Good Girls Don't (5 page)

Andrew is driving me, Lucy, Philip, Jean, Natasha and Steven into town. I don’t know the others terribly well, apart from Natasha, my ex, but since we’re all squashed into the back of Andrew’s car, we’re getting the chance to become very well acquainted, whether we like it or not. I’m squeezed in between Steven and Jean, and Lucy’s sitting half on top of me, half on top of Steven. Natasha’s sitting up front because she has a sprained ankle and we graciously decided that she didn’t need the extra pain of being shoved into the back.

Being this close to Lucy reminds me of the old days, the pre-Andrew days, and quite often the early post-Andrew days too, when she would giggle and smile and play with my hair and do silly things like that, silly things that were laden with meaning, at least to me.

***

She was plaiting my hair. I think it was blonde at that stage. She pulled every single strand away from my face, and I could feel her fingertips brushing the skin at the nape of my neck. She worked in silence, tucking every stray bit into the plait, until there was no more hair to plait. She held it in her hand, having nothing to tie it with, and twirled it around. I could feel her breath on my neck, and then her lips pressing into the skin, so briefly I might have imagined it.

***

Now I’m looking at her neck. Lightly tanned skin in a smooth perfect line. I’ve always had a thing for necks. I wonder if that’s just me, or if it’s everyone, or if it’s because of Lucy. Barry thinks it’s probably the result of watching too many vampire movies. We were discussing this once.

***

“Do I have a nice neck?” he wondered, looking around for a mirror to examine himself in.

I looked at him thoughtfully. “You do, actually. It’s certainly above average, anyway.”

“Just ‘above average’?” He pretended to be offended.

“It’s a great neck,” I amended. “It’s very pretty.”

He started laughing. “Pretty? I think that’s worse.”

“How about ‘delicious’? Is that word okay?” I grinned.

He nodded. “I think it’s acceptable.”

“Glad it meets with your approval, kind sir,=,” I laughed. “What about my neck?”

“Emily,” he said sincerely, “if I was a vampire, yours would be the first neck I would bite.”

“Aw, really?”

“Really,” he promised, laughing.

It’s nearly nine by the time we get into town, on account of us leaving late, as groups of more than three are prone to do, and there are only a few people waiting outside. The others have already gone in. I don’t blame them. It’s freezing out. I’m shivering, but of course I’m not dressed for the weather in my black slutty-but-stylish dress, but for partying, so I can expect that. Besides, it’s warm inside. I hope.

Lucy has reserved the room downstairs for her party, so we walk down the stairs, Natasha leaning on Jean. I see Hugh and Barry and they wave to me. I go over to them and exchange hugs with them both.

“You look amazing,” Barry says.

“Yeah, you look great, Em,” Hugh says.

I beam. “Thanks, guys. You’re not looking too bad yourselves. Hugh, is your other half here or have you abandoned her for tonight?”

“She’s getting a drink,” he says.

“Good idea, I think I’ll go get one myself,” I say. “Back in a sec.”

I see Fiona and tap her on the back. “Hey,” I say.

“Emily! Hey,” she replies. “Did you just get here?”

“Yeah, I came in with Lucy and Andrew.”

“Oh, she’s here? I’d better go say happy birthday, then.” She pauses. “You know, I know hardly anyone here, I feel so out of place. Everyone’s sort of like, ah, you’re Hugh’s new girlfriend, and then they go back to whatever they were talking about.”

“Some of Lucy’s friends are a bit . . . well, they’re not great with new people. Besides, they think you’re an evil temptress for stealing Hugh away from me.”

“I – I didn’t. I mean, he –” She looks decidedly uncomfortable and awkward.

“Relax, I was joking,” I say.

“I’m sorry,” she says, and she really does seem to mean it. “Hugh told me that you were okay with it, but still – I feel really bad about it.”

“What do you want, for me to forgive you?” I say. “Fiona, he’s seventeen years old, he can do whatever he likes. So can you. You don’t need my permission.”

“It’s just that I’d feel better if I knew you were okay with it,” she persists.

I sigh. What she wants is not to have to take responsibility for what she’s done, and for me to say that I hope they’ll be very happy together, so she can be absolved from any guilt she might have. What she needs is to be told that she made her decision and she should deal with it, but it’s a party and besides, I’m not so arrogant as to think that I’m the one who should teach her a life lesson, so I tell her what she wants to hear.

“I’m okay with it,” I say, and smile, and she sighs in relief.

