by Emma Grey
The crowd takes the mood and runs with it. He yells into her ear, ‘Sing our second song instead?’ He squeezes her hand and smiles encouragingly, knowing from experience that the overwhelmingness is about to max out, if it hasn’t already. It’s like the audience can sense her nerves and how massively different this is from any other concert they’ve been to. Or will ever go to again. The fans are on her side. She can feel it, and she’s grateful. Slowly, they quieten down their whistles. Shouts of ‘Kat, Kat!’ echo around the arena. She’s representing their home town here. They love it.
‘This has been an unusual night,’ Angus says at last into the microphone. They erupt again! ‘Thank you for your patience. And for your encouragement while I sort my life out.’ He shamelessly unleashes a smile.
The fans adore it.
He takes a deep breath, puts his arm behind her back and encourages her to step into the spotlight with him. Then he smiles and says, ‘I’d like you to meet Kat.’
He has to wait for the screaming to die down before he can continue.
‘She’s an incredibly talented songwriter and singer. From SYDNEY!’
It’s almost impossible for him to go on. They’re so loud!
‘If it’s okay with you, we’d like to share something. Do you mind?’
Mind? It’s like they’re going to lift the roof off.
Angus turns to Kat, releases her hand and gestures for her to move to the grand piano. They sit together. As he clips Cassidy’s abandoned microphone onto her dress, his fingers brush her collarbone lightly. Then he leans in and whispers into her ear, ‘It’s just the two of us, okay? Just pretend . . .’
Just the two of them.
Right. So, forget this packed stadium and the fact that she’s mislaid all the words. Plus the tune. And practically her own name.
‘Sing it to me, Kat,’ he smiles, gently.
Oh, right. She can do that. She’d love to.
He spreads his hands across the keyboard, and stays poised for a moment. The lights change. They’re spotlit in a soft blue glow, sparkling with fairy lights, and the rest of the stage is dark behind them. Angus begins to play.
He sings softly.
I can see your inner world
I wonder if you know
You have greatness
She takes a breath and hears her own voice for the first time, amplified through the stadium . . .
You’re a hero.
So much applause, just for one line!
You are saving my world
I feel it in my blood
Help me build protection
Against the rising flood.
They love her. Angus responds, his usually steady voice choked with emotion.
Audiosphere transparent
Universe transcendent
Existing independent till we meet
The bubble is electric
Our voyages are epic
Tracing geometrics with our feet.
She looks out into the audience. It’s full of swaying torchlight. This is surreal! But it is real! And she loves it so much, she wants to cry. She relaxes her throat and takes a deep breath. She needs to sing. She can cry later. She opens her mouth and her voice is clear.
We are the great inventors
We are the warriors brave.
Angus cuts in, his fingers sure on the keys.
We know what we’re making
We know what to save.
She lets it go. No holding back. No nerves any more.
We are queens of the mountain
We are kings of the sea
He’s looking straight at her now.
We scale these heights
She smiles. She feels so strong!
With a quiet heartfelt plea.
He plays the music so delicately now. His voice is gorgeous. She watches him sing the last part, as mesmerised by him as any of the girls in this enormous arena.
We are the great inventors
We are the warriors brave.
There’s a moment or two of silence. Then the audience erupts. Everyone in the stadium is on their feet, cheering and clapping and taking thousands of photos and just loving it. She tries to soak it in, but it’s almost impossible to know how to respond. She turns to Angus and he’s staring at her. The pride in his eyes nearly knocks her sideways.
He leans in and asks, ‘Will you wait for me? Can I see you afterwards?’
She smiles. ‘What do you think?’
She looks around, wondering what to do now and where to go. That’s when he picks up the microphone again and says, ‘Kat’s going to spend a lot of time up here in the future . . .’
Cheers erupt again, and when they die down he says, ‘For now, is there room for one more in the audience? Can you squeeze her in?’
They squeal. She’s lifted down off the stage by another security guard and over the barricade at the front. Cheering, screaming girls instantly crowd around her. Some of them are crying. And then the craziest thing happens! One of them passes Kat a pen and her concert program and asks for her autograph. What on EARTH!
Angus sees it and laughs. He walks away from the piano and finds a microphone. Face flushed, he takes a deep breath and shouts, ‘Sydney! Are you ready to party?’
As the screams explode, the boys blitz into the next set of songs. The energy on stage is electric. Angus is electric. It’s like he’s lit up. It’s the performance of his life.
Lucy fights through the crowd and finds Kat, and together they lose themselves in all of it, just like Fangirls.
She can’t believe she ever rolled her eyes at the first concert. What was she thinking?
She wants it to go on forever but it can’t. During the final song, a security guard takes Kat and Lucy aside. They say goodbye to the girls they’ve been dancing with and head backstage again, this time to a different room. It’s scattered with boy stuff and smells like sweat and stage makeup and too many kinds of cologne.
The Unrequited dressing room.
Chapter 51
The others come in first. They see Kat standing there and tackle her like she’s one of them. Really one of them. Then they tackle Lucy because . . . why not? And she’s in heaven!
