I couldn’t remember ever fighting with Dad, and definitely not since Mum left. It was like her leaving had made me afraid to upset the balance. Jack and I sometimes argued behind closed doors, where Dad wouldn’t walk in with that hurt, terrified look on his face, but I never fought with Dad.
Or maybe there had never been anything worth fighting over before.
He took a deep breath. ‘You don’t need a chaperone, patatina,’ he said. He only called me ‘potato chip’, my family nickname, when he was worried. It took me right back to my childhood, back to sitting in Nonna’s kitchen listening to the cricket on her ancient radio. ‘You need a responsible adult. You need to finish your schooling.’
‘I’ve been here for two months by myself already.’
‘You were under the school’s protection.’
‘I don’t need protection. I can handle myself. Why don’t you trust me?’
‘Well, I trusted you to get your flight, and look how well that turned out,’ he said drily. Then, after a deep breath, he added, ‘It’s not about trust. You’re a minor.’ His voice broke a little. ‘You’re my minor. And I don’t want to lose you.’
I pictured him in his favourite chair on the porch, where he always took phone calls he didn’t want us to overhear. He would have taken the day off work to pick me up from the airport. If Jack was awake, he would be in the back garden, waxing his surfboard. I’d called before they left for the airport, but the pain in Dad’s voice still tugged at me. I hardened myself. ‘Please, Dad,’ I said, and was surprised at how resolute I sounded. ‘You might be able to force me to come home, but you can’t force me to give up the dream. This is the big time. My one shot.’
‘Look, if it wasn’t for Nonna, I’d move over there to support you,’ he said. ‘I’d take a semester off from teaching and find a flat nearby and we could make it work. But you know she depends on me for help with things here, patatina.’
The silence had jagged edges. This was the part where I was supposed to back down. Invoking Nonna was meant to be the trump card. My heart thudded, and I pursed my lips together to hold in my apologies. I couldn’t cave now. I’d told Sam to drive straight, I’d marched into Beatnik, I’d swallowed my humiliation with Carter for this.
I waited it out.
Finally he said, ‘Look. I’ll think about it. Let me talk it over with some people.’
‘Oh, Dad, I’ll show you, it’ll all be fine, I’ll –’
‘Just let me call you back.’ And he clicked off.
•
In the end it was Phoenix’s mum, Beck, who convinced Dad to let me stay. I don’t know what she said to him, but her attitude towards parenting had always been more relaxed than his. Dad emailed me the signed contract after a day of nail-biting, with the message ‘I do trust you’ and a string of conditions: that I kept up my studies with the help of a tutor, that I stayed away from alcohol and drugs, and that I called him every Sunday night. He also said he was giving me six months to make it work. ‘This isn’t a career path, patatina. Most musicians never make enough money to support themselves.’ I grudgingly agreed, although Carter and Richie were also underage and their parents hadn’t insisted on all this.
A week later, we moved into our flat in Brixton, above an appliance store. The flat had three normal-sized bedrooms and one that barely had space for a single bed, let alone a closet.
‘The small one’s yours, Jimi,’ said Carter as we poked our heads into each room. ‘I need a double room for, um ... entertaining.’ I rolled my eyes at him, but it still hurt.
That night, Sam crashed early, Carter and Richie headed out on the town, and I did my Maths and English homework before climbing into my single bed, where I lay awake watching the streetlight come in through the broken blinds, hoping all of this wasn’t going to be in vain.
Our next meeting with Beatnik was held in a conference room overlooking Canary Wharf. Saskia poured me a glass of water so cold it hurt my teeth. Jen was beside Amir at the head of the table, drumming her fingers. Unlike Jerry and Amir, she hadn’t seemed at all keen on adding us to what she called ‘the Beatnik stable’, and being in the same room as her made me nervous. As we all sat down, Saskia pressed a button and a projector fizzed into life, showing the first photo from the boathouse, which she’d raided from our socials.
‘This is you now,’ she said. She paused for dramatic effect, tossing her thick red hair over her shoulder. ‘And this’ – she pressed her clicker – ‘is what we can do for you.’
They’d lifted my face from the rehearsal photo and seamlessly photoshopped it onto a much more voluptuous body in a sundress.
