by KE Payne
And we were far from finished.
I looked over to Robyn, taking a swig from a bottle of water, and wandered over to her.
“You think we’ll be much longer?” I asked her.
She looked at her watch. “It’s only two,” she said, “so I’m guessing at least another few hours.” She passed me her bottle of water, which I took gratefully.
“First set tomorrow,” she said. “So it’s got to be perfect today.”
“You nervous?” I asked.
“A bit. You?”
“Yeah. Very.”
Total truth? I was terrified.
“Your ‘Take Me There’ solo was epic, by the way,” Robyn said, looping her arm round my shoulders and pulling me to her. “I felt it today.”
“I practised a lot.” I shrugged. “Wanted to make sure it was perfect.”
“You totally did.”
“‘Take Me There’ is kinda Nicole’s song, you know?” I looked at Robyn.
“I know, Tally. I know.” Robyn’s arm tightened around my shoulders a little. “We all want to do it justice for her.”
“I want it to be perfect for her,” I said, “even though I know she might not hear it.”
That was only partly true. The other, bigger part involved Alex and my wanting her to know how good I was. My eyes travelled over to her, sitting on the edge of the stage, legs dangling over the side, face up to the sun. Hair perfect. Her hair was always so perfect.
“You okay?”
I snapped my attention back to Robyn.
“I practised with her a lot yesterday.” I gave a nonchalant lift of my chin in Alex’s direction. “Seemed to work.”
“With Alex?” Robyn sounded surprised.
“Mm.”
“Well you’re honoured,” Robyn said, letting her arm drop from my shoulders. She took her water bottle back from me and took a long drink. “I still get barely two words out of her,” she said when she’d finished, then wiped her mouth.
“She’s okay, you know?” My glance drifted back to Alex and I remembered her words to me about her thinking Robyn didn’t like her. “Perhaps you should try talking to her. Get to know her better.”
“You’ve changed your tune,” Robyn said. I could hear the sarcasm in her voice.
“Maybe we misjudged her, that’s all,” I said. “Maybe we need to give her a chance.”
I suddenly wanted to leave Robyn and go sit with Alex. The feeling had arrived so unexpectedly, it quickened my breath, muddied my senses. Alex was sitting away from me and I desperately wanted to be with her. Wanted to continue the friendliness we’d shared at my apartment the day before. Didn’t want to be standing away from her for a second longer.
“I’m going to get another drink.” I started to move away from Robyn. “Want one?”
To my relief, Robyn shook her head. I walked away from her, over to the cooler, and grabbed an ice-cold bottle of water from it. I unscrewed it, one eye still on Alex, and drank some back.
I felt weird, but I didn’t know why. Slightly nervous. But nervous of what? Alex? I took another drink. I hadn’t been nervous with her yesterday, but the thought of being alone in her company right now—and desperately wanting to be in her company—was making my heart beat just that bit faster than it was before.
I was being an idiot. I screwed the lid tight back onto the water bottle and strode over to her.
“Mind if I join you?” I stood next to her and looked down.
Alex looked back up, shielding her eyes from the sun. I saw the smile that spread across her face when she saw me, and I felt a small twinge of something flutter inside me. A flutter that had never happened when anyone else had smiled at me before. A nice flutter. One that I could cope with feeling over and over again.
“Why would I mind?” Alex still smiled up at me.
I flopped down and dangled my legs off the stage, just as Alex was doing.
“Are you as hot and irritable as I am?” I couldn’t think of what to say to her. I thought, on reflection, that first sentence was pretty lame. “I mean, it’s hot. Isn’t it?”
Alex chuckled. “Yeah, it’s boiling.” She looked at me. “Are you irritable?”
“Not now.” That was the truth.
“I’m glad to see you, actually,” Alex said.
“You’ve seen me all day.” I laughed.
“Yeah, but not alone.” Alex sounded serious. She cut her glance away. “I wanted to say I had a blast at yours yesterday, that’s all.” She turned back to look at me. “Total blast. We should do it again sometime.”
