The Kiss Off Page 5

  “Hi PoppyLongStocking,” he said.

  “Hi.”

  “I can’t believe it’s really you. Seb nearly started squealing like a little girl after you left, he was so excited.”

  “Last night?” I heard Mads mumble to Van, nudging her with her hip. Clearly I had skipped a part of the story.

  I ignored them. “He was?” I said. “Because of me?”

  “As he said already, he loves your channel. Big time. And he showed us all your new one, The Kiss Off – it rocks hard, by the way. We all think it pounds, you know?”

  Um, no, I didn’t know.

  “But Seb loves it most,” he continued. “I mean, he wants-it-to-have-his-babies kind of loves it.”

  “Oh,” I said. Babies… “You’re talking about the song, right?”

  Ty laughed. “Yeah the song. We learned it, played it a couple of times, just jamming and stuff last night.”

  “You’ve played it?” I said. “Jamming? My song?” My brain wasn’t functioning, I was probably going into shock, this had all been…well, unexpected was one word for it.

  “Yeah, so listen, if we can get your okay, we’d love to play it at a gig sometime. I think what we’ve done with it could be really something, it’s such a rockin’ track.”

  Gig?

  “So are you in a band or something?” Vanya asked.

  Ty turned his attention to my girls for the first time, blinked a couple of times and shifted his backpack on his shoulder.

  “Sorry, yeah,” he said. “I have a band called Academy of Lies, we play around town a bit, sometimes we get spots in the city,” he said. “I’m Ty, by the way.”

  “Shut up,” Mads said. “You’re in Academy of Lies? I love that band!” She shook her head in disbelief and then gave me a big smile. “Seven-oh-one FM play you guys all the time.”

  “Yeah, my cousin Blake’s one of the DJs, he puts our demo on sometimes,” he said with a shrug, like it was no big deal. No big deal – what a faker.

  “You have a demo?” Vanya said. “Impressive.”

  “That. Is so. Cool,” Mads said and then looked at me. “You’d love them, Pops. For realz.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I was fully aware of Cam standing back, pretending he wasn’t listening. But he was. He was listening to this older boy, probably a senior and a rock star with actual gigs tell me how awesome my song about Cam my cheating ex was. I tried to think of horrible things, of dying babies so I wouldn’t smile too widely.

  Ty smiled, and turned back to me. “So listen, we’re doing a show at The Hill next Saturday. We’d love to play The Kiss Off. I think you’d get a kick out of what we’ve done with it. I hope you will. So what do you say?”

  “Um…” I said. “Sure, I mean, it should be cool.”

  Ty raised his fists in triumph. “Excellent,” he said. “You’ll come and see the show, right, see the song, make sure we’ve done it right?”

  I opened and closed my mouth. And then opened it. “Yeah, sure. Of course.”

  There was movement around us as teenagers picked up their backpacks and inched to the edge of the sidewalk. The bus was nearing, with its indicator flashing. Ty pulled a pen out of his blazer pocket and yanked the lid off with his teeth. He took my hand and held it wrist side up. I looked at Vanya and Mads. Mads looked like she may have fainted from excitement.

  “This is my number,” Ty said. He wrote on my arm in big blue letters, the pen nib tickling my skin. “I’ll put you on the guest list so you don’t have to wait, and definitely don’t have to pay,” he said. “It’s on me. Bring your girls, bring some friends, text me with the names of other people for the list, okay?”

  He let go of my hand and pushed the lid back on the pen.

  “Okay,” I said, looking at my wrist.

  “It’ll be fun,” he said.

  “Yeah,” Where were my words and why weren’t they in my brain? Had they taken a wrong turn on the way to my mouth?

  He grinned, said “Later,” and stepped up onto the bus, making his way down the back to all the Mount Martha’s boys and his friends. We got on the bus after him, and stayed near the front. We didn’t speak, not here. I glanced toward Ty once, but, holding onto the blue pole in front of me, was determined not to look again.

  Mads leaned toward me and whispered in my ear. “Well, I think this is excellent progress.”