I order a vodka and coke and go and sit with Barry, Hugh, Fiona and Roisín, who’s just arrived. The party is at that stage where everyone’s sitting with their own group of friends and no one’s really mingling. I wave Natasha and Jean over to our table and introduce them.

They smile and say hi. Natasha already knows Barry from the days when I went out with her, and they start catching up. It’s funny how people get all awkward after a couple have broken up. I mean, Barry and Natasha used to get along quite well, but once Natasha and I broke up, they never spoke to one another anymore. Maybe it’s out of respect for the ending of a relationship, a sign of recognising that something has changed and that staying friends with your significant other’s friends is inappropriate, but it’s just silly. There are enough horrible people in the world and not enough nice people – if you find one you should keep him or her in your life if you can. And Natasha is lovely. We’re better off as friends than as anything else, I think, even though it was fun while it lasted.

The conversation turns towards politics. Roisín is in her element, being the knowledgeable type – she both impresses and intimidates me when she gets like this – and she and Natasha are having a very animated debate, with lots of emphatic gesturing.

“Who wants another drink?” I say, interrupting the discussion.

Everyone does, of course, and Barry comes to the bar with me to help carry the drinks.

“I knew you men-folk were good for something,” I muse as we’re bringing them back to our table.

“We have our uses,” he says. “Oh, look who it is.”

‘Who it is’ would be Declan, who’s heading towards us.

“Hey,” I say.

“Hey,” he says. “Uh – Emily, can we talk?”

“Sure, I just have to leave these over here,” I say, indicating my table. “Hold on.”

Barry and I set the drinks down on the table and he just . . .
looks
at me.

“What?” I say.

“Nothing. Go talk to Declan.”

“I will,” I say.

“Go, then.”

“I’m going.” What on earth is
this
all about? I know they’ve never been the best of friends, but honestly, he’s never been this hostile towards my friendship with Declan. And I thought we’d sorted everything out. Apparently not.

Declan’s waiting for me. “Hey,” he says again.

“Hi,” I say. “How are you?” The second the words are out of my mouth I know it’s a mistake. I don’t want to know how he is. I don’t need to listen to his whining right now. I need to go back to Barry and Roisín and the others and get drunk and dance and enjoy myself.

“I’m okay,” he says. “I’ve been better.”

I ignore the plea for attention for the moment and ask, “So, what did you want to talk about?”

“What do you think?” he says, as if I’m stupid.

“I don’t know, that’s why I asked you,” I snap.

“Well, if you don’t know, then I don’t know what the point of talking to you is,” he says huffily.

I roll my eyes. “Dec, get over yourself and just tell me exactly what you wanted to say to me.”

“Forget it,” he mutters, and walks off.

I’m ready to strangle him.

I’m also walking after him.

“Declan,” I call after him. “Declan!”

He turns around. “Look, Emily, just leave me alone.”

“Stop being such an idiot. You wanted to talk to me. So talk.”

“Is there anything to say?”

“You tell me,” I snap.

“About what happened . . .” he begins.

“What about it?” I say.

“Well, we can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist, can we?”

“No, of course not.”

“So . . .”

“So . . .
what?”
I say, getting frustrated.

“Well, what do you want out of this?”

“Out of what?”

He sighs. “Out of whatever it is we have.”

“It’s called friendship.”

“Friends don’t do
that
with their friends, Emily.”

“Sometimes they do,” I say. “It’s not as if we’re passionately in love with one another, is it? It just happened. You know that and I know that, so let’s get on with our lives.”

“You’re trying to forget it ever happened,” he accuses.

“I am not! I just don’t see the point of dwelling on it, that’s all.” I sigh. “Declan, you can’t honestly tell me you’ve never done anything like that with a ‘friend’ before, because I know you have. I remember.”

“That was different,” he says as if he’s explaining something to a small child.

“Enlighten me, then,” I say.

“We were stoned,” he says. “It’s different.”

I don’t think I have an answer to that. He has a point. But it still seems to me like an excuse for not having to accept that you’ve still made a choice of some kind. If you can blame weed, if you can blame alcohol, then you don’t have to take responsibility for it yourself.

It’s classic Declan, of course. Nothing is ever his fault. It’s his parents’ fault, for not loving him, or his ex-girlfriend’s fault, for breaking his heart, or his friends’ fault, for being mean to him or whatever it is they’ve done this week. It’s always their fault he’s so miserable. He has no control over his own life.

