Find the Girl

by Lucy Connell

  ‘We’re looking for the perfect piano,’ Dad had said, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘This is Nina and she’s going to be a big star some day.’

  The woman had smiled warmly at me and then told us to go ahead and have a try on any piano that we liked. Dad and I went from piano to piano, pressing the keys and pretending that we were interested in the grand pianos that never would have fit in our house. It’s one of the happiest memories I have, especially of Dad. I didn’t care that he never actually ended up getting me a piano, even though he’d said that to the lady. I don’t know if he’d never intended to or whether he just never got round to it, but it was still one of the most wonderful days I’d ever had.

  Although, now that I think about it, I don’t remember what Nancy and Mum were doing while Dad and I were running around that shop. I wonder where they went. I don’t even remember them being there, but they must have been.

  Chase’s phone starts ringing, jolting me from my memory.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says again, answering the call and walking a few paces away from us.

  ‘He really needs to tell Mark to give him a break,’ Nancy says, watching him.

  ‘I know.’ I hesitate. ‘Nancy?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you remember that weekend when Dad took us to the piano shop?’

  She nods. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Before we went to see The Lion King?’

  ‘I remember, Nina.’

  ‘What did you and Mum do? While Dad and I were playing on the pianos?’

  She lifts her eyebrows. ‘That’s random.’

  ‘I was just thinking about it and how much fun I had that day, trying all the pianos with Dad. Did you and Mum go around playing all the pianos, too?’

  ‘No, we didn’t. We sat waiting by the shop door and when you were playing the third or fourth one Mum went over to Dad and asked if he could wrap things up. He told her that we should go do something else for a bit and you two would come find us.’

  ‘Oh. What did you end up doing?’

  ‘We didn’t end up doing anything,’ she says. ‘We stayed and waited. I hadn’t seen Dad for weeks at that point because he’d been on a work trip the weekend before, remember? He arranged the day out so we could spend some time together before he went on another week of meetings in Germany afterwards. I didn’t want to go anywhere without him.’

  I stare at her. ‘Oh.’

  ‘Hang on, isn’t there that photo in your sitting room of you two wearing matching Minnie Mouse outfits in front of The Lion King poster? Was that the day you’re talking about?’ Jimmy asks. ‘You two were seriously adorable back then. Shame you grew up, really.’

  As Nancy gives Jimmy a playful shove, Chase comes back to join us with a funny look on his face. I know what he’s going to say before he opens his mouth.

  ‘I’m so sorry, I –’

  ‘Have to go,’ I say, finishing his sentence for him.

  ‘Something’s come up,’ he says gently, putting his arm round me. ‘I tried to get out of it but you know what Uncle Mark’s like. He says it’s important; I’ll tell you about it later.’

  ‘I thought you were staying for dinner,’ Nancy says, sharing a look with Jimmy. ‘Mum’s made cheese-and-potato pie.’

  ‘Next time,’ he says, giving her and Jimmy a hug before returning to my side. ‘Mark’s sorted a taxi for me and it’s meeting me at the cafe, so I should head back. I’ll try to call you later. Here –’ he places a small shell inside my palm that he must have picked up while he was on the phone, a reminder of our first date when he gave me one then, too – ‘I wish I didn’t have to go.’

  I nod and he leans down to give me a quick kiss, before hurrying back along the beach. I look at the shell in my hand. I think it’s meant to make me feel better but it doesn’t.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ Nancy asks. ‘Between you and Chase, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, course,’ I reply, closing my fingers round the shell. ‘Everything’s great.’

  She nods and doesn’t bring it up again the rest of the evening, but Nancy has that funny way of being able to read my mind.

  And she knows that I’m lying.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Nancy

  Sometimes I wish I could just shut down my brain.

  I’d like to turn it off for a bit and not have all these thoughts and worries running through my head all the time. Imagine how relaxing that would be, to have a few moments of nothing. My attention span has never been brilliant, but at the moment it’s non-existent. I can’t concentrate on anything and I get distracted very easily, before I realize I haven’t heard one word of the conversation I’m supposed to be part of.

