by Alice Oseman
The lights dim, and everyone suddenly turns to look at me, and then they start singing ‘Happy Birthday’.
To me.
Wait.
What?
What’s the date?
They finish singing, by which time Rowan has made it across the room to me. He grins. ‘You forgot again, didn’t you?’
‘I never know what the date is …’ I mumble, feeling very embarrassed from the sudden attention. Lister’s grinning at me as well, cape wrapped round him like a scarf, clapping his hands together softly.
‘Make a wish, then, Jimjam,’ says Rowan.
I look at the candles and wish for what I always wish for, which is to be happy. Then I blow them out. Everyone cheers and claps.
‘How long we got, Tash?’ calls Rowan as he carries the cake over to the breakfast bar.
‘About half an hour, hun.’
‘Sweet.’
Music starts playing over the surround sound. Lister fiddles with the volume controls and changes track to one of our old favourite bands, The Killers. We used to sit and listen to them in music practice rooms and in each other’s bedrooms. Back in the day.
I can’t help but smile.
Lister starts jumping up and down and singing along immediately, cape flapping about behind him. He skips around the room again, trying to persuade various stylists to join in, even trying to get Cecily to join in (which of course she doesn’t, because she’s too busy tapping away on her phone). Then he comes up to me and takes my hands, pulling me around, galloping across the floor, then pulling me up onto the sofa and bouncing up and down in time to the music like we’re on a trampoline. Rowan used to have a trampoline in his back garden. Well, I guess it’s probably still there.
‘COME ON, RO!’ shouts Lister through harsh breaths as we bounce up and down. I start laughing at Rowan’s expression – his classic eyebrow raise. Despite this, he runs across the room and leaps up onto the sofa to jump with us, throwing his arms round me. I stagger and nearly fall over, and laugh again.
The music blares all around us and we start screaming along to the chorus. We all still remember the words, despite it being months, maybe years since we’ve heard this song. I forget our own songs in shorter times than that.
‘How does it feel to be nineteen?’ shouts Rowan over the music.
‘That bit closer to death,’ adds Lister.
I feel happy, maybe. Just for a little bit.
Maybe my wish came true.
Things felt awkward when Bliss left last night. There was a space between me and Juliet again and not even Mac could make up for it any more.
Which in some ways is a good thing, but mostly it just meant there were too many awkward silences.
And despite Bliss’s warning about Mac, Juliet still left to go to Sainsbury’s with him fifteen minutes ago while I was doing my make-up. Without telling me.
I kind of have a little cry about it for five minutes. Just a minor cry. Which is stupid, because all she’s done is gone to a supermarket without me. Didn’t think I was that clingy.
After that I sit in the kitchen and catch up on some Tumblr discourse from last night.
The theories about Jimmy, Rowan and Bliss are getting pretty wild. People are coming up with some hilarious explanations for the Jowan photo and the Rowan/Bliss reveal, such as it’s a ploy by their management, out to stir up some extra publicity to keep attention on The Ark once their tour ends, or that both reveals were calculated by Jimmy and Rowan themselves, a passionate cry for help, a desperate attempt to out themselves and tell the world about their secret love affair and the burden of Rowan being forced into a fake relationship.
A lot of people agree with me. Rowan and Bliss are in a relationship. And Jowan is just a fantasy.
A lot of people are devastated. Like Juliet was yesterday, I guess. And I thought I would have been too, but while it was a surprise, it didn’t destroy me in the way I thought it would when the news eventually came that Jowan, love itself, wasn’t real.
Maybe I sort of knew it was a lie all along.
‘You seem to be in a good mood.’
I have a minor heart attack while washing up my cereal bowl, and then turn round.
It’s Juliet’s nan, wearing a dressing gown and holding a mug. She smiles at me and sits down at the table, taking a sip from the mug.
‘I’m in a very good mood,’ I say, which is hilarious, because I was literally crying about ten minutes ago.
‘Excited about tonight?’
‘So excited.’
