The Words of Every Song

by Liz Moore

  Now she does not dare complain but heads into the bathroom of the studio to change into her outfit with the other girls.

  In the bathroom, Kira immediately strips down to her bra and underwear. She looks at herself in the mirror as she talks to Ravenne.

  “You always get that ‘boy, it’s over’ from the chorus,” she says. “I always miss it.” She brushes at something invisible on her abdomen, stretches her arms languorously toward the ceiling. “Maybe I just won’t sing that note.”

  Ravenne shrugs and pulls up the black pants. They look good on her despite her larger lower half.

  “I don’t know why we all have to wear the same pants,” says Ravenne. “I hate these pants.” She glances over her shoulder at her reflection. “Ew.”

  Tia hates changing in front of anyone. She takes off her socks one at a time, turns awkwardly toward the wall and gets her shirt ready to pull off, gathering it upward with one hand while she readies its replacement in the other. Then she pulls it fast over her head and fumbles with the new one until it is in place. She turns back toward the other girls and is disappointed to see that all four of them are fully dressed. Each wears the same black pants and tops of varying colors and cuts. They are standing together and talking, and Tia thinks that now there is nothing to distract them. She must change her pants, and they will watch her from behind and maybe laugh.

  Resigned, she faces the wall once more. She lays the monstrous black pants on the chair in front of her and slowly removes her old pair, her face burning at the thought of what she must look like from behind. She wonders if anyone is looking and imagines that they all must be, even though they’re hiding it by talking about today’s audition, chattering nervously and teasing one another.

  She lifts the pants from the chair and pulls them on one leg at a time, realizing in horror that they are tighter than they were the last time she tried them on—a good two months ago. In fact, they feel too tight altogether. She tries to zip them up the side, but the zipper won’t come up. Rage and grief fill her. She gathers the material at her waist and pulls it together and tugs and tugs, but it will not budge. She stops and breathes heavily for a moment, wondering what she should do. Behind her, the other girls have fallen silent, and she knows without a doubt that four pairs of eyes are on her. She fights with the lump in her throat.

  “Need some help?” asks Kira.

  “No,” says Tia, who would rather staple the pants to her skin than have thin and lovely Kira help her pull the zipper up over the flesh of her hip.

  She tries again, and struggles against the tears that feel as though they might burst out of her at any moment. She knows she cannot talk or they will come. And then, at last, at last, the zipper moves an inch, and then an inch more, and she sucks her stomach in to her spine, and then the whole thing is up and she pats her face and exhales and turns to face her band and sees her own reflection instead and nearly cries out in anguish.

  A large roll of flesh falls over the waist of the hateful black pants. Her salmon-colored shirt, ripped fashionably at the shoulders and up the sides, looks stretched and uncomfortable. Her hair hangs limply by the sides of her head, held back by the childish headband. She takes the headband off and sees that her hair still bears its impression, so she puts it back on. She wears no makeup, and she has three pimples on her forehead. She noticed them this morning before driving to the studio and had felt relieved that they would be getting their makeup done before their audition. Now they stand out in contrast to the perfect-looking skin of her heavily made up bandmates.

  She does not want to go. She wants to lock herself in a bathroom stall and cry.

  The other four girls watch her curiously—each secretly feels grateful that she is not Tia, or built like Tia, or wearing a headband like Tia’s.

  Then a knock on the door comes, and through it they hear Paul.

  “Let’s hit the road!” he says.

  Tia, too shocked by her own appearance to think, follows her bandmates out of the bathroom and into the van.

  “This is it,” says Paul, and pulls out into the road, heading toward Manhattan.

  In the farthest-back seat, Tia leans her head against the window and dreads the audition with a force she has not felt before.

  VI.

