Dancing Daze Page 3

  “I wonder if the Late Late clip is up on YouTube yet,” she says. “I can’t wait to put it up on my Facebook page. Annabelle will be so jealous. Me, mentioned on the telly!” (Annabelle’s one of the mean girls at our school, Saint John’s.)

  As Mills clicks on YouTube, the battery icon comes up on the laptop screen. “The battery’s dying,” she says. “Claire must have left the power cord downstairs. She was showing Dad some new video clips of her dancing earlier. I’ll be back in a second.”

  After Mills has gone, I check out Claire’s snazzy laptop and notice a file saved on the desktop labeled “Budapest D.” (D stands for dancing, I’m guessing.) Thinking it must be the clips that Claire was showing her dad earlier, I open it. But it’s not a video file at all. It’s a text file called “Budapest Diary.” Curious, I click on it and start reading. The entry is dated yesterday.

  Dear Diary,

  It’s so weird being home again. Everything looks the same and yet different, like I’m looking at the world through special “visitor” glasses. My bedroom is just as I left it, but it seems smaller. Did I really do my barre exercises in such cramped conditions? Still, Dad was sweet to build it, and I can’t believe it’s all still intact.

  I can’t settle. I feel like I don’t belong here anymore. And with all the trouble back in Budapest, I don’t feel like I belong there either. I’m in limbo, caught between two worlds and not comfortable in either.

  I haven’t slept a full night in weeks, with all the worry. I can’t keep food down, and if I can’t eat, I’m not going to have the energy to dance. And the whole company is relying on me to fill the seats in the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, and that theater’s huge! It’s so much pressure, pressure, pressure. Péter says I should focus on getting the steps right instead of worrying about things I can’t control.

  I don’t know what I’d do without Péter. He’s the only reason I’m still in the company. If it wasn’t for him, I couldn’t bear it; I’d have to leave Budapest . . .

  “Amy, I can’t find the cord, but can I get you some OJ while I’m down here?” Mills shouts up the stairs.

  I jump, only just grabbing the laptop before it crashes to the floor. I yell back, “Great, thanks,” my heart racing. I feel horribly guilty about reading Claire’s private thoughts, but from the sound of things, she really is in trouble. And what if it’s serious?

  The battery icon flashes again. I quickly take my keys out of my pocket, and before I’ve thought it through properly, I stick the memory stick I carry on my key ring into the USB port and copy the whole “Budapest D” file. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it, if anything, but something tells me I might just need it. As soon as I’ve copied it, the computer dies. Phew, just in time!

  A few minutes later, Mills walks back into Claire’s room, holding two large glasses of orange juice.

  “The battery went, I’m afraid,” I tell her.

  She hands me a glass and sits down beside me on Claire’s bed. “That’s annoying, but never mind. I can pull the clip up in the morning. It’s probably not on YouTube yet anyway.” She takes a long drink of her juice.

  “Don’t you want to go back downstairs?” I ask her.

  She shakes her head. “I like hanging out in here. I can smell Claire’s perfume.” She picks up a scarf and sniffs it.

  “Mills, that’s a bit weird.”

  “I know, but it makes me feel closer to her. She’s flying back to Budapest on Sunday.” She shrugs.

  “How do you feel now?” I ask carefully. “After the telly interview, I mean. Are you still worried about her?”

  I’m hoping she’ll say yes, as somehow then I won’t feel so bad about reading Claire’s diary. But as I kind of suspected, she says, “No, I think Claire’s fine. It’s just bad stage fright. I can’t wait to see her again at Christmas. And I still can’t believe she was on the Late Late Show.”

  She looks so idyllically happy that I can’t bear to burst her bubble, so I nod wordlessly and drink my orange juice. And then as Mills starts talking about what she’s going to wear to the Coast concert — next month! — I zone out, my mind mulling over Claire’s Budapest “trouble.” Maybe I’m overanalyzing things; it wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe Mills is right that it is just bad nerves. After all, Mills knows her own sister, doesn’t she?

  When I get back to my house half an hour later, I take out my keys to open the front door, and my eyes linger on my memory stick. Claire’s diary. And then I remember how my own diary used to help me make sense of my feelings and get things that were troubling me out of my system.

