by Cathy Cole
“It’s always been a private thing,” said Rhi.
“Lila and Polly knew,” he pointed out.
Rhi walked around Max’s familiar room, studying the books on his shelves, trying not to show how nervous she was feeling. “I guess girls talk more than boys.”
Max nodded, accepting this. He plugged one more lead into the computer. “All set,” he said. “There should be good acoustics in here. What do you want to sing first?”
Rhi was feeling increasingly anxious about this whole thing. Did she really want to sing in front of Max, the boy who broke her heart? Singing made her feel extra vulnerable. He’d hurt her so badly.
“How about ‘I Wanna Be Like You’?” she joked, making feeble jazz hands. She and Max had watched The Jungle Book together once and she knew it was one of his favourite movies, though he would never admit it. Rhi made her voice sound extra-husky as she started to sing and even did a few monkey actions with her arms.
Max was making funny monkey faces at her and singing along. So Rhi kept going.
At some point halfway through the chorus, she realized that Max had stopped singing and was watching her instead. She stopped too, feeling self-conscious all over again.
“Stop staring,” she whispered.
“Sorry.” He gave her a lazy smile which said he wasn’t sorry at all. “I don’t often have beautiful orangutans dancing round my room.”
He called me beautiful, thought Rhi.
The air thickened as she stared at him. He gazed right back. His face was so familiar to Rhi that she could have drawn him with her eyes closed. Sharp cheekbones, chocolate eyes, hair even thicker and darker than her own. She remembered his lips and the way they had once felt on hers. Don’t think about his mouth. The ghost of Eve flickered across the room.
“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” Max said, breaking the silence. “It’s just you and me.”
That’s what I’m nervous about, Rhi thought. “And the microphone,” she pointed out.
“Forget the microphone. This is your chance, Rhi,” he said seriously. “Your shot at the big time. Get back to being the person who sang at the Heartbeat. The person who—”
He stopped, and fiddled with the computer settings. Rhi wondered what he had been about to say.
“What do you want to start with?” he said, looking up. “For real this time?”
Rhi eyed Ruth’s guitar. It was now or never. She unzipped it and stroked it once for luck, then slung the strap round her neck. Her fingers felt like lead. What was she going to sing?
She started with a couple of safe ones that she’d written herself: a ballad called “Way Down Low” and a rockier number called “Sundown, Sunshine”. Max listened, fiddled with buttons on his computer, nodding and tapping his foot. “Sundown, Sunshine” needed a couple of takes to get a tricky key change right, but Max just reset the computer and counted her in again.
“It’s sounding really good,” Max said approvingly as Rhi took a drink of water from a glass on his desk. “One more track should do it. These guys never want more than three.”
Rhi swallowed. There was one more song she could sing. The inspiration was sitting right in front of her. Did she dare?
Do it, she thought recklessly. It would be good for Max to hear it.
“I have one called ‘Heartbreaker’,” she said, keeping her voice as steady as she could.
She thought Max’s eyes flickered a little. “Give it all you’ve got, OK?” Holding up his hand, he folded his fingers away one at a time. “Five, four, three…”
Rhi closed her eyes and bent her head. She let her fingers relax, finding the strings. It’s just you and the song, she told herself. Nothing else matters. Not Max, not the microphone.
“Heartbreaker,” she sang, her fingers plucking sad sweetness from Ruth’s guitar. “Lead me astray… Heartbreaker, show me a way… Away from sorrow, away from grief, away from pain beyond belief… Let me go, make me stay… Heartbreaker, show me a way.”
The tune was simple and waltz-like. Rhi had poured her heart into it, in those bleak days after she had first discovered Max and Eve together. It was the best thing she’d ever written.
“Back in the days, back in our haze, we talked, we sang, we ran though a maze of feelings,” she sang, concentrating on the key changes that would make this part of the song ring out like bells. “No check on time, kisses sublime, we loved, we shared, I cared, I cared without knowing… without knowing…” Her fingers moved automatically now, back to the opening lilt of notes. “Heartbreaker, let me go, make me stay… show me a way.”
Dimly Rhi heard a little plunk after the last chord of the song. A tear had rolled off the end of her nose and landed on a guitar string. She took the guitar off, set it gently on the floor and scrubbed at her cheeks with both hands.
Suddenly Max was kneeling beside her, his hand on hers. “Don’t cry. Rhi, please… I’m so sorry… for all of it…”
Rhi didn’t know how it happened, but her arms were round his neck, and his fingers were twisting through her hair, and he was kissing her hungrily and passionately. She could hardly think for the sound of roaring in her ears as she kissed him back. They fitted together so perfectly, lips on lips, arms pulling each other closer. Rhi wanted it to go on for ever…
Eve.
Rhi wrenched herself away with a superhuman effort.