Dorothy sips on her mug again and says, ‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’
I grab a tea towel and say, ‘Yeah, sure!’
‘Are J and Mac … together?’
Oh.
‘Erm … well …’ How exactly do I explain this? ‘They might be, but I think … because they’ve only just met each other in real life this week … I think it’s got a bit … er … complicated.’
‘I see …’ Dorothy nods and looks down. ‘I see.’
There’s a pause. What do I say? What should I say?
‘She’s always talked about this special friend that she had on the internet,’ Dorothy continues. ‘But … I’m not actually sure whether that’s him, or whether that’s you.’ She looks at me and smiles sadly. ‘I’m just trying to make sense of it all, you know?’
Aren’t we all.
‘What did she say about them?’ I ask.
‘Just that she finally had someone she loved talking to.’ Dorothy shrugs. ‘J’s been through so much, and she doesn’t like to talk about her problems. She’s always had difficulty making strong friendships. So I was really happy to hear she’d made such a good friend … even if it was just online. Online friendships are real too, aren’t they?’
Been through so much? What does that mean? It feels rude to ask.
‘Absolutely!’ I say.
‘Yes …’ She shakes her head suddenly. ‘Anyway, excuse me, prying into my own granddaughter’s private life through one of her friends!’
‘It’s … it’s fine …’
‘She’s just not the most communicative to me, and I want to be there for her, now more than ever.’
‘Oh …’
Now more than ever?
Dorothy sighs. ‘And of course she had another unpleasant phone call from her parents yesterday morning.’
Unpleasant phone call? Yesterday morning? I heard nothing about that.
‘I’d better go off and get ready for the day.’ She stands up and leaves the room.
I’m still standing there with a tea towel in one hand. I know Juliet isn’t as chatty as I am, but we have talked about serious stuff. What’s Dorothy talking about? Juliet would have told me if something serious had happened. We’re best friends. Aren’t we? Pretty much, anyway.
‘Hi, Dad,’ I say, sitting on Juliet’s bed with my phone against my ear. I won’t be able to call home tonight, as I’ll be at the concert, so I’m calling now.
‘So, today’s the day, hmm?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Are you excited?’
Am I excited? Well, yeah, I guess. But it feels like more than that. I’m excited and scared and hopeful and I think I’m going to cry again at any possible moment, and, God, I think that I might ascend when Jimmy looks me in the eyes.
‘Definitely,’ I tell him.
There’s a pause.
‘What is it you like about this band?’ he asks.
‘I like their music,’ I say.
There’s another pause.
I guess the leavers’ ceremony is happening right now. My classmates will be lining up in the assembly hall, waiting to shake our headteacher’s hand and get a ‘well done’, two words for two years of effort.
‘Are you sure?’ he asks. ‘Is it just because they’re good-looking?’
‘No.’ I bite my lip. ‘It’s more than that, baba.’
‘More?’
‘Just … more.’
‘We don’t understand, Fereshteh. Help us understand.’
‘You … can’t.’
They can’t understand. Some things are impossible to explain.
Pre-show routine is always the same – arrive, sound check, food, meet-and-greet, break, then the show – but I do usually find a way to worry about it anyway. Today isn’t so bad, though, since we’ve performed at the O2 arena seven times before, so I know my way around and there really shouldn’t be any major surprises in store. Hopefully.
We don’t have to wear our nice clothes until the meet-and-greet so all three of us are back in joggers. In the car on the way there, Lister falls asleep on my shoulder, mousy-brown tufts tickling my neck. I flick him on the forehead when he starts to drool on me.
Sound check passes quickly. Playing our songs when the entire audience is empty is always a laugh, because we’re just playing for ourselves, and we can deliberately get stuff wrong and play games like Lister trying to get us out of time and Rowan adding in harmonies where there aren’t normally and me changing the lyrics of our most famous songs.
After that we sit and chill in the dressing room for a while with Cecily and the hair and make-up people and some frantic, nervous O2 employees running in and out, asking us if we need anything every two seconds.