  The thinness of some women. Every time she visits Manhattan, Tia sees so much of it that her eyes hurt, that her heart nearly skips a beat with jealousy when a woman walks by and Tia can see her bones beneath her skin. That is what she wants: to see her own bones when she looks in the mirror. She has seen it on MTV, on the girls in the sorts of bands that she is supposed to be in. She likes it when she can see their hip bones like ledges above low-slung pants or skirts. She likes very thin upper arms, the kind you could fit your hand around. Most of all, Tia likes knobby knees: slender knees and slender calves below them and slender thighs above them. She wishes her own knees were knobby. A boy in her fifth-grade class once told Tia that her knees looked like bowling balls, and Tia felt as if a terrible secret had been exposed to the world. She often struggles with this feeling: knowing herself that she is fat and wondering if others will notice it too or if she is hiding it well. When she is feeling confident about her looks, she thinks to herself that today she is hiding her fat well.

  She thinks she has a pretty face, but then accuses herself of vanity—perhaps even self-deception. What do people think of me? she asks herself throughout the day. And imagines the worst.

  Everyone in the van is silent. From the backseat, Tia divides the women she sees on the street into three categories: thin and pretty, thin and ugly, and fat. She feels guilty about doing it, but it has become a compulsion. She feels especially bad about placing women into the second category, for these, she feels, are hopeless. But she does it compassionately, and often she likes these women and the fat women best: trusts them more, thinks they must be better people, somehow.

  But how she envies the thin and pretty ones! The ones who turn heads with their loveliness, turn the heads of men who scare Tia with disloyalty toward their wives or girlfriends. Here is a scene that Tia hates: A man and a woman sit together. They are eating at a restaurant. They are on a bench in a park. They are sitting on a stoop. A different woman walks by—a thin and pretty one, one with knobby knees and ledges for hip bones and a lovely face and good fashion sense, and maybe it’s raining and her shirt has gotten wet, but unintentionally, carelessly, for this woman is never what Tia calls slutty (slutty women Tia places into a separate category altogether and disdains with all her might)—and then the man’s head turns, or his head stays deliberately in place and his eyes turn, and all the while he is talking to his wife or his girlfriend, who notices the woman too, and she thinks, That woman is prettier and thinner than I am, and her husband or boyfriend thinks, That woman is thinner and prettier than you are, and I would like to have sex with her. Tia has created this scene in her head countless times, and she imagines she has witnessed it countless times, and she has never had a boyfriend but she thinks that she could never abide having one whose head would turn for thin and pretty women.

  VII.

  They arrive at the Titan building as silent as they were when they left the studio. It looms above them; it is preposterously high. Even Paul seems frightened, and Tia, whose rage at her appearance has not yet subsided, feels a guilty sort of pleasure at her own father’s fear. She wants him to fail. She wants to revel in his failure, for making her wear the pants he has made her wear, for denying her the thrill of having her makeup done. For allowing her to be the ugliest member of the band he has put together.

  As instructed, they take the elevator up to the top floor. The doors close behind them and Tia sees with chagrin that these too are mirrored. And that she is indeed larger by far than all four of her bandmates. She catches her father’s eye in the reflection and looks away.

  Paul is surprised at his inability to speak. His mouth has turned dry and papery. He can barely think, and yet the need to speak overwhelms him:
he needs to show the girls that he is in control, that their audition will be okay. He looks about him for inspiration and says the first thing he can think of, turning to his daughter.

  “Your pants look a little tight,” he says to Tia in the silent elevator. “Guess we should have gotten the bigger size.”

  In Paul’s mind, he is making conversation. He cannot know what he has said, cannot know the wrongness of it—he cannot possibly know what he has done. He turns back toward the doors, relieved that he has successfully completed a sentence. He congratulates himself on the nonchalance of the statement. The girls must know now that he is not at all nervous, and that they shouldn’t be either. It’s just an audition, he reminds himself. There will be others. He smiles a bit. Breathe, he tells himself. Relax.

