Face the Music

by Marianne Levy

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Jaz is one of those people who seems to take up a lot of room. I’m not saying she’s big or anything. In fact, she’s a lot thinner than me. It’s just, she has this really enormous aura that fills up all the space you put her in, whether it’s my bedroom or our form room or, as with right now, the top deck of the bus. I hope we don’t ever get stuck in a lift together. I’d probably suffocate.

  ‘You’ve got a lot of Amy Winehouse stuff,’ said Jaz, scrolling through my iTunes, which was a little surprising, because I hadn’t given her my phone. The thing was far too precious to ever leave my hand, being new, and nice, and literally the only thing that had come out of all this fame stuff so far.

  Also, I’m not massively trusting of Jaz around phones, because of how she managed to film me on hers, put the video online and send me viral, with the result that I nearly lost my best friend, alienated the rest of my form and almost broke up Mum and Adrian.

  I reached out and took it back again. How she’d got it in the first place was beyond me. I made a mental note to keep it behind a zip. Maybe two.

  ‘Amy’s music is amazing,’ I said, gazing out the window, and then starting backwards as the bus smacked into the branches of an overhanging tree. ‘She only did two albums, but every single track is just, you know . . .’

  ‘How’s your album going?’ said Jaz.

  I’d always thought it’s best, with people like Jaz, not to ever show any sign of weakness, because they’ll just use it against you later. But recently I’d changed my opinion of her. Not that I’d decided she was the world’s nicest person or anything, but she had been, well, sort of, kind of, nice.

  Which is why I felt like it would be OK to say, ‘Not as well as I thought it was.’

  We stopped talking for a moment as, two rows ahead, Nicole from year ten lifted up her hair to show the year sevens her infected ear-piercing.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Jaz. ‘You’ve got hundreds of songs. You showed me them. In your book.’

  For the record, I hadn’t shown her, she’d gone into my bag and found them, but hey-ho.

  ‘Yeah, but the next one’s got to be drop-dead incredible or everyone will say I’m a one-hit wonder and I’ll just be this complete has-been for the entire rest of my life. And with “Just Me”, it was like I wrote it without even thinking about it, and it somehow came out all right. But now the more I think about it, the less I can do anything. It’s like, everything that happens to me, I’m saying, “Is that a song?” and so it never is.’

  ‘Why can’t you use one of the ones you already have?’

  ‘Tony didn’t like any of them.’ It was the first time I’d said it out loud. ‘We had this big meeting and I played him loads of stuff and he kept saying it didn’t work.’

  ‘Even “Cake Boyfriend”?’

  ‘Even “Cake Boyfriend”. And then when I got home I had this email. Hold on . . .’ I found it and showed her, being sure to keep my fingers firmly wrapped around the screen.

  Katie!

  Great meeting.

  Loved revisiting your back catalogue! You are such a talent.

  Our feeling is that you should try to write a brand-new single.

  Possible themes:

  • A song about partying. Please, no references to anything inappropriate.

  • A song about first love. Please, no references to anything inappropriate.

  • Something about animals. Maybe cats? People on social media love cats. Do you have a cat? If not, we can lend you one.

  Hope that’s got you feeling inspired! If you want to run any ideas by me, my door is always open!

  Looking forward to hearing from you.

  Tony

  ‘So he wants a song about going to a party where you fall in love with a cat,’ said Jaz.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind hearing that,’ said Jaz, unhelpfully.

  ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ I said, wondering if I felt a bit sick because of our conversation, or just from reading a screen while sitting on the top deck of a bus. ‘I’ll have to come up with something soon, but I don’t know what it’ll be.’ Then, ‘Sorry, are you OK there?’

  I was starting to suspect Jaz wasn’t completely focused on what I was saying, on account of how she had my phone (again?! How???) and was frantically typing.

  ‘JAZ!’

  ‘It’s all right. I’m not logged in as you.’

  ‘Can’t you use yours?’

  ‘I’m out of data.’

  I looked to check she really wasn’t logged in as me, because that really would have been a major disaster, and then said:

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Giving Nicole’s troll the smackdown.’

