Face the Music

by Marianne Levy

  She thought, for a second. ‘Nope. God, Katie, why are you being so weird? If you want to come, come!’

  And in my head I was screaming, I don’t want to come!

  What I want is for you to realize that it’s my birthday that night and to say that of course you’d rather hang out with me and maybe at the same time you could admit that Karamel are bad and Savannah and co. are annoying and perhaps you could stop with all the leg and limo chat while you’re at it!

  Even Nirvana wouldn’t be angry enough for this.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Happy birthday to me

  Happy birthday to me

  Happy birthday, dear Katie

  Happy birthday to me.

  It’s important I have that there because NO ONE ELSE SANG IT.

  To be fair, Mum did at least have a present waiting on my plate when I finally staggered downstairs. (A pair of earrings with real diamonds in them! Teeny-weeny ones, but still!)

  And Adrian had got me the reissue of Frank on vinyl, which was waiting in a flat, shiny square next to my place, underneath birthday cards from Gran and Auntie Tasha, who isn’t a proper auntie, she’s Mum’s mate from nursing college, but hey, it’s always good to have an extra auntie.

  ‘Do you like it?’ said Adrian, his early-morning face sporting a light coating of silver-and-black pre-beard.

  I ripped off the paper. ‘Yes! Yes I do!’

  He did a whole playing-the-drums mime thing and ended with a ba-doom-tish. ‘Get in.’

  Now, me and Adrian had had our ups and downs recently, pretty steep ups and downs, come to think of it, what with him being Mum’s new bloke and my self-appointed manager. And a nasty habit of coming downstairs in the mornings wearing Mum’s flowery dressing gown.

  Still, things had been getting better. And it was sweet that he cared so much about making me happy.

  Yeah. Adrian was all right.

  Manda had been in the bathroom when I woke up, and in the bathroom while I got dressed. She’d still been in there when I banged on the door and said that I had to clean my teeth, and do certain other things, quite urgently. She’d still been in there when I’d gone to do them in the downstairs loo, which I try to avoid at all costs, because there’s a serious risk that people in the kitchen might overhear.

  When she finally came in, she was holding something behind her back.

  ‘Happy birthday, K-Star. Fourteen! Sorry I wouldn’t let you into the bathroom. I was doing . . . this.’

  She handed me a package covered in about twenty different layers of tissue paper and trailing loads of swirly ribbons.

  ‘Mands,’ I said. ‘Please don’t tell me that you’ve spent the morning wrapping up a poo.’

  She laughed. ‘Come on. Open it!’

  So I did . . . and . . .

  ‘Well?’ Her eyes were all glowy. ‘What do you think?’

  There in front of me was a brand-new leather-covered notebook, with my name on the front in letters that had been sort of pushed into the leather. And next to it, a pen in a little box.

  ‘It’s for your songs!’ said my sister. ‘I know you’re always trying to write in that ratty old notebook, so I thought this might inspire you!’

  No . . . no, no, no.

  I mean, it was gorgeous. It had the new-leather smell that, in the normal way of things, I can’t get enough of. And the covers were buttery soft. Then inside, page after pristine page of thick, creamy-white paper.

  But if I couldn’t write in just my normal lyric book, which was a battered, card-covered thing, how on earth was I meant to come up with something good enough to put on to these perfect pages?

  It deserved someone so much better.

  ‘This is . . . beautiful,’ I managed, about ten seconds after I should’ve done.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad I found something you can use.’

  She knew from my face that I couldn’t use it.

  ‘It must have been expensive,’ I said.

  ‘It was.’

  ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘All right,’ said Amanda.

  ‘So, Katie, what’s the plan for your bash tonight?’ said Adrian. ‘I can go to Asda on the way back from the shop, just tell me what you need.’

  ‘OK, right,’ I said. ‘A tub of Häagen-Dazs, any flavour you like so long as there’s no fruit in it – I do not want my pleasure being ruined by anything even approaching a vitamin – plus Jaffa Cakes and a litre of Diet Coke . . . no wait, not diet, not today.’