  Recently its pages have been sadly neglected and not due to any lack of drama in my life, because, boy, do I have plenty to write about! No, I’ve just been too lazy to jot it all down. And I’d be truly horrified to discover that someone had read my diary, especially my little sister’s friend.

  I make two decisions: one, to delete Claire’s file; and two, to write in my diary at least once a week from now on. I’ll make a start tonight and then do some more at Dad’s house tomorrow. I’m often bored there, and it will give me something positive to do.

  As I walk up to my bedroom, I wiggle the memory stick off the key ring. Then I put it in my desk drawer for safekeeping. I’ll delete Claire’s file later. After that, I find my diary, which is hidden behind some books on one of my bookshelves, grab a pen, sit on my bed, and start to write.

  Friday, November 30

  Dear Diary,

  I’m sorry for neglecting you for ages and ages. I do solemnly swear on Shakespeare’s quill that from now on I will write on your hallowed pages at least once a week . . .

  “I’m not sure I’m cut out for family life,” Dad says as he drives away from my house on Saturday morning. “Shelly’s sending me up the wall with her moaning, Gracie won’t stop crying, and if Pauline Lame makes one more snide comment about the amount of golf I play, I swear I’ll decapitate her with one of my putters. It’s not natural, sharing a house with your mother-in-law.”

  Pauline Lame is Shelly’s mum, and she’s even scarier than my dad’s new wife, Shelly, if that’s possible. They look almost identical. They both have huge piano-key teeth, orange skin (from dodgy makeup layered on top of the fake tan), and billowing bleach-blond hair. They’re like scary grown-up versions of the D4s in school, who wear Ugg boots and lather themselves in Oompa-Loompa-colored Fake Bake and dye their hair blond and say “OMG!” all the time.

  “Plus, I’m afraid to go near my own wife for a kiss or a cuddle in case Pauline tut-tuts at me,” Dad adds.

  I wrinkle my nose. “Dad! I do not want to know!”

  We pass the cluster of shops at the top of the hill and turn left instead of right.

  “Where are we going?” I ask. “This isn’t the way to your house.”

  “I’m dropping you off at Dundrum Shopping Centre. I have a few errands to run. Work stuff. You can have a bit of a shop and I’ll collect you later. I know how you love Dundrum.”

  That sounds very suspicious. Dad’s never had “errands” before. He’s not the errands type. I happen to know his assistant, Agatha, buys all my birthday and Christmas presents. She has pretty good taste, so I don’t really mind. Now, when Shelly was his assistant, the presents were rank.

  “How long will you be?” I ask.

  “A couple of hours tops. I’ll ring you when I’ve finished my round — I mean, errands.”

  Suddenly, I know exactly what he’s up to. Golf! I turn around in my seat. Sure enough, his muddy black-and-white-leather golf shoes are sitting in one of the seat wells. “Dad, you swore to Shelly that you wouldn’t play golf this Saturday. No wonder she’s moaning at you. She has every right to get mad at you for breaking your promise.”

  “If I don’t play a few quick holes, I’ll explode, Amy. You don’t understand the pressure I’m under at home. It’s like being stuck on a medieval rack, with Shelly pulling my arms and Pauline stretching my legs. I can’t win with those two. No, it’s the
golf course or the shrink’s office. At least this way I’ll get some fresh air.”

  “Is it really that bad?”

  “Yes! It’s appalling. Pauline is out of control. She can’t sit still for one minute. She’s got it into her head that the whole house needs to be redecorated. She says the hall has scuff marks from Gracie’s buggy and that if she’s going to invite friends around, the place needs to look decent. There are fabric swatches and paint charts on every surface, and she’s already been testing colors on some of the walls. The hall’s pockmarked with different shades of red. I don’t like red, and it’s not her flaming house! And when she’s not obsessing about paint charts, she’s hogging the computer or drinking my wine cellar dry.” Dad takes one hand off the steering wheel and rakes it through his short dark hair, making it stand on end like a pineapple stalk.

  “I thought Pauline was staying for just a couple of months,” I say. “Doesn’t she have a house in Portugal?”

  “She’s talking about selling that place and moving back here permanently. I’ve tried talking to Shelly about it, but she won’t listen. She says if her mum doesn’t want to go back to Portugal, then we can’t make her. She also says that I’m useless with Gracie and that she wouldn’t be able to cope without her mum around.”