  I was on the door list at the best club in town. I was on the door list, and as many friends as I wanted. And I knew the lead singer of the band, and they were playing one of my songs and the…whatever Seb played in the band, one of the band members was a fan of me? How did this happen? Oh, I know how it happened. I demonstrated what being a scorned woman looks like. On the internet. To anyone in the world who wanted to watch. Turned out scorned women were pretty popular.

  I scanned through the bus and my gaze stopped at Cam who was staring out the window, looking lost in thought. Wonder what he wanted this morning. Had he seen the song? Nikki had, she said so yesterday. So I guessed he probably had too. The memory popped into my head of Cam striding toward me this morning, the angry glare in his eyes before Ty came over. I couldn’t have planned that better if I’d tried. Cam was all pissy and wanted to talk to me about it and oh, sorry Cam, I can’t talk to you just now because a rock star beat you to it and is declaring how much he loves my work, and yeah that was his number he wrote on my arm, what about it? I bit my lips together, trying not to grin, to keep it cool in front of everybody. Suck on that, Cam. Yeah, he must have seen the video. I looked out the front window again, trying not to let the hint of guilt that was whispering to me from the corners of my smug self-satisfaction cloud my mood.

  Whatever. It was just a song. Not like I named names.

  I couldn’t help it, a little smile crept onto my lips. I couldn’t wait for next Saturday.

  When I got home after school, there was a dog barking in the backyard. I walked over to the fence and a shaggy head with long ears bounced up and disappeared again. Up and then he was gone. He was still here. I peered over the fence at the exact wrong time and the first thing I saw was his head hurtling through space toward me as he jumped again. His nose smashed into my forehead and I could tell he wasn’t expecting that, because he landed sprawled in a heap on his side, knocked off balance. I swore and rubbed my forehead, then headed for the front door. What was he still doing here?

  “Helloooo?” I called, but no one was home. I threw myself onto the couch, picked up the remote and at the exact same moment that I pressed the power button, the front door slammed open and a hoard of eleven-year-old boys jumped me. Well, just one of them jumped me. My little sister came in as well, but she walked straight over to the toy box in the corner and ignored the fact that I was surrounded by boys and The Pest, who had literally launched himself onto me and started wrestling for the remote.

  “Get off, you freak!” I yelled, smacking him on top of his head repeatedly with one hand, and holding the remote out of his reach with the other.

  “Give me the remote!”

  “No!”

  “I need the TV!”

  “Tough – I was here first!”

  “Poppy, give it to me! We’ve gotta play!”

  “Suck it up, little man!”

  He sat back and glared at me. Like I was this huge annoyance. He clearly had it backwards. “Damien’s team are online right now,” he said. “We have to beat them or we’ll never live it down ever.”

  “I don’t care,” I said, glancing around me. His friends stood back, watching the fight. They wanted the TV, they wanted the remote and two of them were close enough to my outstretched hand to snatch it up if they’d really wanted to. But they must have been raised right and decided not to get involved in someone else’s fight. Good boys.

  Oh hell. I growled and pushed Rory off me and he fell onto the carpet with a thud. “Fine,” I said. “Whatever.” I tossed the remote at him, hoping it would hit him in the face, but unfortunately it didn’t. I ignore
d the other boys, said hello to Bex and walked over to the back door, looking out at the dog.

  He sat on the step, watching me. He seemed calmer now, seemed like he might behave.

  I put my hand on the door handle. “Are you going to be good?” I opened the door and he rushed inside, jumped in the air in front of me and licked my face. Urgh! Tail wagging in a circle behind him, he ran through the house to the boys and Bex, sniffing everyone.

  “Hey, what’s Poo Bum still doing here?” Rory said.

  “You can’t call him Poo Bum!”

  “Why not?” he asked, booting up the Xbox. “It’s a good name for him, have you seen the size of those turds outside?”

  I scrunched up my nose. Gross.

  “What’s he still doing here?” he said again, hugging the dog around the neck. I faced away as it stuck its tongue out toward Rory’s face.

