Soulmates (27 page)

The week before the big gig, my English class had to go on a trip to London. As part of our World War I module, Ms. Gretching made us plod round the Imperial War Museum rather than actually teach us stuff for the exam. Typical. And Frank and I were therefore forced to spend the entire day together.

On the train up, things got weird.

I was looking out of the window while Frank pretended to read a broadsheet newspaper.

“You’re not fooling anyone,” I muttered, watching sheep and fields streak by.

Frank looked up and I could see his confused face reflected in the glass. “Huh?”

“Your newspaper. You trying to come across all caring-about-the-world. I know for a fact you’ve only read the sports page and have been trying to understand that double page about the economy for twenty minutes. Stop posing.”

Frank folded the paper up. “I wasn’t posing.”

“Yes you were.”

“Okay…maybe I was a bit.”

“Told you.”

“I’m bored. I can’t believe I’m missing rugby practice to go to a stupid museum.”

I rolled my eyes. “Poor thing! How will you cope?”

“Shut up.”

“I mean screw the trenches – they were nothing. Missing rugby practice is far more upsetting.”

“You’ve made your point.”

“I always do.”

Frank leaned back in his chair and exhaled slowly. “It’s going to be a long day.”

The train sped along. I read a bit of Frank’s paper. We tried to share his iPod but couldn’t agree on what to listen to. I ate a chewy bar and gave him half.

It appeared we weren’t so comfortable with each other away from the classroom. Things felt a bit stilted, which wasn’t usual for us.

Frank broke the slightly awkward silence. “So, do you know what you want to study at uni yet?”

University. Scary. I had tried not to think about it.

“We don’t have to decide until next year, do we?”

“I know that, but you must have a vague idea. UCAS time will come up before you know it.”

I’d had a few university prospectuses land through my letter box but I’d only skim-read them. I couldn’t concentrate for long. I got too freaked out and chucked them under my desk.

“Well…” I said. “I did always want to do English but Ms. Gretching is kinda putting me off.”

“I’m thinking of doing English too.”

I was surprised. Yeah, Frank always got good grades but I didn’t know he enjoyed it.

“Really? Not Sport Science?”

“Are you kidding? Do you have any idea how many girls do English?”

I elbowed him.

“Oww.”

“You’re really going to choose a university course based on its pulling potential?”

Frank rubbed his arm. “Not completely, but it’s something worth considering. I don’t want to spend three years surrounded entirely by men.”

“So what female-friendly unis have you looked at so far?”

He ticked them off on his fingers. “Leeds, Edinburgh, Exeter, oh and Sheffield…”

I perked up in my seat. “Sheffield? I’m looking at there!”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Maybe we’ll end up at the same uni.”

“On the same course…”

“Maybe so.”

We silently contemplated our futures.

“I don’t think we would be friends though,” I said.

Frank’s face fell – for a second – or maybe I imagined it. “Why not?”

“Well, you would be in all the sports teams, wouldn’t you? Rugby, football, cricket. Male chauvinism 101? You’d gallivant around the city en masse, boasting about having chlamydia and playing ‘hilarious’ drinking games with dares. I’d have to pretend I didn’t know you.”

Frank bristled. “Oh yeah? Well, you’d probably spend all your time watching obscure bands playing gross venues, hanging out in coffee chains arguing about communism, and organizing student protests. And I’d have to pretend I didn’t know you either.”

“See. I told you we wouldn’t be friends at uni.”

“Are we even friends now?”

“God, I hope not.”

“Me too.”

And we both laughed.

Frank began colouring in the squares of the newspaper crossword with a smeary biro. “What about your fella? What will Mr. Rock Star be doing while you further your mind?”

Noah.

Uni.

It was something that had briefly crossed my mind but I’d shoved it out of my brain violently and immediately. The thought was just too painful.

“We’ll work something out.” I couldn’t meet Frank’s eye.