  He sighs deeply. “I’m not naturally good with babies; they scare me a bit, to be honest. All that crying. And I am trying my best with Gracie. But Pauline isn’t exactly making things easy at home. There’s an atmosphere as soon as I walk in the door after work. I know what she secretly thinks of me. And she wonders why I stay late at work some nights. Ha! I can’t bear to be anywhere near the stupid woman. You try living under the same roof as your mother-in-law, Amy.”

  “Dad, I’m thirteen! I’m hardly getting married anytime soon.”

  “Sorry, sorry, you’re right.”

  Dad seems really down, so I try to say something positive. “At least Pauline helps with Gracie.”

  “That’s just it. She doesn’t, not anymore. I can’t figure out why Shelly still wants her mum around. And we can’t exactly talk about it with Pauline sitting in the next room. OK, I admit Pauline was great at the start, helping with night feeds and everything, but now she seems bored with all of that. She spends most of her time surfing the Internet and reading interior-decorating magazines.” He sighs again. “I don’t know what to do, Amy. I love Shelly, but I’m hopeless at all this family stuff.”

  That’s an understatement — he abandoned me and Mum to set up home with Shelly, for goodness’ sake. Poor Gracie! She deserves a good dad. I’m old enough to cope, but she’s only tiny. He’s not thinking of running out on her too, is he? I’m too depressed with this new thought to say anything back to him. I just stare out the window and watch the snake of cars ahead of us, all winding their way toward Dublin’s shopping mecca.

  As I walk toward the shopping center, my mood’s so low it’s practically in my Converses. Dad was eager to get to his golf game and didn’t notice the way I snapped, “You’d better not be late collecting me,” when I was getting out of the car.

  Even though there are crowds of people milling around, I feel incredibly lonely. I think back to when Mum and Dad first separated. I was nine and they told me about it at Dublin Zoo, of all places. I remember feeling lost and deeply sad for weeks.

  Mum got very depressed too. She used to spend all day in her dressing gown, drifting around the house like a zombie. She eventually snapped out of it, but it was horrible to live through. I felt so powerless. Dad had made his decision: he wanted to move on, start again with someone else, and there was nothing either Mum or I could do about it. And now it seems to be happening all over again to Shelly and Gracie. I once overheard Clover saying to Mum, “When the going gets tough, Art Green gets going. That’s just how he is, Sylvie. Selfish to the core.”

  At least Mum’s got Dave now. He’s kind and caring and looks after her. He organized a romantic marriage proposal on a beach last year, which is something Dad would never think of, and they’re getting married soon.

  I love Dad, but sometimes I feel like punching him. Does he have any idea how lousy it is to have a part-time father? A dad who’s never there when you get home from school, who forgets to turn up at sports games, who never appears at parent-teacher meetings, who has no idea what his daughter is reading, listening to, thinking, feeling, on a day-to-day basis? I really don’t want that for Gracie. And I’m starting to feel a little sorry for Shelly too. Maybe I’ve been a bit hard on her. It sounds like Pauline isn’t being all that helpful anymore, and I bet Dad’s never once changed Gracie’s nappy or given her a bath! And if he leaves, Shelly will have to bring up Gracie on her own. That’s so sad that I don’t even want to think about it.

  I sit on the edge of the ornamental pool in the plaza, feeling cross and upset, and watch water from the fountain shoot up in jets. How dare Dad dump me here on my own and sneak off to play golf? Later, I bet he’ll lie to Shelly and Pauline and tell them we spent a lovely afternoon together, strolling around the shops, holding hands, and swinging our arms, just like in a Disney movie.

  My iPhone rings and I whip it out of my pocket.

  “Yes?” I snap without checking who it is first. “What is it?”

  “Whoa there, Beanie. Jeez Louise, jump out of bed on the wrong side this morning or what?” It’s Clover.

  “Sorry, it’s just Dad. I’m so angry with him.”

  “What’s he done now?” Clover doesn’t sound surprised.

  “I think he’s about to do another runner. On Shelly and Gracie this time. He keeps arguing with Shelly about Pauline, apparently, and he said he wasn’t cut out for family life.”

