Katie Cox vs. the Boy Band

by Marianne Levy

  And I thought, I won’t even have nightmares anymore. Not now. There won’t be any point.

  Adrian handed me back my guitar, and I strummed again. Out of tune.

  Now the murmurs were getting restless. In fact, some of them had stopped being murmurs and become real conversations. Probably about me being completely terrible.

  Words floated up in front of my eyes, words from those signs, just outside.

  KATIE COX IS A WITCH.

  BAD APPLE.

  UGLY FACE UGLY SOUL.

  They were right, of course. I was useless and ugly and wrong. The people outside knew it. Everyone inside knew it too. I should get off the stage now, crawl back under my rock, and stay there forever.

  “This is going really badly, isn’t it?” I said, more to myself than anyone else.

  There was this huge laugh. And I began to play.

  Pat-a-cake

  Pat-a-cake

  Baker’s man

  Bake me a boy as fast as you can

  This time, it was better. I even started to feel it, a little, toward the end, so as it finished I played straight through the applause, on into “Autocorrect,” then “That Belt.”

  That belt

  That belt

  That turquoise belt

  With sparkly stones and pieces of felt

  From the back, people were joining in.

  Six ninety-nine

  And it could have been mine

  With sparkly stones and pieces of felt

  My fingers were behaving. My voice seemed to know what to do. The singing from the audience got louder, and I could hear Adrian, Mom, and Dad.

  I was…I was almost starting to enjoy it.

  My dad rocks hard

  My dad is ace

  My dad plays lead guitar

  And drums and sax and bass

  My dad’s way cool

  My dad’s so fine

  My dad lives his dreams

  And shows me mine

  Now the audience wasn’t this frightening thing anymore. It was more like a wave or a huge blob of power, and I was riding it or feeding from it or something, because the more it cheered and stamped, the better I felt. Especially when I went into “Just Me,” and everyone held up their phones and swayed.

  Then it was done and…

  “So this is the last song,” I said. “I know it’s been a little, erm, controversial. But hey. It’s something I really believe.”

  I picked out the first few notes.

  Can’t stand the boy band…

  And—I’m not kidding—the room went crazy.

  They knew all the words, every last one, and they half sang them, half shouted them along with me.

  Plastic faces, stupid hair

  Can’t stand the boy band

  The matching clothes they wear

  While most of me was there, in the room, a small part of me was saying to Tony, See? We’re not stupid. We are not sappy idiots, ready to be fed your mushy pop.

  The tattooed Chinese symbols

  On the skin that’s perma-tanned

  I can’t stand the boy band

  Louder.

  Don’t like the boy band

  Singing songs about their grans

  Don’t like the boy band

  Hanging around their camper vans

  Their lyrics are predictable

  Their music’s oh so bland

  I don’t like the boy band

  I want to be here, I thought.

  Oh, poor sweet boy band

  Your music makes me heave

  Exactly here, exactly now.

  You poor sad boy band

  Soon one of you will leave

  Forever.

  And if you think you’ll be remembered

  Then you misunderstand

  RIP the boy band

  I couldn’t stop. They wouldn’t stop. We roared it again and again and again.

  Can’t stand the boy band

  Can’t stand the boy band

  Can’t stand the boy band

  And as they chanted, I pulled the microphone up, and it came away from the stand so easily, and I shouted, “This is for real music! No more manufactured garbage! No more overproduced tracks! No more Auto-Tuning! No! More! Boy bands!”

  A spotlight swung across the audience, and as the beam swept through, I saw that everyone was cheering. Except…the light caught a face. Lacey. She was watching me with eyes that burned.

  “No more boy bands,” I said. And then, finally, I let my guitar drop.

  “Thanks very much. Good night!”

  With one leap, I was in the wings. Wings?! It was like I had wings. It’s such a huge cliché, but really, I was bouncing, floating, a sort of human hoverboard, surfing high on the applause, hugging my guitar to me, feeling like Christmas morning and the end of exams and glittering swimming pools under summer skies, only a million, billion times better.

  “That was awesome!”

  “Oh my God, thanks!” I panted at the darkened face, which smiled and moved out into the light and became…Kurt.

  Kurt from Karamel.

  If I’d been a hoverboard, I would have run out of batteries. As it was, I sort of went, “Uhhhh.”

  He was younger than I’d thought. No, that wasn’t it. I hadn’t really thought of him being any age, because in my head, he didn’t have an age, because of not being a real person.

  Now, though, I saw that he wasn’t much older than me and not hugely taller, either. He was much better-looking than me, though, like his eyes and nose and mouth were all fighting to be the best thing on his face. Of course, it didn’t help that my eyes were still funny from the spotlights, so one second, I was looking at his nose, and then it turned into this swimmy burst of yellow and then back into a nose.

  “I’m not saying I loved the last number. But the rest was great. I can’t believe that’s only the second time you’ve played live. I was puking from nerves for at least my first twenty gigs.”

  “Actually,” I said, my voice far steadier than my legs, which were wobbling all over the place, “I did puke. Before I went on. You can’t smell it, can you?”