‘You’re going to get me breast implants?’ I said. Sam let out a startled laugh, but everyone else was silent. Maybe this wasn’t the place for jokes.
‘We are going for a retro mod rocker theme,’ Saskia breezed. The next slide showed a series of models in one-piece swimsuits, with red lips and Marilyn Monroe hair held back with Rosie the Riveter headscarves. Compared to these women, I was built like a very short ruler. I thought about how Tish could change her appearance whenever she felt like it. She’d think this was all a big game, an exciting chance to evolve her wardrobe. I didn’t even know what mod meant.
‘It’s a recognisable and highly marketable trend that fits neatly into the rock star oeuvre,’ Saskia went on.
‘That’s not what oeuvre means,’ Sam muttered. He had snuck individually wrapped mints from the bowl on the table and arranged them into the shape of a hashtag.
Saskia didn’t seem to hear him. ‘It’s got a softness, a femininity that’s lacking from the current … erm …’ She caught my eye and visibly corrected herself: ‘That is to say, it considerably broadens your appeal for young people who might not connect with this.’ She waved a hand over me and I pulled self-consciously at the tattered sleeves of my tartan jumper.
‘I know it’s not your usual MO, Jimi, but I guess you’re gonna have to go a bit femme,’ said Carter, and I kept my eyes on the slides so he didn’t see how much that stung.
‘It’s almost an early No Doubt aesthetic,’ Saskia continued, ridiculously pleased with herself. ‘Another red-lipped blonde with an Italian surname fronting a mixed-race band.’
Carter choked on his water.
‘Don’t mind me, I’m just here to up the diversity,’ muttered Sam, straightening one of his mints.
Saskia continued merrily, supposedly speaking to me, but directing her attention to Jen and Amir. ‘I am thinking we take that dirty blonde hair of yours and we bleach. We take those all-natural lips of yours, and we crimson. We take that tiny waist, and we cinch. We take that porcelain skin, and we buff until you look like the sweetest baby doll this side of Orange County.’
‘I reckon you’ve got your work cut out for yourselves,’ I said. I was trying to sound upbeat, to go along with what Beatnik had planned, but my pulse was racing. I’d gone into this meeting expecting to talk about music. I hadn’t anticipated that Saskia would have considered my body parts separately and found all of them wanting – or that we’d be discussing how I looked in front of everyone else. Still, I’d read enough interviews with Perfect Storm to know that it was normal for a record label to dress their bands, and I figured Saskia’s proposed makeover was an extension of that. She seemed to know what she was talking about.
‘Wait a second,’ Carter said. ‘I’m still hung up on the cute blonde fronting the band.’ I sat upright; Saskia hadn’t used the word ‘cute’. ‘Ignoring the blatant racism, the rest of us are not just Liliana’s backup band, you know.’
Saskia pouted. ‘That’s another thing. Liliana is such a long name. It’s hard for people to remember. We’re thinking of shortening it to Lily. For middle England, you know.’
I couldn’t keep my side-eye in check. ‘You don’t think the good folks of Britain can cope with my name?’
‘Well, it is kind of long,’ said Richie, and I glared at him.
‘Ahem,’ Carter said. ‘Back to us
. What are we meant to do?’
Amir grinned, his fingers folded into a triangle. ‘This is what I like about you guys,’ he said. ‘You’re not afraid to say what you think.’ He nodded to Saskia. ‘Show the gentlemen what we have in store for them.’
Saskia clapped her hands together as though she had saved the best for last. ‘Let me ask you a question, Mr Tanqueray: have you ever been to Marlboro country?’
Carter pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket and tossed them onto the table with a smirk. ‘More of a Gauloises man, myself.’ His pronunciation was surprisingly good. Sam rolled his eyes and I felt a surge of affection for him.
Saskia clicked up a slide showing a rugged man silhouetted against a desert backdrop, wearing cowboy boots, spurs, a scruffy denim shirt, and a bandana around his wrist.
Amir laughed delightedly. ‘Lady Stardust and the Cowboys.’
Carter looked like this was more than he’d bargained for. ‘Seems a bit naff,’ he commented. ‘Like wearing a costume.’
‘Oh, but me in a swimsuit isn’t?’ I snapped.
