shoot up. ‘Nothing! What do you mean?’

‘Oh, come on,’ I say, laughing. ‘You flirt like mad!’

He shakes his head. ‘We just mess about.’

‘She fancies you.’

He frowns. ‘Do you think so?’

‘I know so. It’s really obvious. You really didn’t know?’

‘I don’t think she does. She’s just like that. You know, ruffling my hair and stuff. Sam does it too – do you think he fancies me as well?’

‘Maybe. I haven’t seen enough of him to know. But Tabby definitely does. I don’t think she thinks much of me either.’

‘What? Why?’

I shrug. ‘Call it female intuition. I think she thinks I’ve swooped in and she’s got her nose pushed out.’

‘I think you’ve got an overactive imagination.’

I shake my head. ‘We’ll see. But I think she’s warm for your form.’

He laughs. ‘Oh, god. Never say that again. About anyone. Ever.’

I grin at him.

He swigs the rest of his Coke and says, ‘Do you want to go out? The beach?’

‘I don’t know. How about a house tour?’

‘You just want to see my bedroom,’ he says, raising one eyebrow.

‘You’re right. I’ve been dying to get you up there since I saw you were invisible from the waist down.’

Oscar’s bedroom in his old house was so tiny that he made a sign for the door with a picture of Harry Potter’s owl and the words
THE CUPBOARD UNDER THE STAIRS
. It was mainly built-in storage – which his bed fitted into – and hardly any floor space at all. It was kind of cool. I coveted it when I first started hanging out there because everything had a place – there was a cupboard that folded down to make a desk for him to do his homework on, and he had everything he needed within reach of the bed and a TV mounted on the wall, like in a hotel.

His room here is about ten times the size. One wall is covered with posters and cuttings of the planets, the moon and constellations. In his old room he had those glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling and that was it.

‘So you’re really serious about this astronaut thing, then?’ I say.

He nods. ‘It’s my life’s ambition to see the earth from space.’

‘Do you want to walk on the moon?’ He’s got a framed poster of the moon in its different phases.

‘Well, maybe, yeah. But that’s not what I think about. I just think about looking out of that porthole and seeing the earth. All swirling blue and green. Like a marble. It must be incredible.’

‘I’ve just never heard of anyone really wanting to be an astronaut before. It’s like when little girls say they want to be a ballerina…’

He nods. ‘I know. But it is a real job. Real people do it. Why shouldn’t I be one of them?’

‘What’s that?’ I ask, pointing at a spaceship-like thing that appears on the wall quite a few times.

‘That’s the International Space Station,’ he says.

‘Is that…real?’ I ask. I was originally going to ask if it was from
Star Trek
, but I could picture the withering look he’d give me (whether it was or not) so I changed my mind.

‘Yes, it’s real,’ he says. ‘It’s amazing. The first time I saw it going over, it completely blew my mind.’

‘How do you see it?’

‘You can see it crossing the sky on a clear night. It looks like a star moving really slowly. People are always reporting it as a UFO.’

‘Are you sure? You think I’ve forgotten the time you said you saw Father Christmas’s sleigh and the reindeer?’

‘I did!’ he says, laughing.

‘I was so jealous. I can’t believe you made it up.’

‘You just didn’t believe enough,’ he says, grinning. ‘But honestly, the ISS is possibly even more exciting than flying reindeer. Your mum hasn’t told you about it?’

‘She might’ve done,’ I say. ‘I don’t always listen when she talks about work.’

Oscar rolls his eyes. ‘But it’s fascinating. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t be interested, particularly when it’s so important to your parents.’

I cross over to his window and look down into the garden. ‘I don’t know. I know it’s stupid, but I always saw it as the stuff that kept them away from us. Not just when they were physically away at work, but even when they were home they’d talk about it all the time.’ I turn round. ‘I know you understand it, but most normal people don’t. It’s really hard!’

Oscar smiles. ‘Some of it is, if you’re interested, yes, but so much of it is amazing. Mind-boggling. And you know you don’t have to reject it just because your parents love it.’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘And I know I should’ve grown out of it by now…’

‘You remember when you told me the only reason I was interested in space was to impress my dad?’

I wince. ‘God, did I? What a bitch.’

Oscar laughs. ‘No, you were right, I think. That’s probably why I got interested, but it’s not why I stayed interested. I just find the whole thing fascinating. And inspiring.’

As he tells me how the pieces of the space station were so enormous that they each had to be sent up to space separately and then assembled up there – which, you know, I’m sure is true if Oscar says it is, but it sounds completely insane to me – I look at the rest of his room. He’s got a double bed in the corner with a blue duvet and pillows and a crocheted red blanket that I recognise from his old house. His nan made it when he was a baby and he’s always slept with it. On his bedside table is an iPod dock – one of those cube ones with a digital clock – and two framed photos: one of his mum, and one of him and his dad wearing those plastic macs you get free at festivals when it rains.

