How Not to Be Starstruck

by Portia MacIntosh

  ‘Oh wow! Do you have any famous friends? Apart from these guys obviously. Oh my God, I was so shocked when Ben got the job in this band, they’re dead famous, aren’t they? Who else do you know?’

  ‘I don’t like to name-drop,’ I laugh, genuinely embarrassed.

  ‘She’s best mates with Dylan King,’ Luke interrupts, having crept up on us unnoticed.

  ‘Oh my God, are you really? He is dead famous, and so gorgeous!’

  ‘It’s true.’ Luke sits down. ‘I keep asking her to introduce us, but she never does.’

  ‘I’d thought about inviting him long tonight,’ I say unenthusiastically.

  ‘Oh my God! Do it!’ Carla cries. ‘I am in love with him.’

  ‘Really?’ Luke asks.

  ‘I was going to, but I haven’t really heard from him since the wedding. I don’t think Mrs King is overly keen on him contacting me.’ Another awkward silence. ‘I’ll text him though,’ I say, rummaging in my bag to find my phone.

  ‘Yeah, that would be dead good,’ Carla enthuses. ‘Tell me more about your job!’ she demands, grabbing my hand.

  Before I have chance to say anything, a guilty-looking Ben wanders over.

  ‘Can I borrow you, Nicole?’ he asks without a trace of his new-found confidence.

  ‘Sure.’ I jump to my feet, forcing Carla to let go of my hand. Ben ushers me towards the door, and we walk along the corridor in silence until we reach the back door.

  Once outside, Ben waits for one of the roadies to walk out of earshot before letting me know what he wants to talk to me about – as if I didn’t know.

  ‘Nicole. Carla is...’

  ‘... a very sweet girl,’ I interrupt. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Just turned eighteen.’ He looks down at his feet, examining his Vans trainers – anything to avoid eye contact with me.

  ‘Please don’t tell Carla about that girl you saw me with,’ he pleads, suddenly straight to the point.

  Looking back into his sad eyes, I’m not really sure what to say. It’s not really my place to tell Carla. I don’t know her and, to be honest, I don’t know Ben that well yet.

  ‘I admired you, you know,’ I tell him sincerely. ‘You weren’t like the rest of the guys. Don’t get the wrong idea, because I love them all to bits, but when it comes to women...well they’re not that great, are they?’

  ‘No,’ he says softly, still looking at his trainers. ‘This is pretty new to me, and when the band is together, especially now we’re on tour, it feels like...I don’t know.’

  ‘A different world?’ I ask, completely able to relate to all of this.

  ‘Yes, exactly!’

  ‘None of it feels real, does it?’

  ‘That’s exactly what it feels like!’ His eyes fill with emotion. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Because I only hang around with these people and I get caught up in it. But you know what? I’m turning my life around. I have a boyfriend now, no more messing around with bands.’

  ‘I’ll never do it again. I can’t believe I did it in the first place.’

  ‘I won’t tell her.’ I place an arm around Ben, who is looking closer to tears by the second. He must feel really bad. ‘You are an awesome guitarist, and you’re going to do well, be it with these guys or another band. There’s going to be loads of girls throwing themselves at you, but if you really like Carla...’

  ‘I do,’ he insists.

  ‘Then you know what to do. Don’t be so hard on yourself though, Ben. You’re young and it’s a hell of a lot of temptation.’

  ‘I was terrified about talking to you, but I’m glad I did.’

  This is what happens when you’re a female and you tour with a bunch of guys, you end up fulfilling all the female roles they’re missing from their lives while they’re on the road. It doesn’t matter that I can hardly look after myself when I’m at home, suddenly I’m playing mother, taking care of them, putting away their shopping, comforting them and looking after their things. When people think of groupies they see 80s-style, coke-sniffing, orgy-having, good-time girls, but that isn’t the case at all – although I do admire their fashion.

  Ben hugs me and as he squeezes me tight, he whispers in my ear, ‘For what it’s worth, I think Luke really likes you.’

  ‘Well isn’t this cosy?’ Mark interrupts. ‘Moved on to another band member already, Nicole? And with his girlfriend just inside.’ Mark smiles and I presume he is joking.

  ‘Something like that.’ I smile back.

