Love from Lexie

by Cathy Cassidy

  I straighten my shoulders. ‘Yes, I’m Lexie. I’m with the band.’

  I like the sound of that. I like it a lot.

  ‘So … can I help you?’

  ‘Depends,’ the girl says. ‘See, I’m, like, a really, really good singer. I can do Adele, I can do Rihanna … whoever you want. Everyone says I should go on the X Factor. I mentioned it to Marley in French this morning and he told me to let you know …’

  ‘We’ve got a singer already,’ Bex replies. ‘Sasha here. But if we need anyone else at any point, we’ll definitely keep you in mind!’

  The hard-faced girl curls her lip.

  ‘I might not be available by then,’ she says. ‘I have a lot of offers on the table just now. And once I audition for the X Factor, that’s that, obviously – I’ll be under contract. I was just thinking you might like the help, y’know … a voice that’ll get you noticed. Marley’s a friend of mine, so it was kind of a favour for him. He’ll be upset you can’t fit me in, but hey. No skin off my nose.’

  She casts a disgusted look round the table, and I panic and wonder if Bex has been too hasty. If Marley sent her, he must think she’s good, surely? I am tempted to say she can join if she wants to, but Bex is too quick for me.

  ‘We can’t,’ she says sweetly. ‘Sorry, Sharleen. You should have auditioned yesterday, like everyone else. I’m surprised Marley didn’t mention it to you before … what with you being practically a superstar and all.’

  Sharleen rolls her eyes.

  ‘Your loss,’ she snarls. ‘A word of advice, though. You should be a little bit more picky about who you have in your band. I mean … geeky little weirdos and talentless airheads and fat, ugly losers aren’t exactly going to pull in the crowds, are they? I need a professional backing band, not a freak show. Whatever!’

  She stalks away, leaving us all a little shell-shocked.

  ‘Who was that?’ Jake asks, wide-eyed. ‘What just happened, even?’

  ‘Sharleen Scott, well-known Year Ten bully,’ Bex explains. ‘Vain and spiteful with a cruel streak thrown in for good measure.’

  ‘I know her well,’ Sasha says sadly.

  ‘Me too,’ Romy whispers.

  OK. Narrow escape, clearly. Although bullies may be just as lost as the rest of us – more so, probably. Guilt washes over me.

  ‘Were we … maybe … just a little bit harsh?’ I wonder out loud.

  ‘Us?’ Bex snorts. ‘Wise up, Lexie. That girl is bad news. Come to think of it, Marley is bad news too. And me, possibly. Trust me, there is only so much of that you can have in a band.’

  ‘I think she used to go out with Marley,’ Happi comments.

  ‘So did half the girls in this school,’ Bex says. ‘I don’t care who she used to date, we don’t want her messing up this project. Seriously, Lexie.’

  I bite my lip.

  ‘She just called us all geeky little weirdos, Lexie,’ Happi reminds me.

  ‘She called me a talentless airhead,’ Sasha adds. ‘Nice.’

  ‘And, well, you heard what she called me,’ Romy whispers. ‘She’s right, isn’t she? I don’t fit in. I am overweight, and I am … well, the rest. It’s not the first time I’ve been called fat and ugly, and it won’t be the last. I don’t belong in the band. I should have known it was too good to be true …’

  Her eyes brim with tears, and I know that if I don’t say something fast this whole band will crumble into dust before it even gets started.

  ‘Romy, stop right there. You’re going nowhere,’ I declare. ‘You’re an amazing musician – we’re lucky to have you. The Lost & Found is not about looks or weight, not that I’m saying you have anything to worry about in either area, obviously …’

  I stumble to a halt before I get into any more of a tangle. The truth is that Romy is overweight; her hair is lank and her skin is sprinkled with blackheads. She looks pale and tired, as if she doesn’t get enough sleep and doesn’t see enough sunshine.

  ‘Do I look like I’m in a band?’ Happi challenges. ‘Do any of us? C’mon, Romy. We’re just a big bunch of musical misfits, that’s all. Nobody cares – only Sharleen, and she’s full of poison and spite. Why waste time listening to her nastiness?’

  Romy tries for a shaky smile.

