It"s the first time Ruby"s mentioned my dress and now would be the perfect time to tell her why I"m wearing it.
What I actually say is, "I"m sure I"ll be beating them off with a stick."
"You know beating them off usually works best with your hand?" Ruby"s doubled over, laughing so much at her own innuendo that the second ball of socks I throw at her misses. Once she"s recovered, she rips off a strip of condoms and tucks it into her pocket before declaring that I have finished unpacking (I haven"t) and crawling out of the tent. Where Ruby leads, I follow. Even if I haven"t finished unpacking.
RUBY.
Instead of heading down to the bottom of the hill where there"s a cl.u.s.ter of fair rides and a ton of people who"ve yet to find a place to pitch their tent, we walk up to the line of stalls at the top. Almost immediately I"m distracted by one that"s full to br.i.m.m.i.n.g with the most tasteless tat I"ve ever seen. Within a minute of dragging Kaz inside, I strike gold in the form of an awesome p.e.n.i.s-shaped bong.
"Oh G.o.d, do you have to?" Kaz says as I make her hold it so I can take a photo that I send to Ed asking him if he needs a flat-warming present although since Emma made him get rid of his old lava lamp, I"m not sure she"ll go for the purple-p.e.n.i.s bong.
"Yes, I absolutely do. It is perfection in gla.s.s form." I take it from her to hold it close to my face and stroke it lovingly as Kaz turns away, hissing at me to put it down.
Her advice comes too late. Someone, namely the stallholder, has noticed. "Buying for yourself or a friend?"
I glance round to see if there"s any further opportunity to humiliate Kaz, but she"s disowned me and is trying to look extremely interested in the racks of novelty socks outside.
"Much as I love an anatomically accurate appendage," I glance at the stallholder again, he"s quite cute "I think I"m going to pa.s.s on this particular occasion."
"You sure? I"ll do you a d.i.c.ks-count." His eyes twinkle as I shake my head and smile.
"How long"s that one been c.u.m-ing?" I shoot back and this time he"s the one laughing. Again with the quite cute.
"I"m glans you asked?" He"s s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his face in antic.i.p.ation of my scorn. To be fair, he deserves it for that one.
"I"m all out of p.e.n.i.s puns, I"m afraid," I say, ignoring the buzz my phone makes with Ed"s reply. I"m just getting into my groove here.
KAZ.
My best friend and I are very different when it comes to boys. Ruby adopts a scattergun approach of flirting with anyone she sees regardless of sensible limiting factors such as (in the stallholder"s case) age. Whereas I can only flirt with someone I actually fancy, which is unfortunate since there is only one person I know who meets that criteria.
When we booked the Remix tickets, Ruby made it clear that hot boys were part of the plan and not just for her. It was only a month after things had ended with Tom and even though I wasn"t wildly enthusiastic about the idea of looking for someone new, Ruby a.s.sumed I"d be over him by now and ready for action.
Only I"m not. It hasn"t been as easy for me to recover from Tom as it has been for Ruby and Stu. Tom wasn"t just my first boyfriend, he was the first boy I ever fancied when I was ten and saw him in cricket whites. Tom was my first crush, my first kiss, my first love... He was supposed to be my first. It"s hard to look at other boys and see someone I might Do It with when I"ve always a.s.sumed that person was going to be Tom.
I really need to tell Ruby about him being here.
RUBY.
Kaz does not seem especially interested in my a.s.sessment of Cute Stallholder Guy.
"Does he have a name?" Kaz cuts through what I was saying.
"I a.s.sume so." I glance back at the stall thoughtfully. "Maybe I"ll find out later..."
It"s meant to be a joke the guy was good for a warm-up flirt, not actual gameplay but Kaz is giving me the same look she"s been giving me all summer, the one that screams, "I think you"re a depraved s.e.xpot."
I"m not so much a depraved s.e.xpot as a deprived one. I"ve not had any since Stu, which is kind of like having champagne on tap one minute and going cold turkey the next. Well, not cold cold turkey. Lukewarm turkey. I"ve still got my right hand and an overactive imagination although there"s only so far that a certain expertise and an Adam Wexler fantasy can take me. It doesn"t matter if those fantasies have gone all the way and then some, I"m someone who likes the feel of another body on mine, skin on skin, lips and tongues and teeth. The warmth, the smell, the taste.
"Can we go and sit somewhere for a bit?" Kaz says out of the blue, which I"m grateful for. I don"t actually want Stu in my head when I"ve left Clifton to get away from him.
Kaz is fiddling with her pendant, so I figure there"s something she wants to talk about. Something I won"t like... We find a shady spot under some trees since the sun is trying to BURN THE FLESH FROM MY BONES and I clamber to sit on the fence so I"m eye level with the necklace-twiddling nutter in front of me.
