Before

by KE Payne

  As Alex continued to ad-lib through the song, I heard different notes coming from Brooke and Robyn too, as they adjusted their voices to sit perfectly alongside Alex’s. Soon, I was doing it too, singing along with them to allow our voices to work in conjunction with each other’s, rather than singing verbatim, as we’d always done before. It was liberating. More than that, it was huge fun. While we couldn’t play around with it too much and allow ourselves to stray too far from what we would be singing live on forthcoming TV shows and in gigs, we did allow ourselves enough slack to have fun with the song and enjoy ourselves, and I knew if we did something similar on The Afternoon Show, the audience would absolutely love it.

  “Okay, take a break,” Ed called out as the music faded. “Ten minutes, then we’ll go for another run-through.”

  I slotted my mic back into its cradle and stepped back. My skin was tingling, my heart still hammering behind my ribs at the sound we’d just made together. Robyn sidled up next to me, grabbed me by my elbow, and hustled me away from Brooke and Alex. She didn’t speak. Instead, she looked at me, presumably waiting for me to speak first. So I did.

  “So…that went better than expected,” I said.

  “Better than expected?” Robyn repeated. “It was epic.” She lowered her voice at that last bit. “So now we have a problem.”

  “Do we?” I was confused.

  “Alex was right.” Her voice lowered even further. “Everything she said was right.”

  “So?”

  “So now what do we do?”

  “We go with it?” Just a hunch.

  “Then she wins.”

  I sighed. “Didn’t we already have this conversation?” I asked. “It’s not about winning, it’s about—”

  “Compliance. Yeah, yeah.” She threw a look back over her shoulder. “It’s going to make her insufferable, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t think that was fair.

  “I think it’s going to make me apologize,” I corrected, “because she was right all along. She knows her stuff.”

  “So you want to do it the same way on this next run-through?” Robyn asked.

  “Don’t you?” I replied. “It sounded awesome.”

  “I guess.” Robyn sighed. “I just don’t want it to turn into the Alex Brody Show, that’s all.”

  “It won’t.” I squeezed her arm. “She’d be a shit host, anyway.”

  Robyn laughed and looked over to Alex while she was still laughing. I saw her looking at us and, seeing the look on her face at our laughter, immediately felt bad.

  “We’ll do it the same way again,” I said, giving her arm another squeeze before I walked away.

  Alex was still looking at me as I approached her.

  “So?” she asked. “Have you and Robyn finished tearing me to pieces?”

  “We weren’t—”

  “Whatever.” She turned to walk away. “I’m used to it.”

  I reached out and grabbed her arm.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “I told you,” she replied, moving her arm so my hand fell away, “I’m used to it.”

  “No, I mean, I’m sorry for doubting you,” I continued, slightly hurt that she’d shrugged me off. “Sorry for throwing a fit before.” I paused. “The rehearsal just sounded amazing.”

  Alex stopped.

  “The range in your voice,” I said, when she didn’t say anything, “worked really well with ours. Robyn’s in particular.”

  “Not that she’d ever admit it.”

  “Maybe she’s as stubborn as I am.” I smiled and waited for Alex to return my smile. She didn’t.

  “I knew how our voices would work together.” She looked at me. “It’s a shame it took me coming after you when you stormed out, and then having to placate you, for you to see that when I knew it would be okay all along.”

  “I’ve said I’m sorry,” I said, wondering why Alex wouldn’t accept it. “What more can I do?”

  “You could have had more faith in me to begin with,” Alex said, walking away. “You all could.”

  Chapter Seven

  Promoting our music rocks. After our rehearsals in Walthamstow, we had a week of promo ahead of the release of “After the Rain,” which meant days of interviews, radio shows, and daytime chat shows. I couldn’t wait. I knew it would be a chance for the fans to meet Alex properly for the first time, but more importantly, it would be our chance to show everyone that the rumours that had circulated after Nicole’s sudden departure hadn’t been true: Be4 hadn’t fallen apart without her.