  ‘Nicole has a troll?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jaz, her fingers a blur. ‘Every time she posts a video he pops up from his troll hole and tells her she’s rank.’

  ‘What’s she been posting?’

  ‘How she had her wart frozen off.’ Jaz finished whatever she was typing and chucked my phone back into my lap.

  I picked it up and had a look. There was Nicole’s video, paused on a picture of her elbow, which I decided I wouldn’t examine too carefully.

  Then, underneath, a load of likes, a few thumbs down, and people like Devi and Fin and Paige saying things like ‘URGH!’ and ‘way cool, Nicole,’ and ‘so gross I luv it’. Followed by approximately a hundred and twenty posts, all from someone calling themselves sampand45xcg1, saying:

  Harltree scum

  and

  THE WORLD DOES NOT NEED YOU

  and

  u r a disgusting cow

  And so on, and on, and on.

  It was kind of upsetting. And I say that as someone who finds Nicole a tiny bit disgusting, too.

  Jaz picked at the lace on her scarf as I tried to imagine what it would be like to be on the receiving end of something so grim. Tried, and failed. In the end, I decided I would never put anything out there that would get anyone quite so worked up.

  ‘It’s weird that they’ve latched on to Nicole,’ I said. ‘Maybe she should just stop posting stuff. Or ignore them. It’s just words; it’s not like it matters.’

  Jaz gave me a ‘Jaz’ look, which reminded me that Jaz is really quite scary sometimes, and that even though she and I were on fairly good terms at the moment it was probably better if I carried on being a little bit careful in her company.

  It also made me think that any troll who dared take her on would be a total idiot, because while a troll is a troll, Jaz is Jaz.

  Meanwhile, IRL, Nicole was squirting white gunge out of her ear and Finlay was burping up his breakfast and trying to make us guess what he’d eaten, which made me feel sicker than ever.

  So I shut my eyes and lay back, and tried, and failed to think of a song.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Take it from me, you don’t want to be doing English homework and simultaneously trying to write a world-conquering hit single. Unless, maybe, the hit single is about English homework, but I sent the idea to Tony and got a single-word reply. A word that began with an ‘n’ and ended with an ‘o’.

  Still, at least I had my best friend to turn to for support.

  ‘I am so stressed right now,’ I said.

  We were digesting a particularly grim school lunch, I’d just finished a guitar lesson, and we were sitting on the radiators along the top corridor. It’s nice up there. The radiators mean it’s warm even in winter, and there’s a really good view. Only of the car park, but still, a car park is better than a brick wall. Which is about as much as you can see from the lower corridor, where we’d sat in year seven.

  It was sad that I knew without even having to ask that Tony wouldn’t let me release a song about corridors.

  ‘What’s there to be stressed about?’ said Lacey, who was rocking a particularly breezy look. She’d clipped her fringe back and rolled down her sock to display the bronze ankle bracelet we’d found on our l
ast trip to Oxfam. ‘Mellow down. It’s summer, babes.’

  ‘Babes?’ I repeated. ‘“Babes” is a Savannah word.’

  ‘Well, anyway, it’s summer,’ said Lacey. ‘Which is the least stressful time of year.’

  ‘Unless you have heat rash.’

  ‘I don’t get heat rash.’

  ‘Or chafing,’ I said.

  ‘I told you, stick some talc in there.’

  ‘And exams.’

  ‘I’m not thinking about that.’

  ‘Then what about wasps, Lacey? I can just about maybe believe you’re not as sweaty as I am, and that maybe your epic-level exam denial is keeping you from freaking out, but you have an extreme phobia of wasps!’

  ‘I’m over it.’

  This did not seem likely, as, last year at sports day, Lacey got chased by a wasp in the 400 metres and set a new school record. Which was quite something, given that she wasn’t even in the race.

  ‘I thought we were all about winter,’ I said. ‘You know. With the Christmas carols and pies. And big coats!’

  ‘Savannah says I’ve got a great back,’ said Lacey. ‘You can’t show off your back in a big coat.’