  “No.”

  “Phew.”

  We stood there, listening to the cheers turn to claps to the sound of people picking up their jackets and stuff, and I tried to process the fact that I’d just led two hundred and fifty people in an anthem against Kurt from Karamel and then asked him whether or not I smelled like vomit.

  “So, look,” said Kurt, “I have to go. My car’s here. But see you tomorrow night, okay?”

  I stared at him, feeling as stupid as I’ve ever felt, which, let me tell you, is really very stupid. “What’s happening tomorrow night?”

  “Your turn,” said Chris, who was also still there, as it turned out. “We interviewed Kurt when you were doing all your ‘I hate boy bands’ business. Such a great visual. And then we’ll do your interview while he’s singing his single. Tomorrow night at the O2.”

  “Okay, yes. Um, see you tomorrow. And—oh, Tony! Hi!”

  Tony Topper had his hand on my elbow, guiding me toward a different door, leaving Chris and Kurt to melt into the darkness. “Come on through. Come on through.”

  “To where?” I was still holding my guitar.

  “Your party,” said Tony. “Nothing big, just a few people from Top Music, some press, the guest list…”

  We went through a heavy door, straight past a woman with a clipboard and into a room that was completely full of people.

  And—ooh. I put my guitar down. Because there was a waiter with a tray. Of things.

  “Can I?” My stomach was feeling very empty.

  “Sure.” Then Tony saw that I’d taken three chicken satay
sticks. “Although we really must have that chat about a personal trainer.”

  “Ka-aa-t-iee!” Paige came exploding in like she’d been fired from a cannon. “You were am-aaa-zing!”

  “You were pretty good,” said Savannah, just behind her. “Except at the beginning, which was lousy, babes. You need to work on that.”

  “Um, thanks,” I said.

  “And—” Savannah stopped and wrinkled her nose. “Can you smell puke? I can smell puke.”

  Then, thank goodness, Mands and Mom were racing across the room.

  “You were awesome!”

  “So amazing.”

  I glowed. I actually glowed.

  “Although”—Mom had her hand on my arm—“the song about your father…”

  “I’ll write one about you too,” I said. “For the album. It’s only fair.”

  “That’s not what I…” She sighed. “And…I just…do you have to be so angry, Katie?” She looked out across the party. “Everyone was so angry.”

  “It’s just a genuine expression of my dislike of the way the music industry is going,” I told her. “What used to be real has become a corporate machine designed to manipulate young people, and I want to bring things back to the music. Enough greed…” I trailed off. “Are those tiny quiches?”

  Mom didn’t look especially convinced. “You sounded great, but all this rage, it’s not you. And if you say things like that, you’re giving the other side a reason to hate you.”

  “Then let them,” I said. “I can handle it.”

  She pulled me into a sudden hug. “But you’re still my little girl.”

  “I am not.” I decided to focus on the important part of the conversation, which was that I’d sounded good. If Mom couldn’t handle my impending adulthood, that was her problem.

  Sofie was taking selfies with pretty much everything in the room. Savannah was messaging frantically, while Nicole and Jaz were throwing miniature samosas off the balcony. And Lacey…

  “Hey, BF,” I said to the lone figure lurking by the coats.

  “Oh.” Lacey looked up and attempted a smile. “Hey! Good job.”

  “Thanks. Did you have fun?”

  “Yeah. Thanks for inviting me. I mean, I still don’t like that last song. And the one about your dad was a little much. But the rest was great.”

  “Okay, well, we can agree to disagree, right?”

  “I guess,” she said. “Ooh, are those mini pizzas?”

  “Pesto flatbreads,” I told her. “Go get ’em, girlfriend.”

  I stood and watched, feeling weirdly outside of everything, seeing as how it was supposed to be for me. Flat. Flat as a pesto flatbread.

  “Oy! Princess! Over here!” Dad’s arm wove around my back. “You rocked my world tonight.”

  “I did?”

  “So hard. You are a great talent, my girl.”

  “I am?”

  “Those lyrics! That tune!” He swiped up my guitar and began to strum ‘My Dad.’ “Phenomenal,” he said.

  The people closest to us were beginning to turn around, and for a second, I started to feel embarrassed. Only then, as Dad’s fingers rippled up and down the strings, and everyone started to smile and tap their feet, I remembered.

  This was Dad.

  And when Dad plays, it’s like your ears are filling with sunshine.

  A circle was forming around him, so I moved back and out of the way.

  “Well now.” It was Tony. “It seems you have tapped into something, Katie. I’m not often proved wrong. But this time…”

  “So I’m forgiven?”

  “Make the top ten, and you’re completely forgiven.” He laughed.

  “When does it go on sale?”

  “Midnight tonight. And…you’re sure? You don’t want any production on it whatsoever? Because we can ramp up the bass, smooth over the vocals. No one ever needs to know.”

  “Absolutely not,” I said. “I mean, that’s the whole point, isn’t it? I want the sound raw. Unmixed. Real. True.”

  “True,” repeated Tony. “Maybe that can be the name of your album?”

