The Bright Side (6 page)

Teenagers
…
Every
small
town
has
its
Cool
Guy,
its
Mr
Hip-and-
Trendy.
All
the
girls
are
mad
about
him;
all
the
boys
say
they want
to
beat
the
crap
out
of
him,
but
really,
they
just
want him
to
give
them
the
time
of
day
in
the
street.
When
I
was growing
up
in
Ashbourne,
the
Cool
Guy
was
Andrew
Healey, who
was
a
few
years
older
than
us.
His
family
was
minted. Mr
Healey
owned
a
Ford
dealership
and
Mrs
Healey,
who was
Spanish,
was
rumoured
to
have
come
from
serious
money
private-yacht-type
money.
Andrew
was
tall
and
lean
with the whitest teeth
and the deepest
tan that
any of us
had ever seen.
He
wore
expensive
clothes
and
drove
a
brand
new
car
admittedly a
Ford Cortina
–
at great
speed through
the reddest
of
lights.
And,
yes,
there’s
no
denying
it,
he
was
a good-looking
boy,
something
like
a
young
Warren
Beatty. But
he
wasn’t
the
only
game
in
town,
not
as
far
as
I
was concerned.
The
first
time
I
spoke
about
it
out
loud,
I
was sitting
in
Caroline
Drumm’s
bedroom,
listening
to
records
and
flipping
through
Smash
Hits
.
This
would
have
been
a
few months
after
Marty
had
dumped
me.
We
were
back
at
school then,
starting
our
final
year.
But
Caroline
was
in
no
mood
to talk
about
exams
or
the
unemployment
that
undoubtedly
lay on
the
other
side
of
them.
The
Arse
On
Andrew
Healey
,
that
was her topic
for
the
day.
She’d
been
wittering
on
about
it
for
at least
half
an
hour
–
not
for
the
first
time,
either
–
and
must have
noticed
that
I
wasn’t
really
listening.
Did
I
happen
to know,
she
slyly
enquired,
that
people
were
talking
about
me? They’d
noticed
how
quiet
I’d
become,
how
I
seemed
to
have “lost
interest”.
Some
said
I
was
going
to
wind
up
in
a convent.
Others
said
worse.
The
word
“lesbian”
was
never mentioned,
but
when
Caroline
stared
in
my
direction
and asked
if
I
fully
understood
what
was
so
great
about
Andrew Healey’s
arse,
I
knew
what
she
was
getting
at.
(For
some
reason,
rumours
about
possible
lesbianism
were
very
common
in
my
crowd).
Andrew’s
arse
was
fine,
as
arses
went, I
told
her.
But
he
wasn’t
my
type.
Too
flashy.
Too
obvious. Caroline
seemed
personally
offended.
Who
did
I
fancy
then, she
wanted
to
know,
getting
all
intrigued.
I
hesitated
at
first; I
didn’t
want
to
embarrass
myself.
There
was
one
guy,
I eventually
explained.
He
was
a
bit
older
than
us,
older
than Andrew
even.
And
he
wasn’t
exactly
the
pretty-boy
type. Plus,
he
was
kind
of
chunky.
Caroline
shrieked,
bouncing
on her
bed.
Who
was
it?
Who
?
I
bit
my
lip
for
a
while, considering
my
options.
Then
I
rolled
my
eyes
and
muttered the
name:
Gerry
O’Connell.
I
honestly
thought
she’d
laugh at
me.
I
thought
she’d
laugh
at
me,
then
I
would
defend
my crush,
then
we’d
change
the
subject.
We’d
part
on
bad
terms,
with
her
thinking
she
had
great
gossip
for
the
girls
and
me thinking
I
had
much
more
sophisticated
taste
than
they
did. None
of
that
happened.
Instead,
Caroline
collapsed
back
on her
duvet,
pulled
a
pillow
over
her
face
and
moaned
like she’d
just
been
stabbed.
It
was
all
very
confusing
for
a moment.
And
then
the
penny
dropped:
she
was
agreeing with
me.
I
couldn’t
believe
it.
When
she
finally
recovered the
power
of
speech,
she
provided
a
long
and
detailed assessment of
Gerry’s
many
qualities.
He
wasn’t
pretty-boy good-looking,
no,
but
he
was
–
she
thought
for
a
moment
–
rugged
.
I’d
never
heard
that
word
applied
to
a
man’s
looks before,
but
I
knew
immediately
that
it
was
the
right
one. And
Gerry
wasn’t
chunky,
she
went
on,
he
was
big
;
like
a
real man
should
be
.
Even
his
clothes
were
great.
All
he
ever seemed
to
wear
was
jeans
and
a
T-shirt
but
they
always
fit
just right
.
And
his
hair!
It
was
all
choppy
and
peaky,
like
he
cut
it himself
with
a
Stanley
knife,
but
it
was
so
incredibly
cool
you could
die
on
the
spot
.
The
best
thing
about
him,
though,
she said