It’s a stuffy room. Very posh of course – this is the O2 – but it’s too hot. I stand up and start walking around, wandering over to the table laden with snacks and drinks, inspecting the artworks on the walls and the potted plants and the giant mirror. One of the walls is adorned by a giant Baroque painting print. Something Christian, definitely. I try to guess which part of the Bible it’s depicting, but I guess my Bible knowledge isn’t good enough, because I’m not sure, and then I feel really bad.
I go and sit next to Rowan, who is having his hair done by Alex at a dressing table.
Rowan looks downcast. He joined in with our silly riffing during sound check and my mini birthday party earlier, but every time the laughing stops his expression drops and he looks like he’s about to cry.
‘You okay?’ I ask.
He flinches, not realising I’d been sitting there. Alex makes an exasperated noise and tells him to sit still.
‘Oh,’ says Rowan, ‘er, yeah.’
‘No, you’re not.’
He sighs and holds up his phone.
‘Bliss just won’t talk to me,’ he says, and then looks at me in the mirror. ‘Why won’t she talk to me?’
None of us have seen or heard from Bliss since the morning the news broke. Rowan told us that she refused to come to our apartment, and then she stopped answering his calls.
‘I’ve called her, like, fifty times,’ says Rowan, chuckling sadly. ‘I get that she’d be upset, but … it’s not like this is my fault … Why doesn’t she just want to talk to me about it?’ He looks down at his phone again. ‘Where is she?’
‘Maybe she just wants to lay low for a while,’ I say.
‘We’re in a relationship,’ says Rowan, and then his voice lowers to a whisper. ‘What sort of relationship is it if you can’t even talk to each other when something bad happens?’
Not a good relationship.
That’s what it is.
But I don’t want to say that to him.
‘After we sign the contract tomorrow …’ he begins, then stops.
‘What?’ I say.
He stares blankly at himself in the mirror. ‘We’re gonna have no time at all. I’m gonna have no time to see her ever.’
‘I mean … we’ll probably have some time …’
‘If it’s even less than we have now, it’s basically nothing,’ he says.
Alex stares firmly at Rowan’s hair, but the expression of pity on his face is unmissable.
‘Where’s Lister?’ asks Cecily, who is sitting with one leg crossed over the other on a sofa in the middle of the room. ‘He should be getting his hair done by now.’
No one answers her.
‘Did he go to the bathroom?’ I ask.
No one answers again.
‘He’s probably there,’ says Cecily. ‘Can you go get him, babe?’
‘Okay.’ I open the door and leave the room.
This dressing room is one of many on a long, grey corridor. I wander down to the right towards the bathroom and enter. This bathroom is just for us, and, like the dressing room, it’s fancy – all shiny marble urinals and ornate mirrors and a figurehead glaring down at us from above the hand dryers.
‘Lister, are you in here?’
A loud clunking noise sounds from the stall furthest from the door – a bottle hitting the floor – then a whispered, ‘Fuck.’
Lister.
I walk towards the stall and stand in front of it. What’s he doing in there? Why does he have a bottle?
‘Are … you okay?’ I ask. ‘You’ve been in here for a while.’
‘Can’t a man poop when he needs to, Jimmy?’ Lister laughs but it sounds horribly forced.
‘Is that definitely what you’re doing?’
He doesn’t answer me for a moment.
Then he starts to laugh.
There’s another clinking sound. Definitely a bottle.
What is he doing?
‘Can you open the door?’ I ask. Maybe I should go back and get Rowan. Something’s not right.
To my surprise, he obligingly slides open the cubicle lock and pulls the door open.
He’s sitting on the toilet – lid closed and joggers pulled up, thankfully – with his phone in one hand and a nearly empty bottle of red wine in the other.
‘What d’you want, then?’ Lister leans forward and narrows his eyes. ‘I’m in a very important meeting.’
I feel suddenly very small. He’s been here, in the bathroom, drinking.