His bookcase is crammed with books by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, along with lots and lots of books about space and science.

I spot something on one of the higher shelves and say, ‘Hey? Did I do that?’

Oscar comes over to stand next to me. ‘The moon?’ He reaches up, takes the picture down and hands it to me. ‘Yes. Don’t you remember?’

‘I didn’t, but I do now.’ It’s a pencil drawing and it’s actually really good. It’s only small, but the detail and shading are excellent.

‘You did it inside the card you sent when my mum and dad split up,’ he says.

‘I can’t believe you’ve got it in a frame,’ I say, smiling at him.

‘Why not?’ he says. ‘I love it.’

I stare at the picture for a second and then say, ‘I asked Mum if she knew why I’d stopped drawing.’

‘Oh yeah?’

I nod. ‘She said she thought it was maybe because Dad put too much pressure on me.’

‘And what do you think?’

‘I think…’ I’m embarrassed to find that I’m starting to choke up. ‘I think maybe she’s right. And I wonder if that’s why I’ve found it all so hard, you know?’

Oscar’s staring at me really intently and he looks so interested, so much like he really cares that I find I want to talk to him, I want to tell him what I’ve been thinking.

‘I wonder if I’m sort of punishing him. Because he made things hard for me.’ Oscar blurs in front of me as my eyes fill with tears.

‘That sounds…reasonable,’ he says, quietly.

‘Really? It doesn’t make me sound like a cow on wheels?’

Oscar laughs. ‘No. Honestly, we’re supposed to have this really healthy post-divorce family thing going on – and we have – but I was miserable when they first split up. I know it’s better, but I just wanted them to work it out, you know? For me?’

‘That’s exactly what I said to Mum,’ I tell him. I wipe my eyes with my thumbs. ‘Ugh. Sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ he says. And then he looks at my mouth. I may not have much experience, but I know what that means. He wants to kiss me. Oscar actually wants to kiss me. I try to think of something to say, but my mind’s a total blank. All I can hear in my head is ‘Oscar wants to kiss me?’

He glances up and looks right into my eyes and then his mouth is on mine and Oscar’s kissing me. His mouth is soft and he smells so like Oscar that I almost feel we could be back in his old house with our parents downstairs playing Trivial Pursuit and arguing about the Hadron Collider.

My hands are hanging down at my sides and I don’t know what to do with them, so I leave them there. I don’t know where Oscar’s hands are, but they’re not touching me – the only part of us that’s touching is our lips. I can’t believe we’re kissing. I think maybe we should stop.

I yank my head back too quickly and bang it on the bookshelves, actually knocking a book onto the floor.

‘Emma, I—’ Oscar starts.

‘I’m sorry,’ I interrupt. ‘I didn’t mean to—’

‘No, I’m sorry. I didn’t plan to do that or anything.’ His cheeks and neck are mottled and red.

‘It’s OK. It just took me by surprise.’

‘Are you all right?’

I put my hand up and wince as I touch what I assume is going to be a large bump right on the back of my head.

‘I’ll live,’ I say. ‘But…’

‘…you need to go,’ he finishes for me. He’s still blushing and he can’t quite meet my eyes, which is very unlike him.

‘Yes. Sorry.’

I bend down to pick up the book that fell. It’s Neil Gaiman’s
Stardust
. Typical.

‘Shall I walk you back?’ Oscar says, taking the book out of my hands.

I shake my head. ‘I’ll be fine. Thanks.’

At the front door, he looks like he’s going to say something else, but he looks confused and just tells me to take care.

‘I will,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’

When I turn the corner, I look back, almost expecting him to be watching me go, but the door’s closed and he’s gone.

I phone Jessie before I even get home.

‘So,’ I say. ‘Oscar kissed me.’

She gasps. ‘He did not.’

‘Yeah. He did.’

‘And…how was it? Did you kiss him back? Where were you?’

I give her all the details and she says, ‘Wow. Well I can’t say I’m exactly surprised.’

‘Why not?!’

‘Oh, come on, Em! He always had a thing for you. He used to go all moony-eyed whenever you weren’t looking.’

‘He did not.’

‘Yeah. He did. Is he still the same?’ Jessie asks.

I turn the corner onto the canals. ‘Sort of. He doesn’t go moony-eyed if that’s what you mean. He’s just as dorky, but he’s much more confident. He’s funny too.’

‘He was always funny.’

‘Yeah, he was.’

‘And you said he looks good, didn’t you?’ Jessie asks.