AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I love you too.”
“More than anything?”
“More than anything.”
“More than ice-cream?”
“More than ice-cream, Mars bars and all the Sherbet Dip Dabs on the planet.”
“Oh my gosh, did you watchSunset Beachthis morning?” Amina asks excitedly as she wipes down the serving counter. “It was wicked! Annie is still acting the psycho, Virginia is still trying to break up Michael and Vanessa and Cole…oh my God, Cole! He’s so bloody hot he deserves a spin-off show all of his own.”
“Sorry, I didn’t see it,” I say. “But it sounds brilliant.”
“It is! I’m addicted. I’ve tape-recorded the last couple of episodes so if you ever want to check it out, let me know.” She pauses to pour herself a cheeky glass of Pepsi from the drinks’ dispenser (she’d better hope our boss Brian doesn’t catch her as he’s warned us not to take the piss with freebies).
“I mean,” she continues, wiping her mouth. “I know it’s not exactlyTwin Peaks, but trust me,Sunset Beachis the most perfect guilty pleasure. The storylines are off the wall and the cast are so hot they’re on fire. I can’t get enough. Everyone I know watches it. At first it started out as a bit of a joke, but I think it’s got a cult following now.”
“You’ve sold it to me,” I say. “If it’s a guilty pleasure then it should be right up my street.” I can’t be bothered to explain the real reason I won’t be watchingSunset Beachanytime soon is because we haven’t had a TV for six months, not since the man from Radio Rentals came and took it away. In my home, television is a luxury we can ill afford, like the house phone that gets intermittently disconnected on account of the unpaid bill. Currently, we are blessed to have a working landline but for how much longer is anybody’s guess.
“I mean, when I say the storylines are nuts, I do meannuts,” Amina laughs. “There’s this character called Meg—she’s a total sweetheart—who meets this random guy on the Net and moves to Sunset Beach to be with him. How freaky is that? Can you imagine falling in love with someone you met on a computer who you’d never actually seen in real life? I mean, the bloke could be a total perve, right? What kind of a weirdo would date someone they met on the Net? But hey, it’s just a show, I guess. Not supposed to be realistic. Trust me, computer dating will never catch on.”
I smile blandly. I know very little about the world of the Net so I’m not in a position to comment, but I agree it does sound far out.
It’s Saturday afternoon and I’m working the lunch shift at Sloppy Joe’s American Diner with my friend and fellow waitress Amina Jones. As always, Amina looks too cool for school with her shaven head, black lipstick, nose ring, knitted choker and long green dress teamed effortlessly with a pair of blocky, limited-edition Dr Martens. We’ve worked together at the diner for over two years and have become pretty good mates.
Amina and I used to attend the same secondary school but didn’t know each other that well because we moved in different circles. At school she was part of the Grungers crowd while I, being a bit of a loner, didn’t form part of any group at all.
It’s funny, but looking back on my school days, I realise that so much of where you sat in the pecking order was dependent on what type of music you listened to. So, at the top of the hierarchy, you had two groups of popular kids—those obsessively devoted to Mark Owen and Take That and those who listened to the likes of Jodeci, Snoop Doggy Dogg and Adina Howard. Then you had Amina’s crowd, a motley crew of kooks known as the Grungers, who worshipped Nirvana, The Smashing Pumpkins and Skunk Anansie with the occasional side helping of Oasis, Blur and Suede thrown in for good measure. These kids weren’t exactly popular, but they had safety in numbers, and you picked on them at your peril. Then at the bottom of the heap you had the Swots—the kids who got straight As and sucked up to the teachers with an avant-garde musical taste ranging from obscure B-side dance tracks to The Beatles.
And then there was little old me who, with a penchant for ‘50s show tunes and Kylie Minogue after she stopped being cool, didn’t have a hope in hell’s chance of being accepted by anyone. At school I was virtually friendless, a sad state of affairs caused by my complicated home life and a general lack of worldliness which meant very few of the other kids found me relatable.
My closest acquaintance (I hesitate to call her a friend) was a girl named Charlotte ‘Midge’ Ramsey who was in the same form class as me. With thick glasses, a face covered with acne and wildly unmanageable hair, Midge had all the attributes of a popular girl hiding in the body of a geek. She smoked. She loved Robbie Williams and Take That. She needed counselling when they split up. She studiously collected every single edition ofSmash HitsandVogueand was up to speed on all the celebrity gossip. Had her outward appearance been different, I’m certain she would have fitted right in with the popular crowd she so desperately wanted to be a part of.
