And Baby Makes Two

go.

“It’s my birthday,” I snuffled. “I had a fight with my mum.”

“Your birthday? Really?” He smiled. “Well, Happy Birthday—”

“Lana.” I laughed and snuffled at the same time. “Lana Spiggs.”

He held out his hand. “Les,” he said. “Les Craft.”

We just sort of stared at each other for a couple of seconds.

“So, which birthday is it?” he finally asked.

I didn’t hesitate for even a nanosecond. I didn’t want to put him off because he thought I was too young.

“My eighteenth.”

He smiled. “Well, Happy Birthday, Lana Spiggs.”

Happy Birthday to me.

Les Craft was twenty years old, kind, sensitive and intelligent (he had two A levels). He wasn’t exactly a babe, but he was good-looking in a quiet way, and he had two gold hoops in his left ear, and he did dress very smart. Plus, there was no grease on his hands. Les was assistant manager of the Blockbuster on the high street.

“I thought you looked familiar,” I fibbed. I wanted him to know he was special, not some dork a girl would never notice. “I go in there all the time.”

He smiled. In my opinion, Calvin Klein could’ve made millions if he bottled that smile.

“I know.”

He’d noticed me! I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t noticed him – I didn’t really look at the boys who worked at Blockbuster because they tended to have bad skin and only recommend action films – but this attractive man had noticed me.

I told him all about my most recent fight with the Curse of Kilburn while we ate our burgers. He dipped his chips in the ketchup just like I did.

Les was very understanding. He had a mother, too.

“They have a lot of trouble letting go,” said Les. “My mum’s the worst. I won’t let my mum in my flat, because she’d start tidying up the minute she got through the door.” He smiled his break-your-heart smile. “And she’s always after me to cut my hair.”

“Oh, don’t do that.” It was long enough to hang sexily over his collar, but not so long that you’d mistake him for a girl from the back. “It’s lovely.”

Sunshine flooded McDonald’s.

“OK. I’ll tell my mum Lana likes it like this.”

I felt like someone was pouring hot fudge sauce through my veins. Lana likes it like this… It was as though we’d known each other for ages. That had to mean that I’d see him again.

Les stuffed the chip packet and his napkin and the straw wrapper into his burger box. There wasn’t one crumb or blob of ketchup at his place.

“I’ve got to get back to the shop,” he said. He made it sound like he’d rather go anywhere else. “Do you want to come with me and hang out?”

I didn’t have to think even once, never mind twice. “Yeah, sure.”

Let the old bat worry that I’d been raped or run over by a car or something. It served her right.

Les took me home when he finished work. I couldn’t believe my luck. He not only had a job and a flat (well, a room in a flat), he had a car. It wasn’t a Porsche or a Jeep or anything cool like that, but it wasn’t an old banger like Charley’s van that you had to park on a hill so you could get it started the next day, either.

It had gone midnight by the time we got to my road. I made him let me off at the corner. In case she was hovering behind the curtains.

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” asked Les. “I could come in with you if you want.”

He sounded really concerned.

“No, I’ll be fine.” I undid my seat belt and took hold of the door handle. “She isn’t violent. She’s just a pain.”

The last thing I wanted was for him to meet Hilary. Women often end up looking just like their mothers. Oprah did a whole programme on it. What if Les took one look at her, decided that was what I was going to end up like, and I never saw him again? Plus, she’d be sure to tell him I was only fifteen. Probably before I’d even introduced him. “You know she’s only fifteen,” she’d say. “Do you want to go to prison?”

I pulled on the handle. “She’ll be in bed now anyway,” I lied. “It’ll be all right.”

Les grabbed my right hand.

When you’re little, you think a lot about whether or not you should kiss a boy on the first date. Will he think you’re easy? Will he think you kiss every boy you meet like that? Will you catch something?

But since we hadn’t technically been on our first date yet, I didn’t worry about it. As soon as I felt his skin on mine I turned to face him. I’d practised kissing my pillow and stuff like that (so I’d know what to do), but kissing Les was not like kissing my pillow. His lips were warm, and soft as the centre of a chocolate cream. I was melting from within. I didn’t even jump or gag or anything when he stuck his tongue in my mouth. It was hardly slimy at all.

“How about Sunday?” he whispered when we came up for air. “I’ve got to work Saturday and Sunday night, but we could do something in the afternoon. After lunch.” He stroked my hair. “If you’re not busy.”

He had to be joking. I would never be busy again in my life.

She was waiting up for me, of course. She’d ruined the first part of my birthday for me, and now she was determined to ruin the last part as well. She must’ve sensed I was having a good time somewhere. I always said she was a witch.

She launched herself from the window as soon as she saw me come down the street and popped out of the living-room like a cuckoo in a clock as soon as I stepped into the hall.

“I’d like to talk to you,” she said in this dead flat voice.

She was a bit drunk. Alcohol’s meant to make you jolly, but she always gets really earnest and serious when she has a bit to drink.

I didn’t meet her eyes. I wasn’t going to let her spoil what had turned out to be the best night of my life. I was going to go to bed and pretend that Les was beside me, holding me tight, telling me how wonderful I was.

I locked the front door and marched past her.

“Lana. Did you hear me? We need to talk.”

I opened the door to my room. “Talk to yourself,” I said. “I’m going to bed.”

“I’m your mother,” she said. No one could ever accuse Hilary Spiggs of being original. “I think I have a right to know where you’ve been all night.”

“Selling my body,” I said. “Where else?”

I would’ve slammed the door in her face, but she’d wedged herself against the frame.

“Lana, look, I know I overreacted—”

She touched my shoulder. I jumped as if she’d stabbed me.

“Get your hands off me,” I ordered.

She got her hands off me. She must’ve been more drunk than I thought, though, because she almost looked like she was going to cry.

“I’m sorry, Lana. I don’t want things to be like this.”

Maybe if I hadn’t had the best birthday of my life, and maybe if I hadn’t realized I had enough power to make her cry, I would have broken down then and said I was sorry too, and everything would’ve been different. That’s what I think now, at any rate. But it’s not what I thought then. I didn’t care that she was sorry. I was chuffed I could make her cry. And I didn’t give a stuff what she wanted. I was like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, standing on the yellow brick road with the Emerald City shimmering in front of me. Only it wasn’t the Emerald City I saw, it was my future. It was nearly six feet tall, had a tongue like a lizard’s, and drove a