“We should.” I nodded. “And, yeah. It was good, wasn’t it?”
“I felt…” Annoyingly, Alex looked away again.
I skimmed my sunglasses onto the top of my head and tried to catch her eye.
“You felt?” I prompted.
“Nothing.” Alex stretched and her words disappeared into a yawn. “Relaxed.” She gave a laugh. “Like I am now apparently.”
“You ready for tomorrow?” I asked.
“Our first set together.” Alex widened her eyes and pulled a shocked face, making me smile. “Yeah, I’m ready. You?” She reached over and, without asking, took my water from me. I watched as she unscrewed it, one eye still on me, and drank some back, then screwed the lid back on before handing it back to me. It was all so cool and comfortable and genuine and lovely, and just the simple act of her drinking my water had made me feel stupidly happy.
“I’m so ready.”
I liked what she’d just done. I liked being with her. Despite initially willing myself not to, I found I liked everything about her.
I liked Alex.
*
The day of the festival had arrived under clear, blue skies and it was impossible not to feel happy. Everything was clicking into place right now: Alex and Be4 gelled, the fans loved us, we were headlining a festival, the sun was shining, and Alex called me Tal. Weird what makes you happy.
Hyde Park was buzzing when I finally arrived, just after four. I felt like a superstar as my personal driver drove me up Park Lane, past the waiting crowds who immediately swarmed round the car as we approached, past a bunch of scary security guards, and weaved over to the VIP Winnebago where we were to all meet up.
Hyde Park is epic. I’d only ever been there a couple of times since I’d moved to London, and now I felt like a total tourist as I walked up the steps of the Winnebago and turned around, seeing green yawning out in front of me, the Serpentine just visible, London’s skyline shimmering through the hot afternoon haze. The air was thick with noise: the buzz of the crowd, screams and shrieks, helicopters hovering overhead, music playing somewhere in the distance. That’s when I saw it. The stage. And that’s when nerves gripped the pit of my stomach for the first time, because I knew the festival was so much more than any other gig we’d ever done, and that it would produce a whole different feeling to singing in the smaller arena gigs we’d done before. It would be, I knew, like a wild party compared to an intimate dinner. I clung to the handrail of the steps and just gawped at it. To the lights and amps, noise and smoke, its energy practically pumping out over the sea of heads in the pit in front of it and over to me.
A tap on the window pulled my gawping away. Brooke was gesticulating at me, grinning and waving and jumping up and down like a lunatic inside, and as I opened the door and entered, she rushed at me and flung her arms around me.
“Have you seen it?” Her words tumbled out. “Omigod, have you seen it out there?”
I returned her hug, and I swear I felt her shaking.
“This is it, Tally,” she said over my shoulder. “This is everything we’ve worked so hard for.”
“So why am I so scared?” I laughed into her T-shirt, then pulled away.
“You won’t be when you get out there.” Brooke went to the window, dipped her head, and peered out. “First chords of ‘After the Rain’ and you’ll forget your nerves.”
I was dubious.
Out of
nowhere, a guy wired up with headphones and a mic arrived at my side, mumbled my name at me, then looped a bracelet around my wrist. I looked down at it. Shocking pink, with the words Party in the Park written on it. I loved it, even though I had never thought of myself as a pink kind of girl.
“Robyn and Alex are out back.” Brooke grabbed my hand. “C’mon.”
I got pulled through the Winnebago, past people who I’d never met before lounging on chairs, past others who were knee-deep in wires and cables, through a curtain to a separate area where I saw Alex first. She was sitting on her own on an L-shaped sofa, wired up—as usual—to her music, her guitar in its usual place by her feet, her face looking pinched with nerves as she stared down at her phone in her hands. She looked up briefly when we came in, smiled at me, then returned to her music. Strangely, I wanted more from her. A word, or a reassuring look. Something—anything.
Instead, I got that from Robyn, who, just like Brooke before, flung herself at me, nearly knocking me off my feet, told me I looked amazing, and then gabbled ten to the dozen, “Why can’t it be ten o’clock already so we can just get out there?”