  I’m not very good at handling stressful situations, even though I pretend that I am. When we were little and anything bad or stressful happened, I would be the one taking the lead and Mum would always say things like, ‘I’m so pleased Nina has you, Nancy.’ But the truth is, Nina is much better at dealing with stuff like that. She likes to analyse things, which means she thinks it all through very carefully, even when it hurts to do so. I prefer to avoid that at all costs.

  I think that’s one of the reasons we drifted apart after Dad left. I did everything in my power to forget all the hurt he had caused and so I threw myself into building a new life here, distracting myself from the past with all the exciting things in my present, like becoming captain of all the sports teams, going to fun parties and hanging out with confident, popular new friends. Nina took a different tack. She basically dropped off the grid, becoming so introverted and hidden away that it was impossible to have a conversation with her.

  She kept clinging on to the past. She wanted to talk about Dad all the time, which was annoying. And then she would get upset if I went shopping with a new friend without her, even though I had invited her and she’d said no. So I stopped inviting her. She wanted to listen to the music Dad used to play in the car, instead of the current charts, and she became obsessed with playing the piano, as though if she got good enough that might tempt him to come back.

  I was angry at her for holding on to him when he’d so easily let us go.

  Which is why I’m so wary of Dad coming back now. It seems strange that he’d show up with no warning whatsoever after so many years and expect us to welcome him back with open arms. Who does that?

  ‘He does,’ Mum had said a few nights ago, when Nina was in her room practising on her keyboard and I was helping Mum dry up. ‘He could be very spontaneous like that. I used to admire that quality in him. For someone so ambitious and career-driven, it was rather lovely that he had an unpredictable side to him.’

  ‘Did you think he’d ever come back? That he’d ever want to be part of our lives again?’

  She’d stopped what she was doing and taken a few moments to think about her answer.

  ‘Honestly, no. For the first couple of years, I thought he might want to look after you girls at least some weekends when he wasn’t busy working or travelling. I always made sure that he knew he was welcome to do that. No matter how I felt about him, it was never my plan that you would grow up without a father. But his enthusiasm petered out, a bit like it did with everything. Well –’ she’d smiled sadly – ‘with me at least. I thought that he might be interested in making contact with you when you were older, in your twenties maybe. When there would be less responsibility for being a parent. Maybe that’s why he’s come back now. You’re grown up. Seeing Nina playing the piano with Chase on that video must have stirred some emotions for him. He always thought she could make it as a musician and he was very encouraging of her. It must be nice for him to suddenly see her doing so well after all these years of wondering whether she was even still playing.’

  ‘That’s if he gave us any thought at all. I don’t get it, Mum. How can you be so calm about it? He left you to cope with two kids on your own.’

  ‘I’m not angry any more,’ she’d said firmly. ‘I’ve come to realize that he did us a big favour. He is a
brilliant businessman and a terrible family man. If he wants to make an effort with you and means it, and you both want that, then I’m pleased. I really hope he means it.’

  ‘You have your doubts.’

  She’d given me a wary look. ‘I don’t know him well enough now to judge it. I’m always going to be cautious when it comes to him, Nancy, and protective of you. That’s all I care about. If he sticks to his promises this time round, then I’m all for it.’

  I had nodded and changed the subject, tired of feeling irritated all the time. I know I’ve been in a terrible mood all week and that I’ve been difficult to be around, but I keep thinking about that moment when he walked into the room. I’ve played it over and over in my mind. It seems so surreal now.

  ‘HELLO! NANCY!’

  I snap my head up at the sound of Layla’s screeching voice in my ear.

  ‘Sorry! I was in a daze,’ I say, sitting straighter and paying attention.

  ‘No kidding,’ she grumbles, putting her hands on her hips. ‘You haven’t contributed anything to this meeting and I just asked you a question about TEN times!’

  ‘Twice,’ says Sophie.