‘What’s wrong with just wearing our clothes?’ said Sam, who was now playing a solo game of noughts and crosses in the hashtag, using mints and coloured Mentos as the two teams. As far as I knew, Sam’s entire wardrobe was just two pairs of jeans – black and blue – and maybe five T-shirts in varying tones of grey. I tried to imagine him in a denim shirt, his hair held back under a bandana, but couldn’t picture it.
‘You can wear whatever you like,’ said Amir patiently. ‘This is just for the video clip. And the photo shoots. And the single cover. We call it “brand cohesion”. It’s to reinforce memorability in the eyes of the public.’
‘I think the music should speak for itself,’ said Sam. ‘I don’t see why we need to change our whole wardrobes.’
‘Nah, I get it,’ I said. Perfect Storm had certainly looked cohesive when we’d seen them in Reading. Maybe this was necessary. ‘It’s just marketing. You don’t have to change yourself.’ Sam finally looked up from his noughts and crosses. ‘You can stick to your grey T-shirt uniform for the rest of the week. But when we’re promoting the band, it won’t hurt us to look like we made an effort.’
Amir tilted his finger-pyramid forwards. ‘That’s settled, then. I’m so pleased you’re all on board.’
•
On the Tube home, Carter and Richie sprawled across the seats but I stood with Sam, swaying as the train hurtled down the tracks.
‘It feels like we’re losing a part of ourselves,’ he said. ‘It might seem like a small thing now, but what if they want to change the music next?’
‘They love our music,’ I said. ‘The music’s the reason we’re here in the first place.’
‘I guess I just thought you’d have more fight in you.’
I bristled. ‘It wasn’t exactly news to me. It’s not like Saskia said anything about how I dress that your girlfriend hasn’t already said.’
Sam looked over at Carter, who was lying across a row of seats, tinny bass spilling from his headphones. ‘You can’t blame Tish for what happened at Regatta,’ he said quietly.
I took a deep breath. ‘That’s not what I’m saying. It’s easy for you. You can wear a T-shirt every day and look neutral. There’s no neutral option for girls. I have to wear something. If I put on jeans, I look like I’m not making an effort, but if I wear a dress, you think I’m selling out.’
‘I don’t think you’re selling out,’ he said. ‘It’s just ... they want to change your name.’
‘So what?’ I said. ‘You call me Donadi. Carter calls me Jimi. Lily’s just another nickname. And I think Beatnik know what they’re doing. They launched Perfect Storm, didn’t they?’
He smirked. ‘You and bloody Perfect Storm.’
It had all been so easy when we were dreaming in the boathouse. Now, it seemed every decision we made – right down to the clothes we wore – had a consequence. Sam might have thought I was losing my bearings, but I was just trying to maximise our chances. And in a weird way, the idea of changing my name made me feel less exposed – like I could hide behind the persona. If Beatnik dropped us after one single and everyone forgot about Lily Donadi, I could pretend that she wasn’t me.
The train shuddered into the station. ‘This is Brixton,’ said the announcement. ‘This train terminates here.’
By the time we reached the top of the escalator, rain had set in and Saskia yelped as her heels slid on the pavement. I ran to our flat, glad I was wearing sneakers.
The door to my bedroom was blocked by a long rack of tea dresses in soft floral and polka-dot prints. Saskia fell on them in delight. ‘Oh, they’re here!’ she cooed. ‘I chose these specially, Lily! Come and have a look.’
With a flush of anger, I realised this meant my new look had already been decided on without my input; the entire meeting was just a token. ‘Good thing I agreed,’ I muttered, but not loud enough for Saskia to hear.
Sam flicked through the rack, pulling out an ochrecoloured minidress with a tie front and a slit where my belly would show. He held it up against me. ‘I can’t exactly see you in any of these.’
There was no way the rack was going to fit into my room. ‘You might need a whole room for entertaining, but I need one for my clothes,’ I said to Carter.
‘I knew that had offended you,’ he said mildly. ‘Where are our threads, Saskia?’
I spent the rest of the afternoon trying on dresses while Saskia thrust pins through the waistlines and hemlines and took my photo. She schooled me in how to pose, teaching me to look past the camera at the wall behind her and to stand with my shoulders back and my body at a slight angle. It felt artificial, but when she showed me the results I could see the pose made me look taller and more confident. The boys quickly got bored and retreated to Richie’s room to play Xbox, emerging only to get takeaway.