  “I don’t know.” I went up to my room and after a little while the dog followed me and lay down on the carpet. I patted his back and he leaned forward and thrust the top of his head into my palm, so I gave it a good scratch. It was quite nice, actually. Then he sat bolt upright and let out a bark and ran out of the room. I heard the front door open. Oh no. I jumped up and raced after the dog to find the front door ajar and Dad pinned to the wall, the mutt’s front feet planted on his chest. Dad was smiling though, scratching his head. The dog’s, I mean.

  Then Mom’s car pulled into the driveway, and she obviously wasn’t looking, because she got out of the car and headed toward the house. You’d think she’d be more wary since what happened last time. The dog stiffened, barked and he pushed off dad, his claws scrabbling against the floorboards until he was out the door and dashing down the steps. Mom looked up just as he threw himself at her. She only had enough time to scream before it was like déjà vu.

  ***

  Chapter Seven

  After we hauled the stupid thing off her and locked him in the backyard again, Mom slammed the front door and handed each of us (except for Rory’s friends) a stack of paper. They were ‘found’ signs.

  “The pound was practically full and half the dogs there had diarrhoea,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “So, stupidly, I thought we could keep him until we find his owners.”

  “Yes!” Rory said.

  “Or they free up some space at the pound,” she looked at Rory. “Whichever comes first, Rory. In the meantime, we are putting these flyers everywhere. Flooding the neighbourhood. You understand?”

  “Yes Mom.”

  “Everyone is going to know we have that thing, so for the love of God, somebody better recognize it.”

  She went to the kitchen, muttering to herself something about a headache and needing to lie down.

  So the dog had a temporary free pass. I had this weird feeling, I couldn’t decide if I was happy or disappointed. I decided it didn’t matter either way. I dropped my pile of posters on an end table in the living room, right next to the red twine Ty had used as a leash the other day. I went to pick it up, to throw it in the trash but hesitated. I left it there. A small smile crept onto my face - a completely involuntary smile, too. I had to go upstairs and work out my outfit for next Saturday. Sure, it was still nearly two whole weeks away, but I wanted to look good. As I took the stairs back up to my room, I ran my fingers along the digits he had inked into my forearm - his digits - one at a time. The smile drooped as I realized that I still had to get through this Saturday: Ugh, I had Mads and Dev’s group date thing.

  Van and I spent the whole of Saturday afternoon raiding Mads’s closet, trying to find her the perfect outfit because in the meltdown mode she was in, she was in no way capable of doing it herself. Something cool, but not too dressy. Had to be casual, but hot. After agonizing about it all week, we still weren’t sure if he thought it was a date-thing or just a group-hang-thing. But he seemed to be looking forward to it. He smiled at Mads and told her as such as he walked passed us at morning break yesterday, and she went all kind of giggly and shy and red. She really liked him.

  So we were in Mads’s room, Van and I scrutinizing every top she owned (we’d already decided on the denim mini skirt and strappy sandals) and Mads was kind of pacing, forehead furrowed as she glared at herself in the mirror.

  “I’m hideous.” She said, throwing her hands in the air in defeat. “Why am I doing this to him?”

  “What are you talking about? Doing what?” I asked.

  “This. Tonight, why am I subjecting poor Dev to the hideousness that is me.”

  “Oh shut up Mads,” Vanya said. Mads crossed frowned at herself in the mirror and groaned.

  “I’m with her.” I nodded at Van as she tossed another top into the ‘hell no’ pile in the corner.

  “You’re pretty and nice and sweet and he likes you. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

  “And you can hardly notice the pimples anymore,” Vanya said helpfully. Mads gasped and slapped her hand to her chin. I pulled it away and clasped both her hands in mine, squeezing them reassuringly.

  “And you’ve got us there to help you.”

  For a moment she seemed to be settling down, but then she pulled her hands away, strode to the other side of the room and declared: “I’m not pretty, I’m horrible, I’m hideous, I’m disfigured!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  And that was when she whipped her top off. Just like that. She pointed to her boobs. Her naked boobs. This was new.

