The Bad Karma Diaries (17 page)

Well that kicked off necking time. Soon the usual couples were draped round the place. Anna sloped off with Carl. I went up to Heeun. She was looking happy and I could see why because it was a successful party. Soon as J.P. arrived it was guaranteed success.

She said, ‘Oh. Ben’s turn for music.’

I looked and he was actually dancing like crazy to Michael Jackson. So I said, ‘Let’s wait till he notices.’

She said, ‘Yes, because I think if we start pogo-ing, someone will be injured’ and we giggled. I was looking round for David Leydon though. He hadn’t arrived. I don’t know who Heeun was looking round for. I hadn’t asked her.

Then after a bit Ben came up to Heeun, and said, ‘Hey, my go on the decks now’ and she smiled and said, ‘Yes, Ben’ and went up and he changed places with Caroline and her friends and soon we were all leaping about totally unrhythmically, but with loads of energy and it was mad fun.

Heeun’s method was working brilliantly. We’d been getting sick of Caroline’s pop dance tunes, we wanted something mental.

So there I was chucking myself round the floor and bumping –
bang
!
– deliberately into Ben so he’d send me flying –
bang!
–
into Pierce (very brave of me!) and even J.P. had laid off necking Celine to join in the scrum – boom! boom! boom! – and all of us leaping and sweating like crazy, when I saw come in the door David Leydon and Derek and Brian and that guy, Hallowe’en Boy – Keith – that we’d met in town that day party shopping. So my heart leapt and I thought
great!
and kept on jumping about but keeping an eye on them and I saw they surrendered immediately to the wild atmos and flung their coats on the floor so they could join in. Even David Leydon did and he is usually a stand-offish kind of a person.

At that moment Anna came up and shouted in my ear, ‘I’ve broken up with Carl!’

I shouted back, ‘Oh!’ and then, ‘Why?’ and she shouted, ‘I’m fed up of him!’

I could think of a lot of things to say but I just yelled sarcastically, ‘Well, this makes a change!’ and she looked a tiny bit cross, but then she began to laugh because, really she had to admit,
what
change did it make? I guess she had to break up with him in a party because that’s the only time she speaks to him. So then I went
thud
into her and sent her flying and then I saw J.P. go
thud
into her and I was jealous, of course I was. Imagine being flung into the middle of next week by J.P.!

But then –
bang!
– I was sent flying by Derek and –
bang!
– I sent myself flying into David Leydon, and now the dancefloor was actually getting dangerous because with David and the others there were far more boys on it than girls and nobody was
holding back and the good thing was at least I was wearing Doc Martens not ballet slippers because all the girls in ballet slippers had had to retreat for fear of getting their feet stamped and then I saw Anna was on J.P.’s shoulders! His white t-shirt was drenched with sweat. If she put her hands down she could have felt his greasy hair, but she was waving them in the air, and he was rocking her about, and then –
wooah
– I felt myself lifted up, up and I was on Pierce’s shoulders which if not very exciting shoulders to be on were at least
safe
shoulders, being so wide, and we were rocking up and down and going –
thud
– into J.P. and Anna, and I was pushing Anna as I thudded into her and we were having
hysterics
laughing and then it was all the craze – J.P. had started it – the dancefloor was full of girls on boys’ shoulders, and all the girls in ballet slippers were back in the game because now their feet were safe, and we were charging into each other. Heeun was on Ben’s shoulders. But I checked – David Leydon didn’t have anyone on his shoulders (good).

And then, just like that, we all calmed down. Which may have been because a) J.P. stopped and lowered Anna to the floor, or b) the music changed and Ben put on something else which just didn’t do it for us, or c) we were all exhausted, especially the boys carrying us, so we all went off to get beer (J.P.) and coke (the rest of us).

Straight off David Leydon and Derek and Keith came over to me and Anna, and Keith said, ‘Cool party,’ and Derek said,
‘Yeah, where’s the parents?’

We chatted on like that. Keith was definitely chatting Anna up, it was like when we met in town, but much more obvious. Then Ben put on ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ which is an All Time Classic and we wanted to dance to that and we’d cooled down by now so we hit the dance floor and jumped around. There were a lot of people jumping round but I couldn’t see J.P. anywhere.

