Chapter 33
A few minutes later someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned to find a well-groomed vampire grinning at me.
‘Sexy outfit,’ Harper said. ‘Have you got the pompoms to go with it?’
‘Ugh. You and Stew really are cousins, aren’t you?’
‘Can’t believe you play in a brass band. Is it supposed to be ironic or what?’
‘Er, no. I enjoy it.’
He laughed. ‘You are the strangest girl. Hey, did you get a new phone, babe? Keep ringing you and there’s no answer.’
Of course. Obviously it wouldn’t occur to Harper Brady I just didn’t want to talk to him.
I sighed. ‘Harper, listen, I’m sorry. I’ve been ignoring your calls.’
‘Why would you do that?’
I shook my head. ‘Do you really not know what it means when a girl you’ve been out with doesn’t take your calls?’
‘Can’t say it’s ever happened before.’
‘Look, I didn’t want to hurt your feelings, but – well, I never should’ve gone out with you when I knew you weren’t my type. It wasn’t fair and I’m sorry. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?’
He frowned. ‘You mean you still don’t like me?’
Bloody eureka…
‘You’re not as bad as I once thought,’ I admitted. ‘But I don’t like you like you. Sorry. And I’m not in a great place to be dating right now, to be honest. I lost my dad earlier this year.’
‘Did you? I didn’t know that.’
‘Well, no. You wouldn’t, would you?’ I glared at him. ‘Tell me one thing you do know about me, Harper. Just one.’
‘Why?’
‘Humour me.’
‘Ok, well, you…’ He hesitated, scanning my body for clues. ‘…you play in a band?’
‘What instrument?’
‘Er, trumpet?’
‘Wrong. Anything else?’
‘You’re at least an E-cup?’
I shook my head. ‘Typical. Ok, my turn. Your mum’s called Sonia. She patented the upside-down squeezy sauce bottle, raised you alone and died when you were 18. You’ve got an agent, Bernice, and you reckon you’ll get a BAFTA nomination next year. You won Rear of the Year 2013 and you’re excessively proud of the fact. Your favourite colour’s duck-egg blue, your favourite animal’s an armadillo and you take a size 11 shoe – shall I go on?’
‘Bloody hell,’ Harper said, blinking. ‘You know all that about me?’
‘I could probably reel off your inside leg measurement, mate,’ I said. ‘Know why? Because when we went out, you spent over an hour talking about yourself and didn’t ask me a thing.’
‘Come on, that’s not fair.’
‘I’m telling you, Harper. Not a single, solitary thing,’ I said. ‘Look, I’ll see you later, ok?’
I turned to head back to the band marquee. There was ten minutes yet, but Roger was there arranging his music and it seemed as good a way to escape as any.
‘Lana, wait.’ Harper put one hand on my shoulder. ‘Don’t go yet. Let me say one last thing.’
‘Ok, what?’
‘Look, women don’t say no to me. That doesn’t happen.’
‘Well, it just did, so…’
His brow knit into a puzzled frown. ‘Ok, suppose it did. But it’s pretty rare.’
‘Where are you headed with this, Harper?’ I demanded. ‘You’re not going Indecent Proposal on me, are you? Because I can promise you, I don’t need the money that badly.’
‘No. I’m apologising, aren’t I?’
‘Are you?’ I shook my head. ‘You must be seriously out of practice.’
He smiled. ‘I am a bit. What’s the usual way?’
‘You’d start with a sorry, usually. A brag about being irresistible to women: less common.’
‘Ok, then I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry for being like I am, and I’m sorry you didn’t have a nice time when we went out. I know I’m hard work, Stew tells me all the time. I can’t help it.’
‘Course you can help it. That’s just an excuse.’
‘You have to understand, Lana. Nearly all my life I’ve been told exactly what I want to hear. If I wanted something, I just took it… until you came along.’ He dipped his head to look into my eyes. ‘I – well, the truth is I keep thinking about you. Since we went out you’re in my head, all the time, and I don’t know what to do about it.’
‘Because I’m something you can’t have.’
‘No. Because you treat me like a real person. Because you’re different from anyone else in my life. I want to keep you in it.’
I shook my head. ‘I’m sorry. I do like you – sort of. Sometimes. But you’re not right for me and that’s an end of it.’
‘I could change. With someone like you to show me how I could.’
‘But that’s not good enough, is it? I’m not a prop for you, Harper. I’ve got my own life, I wasn’t put on this earth to show you how to live yours.’
‘Won’t you just go out with me again?’ he said, his blue eyes pleading. ‘This time I want to hear all about you, babe: every little thing.’
‘No, Harper. Look, I’ve got to go.’
‘Come on, just once to make it up to you. I’ll take you to Venice.’
I snorted. ‘That better be the name of a cocktail bar.’
‘Seriously. I know this adorable little place on the water. I can fly us out there, it’ll be romantic.’
‘See, this is exactly what I mean,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Big, showy gestures like flying to Venice aren’t a substitute for genuine interest in the other person, Harper.’
‘But I am interested, promise. Won’t you? It doesn’t have to be Venice. You can pick the place, anywhere you want.’
‘I told you, no. I just don’t see you that way, I’m sorry. I have to go now, my conductor’s staring at me.’
‘All right, bye then,’ he muttered, looking dejected under his white facepaint. ‘You’ve got my number if you change your mind.’
‘Oh, and Lana?’ he said as I turned to go.
I glanced over my shoulder. ‘What now?’
