Tell Me Everything by Sarah Salway Page A

into the phone and someone miles away hears their voice, but what they don't realize is the hundreds of other people those noise waves have to go through in order to get to the right one. All those other words they've picked up on the way. That's why we're always talking. You just have to train yourself to listen.”
    I said it made sense. That was the stupid thing. What Tim had just said made perfect sense. Before I followed him back, I put my ear back against the wall. I could swear I heard a giggle and then a series of random words—horse, field, bikini—prickling through my skin. It was as if I was joining in the conversation, a dowsing wand between both speaker and listener.
    Tim and I fought our way back through the undergrowth in silence until we reached the bench. And then, as I was about to say something about his theory or just say anything because I wanted it to be only our words we heard between us, he kissed me.
    T he next night in Miranda's hair salon, Edith Piaf seemed to be the only person regretting nothing as Miranda cursed under her breath. She was struggling to perfect her backcombing technique on my hair, and things weren't going well. She'd already snapped at me for eating Smarties while she worked.
    “Your hair's too thin,” she complained. “I don't think this is going to work. Are you sure you're eating properly? Your hair's not falling out, is it? I'm sure it was thicker than this last time.”
    She kept peering across my shoulder at the magazine clipping she'd Scotch taped on the salon mirror. It was of a woman walking along a beach with two small dogs yapping at her heels.
    “You can't even see what her hair looks like,” I pointed out. “And why is it my fault anyway?”
    “It's the general spirit I'm after,” she said. “All that tousled pillow stuff and hungry eyes they're always going on about.” She hacked at my hair with her brush in angry up-and-down movements until it started to crackle under the strain.
    I looked at my reflection, more unkempt witch than tousled pillow, before putting my fingers up to trace the outline of my lips. They seemed fuller somehow. Redder. A great big sign of how often I was being kissed these days. Tim and I still hadn't gone further although I kept my eyes shut often now, as he preferred, and leaned against him more with my whole weight, hoping he'd take the hint that I wouldn't really mind if he wanted to do a bit more. I closed my eyes now, feeling a tremor run through me.
    “Now what's wrong with you?”
    I jolted up in my seat as Miranda prodded me painfully on my shoulder.
    “You're looking a bit peaked, if you don't mind me saying,” she said. “Do you want me to walk you back?”
    “No.” I'd managed to keep Miranda out of my room so far,just giving her the general impression that Mr. Roberts had created a flat upstairs, with bathroom and mini-kitchen. I didn't want any horror she might feel at my lack of home comforts to spoil my satisfaction at this life I was carving out for myself. I tried to change the subject. “So who is this woman you're torturing me into looking like anyway?”
    “Oh Molly, you're not telling me you don't know who this is?”
    “I am.” I couldn't help but laugh when I saw Miranda's expression. She was genuinely shocked.
    “Now that's only Brigitte Bardot,” she said. “The original sex goddess.”
    “Her?” I peeled the photograph off the mirror so I could look at it closer. “She's a bit old.”
    “Well, she is now, silly. The life she's led though, makes your heart bleed. I'll tell you the whole story one day. And of course she's gone all animal-mad as those sorts of women always do when they lose their looks. But she was beautiful once.”
    “And French?” I was getting to know Miranda.
    “Of course.” Miranda smiled at me in the mirror. “I've got better photographs of her at home, walking along in St. Tropez, barefoot, all these men staring at her.”
    “I've heard of Saint Wotzername,”