She's with the Band, page 11
‘Oh, okay,’ he called after me. ‘Good luck!’
‘Cheers!’ I called back over my shoulder. ‘And thanks for the ring!’
Now or never, baby. I felt giddy-dopey, but as instructed, ready to follow Lexie’s Law for Landing Lads.
Pulling my playsuit down to reveal non-existent cleavage, I exhaled once, hard, into my hand. My breath smelt like . . . breath. Whatever. Putting on my best sultry strut, I turned the corner breezily. He was a few paces ahead of me. I walked up to him . . . and right past him, catwalk confident. I kept walking. Um, wasn’t ignoring him supposed to . . .
‘Mia!’
Bingo bango, Jackson. I turned innocently. ‘Oh, hi, Justin.’ One hand on hip, one dangling, head cocked coyly, mouth shut. Don’t start the conversation. Let them pursue you.
‘If it isn’t the girl who pushes people into pools.’
I gave him a look like, That all you got? (Excellent multi-use facial expression.)
Him: ‘Smoke?’
Me: Yuck. ‘Cool.’
I leant forward as he lit the cancer stick. The muffled strains of Chesterfield had set the mood to romantic, and I tried hard to avoid staring at him. Jeez Louise the boy’s visage could sell everything from breakfast bars to funeral homes. Death definitely wouldn’t be a drag if those hands were easing me into a casket. Easing me gently . . .
‘So, you nervous?’
Answer questions with questions –that keeps conversation flowing. ‘Why would I be nervous?’
He smiled. ‘’Cause you’re about to play a show?’
I sucked down some poisonous cig. ‘Am I?’
The smile faltered. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘What did you think?’
The smile morphed into a WTF expression. ‘I thought you were on next.’
Look bored. Sound bored. ‘Well then,’ I sighed. ‘I guess we are.’
Scope out the room while you’re still talking to them. Glancing over his shoulder, I threw a flirty wink and a ‘hey’ at an invisible hottie. He turned to see who was there –no one –and looked back to me, mystifed.
‘You don’t sound that psyched.’ He flicked ash onto the concrete. ‘I couldn’t sleep before our first show. I was so freaked my hand shook for half the set.’
Be mysterious. Keep them guessing. ‘Well, I have a secret cure for pre-show nerves.’ I let my lips curl up into a saucy smile.
‘Really?’ he asked, blowing smoke up past my shoulder. ‘What?’
‘If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?’ I dropped my cigarette between us and stepped forward onto it. I flashed a coy look from lowered lashes –another Lexie secret –and didn’t step back.
‘I guess not . . .’ he murmured, staring at me in a combination of overt fascination and dumbfounded confusion. ‘But maybe one day I’ll find out.’ Lifting his non-smoking hand, he let one thumb slide down my arm hanging loose at my side.
I closed my eyes, feeling light-headed, my skin prickling hotly at his touch. I could smell his leather jacket, his aftershave . . .
‘Maybe you will,’ I whispered.
‘Mia!’ The moment was shattered by a distraught Seb, racing down the corridor towards me.
‘Kinda in the middle of something here, Seb . . .’ I muttered, flashing Justin another lowered lash look of lust.
He grabbed my arm, voice strained and breathless. ‘Houston, we have a major freakin’ problem.’
12
Two queens hit the deck and the punks hooted with laughter. ‘Strip!’
Lexie threw her head back and squealed with them. She stood up unsteadily, whipped her singlet off, and screamed again.
‘Drink!’ the punks slurred, tossing her an all-but-empty bottle of vodka, which she slammed back to yells of approval from The Boners. Finally seeing us standing speechless in the doorway, she squealed again.
‘Dudes! This is my band!’ She flung the bottle high in salute, the sudden movement causing her to tip sideways onto a floor thick with half-naked drunk punks, evidently in the middle of strip poker.
‘She’s wasted,’ I said to Seb, stunned. ‘She can’t sing like that. She can barely stand up.’
‘Like I said,’ Seb was losing his cool, ‘problem.’
‘Black coffee,’ I thought aloud, desperately trying to grasp memories of what happened in the movies. ‘A lie-down? A cold shower?’
Greasy Ponytail tapped me on the shoulder. ‘You’re on in five, guys.’ He glanced at the half-naked Lex, rolling on the floor in hysterics, with obvious interest. ‘If you need a hand getting your singer onstage . . .’
