Virgin(47)

I gave up. “If I can still fit into it, I will wear it. But I’m not putting on lip gloss,” I warned.

“Okay, okay,” she said, smiling and slipping out of my room hurriedly. “I’ll leave you to get ready.”

I pulled the dress over my shoulders and struggled to get my arms through the sleeves. Eventually I managed to get into it and breathed in as I zipped it up.

It actually didn’t look too bad. The muted purples, blues and blacks of the flower print were quite subtle. I could barely move my arms because the armholes were inhumanely small, but as I was only going to be moving my fork from my plate to my mouth, I would probably survive. Wearing the dress was a small price to pay to have my mum stop with the barely veiled insults. Mothers were crazy.



The second I walked into the restaurant, my mum’s weird behavior made sense. Seated at a large round table were Mr. and Mrs. Pitsillides, Nikki and the druggie boyfriend—which would definitely make dinner interesting—and a scrawny guy who I recognized as Nikki’s older brother, Paul. This was a setup, and I had been squeezed into a floral dress because my mum wanted me to date Paul Pitsillides.

“Darling!” Debbie Pitsillides said, as she hugged my mum and then me. “So nice to see you. Gosh, you’ve grown so much.” She looked straight down my dress at my cleavage.

I flushed and smiled at everyone, giving Nikki a weak smile and nodding vaguely in Paul’s direction. My mum ushered me into a seat in between Paul and Nikki, which had strategically been left empty. I plonked myself into it and braced myself for a difficult evening.

“Hey, Ellie,” said Nikki, flicking her glossy brown hair over her shoulder as she looked me up and down. “You’ve met Yanni, haven’t you?”

Yanni was tanned with a chiseled face, cropped brown hair and a sparkly earring. He nodded at me and I smiled. “Hey, Yanni, how’s it going? Are you working at the moment?” I asked, knowing full well he was a full-time drug dealer for the privileged and bored kids in the area.

“You know—bit of this, bit of that. Mr. Pitsillides is going to try to get me a job working for him, which would be cool,” he said, shooting Nikki’s dad a deferential smile.

I rolled my eyes, hoping no one had noticed how bored I already was. “Nice,” I said, nodding. “And, Nikki, how’s stuff going for you?”

“Not bad,” she said. “I’m still in my last year of uni at Nottingham, so I’m just enjoying it, really. Loads of going out. Yanni comes up loads too, though, don’t you, babe?” She squeezed his arm and pouted at him.

I didn’t know how much of this I was going to be able to handle. I turned over to my left where Paul was nervously shifting around on his seat. “Hey,” he mumbled.

I felt a bit sorry for him. He looked as uncomfortable as I felt. I guessed he had been pressured into coming here as much as I had, although it was a bit unflattering that he clearly hated the idea of dating me. If I was an average seven out of ten, he was definitely a five. He could at least pretend he found me a bit attractive, but he was starting intently at his menu, barely looking at me.

“Hey,” I said, flashing him my best smile. “I’ve not seen you in ages. How are things?”

“Not bad,” he said. “You?”

God, if he was going to keep going with these monosyllabic answers, this was going to be a very long night. I racked my brain, trying to think of something I knew he liked that I could talk to him about. I vaguely remembered my mum saying he was studying medicine.

“Good, thanks. You’re doing medicine, aren’t you? How’s that going? Have you almost finished with the seven years of studying or whatever it is?” I asked in my friendliest voice.

“It’s five years. I’m going to finish this year.”

“No way, me too!” I cried. “I’m graduating this summer. No idea what I want to do, though. I guess you don’t have that problem,” I added a bit wistfully. “Must be nice to have your career path set out so clearly.” His face dropped and he looked even more miserable than before. I changed tack. “Although, it’s probably hard too, right? Like, having to do medicine.”

He looked up and nodded. “Yeah. It’s not bad, but I really like drawing. I don’t have much time to do it now.”

“Drawing?” I asked, struggling to visualize geeky Paul drawing nude models or bowls of fruit. “I didn’t know you drew.”

“Yeah, illustrations. For comics and stuff. I would love to be a cartoonist.”

Okay, that made a bit more sense, but still . . . medicine to cartoons? I guessed his parents weren’t pleased with this. “That’s so cool,” I said encouragingly. “I’m impressed. Can I see your stuff?” I batted my lashes. I was basically throwing myself at him.