But instead, she got lumbered me—boring old Jessica Gardner who nobody wanted to sit with or be friends with, but as we shared many of the same classes and often needed to buddy up, the two of us were sort of thrown together. Out of necessity, we formed an uneasy alliance, but we didn’t like each other much and had nothing in common to talk about other than how much we despised the bullies at our school.
Time and again, Midge would chastise me for being so weird and constantly took the Mickey out of my ‘deeply uncool’ fixation with Edgar Allan Poe and ‘50s musicals. She told me I was good-looking enough to be popular if only I would make more effort and stop sabotaging myself by getting straight As and wearing clothes from charity shops. Midge was the ultimate definition of the word ‘frenemy,’ and I can’t say I was sorry when she eventually moved to Scotland to live with her grandparents.
“Jesus Christ, look what the cat dragged in,” Amina groans, rolling her eyes. “Have you seen who’s just walked in the diner? Are you going to serve them, because I’m telling you, I’m not touching those creeps with a bargepole!”
Snapping from my reverie, I put down my stack of plates and sneak a peek through the beaded curtain to view the shop floor.
“Fuck!”
My heart sinks as I recognise four familiar faces who used to go to our school: Georgina Wickham, Lorraine Templeton and their boyfriends Jack Parker and Thomas Statham. With beautiful faces, beautiful smiles, and perfectly toned bodies, the four of them could easily be mistaken for cast members fromBaywatch. However, behind their glittering façade lies a poison that only those who had the misfortune to attend Salesian Comprehensive know about. Georgina Wickham was the biggest bitch in school and one of the worst bullies who tormented me mercilessly throughout my education.
It all started in Year Seven when a teacher complimented me on a poem I wrote. I was given an ‘A’ for effort and told to read it out loud in front of the class. No sooner had the words been spoken, then Georgina, who was sitting behind me, began kicking my seat and chanting “Swot” and “Little Miss Smartie Pants,” over and over again. Soon everyone joined in. Somebody threw a spit ball. Another kid poked me in my spine and put chewing gum in my hair.
That was just the beginning.
At every given opportunity after that, Georgina and her friends picked on me and made my life complete hell. Every day they made snide comments about my appearance, slagged me off for being a Teacher’s Pet and were generally nasty to be around. Worst of all, they encouraged my classmates to join in, branding me an ‘untouchable’ and completely demolished my chances of ever having any proper friends. I soon began to dread returning to class after the summer holidays and the very sight of a ‘Back to School’ sign in Woolworth’s was enough to make me puke. My fear and self-loathing were all consuming and I spent most of my time at secondary school living in utter misery.
During this terrible time, I’ve got to admit my mother didn’t help matters. I never told Cynthia about the bullying because I felt she had enough problems already, what with her ill health and having to bring up two children on her own. Compared to that, my problems seemed insignificant, and I didn’t want to burden her. But there were definitely things she did to seriously undermine my street cred. I’ve never understood why parents behave as if they don’t know what it’s like to be a teenager and that their well-meaning advice is likely to go down like a lead balloon when applied to real life situations.
Case in point: my mother has always been a staunch feminist who refuses to kowtow to male ideals of beauty. As such, she refuses to shave her legs, armpits or pluck her eyebrows, and during my early teenage years, she insisted I do the same. If men weren’t pressured to shave their bodies, she argued, then why should she? It was all about Girl Power, trying to make a statement, which is fine if you hang with a bohemian collective of artists, musicians and Yoga teachers. Not so fine if you attend a school where everyone’s role model for beauty is Claudia Schiffer.
Georgina and her cronies had an utter field day when they found out my hairy secret in the changing rooms after P.E. and never stopped going on about it. They laughed and christened me the ‘Devil’s Daughter’ on account of my eyebrows meeting ever so slightly in the middle. Even after I finally had the guts to stand up to Cynthia and get hold of a razor and pair of tweezers to ensure my skin was as smooth and hairless as a baby’s bottom, the nickname stuck, and I’m still called it to this day.
“Jesus, did you ever see four such perfect tossers?” Amina hisses, watching as Georgina’s group get seated in one of the booths. “Lorraine’s got that G-string shoved so far up her arse she’s walking on tiptoe.” Grimacing, she pushes a stack of menus on me. “Here. You do it. Go and take their order.”