‘We can handle it,’ Seb snapped. He turned to me grimly. ‘Showtime.’
‘C’mon Lex, not everyone wants to see you in your underwear,’ I said soothingly, trying in vain to slip the singlet back over her head as we waited at the side of stage
‘Yisss they do,’ she slurred, giggling and swaying tipsily out of my reach. ‘Maybe I should shing naked.’
‘No, no, no, no,’ we chorused in a panic, barely managing to stop her undoing her bra.
As Chesterfield bowed, smiling graciously at their applause, Seb and I exchanged doomed looks.
‘Maybe we should pull out,’ he whispered urgently. ‘Food poisoning. Bad prawns.’
I swallowed hard. ‘Too late.’ Lexie had already stumbled onstage, grabbing the microphone roughly from the longhaired singer in paisley.
‘Hello Shydney!’ she yelled. ‘Are you ready to party!?’
Her words fell flat, prompting only baffled, scattered applause.
‘Please tell me this isn’t happening,’ muttered Seb, wiping his brow feverishly. ‘We’re a freak show.’
But if Lexie was deterred, she didn’t show it. ‘C’mon!’ She cried, pumping her fist in the air. ‘I shaid, Are you ready to party? Start cheering, you guys!’
Whether the crowd obeyed because of her sheer bravado or the fact there was a blonde babe onstage clearly off her head, we didn’t know. But cheer they did, so it seemed there was nothing for it.
As Seb and I skulked onstage, reality dawned and applause started to swell –oh, we were the band, that wasn’t just a drunk chick with Guitar Hero delusions. I glanced at Seb and slung my guitar over my shoulder. He shrugged helplessly, holding his sticks up to count us in. ‘One, two. One, two, three, four!’ With everything we had, Fire Fire slammed into our first song.
What came next was not something we had prepared earlier.
A writhing Lexie missed her cue on the first verse and instead started to play her synth part again. I looked around to Seb, who was staring at her in confusion, with no choice but to keep playing the same beat. I followed suit –looking desperately towards an oblivious Lexie –but she had her eyes closed, lost in her own world of an endless synth riff.
‘Start singing!’ Seb yelled at me. ‘NOW!’
Without thinking I whipped my head to the mic, and began singing Lexie’s part. I knew it as well as she did, but my voice sounded nothing like Lex’s deep sexy snarl –it was too sweet, too thin, it seemed to change all the meaning of the words.
On hearing my voice, her eyes flew open and for a second I could see her start getting into the song, before realising slowly it was she who was supposed to be on the mic. She picked it up from the chorus, but after the bridge the same thing happened, and I ended up singing the second verse as Lexie danced around onstage singing the back-up.
Finishing the song together, Lexie turned to grin at me, giving me a pleased thumbs up. I gaped at her in bewilderment –was she so toasted that she had no idea what was going on, or had it actually worked out? Did we actually sound good singing together?
Seb shrugged helplessly and counted us into the next song.
As soon as the last note faded, Seb threw his drumsticks down in disgust and stormed offstage. I threw an unsure smile to the crowd, and followed him as he blazed a path to the band room.
‘I can’t believe it,’ he choked, running his fingers through his hair in distress. ‘I can’t believe her.’
‘C’mon, Seb, it wasn’t that bad . . .’
‘No, it was worse, Mia,’ Seb railed. ‘That was a joke.’
‘All right!’ Lexie fell into the band room, throwing her arms around us, reeking of booze. ‘We rocked! Awesome! Rock’n’roll!’
Seb pushed her arm away harshly. ‘Get a grip Lexie. Your inebriation has annihilated this band.’
She stared at him, confused. ‘What’s your problem? That was killer!’
‘Are you crazy?’ yelled Seb. ‘You missed half your cues. Mia did more singing than you!’
‘Yeah, and it sounded great!’ she exclaimed, rolling her eyes. ‘Jeez, don’t be such a control freak.’
‘Oh yeah, playing like we rehearsed is really being a control freak.’ Seb’s voice smacked of angry sarcasm. ‘I’m sorry, I thought that was the point of rehearsal.’
Lexie’s defences were rocketing sky-high. ‘Seb, can you chill out? It’s called improvisation.’