  Of course, speculation had been rife about why Nicole had left, and the press had already put two and two together and come up with five. The press weren’t stupid; emerging pop stars such as Nicole didn’t just leave bands for no obvious reason, and I’d heard rumours that reporters had been sniffing around every drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre in the UK, hoping that just one indiscreet member of staff might give them the scoop they were so obviously desperate for.

  Even Ed’s hastily arranged photo shoot in the Caribbean hadn’t fooled them. He’d flown Nicole out to Barbados the day she left Be4 to have a series of photographs taken of her on the beach there. Then she’d been hurried back into the UK the very next day while putting out the message on social media that she was still in the Caribbean enjoying a well-earned break. Nicole was now holed up in Croft House, a drug rehab centre in the middle of the countryside.

  Maybe her taking drugs had been her way of punishing me, I don’t know. Or perhaps it was her way of severing our long-standing ties, a knee-jerk reaction against me. She’d slackened her ties with me soon after I’d told her I could only be her friend and had fallen in with a bunch of people who were so far removed from me and everything I stood for, it was laughable. Except the drug taking was far from laughable. As Nicole began to spend all her time hanging out with people who wasted their days and nights, I began to wonder if she was doing it so she wouldn’t have to think about me and how I’d rejected her. Perhaps that was big-headed of me. I don’t know. All I do know is I spent sleepless nights when I knew she was with them, worrying about what she was up to and how it would all turn out.

  It turned out to be the worst knee-jerk decision of her life.

  *

  I was sitting in the green room of a London TV studio when I had my second proper conversation with Alex, after our chat on the balcony in Walthamstow. We were due to go live on air on The Afternoon Show, and after a quick rehearsal of “After the Rain” backstage, Brooke and Robyn had left me so they could go and speak to two guys from another band who were recording a link section for a children’s music programme. I wasn’t interested enough to give up the comfort of the green room’s plush furniture to talk to them, so I amused myself while they were gone by playing a game on my phone, and enjoying five minutes’ peace and quiet on my own for a change.

  That was, until Alex came in.

  We hadn’t spoken at all since the rehearsal in the apartment a few days before. After our second and third run-throughs, when it was clear we’d perfected it, we’d gone our separate ways. Alex hadn’t travelled back down the Tube the same way she’d come; instead, I’d left her in the foyer of the apartment block with hardly a word and travelled home alone, finally managing to catch my parents on the phone before they disappeared on holiday.

  I’d talked to them for over an hour. But with Alex, it was the opposite. I’d thought she’d have wanted to talk some more about the rehearsal, but it seemed almost as if now the rehearsal was over, she wanted nothing more to do with me or any of us, and it was beginning to feel to me as if we’d got to the point where I honestly thought we’d never have anything to talk about ever again. We’d turn up to rehearsals, or recordings, or interviews, do what we had to do, then leave again without a word to one another. That was the way it was going to be, if the last few days were anything to go by.

  Now, in the green room, I barely looked up as Alex came in, pretending—however childish it might hav
e been—that the game on my phone was way more interesting to me than her. I saw from the corner of my eye as she switched on the coffee machine to the side of the room, then thumbed through a magazine next to the machine, humming quietly to herself as she did so. Humming didn’t normally annoy me, but today it did, because it felt to me as if it was her way of deliberately trying to break up the stifling silence I’d created in the room. As if the silence was my fault. As if everything was my fault.

  She grabbed her coffee and snagged the chair opposite mine, casting me a quick look as she sank down into it. I concentrated on my game—which I’d lost interest in long before Alex came into the room—and listened as she first opened a packet of sugar, then stirred it in, then tapped her spoon on the side of her cup, then sipped at it.

  The silence returned.

  “Brooke and Robyn not around?” Finally Alex spoke.

  “Nuh-uh.” I shook my head but didn’t look up.

  I heard another sip. Then a small sniff. A clearing of her throat.

  “You not talking today?” Alex asked.

  Finally I looked up.

