The Chain (A Catherine Diary) - Stamfield. Complete

Chapter 37

37

'Hello'

'Hi', I said timidly.

'Catherine. You called', he knew it was me, he recognized my voice.

'How did you know it was me?', I asked a little flustered

'You're the only girl I've given my phone number to recently, that still comes up unknown', he must have lost his charm overnight, because that deflated me and I was forced to remind myself of my ulterior motives for ringing him.

'I was just ringing to check we were still on this evening'

'Sure! You at your friends barbecue?'

'Yeah, probably get away around......', I was distracted, by Gemma's two cousins, crouching under the stairs looking up women's skirts as they ascended and descended. 'idiots'

'What was that?', Jack said alarmed.

'Not you', a little white lie, 'it's some irritating boys here trying to look up skirts'

He chuckled, 'we all go through that phase', he had really mastered the craft of annoying me, 'I only gave it up when a girl who caught me peeking under her skirt grabbed me, shoved me in a cupboard and ordered me to pull my pants down, she said if I was going to get a look at her she wanted to see what I had'.

I was astounded, but also intrigued, 'what did you do?'

'Well, at first I struggled to get past her, but she was three years older than me...I was only eight at the time, eventually I gave up and pulled my trousers down, but she wasn't satisfied with that and made me pull my underpants down too, by that time I was in tears....'

'mmmm, continue', I was holding back my laughter, but he could hear it in my voice.

'You sound like your enjoying this too much', he said jokingly, 'it was really traumatic'

'I can bet', my laughter coming out in short bursts of giggles.

'Anyway, that's not the worse of it', he continued, enjoying the fact he was entertaining me, 'when she saw me, she burst out laughing and said "is that it?"'

Well for me that was it, I couldn't hold off the laughter any more.

'Okay, enough of the laughter', he said chuckling to himself on the other end of the line, 'you were going to tell me what time you were leaving the barbecue'

'Oh yes', I said, removing my vision of Jack with his pants down in tears out of my mind. 'I was saying that I'm probably leaving around seven this evening. If you give me time to get home and change, you could meet me around eight thirty'.

'What you wearing now?'

'This isn't some sort of sex talk on the phone', I said, my humor diminishing. I had spoken a little too loud and a elderly woman gave me a disgusted look before heading to the stairs. I had a slight wave of embarrassment, but submerged it with the disgruntlement I felt about the fact that she had been ease dropping on my conversation.

'I don't mean it that way. Just tell me what you're wearing'

'Jeans and a t-shirt', I answered abruptly

'You got a jacket with you?', he asked.

'Yes'

'Well that's fine, come as you are. Nobody's going to be dressed up'

'But I look a mess'

'It's a sixteenth birthday party, you think anyone's going to be dressed up?'

He sounded pretty certain and I had to remind myself why I was going out with him, so I conceded.

'Okay, meet me a my house at seven thirty'

'Cool', he said and hung up, without even a goodbye.