Before that could happen, though, we had press commitments to do. Then a photo shoot. Then sign some autographs for a local charity to sell at their forthcoming raffle. I knew it was what being a musician was all about, and I’d never felt more ready. Some press guys were gathered in the room with us, looking for our thoughts about the festival, looking for a scoop about what the next single might be after the release of “After the Rain.”
While Robyn talked with them, and as if suddenly taking herself out of the zone she’d been in, Alex flipped her headphones from her head, cradled them around her neck, and stood. She came over to me and said something about the size of the crowd outside and it being hot. And she called me Tal for the first time, and I got that weird fizzing thing going on inside. Nothing unusual in that, I suppose, but the feeling it produced inside me came as a surprise. Perhaps it was the fact she felt comfortable enough in my company now to call me it, or perhaps it was the way she said it, or the way she looked at me when she called me it. I don’t know. All I do know is that I liked it. Very much. The little ball of fizz in my stomach as I heard her say it told me just how much I liked it. I think the fact she touched my arm when she said it didn’t help.
I mumbled something in reply. I put that down to being a bit weirded out by the heat inside the Winnebago and the prospect of going out in a few hours’ time and singing live to a crowd of over ten thousand people. It wasn’t because of Alex. I told myself that. Definitely wasn’t her.
“Do you think she’ll be watching?”
Someone was talking to me. Press. London paper, I think.
“Tally? Do you think Nicole will be watching this, wherever she is?”
He was recording me, so I knew I’d have to choose my words carefully.
“If she has the time.” I smiled. I figured a smile pretty much covered everything.
“Do you think she’ll send her congratulations to you all?” the journalist asked. “Or do you think there might be a small part of her that’ll regret leaving you, now things are going so well for you?”
“Nicole always wanted the best for us.” Damn, how those lies just flowed so easily. “So I’m sure she’ll be pleased for us.” I turned my head and looked at another journalist, lifting my chin to her to invite a different question.
The last thing I wanted to be thinking about right then was Nicole. Like a cloud of guilt, she followed me everywhere enough as it was. I didn’t want her anywhere near me today because my nerves were bad enough already. I saw the look that passed between Brooke and Robyn, so I steered the conversation back towards Alex.
“Alex is excited to be doing her first set with Be4.” I flashed my best smile at Alex. “We all are.”
My gratitude when Alex started talking was palpable. Finally the journalists stopped talking about Nicole and turned their attention fully to Alex, who, just like on The Afternoon Show, answered their numerous questions with a combination of wit and charm and had the entire press pack hanging on to her every word.
I left the Winnebago and shut the door behind me, then leant back against it. Nicole’s cloud floated up to the sky before burning away against the afternoon sun, but I knew it’d be back soon enough. Probably the second I set foot onstage.
It was days like this I wish I smoked.
Chapter Eleven
It didn’t come back. Nicole’s cloud. Actually, it didn’t get the chance to come back because the second my guitar was handed to me and I stepped out onto the stage, into the lights and noise and chaos, the nerves that had been bunched up in my stomach the whole day magically vanished.
Our set was amazing. Purple and black lighting, our name in twenty-foot letters behind us, shards of sparks, and the pulsing drum intro to “After the Rain” introduced us to the baying crowd down in the pit, who had evidently had far too much sun and far too much beer. It was messy, but I loved it. We killed the first song, and any worries I’d had that we might have all sung a bit off thanks to first-song jitters miraculously disappeared, mainly because the crowd just wanted to sing along with each chorus. It was the perfect song to start the set because the electro synth running through it all totally got the crowd rocking and on our side, and I knew each song that followed would work just as well.
We were halfway through our second song, “Drowning in You,” when I finally noticed Alex by my side. “After the Rain” had all happened way too fast, and I’d felt like I’d been in a trance through it, determined to nail my guitar parts through shaking hands, eyes fixed on the crowd to gauge their reaction, but now I’d settled down, and I could look around me and quit being so scared.