  “Just playing, that’s all.” I lifted my phone.

  “You know,” Alex said, “if we’re to go live on air in”—she looked at her watch—“thirty-five minutes’ time and present ourselves to the public as best buddies, we ought to at least pretend like we are in private.” She smiled, sat back, and slowly crossed one leg over the other, adding, “Don’t you think?”

  I put my phone back down.

  “I wasn’t being funny,” I said. “I really was just playing.”

  Liar.

  “You’ve hardly said two words to me since the rehearsal the other day,” Alex said.

  “Have you spoken to me?” I asked.

  “Have you tried to speak to me?” she answered.

  “It’s difficult when you just take off like you did the other day.”

  “I went when it was clear no one was going to bother speaking to me.”

  We were going round in circles.

  The excruciating silence returned.

  “You know, if there’s any animosity between us, the public will pick up on it straight away,” Alex said.

  “Learn that on Sing, did you?” I asked. “Lesson One: How to Act Properly in Public.” I regretted saying it straight away.

  “Nope.” Alex held my gaze. “That came in lesson four,” she deadpanned. “Lesson one was holding a mic, lesson two was the hair flick.”

  I had to admit, that was funny.

  “Lesson three?” she added. “The stage slide.”

  I couldn’t help the smile that broke out across my face at that.

  “Don’t tell me I just made you smile?” Alex dramatically clutched at her chest. “I must be getting better.”

  I gave her my best sarcastic look.

  “Steady, Tally,” Alex continued, “we might have a civilized conversation next.”

  My sarcastic look stayed on my face.

  “Seriously,” Alex said, “if you’ve still got a problem with me, don’t you think we ought to sort it out sooner rather than later?”

  I took in a breath.

  “Do you still have a problem with me?” she pressed. “I thought we sorted stuff at the rehearsal.”

  “The rehearsal maybe,” I said. “But I didn’t like…”

  Alex crossed one leg over the other. “You didn’t like…?”

  “At the studio the other day,” I said, “you told me I was pitchy.”

  Alex frowned. “Pitchy?” she asked.

  “Well, you told Ed,” I said. “I had to lower my key, remember?”

  Alex nodded slowly and seemed to want to choose her next words carefully. “I could hear something in the recording that didn’t sound like your normal voice.” She looked at me. “I’ve listened to your music, Tally. Don’t forget that.”

  “But…pitchy?” I was like a dog with a bone, I knew.

  “Listen, Tally,” she said, “when you mixed it up? Wow. Just wow.”

  That threw me.

  “So why didn’t you say that to me at the time?”

  “What am I?” Alex asked, “Your mother?”

  “No, but…”

  “Look, I’m sorry if you thought I was harsh that day,” Alex said, “and I’m sorry if my lack of diplomacy meant we started off on the wrong foot.”

  “You showed me up in front of everyone,” I said. “And, actually, in the rehearsal the other day,” I continued. “Okay, so it eventually worked, but I didn’t like how we got to that point.”

  “But you just said it yourself. It worked,” Alex said, sounding exasperated. “Isn’t that all that matters?” She shook her head. “Anyway, we talked about it out on the balcony. I thought you were okay with it.”

  “I’ve been thinking.” I sounded petulant. “And I didn’t like the way you handled the whole situation.”

  “Oh, grow up.” Alex sipped at her coffee. “It worked, so why are you still whining about it?”

  I had no answer to that.

  “Look, I’ve just apologized to you—twice—for being thoughtless,” Alex added, “and you still can’t seem to accept it.” She leant over, put her coffee cup down, then stood. “I’m trying to hold out the hand of friendship here, but you seem intent on—”

  “Stop.” She was right. I held up a hand. “I’m sorry.”

  To my relief, Alex sat back.

  “You know,” she said, staring at a point on the wall and not to me, “when I was on Sing, it was the most cutthroat thing I’d ever done.”

  “Seriously?”