  I took a moment to consider Lacey’s back. From what I could remember, it was just a normal back. Which I told her.

  ‘Actually,’ said Lacey, looking a bit offended, ‘Sav says it’s way better than average. I don’t have spots, or back fat, and my shoulders are this perfect ratio to the rest of me. I’m thinking I might go backless to the disco. Show it off a bit.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Katie, are you being unsupportive of my back?’

  ‘No. I love your back. I’m its biggest fan. Second biggest, after Savannah.’

  ‘Good.’

  There was a silence. ‘We’ve got so much work at the moment,’ I said. ‘I just feel like however much I do, I ought to be doing more.’

  ‘Then why aren’t you working now?’ Lacey wanted to know. ‘You could go to the library.’

  Which wasn’t the point. ‘It’s the idea of working that I find so hard. It’s all this invisible pressure.’

  ‘Seriously,’ said Lacey. ‘If you want to go, I won’t stop you.’

  ‘Plus, I can’t seem to think of a new song. I just spent a whole entire guitar lesson with Jill trying to come up with something and nothing happened and nothing happened and then I finally had this idea but when I tried it out Jill said I was playing the verses of “Don’t Stop Believin’” and the chorus of “Empire State of Mind”.’

  Was it my imagination, or did Lacey very slightly roll her eyes?

  It was my imagination. Of course it was. Because then she said:

  ‘Let’s write one now. We could call it . . . “By the Radiators”.’

  ‘Er, no.’

  ‘“Looking Down into the Car Park”?’

  ‘Lace, it’s OK; no one wants you to write it for me,’ I said. And for some reason I couldn’t even begin to understand, she twitched, and looked away.

  I searched around my brain for things to cheer us both up a bit. Usually, the inside of my head is like my bedroom floor, filled with interesting items if you can just find them underneath all the junk. Today, though, there was pretty much nothing.

  Nothing except for Dad.

  Ever since the phone call, the word had been going around my head like a drumbeat.

  Dad.

  Dad.

  Dad.

  Dad.

  And – well, you get it.

  I was desperate to tell Lacey, crazy keen to talk about it with someone who’d understand. Not Mands. She’d been down on Dad ever since he went to America, even though he’d had no choice, because work is work, plus, America is awesome.

  And telling Mum . . . well, to be completely honest, I was still working up to that.

  But my best friend would understand, wouldn’t she? Lacey knew the whole entire history of the divorce. She’d even been lucky enough to witness a couple of the rows.

  Which is, I suppose, what had stopped me from saying anything so far. Lace completely got it, of course she did, but if there was even a chance that she’d be anything less than totally excited for me, then it wasn’t a conversation I was particularly interested in having.

  But she would be. Of course she would be. She’d met him. And now she’d be seeing him again. Maybe he’d even take us out for dinner . . .

  ‘Dad’s coming home,’ I said, just as Lacey said:

  ‘Savannah’s dad’s hiring a pink stretch limo to take us to the Karamel concert.’

  ‘What? That is so tacky.’ Perhaps it was better to leave the family stuff for the moment.

  ‘. . . Yeah. And we’re getting majorly dressed up first, at Paige’s house.’

  ‘What a hassle.’

  A group of boys from our year came past. A group that included Dominic Preston, who is extremely good-looking.

  He gave me a smile and I fell off the radiator.

  ‘Keep walking please, nothing to see here,’ said Lacey, picking me up from the floor.

  He laughed, and carried on down the corridor.

  ‘Now that is an above-average back,’ I said, dusting off various bits of top corridor scuzz that had stuck themselves to my skirt.

  ‘Katie!’ said Lacey. ‘Are you in love with Dominic Preston? Whoah, are you going to ask him to the disco?’

  ‘He is extremely good-looking,’ I admitted.

  ‘I thought we’d agreed to fall in love at the same time so that we could talk about it together.’

  We had agreed this, when we were eleven, and falling in love had been as academic as something that was actually academic, like trigonometry. I think we’d even pinkie promised, which is embarrassing, partly because I don’t like to break that kind of thing, and also, pinkie promises are extremely whack.