  ‘Eddie wants you, Nurse Wilde. Something about getting changed.’

  ‘You’re kidding me, right?’

  ‘What do you think?’ Mark laughs, lighting his cigarette. ‘Run along.’

  Back in the dressing room, Carla is still sitting on the sofa. She’s fiddling around with a digital camera and a laptop is open in front of her. As soon as I walk in the room, she calls me over.

  ‘I sent you a friend request on Facebook. You can use Ben’s laptop to accept me if you want. I’m so excited that we’re going to be friends!’ She pushes the silver MacBook towards me and I dutifully log in and accept.

  ‘Oh, Nurse Wilde!’ I hear Eddie calling out. I am still, of course, wearing my nurse’s cap and therefore must report for duty.

  ‘Coming, sir,’ I call out cheerily, although there’s a slightly flirtatious tone to my voice that I hadn’t originally intended – this is well received by Eddie who replies with, ‘You will be.’

  Eddie struggles to his feet. ‘I can hop to the bathroom, but can you hold my bag please, nurse?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure I can manage that,’ I reply with a giggle.

  This is like something for a Carry On film. It’s nice. Nice and normal. Luke is the only one being weird with me now. He’s still lurking by the table, looking over at me every now and then. It’s kind of embarrassing. You know the look I mean, I look up and see him looking at me, he pretends he wasn’t looking at me, so I pretend I wasn’t looking at him etc.

  I follow Eddie into the bathroom as instructed, carrying his bag. I’m not entirely sure the whole Nurse Wilde thing is a joke, you know. Carrying his bag in from the bus meant leaving mine on there – to be honest I’m just glad I remembered it this time.

  ‘Unbutton my jeans for me please, darling,’ he asks with a cheeky grin.

  ‘I’m fairly sure you can do that yourself, sweetheart,’ I reply.

  ‘Yes, but I have to hold my crutches while you pull me off – I mean pull them off.’

  A loud and exaggerated coughing noise comes from the other room. It has to be either Luke or Carla, and it sounded a bit too manly to be the latter. I share a silent look of recognition with Eddie. He raises his eyebrows.

  ‘Shut the door first, nurse. There are ladies out there.’

  ‘There’s a lady in here too,’ I protest, doing as I’m told.

  The bathroom is very small. There is a shower cubicle taking up half the room and Eddie and I are currently squashed quite close together somewhere between the toilet and the sink.

  ‘Bit of privacy, much better,’ he says, before nodding down towards his jeans. ‘If you don’t mind.’

  Despite the flirty banter, I decide that he probably really does need my help to change his jeans. This is probably just his way of dealing with being dependent on other people. It can’t be much fun being a twenty-something year-old man and needing help to get dressed.

  I crouch down and fiddle with the button on his jeans. Should anyone walk in now, this would look seriously suspicious.

  ‘While you’re down there...’ he jokes. This makes me hurry back to eye-level.

  We just stand for a few seconds, Eddie in his underpants, me with my silly, slutty nurse’s cap, our bodies are just about touching and our faces are only inches apart.

  ‘I hate making promises.’ He bites his bottom lip and abandons one of his crutches so that he can place a hand on the back of my neck.

  ‘What promise did you make?’ I ask. ‘And look
at that, you could’ve taken your own jeans off!’

  ‘You know the day we met you, Luke took one look at you and said “That one is mine”.’

  The expression on my face must say it all because he quickly backtracks.

  ‘Not in a disrespectful way, he actually liked you and, band law, well that means more than the actual law, as you know. None of us could touch you.’

  I don’t bring up the fact that Mark tried it on with me, although I’m pretty sure he’d be out on his arse if the matter went to band court.

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’ I ask.

  ‘Because we’re in here alone and my trousers are down. You’re a very sexy girl.’ He strokes my cheek and I cringe internally – although I can’t say I’m not flattered or tempted. ‘But I know how much Luke likes you. Actually likes you. He hasn’t even looked at another girl on this tour, you know. It pains me to say it, but I think you had better put my jeans back on.’