  Clover gives a long whistle. “Art Green, you never fail to disappoint me. The old ‘not cut out for family life’ chestnut.” She says a very rude word under her breath. “Sorry, Beans, but your fatheaded father has to be the most selfish, self-absorbed eejit on the entire planet. And I can’t believe he off-loaded his private woes on you. It’s so inappropriate.”

  “I did tell him that. But Clover, what about Gracie? She’s only three months old. It’s so unfair.”

  “I agree, it’s appalling. Look, I’m sure your poor-me pater’s just mouthing off again. Even he isn’t going to abandon a tiny baby like that. I just don’t understand. He seemed so happy at the christening, so proud to be a dad again.”

  “Pauline’s gotten worse, he says. He hates living in the same house as her.”

  Clover sighs. “Being in the same room as that woman gives me the heebie-jeebies. I can’t imagine what it must be like to live with her. OK, I admit it does make me feel a teeny-weeny bit sorry for him. And why she’d want to live in Ireland when she can work on her leathery tan in Portugal I just don’t know. . . . Beanie, where are you? I can hear splashing water. You’re not about to throw yourself off a cliff or anything, are you?”

  I give a short laugh. “Course not. I’m outside Dundrum Shopping Centre. Dad dumped me here. He’s playing golf. I’m his beard.”

  “Beard?”

  “You know, his cover. He told Shelly he was taking me shopping.”

  “Not helping my Hades-low opinion of him, Beanie. I have to work today, or else I’d come and hang out with you. That’s why I’m ringing you, in fact. Guess who I’m interviewing tomorrow morning before her flight back to Budapest?”

  “Claire Starr?”

  “Bull’s-eye, Bean Machine. The Goss was offered a last-minute spot, and Saffy asked me to cover it.”

  “Can I come too? And Mills?”

  “Sorry, no can do, babes. Claire’s unlikely to open up and dish her dirt if her own sister’s listening in. Saffy said, and I quote, ‘Find out if she is that Hungarian Romeo’s girlfriend or do not darken the doors of the Goss again, Clover.’” Saffy is Clover’s editor at the Goss magazine, and she sounds pretty scary.

  “Péter,” I say. “Romeo’s name is Péter. And Mills thinks they’re together, but I’m not so sure. Watch the L
ate Late Show clip on the Internet and see what you think. Claire seemed a little stressed during the interview, especially toward the end. She seems to have something on her mind. She might like to talk to you about it. Off the record, I mean.”

  “Coola boola. Thanks, Beanie Baby. Nothing like a bit of insider info. I’ll defo check out that clip. And if there is something bothering her, as you suspect, and she’d like to talk, then I’d be happy to listen. You are sweet, Beanie, always looking out for people. Look, must dash, research to run, dancers to dally with, you know how it is, but I’ll catch you later, OK? And chin up. Art is just sounding off. I’m sure he doesn’t mean it. He’s crazy-golf about Gracie, you know that. And underneath it all, he does love you, hon, remember that. And I love you, babes, muchos much. Kiss, kiss.” And with that she’s gone.

  I hope Clover’s right that Dad was just sounding off. Clover’s such a good listener. Maybe Claire will open up to her. They knew each other in school, so that might help. Talking about Claire has reminded me that I still haven’t deleted her diary from my memory stick. I feel a dart of guilt. I’ll do it as soon as I get home. I’ll try to forget about it now and ring Mills. Maybe she can cheer me up or even join me at Dundrum. Besides, I’m dying to tell her the Goss goss.

  Mills answers immediately, but she sounds a little disappointed to hear my voice. “Oh, hi, Amy. Sorry, I was hoping you were Bailey.”

  Charming! I try not to sound miffed as I say, “No, only me. Guess who Clover’s interviewing tomorrow?”

  “Claire, I know. Claire told me earlier. I think she’s a bit nervous about talking to Clover, to be honest.”

  “Afraid of what my darling aunt might squeeze out of her?”

  Mills giggles. “Exactly! Oh, there’s another call coming through. It’s Bailey. I’ll ring you back, Ames, OK?” And the phone goes dead.

  So I sit on the edge of the pool, waiting. Ten minutes pass, then fifteen, and I’m starting to get fed up, not to mention cold. I try Mills’s phone again, but it goes straight to messages. A few minutes later I try once more, and finally she answers. “Sorry, Ames, I got distracted. Bailey’s so funny sometimes and—”