We simply looked at each other.
‘I guess … Can you help me try again?’ I said.
Jennifer’s mouth opened, closed and then widened into the beginnings of a smile and then closed again.
‘I cantryto help you try,’ she said. ‘Do youwantto try?’
‘Yeah, I do. But I can’t make any promises I’ll get it right.’
‘Well, I can’t make any promises either,’ she said.
‘So, maybe we can promise not to make any promises about trying to try to help each other work this whole thing out?’ I said with exaggerated confusion.
‘Yeah,’ said Jennifer crinkling her nose, ‘something like that.’
‘Cool,’ I said.
We would have hugged, but the table was in the way.
‘Your food’s gone cold,’ I said.
‘It was pretty gross anyway,’ she said, looking down at her congealed pasta.
‘So, can I ask, how was it?’
‘How was … ?’
‘Your Easter break,’ I said.
‘Do you really want to know?’
‘I really do.’
‘OK, well, night one, my sister arrives, we have dinner in this fancy seafood restaurant my parents love. They’re all talking about law school stuff and I make the announcement: I want to go to drama school. I swear to God, my mum actually dropped her fork, you know how you see it in a film and it’s supposed to be for dramatic purposes? Well, she actually did it! And they wonder where I get my talent for the dramatics from? Then Dadsaid, “How stupid, Jennifer, don’t say things like that, eat your monkfish.” I said that I was serious and I’m going to audition for RADA when I’m eighteen – it doesn’t mean if I get accepted that I’ll go but if I don’t try then I’ll never know and I’d regret it. My sister was absolutely loving all this, sitting there smirking, crunching on croutons from her salad. But it just goes to show how out of touch my parents are with me. They shot down the whole notion, said there’s absolutely no way they’d pay for anything to do with drama school, that I should put it out of my head, don’t bring it up again, there’s a good girl, Jennifer. Well, after that I more or less didn’t talk to them the whole two weeks and spent my time either reading in the back garden, studying in my room, but always having to attend the mandatory family dinner every evening that I’d eat quickly, excuse myself from and then go to my room to read some more.’
She paused. I blew out through my lips.
‘Well, you did ask,’ she said.
‘I did,’ I laughed.
‘Nothing else to tell, really, pretty miserable.’
‘Feel even worse about not phoning you back now.’
‘Well …’
‘And your sister’s away again?’
‘Yeah, off to be the daughter that Mummy and Daddy want her to be and I’ll be … well, I’ll just be whatever.’
‘But drama school isn’t off the cards, is it?’
‘I don’t know, I’ll just get through my A levels first. I’ll probably get a part-time job and save up all the money I need to travel to London and audition when I’m eighteen. I won’t even tell them, it’s clear they’re not interested in my happiness … right, no, I’m off again! Just stop me, Brendan, I want to hear all about your break, some good news, please!’
I told her all about our trip to Kilmare Forest Park and how it hadn’t ended as well as it started.
‘Goodness, poor Ronan,’ Jennifer said.
