Free Namedropper by Emma Forrest Page A

revising. Manny has gone to buy the new Barbra Streisand album proclaiming her love for James Brolin.”
    â€œHe can’t be that worried,” I reasoned. I cleared my throat and spoke, as fast as I could, before he had a chance to pick up.
    â€œHi, Manny, it’s me. I’m not gallivanting. I’m walking at a measured pace and I’m wearing sensible shoes. I’m getting very important life experience. I can’t completely explain over the phone. I’m safe. Trust me on this one. It’s a good cause. I love you.”
    I realised as I hung up that the “I love you” was a bad move. It suggested a gun to my head, a tourniquet at my arm, last rites. Shit. “I’m safe,” I whispered, under sleepy, warm-wine breath. The alcohol was starting to hit. Please don’t let me be a crappy, girlie drunk.
    I didn’t quite know what was going to happen, or what was expected of me, but I felt in control. In awe but in charge. He wanted me there to balance himself, I sensed, to hold himself back from the edge of something. I didn’t yet know what. He just seemed lonely. The male equivalent of the girl so beautiful that no one asks her to dance. I perched on the edge of the bed to watch the end of the soap crackling through the TV. It was some late-night American import. Then I heard the water cut off. “God, please don’t make me have to look at him with a tiny towel around his midriff.” That’s when I realised that I was in love with Drew, this weird, skinny, Jew-fancying freak.
    He mustn’t do that to me. He mustn’t bring sex into this. “If he is wearing a towel,” I decided, “I’ll look away until he gets the message.” But it was worse, so much worse. Drew came out of the bathroom wearing white flannel pyjamas. His hair was tousled. He looked like a freshly laundered bunny rabbit. A fluffy chicken with jet black hair.
    He reclined on the bed. The single bed. The only piece of furniture in the whole damn room. Unless I sat on the floor I had to sit on the bed. But I was blocking his sight lines to the TV. Because we had only gone up there to watch TV, I took a deep breath and lay down next to him on the duvet. I sucked in my body so that not one hair on my arm touched his. I even pointed my toes away from his.
    â€œMay I take my shoes off?”
    â€œOf course.” He giggled.
    I was terribly aware that my feet smelled. But it would look too silly to put my boots back on.
    â€œBeatle boots.” He pointed at my shoes as he reached for the Vladivar.
    â€œAh, I s’pose so. I suppose so.” Enunciation. He’s so big on accents. It matters to someone like him. “They’re not supposed to be. I didn’t mean them to be.”
    It is terrible, the things clothes symbolise. You might have short legs and turn your jeans up and people might think it’s a fashion statement and you’re being pretentious.
    Drew watched the TV contentedly, as if it were not an American sitcom so bad it was being shown after midnight, but the finest Austen adaptation. His black eyes seemed to suck up all the light from the screen. The room was getting darker and darker, until only Drew’s face was lit up. Traces ofeye makeup remained despite his shower. Golden-brown shadow around his eyelids, with grey kohl along the lashes and sweeps of black mascara. He used the makeup to enhance his beauty. “So he must know,” I thought, smiling. He knew how pretty he was, so pretty that the straightest of straight Edinburgh lads felt fluttery when they saw him.
    He stroked his left arm, which was a mess of cigarette burns, thin white welts, and freshly healed scars. The incision he had made in front of the promoter had crusted over with black blood. His forearm looked like a work of modern art. There was something almost beautiful about it. The beauty of organised chaos. I tried not to look, but I couldn’t help it