Read Cross Your Heart, Connie Pickles for Free Online Page B

everyone was shouting and the Electric B’stards started playing and I felt squeezed on every side.
    I wish I could say I loved the Electric B’stards. It would be nice to shepherd in the rebellious teenage years of Connie Pickles. Julie’s face was raised and her eyes were sparkling with excitement – it got so hot, her hair was sticking to her face – but I… I just kept feeling these irresistible yawns beginning at my jaw. Isn’t that awful? And, after a while, I slipped to the back where it was cooler and where the crowd was much looser and found a seat that no one was sitting on and took out the book that I’d smuggled into the pocket of my cagoule. I’m still reading The Blessing . I’ve got to the part where Sigi, the only child of Grace and Charles-Edouard, has managed to split up his parents. I’ve just realized he does the opposite to me – he’s an anti-matchmaker, I’m a matchmaker.
    Afterwards we went for fish and chips on the Fulham Palace Road. Uncle Bert seemed more relaxed once the gig was over. He has a handsome face and longish blond hair which he tosses a lot, but a rather scraggy neck. He gave us T-shirts with ‘Electric B’stards’ written across the back, and we put them on over what we were wearing. Sue seemed jolly too, though I did feel sorry for her sitting in a fish and chip shop with two teenage girls on Valentine’s Night. Uncle Bert didn’t do the thing with her waistband. No candlelight either. In fact, the glaring neon bouncing off the Formica table made her look tired. She was next to me and there was a yellowy dried powder over her face and spots of mascara like tiny, trapped flies in the corner of her eyes. She didn’t look so pretty after all, which made me feel guiltier about what we were doing to her. Particularly as Julie was ignoring her. I kept having to remind myself of Mother, who didn’t meet a lot of men in her line of work.
    I wasn’t eating because when Bert asked if I was hungry, I’d been too polite to say yes and then it would have been too embarrassing to change my mind. I watched Julie’s mouth crunching on delicious crispy batter. She asked me several more pointed questions about Mother and I tried to answer truthfully, but without slipping from The Plan. We had already discussed how important it was to bring out Uncle Bert’s protective instinct to make up for the fact that Mother was saddled with three children. I told them about the leaking tap in the bathroom and the water that comes in through the flat roof on wet nights and Mother’s long hours at work. Julie had been insistent that Uncle Bert discover the nature of Mother’s employment. She said she thought all men were tickled by the idea of fancy underwear. And actually it did seem to stir his interest. He’d just been jogging his knees and doing pretend-drum rolls on the table before then. ‘Belgravia?’ he said. ‘Very exclusive. And does she model what she sells?’ Sue said, ‘Oh, I should pop in one day. I’ve always wanted to be measured,’ and Julie gave her a withering look. It’s true that Sue (like me) is quite flat up top. Then Julie froze her face into a small, bored smile and looked away. I know she was dissing her for Mother’s sake, but I wonder whether she wasn’t also doing it a bit for her own sake too.
    Uncle Bert wanted to give Julie’s mum a call to say we were leaving, but when he felt in his jacket, he couldn’t find his phone! ‘Oh my God, I must have dropped it!’ he said.
    Julie, her eyes as wide as saucers, said she was sure she’d felt it jabbing into her when they were squashed up at the gig.
    ‘It must have fallen out of my pocket, or been nicked,’ he said. He looked at his watch (one of those enormous diving watches). ‘The Palais’ll be closed now. I’ll have to go back tomorrow. Bugger it.’ He frowned, his good mood wiped away.
    When we got in the car Julie squeezed my leg. ‘“Find” it tomorrow,’ she whispered.
    So, here I am