  ‘Enough sugar to send you to an early death – got it,’ said Adrian. ‘And how many pizzas? Is that Savannah girl going to be coming?’

  ‘She’s not coming,’ I said. ‘And –’ this was surprisingly hard to say – ‘nor is Lacey.’

  ‘Not coming to your birthday? Why not?’

  ‘Because they’re going to a Karamel concert,’ I said, feeling really quite bleak. ‘It’s my fault; I got them tickets.’

  Mum went to ask some probably very sensible question, so I held up my hands. ‘Just . . . don’t.’

  ‘So, it’ll be you and Amanda?’

  ‘I dunno. I mean, I had this whole night planned, with NOW albums one to thirty-seven and dancing and stuff. But if Lacey’s not going to be there, it’s just you and me, Mands.’ I sighed. ‘You probably won’t want to . . .’

  Which was Amanda’s cue to say that of course she wanted to, that we didn’t need Lacey, that my big sis would be looking out for me, making absolutely sure that even though things had gone a little bit wrong my birthday would still be completely ace.

  ‘Well, if you’re not keen,’ said Amanda, fiddling with a bit of abandoned tissue paper. ‘Maybe we should leave it for this year.’

  What? No!

  ‘I mean, you’re getting a bit old to dance around in your bedroom anyway, aren’t you?’

  No no no!

  ‘I suppose so,’ I said.

  ‘OK then,’ said Amanda.

  It was interesting, because as I was unwrapping my earrings, I thought I’d never be unhappy again. Now, less than twenty minutes later, I was.

  And that, ladies and gentlemen, was my special day.

  Oh, no, wait – I missed the whole other middle part.

  Probably because I’ve been trying to block it out.

  I did consider pulling a sickie, but I knew Lace would have something special planned. And as I wasn’t seeing her that evening, I thought I ought to let her make a fuss of me during the day.

  My uplifting birthday breakfast meant I was running horribly late. So late that even though I got ready in double-quick time, I had to run if I wasn’t going to miss the bus. Running is hard work, especially now that I’m getting on a bit.

  ‘Happy birthday, by the way,’ said Jaz, as we took our places: her on the back seat; me wheezing and sweating on the next row along – because, while I aspire to be a back-seat person, I don’t think I’m there quite yet.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, slightly surprised that she even knew about it.

  ‘So –’ Jaz folded herself up like the time Mum had caught a massive spider in a shot glass, her boots very much defying the sticker that said Please Keep Your Feet off the Seats – ‘what does Katie do to celebrate her birthday?’

  ‘I, um, have a dance party,’ I said, worrying a little that Jaz would think I was a complete juvenile, but somehow it was too early in the morning to think of a decent lie. ‘Me and Mands and Lacey all jump around to some vintage pop. Well, that’s what I normally do. Only, this year . . .’ I tailed off. ‘That’s what I normally do.’

  Jaz considered the supreme patheticness of a Katie Cox dance party.

  ‘That sounds bearable. What time?’

  Jaz? At my dance party?

  ‘Um, it’s not really . . . a you kind of thing. It’s more for me and Lacey and Manda. You know.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ repeated Jaz, staring out the window as though she was bored to death, which she probably was.

  Then, because
I hadn’t been getting the bus for very long and it’s important to find out this stuff, ‘Do you lot have any special birthday rituals I should know about?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Only, when I walked in along the canal, generally, if it was your birthday, you got chucked into the canal.’

  ‘Oh. Right. No,’ said Jaz. ‘I mean, we couldn’t do that on the bus anyway.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It would have to be something humiliating but non-messy. I guess we could draw all over someone with eye-pencil. You’d have to hold them down first, but . . .’ I caught myself. ‘OR, we could just be nice to whoever’s birthday it is. Like normal people.’

  ‘Nah,’ said Jaz. ‘Hey, you lot.’ She was talking to the year sevens. ‘Hold Katie down, yeah? And Nicole, get your eyeliner.’

  ‘Happy birthday,’ said Lacey, as I arrived in the form room, my face wet and covered with tiny flecks of loo roll, plus quite a lot of Nicole’s eyeliner.

