chapter fourteen! the wee lesbian
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Loudly gossiping the teenagers came bundling through the Quinn's front door.
Usually when the hoard of teenagers invaded the Quinn home, instead of their own homes Mary Quinn defiantly had something to say about it.
But not today, Aoife could sense something was wrong with her auntie the minute the group stepped foot into the house.
This theory was confirmed when Mary met the group with a weird grin holding her scarcely filled washing basket.
Mary had quickly demanded the teenager's skirts, blazers, and ties. Finally been able to fill her half-load of dark washing, leaving Aoife and her friends were only in their white school shirts.
James had been struggling to meet Aoife's eyes after she'd shimmied out of her school skirt, exposing her bare legs and lacy pants and popped herself onto the counter. Aoife had been under pressure all day trying to finish the poster her parents had begged her to create for a live music night coming up in the pub.
"Hey! Let me look at that," Mary shouted at James, from where she sat peeling potatoes for dinner. James nervously glanced at his girlfriend, who often him a small smile before James timidly showed Mary the plate,
"You call that clean, do you?"
"Different standards, you see, Mary," Sarah sighed at her sister, pausing from painting her nails before turning to the boy, "You're not in England now, son."
"Orla was the one who washed it," James quickly defended himself.
"Oh, OK. OK," Orla started turning around from the sink, "I have had it with you, James, and your picking, picking, picking, and I won't take it anymore. Do you hear me?"
Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked over at Orla, with confused expressions on their face.
"Is everything OK, Orla?" James softly asked the girl.
"Orla?" Aoife asked, leaning forwards to look at the girl, James rushed over to his girlfriend, placing his hand on her knee trying to prevent her falling off the counter.
"I warned you, Orla. You're putting yourself under too much pressure," Sarah warned her daughter, shaking her head.
"Can't fail, mammy," Orla panicked, looking down at her feet which were moving without Orla realising.
"Since when have you been troubled by exams?" Erin snapped at her cousin.
"Erin! That's not very nice," Aoife scolded the blonde, capping her marker and scowling at Erin.
"Exams? What are you on about, Erin?" Orla questioned Erin, turning around to Erin.
"What are you on about, Orla?" Erin quickly got defensive, blinking as she looked at Orla.
"Step, step aerobics,"
"Orla has got really into step aerobics. Her instructor says she's a natural," Sarah explained to the others, "She says Orla has what it takes to go all the way."
"All the way in step aerobics?" Mary asked, confused what her sister meant. Was there such a thing as a career in step aerobics?
"But it's out of control now, Mary. She's stepping morning, noon and night. Apart from anything else, it's dangerous. She nearly came through the ceiling yesterday. Ook she might be gifted, but I want her to have a normal childhood," Sarah confessed,
"I won't give it up. I can't,"
"Listen to yourself, love," Sarah sighed, with a shake of her head.
Mary raised herself to her feet again, lifting her washing basket. James quickly realised what Mary was going to ask for now, and a blush covered his cheeks at the prospect of taking his shirt of or seeing a shirtless Aoife.
"Now, whites,"
• • • • • • •
Somehow weeknights were just as busy as weekends in O'Malley's Pub, luckily Aoife had gotten out of working at the pub that night.
Seamus and Eileen had decided that they would survive fine with just Conor, Orin and Orin's friend Lorcan. Granda Joe had volunteered to take Caoimhe and Imogen overnight at the Quinn's, leaving Aoife alone in the normally crammed flat.
Aoife had spent a while on the phone to Michelle, complaining that she was the only one in the flat tonight. Unknowing to Aoife, Michelle had mentioned this to James who had been working up the nerve to go over to see the girl.
Nervously, James had made his way across Derry and over to the family's pub. Ever since James had seen Seamus O'Malley burst into Sister Michael's office back on his first day James had been petrified of the man.
The pub was busy enough that James was able to sneak all the way back to the stairs before he was caught by Seamus.
"Who the fuck are you?" the deep Derry accent of Seamus made James freeze completely.
"Urh James-James Maguire," James stuttered out, slowly turning to look at the man who had appeared behind him.
"And what are you doing in my pub? Especially sneaking up to my flat?"Seamus grumbled, crossing his arms across his chest glaring down at the boy.
