Playlist for a Broken Heart

by Cathy Hopkins

  Mum looked over at Dad. ‘I . . . I think it’s a great idea. What do you think, Patrick?’

  Dad got up. He was still looking thoughtful but then suddenly he broke into a wide grin. ‘Paige, I believe you might be on to something here. It could work. Course we’d have to turn the photos round pretty fast so that people wouldn’t have to wait long. That would be crucial but it could done.’ He headed for the door. ‘I’ll just go and call Mike, see what he thinks, then check a few things online and do a few calculations.’

  ‘And while the people wait, we could have some merchandise on sale,’ said Mum. ‘Cards, book markers, mementos, candles, ribbons.’

  Dad came back in and gave me a bear hug. ‘Paige, you little genius. You might just have saved our bacon!’ He wandered back into the hall while he tried Uncle Mike’s number.

  Mum went over to her laptop which was on a table by the window. ‘I’m going to check out Georgian costumes.’

  ‘And Regency. It was visiting all the vintage shops in Frome that gave me the idea,’ I said. ‘People love dressing up.’

  Dad came back in after speaking to Uncle Mike. ‘I’ve left a message,’ he said and sat at the table. ‘Now. We need to do a business plan, research, a marketing plan.’

  ‘And I’ll design some backdrops, a logo, think about the interior of the shop.’

  ‘And merchandise,’ said Dad. ‘We need to find out where we can source the right stuff.’ He sighed. ‘All we need is the financing, so fingers crossed that Mike and Karen see the potential too.’

  ‘They will,’ I said, but neither of them were paying me any attention. They were both busy on their laptops researching online. I stood up and bowed. ‘My work here is done.’

  Once in my bedroom, I switched on my laptop and went to Facebook. I felt a shiver of anticipation when I saw that there was a private message from Alex. It didn’t say much more than what Allegra had told me – that he was heading this way in the morning – but I felt such a rush of excitement. I went to his page, and in his comments space, he’d written: Going to Bath to catch up with old friends and new. I got the feeling I was one of the new.

  I decided to scroll down his list of friends to see if I recognised any of the boys from the bands and sure enough there was Callum Casey. Another idea occurred to me. I could also look for Sarah’s page. I kept on scrolling and then came to a profile photo that I recognised. ‘Ohmigod!’ I gasped and quickly grabbed my phone. I punched in Tasmin’s number.

  “Hey, sexy girl,’ she said. ‘Missing me already?’

  ‘Yes. No. Whatever. Tas, you have to go to Facebook straight away. You’ll never guess what I just saw on Alex Taylor’s page. I was scrolling down looking at his friends—’

  ‘Stalker.’

  ‘I wasn’t stalking him. Oh. Whatever. I was looking for Sarah’s page too.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Tasmin. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

  ‘Tas, the photo was there. The black-and-white shot from the back cover of the CD. Someone was using it as their profile picture.’

  ‘You’re kidding? From Songs for Sarah?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No way.’

  ‘Did you check out the page?’

  ‘I tried to. I couldn’t get in. The privacy setting must be friends only. A message came up saying to see what he shares with friends, send him a friend request.’

  ‘Bummer. Did you do that?’

  ‘Not yet. I don’t know if I want him to be able to know all about me, look at my page and so on when I don’t even know who he is.’

  ‘Could you see anything? Sometimes you can see quite a lot without being a friend. Does it say anything about school or work at the top?

  ‘I’m looking now. Ohmigod.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In the About section, it says, lives in Bath. So he is from here.’

  ‘Well we kind of knew that. Anything about school?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘OK, but you can see his friends even if he has privacy settings on. Click on his friends and see if there’s anyone you know. See if there are any Sarahs. Also, are there any mutual friends?’

  ‘Good idea. I’ll have a look.’

  ‘Call me if you see anyone we know.’

  ‘Will do.’

  I went back to the laptop and clicked on the boy’s friends. Tasmin called me back a few moments later. ‘I forgot to ask, what’s his Facebook name?’

  ‘That’s what’s really weird as well. It’s Will.i.am Shakespeare. I don’t think it’s his real name.’