“Rhi, I’ve missed you,” said Max. He reached for her again. “You’ve missed me too, I can tell. Can’t we—”
“No!” Rhi was breathing hard. “I won’t. We can’t do this, Max. You’re going out with Eve now, and—”
He tried to put his arms around her again. “But I’m crazy about you. You’re amazing. Eve doesn’t have to know. You didn’t tell her about tonight. I didn’t tell her either. So—”
Rhi was trembling all over. “I don’t want to hear it! You and Eve may have gone behind my back, but that doesn’t make it OK. It’s as far from OK as it’s possible to be. I’m not a cheat.” She took a deep breath. “You can’t have us both, Max. You have to choose.
“It’s her or me.”
EIGHT
Why had she kissed Max on Monday night? Rhi thought gloomily. She had ruined everything.
After she had left his house that night, walking blindly through the dark and clutching Ruth’s guitar like some kind of lifeline, Rhi had got home, locked her bedroom door and cried her eyes out. Then she had played “Heartbreaker” again, and cried some more. It was only when she ran out of tissues that she put the guitar away in its case, washed her face and tried to settle down to some homework. She hadn’t got much done. Lightning stabs of memory kept distracting her, Max’s kiss searing through complicated bits of algebra and French vocabulary. She had never been kissed like that, not even when she and Max had first started going out. What did it mean?
It meant nothing, she thought hopelessly.
The truth was that Max had let her leave. She had wanted so badly for him to tell her that he would end it with Eve, but he hadn’t. So Rhi had left. She’d successfully avoided Max and Eve all of yesterday and most of today. And now here she was, heading for the lunch queue on Wednesday, her eyes firmly on the tiled floor in case she saw them together in the corridors and blushed bright red. How do people cheat and not get found out? she wondered distractedly. My face gives everything away.
“Rhi, wait!”
Lila and Polly were heading towards her.
“Hey, stranger,” said Lila, linking arms. Her wide blue eyes were quizzical. “What’s up?”
On Rhi’s other side, Polly brushed her shiny blue-black hair behind her ears and added: “You look sad.”
Rhi felt a rush of anxiety. Did they know already? How had they found out? Had Max been talking? “I don’t know what you mean,” she fudged.
“Dreaming in class?” Polly prompt
ed, raising her eyebrows. “Ms Andrews asked you that question about Mussolini twice before you heard her. That’s not like you.”
“Is it about the scout?” Lila asked. “Did you call him? Does he want to hear you again?”
Rhi rubbed her forehead. “It’s a mixture of things,” she said finally. “I called the scout on Monday.”
Lila squealed with excitement. Polly dug her in the ribs.
“And…?”
“He wants a demo,” Rhi mumbled. Her face was reddening by the minute. “So I made one. Three songs. Max recorded it for me. At least, I think he did…” She trailed off miserably. She didn’t even know whether Max’s recording had worked.
Lila’s gaze was suddenly very intent. “Max recorded you? Does Eve know?”
Rhi shook her head. “We were at his house and he had the mic all wired up to his computer and… I’m so confused,” she blurted.
“Uh-oh,” said Polly. “Why do I think I know what’s coming?”
“Rhi, don’t tell me you kissed him,” said Lila in dismay.
Rhi bit her lip. She gave a tiny nod.
Polly clapped her hands to her face in shock. “Are you mad? He cheated on you! With your best friend! What were you thinking?”
It was such a relief to tell someone, Rhi realized. “I wasn’t thinking,” she confessed. “That’s the point. I sang my last song – it was one I wrote after we broke up. Max made the first move…” She trailed off. Her lips were still tingling from that extraordinary kiss. It had to mean something.
“I don’t like the look in your eyes,” Lila groaned. “Rhi, Max Holmes is a cheat. You’re not thinking of going out with him again, are you?”
“What’s Eve going to say?” Polly’s eyes were wide and troubled. “You’re poking your fingers into a wasps’ nest, Rhi. You know what she’s like!”
“I told him he had to choose between me and Eve,” Rhi whispered.
“And?”
“He hasn’t given me an answer yet.”
“Don’t do it,” Polly implored.
“Polly’s right.” Lila gave Rhi’s arm a little shake. “You’re just opening yourself up to more hurt.”
Rhi stared at her friends, willing them to understand. “But I love him,” she said. “I want to be with him.”
“Oh boy,” Polly sighed. “I’ve gone right off the idea of lunch.”
Rhi wished they could be happy for her. “It could work out,” she said hopefully. “He said he missed me.”
Lila and Polly just looked at her with concern. Rhi stared back, feeling defiant. It’s my life, she wanted to say. If I want to get back together with Max, that’s for me to decide. Not you.
“Please be happy for me,” she said.
Her phone vibrated. Digging it out of her pocket, Rhi’s heart jumped in anticipation. It was from Max.
I have the demo.
Usual place in 5?
xx
He’d done the tape, just as he’d said he would. He must care for her to do that, even after the way she had left him on Monday night. And two kisses at the bottom… Rhi’s stomach fluttered as she read the message again. Their usual place had been by the drama department. They had met there whenever they wanted privacy. He was coming back to her. She knew it.