"I-I came to show something to Aoife," James mumbled, clutching the new CD he'd taken from Michelle, giving him a reason to visit the O'Malley flat.
"Seamus, whats the problem?" an older redheaded woman wondered over to the pair. James recognised the woman as Aoife's mother, Eileen.
"This wee fella is looking for Aoife," Seamus filled his wife in, a knowing smile crossed Eileen's face as she looked at James once more.
"Ahh, the wee English fella Aoife never shuts up about," Eileen smiled at the boy, ushering the boy away from her husband and closer to the narrow staircase up to the flat, "On you go, James."
James reluctantly nodded, racing up the stairs into the O'Malley flat and pushed the door open into the cosily decorated home.
"Aoife?" James called out, looking around the small family kitchen for the redhead.
The sound of a heavy door being pushed open, echoed through the quiet flat as Aoife walked out of her bedroom to find out who was calling her. James' eyes shot up and looked around for the direction it had come from.
"James?" Aoife's sweet voiced snapped James out of his own world, "What are you doing here?"
"You look beautiful," James beamed, completely forgetting why he'd walked across town when he saw the short girl in her pastel stripped pyjama short set.
"That's no answer," Aoife shook her head, trying to ignore the heat creeping up her neck.
"Michelle said you were alone and bored," James answered, smiling at the girl,
"I thought we could watch teenage mutant ninja turtles. I know you wanted to watch it and it was at the tape place in town."
"Really?" Aoife smiled as James pulled the tape from behind his back with a bright smile.
Aoife rushed to James with a bright smile, standing on her tip toes and smashing her lips onto James'.
Every kiss with him felt perfect, they seemed to make every problem Aoife was facing disappear. Even if it was just as simple as her maths homework being incomplete.
• • • • • • •
"I can't believe your ma turned our shirts pink,"
Aoife grumbled the next day as the group sat around the newspaper office at Our Lady Immaculate. Erin had recently become editor of the schools's magazine.
"OK. Right. OK. How do I do a new line again?" James wondered out loud as he stared at the computer in front of him.
"Return," Aoife answered, scribbling away at the cartoon strip Erin had asked her to do for the school magazine.
"Jesus, James. How many times?" Michelle snapped, moving away from the cut out.
"Return," James nodded, hitting the button on the machine.
"I can't understand," Clare exclaimed, glaring down at the photocopier-printer, kicking and shouting at it, "Come on!"
"Seriously? Will you be quiet? I'm trying to get my creative juices flowing over here," Erin snapped at Clare again, who just continued to shout.
"OK. You're gonna have to never say that sentence again," Michelle grimaced at Erin, stubbing out her cigarette into an abandoned plant in the library.
"Enough. Come on. We need to make a call on our late story," Erin demanded, Aoife pushed her self off the desk she was sat on and joined the rest of the group at the blackboard.
"So, let's - would you stop doing that, please?" Erin asked her cousin, who was busy practicing her step aerobics routine.
Orla shook her head, continuing with her routine, "I can't let my heart rate drop, I'm afraid, Erin."
"Let's just run through some of our favourite ideas. So, firstly animals," Erin read out to the group from the list scribbled on the blackboard.
"Animals. Can someone elaborate?" James asked not sure what Erin wanted to write about animals.
"You can't possibly write much about animals, Erin," Aoife added, completely uninterested in the idea.
"Yeah. So, this concept would focus on animals, alongside pictures of famous people who look a bit like animals," Erin explained, to her confused friends.
"OK, right, animals. Er, what's the next one? Shoes of the-" James started reading off the next item.
"Shoes of the world, And that involves?" Aoife questioned, scrunching her eyebrows.
"So, this piece would concentrate on different shoes from around the world, sitting alongside pictures of, you know, different shoes from around the world," Erin rambled, off like a crazed person,
"So, like in Russia, they wear boots because - "
"Cause it's baltic," Michelle cut in, before allowing Erin to carry on.
"In India they wear sandals because -" Erin continued, despite the disgusted look from her friends.
"It's boiling,"
"So, that's it?" James asked the blonde who just nodded.
"Thoughts?" Erin asked, looking around at her friends.
"They're both boring as fuck," Aoife spoke up, breaking the stunned silence that had fallen over the group.