  ‘What is with you?’ Layla asks, ignoring Sophie. ‘You’ve been acting strange all week.’

  ‘Have I? Oh, it’s nothing,’ I say. ‘I’ve had a lot on my mind with homework and stuff. Anyway, what did I miss?’

  Layla booked our form room after school, so that we could have a website meeting, having officially launched it yesterday. All That Glitters, a name I’d suggested, was now up and running. Layla and Sophie had already done a lot of the design before I came on board and, I have to say, it looked very good. Layla had posted a make-up vlog, which had gone down well, and together we’d put together an article on party essentials, which I thought was really strong. Sophie had done a hilarious vlog about learning to do the worm, which, considering she can’t do anything close to it, was extremely entertaining. That had got the most hits so far, something she was very proud of.

  My contribution was a ‘Welcome to the Music Section’ article, talking about the sort of thing readers had to look forward to. It wasn’t exactly my strongest work, but in my defence I had been a bit distracted this week.

  Something that clearly hasn’t gone unnoticed.

  ‘We were discussing ideas for driving up hits to the website,’ Layla tells me grumpily. ‘It’s an important conversation, Nancy. We need everyone to pull their weight.’

  ‘Got it,’ I say in my most serious voice. ‘Hits for the website.’

  ‘Yes, we have to be clever about this,’ she continues, pacing at the front of the room as though she’s the prime minister working out how to win the next election. It’s actually quite funny to watch her, but laughing at Layla in her current state is out of the question.

  ‘We have some good competition,’ Sophie points out. ‘Your friend Jimmy’s website is really cool.’

  ‘It is? How do you know? He hasn’t launched it yet.’

  ‘I logged on to his school account and checked it out,’ Sophie says breezily. ‘It’s a very striking design and his articles really made me think, you know? Like, he has so many interesting debates about important school stuff. Did you know that they only have one vegetarian option in the canteen? That seems unfair that vegetarians don’t have as many options. They should have at least two. When he launches his website tomorrow, I’m going to sign that petition of his.’

  I stare at her. ‘I have SO many questions right now.’

  ‘About the canteen options?’

  ‘No, Sophie! Questions like, what are you doing logging on to someone else’s account? And how do you even know how to do that?’

  I like Sophie, I do. But, having gone through a period of being very close friends with her, I can tell you with confidence that she’s got her head in the clouds a lot of the time and the idea of her HACKING into someone else’s account in order to get a glimpse at our competition makes absolutely NO sense.

  She shrugs. ‘It’s not rocket science, Nancy. I know his email address, so I just worked out his password and I was in. It only took me a few attempts. His password is “judetheobscure1”, all lower case. He’s been carrying around that book a lot lately, so I gave it a try. I think he changes his password to whatever he’s reading at the time. He is such a geek.’

  ‘Whoa,’ I say, looking at Sophie in a whole new light. ‘I never knew you had it in you.’

  ‘Had what on me?’ she says, suddenly panicking and checking her arms and shoulders. ‘What do I have on me?!’

  ‘No, genius, had in you. Not on you,’ Layla says, rolling her eyes, before turning back to me. ‘Sophie’s report of Jimmy’s work is worrying. All That Glitters isn’t gaining as much interest as I predicted it would at this stage.’

  ‘Layla, it’s been up for a day,’ I say, smiling at her. ‘Shouldn’t we give it a bit more time before we panic about it?’

  ‘What world do you live in, Nancy Palmer?’ she retorts, clicking her fingers repeatedly in my face, making me lean right back in my seat. ‘This is the twenty-first century! Things move fast! If you don’t make an impact, you might as well pack up your bags and go home!’

  As she makes her way to the whiteboard at the front, I lean towards Sophie.

  ‘Has Layla just had an energy drink by any chance?’ I whisper.

  ‘No,’ Sophie assures me. ‘But she’s had three coffees.’

  ‘That explains it.’

  Layla writes ‘BRAINSTORM’ in the middle of the board and circles it, before turning back to us and pointing the pen right at me.