  ‘We’re a work in progress, anyhow,’ Sasha states. ‘We don’t look like a band yet – but we will! None of us are perfect, but we can help each other! Maybe we could come up with a logo for a T-shirt design, or just go for a certain image – rock or punk or pop or vintage, whatever. The main thing is to ignore bullies like Sharleen. Seriously, Romy. I plan to.’

  ‘Me too,’ Happi agrees. ‘Who needs that stuff?’

  ‘As for her singing skills,’ Bex cuts in, ‘She has a voice like fingernails scraping across a chalkboard, with overtones of cats being strangled.’

  Jake laughs. ‘We haven’t even existed for a day yet, and already we’re causing a stir,’ he says. ‘People want to know what we’re up to; people want to join. We should definitely be running a publicity campaign, do some posters, cash in on the speculation – keep people guessing!’

  ‘Social media too,’ Happi says. ‘Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, all the usual suspects …’

  I write all this down in my notebook. I can see that the Lost & Found may turn out to be quite a bit of work, but I don’t care – it’s exciting. It feels like we’re on the edge of something cool, something awesome. Maybe.

  We go back to our dinners; Bex and Jake are bonding over marketing ideas, Happi, Sasha and Romy forming an unlikely alliance to discuss style and image. I can hear Sasha whispering to Romy about a really good shampoo for shiny hair as I dig into my chocolate pudding and custard.

  Suddenly Bex jabs me in the ribs. ‘Bob Brother alert,’ she hisses. ‘Incoming!’

  ‘Who are the Bob Brothers?’ Jake asks, but Bex kicks him under the table and he falls into silence.

  Out of nowhere, Marley saunters over, grinning, guitar slung over his shoulder.

  ‘Hey,’ he says. ‘How’s my favourite girl?’

  I feel my cheeks turning a pale shade of crimson. ‘Don’t know … How is she?’ I quip. ‘Who is she? Tell all!’

  ‘She’s you, idiot,’ Marley says, sliding into the chair next to me. ‘Stop playing hard to get! You’re my musical genius partner-in-crime, and you know it. We need to have a band meeting, put some plans and ideas on the table. What d’you think? Just an informal thing – get stuff sorted before our first official practice?’

  ‘Cool,’ I reply, because this is Marley Hayes asking, after all. I push my plate away and wipe a crumb of chocolate pudding from the corner of my mouth.

  ‘I’ve just met a friend of yours,’ I say. ‘Sharleen Scott. She said you recommended her for the band …’

  Marley slaps a hand over his face. ‘No way,’ he wails. ‘She has a voice like a bag of rusty nails and a personality to match. Please say you told her no?’

  I laugh. ‘Bex did … thank goodness!’

  ‘Phew,’ Marley says. ‘That could have been tricky. So … band meeting? Somewhere a bit … quieter? After school?’

  I grin. ‘I guess so. I’ll put the word out, and you can too, and hopefully most people will be able to make it …’

  Marley grins. ‘No – just you, Lexie, if that’s OK? What with the band being your idea and stuff. Or yours and mine, maybe. We can get together as a group on Thursday, as planned, but you and I need to get stuff mapped out before that …’

  I blink.

  Marley Hayes wants to talk to me – just me – about the band? Somewhere quieter? My cheeks flare. I am turning red more often than a traffic light since meeting this boy.

  ‘Sure,’ I mutter, attempting nonchalance. ‘No worries …’

  ‘I’ll wait for you by the main gate after school,’ Marley says. ‘See you then!’

  He’s gone, leaving me speechless and slightly stunned. I look up at the others and find them all staring at me, clearly amused.

  �
�So … what’s this Bob Brother thing?’ Jake repeats, taking the heat off me for a moment. ‘Is it to do with his name being Marley? After Bob Marley?’

  ‘Spot on,’ Bex says. ‘And his brother’s called Dylan, after Bob Dylan I’m guessing, so … they’re the Bob Brothers. Make sense?’

  ‘Got it,’ Jake says. ‘Cool.’

  Bex turns her attention to me. ‘They’re both trouble, obviously,’ she says. ‘But Marley’s the worst. He’s had more girlfriends than we’ve had hot dinners, and now it looks like he’s got his eye on Lexie …’

  ‘Yeah, Lexie,’ Happi comments, raising an eyebrow. ‘I think the school bad boy just asked you on a date.’