‘I’m sorry about your dad. I know what it’s like to lose a parent too young.’ He smiled: a warm, sneer-free smile different than his usual lip-curl. Suddenly he looked a lot more like Stew. ‘It does get easier, I promise.’
I blinked. ‘That’s… well, thanks, Harper. See you around, I guess.’
***
It was dark by the time we finished playing, and most of the crowd had disappeared.
The plan was for volunteers to get everything tidied away then head to the Fox for a post-fundraiser pint. When I eventually made it over, I found all our group except Cameron already there, a bottle of prosecco in a cooler between them.
‘Are we celebrating?’ I asked, claiming a seat next to Tom and helping myself to a glass.
‘Yep.’ Stewart shot me a warm smile. I dropped eye contact, remembering our kiss earlier. ‘Ask Gerry why.’
‘You haven’t counted up already, Gerry?’
Gerry grinned. ‘Not all of it, but I can give you the estimated profit.’
‘Oh my God!’ I said, clocking his triumphant expression. ‘We hit target?’
‘And then some. Looking like we made eight grand.’
‘We never! From a little village event? That’s incredible!’
‘It’s not all from stalls,’ Tom said. He looked a little down, I couldn’t help noticing. ‘There was a three grand donation as well. Mr Squeezy Sauce. He gave Stew a cheque before he left.’
I frowned. ‘Did he now?’
‘Yeah,’ Stewart said. ‘Maybe he thought that Grim Reaper bloke was the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come or something. Suddenly he’s riddled with charitable feelings towards his fellow man.’
‘Hmm.’ I took a meditative sip of my wine. The fizzy stuff tended to go straight to my head, and I made a mental note to take it slow. ‘I’m not sure we should accept it.’
‘Why not, chicken?’ Sue asked.
‘Well…’ I hesitated, wondering how much I wanted to tell them. ‘Ok, this might sound weird, but I think he’s trying to impress me.’
Yolanda laughed. ‘You? Don’t be silly.’
I glared at her. ‘And what’s so incredible about that, Yo-yo?’
‘Oh, I didn’t mean to insult you,’ she said. ‘It’s just that he’s Harper Brady, isn’t he? His last girlfriend was Ava Dubois – you know, the supermodel? I saw a photoshoot with them in Hello earlier this year. I mean, no offence in the world, Lana. You’re very pretty when you make the effort, but…’
She trailed off, the words ‘you’re no supermodel’ hanging unsaid in the air.
‘That thing with Ava was a PR stunt,’ Stewart said. ‘His agent set it up to build some publicity for Soar and her new perfume range.’
‘Good God! Really?’ Yolanda looked as if her whole world had been rocked. I mean, if you couldn’t even trust Hello, what hope was there for humanity?
‘Not that Harper doesn’t do all right for himself, for some unknown reason.’ Stew sent me a look, one I couldn’t quite interpret. ‘He does seem keen on our Lana though.’
‘But why?’ Yolanda said.
‘Well, Yo-yo, maybe, just maybe, he appreciates my many sterling qualities and sparkling personality.’ I sighed. ‘Plus he’s got a thing for my boobs.’
‘Oh.’ Yolanda shot them an envious glance. ‘Well, if he likes it that obvious…’
‘Lana’s a beautiful girl,’ Stewart said, taking a casual gulp of prosecco. ‘Harper’s a lot of things but he’s not stupid.’
‘Um, thanks,’ I mumbled. From the corner of my eye I saw Sue fix me with an appraising stare.
‘So do you think we should take the money, Stew?’ Tom asked. ‘I don’t want to repair the viaduct if it means pimping out my sister.’
‘Absolutely we should take it,’ Stewart said firmly. ‘Three grand’s spare change to Harper, he’s probably already forgotten he donated it. About time he started spending on good causes instead of fast cars.’
‘Lana?’ Tom said.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t feel right, somehow.’
‘How did it come about, Stewart?’ Sue asked.
‘Harper asked what we were raising money for so I told him all about the viaduct. Your dad,’ he said, nodding to me and Tom. ‘And he said he wanted to make a donation.’
‘Did he mention me?’ I said.
‘He said he’d been talking to you. Said he was a selfish bastard and it was about time he started thinking about other people a bit.’ He shook his head. ‘I think he might be ill.’
‘Are we keeping it then?’ Gerry was looking panicked at the idea of giving back money.
‘Yes,’ I said at last. ‘If that’s what he said.’ I laughed. ‘Hey, this’ll be the first Grand Départ fuelled by ketchup.’
Gerry breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Champion. I’ll send him a thank-you letter from the group.’
‘Can’t believe we made target.’ I topped up my prosecco. ‘Where’s Cam? He should be here for this.’
Tom flushed. ‘Not coming. We had another row.’
‘Oh no, Tommy. Not the parent thing again.’
‘Yeah. Told him I’m not going and that’s final, so he stormed off.’
‘Why you don’t just go meet them?’ Gerry said. ‘I know his dad. Top bloke, he’s on the darts team.’
‘It’s not that though, is it? You only get one chance to make a first impression. I just want to wait till we’ve been together a bit longer.’ Tom swiftly changed the subject. ‘You seen who’s serving food tonight, Lana?’
I followed his gaze to the waitress taking someone’s order at a nearby table. ‘Jaz?’
‘Yeah, Billy’s offered her some work. She’s trying to get a bit of money saved up before uni.’
I smiled. ‘She took that place then.’
‘Yep. Looks like we’ll be advertising for a new waitress next summer.’