I sometimes wonder whether, if a psychiatrist were to analyse him, he’d be declared clinically depressed or not. I can’t help but feel that if it was really that bad, he’d want to get better, but what do I know? I don’t understand depression. I know what it’s like to cry your eyes out or to hate yourself because you think you’re a freak – everyone does when they’re a teenager – but I’ve never wanted to kill myself. I’ve never looked at the world and seen only darkness. There’s always a glimmer of hope in there somewhere.

“You don’t have an answer,” he says, almost gloating.

“What do
you
want out of this?” I ask.

“Isn’t it obvious?” he says.

“No,” I say, and I’m really getting annoyed at this stage.

“Are you saying you have absolutely no interest in me, then?” he demands angrily.

“No, I don’t,” I say honestly.

“Even after what happened between us?”

“Declan, it was a single, isolated event! It wasn’t a promise of anything more.”

He stares at me. “I really don’t understand you, you know.”

I sigh. “Great. Thank you for that. Excuse me.”

“Go play mind games with someone else, then,” he calls after me.

While I make a point of never looking back with regret on anything I’ve ever done, I can’t help but wonder if I was in my right mind on Monday afternoon.

“Well, how did that go?” Barry asks when I return to the table.

“Oh, wonderfully,” I reply. “Want to help me murder him, actually? I think we’d be making the world a much better place.”

“So much for all the ‘he’s really a nice person, deep down’ stuff,” he notes.

I sigh. “He’s driving me crazy right now. He seems to think I have some sort of commitment to him because of what happened.”

“Well, in fairness –”

“Oh, don’t agree with him, please. That might just drive me over the edge.”

He looks at me without saying anything.

“Okay, fine, what were you going to say?” I relent.

“Well, it’s understandable that he thinks it meant something,” Barry says. “Most people don’t take sex so lightly, especially when it happens when you’re sober. You can’t blame anything for it but yourself.”

“But why should you need to blame something? I mean – it’s not like it’s something bad.”

“But it does imply some kind of a commitment. Or at least an attraction, and people assume that you’ll want more from them.”

I sigh. “People are silly.”

“I know,” he says, patting my shoulder.

“I should have been born a boy. People
expect
this kind of behaviour from guys.”

“But if you were a guy, you wouldn’t look half as good in that dress,” he points out with a grin.

I laugh. “That is an excellent point.”

“What are you two whispering about?” Roisín asks, looking pointedly at me. Her eyes are saying, “Private conversation, eh? I keep telling you there’s a spark there!”

“About Emily’s dress,” he says honestly. “Doesn’t she look fabulous?”

Everyone nods and smiles and agrees. I poke Barry and he plays innocent. “They’re only being honest,” he says.

I roll my eyes. “Right.”

Lucy and Andrew come over to our table. “Guys, we’re ordering you to dance,” Lucy says.

“People aren’t dancing,” Andrew explains. “Come on, be the trendsetters!”

“It’s tempting, but sitting is much more fun.” I smile sweetly.

“Besides, the music is terrible,” Hugh adds, as a song by some pop band that sound like the latest protégés of Louis Walsh finishes up.

“It’s getting better,” Lucy promises, although she’s sounding doubtful. “Although maybe this was why we had to pay the DJ in advance.”

I hear another song start up, and clap my hands together. “Oh! Yes! Come on, Barry, we’re dancing.”

“What song –” Roisín begins in confusion, as people tend to when you’re only three seconds into a song.

“‘Suffragette City’,” Barry says, getting up. We’re the only ones on the dance floor at the start but we’re still having fun. There’s something special about hearing one of your favourite songs when you’re out somewhere, something that’s different from hearing it at home. By the end of the song there are a few others dancing, although none quite as enthusiastically as Barry and myself.

“You know what’s terrible?” I muse after the song ends.

“That Bowie is now a respectable suit-wearing musician?”

“Yeah,” I grin.

“What we need is a time machine. We can travel back to 1972 . . .”

“Back to the days of stardust,” I say.

“The days of bad hair.”

“The days of glitter.”

“The days –”

“You two really scare me sometimes,” Lucy grins, having sneaked up behind us.

“We’re not scary,” we say in unison.

“We’re just in denial about the suits,” I say.

She pats our heads. “There, there!”

The song that’s playing now is ‘Every You Every Me’ by Placebo, and as we’re dancing, I find myself thinking about the first time I heard it. It was at
that
party, the one where Lucy and Andrew got together. For months, that was all I associated the song with. I got over it, though. When I could listen to it without getting an ache, that’s when I knew that I was finally getting over her.