  “Yes!” I said. “I like that. Katie Cox: True. You’re really good at this!”

  “I know,” said Tony.

  Dad looked up from his guitar and gave us a wink.

  “I got a few emails from him,” said Tony. “More than a few.”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “He wanted to send you his demo.”

  “And he did,” said Tony. “Several versions.” We listened for maybe twenty seconds, as Dad slid from “Hotel California” into a jazz version of “Sweet Child o’ Mine.”

  “The surprise is he’s good.”

  I had this moment of relief, which turned into a thud of guilt. What had I been expecting? Dad was a professional. Too much time around Amanda, that’s what it was. “Of course he’s good!”

  “Have you heard of Papaya?” said Tony. “She’s fresh from kids TV, making her first album. I could put him on it.”

  “Could you? That would be fantastic,” I said. “I know he’s looking for work right now. When would he start?”

  “Recording’s in a few weeks’ time. Nice little studio in West Hollywood. I’ll get the contract over…”

  Dad was beaming as his hands danced an impossible dance across the frets, and I remembered the feeling of seeing him on the doorstep, the smell of him, how he’d held me, tight, against his jacket. And how far away Hollywood was. How very far away.

  The party seemed to freeze, as though we were in a movie or something, and in my head, I walked over and looked Dad in the eyes and tried to say good-bye again. Had an actual, honest attempt at sending him back to California and Catriona Version 2, whoever she might be. Soon I’d stop remembering exactly how his face moved, let alone the way he’d grab me for a sudden hug, or…

  “I’m not sure it’s a good idea, actually,” I said. “Dad’s had a few problems.”

  Not what Tony was expecting. “What kind of problems?”

  “Oh, you know,” I said lightly. “Personality problems. It’s kind of well known that he’s a little…unreliable. You’ll expect him in the studio, and instead he’s on a plane to the other side of the world, without even—” I caught myself. Where did that come from?

  “I’m glad you told me,” said Tony. “Papaya’s a busy girl. She can’t wait around for some no-show guitarist.”

  “Better that you know now,” I said, snatching another satay stick from a passing waiter as Tony drifted away.

  The waiter didn’t move, though, so I took another stick and then another, swallowing hard down a throat that had gone painful and dry.

  Anything to keep Dad here. Anything.

  It’s good to know what your strengths are. My particular strengths, in no particular order, are:

  • pizza (eating, not making)

  • music (making, not eating)

  • sleep

  The morning after the concert, I was really focusing on that last one. In fact, I woke up only when a pair of underwear hit me in the face.

  “Murhph?” I removed them and opened my eyes. “Ugh! Mands, your underwear went in my mouth!”

  “Calm down,” said Mands. “They’re clean.”

  I sat up to see that every inch of the room was covered in her clothes. And her phone was blasting out Alanis Morissette.

  Seriously. When it comes to sleeping through things, I’m the best.

  “Rise and shine, superstar.”

  “Isn’t it Thursday? Why aren’t you at work?”

  “Day off,” said Amanda. “I’m doing my spring cleaning.” Alanis finished, and her phone started playing something by a very famous band that I am not allowed to name.

  “Hey, Dad’s playing on this.”

  “Is he? I thought th
ey did all their own guitar work.”

  “So did Dad. Apparently not.”

  We stopped and listened for a while. Now that she’d told me, it was completely obvious Dad was playing. The notes were sliding up and up, more like a voice than an instrument. Dad can make a guitar sing.

  “It’s been funny, having him back again,” said Mands, holding a navy top up against her chest. “There’s lots of stuff I forgot that he did.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “Like that dee-dah tune he hums in the shower. The same one, every morning.”

  “Oh, yeah!”

  “And”—Amanda tossed the top into a pile and reached for a floppy sweater—“that jangly thing he does with his pockets. Or how his socks never match. I wonder what else I’ll forget?”

  “Why would you forget anything else? He’s not going anywhere.”

  “Not now, but”—she set the sweater on the bed, smoothing down the arms as though it were a frightened animal—“you know he can’t stay forever, don’t you?”

  “I don’t see why not,” I said. “I don’t mind giving up the den. We never go in there.”

  “It’s not good for Mom and Adrian,” said Amanda. “And…it’s not good for us.”

  “Speak for yourself!”

  Amanda did that thing she does where she goes from being this cool friend-type person who happens to look a lot like I do to becoming a kind of cross between a headmistress and a queen.

  “Katie. Listen to me because I know you. And I get that you and Dad are close. But the way you are when he’s around, that song you did last night, it’s like you’re in love or something.”

  “You’re saying you don’t love Dad?!”

  “Of course I’m not saying that. All right, not in love, but you go all starry-eyed, and it’s like you can’t see when he behaves in a way that is completely unreasonable.”

  “Like how?”

  “Um, okay. So, for example, Mom and Ade are pretty hard up financially right now, but Dad has not offered them a penny.”

  “He’s broke. He spent everything he had renting the dolphin apartment and—”

  “Exactly! He squandered his cash away renting something completely unsuitable, and now he’s back and he’s broke! You have to tell him to go home, Katie. He listens to you.”