‘Did … did you drink all of that just now?’ I ask, pointing at the bottle.
Lister looks at it as if he’d forgotten it was there. ‘Oh. Yeah. Just a little pre-show … er … just to calm the nerves.’
He’s drunk. Not obscenely drunk, not dangerously drunk, but drunk enough.
On a show day.
He’s not supposed to do this on show days.
‘You’re not supposed to drink on … on show days,’ I stammer.
Lister snorts. ‘Come on, it’s the last show of the tour.’ He leans his head against the side of the cubicle. ‘After that, I can drink every day.’
‘You can’t be drunk at the show. At the meet-and-greet. People will notice.’
‘Naah, I’m fine. Look.’ He stands up so quickly that I take a couple of steps backwards. He flicks his hair back and puts his hands on his hips. ‘Look. No one will suspect a thing.’
To be fair, he’s right. He looks perfectly normal, bar maybe a slight haziness of the eyes, the way they’re not quite focused, and the way his mouth keeps twitching into a smile.
‘Why do you do this?’ I ask.
‘Do what?’
‘Get drunk all the time.’
He steps out of the cubicle, pushing me further backwards. His smile drops.
‘What’s wrong with that?’ he says, his eyes widening and staring off somewhere over my head. ‘What’s wrong with drinking? What’s wrong with having parties and having a good time and enjoying what we have?!’ He laughs. ‘We’re rich and famous, Jimmy. Do you understand how good that feels when you grew up like me? We had nothing.’
I stay silent.
‘No,’ he says. ‘You don’t. Because you didn’t have to worry about money before all this started. I did. Me and my mum were this close to being on the street. And now you’re telling me off for actually enjoying having money and being happy. You’re just getting angry at me.’
‘I’m not angry—’
‘I’m fucking tired of you and Rowan thinking you’re so much more mature and sensible than me. You think you’ve got it all sorted but you don’t! You’re just the same as me. You’re both just as bad as I am. So, stop fucking acting like you’ve got the higher
ground.’
I don’t say anything.
He steps forward, edging me back so I’m pressed against the sinks. ‘Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to shout at you. I’m just tired.’ He puts the near-empty bottle down on the sink next to me, and then pats me gently on the cheek. ‘Hey. Jimmy. Sorry.’ Then he wraps his arms round my shoulders and hugs me tightly. ‘Sorry for always being shit.’
I still don’t say anything. I don’t really know what to say. I can’t even follow his thought processes.
I pat him gently on the back.
‘You’re an alcoholic,’ I tell him, realising this properly for the first time. I wonder whether anyone’s told him that before.
He snorts. ‘I know, right?’ He thinks I’m joking.
He moves back so he can look me in the eyes. He stares at me for a moment.
‘Hey …’ He’s blinking slower than normal. He brings up a hand and runs his fingers along the neck of my jumper. ‘Do you want to …?’
He doesn’t finish the question. He just leans in and kisses me.
My stomach lurches. Not because I’m excited, but because I’m shocked and I’m getting flashbacks of the last time I did this. Never my idea, is it? I want to, I want to kiss a boy in some dramatic way but I don’t too, not when it doesn’t feel right. It’s never the way it should be, the way it looks in the movies. That sort of starlight romance doesn’t exist for me.
He doesn’t taste good and he pulls me against him by the waist and holds me there and I freeze, both because I don’t know what to do and he’s taller and stronger than me, and even though he’s gentle, and important to me, I don’t … I’ve never thought of him that way … have I?
And even though I could kiss him just because he’s attractive, even though I could kiss him because I so badly want to feel wanted, wanted in a good way, not how the fans want me, not how everyone else wants me, even though I lean into it for a brief second, suddenly high on the feeling of being with someone who knows me, the real me …
I don’t … I just …
I can’t.
I lean back, pulling away, with a startled, ‘Don’t, don’t do that.’
‘Oh …’ He gazes at me, unmoving. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
Then he hugs me. And it feels real. Despite the alcohol.