  ‘Thanks, BFF,’ I said, settling down at my desk. Then, in a whisper, ‘Erm, Lacey? Just how bad do I look right now?’

  ‘Pretty bad,’ said Lacey. ‘Your face is grey and splotchy and covered with bits of white stuff – what is that? And your fringe is all over the place. Why?’

  I pretended to examine my fingernails. ‘Because Dominic Preston is looking at me.’

  Lacey peered over her bag. ‘He is,’ she said. ‘You should smile or something. Look casual. But interested. And happy.’

  ‘Like this?’

  ‘What are you even doing with your mouth?’

  ‘This is my casual-interested-happy smile,’ I hissed.

  ‘Never make that face again. Never, never, never.’

  ‘Hey, Katie,’ said Dominic. ‘You OK?’

  ‘YES!’ I shouted.

  ‘OK,’ said Dominic, and then he went back to talking to Devi.

  Me and Lace started to giggle.

  ‘He is so into you,’ said Lacey. ‘Don’t forget me once the two of you are going out.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s very likely.’

  ‘Well, maybe this’ll help you remember,’ said Lace. She reached into her bag and came out holding a little wrapped box.

  ‘Oooh,’ I said, jiggling it around, then picking it open. ‘Oooh . . . a charm bracelet! Lace!’

  ‘They’ve just got them in at Samuel’s,’ said Lacey, looking extremely pleased with herself. ‘I got four charms: a guitar, that’s because of how you play the guitar . . .’

  ‘An ice cream!’

  ‘They didn’t do Magnums, so that sort of represents them. And a microphone, and one of those squiggly things you get on music.’

  ‘A treble clef?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Aw, Lace,’ I said, thinking I might cry. And then quite wanting to, because it would show her how happy I was. Which meant, of course, that my eyes immediately dried up again. ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘I tried to get something to be our Chinese takeaways, but they only had this Chinese-symbol one and I didn’t know what it meant so I thought I’d better not.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Like the one that Karamel lead singer has on his arm. I bet it means “I am a bum-face”. Like, why have a tattoo in a language you don’t understand?!’

  ‘Um.’ She looked away. ‘I realized, last night . . . the concert, your birthday . . . talk about bad timing.’

  Thank the Lord.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said.

  ‘Why didn’t you just tell me?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want to spoil your amazing fun night with Savannah and co.’

  ‘But if you’d said something at the time . . .’ She was looking at me, her face all open and kind. ‘Katie, I feel terrible.’

  ‘It’s OK!’ I insisted. ‘I’ve got it all planned out! We’re going to have our regular dance party, unfortunately Mands is unavailable, but that just means extra pogoing space, and Mum and Adrian said we can make as much noise as we like.’

  ‘Yay! It’s going to be brilliant, Katie. We’ll bust some moves and have proper Coke, and pizza, and ice cream – whatever you want. Plus, I’ve got this major new lip stuff we need to try; it puffs up your mouth like crazy. You can’t even get it in shops, it’s that good.’

  I fastened the bracelet around my wrist. ‘I knew you’d understand, Lace. You’re the best friend ever.’

  ‘Compliment accepted,’ said Lacey. ‘And the good thing about doing it tomorrow is that we have extra time to look forward to it.’

  ‘Um . . . tomorrow? But I thought . . . you would . . . cancel . . . because . . .’

  Her expression made me stop.

  ‘Katie, I can’t back out now. I promised Savannah. She’s booked a limo!’

  ‘Oh . . . OK.’ It came out a bit wobbly.

  She put her hand on my arm and looked me full in the face. ‘Katie, it’s just twenty-four hours.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said. Translation: It is not fine.

  Lacey speaks fluent Katie. Or, I thought she did.

  ‘And I’m going to text you from the concert.’

  ‘Cool.’ Translation: Please don’t.

  ‘And I’ll be thinking of you tonight. Thanks so much for the tickets.’

  ‘No problem. Just going to pop to the loo before French.’ Translation: I am about to burst into tears.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  So that was it, really. Katie’s Birthday Spectacular.

