I shrugged.
‘Why doesn’t she want to go for a pizza?’ Kerry asked. ‘It’d be good.’
She just doesn’t want to go with you, I thought. ‘Zoe never has any money,’ I said.
‘I would treat her for her birthday,’ Kerry said.
I made a face. ‘I don’t know, Kerry. I think she’d be embarrassed about that.’
‘My brother’s started working weekends in this brilliant new Italian place in town,’ Kerry said. ‘It pays better than the bakery because he gets tips.’
I sat up at the mention of Luke. ‘Really? Where?’
‘Near the library. The menu looks gorgeous. He said I should bring you along.’
‘He did?’ I felt a little electric charge go through me. ‘Honest?’
Kerry nodded. ‘I’m sure he meant Zoe as well,’ she said.
I thought for a second. ‘But he just mentioned me?’
‘Yeah, he said he really likes you.’
‘Truly?’
Kerry blinked at me, like it was no big deal. ‘Of course. He says it’s great that I’ve got some mates after all this time.’ She lowered her eyes. ‘It was tough, you know, never having anyone to hang around with. When it was really bad, Luke sometimes came to meet me after school. To make sure no one got me. You know.’
I did know. Maxine and her mates would go for anyone who looked at them the wrong way, if they were in the mood. I felt a guilty twinge inside. Fact was, whenever we could, Zoe and I tried to lose Kerry. And we never asked her out with us at weekends. I knew Zoe wouldn’t be seen with someone like Kerry when she was trying to fit in with the Dead Bouquet crowd.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘I’ll try to persuade Zoe to go. Can’t promise, though.’
So later I started working on Zoe, which wasn’t easy. I told her that Kerry had already booked us a table. I suggested we could go there early and then go on to the gig.
Zoe pulled a face. ‘Yes, but what if Kerry follows us? We can’t tell anyone else what we’re doing. You know we’ll be in it up to our necks if my mother finds out.’
I gave Zoe puppy-dog eyes.
She covered her face and shook her head. ‘Stop it! It’s my birthday we’re talking about. Don’t make me spend it with Pollyanna!’
In the end, we agreed that we’d do it, on the condition that I didn’t say a word to Kerry about where we were going afterwards.
5
The gig
On the night of Zoe’s birthday, a Saturday, we must’ve spent two hours getting ready. Zoe came to my house and we’d concocted a story for our mums which involved having a sleepover at someone from school’s house. We’d even agreed on a name – Emma Wood – but the girl we were supposed to be staying with didn’t exist and the mobile number I left with my mum was completely made up. I was banking on the fact that she wasn’t going to check. I felt a bit sick about it, to be honest. But Zoe had bought the tickets and whenever Kerry was out of earshot, she’d talked about nothing else for days.
In my bedroom, we spoke in low voices. ‘Did Jodie say we could stay at her house then?’
Zoe was sitting at my mirror painting on her gloss-black eyeliner into perfect symmetrical flicks at the corner of each eye. ‘Sort of.’
I pulled my T-shirt over my head and smoothed out the creases. ‘Sort of? What do you mean by “sort of”?’
Zoe looked in the mirror at my reflection, staring at her. ‘Well, she told us we could come round any time, didn’t she? Ages ago.’
‘You mean she doesn’t actually know we’re coming tonight, late?’
Zoe shrugged. ‘She’ll be all right. It’s not going to be like turning up at your gran’s house.’
My insides squirmed again. ‘Zoe...’
She held up a pale hand, her nails painted a heavy shade of purple. ‘Don’t. It’s my birthday. Don’t spoil it.’ She started conducting with her mascara brush, along with the track playing in the background.
I swallowed my words back down.
Zoe turned to me. Her hair shone and her eyes glinted behind their perfectly-flicked eyeliner. She looked more beautiful than I’d ever seen her. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘That present was the best ever.’ She dabbed some of the scented oil on to her wrists and held the phial out to me. ‘Want some?’
I shook my head. I’d already borrowed a splash of my mum’s designer stuff. She hardly ever used it, so I reckoned it was only going to go off if I didn’t help out.
By the time we got to the restaurant we were about half an hour late. Kerry was standing outside, her face all red and blotchy. She was wearing this floaty white top that looked completely wrong on her because she was so big and bulky. And she looked freezing. ‘You’re here,’ she said.
Zoe glanced over her shoulder. ‘Looks like it.’
‘I thought you weren’t coming. I thought you’d just gone off somewhere else without me.’
‘We wouldn’t do that,’ I lied. ‘Sorry. The bus was late.’
We went inside. I really liked the decor because it was a bit goth-y and the smell of garlic made my stomach feel suddenly empty. The tables and chairs were a dark wood, the walls were deep red and there were elaborate candlesticks with drooping, worn candles in them.
Zoe gave a sigh. ‘Mock-goth,’ she said.
‘This looks great,’ I said, hoping to cheer Kerry up. She sat down and handed Zoe a flat parcel wrapped in shiny paper. Zoe gave her a fake smile and pulled at the paper. She raised her eyebrows when she saw what it was. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘That’s actually quite nice.’
‘I thought you could paint the view from the photo,’ Kerry said.
Zoe shook her head. ‘No, I couldn’t, Kerry. It would be copying someone else’s art. Photos are art too, you know. It’s not the done thing.’
I turned away from Kerry’s disappointed face because