"Oh my God," Erin moaned, spinning and looking at the blackboard,
"They're shit.They're absolutely shit. How can we print this utter shit?"
"Don't panic," James reached out, nervously patting Erin's shoulder, hoping to calm the girl down.
"Don't panic? Don't panic, James? Shoes of the world. What does that even mean?" Erin shouted.
"Yeah, we're fucked," Michelle nodded, as Aoife and Clare murmured in agreement.
"No, it's okay. It's gonna be okay. We just need to change our approach slightly," Erin stuttered before stomping over to the writing competition entry box.
"The writing competition?" Clare asked in panic, as Erin opened the box and emptied it onto the table.
"Exactly. There's bound to be something in here we can steal. We can just steal something, and we'll just steal someone's idea and we'll pass it off as our own," Erin suggested to her friends, grabbing one of the entries.
"Journalistic integrity at its finest," James sarcastically nodded.
"Searching for myself? What a load of balls," Michelle sneered at the paper in her hand.
"Oh my God," Erin whispered, leaning over Michelle's shoulder and reading the entry, "Let's see, 'suffocation: the secret life of a gay teenager'. It's anonymous."
The girls gaze snapped to James, who sighed quick to defend himself, "It wasn't me."
"He's not gay," Aoife quickly jumped in, Michelle furrowed her eyebrows at her best friend's response.
Aoife and James hadn't told any of their friends about their kiss at Jenny's party or the fact that James had asked her to be his girlfriend.
"No. This was written by a girl. A real-life lesbian walks among us," Erin breathed out in awe, continuing to scan the entry.
"I don't really believe in lesbians," Orla spoke up, finally stopping with her step aerobics.
"This is perfect. We'll just print this," Erin triumphantly grinned.
"Come on, Erin, you can't do that," Clare stuttered out, tried to convince Erin.
"Why not?" Erin asked, furrowing her eyebrows.
"We'll get in trouble, real trouble, big trouble," Clare panicked, beginning to hyperventilate.
"You're not afraid of a bit of controversy, are you?" Erin asked the shorter blonde.
"Actually, yes, I am," Clare admitted, Aoife glanced at Clare noting the fear on her face, "Something like this could go on our permanent record, Erin."
"Clare's right Erin I'm not sure about this," Aoife spoke up, quickly coming to Clare's defence.
"And what's more important, Clare? Your permanent record, or telling this poor girl's story?" Erin snapped at Clare, growing fed up of the nervous girl.
"My permanent record. Count me out," Clare dismissed before storming out of the office.
Aoife offered James a quick smile before grabbing her bag and discarded blazer before rushing after Clare, "I'm with Clare on this one."
Erin huffed, shaking her head, "Fine. Well, this issue of The Habit will go down in history. In history, I say!"
• • • • • • •
Orla had been excitedly telling Aoife about her upcoming talent show act all week ready to show case her step aerobics talents to the rest of the school. Aoife had pinky promised Orla that she would sit in the best seats in the hall to see her cousin's performance.
According to Clare, they needed to sit as far away from Kiefer Callahan as they could. Recently, Clare had moved away from Erin in their shared French class and had the unfortunate luck to sit next to Kiefer, who reeked of piss.
Aoife and Clare had taken their seats in the third row from the front, and not long later James had bravely decided to sit with them instead of Erin and Michelle.
After a couple of terrible acts, Aoife had begun to get bored and had started doodling on James's hand. Aoife's attention snapped away from her doodling when she heard Orla's name called.
Orla stepped onto the stage in her colourful outfit.
"What a dick," a third year laughed a couple rows back from Aoife and Clare heckling the curly haired girl.
The rest of the hall burst into laughter, Orla took a deep breath before starting her routine refusing to care that everyone was laughing at her.
"She may be a dick!" Erin pushed herself to her feet, "But she's my dick!"
Clare quickly copied Erin's actions, her gaze lingering on the other blonde, "Actually, she's our dick!"
Clare and Erin shared a smile before making their way up to the stage.
Aoife let out a giggle and laced her hand with James' leading him up to join Orla on the stage.
The group joined Orla on stage, laughing as they copied Orla's moves dancing along with the eccentric McCool girl.
And in that simple moment of friendship, there was no Troubles just them.