  ‘Will.i.am as spelt like the musician from the Black Eyed Peas?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Mystery Boy

  ‘You have witchcraft in your lips.’

  Shakespeare: Henry V – Act 5, Scene 2.

  We met, Sarah and I, completely by accident. I was up at the Royal Crescent for the Grand Regency promenade and the crowd of people dressed in the period get-up had just set off down to town. It was a hoot. Hundreds of them, probably boiling in the hot June weather. Men dressed as soldiers, others on old bikes with one wheel (penny farthings, I think they’re called), women in long dresses and capes wearing bonnets and carrying parasols. It was like watching a film cast for a Jane Austen movie. When they’d moved off, I went with my mates to bag a place on the grass in the park and there we were, drinking cans and soaking up the sun when who comes by and spreads out a blanket next to ours? Sarah, with three of her mates.

  Course we got chatting, all of us, about music, what schools we go to, what we’d seen in the Regency crowd. All having a laugh, though Ethan, Callum and Finn did most of the talking. She was friendly to all of us, not seeming to favour any one. I wondered if Ethan fancied her. Finn’s got a girlfriend so he’s not up for grabs and Callum’s gay so he’s not one to worry about either, though I wasn’t sure whether she’d clocked it. Girls always like Cal. He likes them too, just doesn’t fancy them.

  ‘You the quiet mysterious one?’ she asked after a while. I hadn’t said much.

  My first conversation with her and I couldn’t think of what to say. ‘That’s me. Dark and mysterious.’ It felt weird to be there, looking right into her eyes, the girl I’d fantasised about for weeks. She was even prettier close up, brown eyes in a heart-shaped face.

  ‘I like your shades,’ she said.

  ‘Ta.’ And I like you, I wanted to say but didn’t. Girls don’t like boys to be too keen. They like a challenge.

  But at least she now knows my name and we’re all meeting back here next week for the Zoom music festival. A casual arrangement, but is it more than that? Does she want to see me again? All my mates are in the bands that will be playing so it should be a good day. Will she recognise the music? Has she even listened to the CD? If she has, she’ll know the tracks. Will she wonder if I’m there? The boy who made Songs for Sarah. I almost asked her. It was on the tip of my tongue but I resisted. Hang back. Be cool, I told myself. And next week, I’ll see her again and can see how she reacts to the music in the park.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I went to meet Allegra from the train at ten-thirty the next morning. As I waited, I pulled out my sunglasses and put them on to hide the bags under my eyes.

  I was feeling shattered because I’d spent half the night travelling the various mazes of people’s Facebook friends. After I’d found Will.i.am on Alex’s page, I looked at all his friends. There were loads of musicians there including Callum Casey, who was a mutual friend of both his and Alex’s. In fact, they appeared to have a few mutual friends. I wondered if they actually knew each other or if, like so many of us, they have thousands of friends on their Facebook lists, some of whom are friends of friends or just at the same school, not real speak-to-every-day-text-every-hour friends. And so many Sarahs. It was such a popular name. The CD could have been made for any one of them.

  It was frustrating looking at all the pages and not knowing who they really were. When
Facebook first appeared, everyone at my old school added each other just because we could and it was like a competition to see who could get the most friends on their list. Only later did Allegra and I start to sift through and unfriend people we didn’t actually know. Alex Taylor had a thousand friends. He couldn’t possibly know them all, so might not actually know Will.i.am or whatever his real name was.

  I made a note of the names of all the mutual friends that Alex had with FB and Will.i.am then went to their lists of friends and did the same.

  Once I’d got started, it was addictive. Will.i.am Shakespeare showed up in a few of the lists of friends of friends. So did FB. He had added me as a friend the same day that we met so I could look at his page easily. I travelled down his lists. Alex was there and amazingly so was Niall Peterson. It appeared from the frequent comments from him that they were good mates. That surprised me. It didn’t make sense – someone as nice and interesting as FB being a friend of Niall the knob. I had a quick look on Niall’s list of friends to see if Will.i.am was on there. He wasn’t. I also made a note of all the Sarahs – there were eighty in total!

