‘You can’t just give him away,’  said Eddie, sounding appalled. Secretly she felt thrilled, and of course guilty.  All her senses had suddenly snapped to full alert, tuned themselves into the world around her, turned up the volume in every possible way.  The smell of tired chip fat overwhelmed her as she gripped the cold edge of the table.  The autumn sun burned more brightly, pointing a shaft of golden light into the half-empty bowl of soup on the worn formica.  A girl at a nearby table shrieked with laughter and Eddie really really wanted to strangle her. 

Alicia shrugged and returned her attention to the soggy salad in front of her.  ‘No, of course I can’t.  But you two would make a much better couple.’  She looked up briefly.  ‘You’re still mad about him, aren’t you?’

Eddie squirmed in her seat.  ‘I like him. You know that.’

‘Sometimes I wish I’d held back a bit at that party.  Let you have first go.’

Now Eddie squirmed on the inside too.  A large portion of her protested wordlessly that she would not want to be second best, only ever chosen if the tastier dish was taken off the menu;  at the same time another deeper part of her really didn’t care how when or if, just as long as she could have the boy.  In an even more remote corner of her mind (one that she avoided whenever possible, especially after dark), crouched the secret conviction that she deserved to be second choice; forever; in every possible way.

‘This is a ridiculous conversation,’ she said, frowning.  ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with you.  Felix absolutely adores you.’

Alicia sighed and stopped poking her salad with a fork.  ‘That’s the whole problem.   Adore me is all he does.  He just sits there and adores me.   It’s really not a whole lot of fun.’

‘What do you mean?’ 

It was meant to be one of those filler questions that serves to keep a conversation going while you’re trying to figure out if you actually want to be having it.  Eddie only realised her mistake when Alicia leant across the table and answered the question rather explicitly.

‘I think he’s a virgin.’

A hush fell over the room and all heads turned in their direction, just in time to see Eddie blush furiously, as if her own lack of experience had been betrayed to the world. - Well, that’s what it felt like.  Actually she looked around to find no heads turned at all and waves of conversation washing across the canteen as before.

‘I don’t believe you,’ she said, shaking her head.

‘Well, we’ve been together since the week after the exams – that’s four months now, and he hasn’t even tried anything more than kissing yet.  Not even – well, you know.  Of course I don’t know what he got up to before we…’

‘God, no!’  said Eddie.  ‘Just stop!  I didn’t mean I don’t believe that he’s – ’ she lowered her voice – ‘a virgin.’  Deep breath.  ‘Just, I don’t believe you’re discussing it like that.  You are so casual!’

Alicia shrugged again.  ‘That’s exactly what I mean.  You take that kind of thing seriously – just like he does.  You’d be really good together.’  She glanced at her watch.  ‘Come on,  we’ve got life drawing.  I’m going to make that new model look really fat today.’

*

Eddie felt sick for the rest of the day – a good sick, if that isn’t too odd a concept – the kind of sick that you last got when you still believed in Father Christmas, or when you got so excited the night before your birthday that you couldn’t sleep at all.  Her stomach twisted and leapt about; or perhaps it was her heart.  Hard to tell, everything inside her felt jumbled up, tangled together, hot and mad and bright.  Thoughts, feelings, fantasies and sensations boiled and bubbled through one another without arriving at any kind of sense or understanding.

Felix was nearly available again. 

She had another chance. 

Crap; she had no chance – he only had eyes for Alicia.

But perhaps…

His mouth on hers. 

His hands moving –

‘Psst, wake up.’  The skinny guy with the strange hair prodded her shoulderblade with a pencil. ‘Quinn’s giving you the evil eye.’

Eddie promptly dropped her charcoal stick.  When she bent down to retrieve it, she noticed that her hands were shaking.  While daydreaming, she had somehow covered her sheet of paper in smudges without drawing a single line.  She drew the back of her hand across her damp forehead and sighed.

 On the raised platform in the centre of the studio, the model had gone through a few quick poses, all of which Eddie had either missed or messed up.  Now she was draped lazily across a mattress, head propped up on one elbow.

