“We can’t just take her purse.”
“We aren’t going to. We’re just going to look through it for the proverbial shits and giggles.”
“Erin, this is next-level wrong.”
She ignored me.
In retrospect, we should’ve just left, but we didn’t. We never should’ve touched that purse. But Erin had to open it. She had to look through it. She had to take a souvenir.
Michelle Hornsbury’s purse was basically a first aid kit if you ever found yourself walking down the street and needing to transform into a Proper Girl ASAP. There was every type of makeup a person could possibly need, the requisite feminine products, snacks, even a mini bottle of tequila.
“Is Michelle Hornsbury secretly a lush?” I asked.
Erin shrugged. “Who knows, but let’s start the rumor that she is.” She pulled out a fuchsia alligator-skin wallet first and rifled through it. “Only five bucks American, the rest are pounds.” She put it back and then took out a tube of lip gloss in Pink Lemonade, the same tint that Michelle Hornsbury had been wearing. “I say we go back to our room, show this to Rupert P., and tell him we ain’t fuckin’ around.” Erin laughed, really gleefully. It was pretty infectious.
“So now you want him to think we kidnapped his girlfriend too?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Why not?”
In the grand scheme of things, if I really thought about it, this probably wasn’t even the craziest thing a Strepur had done to The Ruperts. There was that girl in Australia who dressed as a maid at their hotel, got their room key, and watched them sleep for the whole night. She recorded it with night-vision video. Thanks to her, we now knew that Rupert X. snored and that Rupert L. cried out in his sleep. She was a hero among us, really.
Was doing crazy stuff to show your love just part of the Strepur tradition? Was pretending to threaten the life of Rupert P.’s girlfriend worth it if it was just in good fun?
While Erin’s schemes were normally exciting, now she was genuinely starting to scare me. Erin had always been edgy, but this was veering into sadistic. She’d definitely been spending too much time with Isabel.
“You’re not serious about the lip gloss, right?” I said. “We can’t torment Rupert P. like that.”
“We’re already off the rails,” Erin said. “Might as well make it a true pileup.”
“I don’t know …”
“Remember that time we went to the mall?”
How could I forget? When you lived in New York City, going to one of the malls here wasn’t a thing people normally did. But one day Erin and I got it in our heads that we wanted to be like Real American Teenagers, and Real American Teenagers went to the mall.
“You made up this elaborate lie that got us both out of school,” Erin said. “It was totally Ferris Bueller of you.”
Erin referencing an ’80s movie? She really did know the way to my heart.
“We took the subway to the Manhattan Mall,” I said.
“What a shithole.”
“And you stole that cardboard cutout of Rupert X. from Claire’s!”
“Rupert X. had no business displaying tween jewelry anyway.”
“Your klepto ways are a thing of legend,” I said.
We’d taken the cutout and run like hell until we found a photo booth. I’d always wanted to have those strips of photo booth photos you only ever saw in movies. Erin and I spent all of our pocket money posing with Rupert X.’s cutout, and he actually came out pretty lifelike in the pictures, except for the occasional glare off his forehead and the fact that he never changed expressions.
Erin liked trouble the way some people liked chocolate: Too much could become a problem, but a little once in a while could be a naughty guilty pleasure. The way she thrived on it was contagious, and now, sitting across from her in the hotel bar, I was itching.
“Do you think we could get Rupert P. to give us concert tickets out of this?” I joked.
“That is so ransom of you. I like the way you think, girl.”
I took the lip gloss from her hand. “We’re leaving this here, right?”
“Of course,” Erin said. “I was only kidding about that.”
I was relieved. Maybe Erin wasn’t as sadistic as I thought.
“Come on, we can’t keep Rupert P. waiting,” she said. “It’s getting late.”
“If only we had one of Rupert L.’s watches to tell us what time it is.”
“It’s like a cuckoo clock for your wrist,” Erin said.