  By about two a.m, I had lists and cross references to some different people. It seemed that most of the teenagers in Bath knew each other. I made a list of all those that I’d found with Will.i.am on their lists of friends and put it in my bag to take to the Zoom festival in the morning. There were too many Sarahs to write down and I didn’t have the time in the end. If our plan A – walking around in the Songs for Sarah T-shirt – didn’t work, my plan B was to try and find everyone on the Facebook list and ask if they actually knew who Will.i.am was. Clover and Tasmin might already know some of the names.

  When I’d snuggled down into my duvet, I found it hard to sleep, even though it was late. I felt that I was getting close to finding out who the mystery CD maker was and it had occurred to me that he might even be Alex. It was possible. He had lived down here. And he still came down here regularly, and his cousin was a musician as well as the singer on track number one of the CD. So the likelihood of the boy I was looking for being Alex was completely plausible.

  The London train was five minutes late but soon passengers were spilling out of Bath station into the square. Despite being tired, I had a really good feeling about the day – mates together in the park listening to good music, and maybe I might get closer to finding out who my mystery boy was. I took a quick look at the list in my bag, cross-referencing who knew who on Facebook. In the light of day, it made no sense at all – too many names and lines and squiggles – so I put it back in my bag. I stood on tiptoe to see if I could see Allegra, and there was she was coming through the turnstiles. She looked great as always. Her blonde hair tied back, dressed in skinny jeans and a white linen shirt and fabulous big sunglasses. Her face lit up when she saw me.

  ‘Wow, you look amazing, different . . . more relaxed,’ she said after giving me a bear hug. ‘Bath agrees with you and I love the hair.’

  I was wearing Clover’s dress, the bolero jacket, a pair of denim blue Converses, my hair loose, and it felt good, like I was finding my style.

  ‘You look great too,’ I said, but secretly, I thought she looked a bit straight and safe. Probably how Tasmin viewed me when I arrived in Bath. Not that it mattered what Allegra dressed in. She was such a perfect English rose, she’d look good in a bin liner.

  ‘Where’s your mum?’ I asked.

  Allegra laughed. ‘Driving down later. You know her. Couldn’t get up. I didn’t want to miss the music so she said I could come on the train. She’s texted me about a million times already though to ask where I am? What time did I arrive? Double-checking that I call her later. She’s on my case twenty-four seven.’

  ‘Hi Paige,’ said a male voice behind us.

  ‘Hey, look who was in my carriage,’ said Allegra.

  It was Alex. I’d been so busy hugging my best friend that I hadn’t noticed him standing behind us. I had to hang on to Allegra so that I didn’t swoon. He was every bit as gorgeous as I remembered and looked genuinely pleased to see me. He came and gave me a hug too. ‘Looking good, Juliet,’ he said.

  ‘You too, Romeo,’ I said. ‘How are the rehearsals going?’

  He shrugged as we set off, crossed the road and headed up to town with streams of other visitors here for the day. ‘Bit spaced out. People have got exams so there’s not the focus that’s really needed. And of course, we haven’t got the right Juliet.’

  Allegra punched him playfully. ‘You smooth talker.’

  Alex didn’t take his eyes off me. ‘I mean it.’

  I know I blushed but it felt great to have to him look at me so intently and, unlike the old me, I held his gaze for a few moments. I know he felt a connection. So did I. This new more confident me is definitely more fun, I thought as I felt a tingling sensation that anything could happen.

  We took the streets leading to the park. We chatted about school (he couldn’t wait to leave and go to university), when he’d lived in Bath, (which was until Year Seven when his dad got a job in London), who he knew in Bath (loads of people, which I already knew from his Facebook page).

  ‘And do you know a lot of musicians?’ I asked.

  ‘Yeah. You’re probably finding this. Bath is like a big village. Everyone knows everyone, especially on the school circuit.’

  ‘Do you know Callum Casey?’ I asked, careful not to say that I already knew that he did. I didn’t want to appear to know too much about him. That would be so not cool.

  ‘Yeah. Do you know him?’

  ‘I saw him play at Walcot Street. He’s good. And I . . . I have a CD with one of his tracks on it.’