  By the time I got up to my bedroom – after a special dinner, hand-cooked by Adrian, of slightly-past-its-sell-by-date ham-and-pineapple pizza and too much Häagen Dazs – I was pretty much over it.

  So I crawled into bed and snapped off the light, ready to sleep it out.

  It didn’t work. Possibly because it was only seven thirty.

  Fine. Maybe now was the moment to write that song for Tony.

  I pulled my guitar out from underneath my hoodie and . . .

  No.

  Nothing.

  I don’t really understand about writing songs.

  When it’s going well, it’s like the music is just there, inside of me, or maybe inside of my guitar, waiting for me to set it free. I don’t notice that I’m trying to come up with rhymes or that the chords don’t quite fit, because time’s standing still and also going at triple speed.

  It’s not an easy thing to explain. All I can say is that although I know I’m working really hard, I don’t even notice.

  When it’s going badly, though . . . it’s like I’m made of the wrong stuff. Like my fingers are someone else’s and the music’s all drained out of my guitar, as though words are strange, spiky tools and I don’t know how to use them.

  No, that doesn’t even begin to cover it. There’s this sneaking feeling I get, that I’ve never really been able to write, that every other song I’ve managed was an accident, a fluke, or perhaps something I’d stolen without realizing.

  It’s like when you get insomnia. You know you’ve gone to sleep before. That every night of your life until now, you’ve just turned over and done it. Only, you can’t remember how, and the more you think about it, the more impossible it feels, like someone’s asking you to fly or go invisible.

  It’s like a part of me has died. Or maybe was never really there in the first place.

  Superstar?

  Super failure, more like.

  My new phone went ding!

  And there was a Lacey-Savannah-Paige-Sofie selfie: four pouty duck faces in front of a gigantic pink limousine, along with the words:

  HEY KATIE, WE’RE HERE!

  I threw my guitar across the room.

  Then went and picked it up, because the evening was being bad enough without me breaking that as well.

  What was wrong with them? Karamel weren’t even slightly decent at the best of times. How could they be better than spending time with me on my fourteenth birthday?

  Ding!

  Now they were posing next to a gigantic gold letter ‘K’.

  EXCITE
D!!!!

  Great, Lacey. I am glad that missing my birthday in order to hang out with the band I hate most in the world is making you so very happy.

  LOOK! OOOOOOH!

  And now a photo of the poster filled my screen, three big stupid boy faces with even bigger, stupider boy hair.

  Not only were they the worst and most annoying set of people in the actual universe, they were also quite literally ruining my life with their very existence.

  Karamel, with their croony rubbish about how much they loved their mums and their bandmates and the invisible, imaginary girl standing in front of them.

  Karamel, who always seemed to be photographed fooling about on the beach. Or in a swimming pool. Or on a bouncy castle.

  Karamel, who seemed to start every song sitting on barstools.

  Karamel, who—

  Ding!

  OMG K I CANNOT BELIEVE U R MISSING THIS!!!!!!

  Another selfie, this time of Lacey looking crazily flushed in front of the stage, with three lit-up blobs in the background. Honestly, the way she was going, she’d run out of exclamation marks.

  Ding!

  THIS IS THE BEST NITE OF MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  And the worst night of mine.

  SAY SOMETHING KATIE

  What could I say?

  What was there to say?

  And then . . .

  And then . . .

  I found that I had quite a lot of things to say, after all.

  Can’t stand the boy band

  Plastic faces, stupid hair

  Can’t stand the boy band

  The matching clothes they wear

  The tattooed Chinese symbols

  On the skin that’s perma-tanned

  I can’t stand the boy band

  Ding!

  IM SO HAPPY RITE NOW THANK U THANK U THANK U

  Don’t like the boy band

  Singing songs about their nans

  Don’t like the boy band

  Hanging round their camper vans

  Their lyrics are predictable

  Their music’s oh so bland

  I don’t like the boy band

  Maybe this song was already inside me, waiting. Perhaps it had spent the last few months growing, feeding on the drip drip of loathing that I’d swallowed every time Savannah professed her undying love for them, or Paige sighed and said ‘swoon’.