“I’ll tell you what’s cuckoo …”
She cracked up and I joined in the laughter. The thing about me and Erin was that we could always make each other laugh. That trumped everything else.
I got up to go first, with Erin following behind me. When I turned around I saw her put the pink lip gloss tube into her pocket.
Back in the room, we found Apple straddling Rupert P.’s lap and dragging her tongue along the side of his face.
“What the fuck everlasting?!” Erin said.
“Oh, hey, guys,” Apple said. “I was telling Rupie that everything would be a-okay with just a lick and a promise. The promise part was my full devotion to him.”
Rupert P. moaned through the tights.
“Isabel, you were supposed to watch her,” Erin said.
But the only thing Isabel was watching was her phone, like I knew she would be. “She’s only licking him,” she said, lying cross-ankled on the bed. “It could be so much messier and you know it.”
Erin pulled Apple off Rupert P.’s lap. He tried to bounce in place, move around some, but the chair was one of those really ornate and heavy armchairs that wasn’t really going to budge unless you meant to do some damage, and judging by Rupert P.’s spaghetti arms, I wasn’t sure he was strong enough to move it an inch, let alone tip it over if he wanted to.
He gave up all attempts to escape almost immediately, though he still moaned. The tights around his mouth were soaked, either with his own saliva or with Apple’s. Maybe the moisture around his cheeks was from tears. My gut suddenly twisted with a sour feeling of guilt and sympathy that I could not ignore.
“Was he crying?” I whispered to Apple, low enough so that Rupert P. couldn’t hear.
She shot me an icy glare. “Are you implying he was crying because I was just sitting on his lap? You think I hurt him? You think I’m fat?”
Her appearance was one of Apple’s main hang-ups. Fat was what she saw in the mirror every day and the conclusion she always jumped to when things didn’t go right in her life. And, I’m certain, it was also the reason she chose Rupert P.—out of all the Ruperts—to love the most. I have this theory that choosing which boy to love in a boy band says a lot about a person. I think Erin loved Rupert X. because she believed she was hot enough to love such an attractive person. I think Isabel loved Rupert L. because she felt she was tough enough to love someone with muscles so big. I think I loved Rupert K., deep down, because he was the most approachable one in the bunch. And I think Apple loved Rupert P. because she couldn’t even envision herself being loved by one of the cute boys. She loved him because he was the only one who she thought could possibly love her back.
I think that boy bands don’t worry about having a snaggletooth of an ugly member in their otherwise perfect row of teeth—boys—because they know that there are girls like Apple out there. Girls who really don’t like themselves enough to aim higher.
Honestly, if I thought about it too much, it broke my heart.
But it was just a theory I had.
“No, Apple, I’m not saying you’re fat. I’m implying he was crying because he’s being kidnapped.”
“We’re not kidnapping him,” Apple insisted.
I waited for her to explain just what exactly we were doing, but she didn’t add anything more.
“Did any of you see any of Rupert L.’s tweets recently?” Isabel said. She didn’t wait for us to answer and proceeded to read off her phone: “To the girls outside of the hotel ple
ase be careful. It is not safe to stand beneath the scaffolding by the entrance.”
Isabel read it nicely enough, but I still imagined his tweet with all the spelling errors and grammar mistakes it probably contained.
“This is from half an hour later: We’ve just been informed cops are having trouble with crowd control outside of the hotel. Be safe.”
The four of us stared at one another for a moment, then ran to the windows at the same time. There were two windows in the room, and Erin and I took one while Isabel and Apple took the other. The wind was too loud when we opened the windows, but even so, I could hear all of our gasps. The crowd outside was even bigger than it was when we came in only an hour ago. Girls flooded the cobblestone streets. There were even girls across the street, as if they’d even be able to see the boys from there. It didn’t seem right, this many people on what was heretofore a quiet city block. It was like they were stretching the narrow street, forcing small SoHo to conform to their overindulgent size. I could make out a few figures in dark blue, officers making sure there was a walkway and that cars could pass, but there weren’t enough to come between a stampede of teen girls and their favorite boys.