  “Um, Mads,” I started.

  “I like this one!” Vanya threw whatever top she was holding at the time at Mads’s chest. It happened to be her gym uniform. Mads threw it to the ‘hell no’ pile.

  “Look at them,” she said. “Look at the left one, it’s growing as big as a porn star’s but then look at the right. It looks like my dad’s boobs!” I didn’t exactly want to, but since she was being so demanding about it, I checked out her boobs. I looked from the left to the right and back again.

  “They look fine to me.”

  “They’re not fine!”

  “What do you think, Van?” Vanya rolled her eyes, bent at the waist and squinted at Mads’s boobs.

  “You say the left one’s bigger?” she asked.

  “It is!”

  “I don’t think you have to worry. The other one’ll catch up.” Van stood up and crossed her arms with a nod.

  “And besides, Mrs. McCleary said it’s perfectly normal to have one boob bigger than the other.” I reassured her.

  “You see it too, then?” Mads looked panic stricken. “That the left is bigger?”

  “No!” Vanya and I yelled together.

  “You don’t?”

  “Your boobs are fine, Mads,” I told her, picking up a baby pink tank top from the ‘maybe’ pile. I handed it to her slowly. Thankfully, she clutched it to her chest.

  Vanya held up Mads’s vintage electric blue Motocross jacket, and we had a winner.

  “I think that’d look good with some long necklaces, don’t you?”

  ***

  Mads was still a bit crazy with nerves when we got to the mall and headed toward the cinema, so much so that we had to detour to the rest rooms and get her to jump around a bit and shake her arms in the air to exhaust some of that nervous energy. When we walked into the cinema foyer, however, we discovered that it wasn’t actually Mads who needed to be nervous. Dev and his boys were there, and Dev’s face lit up when he saw her. And Drew gave us a wave, but his other friend didn’t smile. He sort of grimaced. Turns out, Dev’s other friend was Cam. I was completely blind-sided. I didn’t even know they hung out. I realized I’d stopped walking when Vanya yanked on my sleeve a couple of times. Dev’s only new this year so we didn’t really know who he considered his friends yet and who were just random people he knew. He was still sorting through the crap from the doubly crap.

  Van and I made sure that of the three of us, Mads was most definitely the hottest one, so as not to distract him from his date. So Mads was the one looking hot, while Van w
as wearing sweat pants and I had my hair in a messy knot on the top of my head. I hadn’t even brushed it.

  And it turns out the boys in our class who Dev had decided were his actual friends were Drew – a good guy, everyone knows that – and…Cam. This didn’t say much for his taste in people. But Drew told me when Cam wasn’t listening that apparently Dev made sure not to invite Nikki because he really doesn’t like her. And he does like Mads, so maybe he had some taste after all. Either way, it looked like I was taking one for the team.

  Mads owed me big.

  Anyway, you’d think my girls would nip this potentially disastrous situation in the bud, it had been weeks since I’d last had a proper conversation with Cam, not since before the whole… well, not since before her. So I would have thought they’d run some interference for me, but no. The losers didn’t wait for me when I made a last minute dash to the bathroom before the movie started and when I got in to the theatre, the only spot for me was on the end of the row.

  Next to Cam.

  They gave me guilty, apologetic smiles but I sat down and wouldn’t look at them. What a bunch of traitors.

  I didn’t say anything to Cam when I sat down, kept my eyes forward though I was totally watching him out of the corner of my eye. I just stuffed my mouth with popcorn and stared at the screen, no matter what was happening. Sex scene? Not awkward and embarrassing at all. I was riveted. Halfway through the movie though (it was some stupid action thing with car chases and corny one-liners and though the characters had been shot and beaten up seventy billion times they weren’t even limping. It was so dumb I can’t remember its name. Dev picked it. Not a good sign…), Cam started trying to talk to me.

  He leaned toward me and whispered. “Poppy.”

  I leaned a little bit away from him and kept staring at the screen.

  “Poppy, we have to talk about all this.”