In the corner sat their tutor, Ms Quinn, cynically observing how the spottiest of the boys took particular care in sketching the girl’s firm round breasts.  She disapproved of this model’s conventional sensual good looks.  Admittedly, they kept the class disciplined and quiet – the only sound right now was the scritching of charcoal sticks on sugar paper – but her curves made the plainer female students feel inadequate, and stopped the male students from concentrating on the quality of line and shadow.

Ms Quinn folded her arms across her (adequate) chest and narrowed her eyes in disapproval.   ‘Negative spaces,’ she shouted helpfully into the class.  ‘Look at the negative spaces.’

Eddie winced.   She had too many negative spaces inside her that she really didn’t want to be looking at.  Sometimes she felt as if she was composed entirely of negative spaces, with only a few thin lines of actual personality to hold her together like some inefficient spiderweb.

*

‘That’s it, folks, time’s up!’ called Ms Quinn, clapping her hands together as if they were an unruly infant class.   A couple of the boys started leaning in the model’s direction, but their tutor stepped in briskly, handing a tattered dressing-gown to the girl. 

‘Shoo,’ she said to the awkward admirers.

‘Well, that was fun,’ said Alicia, brushing the charcoal dust off her hands.  ‘Much better than Leaky Pete.’

‘What?’

‘You know.  The last model we had.  Older guy, pot belly – hairy nostrils.’

‘Eurgh,’  said Eddie.  ‘Let’s get Roslyn and go for a coffee or something.’ 

‘You’ve got charcoal smudges on your nose,’  Alicia pointed out.   She leant forward and examined her friend’s face more closely. ‘And on your forehead.  And on both cheeks.  As a matter of fact, it’d be quicker if I told you about the clean bits.’

Eddie stuffed the unfinished messy drawings into her portfolio.  She knew from experience not to tear them up in front of Ms Quinn;  it had got her a sharp lecture on how to keep a record of one’s progress so that one could learn from one’s mistakes.  Well, she had learned from that mistake and always destroyed her pictures in private now.

They found their friend on the lawn outside the Performing Arts block, pirouetting in the September sun, hair fanning out in a shiny copper wheel, skirt twirling around her legs as if trying to trap and trip her.

‘Can’t,’  she said when they asked her to wander into town with them.  ‘But you could come shopping with me.  Redmond gave me a list of stuff to get for an extra special anniversary dinner, and I’ve never even heard of half the things.  What are arty choke-hearts?’

‘A kind of corset,’ said Alicia.  ‘Whalebone and ivory and other bits of endangered species.  You serve them with an apple in your mouth.’

‘What anniversary?  I thought you just had one,’  asked Eddie.

Roslyn laughed out loud.  ‘It’s Friday.  We met on a Friday.  Any excuse for a celebration.’  She winked suggestively at her friends. 

‘Fine, we’ll just have us a ball without you then,’  said Alicia.  ‘By the way, Roslyn, I thought of a really neat job for you.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘Life modelling.  We just had a session of that, Eddie and I.  It’s a nice easy job, would suit you down to the ground.  You’d be pretty good at the lying-still lark.  I really don’t know why you would  want to bother with acting when you can make money on your back.  – Oh, you know what:  there’s another profession that works just like that.’

‘Hey,’ said Eddie sharply.  ‘Don’t start.’

Roslyn shrugged.  ‘Water;  duck’s back;  off.’

‘My, you’re laid back today,’ said Alicia.  ‘Oops, there I go again – laid back – get it?’

Roslyn laughed, showing her even white teeth.  ‘You’re just jealous.  -  Sorry, can’t hang about, meeting Redmond.  See you later, guys.’  Off she went, rust-coloured skirt swinging around her ankles.

*

‘Damned thing is, she’s right,’  said Alicia.  ‘I am jealous.’

‘What – because of Redmond?’ asked Eddie incredulously.  ‘He’s ancient!  Got to be at least, oh, thirty.’

‘Thirty-six.  And no, not jealous of him, as such.  Just how – contented she is.  Like a purring cat on a lap, all the time.  And that bloody earth mother type act she has going now.’

‘It’s not an act.’