“That isn’t safe,” Isabel said. “It won’t end well.”
A normal person would’ve maybe been concerned while saying those things, and they certainly wouldn’t have a demented smile on their face, but then this was Isabel we were talking about. “Best,” she whispered.
I tried to pretend she didn’t just secretly wish for a full-on Strepur revolt.
Erin stepped back from the window. “Isabel, what else is Twitter saying?” she asked.
Isabel turned away from the window too, her phone her main focus once again. “The Strepurs outside say they haven’t seen any of the boys yet, but supposedly Rupert K. left really early in the morning and he’s not back yet.”
Classic. The only reason I was here was to see Rupert K. and he wasn’t even in the hotel.
“We have to find out where their room is before they all head out,” Erin said. “Hey, Rupert, what room are the rest of the boys staying in?”
He shook his head. Obviously, with the tights in his mouth he couldn’t answer, but it was clear that he also wouldn’t answer.
“I’m not sure if you realize this, but you’re the one who’s tied up,” Erin said. “You’re at our mercy.”
He stayed silent for a minute but then nodded his head. Erin pulled the tights off his mouth so they were ringed around his neck but left the blindfold on. “I’m not telling you anything until you untie me. Bitch.”
“We’re not untying you until you tell us something.”
“Guess it’s a Mexican standoff, then, innit?”
“First the drug cartel and now this. Is he obsessed with Mexico or what?” Isabel said.
“I’m not at your mercy, YOU’RE AT MINE!” Rupert P. yelled, and it was something awful, fierce and violent. It made us all suck in a breath. “As soon as I get out of here—and I WILL get out of here—you’re all done for, do you understand? All four of you. Yeah, I can tell how many of you there are by your voices. And it all depends on my testimony just how much trouble you’ll get into. So it’s up to you. Either let me go now and get off with a lenient punishment, or keep me tied up longer and go to jail for it. Choice is yours, ladies.”
We were silent, and I knew what it was that had shut us up.
That word.
Jail.
Suddenly I was in the pit at a concert, hundreds of bodies crushing me against the barricades, cutting off my air supply. It felt like that, except for the exhilarating part.
I went to the bathroom door and opened it, motioning for everyone to follow me inside.
“Oi! Where are you going!” Rupert P. yelled, but his voice was drowned out when I shut the door.
“I am not going to jail,” I said.
“No one is going to jail,” Erin said.
“I watch Orange Is the New Black,” Isabel said. “If I go down, you’re all coming with me.”
“Rupert P. would never press charges,” Apple said. “I know him better than anyone, and he’s got a huge heart. He would never put us through that. And anyway, I’m sure we can work something out with him. If it comes down to it, I’ll volunteer to perform sexual favors.”
“In exchange for us not going to jail?” Isabel said.
“Yes, also that.”
“Get a grip, girl,” Erin said.
“Fine, I could try talking to him first. We should get rid of the blindfold. If I could just look him in those stunning amber eyes—”
“The blindfold stays,” Erin said.
“Preach,” Isabel said. “Once the blindfold is off, he makes us; once he makes us, we’re jailbait.”
“No one is going to jail!” Erin snapped. She didn’t exactly lose her cool, but it was the first time all day that she’d been close to it, and she seemed to realize it too. She ran a hand through her hair and shook it. It seemed to at once calm her down and revitalize the volume in it. Neat trick.
“Do you guys not realize that we have all the power right now?” Erin said. “Because he realizes it, and it’s got him going schizo. So long as Ginger’s terrified, we’ve got the upper hand.”
“Shit, Erin, I’m not in the business of terrifying gingers,” I said, unsure but still determined to talk some much-needed sense. “You think we’ll get anything out of him? He won’t even give us room numbers. And I’m not going to sit back and watch while Apple gives him a rubdown. We need to let him go.”
