What’s all this?”
I said, “Clothes. What’s it look like? Don’t trample on them!”
“I can’t help it, there’s nowhere to walk. What are you doing? Are you going out?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Just taking an interest. Where you going?”
“I’m going round to Katie’s, if you must know. What d’you want?”
“Um…” She pressed a finger to her nose, then giggled. “I can’t remember! Why are you getting all dressed up just to go to Katie’s?”
“Cos I want to. Get out!” I gave her a shove. “I’m busy!”
“Cool jeans,” said Ellie. “Oh—” She stuck her head back round the door. “I just remembered…I’m on telly in half an hour!”
On telly! Pur-lease. One of about five thousand faces in a crowd. She’d gone to the filming of some kids’ TV show. Now you’d think she was the big star.
“I’m sure they got me, I was smiling like crazy at the camera. Dad’s going to record it!”
“In that case, I can see it later,” I said. “Now, go! I’ve got things to do.”
I wished I could have told her I had a date, but she’d never have been able to keep quiet about it. She’d go and blurt it out to Mum and Dad, and then they’d want to know who I was seeing and where we’d met, and I just knew if I said “He works on the buildings down the road” Mum would freak. Dad too probably.
I filled in the rest of the time until lunch by putting on lipstick and taking it off again. Then putting it on again, then taking it off again. Then plaiting my hair, then unplaiting it. Then putting it up, then letting it down. God, this was frightening! I wasn’t fit to go out on dates. I just had no sense of style whatsoever.
I went down to lunch minus the lipstick, with my hair hanging loose. Then immediately after lunch I rushed back upstairs and did my lips with Topaz Glow and put my hair into a sort of complicated pleat thing. That was better! Now I looked sophisticated. I felt it was important to look sophisticated. Alex wasn’t just some silly little spotty schoolboy like everyone else went out with. He was practically grown-up!
“So when can we expect you back?” said Mum, as I left.
“Oh…I dunno!” How long should a first date last? Would we just have coffee and that would be that? Or would we…go for a walk, maybe?
“I mean, you’re not planning to spend the whole evening round at Katie’s? Because you know we’re going to Giovanni’s.”
I said, “Are we?”
“To celebrate Ellie’s first TV appearance.”
She had to be joking!
Mum gave a little giggle. “I know it’s daft, but the
camera really loves her…they went back to her twice!”
Big deal. But what did I care? I had a date! I assured Mum that I would be back in plenty of time.
“You’re sure you don’t want me to take you over to Katie’s? I can, if you like. And do you want one of us to pick you up?”
I said, “No!” And then, because it came out as a sort of yelp, I added, “It’s OK, honestly. I can get the bus,” and shot out of the gate and up the road as fast as my slinky strapless backless sandals would carry me. Which wasn’t very fast as I kept falling out of them.
Alex was already there, in Starbucks, waiting for me. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and looked just, like, totally gorgeous. There are some boys who can wear T-shirts and some who can’t. I think it is so wimpy, for instance, when boys have these thin, white, weedy arms without any muscles, so that the sleeves just flap. Alex had arms that filled the sleeves. And they were heavenly brown, from all the healthy outdoors work that he did.
He stood up when he saw me. I thought that was just so polite. Most boys, at least the ones I know, just have no manners at all. Although maybe I’m being unfair; if you actually went on dates with them they might act a bit differently, and not treat you like you’re just a piece of the furniture. Alex even pulled out a chair for me, which made me all flustered. I thought, God, why am I so pathetic??? Why couldn’t I manage to be elegant for once, and show a bit of maturity? It’s not much use, putting on lipstick and doing fancy things with your hair if you are then going to ruin it all by behaving like some kind of social retard.
At first, what with me being almost completely retarded—i.e. not saying a word—and Alex speaking so little English, it seemed like we were doomed to sit in awkward silence. I sought frantically for something to say, but my brain seemed to have gone into a state of permanent hibernation. If it hadn’t been for Alex, we might never have said a word from start to finish. He ordered two cappuccinos, then smiled at me across the table and said, “I glad you here. I think maybe you not come.”
I said, “W-why would you think that?”
“I not—” He waved a hand. “I not sure you like me. I not sure…you want see me. I hope—but!”
I said, “B-but?”
“If you not here…” He smiled again, and my heart started on its walloping act. “I understand, but I be unhappy. I happy when I see you! I wait ten minutes…quarter hour. I think, she not come—”
“You’ve been waiting quarter of an hour?” My voice suddenly squeaked into action. “I wasn’t late, was I?”
“You not late. I very stupid! I come early.”
I said, “I could have come earlier, if you wanted.”
“Then I be even more early!”
He grinned then, and I giggled. He was making such an effort in a foreign language I couldn’t just leave him to struggle along on his own. By the time we’d drunk our first cup of coffee we were having almost a real proper conversation. I asked Alex where he came from and he said, “I come from Poland, from a leetle veellitch.”
I didn’t understand at first what he meant; I couldn’t think what a leetle veellitch was. Alex said, “Leetle?” and held up a finger and thumb, about half a centimetre apart.
I said, “Oh! Little.”
He nodded and said, “Yes! Leetle. A leetle veellitch.”
I got it, then. “A little village.”
We both laughed. Alex said, “My accent…not good. You teach!” So then we practised saying “A little village” until he had it right.
“You good teacher,” said Alex. “You speak good. I understand! Sometime—not so good.” He made quacking motions with his fingers. “Like duck! I not follow. You like person on radio!”
I told him that was because of Mum and Dad being actors and always going on at us to speak clearly.
“You