  ‘You!’ she says. ‘Give me an idea!’

  ‘Uh …’

  ‘Come on, think! This isn’t a joke!’

  ‘I know!’ I say, trying to control my giggles. I really think she’s convinced herself via copious amounts of coffee that she’s some kind of chief executive working out a multimillion-pound deal and not a teenager working on a school competition.

  ‘I think we need more vlogs,’ Sophie suggests. ‘People respond more to video online now. I was thinking we should do some “How To” vlogs, like “How to avoid boring, weird people at a party” and stuff like that.’

  ‘Good!’ Layla cries, turning back to the board and writing ‘MORE VLOGS’. ‘Nancy, do you have any ideas for music vlogs?’

  ‘I do actually,’ I say, pleased to be able to bring something to the table. ‘I was thinking of doing a vlog series called “The song that means something”. In short video clips, I would ask people in school, including teachers, to tell me a song that really means something to them and why. It’s music-themed but also gives an insight to each individual.’

  Layla looks at me with a pained expression.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s quite the vibe we’re going for,’ she informs me. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Oh. Um. Sure, there was something – what was it again?’ I stall for time, trying to think up an idea. Layla’s enthusiasm and seriousness seems to be infectious and I genuinely feel like I’m in a boardroom, under pressure and about to be fired. ‘Oh yeah, OK, how about “Best live performances through the ages”. Quite a good nostalgic idea?’

  Sophie nods encouragingly, but Layla hangs her head, as though I’ve severely disappointed her.

  ‘Nancy,’ she begins, clicking the cap on to the pen and coming over to stand in front of me.

  ‘Yes?’ I gulp, her shadow looming over my table. I suddenly feel very small.

  ‘Maybe we weren’t clear enough about your role on this website. What we want from our music editor is brand-new material. Hot new stuff. People don’t care about other people’s favourite songs! They want celebrity news. Information that they can’t get from anywhere else. That’s how we’re going to drive up hits. Because we are leaders. We are shepherds. We are not sheep.’

  ‘We are SO not sheep,’ Sophie reiterates.

  ‘Right, we’re not sheep.’ I nod, pretending I know what they’re talking about. ‘But h
ow am I going to get that kind of information?’

  ‘By asking your friends, the members of Chasing Chords.’

  ‘What?’ I look from Layla to Sophie to check they’re being serious, and neither of them look as though they’re joking. ‘You want me to ask them for celebrity news?’

  ‘Absolutely! They’re sure to know everything about everyone. Pop stars always do,’ Layla states, as though she’s an expert on the subject. ‘I bet they have loads of good stories.’

  ‘You can ask them to make an appearance on the vlog!’ Sophie suggests. ‘We were thinking that you could do an exclusive interview with them about what they’ve got coming up. People here would LOVE that and we’d definitely win.’

  ‘Exactly,’ Layla agrees. ‘A few juicy stories about celebs and the Disney Channel internship would be in the bag. No one would even care about Jimmy’s vegetable petitions or whatever they are.’

  ‘Hang on,’ I say, jumping in before they can get carried away with this idea. ‘I can’t just ask them to give me exclusive news and stories about their friends in the business.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because … Chase is my friend now. And the rest of the band, too. I’d feel weird asking them questions about stuff like that. They get enough of that from sleazy reporters. They don’t need me asking them about personal things to splash across a website. I’d much rather write about music in a different way.’

  Layla and Sophie share a look.

  ‘Nancy, why do you think we asked you to join our team?’ Layla frowns at me. ‘You told us that you were the one with the contacts. Otherwise we could have asked Nina. You said that you were the best for the job.’

  ‘Well, yeah, but I didn’t … I didn’t really think about this side of things.’

  ‘Maybe we’ve made a mistake thinking you could handle this. Come on, Sophie.’

  Layla packs away her things and slings her bag over her shoulder, while Sophie gets up and gathers her books.

  ‘The meeting is over?’ I ask, stunned at the reaction.