Alex was singing her part when I looked at her, making eye contact with the crowd while she sang, smiling, loving it. She had her arm high up above her head, her guitar strung loosely around her, her other hand gripped to her mic, and she was belting out her part before Brooke and I joined in. “Drowning in You” was a slower song, and as I sang, I remembered that Alex had told me it was one of her favourites. That seemed to give it more of an edge, for me anyway, and as I kept looking over to her, I wished she’d look back at me, just so I could give her a look that said, This is your favourite song, and we’re singing it together live for the first time. I wanted her to feel it as much as I was.
Alex didn’t look at me, though. She seemed to be lost in the moment, and as “Drowning in You” seamlessly drifted into “Take Me There,” my brain took that precise moment to conveniently remind me that this was the last song Nicole had ever written with us, because brains like to do things like that just to be annoying.
The words took on extra meaning as I sang them:
We’ll never be apart,
Best friends forever.
You and me,
Just take me there.
As I continued to glance at Alex while she sang what would have been Nicole’s lines, then past her towards Brooke and Robyn and then back to Alex again, she appeared to me as Nicole. I looked away, back to the crowd, through the sea of swaying mobile phone lights. Refocused. When I looked again, Alex was back and Nicole had gone. I tightly grasped my guitar, even though it wasn’t needed yet, the feel of it moulded into my hands reassuring me. The words that Nicole had written echoed out across the heads of the crowd, almost, it seemed to me, right out of London and across to Croft House. I was convinced she was watching us, wherever she was. Disapproving. Hating.
My guitar part arrived, and I played it gratefully, turning away from my mic and the crowd to face the back of the stage. I saw Nicole lurking in the shadows, questioning me, criticizing me, so I played harder, as if by doing so I’d make her go away and leave me the hell alone. Alex’s guitar part rang out, effortlessly linking with mine, and I turned just in time to see her standing next to me. As we played, just like in my apartment that day, we watched each other, smiling, each of us urging the other one to play wit
h even more passion than we already were. It wasn’t a competition; we both knew we could encourage the other on just by one look, one nod of the head. One smile. I looked at Alex, her eyes bright and alive, playing the most beautiful notes ever, and sensed Nicole finally slipping away from the shadows behind me.
Alex and I played on, our guitar parts continuing as Robyn’s vocals kicked in over them, quickly followed by Brooke’s. I turned back to my mic and sang while I still played, now hoping and thinking that Nicole, rather than hating us, ought to be proud of us for how we’d just rocked her song. Before my brain could start to run away with more thoughts of her, though, “Take Me There” ended, and I was relieved I’d managed to get through it without any hitches.
Now mellow, sweet tones were replaced by the thumping synth intro for our last song of the night, “Crush.” The crowd, slightly quieter during the two slow songs, responded as expected, and in a heartbeat turned into a heaving mass of arms and jumping and screaming. Suddenly I couldn’t hear anything except the pulsing amps behind me which seemed to beat in rhythm with my heart, which I was sure was about to burst out of my chest.
The lights changed from purple and black to blue and white, staccato strobe lights splintered the set behind us, as Alex’s guitar screamed into life, immediately followed by mine. Watching Alex spin away from her mic, I focused on my chords and how to bring out the best sound in them to get the crowd even more whipped up than they already were. I moved away from my mic too, to face Alex, our guitars working in sync, then tailing off as Robyn and Brooke sang their opening lines. Stepping back to our mics, Alex and I then sang our harmonies with them, our guitars now hanging loosely under our arms.
Alex grabbed her mic from its stand while she was singing and started walking about the stage, the eyes of the crowd never leaving her. Then she came back over to me, high-fiving Brooke and Robyn as she passed them, and threaded her arm around my shoulder. I looped my arm around her shoulder too, and we sang, arm in arm, leaning against one another, the roar from the crowd now almost drowning out our singing. It was magical, all of it—having Alex and my best buddies on stage with me, hearing the music we were creating together, seeing the reaction our music was creating in the pit in front of us. I sucked up the energy from the crowd, feeling the power coming from them, loving the passion our music was creating.