After a bit I saw Myung – the nanny/housekeeper/pseudo mum – was talking intently to Heeun and Heeun was looking quite upset so I went over.

Heeun said, ‘Oh Denise …’ and then quietly, ‘Myung has had to throw J.P. out.’

I said, ‘Oh my God! Why?’

Heeun said, ‘He was upstairs in the salon, going through the cabinets.’

My jaw dropped open. I was totally totally shocked. This was an unbelievable way to behave. Stealing! And it didn’t seem like J.P. He’s up for it, for fun I mean, but he’s not like a criminal. And then, suddenly I knew, ‘He was looking for booze,’ I said in relief, ‘not stealing!’

Heeun looked confused.

‘Drink,’ I explained, in case booze was not a word that people in Korea used, ‘he was looking for your dad’s beer or whiskey or something. He wasn’t trying to steal your precious ornaments!’

She said ‘Oh,’ and started speaking Korean to Myung. It sounds a very strange language.

Heeun turned back to me, ‘Myung says it is still stealing … and he is too young to be drinking
booze
.’

‘Right,’ I said, ‘Myung is right, but …’ I turned to her ‘Of course you had to throw him out,’ I said earnestly, ‘but looking for booze is not the same as stealing, really it’s not, I mean you don’t have to call the police or anything!’

I must have looked incredibly worried and this must have looked incredibly stupid – the combination of my worried face with my punky hair maybe – because suddenly Myung started to giggle and then Heeun caught on and they were both giggling at me.

‘Oh Denise,’ said Heeun, ‘of course we aren’t going to call the police!’ and ‘The
police
!
’ said Myung, going off into peals, as if I’d suggested calling in Darth Vader’s storm troopers, so then I began to giggle too, though I didn’t know why.

Heeun said, ‘Myung is not even going to tell my parents, right?’ and she looked pleading/super charmingly at Myung but Myung said, ‘Oh yes, so sorry, must tell your parents,’ and Heeun sighed but didn’t argue it.

I went back to the dancefloor where by now there were excited huddles, saying; ‘J.P!’ – the word had got round. The most excited was clustered round Celine who was looking tearful and righteous and self-important. I looked round to tell Anna and I couldn’t see her. I couldn’t see her anywhere. And I
couldn’t see Keith either!

And then Derek came up and we chatted for a bit about J.P. and Derek said thoughtfully, ‘It’s not really on to steal from your friends’ parents’, so I said, ‘No, but obviously you could if they
weren’t
your friends!’ and he got that I was being sarcastic and laughed. When he’d finished laughing, he gulped and said, ‘Do you want to come outside?’

I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Outside. Do you want to come outside?’

I was thinking,
hmm, outside, okay, see the gardens, probably Heeun has big gardens
, but there was something about the way he was asking … nervous or something … and then he said, ‘Anna and Keith have gone outside’ and I looked up and his enthusiastic dark-brown eyes were shining hopefully at me like I was going to let him play a great game, so
then
I got it, and I acted totally instinctively.

I said, ‘I’ve just got to sort something for Heeun,’ and I moved off, really fast, leaving him standing there.

My heart was beating very fast.
Derek
wanted me to go outside with him! I had no idea of this. Shouldn’t you have an idea? I had never even thought about him like that. I hardly thought about him at all. He did not give me a shivery dreadful feeling like Carl, and he did not give me excited goosebumps like J.P., he did not make me feel irritated and cruel like Declan did, and he did not intrigue me like David Leydon … the only thing he made me feel was friendly. I didn’t want his shiny
enthusiastic eyes to turn sad, that’s all. I was glad I hadn’t looked at them when I moved off.

Oh, where was David Leydon? Was he asking a girl to come outside?? I looked around and he was leaning against the wall, shoulders slumped, so I went over and said, ‘Hey. Have you heard about J.P?’

He said, ‘Uh-huh. Stupid him getting caught.’

I said, ‘Yeah!’ but somewhere inside I did not like this remark – it was a kind of a try-hard remark. I started telling him about how I’d been afraid they’d call the police, but they weren’t going to, and he was nodding, and we were having a conversation, definitely, but that’s all it was. He never moved from his (admittedly cool but also try-hard) stance leaning against the wall, and he never really volunteered any information. He just reacted to what I said. As usual. Which gets exhausting. There was no chance of him asking me (or anyone else I didn’t think) outside.