‘Whatever.  It winds me up.  She wasn’t like that before Redmond.  She used to be – normal.  Insecure.  One of the girls.  Now she’s all shiny;  half of a couple;  doesn’t need her friends anymore.  Nothing bothers her. Boyfriends don’t seem to have that effect on me.’

‘Is that what you want, then?  Not to need your friends anymore?’

Alicia rolled her eyes. ‘That’s not the point.  Don’t make everything about you.  I just envy how contented she is.  I’d like a slice of that bliss, is all.  Be so in love with someone that nothing else matters.’

This was fast turning into another conversation that Eddie did not want to get into.  She knew a lot more than was good for her about being so much in love that nothing else mattered. 

‘Sorry, Al, I can’t do coffee either.  Just remembered that  I’ve got to get some books from the library for that essay.’

A straight hard look from Alicia made it clear that she recognised the excuse, but at least she didn’t argue. 

‘Of course.  That essay.  The one about disloyalty and betrayal.  Fine;  I’ll see you tomorrow.’

Out of pure bloodymindedness, though, she stayed by Eddie’s side all the way back into the main building, forcing her to actually turn into the library when really she had aimed for a solitary stroll through the park.

Meekly, Eddie pulled a random book from the shelves, just in case Alicia was watching, and carried it to a table at the far end of the room.  Great. Romantic art in the 19^th century.  It fell open at a page on Caspar David Friedrich, with a picture of a lonely traveller surveying a misty mountain landscape.  Although not at all to Eddie’s tastes, it somehow seemed significant, a good omen even.  She stared at the reproduction until the painted fog filled her mind.

She pushes up through the cool, damp, soft shrouds and emerges at the mountain top. The lonely traveller turns and gazes at Eddie.  He is, of course, Felix – even though the old-fashioned green coat and walking-stick look slightly odd on him.  He holds out a hand and invites her to join him on his lonely rock.  When she steps forward, he puts his arm around her and pulls her so close to his chest that she can feel the calm, slow beat of his heart.  If she lifts her face to his, then surely he will kiss her, tenderly and slowly.  But the fog rises once more, squeezes between them, cooling their passion and dampening their ardour.

This particular fog has Alicia’s face. 

‘Damn,’  muttered Eddie and closed the book with a sudden thud.

*

The sun was already low in the sky but the air was still pleasant and mellow.  Little puffy clouds hung in the blue sky; picture postcard weather.  Eddie stopped on the stone steps and lifted her face to the warmth, briefly closing her eyes.

‘You look like a sunbathing cat,’  said a voice in her ear.  Eddie, startled, twisted around but stopped in mid-turn, paralysed by the sudden realisation that Felix stood only inches away from her.  She could feel his breath on her cheek.   Her pulse broke into a frenzied gallop.  A wave of heat rose from her stomach and engulfed her.

‘Oops, didn’t mean to make you jump,’ said Felix, but his grin told a different story.  ‘Go on, you can untwizzle yourself again.  Wouldn’t want you to get stuck like that, facing the wrong way.  You’d never be able to go out for a meal again.’

Eddie closed her mouth, and tried to move her body into a comfortable, casual position, but it seemed to have forgotten what comfort was.

‘Not that you look as if you go out for meals anyway,’ added Felix to fill the awkward silence.  ‘Or as if you stay in for them.  You probably just hang from the ceiling and catch the occasional fly.’

A pang of upset shot through Eddie’s already afflicted heart.  She could feel her lip quiver, unable to stop it. 

‘Sorry, that came out all wrong,’  said Felix.  He had noticed her distress!  He was actually paying attention, and cared how he made her feel!  ‘I just meant that you look awfully thin.  And pale.  And there’s the black clothes thing, too.  Not that you actually resemble a bat.’

He stopped himself and narrowed his eyes, studying Eddie’s face very thoroughly.  ‘You busy tomorrow?’

Her insides went into even stronger convulsions, and her outside reddened visibly.  ‘I’ve got a couple of paintings to work on…’ she mumbled, frantically trying to calculate the correct balance of not appearing too eager while still remaining available.

‘I’ll pick you up at ten,’  said Felix decisively. 

‘What are we – where we going?’

‘Surprise.  You’ll find out when we get there.’