  She nodded. “I hated it,” she said. “Everyone talking about me behind my back. Finding fault with everything I did because they were so desperate to win. It was awful.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Why would you?” Alex looked at me. “Look, I know I’ve come in and taken someone’s place who was very important to you all,” she said, “and I suppose I’m always expecting you all to find fault with everything I do. I suppose I just need to prove to you all that I do know what I’m doing.” She picked her coffee cup up again. “But in hindsight I probably went about it all the wrong way as usual.”

  “So you didn’t think I was pitchy at the recording?”

  “No. I didn’t.” Alex rolled her eyes. “Now can we just change the subject?” she asked. “Please?”

  Gladly. I chewed on my lip, trying to think of something to say.

  Fortunately, Alex got in there first. “Can we try again?” she asked, then leant over to me, extended her hand, and said, “My name’s Alex Brody and I’m very glad to meet you.”

  “Tally.” I took her hand, glad that she’d shown initiative when I’d apparently been unable to. “It’s actually Talia, but I prefer Tally. Or Tal.”

  “Talia?” she asked, releasing my hand. “That’s a nice name.”

  “It means gentle dew from heaven, apparently,” I said, sitting back again. “My parents are fans of unusual names. My brother’s called Jasper.”

  “Ha.” Alex chuckled. “My dog’s called Jasper.”

  “I’ll tell my brother that,” I said. “Mind you, I suppose it could have been worse. Our parents could have called us Psoriasis and Chlamydia, or something equally bonkers.”

  Alex laughed out loud and her laugh was so free and genuine that I felt a sudden…what? A sense of achievement and happiness, I suppose, that I’d been the one to make her laugh first out of all of us.

  “I know I’m not Nicole,” Alex suddenly said, her laughter gone in an instant. “I can’t ever be her.”

  “I know.” I nodded.

  Alex drew out a long breath. “And I’m sorry I’m not her,” she said, “but, hey. There’s not much I can do about that either.”

  “I know,” I repeated. I mirrored her sigh. Seemed it was the afternoon for sighs. “I’m sorry if I—”

  “All I can be is me,” she interrupted. “I don’t know how to be anyone other than me.�
�

  She was right. I got that. We’d been unfair to her from the off, expecting her to slot straight into Nicole’s shoes and to be the same person who’d gone.

  And as I looked at Alex and sensed the hint of uncertainty that lay behind her eyes as she spoke, it finally struck me that Nicole really had gone and it was pointless me, Robyn, Brooke, or anyone else trying to pretend Alex was someone she wasn’t.

  And I figured at that moment that Alex really didn’t need to be anyone other than herself, because she was doing just fine being herself.

  Chapter Eight

  The chat show was awesome. No, better than awesome.

  I glanced at Robyn, Brooke, and Alex as we filed off the studio’s stage, having totally killed our live performance of “After the Rain,” and felt the same chills on the surface of my skin that I’d felt in the apartment, the same hammering-heart sensation. The audience too—just as I’d thought at our first rehearsal—seemed to love it, if the prolonged applause as we came offstage was anything to go by.

  “So…Be4.” Our interviewer, a guy in his thirties called Hugh Hollis, who used to be a TV chef or something, apparently wanted to ease us into the interview with some bland questions as we all sat down. “You’re keeping the name?”

  Obviously.

  “We are.” Robyn smiled her best smile. “We thought we owed that to the fans.”

  Good answer.

  “Even though there was talk of you guys splitting when Nicole left?” Hugh asked.

  I shot a look to Robyn. That was news to me.

  “There was never any talk we’d ever break Be4 up,” I said. “Our fans have stuck with us since the very beginning. We’d never do that to them.”

  A small cheer went up from a corner of the audience. I lifted my hand and waved, prompting another, more prolonged cheer.

  “And Alex.” Hugh turned his attention to her. “How’s it been, being the new girl?”

  “It’s been awesome.” Alex, sitting between me and Brooke, sat back and looked like she belonged there. “These guys have been lovely. Made everything so easy for me,” she said, “it was like joining old friends.”