  Tia’s smallish body shakes with the sort of rage one cannot ever fully accommodate. It fills her. It is disturbingly wide and long. In her sparkling pants, she feels she looks like a show elephant, a circus elephant dressed to look human. She wishes fervently for retaliation—for some means of revenge. Later in life, Tia will not speak to her father, and for the first time she has a glimpse of this future. Its inevitability does not surprise her, and neither does it subdue her hot and hellish rage. She wants to hurt him with something dull, like a bowling ball. She wants to drop a bowling ball on his head. She imagines it: the release of the ball from some second-or third-story window, the sickening double thud of ball meeting head and head meeting pavement. Would the bone crack? Would there be a dent?

  The doors open.

  They face a desk with a secretary behind it.

  “Welcome to Titan,” says the secretary. “You’re here to see Theo?”

  “Yes,” says Paul. He is slowly regaining confidence.

  In the waiting room, there is a ficus plant that looks underwatered.

  The girls sit like small ducks on the chairs provided them. They catch glimpses, through his half-open door, of a man they assume must be Theo Brigham. He is pacing while talking on a headset. His hands move rapidly, illustrating whatever it is he is discussing (guns? It looks as though he is aiming at something), now and then finding the bridge of his nose and pinching it tight.

  He looks much younger than the man Tia had imagined, and much slighter. Much less blond. She wonders briefly about his personal life. Wonders if he is the sort of man who would cheat on his wife or his girlfriend. If he likes pretty girls. Her eyes shift to Kira, who sits straight in her chair, her legs crossed and then uncrossed and then crossed again. Will Kira be the reason they get signed?

  Will I be the reason we don’t? Tia asks herself.

  Through the door, Theo Brigham looks annoyed as he takes off the headset he has been wearing.

  He sits on his desk for a moment, collecting his thoughts, preparing himself for the next item on his agenda: meeting with a girl band. What is their name? he asks himself. All he can think of is “Spice Girls.”

  He can see them in the lobby, five young girls sitting silently in the chairs the secretary has offered them. They are all wearing similar outfits and similar expressions: expressions of utter fear. Next to them, a tall black man in a suit is checking his watch compulsively. The situation isn’t promising. Theo considers just shutting his door, maybe even calling his secretary from inside his office and telling her to cancel their appointment. But he really has nothing scheduled for the next hour, and he figures that it would be a good deed to give them a shot—something the girls can tell their friends about. He takes in a deep breath, smiles, and walks to the door to invite them in.

  He comes forward into the lobby.

  “Paul, hey,” he says.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Brigham,” says her father, and Tia holds back a shudder. It was, she knows, the wrong thing to say. Exactly the wrong tone. Just as her father is wearing a suit and Theo Brigham is wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

  And he looks like he’s twenty-five. Her father is older than him.

  It’s all wrong.

  Everything is wrong.

  Paul is shaking with nerves. He recalls baseball tryouts as a boy, wonders if the girls feel now as he did then. Imagines that they must be even more nervous.

  Paul is experiencing a new emotion: protectiveness. He feels these girls are his, and he feels a difficult sort of love for them. Certainly he loves his daughter, Tia, as all fathers love their daughters: worries for her, wants the best for her. But this is something different. It’s as if these girls are an artwork that he has created, an artwork that he may not be ready to unveil. He wonders if it isn’t too late to reschedule, to squeeze in a few more rehearsals. Kira always hits the same wrong note halfway through the chorus. Janelle has been turning the wrong way for their big finish.

  And Tia still looks like she wants to disappear when she’s dancing.

  But Theo Brigham leads them into his office and Paul knows that the audition must happen now if it is ever going to happen. He tries to make himself breathe slowly and calmly.

  “Have a seat,” says Theo. He gestures to a small sofa, to two chairs next to it. Ravenne and Kira and Linette sit on the sofa. Tia and Janelle take the chairs. Paul, uncertain of where he is expected to sit, hovers tentatively by Tia’s chair. Then Theo turns to him.

  “If you wouldn’t mind, Paul,” he says, walking to the door and pulling it open.

