An Expert Teacher. PENNY JORDAN
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on the verge of saying that she had decided she didn’t want to go after all, but to her surprise David came to her rescue, saying lightly, ‘It’s a barn dance, Mum. All the others will be dressed casually. She looks fine.’
Both boys were also wearing jeans, and although Gemma could see that her mother wasn’t pleased, she made no further comment.
Since Tom had already passed his driving test, it had been decided that on this occasion he would drive. Gemma sat in the back of her brother’s small car, wondering why she did not feel more excited as they drove towards their destination.
The dance was being held in the village hall. Several cars were already parked outside it, and they could hear the noise from the group as they got out of the car.
Inside the hall was hot and busy with gyrating bodies. The atmosphere was very smoky, and stung Gemma’s eyes. David found them a table while Tom went to the bar and got them all a drink. Gemma had asked for an orange juice and she noticed when he came back with their drinks that Tom wasn’t having anything alcoholic either.
When David laughed at him, Tom reminded him that he was driving.
Gemma couldn’t help noticing that more than one girl looked across to their table, and she tried to contain her feeling of desertion when David tapped Tom on the arm and drew his attention to a couple of girls standing watching the dancers.
‘You’ll be OK here on your own for a while, won’t you?’ David asked her as they got up. And, as he and Tom moved away, to her chagrin Gemma heard her brother saying to his friend, ‘I’m sorry that Ma was so insistent that we bring her with us.’
So Tom hadn’t wanted her company at all, she thought miserably. It had all been arranged by her mother.
She watched as the hall filled up and her brother and Tom kept on dancing with the same two girls. She was so engrossed in her own feeling of misery and self-loathing that she didn’t even look up when the shadow fell across her line of vision.
It took the sound of her name to drag her attention away from the dancers and to the person standing in front of her.
‘Luke!’ The unexpectedness of him being there, coupled with the fact that he had no doubt witnessed the humiliating fact that she was on her own, put the final seal of misery on the evening.
‘Enjoying yourself?’
He had to know that she wasn’t, she thought bitterly, tossing her head in defiant misery as she replied in a brittle voice, ‘Yes, thanks, are you?’
She saw him shrug, the gesture implying a certain amount of amused disdain as he looked around.
‘It’s not really my sort of thing.’
‘No, I don’t suppose it is.’
All the frustration and misery of the day poured out in her voice, two spots of colour staining her skin, her eyes glittering with temper and pain as she said disdainfully, ‘I’m surprised they allowed you in here. Most places seem to have banned the navvies from the motorway.’
She was repeating something she had heard her father say about the men from the road gangs, and the moment the cruel words had left her mouth she was horrified and disgusted with herself. Dimly she recognised that all her pain and misery was somehow connected with Luke and that it was because of this that she had hit out at him, but as she watched the quiet contempt settle in his eyes and saw him step away from her, she knew with bitter self-knowledge that she had driven him away, and that she had spoilt their friendship.
As he walked away from her she stood up and called his name, but either he didn’t hear her, or he didn’t care, because he didn’t stop.
After he had gone her eyes felt heavy with tears. Losing Luke’s friendship mattered far more to her than the fact that her mother had arranged for her to be here with Tom. In fact Tom, and her feelings for him, suddenly seemed to be the least important thing in her life. How could she have spoken like that to Luke? No wonder he had looked at her the way he did. Tomorrow afternoon she would apologise and explain to him. Just thinking that tomorrow she would see him made her feel better.
When the two boys eventually came back to the table, she was astounded to hear Tom ask her to dance.
They had dancing lessons at school, and it was something she was surprisingly good at.
They left at twelve o’clock, Tom and Gemma going out to the car first, leaving David to follow. When they reached the shadows thrown by the buildings, Gemma was astounded when Tom suddenly and clumsily took her in his arms, pressing his mouth wetly against hers.
His kiss wasn’t anything like Luke’s. In fact she found that she hated it; hated the wetness of his mouth, and the jarring sensation of his teeth bumping against her own. As quickly as she could she freed herself from his embrace, trembling with a mixture of disgust and anger. She could see that Tom was chagrined by her lack of response, but she no longer cared. Why on earth had she ever thought he was handsome? He wasn’t at all. Not when she compared him to Luke … Luke. She stopped dead yards away from the car, feeling her tummy begin to flutter and her heart start to leap violently in her chest. If she closed her eyes she could wipe away the memory of Tom’s kiss by conjuring up the things she had felt when Luke kissed her. She shivered slightly, aching for him to be there with her.
Her last thought as she closed her eyes that night was that soon it would be morning. Soon she could be with Luke.
ONLY it hadn’t been like that, Gemma reflected grimly, coming out of her reverie and walking over to her bedroom window. When she had gone to the clearing that afternoon Luke hadn’t been there, nor the afternoon after, nor the one after that. And so it had gone on for more than a week before she finally accepted that Luke wasn’t going to come back, and that through her own folly she had destroyed something infinitely precious.
She must have hurt him very badly indeed, she now recognised with the wisdom of maturity. She had after all thrown in his face the very thing he was fighting so hard to overcome, and his reaction to her cruel taunt had been very much the same as hers would have been had he, for instance, mocked her for her most private insecurities.
She had deserved to lose his friendship. She sighed faintly and stared out unseeingly at the landscape.
Could the Luke she had known and this man her mother had mentioned be one and the same person? Perhaps it was not so far fetched that they might after all. Luke had often expressed to her his desire and determination to make a success of his life. He had had the intelligence to do it, and the willpower. If he was the same person … She felt her heart leap like a salmon leaping upriver, and a wry smile twisted her mouth.
If he was, she doubted that he would be all that pleased to see her—if he remembered her. The summer had been spoilt for her when he had gone, but she had recognised that she had deserved to lose his friendship, and she hadn’t made any attempt to seek him out, fearing a further rebuff.
Now when she thought about him it was with a mingling of gratitude and embarrassment. He had been very kind to her. She squirmed a little with embarrassment at the memory of how she had asked him to teach her how to kiss, aware of her very contradictory emotions at the thought of seeing him again.
One part of her hoped that he had made a success of his life and achieved everything that he had wanted, while the other … Even now, she still blushed for her fourteen-year-old self.
She heard a car coming up the drive, and realised that her mother was on her way back.
David and Sophy arrived soon afterwards, Sophy exclaiming enviously over Gemma’s outfit.
‘You’re so lucky to be so tall and slim.’ She made a wry face. ‘I never manage to look elegant.’
Gemma could see the surprise in her mother’s eyes. She wasn’t used to