‘It’s called getting wasted and ruining our first show.’ Seb lost it. ‘I’m sick of it. I’m sick of having to make excuses for your pathetic irresponsibility!’
Her eyes hardened. ‘I’m not listening to that shiz. C’mon Mia.’ She turned to grab my arm and I quickly stared at the ground. ‘I said, c’mon, Mia.’ She went to snatch at my arm again, but I didn’t let her.
The atmosphere changed. We had broken character rules. I always went with Lexie if she wanted and Seb was always the sensible one that fixed things and didn’t get mad.
‘Wow, Seb.’ Lexie said icily. ‘It really sounds like you have something to say to me. Are you gonna say it, or are you gonna be a total boy about it?’
‘You wanna know what I’m talking about? Fine.’ Seb enunciated each word with deadly precision. ‘I’m talking about you always being late to rehearsal, about you not helping set up or pack up, and you being the last one to learn your parts. I’m talking about your need to be centre of attention 24/7. I’m talking about you ruining this band!’
‘Yeah?’ Her eyes flashed at him. ‘Well, that’s who I am and you need me. Deal with it.’
Seb laughed harshly. ‘That’s the best part, Lex. I won’t have to anymore. There’s no way we’ll win this heat. After tonight, Fire Fire ceases to exist. I quit.’
I stood shell-shocked.
Lexie turned to me slowly. ‘Is that what you think too?’
Panic struck me –confrontations are not my strength. ‘Maybe we should all just calm down . . .’
She stepped towards me, hands squarely on hips. ‘Is that what you think too?’
‘No,’ I lied. ‘It’s not.’
She sneered at me in contempt. ‘You’re such a pathetic coward.’
‘Don’t talk to her that way,’ Seb snapped.
‘I don’t need you to stick up for me, Seb,’ I snapped back.
‘You guys are both such cowards!’ Lexie screamed. ‘I hate you.’
‘HEY!’ Greasy Ponytail stood in the doorway. ‘They’re announcing the winner. Onstage, now!’
‘If I can have your attention . . .’ A music dork in a Battle of the Bands T-shirt tapped the microphone, attempting to quiet the rowdy crowd. ‘First of all we’d like to thank all the bands for playing . . .’
The four bands were clustered on stage, all cool photo ops except for us. Lexie and Seb were the divorced movie star couple –everyone could see they hated each other, but they had to do it for the fans. I was their publicist, stuck between them so they didn’t kill each other.
Glancing over to the wings, I spotted Justin and Emil. They both acknowledged me with a nod and a half-smile, ignorant of the other’s presence. Seb clocked this with grim amusement.
‘Reality versus fantasy,’ he muttered. ‘The reality is: this fire is out.’
Lexie rolled her eyes. ‘What happened to your positive attitude, Sebastian?’
Seb looked at her evenly. ‘I think you drank it.’
‘And while, in a way, all these bands are winners,’ the dork was saying. ‘In a more specific way, only one band will compete at the State Final next week. The envelope please . . .’
. . . and for a moment everything else seemed to fall away –the people watching, the judges examining us, the other bands onstage, Justin, Emil, school, home, everything. Suddenly it was just me, Lexie and Seb, despite the drama, despite all the crap. I felt dizzy and there was no sound, no light, nothing except us . . .
‘The winner is . . .’
Lexie and Seb instinctively grabbed a hand each . . .
‘Fire Fire.’
The crowd cheered, wild and animalistic. Lexie jumped up and down, screaming, ‘I knew it! I knew we’d win!’
Photo flashes burst over us. We won? I felt confused and weird and hot, like I had a fever, it couldn’t sink in, I couldn’t move.
‘Innovative use of two contrasting singers,’ the dork read out. ‘Impressive standard of drumming, dynamic stage presence from all performers and unique song structures. Congratulations to Fire Fire.’
Someone clapped me on the back.
‘You guys!’ Lexie shook our shoulders. ‘Don’t you get it? We did it! We won!’
Seb looked at me and started laughing incredulously. We won. We were playing the State Final. WE WON!
Soundtrack: ‘Like An Arrow’, The Red Sun Band
Mood: Luv-struck
‘Strawberries dipped in chocolate.’ I put my guitar case carefully into the back seat as Seb worked on bundling up cables efficiently.