  Paul thinks he must be kidding. He smiles.

  “I like to work alone with the artists,” says Theo, and waits.

  Paul cannot comprehend. He arranged this meeting. He drove the girls here. He has worked and waited a year for this moment. His was the phone call that got through to Theo Brigham, young Theo Brigham, A&R man for Titan, now standing by his office door and all but commanding Paul to leave.

  “Mr. Brigham,” says Paul, straightening his spine. His daughter gives him an imploring look; the other girls wait and wonder what might happen next. And then Paul thinks better of what he is about to say. What good would it do, after all? To insist on seeing the audition. To defy the man who may hold the key to the Hype Girlz’ success. It would hurt their chances. Better to cooperate.

  “Certainly,” says Paul, and walks with dignity to the door, and hears, behind him, Tia’s sigh of relief. Theo shuts the door. Then they are alone with Theo Brigham. He sits on his desk, facing them.

  “So,” he says. “Why are you here?”

  In the lobby, Paul paces to and fro. He circles a ficus tree by the window three times.

  The secretary looks at him and says, “Would you care to have a seat?”

  “No,” says Paul. He walks to the window and looks out at the tall buildings surrounding Titan.

  “Please have a seat,” says the secretary, who is concerned that Jax Powers-Kline—due to return imminently from lunch at Da Silvano—will criticize her for her failure to keep the guests appeased and orderly. She tries again: “Can I get you anything to drink?”

  “Got any vodka?” asks Paul. It’s his bad attempt at a joke, but the secretary doesn’t understand—she smiles uncertainly and shakes her head.

  “Coffee?” she asks.

  Facing Theo Brigham, Tia feels suddenly and surprisingly relaxed. This man is not like men she has feared before. He has none of the fierce single-mindedness of her father. He is many-minded; his hands find projects of their own to complete as he is talking to them. He is reserved—he is aware of his actions, meticulous about them—but he is sweeter than her father, somehow.

  Tia looks at her bandmates. No one is speaking. Next to her, Janelle glances at the door wistfully, willing Paul to come back in.

  “Anyone?” asks Theo. “Why are you here today?” He can see most of the girls are terrified. With the exception of one, they look young, quite young: this is a good thing. They are all passably pretty. The one on the right needs to lose weight. The one in the middle, with her bright blue eyes, is strikingly good-looking. She’d be the face of the band, the one to put up close on the album covers. The one to go on TRL. Theo’s mind works thi
s way: in terms of product. He leaps ahead to their TV appearances. They could put the oldest one in pigtails, make her look younger. How old did the father say they were? Fourteen? Fourteen is a good age. Fourteen-year-old girls are album buyers, product buyers. They watch MTV. They believe what you tell them.

  These girls are nervous. Nervousness is good too. These girls haven’t learned to be difficult yet, to be spoiled, like the kids who have been in the business since they could talk. Theo has met kids who refuse to speak without a lawyer present. He has met kids who demand cappuccinos upon entrance. These girls wouldn’t dare: they wouldn’t ask to go to the bathroom. Theo likes these qualities in artists. Obedience. A little bit of fear. But how long would it last? Fame is potent. Fame changes things. Theo has seen it.

  Tia looks once more down the row of her bandmates. Even Kira is silent—Kira, who flirts, who never shuts up. None of them has ever been asked to speak before. Paul has always done their talking for them: to local newspapers, to voice coaches.

  Theo tries one more time: “Are you here to sing for me?” he coaxes.

  “Yes,” Tia ventures. “We’re here to sing you a song.”

  Janelle looks at her gratefully.

  “Do you have a backing track?” asks Theo.

  “No,” says Tia. She is feeling brave. She cannot let her father down. “We’re singing a cappella.”

  “Well!” says Theo. “That’s good. That’s great.” He waits. He is surprised: most pop artists require backing tracks; many require backing vocals. Many cannot sing at all.