‘You were brilliant!’ Zach shouts, spinning Kat around. His face is guilt-free, as if he’d had no part at all in the events leading up to her spectacular debut. What a charmer! In any case, all is forgiven. Now.
‘What a night!’ he yells.
Reuben winks at Kat, then joins Lucy on the couch. Luckily, she’s already sitting down because otherwise she might faint. Meanwhile, Alex and Xavier want to relive the part when Angus jumped offstage and deserted everyone, particularly Cassidy.
So, here she is, then. Just hanging out with the guys from Unrequited. Like this is a remotely normal way to spend a Saturday night. And how inconceivably strange it is to think this might be normal. One day . . .
Because being on stage was AWESOME. Hearing their song reverberating across the stadium, hearing the screams of all those people loving it. Doing it all with Angus beside her! It was just beyond her craziest dreams!
This is it. This is what she was born to do, and she knows it. If only her dad was here . . . There is no other feeling, or so she thinks until the last singer from the band finally walks in.
Her heart practically stops.
Angus Marsden, after an epic concert. Hot. Shirt clinging to his body, top buttons undone. Obviously hyped on the thrill. Eyes wide. Locked on Kat.
The other four band members find something incredibly important to do outside the dressing room. They invite Lucy to do it with them. She takes one for the team. Whatever they’re off to do, it requires a lot of winking and nudging and slapping Angus on the back in a congratulatory fashion on their way out the door. Kat thinks it’s all slightly premature. Angus introduced her as a musician. It’s not like they’re together or anything.
‘Come here,’ he commands as soon as the latch clicks shut on the door.
&n
bsp; She wants to. She really does. But she can’t move a single muscle in her body. She can’t even speak.
‘If you’re not going to come here, Kat, I’m afraid I’m going to have to come over there,’ he says, in a way that sounds like the complete opposite of a threat.
It’s almost impossible not to smile.
He steps towards her. He stands in front of her. Not touching her. Not even looking like he’s going to touch her. It’s maddening. Like suddenly every single chemistry lesson from the last two years makes sense. It’s all about actions and reactions. And she’s having a lot of those right now.
‘Look,’ he begins, his voice deep. ‘I know you’re the world’s hottest new star, and you probably have fans throwing themselves at you all the time . . .’
She laughs.
‘It’s just that I need to congratulate you properly. On a brilliant performance. Do you mind?’
Does she mind?
‘When did you become so polite?’ she asks.
‘Don’t you want me to congratulate you?’
‘That depends on how you plan to do it.’
He smiles. ‘Well, let’s see. As you seem to be with someone else, I should probably just shake your hand.’
And he does, quite firmly and professionally. He says, ‘Well done, great job,’ and nods approvingly. His deadpan expression is so well acted she’s almost convinced he’s for real. Then he says, ‘Although, what I really want to do is hug you and tell you — Kat Hartland — you took my breath away out there.’
She did? He only has to speak and he gives her spine tingles. She can’t get over what he can do to her with just his voice.
‘Hugging would possibly have had more impact,’ she explains, helpfully. ‘Particularly as I’m not actually with anyone else.’
Something shifts in his green eyes. Lightens.
‘Right,’ he says. ‘I’ll remember that for next time. There is going to be a next time, isn’t there?’
‘Next time on stage? Definitely. You won’t be able to shut me up, now. I loved it!’
‘I don’t want to shut you up. Unless it’s for the purposes of this other congratulatory technique that just came to me. Not sure you’d go for it, but it requires you to actually stop talking . . .’
‘I’m not the one doing the talking,’ she points out.
‘I always talk when I’m nervous,’ he explains.
‘Bad boys don’t get nervous.’
He pulls her to him. ‘Yes, they do.’
Chapter 52
Two weeks later
If multi-tasking was an Olympic sport, Kat would be a gold medallist. The fortnight since the Unrequited concert has been a blur. Fending off every teen magazine in the Western world. Scrambling to find an agent, lawyer and publicist. Navigating a bidding war from multiple labels. Signing contracts and a record deal. Getting Lucy to shop for low-key clothes for Kat to hide in. And, lastly, convincing her mum that everything is going to be fine.
Her mum is at least slightly less panicked once she sees the level of security detail that’s been assigned to their house. And to Kat’s school. All paid for by Unrequited’s management. Along with all this, Kat’s bedroom is bursting with new dresses sent by myriad designers, all vying for her to choose their label for her school formal. She’s not going to wear any of them. She’s sticking with the vintage gold chiffon dress her grandmother wore in the fifties. It’s like something out of Mad Men. It’s magical.
The bathroom is suddenly cluttered with M.A.C., Napoleon Perdis and Bobbi Brown. Top hair stylists, limo companies and jewellers are all closing in too, desperate for Australia’s ‘IT’ girl to pick them for her formal. It’s crazy!
The twins are existing in a state of full-blown hysteria over the whole thing. Taking the credit for it. Bragging at school. Squealing every time they walk past a newsstand and see their sister on the cover of another magazine.
If Annie has said it once, she’s said it a billion times: ‘See, I knew it was the right thing to do to send those tweets!’
