“Lets go to my room!” squeaked Angelica, a sentence that almost made Jamie trip over his own feet.
“Angelica! Who is this?”
A man stood there; a rather large man – a strong Irish accent - with his shirt and stomach tucked into his trousers, with a trimmed beard leading all the way around his mouth and up to his ears and chubby nose with a pair of lenses hooked onto the tip; a man who Jamie instantly assumed to be Angelica’s father.
“I’m Jamie sir,” he spoke, direct yet polite – his usual approach. He held out his hand for Angelica’s father to take it – her father, being cautious, examined it for a moment, and then pulled Jamie into a hug.
“Ahh welcome my boy!” he chuckled, patting Jamie hard on the back, “You’re a Bable boy aren’t you? Yes. What is it your father owns that I’ve heard of again?” he closed his eyes in concentration and unconsciously began to click his fingers to his thoughts “Oh it was um… it was uhh…”
“My dad has his own record company”
“Ahh yes that’s it” he smiled, his rosy cheeks nearly completely covering his eyes, “Well my lad, make yourself at home; alert our butler if there’s anything that you require”
Angelica pulled Jamie’s sleeve until her father called her as they reached halfway up the marble staircase
“And Angelica m’dear – take care of that boy for me would ya? We want to make a good impression on his father now don’t we?”
The manor house had a much more traditional era about it than Jamie’s chateau; built and finally furnished last week according to his parents’ specifications. Angelica’s house seemed to have been passed on from generation to generation, or, so Jamie suspected by the old golden-framed paintings of grumpy men or doll-like women.
“This house has been in our family for generations…” Jamie was right, “Of course we’ve refurbished things to the way we want it now, but it still belonged to our ancestors; they were all Lords and Ladies – on my mum’s side, but the deed became my fathers when he married my grandparent’s only daughter… my mum was our family’s last heir”
“I figured” Jamie said, reaching the next floor and admiring the old red patterned carpet beneath his feet; he wanted to look anywhere else except at Angelica’s face. He was already terrified of her father thinking that he was someone more than just a friend.
Down the long hallway, they came to Angelica’s room; everything was a glowing white with a touch of pink, stuffed with cupboards and built-in wardrobes and a translucent pink expensive looking sheet curtained over her four poster bed; her crowd of teddy bears all staring gormlessly at the en suite bathroom ahead. Beyond the pink plush rug, Jamie peeped into the bathroom and spied a similarly decorated bathroom; white with a touch of pink and a sparkly pink Jacuzzi to his far left; that influenced his choice of Christmas present greatly – not the sparkly pink part of course. All in all, the room reminded him of his sister’s room; only the ceilings were much higher, there was a very large vintage chandelier hanging above the bed, and there was a lot more things in it that he didn’t think people needed; like the slipper stand perched near the door.
Jamie watched as Angelica sat on the bed and patted the blanket as an invitation for Jamie to sit next to her; that only meant one thing to Jamie, and that thing certainly wasn’t a pat on the back. Jamie continued to scout the room, pretending as though he didn’t notice her eagerness. He politely asked to use her bathroom and locked himself in, like a moment in a horror film where the damsel in distress is running away from a rapist or some sort of serial killer. He slid down the door and brushed his sweaty palms into his trousers, another moment of her insistent yapping would most certainly drive him up the wall, but he still had a long while to go before he had an excuse to leave. Jamie lifted himself up to the sink and stared at himself in the mirror; usually at this point, the average teenager would primp themselves to look better; mask any blemishes or remove the tangles from their hair, but Jamie began to contemplate ways to make himself look worse – just to put her off. He scuffed up his hair with his hands, unbuttoned the top few buttons of his school shirt and pulled down his tie, but that was the best he could think of.
“Are you going to be long Jamie? I’ve got this new lingerie that I bought the other day and I think I may need your opinion on it”
Jamie shuddered, the sound of her voice stabbing him like nails down a chalkboard, but nonetheless, he came out of the bathroom and followed her to her walk-in dressing room where she hid her Ann Summers thongs and bras; Jamie was disgusted when she showed him the one with an ‘entry’ hole in the knickers and two tiny suction cups with ribbon floating off them for a bra – that was too much even for Jamie to think about.
“You don’t like them?” Angelica asked, nearly broken hearted by the look on Jamie’s face
“It’s not that” Jamie flushed, trying not to laugh “I like my girl in sexy lingerie like any other guy, but I also like to leave a bit to the imagination…”
“So does that mean you’re experienced?” Angelica bit her lip, and lowered her voice, fluttering her eyelashes and coming closer to her prey.
“Look Angie, I’ve sort-of got a girlfriend back in Cornwall…”
“I’ve never had an experienced man before…” Angelica continued, walking closer to her fancy – the guy with the sexy messy hair and the unbuttoned shirt – he had obviously made the effort to look like that while he was in the bathroom, and now he was playing hard to get.
“Angelica, you’re barely legal!” Jamie lectured, “You shouldn’t just give in to people-”
“That didn’t stop you…”
“I’ve learned my lesson…” Jamie began, a bit unnerved by how very close Angelica was getting to him. Jamie had lost his virginity, a long time ago. On top of that, before and in between breaks with Holly, he had slept with quite a few women for his age, all protected of course, but none the less, he was beginning to dwell on the fact that maybe it was more of a regret than a cool thing to do. “Someone just knocked on your door!”
Thankfully there was. The butler told Angelica that her mother and father wanted to see them both, and so, the disgruntled Angelica; both embarrassed and let down walked with the relieved Jamie down into one of the many rooms of the house to see her parents, who were stood at the piano with her younger sister.
“This is my other little flower” began Angelica’s father as they both walked into the room. Holding his youngest daughter by her arm, he introduced her as being Tiffany; a ‘brilliant singer with a beautiful voice’. Jamie knew where this was going. “Well” he began, “I was thinking that you could give her a listen and see if your father would be able to make me little girl a star”
Jamie examined her; the girl looked like an imitation of a Bratz doll; she looked much too old for a fourteen-year-old, her make up heavy and her belly-bar on show, but Jamie couldn’t say no could he?
“Sure” he smiled politely, sitting at the piano, “Tell me which song you’re going to sing and I’ll play along with you”
Jamie could see Angelica’s parent’s were impressed – he was handsome, rich and talented, although Jamie suddenly realised that’s not the impression he wanted to make; if he let his attention-seeking continue to take over, he could end up having a shotgun wedding if he wasn’t careful!
‘Hallelujah’ was the song she sang, a beautiful song that Jamie had heard many brilliant renditions of, a wonderful song that was sang at his cousin’s christening by a local choir – but she ruined it. The only thoughts that could enter his head was that he had to keep a straight face and keep playing, if he cocked up now, her father could kick him out of school and see to it that he could never learn anything about any thing ever again. She sounded as though she was being strangled or chocking on food of some sort, and yet, she incorporated her versions of sexy moans into her voice that sounded like some sort of frog croaking.
“Well what do ya think then lad? Has my daughter got a chance?”
Jamie, polite as always, began to reply, so charismatically, that he neither said yes or no
“Well at the moment, my dad is working very hard with Raddie Star and Chantelle May…” Jamie turned to Tiffany, who looked too cocky to care – she knew that she could be a popstar if she wanted to “But I’m sure if you ask my Dad very nicely he’d be able to”
The family were overjoyed. Jamie hadn’t even said yes, he knew his Dad well enough; he’d say he’d get onto it and then tell her that there was no room on the market at the moment for her type of music. Jamie had played this trick many times before to get girls to like him.