  ‘I cannot control my heart,’ I told Lacey.

  ‘So you ARE in love with him! That is SO unfair! Who am I supposed to fall in love with?’

  ‘You’re basically in love with Savannah,’ I mumbled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know. Um, Devi Lester? Finlay? You could totally go to the disco with Finlay.’

  ‘Finlay smells of pickled onion Monster Munch.’

  ‘And do you find that attractive in a guy?’

  ‘NO!’

  I did, for a second, wonder what it was that I found attractive in Dominic Preston, and whether I really was in love with him. There was his extremely good-looking face, of course, a sort of biggish nose, and grey-blue eyes. And his mouth was the right size for a mouth. Not small, like Finlay’s, with his little nibbly rabbit teeth. And not huge and flappy, like Devi Lester’s. Kissing Devi Lester would be genuinely hazardous. He’d probably get most of your face in there. You’d be at risk of losing your chin.

  Kissing Dominic Preston, though . . . What would that be like? He was a smiley sort of a person, so it would maybe be quite fun. Probably he’d make a joke and then I’d laugh and he’d smile.

  Having him get properly close, though . . . maybe even sticking his tongue in my mouth . . . hmm. I probably did want him to, but not anything like as much as, say, wanting the green suede slingbacks I’d seen last week in River Island.

  Because . . . unlike the slingbacks, which were definitely amazing, kissing Dominic Preston might be, well, a bit yucky. Not having kissed anyone before, it was hard to know what to expect. And when it comes to kissing, there are so many things to worry about.

  Supposing it turns out that he doesn’t ever clean his teeth? Supposing he leans in and I find that I have to be sick and I’m trapped in the kiss and I end up heaving into his open mouth???

  I mean, I’ve never heard of it happening before, but there’s a first time for everything.

  A rush of year sevens told us that it wasn’t ever so long before the end of lunch, and we gathered up our stuff.

  And Lacey said, in the most casual possible way, so casual that she made sure to look at her bag rather th
an me, ‘You sure you don’t want to come to Karamel with us?’

  ‘You’re deigning to invite me to come to something that you’re only going to because I gave you tickets in the first place?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I mean, how can you invite me, when the whole thing was my idea? That’s just . . . wrong.’

  The bell rang, and I followed her down the stairs.

  ‘It’s just, I know what you’ll be like,’ said Lacey.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘You’ll go into one of your grumps and sit around in your room and listen to something angry like Utopia—’

  ‘Nirvana.’

  ‘Yeah, them. And you’ll be all stroppy and not answer your phone and spend the next week giving me these looks.’

  We stopped outside our form room.

  ‘I do not recognize the person you are talking about,’ I said. ‘If you want to waste a perfectly good evening watching the World’s Worst Band, then fine. But I have other things to do. I mean, boy band? Boy bland, more like.’

  ‘See?’ She turned around headed for her desk. ‘You’re doing it already!’

  And before I could reply, Sofie and Paige came floating over in a cloud of Vera Wang Princess.

  ‘Message from Savannah,’ said Paige. ‘We’ve got to go long. Legs are so out. Have you got anything maxi?’

  ‘But my legs are my best feature!’ said Lacey.

  ‘I thought your back was your best feature,’ I said.

  She made a face. And then, ‘Can I borrow your blue dress?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s for one night.’

  ‘I’m using it,’ I said.

  ‘Fine. I’ll just have to go shopping.’

  ‘Oooh, can I come?’ said Paige.

  ‘Yes!’ said Lacey. ‘Are you free tonight? We could go to Cindy’s, get some ideas.’

  ‘I’ve got dance tonight. When’s the concert?’

  ‘The ninth,’ said Lacey. ‘So I suppose we could go tomorrow. Or . . .’

  ‘The ninth of July,’ I said. ‘That date sounds sort of familiar, doesn’t it, Lace?’

  ‘Does it?’

  ‘Yes. Are you sure it’s not ringing any bells with you?’