"What"s up?" I ask.
KAZ.
Best to treat this like a plaster and rip it off in three ... two ... one...
"Tom"s here."
"You what?" Ruby actually glances over her shoulder as if he"s materialized behind her. "Tom"s where?"
"Here. At Remix."
"O...K..." Ruby looks entirely nonplussed. "And this is the first I"m hearing of it because?"
But I don"t have to say anything for her to know the answer.
I am such a wimp sometimes.
RUBY.
Brilliant.
Thomas sodding Selkirk.
Kaz is gabbling about how she only found out the other day and she wasn"t sure whether to even mention it because we"re probably not going to b.u.mp into him anyway when there are so many people here.
It"s all just noise to cover up what she really wants to happen: she wants to see Tom. All summer ever since they split by so many twists of fate that it"s been a cat"s cradle of coincidence, Tom and Kaz have failed to b.u.mp into each other. She was on choir tour, he went away with his family to France, Kaz got shipped off to Wales. In the week and a half in which they"ve both been within sight of the sea, they"ve not been within sight of each other.
There"s no point fighting it. Much as I want Kaz to get on with her life and into someone else"s pants, it"s not going to happen if she"s on red alert for her ex.
So much for leaving all that s.h.i.t behind.
KAZ.
Ruby stops me with a resigned wave of her hand. "I think we should just go find him. Get it over with."
My response to this is to throw my arms around her waist and lift her from the fence, my cheeks hurting from grinning a wide and incredulous grin.
"Are you sure?" I drop her unceremoniously on the floor.
"I suppose." She squints against the sun behind me. "But don"t pull that s.h.i.t again, you hear? This is you and me we don"t do secrets." There"s a moment in which she watches me before her expression relaxes. "Now. Fire your special flare gun that forms an image of a man wearing slightly too-short trousers, light a candle and sing "Jerusalem" backwards or whatever. Summon the Selkirk."
I hold up my phone with Tom"s number on the screen. "Or I could just use this, like a normal person."
He answers on the second ring.
"Hey, Tom," I say, doing an excellent impression of Mickey Mouse.
"You called, m"dear?" The friendliness of his voice the familiarity renders me mute for a moment. "h.e.l.lo, Kaz...?"
"Sorry, yes, hi. Umm... I heard you"d be here as well. From Naomi. Or Dad. No Naomi!" Either way it sounds like I"ve been keeping tabs on him. "Dad"s taking Naomi to London." Stop talking now, mouth. "For the weekend. Naomi said that your dad said-"
Ruby actually leaps forward and puts both hands over my mouth, whispering, "Shut. Up."
Tom doesn"t seem to mind that I ended my last sentence with a "whumph", but I can hear the smile in his voice when he says, "If by "here" you mean Remix, then yes. We just got here. Me and Naj and Roly."
Now what?
Ruby, whose eyeb.a.l.l.s have been rolling around so much I"m surprised they"re still in the sockets, mutters, "For f.u.c.k"s sake" and takes my phone. "Hey, Tom, how"s it going? We"re in the middle of exploring the campsite and wondered whether we should come and explore your part of it, wherever that may be. Possibly explore whatever food you"ve got. And whatever drinks."
There"s a pause. "Totally like scavengers. Think of us as a particularly s.e.xy pair of rac.o.o.ns."
I can hear him laughing from here, no more immune to the Ruby Effect than anyone else. She concentrates as he explains where they are.
"Got it. See you in five." Handing me the phone back, Ruby looks at me for a long moment. "Are you sure about this, Kaz?"
4 * NOT MY IDEA
KAZ.
All the way from South Slope to where Tom"s camped in Three-Tree Field I tell myself the same thing.
I am sure. I am sure. I am sure.
Once I"ve seen Tom we can get on with our weekend. It won"t change anything. I just want to say hi, to show how fine I am being friends. Just to prove it to myself to Tom to Ruby. Just to double-check that"s all we are. It"s been a long time and maybe Tom"s missed me the way I have him...
Tom told Ruby that they"re camped next to someone flying a fluorescent pink Jolly Roger. Ruby spots the flag first. I spot the boy.
Tom looks the way I always imagine him. Body broad enough to hold me, tall enough to make me safe big but gentle, like a bear from a fairy tale or a picture book. His haircut is the same one he"s always had (apart from the winter of the unwise buzzcut) and the smile he"s wearing as he talks to the person next to him is the smile I"ve missed every second of the last sixty-nine days, twenty-two hours and ... twenty-three minutes.
Maybe I am not so sure about this after all.