Luckily I was rescued from this actually quite desperate situation. I looked up and two new adults had come in and were talking to Heeun. They were very well-dressed.

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Heeun’s parents. I’d better say hello.’ So David Leydon just stared ahead with his usual unimpressed expression and probably he was thinking, ‘whatever’ in disgust at my creeping up to parents, but I was staying in their house and Heeun needed some help with the J.P. situation and anyway I was done standing and babbling to David Leydon, so up I went
to be introduced. Heeun’s mother was really pretty and seemed nice too. Her father was a bit scary. He looked like he’d be impossible to talk to. They looked around and they looked a bit confused and for a moment I saw the party through their eyes, all these kids, some of them very strangely dressed, jumping around to totally unrhythmic music. Probably they’d thought all the girls would be in pretty dresses like Heeun and all the boys would be in … chinos (or something ambassador-like) and we’d be doing ballroom dancing (or something ambassador-like).

Anyway then after a bit the other parents began to arrive, and people were leaving and soon it was just me and Anna and Heeun. But I like the end of parties. We made some toasted sandwiches and we had a lot to talk about. I said to Anna, ‘so is Keith your new boyfriend then?’ She said, ‘Maybe…’ I told them about Derek. I didn’t necessarily want to. I quite like keeping things like that to myself but I had to have something to tell them. Heeun said, ‘Oh Denise! But he is quite hunky, I think.’ So then Anna and I got such laughing fits we choked over our sandwiches –
hunky
, where the hell had she got that word? When we calmed down, I said, ‘I dunno what I think about him.’ Anna said, ‘well maybe you should give it a try.’ That is her philosophy, for sure. Like I said, she is pragmatic and unromantic, and ready to experiment. But I am romantic and I wonder – is there any point kissing someone if they don’t give you goosebumps?

Phheww!
My hand is exhausted from writing all that. It is a pretty comprehensive account. So now I have to think what to write on the blog. Not a comprehensive account, and not tonight anyway …

The boys
do
all fancy Heeun! It is going round the class. I don’t why it took them so long to realise this. Maybe she is a slow-burner, not like Celine who was an instant hit? Or maybe when they saw her in her very pretty dress in her very big house, they realised they all fancied her? I don’t know, but anyway, they know now. So as a result Caroline Hunter is all over Heeun. But since me and Anna got to her first, Heeun has no time for Caroline Hunter. She (Heeun) is being (typically) modest about all this attention. Probably now she can go out with any boy she wants to (except J.P. – because he doesn’t go out with people, and somehow I think that she is not his type).

We went back to Heeun’s to write the blog. We couldn’t write it in Anna’s because of being rumbled, and obviously I’d prefer to go to Heeun’s then mine. Heeun’s is cool; there is loads of delicious food, and it is so big and tidy, it makes you feel light and floating. We have let Heeun in on the blog, seeing as she is our friend. Of course there were more notices posted up today and some of them were quite menacing.

Pippa:

It’s only a party girls, get over it, get out of bed, and fill us in.

ZeeZee:

So what? Spill the beans. How bad can it be? So – oooh! – you kissed someone’s toe?

(Weird! Why
toe
?)

Others were kinder:

Come on, we’re all agog …

CuriousinDenver

but all were insistent.

Heeun giggled, ‘Oh, they are like teachers looking for homework!’ This was somehow a quite cute image.

‘Like vampires, more like,’ said Anna darkly, ‘sucking our blood …’ but we thought we’d better give them what they wanted to shut them up. So this is what we wrote:

Sorry for not updating you. Truly we were exhausted and also we had to do more community service on Sunday (remember that?)

So the party was in our friend Hefto’s house

[blurred photo of Heeun. Anna and I think it’s
hysterical
that Heeun’s predictive-text name is ‘Hefto’. You can’t imagine anyone less hefty!]

and it was pretty mental

[photo of the dance floor which Anna had taken with her phone from J.P.’s shoulders so it was the tops of people’s heads,
pretty cool!]

Demise looked punk

[photo we took of back of my head with its punky hair]

and Hefto looked angelic

[photo of Heeun’s dress, just the skirt bit]

and Bomb looked just exactly the same as usual!