  I laugh and oblige, unsure what Eddie’s point was in all this. I feel a bit freaked out about the fact that Luke put a claim on me. Bloody band law. The phrase gets knocked around a lot. I think it’s an attempt to create some kind of order in a world where real laws and morals are ignored. So you can take lots of drugs and sleep with anyone and everyone – as long as your band mate hasn’t put first dibs on them. You can trash a hotel room, put the phone in the toilet, throw the kettle out of the window and replace the contents of all the bottles in the mini-bar with urine, but you never sleep in another band member’s bunk without permission. You know, the important stuff.

  For Eddie to use the words ‘actually likes you’, well that must mean something, right? For Eddie to sleep with someone they only need to have a pulse (and, to be honest, I wouldn’t put it past him to limit himself to that), so to really like someone must mean something.

  As he hobbles out of the bathroom, I hang back, thinking about what he just said. It probably didn’t mean anything, maybe he realised I had a boyfriend and would probably reject him, maybe that was his way of backtracking?

  Luke is standing in the bathroom doorway.

  ‘Can I, erm...’ he gestures towards to toilet.

  ‘Oh yes, sorry. Go ahead.’

  I squeeze past him through the narrow doorway, smiling at him as our eyes meet. For a second he smiles back, but then it quickly vanishes and he closes the door behind him. Ben and Mark are back in the room, sitting on the sofa chatting with Eddie. Carla is standing next to them, snapping photos as they chat which they occasionally pose for, mid-sentence.

  ‘Nicole, quick, get in the photos! I’m going to take so many pictures tonight!’

  ‘That’s awesome!’ I reply, sitting down next to Eddie.

  ‘Hey, Nic, guess what?’ he says to me in a hushed voice.

  ‘What?’ I asked, ready for some gossip.

  ‘Mick has a date!’ he replies, falling about laughing.

  ‘No way! With who?’

  ‘Some old bird he met out front, she works here, cleans the place.’ Eddie laughs even harder, even Ben and Mark are laughing. Carla is still snapping away, not even noticing what we’re actually talking about – bless her, she just looks so pleased to be here.

  Tour manager Mick isn’t the best-looking bloke in the world. He’s completely bald, but what he lacks in hair he more than makes up for in tattoos. There is a big spider tattooed right on the top of his head. A big hairy tarantula – oh the irony. Years of touring and drinking free beer have left him with a belly to be proud of and it can often be seen poking out from underneath his beaten rock band T-shirts. If I remember correctly, today’s T-shirt is a Guns N’ Roses tour T-shirt, circa 1987. I remember glancing at the dates on the back and thinking to myself how the shirt was even older than me. Before he was a tour manager he was a roadie for some of the big bands in the 80s – that scruffy T-shirt is probably worth something. I’ll bet he has some amazing stories to tell, but Mick is a man of few words. That’s why I am surprised that he has managed to bag himself a date, we can’t have been here more than an hour or so.

  ‘And get this,’ Mark takes over, ‘he’s waiting for her to finish, and then fucking off with her! He’s not staying for the gig, he’s going to miss the after-party and everything.’

  ‘Nic, come on, let’s go have a look at her. These two saw her before, Mark says she’s a total moose,’ Eddie says.

  Poor Mick. I’m happy for him, if he wants to have a little end of tour party of his own then he should go for it. After weeks of running around after these guys, he deserves it.

  We walk down the corridor and out onto the stage. In front of us we see Mick, propped against the barriers, watching a rather large lady who is bent over in front of him picking up empty plastic cups. Eddie grabs my arm in suspense as we wait for the woman to turn around. I feel a pang of guilt just standing here, waiting to catch a glimpse of the ‘moose’.

  The woman stands up straight and I’ll admit her cleaning outfit doesn’t do much to flatter her figure. Her hair is huge. Big, thick brown curls cover her head creating a Leo Sayer-style ball and then she turns around. Eddie, unable to contain himself, erupts with laughter and both the cleaner and Mick stare at him. I dig Eddie in the ribs with my elbow and his laughter blends seamlessly into wails of pain.

  ‘Bloody leg, it’s giving me hell today. Just came out to check out the set-up, keep doing what you’re doing.’ Eddie looks over at the cleaner and salutes her. ‘You’re doing a great job, ma’am.’