‘What do you think?’ I asked Carter as he came back in to the flat, noodle boxes in his hands. He cast his eyes over me, his hair wet with rain. The leopard-print dress was tight at the waist, with a flippy skirt that puffed outwards. Academy-Liliana would never have worn it in a million years, not even at Tish’s insistence.
‘Gwen Stefani, eat your heart out,’ he said, but I couldn’t tell if he liked it. I curtsied to hide how much his opinion mattered to me.
‘That’s the one!’ Saskia said. ‘This one is perfect for the single cover.’ She watched as Carter handed one of the boxes to me. ‘You are not going to eat that.’
My stomach was already growling: I’d barely eaten anything all day. ‘I’ll take off the dress first.’
‘If you eat like that every night you won’t even fit into that dress in a few weeks,’ she said. ‘I’ll speak to Amir. We’ll get you onto a meal plan.’
Carter scoffed. ‘Liliana doesn’t need to go on a diet,’ he said. ‘Look at her.’
‘Not a diet,’ Saskia said. ‘A clean eating plan. Weight maintenance is important, especially if she’s tempted to eat takeaway every night.’
I rolled my eyes. Apparently being signed to a record label meant living in a tiny bedroom, wearing uncomfortable clothes and now going on a diet. I opened the noodle box, releasing a curl of peanut-scented steam. ‘Fine,’ I sighed. ‘But the diet can start tomorrow, right?’
CHAPTER 19
The cafe – which the boys called a greasy spoon – was lined with pristine white tiles and smelled faintly of disinfectant. Along one side were three booths, their red leather chapped and splintered.
A zealous hairdresser who called herself Melody Nelson had dyed my hair platinum and set it in rollers, then pinned it back into a quiff. The look was completed with four layers of foundation, false eyelashes, lipstick, and squishy silicon shoved down my bra. The boys didn’t escape, either: Melody cut Sam’s hair tight against his head, and I was sure Richie and Carter were wearing concealer over their late-night circles.
I looked into the photographer’s lens, then tried to focus on the wall behi
nd him, like Saskia had taught me, but it was hard when he was so close. After a few shots, his assistant brought over a strawberry milkshake with four straws. Carter stared at it like it was radioactive.
‘It’s old-school cool,’ said Amir. ‘The nineties are back in a big way.’
‘What kind of band do you think we are?’ said Carter. ‘Second coming of Perfect Storm?’
‘You’ve got to admit, it’s better than a pillow fight, which is what Jen initially wanted,’ said Amir, and I couldn’t tell if he was joking.
The four of us wedged into a booth designed for two. Sam and Richie seemed resigned to the idea, but Carter fidgeted while the photographer whirred and clicked. I leaned towards the shake, trying to hold the straw in my mouth and make eye contact with the camera at the same time.
Carter put his hand under the table, skimming my waist. My breath latched, but then I realised he was just reaching into his pocket. He took out a hip flask, nodded to the photographer, knocked back a swig and tipped the remainder into the milkshake. Richie sniggered in my ear. Amir was on the phone, so I took a sip of vodka-flavoured milkshake and pulled a cheeky face at the camera. Doing a photo shoot for our single cover had seemed so much more exciting in theory.
Carter caught my eye. ‘Let’s fuck shit up,’ he muttered.
‘That’s it, have some fun with it,’ said the photographer. ‘Go big, go bold.’
I pulled myself onto the table. Beside me, Carter stood up and took the glass. ‘You ready for this, Jim?’
I looked up at him. I was starting to enjoy feeling like we were on the same team again, even if we were just united against the stupid photo shoot. He smiled back at me as he upended the milkshake over my head.
I yelped as it rushed over my face and down my dress. Sam was on his feet, sliding out of the booth. ‘Jesus, Carter, that’s out of line,’ he said, looking around for serviettes. The milkshake splattered over the suede heels Saskia had chosen: all those hours in hair and make-up, all her careful planning, was undone in an instant. I licked milkshake off my cheek, and Carter laughed. To hide my humiliation, I looked into the camera and forced a smile.
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