Free Good Girls Don't by Claire Hennessy Page B

winks at me before going on.
    Lucy turns to me and rolls her eyes. “How is it that my mother thinks you’re a responsible person?”
    I shrug. “I have no idea. My mother thinks you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
    “We really should swap,” she muses.
    But I know she doesn’t mean it. Lucy and her mum get along really well. They go shopping together and they have long talks and share everything. I think it was the accident that brought them closer together. Before that, they were never really especially friendly.
    Of course, before that, Lucy was out of control. Parents don’t like that. They like their children to be following the rules and doing everything correctly. Step outside the lines and you’re letting them down, disappointing them, making them wonder why they ever became parents in the first place.
     
     

Chapter Thirty-Four
     
    I leave Lucy’s late in the evening. Her mum drops me home. I make a beeline for my room. I watch the rest of Amelie and consider whether setting a modern fairytale in Dublin would work – can anything filmed in Dublin be fairytale-like? The city looked pretty in About Adam , though, so I suppose you could make Dublin magical if you chose the right locations – before glancing at the Irish homework I’m supposed to do. If I were an organised person I’d do it now until of putting it off until tomorrow night. Or I’d have done it on Thursday, when we were given it. However, I’m not organised, so I leave it on the desk and stare at the walls instead. There’s a picture that Andrew took last summer of me, Barry and Lucy getting ready to go out one night.
    ***
    “Barry, hold still,” I ordered.
    “It’s hard to hold still when you’re poking me in the eye,” he said.
    “I’m not poking you in the eye!” I protested. “The idea is that it goes around the eye.”
    “And I don’t think you’re doing a very good job of it,” he told me.
    “Well, we saw what happened when you tried to put eyeliner on yourself,” I reminded him.
    “Let us not speak of that day.” Lucy giggled. She was painting his nails black.
    He groaned. “Maybe I should just not look stupid.”
    “You don’t look stupid,” I told him. “You look sexy. If anyone looks stupid, it’s Andrew.”
    “Hey!” Andrew protested.
    “I think he looks great in PVC,” Lucy said loyally.
    “See?” he told us.
    “Lucy’s your girlfriend. She has to say that,” I explained. “As your friend, I have to say – you look absolutely ridiculous.”
    “Look who’s talking! You’re making poor Barry wear make-up!”
    “I’m not making him do anything. Besides, he looks good.”
    Andrew pretended to cough, muttering, “Drag queen!”
    “I heard that,” Barry said.
    “Gender-bending is trendy,” I said. “Look at Brian Molko. Early Brian Molko, of course. Sex on legs.”
    “She’s got a point,” Lucy said, blowing on Barry’s nails.
    I handed Barry a mirror. “What do you think?”
    “Not bad,” he smiled.
    “Great.”
    “Smile!” Andrew said, holding up his camera.
    “Oh, put it away,” Lucy told him, hiding her face in her hands.
    “Are you going to carry that everywhere this summer?” I asked him.
    “Pretty much,” he shrugged.
    I groaned.
    “I’ll make you a copy of the pictures,” he promised.
    “Not much of a compensation for tormenting us for three months,” I told him.
    “Oh, just smile for the camera,” he said,
    Barry and I struck a pose, and Andrew clicked.
    ***
    So Lucy’s to the side, trying to get out of the way of the picture, and Barry and me are in our rock-star pose, all made-up and dressed to kill. I remember that night. We got hassled at the bus stop for looking weird, and then we went into town where half the people there were dressed “weirdly” and we were nothing special. We had a good time. We went to a club that played mostly what you’d call “alternative” music, I guess, although I didn’t think it was that alternative