  The cleaner gives him an unsure look but carries on with her cleaning. Eddie looks over at Mick and pushes his tongue against the inside of his cheek, he’s unable to do the accompanying hand gesture because of his crutches but Mick knows exactly what he’s getting at and flips him the bird.

  ‘So when’s the soundcheck, you old dog?’ Eddie asks him.

  ‘Get the guys, I’ll see if we can do it now. I’m getting off in twenty minutes,’ Mick announces, walking off towards the sound booth.

  ‘Oh I’ll bet you are,’ Eddie replies so only I can hear. ‘Shit. Did you see the state of it?’ he asks me.

  ‘Oi, don’t be a dick.’ I give him a playful push, careful not to knock him off his crutches.

  The rest of the band appears to do the soundcheck so I make my way off the stage and into the crowd which consists of Mick, his cleaning lady and Carla. Carla is still taking photos, some of the band during the soundcheck, some of me and even some of Mick and his lady friend. I’ll bet Carla doesn’t have a bad bone in her body. I really hope Ben will start treating her better. I’m rather enjoying having her around, it’s nice having another girl with us. Usually there is a strict no-girls rule (unless they’re just stopping by the bus), excluding journalists and merch girls – although you don’t see quite so many girls tagging along to sell the bands merchandise for them these days. The idea was innocent enough, a fan who tours with the band, free of charge on the condition that she works behind the merchandise table all night, selling the band’s T-shirts and CDs and things. That’s how it started at least. These days the term is more widely used to describe a girl who tours with the band, but they’re more of an outlet for, shall we say, sexual frustration, rather than an outlet for official T-shirts. I’ll bet there are still perfectly innocent merch girls out there getting a bad name because of this new trend. There is no way I would ever be a merch girl, although I bet some people assume I am one when they see me going around with the guys. The no-girls rule also extends to girlfriends. Of course there are always girls on and off the bus, but never for more than one date. It’s different with Carla though, she isn’t some drunk girl who I’ll never see again after she disappears with Eddie for a few hours. I have the chance to chat to her, I can spend the gig with her and she’ll be at the big party later. I meet lots of girls when I’m on the road with the guys, but I rarely learn their names, or even find out their names in the first place, and the same goes for the band, I don’t think they’re too fussed about taking names either.r />
  Once the soundcheck is done, Mick says he is leaving and that he will meet the band at the hotel in the morning. We’re staying in a hotel just down the road from here, and because it’s the last night of tour we have the biggest suite the hotel had to offer. It’s going to be one hell of a party tonight. After a few minutes of chatting I decide to go and get changed, it’s not long before the gig starts.

  ‘Hey, Eddie, do you have a key for the bus?’ I ask. I left my bag on there so that I could carry his instead.

  ‘I don’t, babe. They don’t trust me with anything while I’m on these things,’ he lifts his crutches as he speaks, quickly putting them back down to regain his balance.

  ‘We don’t trust you with anything, period,’ Mark chips in and everyone laughs. ‘Try Luke, he’s backstage. I think he has the spare.’

  They carry on chatting as I make my way backstage again. Luke is there alone and I feel nervous about talking to him.

  ‘Luke?’ I call as I walk through the door. It’s probably best to get straight to the point, just in case he doesn’t want to talk to me.

  ‘Yeah?’ he replies.

  ‘Do you have a key for the bus? I need my bag to get changed.’

  ‘I don’t. Mick has them both.’

  ‘But Mick has gone...’

  ‘I know. Did you need anything important?’

  ‘Oh, only my clothes.’ I laugh, making a mental note to keep the clothes I am wearing very clean because I’ll be wearing them all night and all morning. ‘Another gig of yours where I’ll be looking like crap, eh?’

  ‘You look beautiful, don’t worry about it,’ he tells me as he turns back towards his laptop.

  There’s that funny feeling in my stomach again. What is it with this guy? They say you don’t miss something you never had, but less than twenty-four hours after becoming Charles’ girlfriend, I am still wishing I was Luke’s.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The Gig

  I officially love Carla, she is so much fun! We’ve spent the whole gig together drinking, dancing, and drinking more. And she meant what she said earlier, she really is taking a lot of photos – I can’t even begin to imagine how many snaps of me she has, I’ve been posing like a supermodel all night. My lips actually ache from pouting so much.