  Alex smiled and looked pleased. ‘One of his tracks?’

  ‘Yes. The CD’s a compilation but Callum’s song is track one.’ I scrutinised his face to gage his reaction.

  He looked puzzled and hesitated for a few seconds before he asked. ‘Compilation?’

  ‘He didn’t make it. Someone else did. It’s on a CD called Songs for Sarah,’ said Allegra.

  Alex looked surprised. ‘Sarah?’

  ‘Yes. Does that ring a bell?’ I asked still looking carefully at him.

  Alex looked away. ‘Not really.’ I glanced at Allegra and shrugged. It was hard to tell whether he’d just happened to look away or was shocked that we knew about the CD and was trying to hide it.

  ‘So how do you know Callum Casey?’ asked Allegra.

  ‘He’s my cousin.’

  ‘No way,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. I’ll be staying with him. Don’t tell me you fancy him? Most girls do.’

  I decided that there was no harm in letting Alex know that he might have competition. I didn’t want him thinking that I’d been just sitting about looking at pictures of him on the internet and waiting for him to come to visit Bath. ‘He’s good. I like his songs and he’s cute.’

  ‘And gay. So don’t get your hopes up.’

  That shut me up. So much for my make-Alex-a-bit-jealous tactic. I decided to forget being cool, just be myself and ask what I want to. ‘I noticed that there was someone on your Facebook page who calls himself Will.i.am Shakespeare. Is that his real name?’

  Alex looked blank. ‘Will.i.am? I . . . I can’t say I’ve noticed him. So you’ve been looking at my page?’

  I wondered how to answer this. Whether to be honest or make a joke of it. I didn’t want him to think I was obsessing over him so I decided to fill him in on the story and why I had been looking at his list of friends. I began to tell the story with Allegra joining in some of the bits she knew. When I’d finished, I pulled out the Songs for Sarah T-shirt. ‘This is the CD on the front of the T-shirt and on the back is the black-and-white photo. That’s the photo he uses as his profile photo and he uses the name Will.i.am Shakespeare.’

  Alex’s expression gave away nothing. It was hard to tell if he was bored by the story or deliberately keeping cool. I reminded myself that he was a good actor and could easily disguise what he was feeling. ‘
And why is it so important that you find this boy?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re not intrigued,’ said Allegra. ‘I know I am.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But what if you find the guy and he’s a disappointment.’

  I looked him straight in the eye. ‘It depends on who he turns out to be.’

  Alex raised an eyebrow. ‘And what if he doesn’t want to be found. What if the CD and all that went with it is history or a fantasy?’

  Allegra nodded. ‘Fair point, Paige. There has to be some reason that CD ended up in the charity shop. That’s where people take unwanted items – emphasis on unwanted.’

  ‘In a charity shop?’ This time Alex couldn’t disguise his shock but I wasn’t sure whether that was because he was surprised to hear that’s where the CD ended up or whether he had the snobby mentality that I used to have about second-hand things.

  ‘Yes, That’s where I got it,’ I said. ‘My aunt bought it for me.’

  ‘I see,’ said Alex. ‘But sometimes I think you have to leave the past in the past and embrace what’s in front of you.’

  He looked right at me when he said that and again I felt that sweet sensation inside.

  ‘Oh get a room,’ said Allegra.

  We both laughed, me more nervously than Alex, who seemed to enjoy the exchange. He put his hand on my arm. ‘Seriously though, Paige, I wouldn’t go about wearing the T-shirt. Not until you know more about what happened. Otherwise, you may be opening up old wounds for him and for her.’

  I got the feeling he was talking from personal experience about a painful past. ‘Did you make it?’ I asked.

  He raised an eyebrow again and smiled. ‘Ah, that would be telling wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Oh come on, Alex, don’t be a tease. If it’s you, tell us.’

  He grinned. ‘And ruin a good mystery? No way. Anyway, I would have thought that if the CD really did speak to you then you would feel a connection when you find the boy who made it.’ He gave me a meaningful look when he said the last part. There was no doubting that I was feeling a connection so why wouldn’t he just admit it if it was him?