‘Hot guys dipped in chocolate,’ he replied.
I frowned. ‘A thousand blue M&Ms in a glass.’
‘A thousand hot guys, dipped in chocolate, in a blue glass.’
I laughed. ‘Dingdingdingdingding! You’re now in charge of all backstage demands.’ I grunted, lugging the heavy guitar amp towards the car. ‘Why don’t we have roadies to do this?’ I whinged. ‘My beautiful hands are blistering!’
Seb chuckled as he helped me shove the beast into the boot. ‘Hey, I was thinking about the show.’ He cleared his throat, looking a little uncomfortable. ‘What do you think about, well, maybe we can play around in rehearsal with two singers. The judges seemed to think it sounded okay.’ He glanced at me. ‘What? Why are you looking like that?’
‘Hey.’
We turned to see a bedraggled Lexie limply holding a mic stand. Silently she walked up to the car and began shoving it awkwardly into the boot. Halfway through she stopped and stumbled to the bushes. The graceful sound of a quick spew ensued.
‘And that is what we call,’ Seb began channelling David Attenborough, ‘a drunk teenager in their natural habitat. Listen carefully to its mating call. Isn’t that magnificent?’
The words ‘never . . . drinking . . . again’ came muffled from the shrubs, before she reappeared as if walking on very, very thin ice. ‘What else we gotta do?’
Seb cleared his throat. ‘Mind the car, Mia. I’m going to teach Lex the ancient art of packing up a drum kit with a Grade A hangover.’ He extracted the mic stand from the boot, giving her an amused look. ‘These usually belong to the venue.’ And then to me: ‘Don’t make out with any groupies while we’re gone.’
‘What if they’re really hot groupies?’ I called after them.
‘Save them for me,’ he hollered back.
The sound of their footsteps faded and for the first time that night there was nothing. No crazy fighting, no booming speakers, no cheering crowds, no bands, no boys, just total peace and quiet in an empty car park.
Climbing up onto the bonnet of the car, I sighed and stretched back against the windshield to gaze up at the stars. The cool metal was smooth and comforting against my back. Crickets whirred and clicked, as planets light years away in deep, silent space twinkled at me. It was hard to believe they were the same stars I used to stare at for hours from our back porch in the Snowy –it seemed like so long ago. So much had happened . . . My eyes started closing as a wave of exhaustion washed over me . . .
‘Mia.’
I jumped, almost falling off the bonnet in fright. Without acknowledging I was practically asleep on a car bonnet –where else? –Justin handed me a flyer. ‘Cool show. Come see my heat tomorrow night.’
Only someone that unnaturally attractive could get away with making an invitation a statement, not a request.
‘Sure, if I can watch backstage,’ I shot back cheekily.
He grinned at me. ‘Your name’s on the door. You can bring the band,’ he offered, as he started strolling off into the darkness. ‘But I really only want you.’
As lust flowed through me like molten lava, I looked at the flyer. Four brooding boys stood calmly in the middle of a snowfield filled with winged reindeer. Suddenly, anything was possible.
13
‘Merde!’ I slammed my locker in annoyance.
‘What’s wrong?’ Charlie –the semi-famous chick whose locker was next to mine –asked in concern.
‘I forgot my French textbook again,’ I groaned, picturing it on my bedroom floor. ‘Ms Tautou is gonna kill me . . .’
‘Take mine,’ she smiled, handing it over.
‘But, won’t you need . . .’
‘Great show last night!’ she called over her shoulder as she sailed off. ‘Au revoir!’
‘Thanks –I mean, merci!’
‘Hi, Mia.’ A couple of unfamiliar dancing students gave me little waves as they floated past. Weird. That had been happening all morning . . .
‘Mia!’ Michael and Sarah from art class ran up, falling in step on either side of me. ‘How’s it going?’
‘It’s going fine,’ I answered suspiciously. ‘What’s up?’
Michael pulled an invitation out of his pocket. ‘Having a party this weekend. Be awesome if you guys could play.’
‘This weekend, as in the day after tomorrow?’ I asked, inspecting the hand-written invite. ‘Bit late to plan a party, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, the party’s been planned for ages—,’ he started, a swift kick from Sarah cutting him off.
‘But I wasn’t invited,’ I finished for him. ‘Until now.’