  ‘Look,’ I say. ‘His reputation is wildly exaggerated. I mean sure, he’s a little bit lost and maybe he has a knack for trouble … but none of us are perfect, right? He’s OK. Really. And besides, it’s just business.’

  ‘Keep telling yourself that, Lexie,’ Bex says, laughing. ‘But I’m telling you … that boy does not have business on his mind!’

  My eyes follow Marley as he swipes a chip from the plate of an outraged Year Seven kid, then pushes through the double doors and out into the corridor without a backward glance.

  9

  The Leaping Llama

  The Leaping Llama Cafe is one of those painfully hipster places where the barista has a beard the size of a small koala bear and skinny jeans with turn-ups that end three inches above his bare ankles. I think they probably vet people at the door to make sure they’re cool enough to enter, and because I am with Marley I have somehow been allowed to slip through the net.

  It must be that, unless my outsize black school sweater, grey woolly tights and red bobble hat are hipster enough to pass the test.

  We sit in a corner booth sipping hot chocolate, Marley’s guitar propped up on the seat beside him. His blue eyes blaze with enthusiasm as he talks about the band, and I’m transfixed.

  ‘We have to get this sorted before Thursday,’ he’s saying. ‘The others will be looking to us for direction. There’s such a buzz going round the school about all this … Let’s see if we can keep it going! Any thoughts?’

  I push my notebook across the table towards him, and he frowns.

  ‘What kind of sound?’ he reads aloud. ‘Well, indie I think … with overtones of folk and jazz because of the violins, the cello and the trumpet. We’ll find our own sound, don’t worry. And as for shortlisting songs to learn … we don’t want to go down that track, surely? Playing covers of other people’s songs?’

  I put my mug of hot chocolate down.

  ‘So … we have original songs? Already?’

  ‘Well, kind of …’

  Marley unzips his guitar case and starts to strum, without any awkwardness at all. His fingers pick expertly at the strings, and a sweet kaleidoscope of sound curls around us, dredging unnamed feelings to the surface, telling a story of unexpected sadness and joy. The koala-beard barista stops serving to lean on the counter and listen, and the people in the coffee queue turn to face us as the music reaches a crescendo and dies away at last. The staff and customers of the Leaping Llama give Marley a round of applause, with a few whistles and whoops thrown in for good measure.

  ‘Awesome,’ I say. ‘I mean, just … wow! Did you write that?’

  Marley shrugs. ‘Sounds better with an amp and some backing, but, yeah, music I don’t have a problem with,’ he explains. ‘It’s the words I can’t do. I know what I want to say, I just … it’s not my skill, finding the words to express it all. And obviously a song needs both elements. So I was wondering … you’re good with words, right?’

  I blink. ‘Me? Words?’

  Marley frowns. ‘I’ve seen you around,’ he says. ‘Waiting outside the hall after school for Happi to finish orchestra practice … reading. In the park in the summer with Bex, in the sunshine … reading. On the bus to town … reading. Always reading. So you must be good with words. Stands to reason.’

  ‘Well, reading them is not the same as writing them,’ I point out.

  ‘You’re good at writing them too, though,’ he tells me. ‘I remember. I was in Year Six when you joined my primary school … you were in Year Five, in Dylan’s class, remember? It was almost the end of the school year, and the whole of the junior school put on a special assembly for the Year Six leavers. Year Five had rehearsed a play, Year Four had learned some songs … but you turned up too late in the term to do any of that.’

  I nod, remembering …

  ‘We could get you to read out a poem, instead,’ the teacher had said. ‘Would you like that, Lexie?’

  So I had gone away and written a poem about leaving, moving on, and how it was happy and sad at the same time. When I’d showed it to the teacher next day she’d told me it was perfect and asked me where I’d found it, and when I told her I’d written it myself she got all misty-eyed for a minute. It turned out she’d meant me to read a poem out of a book, but she said that this one was much better.

  I’d stood on stage and tried not to be scared and read my poem, and it seems that Marley had been listening.

  ‘I loved that poem,’ he says now. ‘And when the teacher told us you’d written it I was dead envious. Like I said, words aren’t my thing, but they are yours. I’ve had my eye on you for a while, Lexie Lawlor!’

  I’m kind of speechless. Marley Hayes knows who I am … knew who I was all this time. The information clatters through my brain like the ticker-tape updates of breaking news you get on TV when something cataclysmic has happened. I’m incapable of thinking of anything else.