Somewhere in the middle of this, Kat thinks she did about as well in the HSC as you’d expect a newly minted singer to do, especially while spending the exam lead-up in a tangled, unexpected and very elaborate love quadrangle that came out of nowhere! She was granted special circumstances for the exams, given the media frenzy that followed the concert. The NSW Board of Studies organised for her to sit the HSC in a private location, far from the media circus. She thinks she might still get over the line and into the course her mum was hoping for, although that’s been derailed by a new plan to study music exclusively, and do this whole thing properly.
And then there’s Angus.
Hmm.
He can take full responsibility for being the best last-minute exam-cramming partner she could possibly have imagined by her side. Or maybe the worst.
That boy is distracting!
It’s been insane! All fortnight!
And one of the highlights has to be the night of the Legally Blonde musical.
Sarah simply shone on stage. Kat was hovering up the back of the chorus, trying to blend in, despite the media pack that somehow gotten wind of her performance.
Joel was in the audience — at the end of a row, with two spare seats beside him, and, exactly as they’d planned, Angus snuck in after the lights went down. Only Sarah, Kat and Joel knew there was a pop star in the house, and it was like having a tantalising secret.
But there was one more surprise for Kat. And it was an important one.
Her mum.
Kat was at the last dress rehearsal when Angus had called in at her house to have a chat with Angela Hartland. He knew about Luke Hartland’s music and about Angela’s fears for Kat following in her dad’s footsteps. He wanted to tell her how very different it would be for Kat. How unique Kat is. How much all of this means to her. And that it’s going to be okay.
But it wasn’t just a talk. Angus had gone to enormous lengths to put together something really special — hoping it would have the right effect. It was a mash-up track of slices of a recording Unrequited’s sound techs made of their live performance at the concert, together with an old recording he found through the retired producer Luke was working with the night before his accident. Angela had never known what Luke had been working on. Not even what the song was called. Or who it was for. Angus had found out the song was for six-year-old Kat.
What I Want For You/We Are
written and performed by Luke and Kat Hartland
It’s not the fairy tale, it’s not the rainbow
It’s not ‘perfect’, not the prize
Not the ‘easy’, not the fireworks
Not the ticker tape and blue skies
What I want for you isn’t everything
Isn’t anything your heart desires
What I want for you is the music
That I see inside your eyes.
You are saving my world.
If you never have another thing
If your life is stripped right back
If it’s dark at night, if you’re lonely
When you’re under attack
Close your eyes, girl, feel the rhythm
Hear the lyrics, and the tune
Don’t wait for me, don’t wait for anyone
Be your hero, be it soon.
You are saving my world
I feel it in my blood
Help me build protection
Against the rising flood.
Don’t wait for me, don’t wait for anyone
We are the warriors brave.
According to Angus, there had been tears from Angela about Luke. Tears about Kat. Tears about the sound of them singing together again the way they always did. But mainly the tears were about how guilty she felt for holding Kat back. The mash-up did the trick. Angela decided to let it go. To get behind her daughter now and see how far she could take this.
No one told Kat her mum would be at the production. She sat between Angus a
nd Joel, and cried most of the way through. Tears of pride. And to think — she hasn’t seen anything yet!
Angus crept out again before the finale, meeting the three of them and Lucy later at Sarah’s place. It turned out to be one of the funniest nights ever. Way better than any A-list party, Angus assured them. He also had a heap of advice for Sarah about New York and about getting into Juilliard. He knows people there.
Meanwhile, Kat was on the phone to his first girlfriend — Neala. Sounds like a weird thing to do, chatting with his ex, but it felt totally normal. She’s a scream! Dished all the dirt on Angus from high school, which prompted him to look at her coyly every few minutes, wondering what was being said, while Kat laughed so hard she had tears.
Then Joel and Kat had sat there, watching Angus and Sarah plan her trip. Somewhere in the middle of that, they happened to look at each other and smile — just the way they had on the train, but as friends now.
It’s funny how things work out. Funny how things feel so right now. Although, not everything has been smooth sailing. Sarah’s parents are furious. She quit law after her third-year final exams and her dad isn’t even speaking to her. Right now, she doesn’t care because everything that could go right for her, has gone right. She’s going to travel and study something she loves for once. And then there’s Joel.
Apparently it’s really weird going from platonic best mates to boyfriend and girlfriend. They thought they knew everything about each other and it’s like they’ve been sent back to GO in a real-life game of Monopoly. They’ve even been back to the bit where Joel sent Sarah a Valentine in Year Nine, and she mixed that up.
Kat wishes she could turn back to GO with Angus. But he’s gone now. Not just gone on the next leg of the tour. Gone.
They reluctantly agreed that it wasn’t fair on either of them to expect something more serious, or longer-term, when the brutal fact is he’s never home. The band travels all but about two or three weeks of the year. And that’s just his career. Toss in hers, and the places it might take her, and it just isn’t practical right now. Trying to be together wouldn’t work in any realistic sense . . . At least, that’s what he said the afternoon he left for Tokyo.