His voice was sarcastic. “Yeah, because so many couples stay together when one of them starts uni.”

His words stung like ice picks. Remembering what had happened in Dr. Ashley’s office, I tried not to let the panic rise up in my throat.

“Well, it’s not for some time yet,” I replied, breathing deeply.

“It’s only a year away. Think how fast a year goes.”

I swung to face him. “Seriously, Frank, quit it! What’s wrong with you? You jealous? Is that it? Or do you just hate seeing people happy? Well, shut up. I don’t care. And I don’t want to talk about uni, okay?”

Frank’s face went through a number of emotions pretty quickly. He opened his mouth but didn’t say anything. His cheeks went red and he looked down at his paper.

An agonizingly long silence passed while I thought it through. Had this awkwardness with Frank begun when Noah and I began?
Was
he jealous?

I shook my head.

No. That was impossible.

The train pulled into the station. Passengers began to stand up, fellow students included, and started pulling their bags down from overhead.

“Is it over then?” I asked.

“Is what over?”

“Your male equivalent of PMS.”

“Me? PMS? You’re the one that yelled at me.”

“Yeah, well, you were being a dickhead.”

“Maybe I was.”

“No apology.”

He sashayed his hand out like I was the queen. “I’m very sorry, Poppy Lawson,” he said. “I’m sure you and Mr. Emo are soulmates and will be together for ever.”

His words hit something in me and I got a sudden horrid feeling in my stomach that something was wrong.

“Does your silence mean my apology has been rejected?” Frank was giving me a quizzical look.

I shook my head. “Umm…no…it’s fine. I forgive you.”

“Poppy, are you okay?”

No. Something terrible is going to happen.

“I’m fine.” I grabbed my bag and prepared to get off the train. “You coming?”

Frank stood up and stretched. His rugby shirt rose slightly, showing just the lowest part of his midriff. He caught me looking, and rather than joke about me perving, he just blushed and pulled his shirt down.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I’m coming.”

“He fancies you,” Noah announced, swinging his hand in mine as he walked.

“It’s not like that. I’m not his type.”

“Poppy.” He steered me left. “You’re most guys’ type. Beautiful, smart, funny. What’s not to like?”

I blushed. “You don’t understand. We’re just friends.”

“For you, maybe.”

“I don’t agree.”

“Well, I think he fancies you.”

“Well, I don’t think you’re being very supportive of my problem.”

“How can I be? You’re basically telling me another guy fancies you.”

“HE DOESN’T FANCY ME!”

A passing jogger looked at us in shock and Noah burst out laughing.

“Okay. Calm down, gorgeous.”

“How can I be calm? You won’t take my side AND you’re making me go bowling.”

Something peculiar had happened after the ballet and it was beginning to piss me off. When Noah and I did manage to see each other between rehearsals, he kept picking the unsexiest dates you could think of. They were always in the daytime. We were never alone. First there was the pancake house, then we went shopping, then for coffee, and now we were frickin’ bowling.

“Seriously, Noah, no one bowls any more,” I told him, as we walked up to Middletown’s bowling alley.

“Then why are there bowling alleys?”

“To personally torture me with.”

Noah stuck out his tongue. “It might be fun.”

“Nothing involving shoes that ugly can be considered fun.”

He grabbed my arm, pulled me inside and paid for two games.

We handed over our shoes to the grumpiest woman in the history of the world, who swapped my red ballet pumps for sweaty clown shoes.

“Isn’t one game enough torture?” I hissed to him, slipping my foot in. “Eww! These are still warm.”

Noah only laughed. “You look sexy in them.”

“Shut up.”

But, putting the ugly shoes to one side, I cheered up considerably the moment I bowled a strike on my first go.

“Woohoo!” I screeched, jumping up in the air in celebration. “Did you see that? I’m officially amazing.”

Noah nodded in appreciation. “Lucky shot.”

“Not lucky. Skilful.”