  Gorgeous Boy With Cute Fringe And Dangerous Eyes Notices Quiet Book Geek And Accidentally Invents Band With Her … I feel dizzy at the very idea.

  ‘You’re staring,’ Marley says with a grin. ‘Don’t get me wrong – I quite like being stared at, but it’s a little bit unnerving. Have I got cake crumbs in my fringe or something?’

  ‘No!’ I say. ‘No cake crumbs. Sorry!’

  I gaze at the tabletop instead, wondering why I have suddenly lost the ability to act like a normal human being.

  ‘So … will you have a go?’ Marley is saying. ‘At writing some lyrics for the song? What with you being brilliant with words, like I said.’

  ‘I’m not, though!’ I argue. ‘I can’t write lyrics. I’ve never done anything like that before! A song’s not just about words, is it? Or even music. There’s more to it than that!’

  Marley nods, and his blue eyes laugh as they hook on to mine.

  ‘Obviously,’ he agrees. ‘That’s why I’m asking you – you’re clever, you’re sensitive, you get all that. A song is much more than words and music. A song is like all these mad, raw feelings, squashed into just three or four minutes of music. It’s … I dunno, love and death and hate and fear and joy and glory and shame … everything! It makes you think, makes you understand stuff. A good song worms its way inside your soul and becomes, like, a part of you!’

  ‘I thought you were rubbish with words?’ I say.

  ‘I’ve tried, Lexie,’ he tells me. ‘I know what I want to say, but I just can’t do it. I express myself best in music, not words. But you … you could have a try, maybe? Just have a go? We need lyrics by Thursday …’

  ‘Thursday? But … today’s Tuesday! That’s less than forty-eight hours to turn a piece of music into a song … from scratch! Have you got the sheet music for this? Anything written down?’

  Marley frowns. ‘I’m not big on writing down the chords,’ he says. ‘I just sort of hear it in my head, and make it happen, and record it on GarageBand. Keep it simple, right?’

  But this is a million miles from simple. I am way, way out of my depth.

  ‘I can’t, Marley!’ I argue. ‘I’ve never written a song before. I just … wouldn’t know where to start!’

  He rakes a hand through his hair. ‘Start where I always do,’ he suggests. ‘Hook on to a feeling … something big … and let it swamp you. Let it wash right over you, soak you through …
and ride the wave. That’s what I do!’

  I am gazing at Marley as if I have lost my mind, and maybe I actually have. My eyes are glazed and my mouth is slightly open, and I know I must look stunned and adoring and possibly slightly unhinged, but Marley is probably used to that. I mean, it’s not just that he looks gorgeous, he’s clever and creative and crazily talented … and he wants to work with me.

  Somehow he makes it all seem possible … songwriting, the band … life.

  ‘D’you know what I mean?’ He nudges me, and I snap out of my trance. ‘You don’t need sheet music or rules or worries about whether you’ve done it before. Keep it free. Feelings, yeah?’

  I blink. ‘Uh? Um … yeah!’ I say, miraculously recovering the power of speech. ‘Feelings. Got it.’

  ‘You live with Bex Murray, right?’ he says gently. ‘And Bex is in foster, so I’m guessing you must be too. I remember you, Lexie, and not just for that poem. You were all sad back then, but you’re not like that now. You’re smart, sassy, sparky, but there’s still something about you … something hidden, something deep.’

  I want to argue, say that everyone has something sad or difficult to carry – stuff they don’t talk about – but I’m silent. I can feel my heart beating hard. All this time, I thought I’d been invisible … but Marley could see me. Marley believes in me.

  ‘Give me your email and social media links,’ he says, holding out his phone. ‘I’ll send you a GarageBand link later. It’s only rough, obviously – I’m imagining violin and keyboards and a gentle drumbeat, and vocal harmonies, obviously … Can you see it?’

  I’m like a rabbit in the headlights. I can’t see anything but Marley’s blue eyes, blazing with fire and energy, but I am not about to admit that.

  ‘Yes … yes, I can see it,’ I bluff. ‘Awesome.’

  Marley grins. ‘I think we’ll make a great team, Lexie!’ he says. ‘You’re on my wavelength – you understand me. I have a vision for this band, and you can see it too … How cool is that?’

  ‘Cool,’ I say. ‘Seriously cool.’