I watched Erin carefully, trying to gauge what was going on in her mind, trying to find her tell. I hated that she could so easily read my mind sometimes but her mind was still largely a mystery to me. She was our unspoken leader, always had been, and for one reason or another we always listened. I didn’t know if I expected her to call me out for being such a pussy about this and not sticking it out, or if she’d agree with me. And then I saw something in her: a twitch in her lips, a furrow in her brow. Still imperceptible to the other girls, but not to me. I’d known her the longest. I knew her most intimately. I knew she was thinking this through. She was coming around. The old Erin was back and was about to get on my side on this.
“Well …” she said.
But then someone’s ringtone cut her off. On instinct we all checked our phones, but the noise wasn’t coming from inside the bathroom. We opened the door and followed the sound. It led us straight to the one place none of us (except Apple) wanted to go. Rupert P.’s lap.
That was the moment something changed in Erin. There was a renewed vigor, and it was like nothing was ever said in the bathroom. That one little moment where I saw her resolve blink, that moment was totally gone now. Her eyes were wide open.
“Get his phone!” she said.
Of course, this was Apple’s job, and she took to the task no questions asked. She squeezed her fingers into one of the pockets in his jeans, ignoring his yelps of protest. Then she went to the other pocket. After a moment she went back to the first. “Oops. It was in the first pocket all along.”
She handed the phone to Erin, who took it from her and smiled down at the caller ID.
“It’s Griffin,” she said. “Should we answer it?”
“Don’t you dare,” Rupert P. said.
“We should let this go to voice mail,” Erin said. “I’m sure the message will be very enlightening.”
It stopped ringing, and we all listened for the ting of the voice message alert. “You can’t listen to that voice mail,” Rupert P. said. “And not only because I absolutely do not allow it, but because you haven’t got the password.” He began to laugh. “Joke’s on you, you psychopaths! Go ahead, keep my phone. It’s completely useless to you without the password. And you’ll never get it out of me.”
“Apple?” Erin said. A smile was spreading on her face the way blood spreads when it’s spilled.
“Try P-I-M-P,” Apple said.
Erin’s index finger bounce
d around the screen four times, and the phone turned as bright as her smile.
“Bloody hell,” Rupert P. murmured.
Erin put the newest voice mail message on speaker.
“Babe,” came the deep male voice on the phone, “where are you? I’ve been waiting in my room all this time. Just went out for a bit of ice, did you? I hate when you … You can be such an arsehole sometimes! But then you’re well aware of that, aren’t you? I’m done waiting. You can spend the night in your own room.”
And just like that, I knew that we had him.
And that Erin wasn’t about to let him go.
Rupert P. was gay.
I guess I should’ve mentioned that earlier, because—full disclosure—all of us kind of knew it already. All of us except Apple, apparently.
She marched up to me, grabbed my hand, and led me to the farthest corner of the room. “Why would Griffin call Rupert P. ‘babe’?”
In case you’re not up on the major players in The Ruperts’ camp, allow me to educate you. Griffin Holmes was the stylist for The Ruperts. It was his job to outfit each of the boys in the clothes they wore on tour and for events. Also, he was rumored to be Rupert P.’s secret boyfriend.
“And why was Griffin’s name the first thing Rupert P. said when he woke up?” Apple said.
Maybe Rupert P. gets tied up a lot, Apple. Maybe Griffin’s the one doing the tying. Maybe that’s their thing. “I don’t know.”
I should’ve told her then, but I couldn’t. Rupert P.’s sexual orientation was a point of much speculation among the fans. Except Rupert P. fans. Which should not come as a surprise; if they were willing to overlook the fact that he was a disaster of a human being, they were willing to overlook the fact that he was gay. If I told Apple what the rest of the world and I secretly already knew, it would break her heart.
“Apple, calm your tits,” Erin said, her tone as level and patient as a teacher’s. “No need to lose your chill because your lover boy likes dick.”
Leave it to Erin to do the job for me.
“I do not like dick!” Rupert P. said.
Kill the Boy Band Page 6