After picking his ball, Noah stood for a while, practising his swing, before taking a run-up and releasing it down the aisle. It took an unpromising angle, before veering off and thumping into the gutter.

I was gleeful.

“You suck!” I covered my mouth with my hands to make a loudspeaker. “Gutter ball.”

“I’m just lulling you into a false sense of security.”

“Yeah, right.”

He picked up another ball, practised again, swung and released. This time the ball careered down the aisle quite aggressively but deviated from course, knocking down only one measly pin.

“Hmmm,” I said. “I believe you. Millions wouldn’t.”

This time Noah didn’t smile. He only grimaced.

“I actually quite like bowling,” I said, a smug grin on my face. I gave Noah a quick kiss on the lips and got a bowling ball. I lined up and rolled it down. It knocked over nine pins and I let out a little whoop. “I
really
like bowling. Isn’t this fun?”

Noah grimaced harder.

One game later (I won, of course) and Noah and I were ready to abandon the traditional approach to bowling.

“I can’t believe you got told off by the shoe lady for heckling me so badly.”

I giggled. “I can’t believe she threatened to chuck us out.”

“You were getting quite abusive.”

“I got excited by winning. I didn’t mean to offend that random man. He must’ve thought I was heckling him as well.”

“Well, do you think you can control yourself enough to play another game?”

We sat together, my head on his shoulder. The place was pretty grimy. There were unexplained stains all over the carpet, groups of tweenagers wearing belly-tops were either flirting or fighting with each other, and Justin Bieber had played on the overhead TV at least three times since we’d arrived. But, despite all that, it still felt like the most romantic place in the world. Whenever I was with Noah it was like someone had rubbed a massive dollop of Vaseline over my peripheral vision, creating this hazy, perfect world.

“I think I can contain myself,” I said, thinking it through. “I’ve got an idea though, on how to revamp the game.”

Noah stopped stroking my hair. “I’m excited.”

“Did you ever read horoscopes when you were younger?”

“Funnily enough, no, I didn’t. I’m a bloke, remember?”

“You don’t even know what star sign you are?”

“Oh. I know that. Virgo.”

I turned to face him, our noses touching. “Well, how do you feel about Cosmic Bowling?”

His gorgeous grin appeared. “Tell me more.”

“Well, I’m obviously too easily excited to bowl the usual way and have to behave, otherwise Moodypants is going to kill us. But how about we switch the meaning behind our scores?”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“Well, we’ll ask the bowling ball questions about our lives. Cosmic questions, like a Magic 8 Ball. And when we bowl, depending on what score we get, it will reveal our future.”

Noah stood up. “I like it.”

“You’re up first.”

“Okay.”

He picked up his favourite blue ball. “What question should I ask it?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Hmm. How about, is my band going to end up bigger than Ponyboys?”

“Good one.”

He was about to bowl but I stopped him. “Wait!”

He turned around, his ball in mid-swing. “What is it?”

“You have to give conditions to the bowling ball first, so it knows which cosmic path to take you on.”

Noah smiled again. “Of course.”

“So,” I continued, “if you bowl a strike, it means your band is going to destroy Ponyboys. Your first album will go multi-platinum, you’ll win every NME award going and end up selling out Wembley stadium.”

“I like the sound of that.”

“Yeah. But if you only get a half-strike, you’ll only do okay. You’ll get a record deal and earn enough to be a musician for a living, yet you’ll remain obscure and spend your life touring student unions.”

Noah nodded. “That still sounds pretty good. What if I don’t get any kind of strike?”

I shrugged.

“Well, besides being a terrible bowler, your band will never make it. You’ll end up still trying to ‘break in’ in your thirties, playing gigs in bad venues with empty dance floors. You’ll end up doing an office job so awful that you spend half your time crying in the toilet cubicles over how you’re wasting your talent.”

Noah spun the bowling ball in his hands. “I’m feeling the pressure now,” he said. “I’m scared of Cosmic Bowling.”