Chapter 41

“I had a good chat with Millie while I was waiting for you,” Diane told them as she slammed the rear hatch on the Audi.

“Oh really, what did you talk about,” Lucy asked as she climbed into the car next to Gabbie.

Diane started the engine and reversed away from the girls’ boarding house and set off around the school to Steve’s boarding house, “Oh, this and that, you know, nothing important. She did mention your reason for inviting her for Christmas.”

“Ahh, are you angry?”

“I’m not angry Lucy, but you need to understand the difficult position you’ve put Millie in.”

“What do you mean?”

Diane pulled into a lay-by a short distance from Steve’s house, “Look, I know you meant well. Steve’s a good lad, but he’s way too shy to ask a girl out. Millie’s a wonderful woman, but she’s too busy to go looking for a boyfriend – oh, and I confirm it’s a boyfriend she wants, she told me about your, err, telepathy sex adventure, she enjoyed it but she’s not bi-sexual...”

“See, I told you,” Lucy whispered as she slapped Gabbie’s leg, “her heart wasn’t in that kiss...”

“Quite, so can we return to the topic at hand. Millie is kind of happy that you thought of her, and I think she’s attracted to Steve...”

“And we know Steve likes Millie, we asked him,” Gabbie interrupted.

“I didn’t think you’d push Millie onto Steve if he wasn’t interested,” Diane replied, “but what I’m getting at is that it’s illegal for Millie to have a relationship with a pupil at the school.”

“Even if he’s 18?” Gabbie asked.

“Yes, even if he’s 18. There’s all kinds of reasons, but they mostly boil down to adults in positions of authority can be tempted to use their position to persuade a child to do something they may not want to.”

“But Steve would be OK with it,” Lucy pleaded.

“Yes, I’m sure he would be, but the law is the law Lucy, they can’t make an exception for willing participants.”

“Why not?”

“Seriously Lucy, I thought you were brighter than this. If someone mesmerised a child into having sex against their will, would they not also be able to persuade that same child to tell the authorities they were happy about what was going on? I hate to say this Lucy, but you have someone with experience of that sitting beside you.”

“Oh fuck, yes. I’m so sorry for being stupid. Of course they would. Ahh, bollocks mum, what do we do?”

“We hope nobody finds out, because the horse has bolted now, it’s way too late to shut that stable door.”

“Well, nothing’s happened yet...”

“So you’re happy to tease Millie then pull the rug from under her feet?”

“What do you mean?”

“Lucy, again with the dimness. Millie is excited about spending Christmas with us, she’s excited about the possibility of hooking up with Steve.”

“She’s not had sex for three years, Lucy,” Gabbie added, “she told me after we’d kissed. She got all hot and horny. We might have been a bit cruel to Millie with that game. I offered to go all the way, she thought about it, but couldn’t bring herself to have sex with a girl. I don’t blame her, some people are not wired to be as open as we are.”

“Three years! Oh man, I never thought about that. Ahh, shit, I feel so bad now. What if Steve backs out, she’ll be devastated. This is like that time I phoned Steve that first night Gabbie, he was so disappointed with me, and I only wanted him to see how pretty we looked after sex. What do we do mum?”

“This isn’t my mess to fix Lucy. You’ve got another lesson to learn, don’t meddle with people’s lives, even if you think you’re doing something good.”

“I don’t know how to fix it!”

“OK Lucy, I’ll help. What you do is nothing, not yet. Don’t say a thing to Steve, just tell him Millie’s coming for Christmas – does he know?”

“We said she might, but not why.”

“OK, so he doesn’t need to know why. I’ve already told Millie that Steve’s shy, so she’ll have to do all the running. Don’t try to manufacture any situations to put them together, don’t offer any suggestions to Steve, just let Millie do her stuff.”

“OK, but what if nothing happens?”

“If nothing happens, then that’s what Millie wanted. The second thing you can do is buy Millie a spectacular Christmas present, because she deserves something nice for messing her around.”

“OK, yes, we’ll go shopping tomorrow.”

“And my last point is aimed at Gabbie. Stop teasing her, if she’s not interested you won’t get anywhere if you keep flirting. This is true for anyone Gabbie, if you flirt with someone and they’re clearly not interested, you must stop, because taking it further can look like harassment.”

“Oh, I didn’t think of it like that. I enjoy flirting, it makes me feel sexy.”

“Yes, I realise that, and you also feel like you have a bit of power over someone. Lucy has power over people because of her huge personality...”

“And her huge boobs,” Gabbie whispered.

“Yes, and those. You think you don’t have that power, so you flirt.”

“mmm, maybe that’s right.”

“But it’s not right Gabbie, you have a lot of personality, you light up a room when you choose to. Why don’t you try something, instead of approaching a girl, or boy, and flirting with them, why not just talk to them. I bet you could be just as naturally attractive and friendly as Lucy if you decided to be.”

“But, she’s just so gorgeous, and she has her boobs, people look at her because she’s so pretty and shapely. I’m not like that.”

“Oh my, Gabbie, there was so much wrong with that sentence. Yes, Lucy is beautiful, and shapely, but she’s not the only beautiful person in this car. You are exceptionally beautiful Gabbie. When I go anywhere with you both it’s interesting watching people’s eyes as they bounce between the two of you, and I’d say you’re evenly split over who gets the most people sticking with you. Lucy gets most of the male admirers, because men are simple creatures, they like boobs. You get the most women, Gabbie, a lot more than Lucy.”

Gabbie didn’t speak for a moment, she was confused. She loved Lucy, to her Lucy was by a long way the most beautiful woman in the world, so why would anyone look at her when Lucy was in the same room.

“I don’t understand, everyone should be looking at Lucy, not me.”

“People like different things Gabbie,” Lucy told her quietly, “if everyone liked the same thing, why are there about a million flavours of ice cream?”

“I like raspberry ripple, they don’t need to make any other flavours.”

“But I love pistachio flavour.”

“OK, so they make two flavours.”

“What about Lizzie?”

“What about her?”

“Polly had me and you to choose from, but Lizzie is the girl she wanted all along. She’s choc chip to our pistachio and raspberry ripple.”

“Lizzie is very pretty,” Gabbie said quietly, still thinking about Lucy’s ice cream analogy, “she doesn’t look like me or you. Oh shit Lucy, I’ve always felt so ugly inside, so I’ve always thought I was ugly outside. It’s really hard to persuade myself I’m not ugly.”

“OK, two examples, then we’ll have to go, because I bet Steve is wondering where we are...”

“It’s OK Lucy,” Diane told her, “he’s already messaged me twice, I’ve told him we’ll be there in a bit.”

“Listen to me carefully Gabbie, I’ll give you two names, these two people met us both together but only had eyes for you. Nessa and Detective Kyle.”