“See?” she insisted, thrusting her phone under the others’ noses. “It’s him. He’s done my tape. See you later!”
“Aren’t you having any lunch?” Lila called as Rhi hurried away with her heart pounding.
“Later!” Rhi called back. Her appetite had gone. All she could think about was Max. She would see him in five minutes. They would be alone.
Rhi suddenly stopped short, and checked behind her. She was probably being paranoid, but she didn’t want anyone following her. Especially not Eve.
Max must have broken it off with Eve by now, she reasoned with herself, heading briskly down the corridor. But she checked over her shoulder again, just in case.
She reached the drama department’s props room. As she paused against the wall, checking once more that she hadn’t been followed, a hand appeared around the door and pulled her inside.
“Hello, beautiful,” said Max, gazing down at her with a broad smile on his face.
Rhi fell gladly into his arms. They kissed like they had been apart for weeks, not days.
“I’m so glad you texted,” Rhi gasped, breaking off. She could feel her eyes shining in the dark. “I’ve missed you so much.”
He stroked her cheek. “I’ve missed you too. But at least I had this to listen to.”
He waved a CD under her nose. Rhi snatched it from him in delight. Rhiannon Wills, she read on the cover. Her demo!
“That last song killed me every time I listened to it,” Max confessed. “And I’ve listened to it a lot. Your scout is going to snatch you up in a second when he hears it.”
Rhi felt delirious with everything that was happening. She was holding her first demo, a talent scout was waiting for her call, and she was in the arms of the boy she loved.
Max held her face between his hands and kissed her tenderly. “I’ll drop by your house later, OK?” he said against her lips. “I can’t stand being away from you.”
“How did Eve take it?” Rhi asked against his warm shoulder, snuggling up against him. “Was it awful? Did she go mad?”
Max looked at her strangely. “About what?”
Rhi felt the first fingers of unease. “About us. You did break it off with her, didn’t you?”
“Rhi,” Max said patiently, “you know I can’t break up with Eve. She’d make our lives a complete misery.”
“So,” Rhi said, trying to make sense of what Max was telling her, “you haven’t broken up with her?”
He kissed the end of her nose. “You of all people know what she’s like. I’m seeing her later, for dinner. I couldn’t cancel it. But that doesn’t mean I can’t stop by yours afterwards.”
Rhi couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Why hadn’t she listened to Polly and Lila? She’d been an idiot to come here! Hadn’t she learned anything?
She shoved Max backwards so hard that he stumbled into a shelf. Several odd props clattered to the floor – a bowler hat, a walking stick, a police whistle.
“Oh yes it does,” she hissed. “Don’t come near me again, Max. I mean it!”
Max pulled himself upright, rubbing his head. “Rhi—”
But Rhi had already stormed away, tears of anger clouding her eyes.
NINE
Rhi fixed her red eyes in the girls’-toilets mirror as best she could. Her miserable reflection looked back at her, mocking her.
How stupid are you? Falling for Max all over again.
The only good thing to come out of the whole disaster was the demo tape, sitting snugly in her blazer pocket. The problem was, Rhi didn’t feel up to singing to any talent scouts just now. If ever.
Polly put her head round the door. “How are you feeling now, Rhi?”
Rhi listlessly prodded her eyelashes one more time with her mascara wand. “You know,” she said with a shrug, pocketing her make-up. “Stupid.”
Polly had found her crying by the lockers. Rhi had told her everything between sniffs, and Polly had listened sympathetically, with the occasional intake of breath and angry shaking of her head.
“You’re well rid of him,” Polly had concluded, when they had run out of tissues between them. “Listen, why don’t you come over for dinner tonight? We can have a good moan about boys and eat my mum’s best macaroni cheese.”
“Sounds great,” Rhi had said gratefully. “Sorry for being so useless.”
“You’re not useless,” Polly had scolded. “You’re beautiful, and kind, and you sing like a goddess. You’ve just had a bad time lately.”
Rhi had been too upset to eat any lunc
h. So right now the thought of macaroni cheese at Polly’s house was making her stomach growl. She pinched some colour into her cheeks, tucked her chin deep inside her coat and followed Polly outside.
She didn’t say much as they walked. She had too many things to think about. She also kept her head down, afraid of seeing Max or Eve in the crowd. Polly kept glancing at her, checking that she was OK.
“Things will get better, you know.” Polly gave Rhi’s arm a squeeze as they walked up the high street together. “You just have to steer clear of Max and focus on your singing. I can’t wait to hear the demo. Will you play it for me later?”
Rhi nodded. “But you have to promise you’ll be nice about it. I couldn’t face any more rejection today.”
“If you sound anything like as good as you did at the weekend, I’ll be more than nice,” Polly promised, grinning. “I’m already a super-fan.”
The smell of macaroni cheese was filling Polly’s house when they got there.
“Mum!” Polly shouted up the stairs, taking Rhi’s coat and hanging it neatly on a peg by the door. “We’re back!”
Polly’s mother appeared at the top of the stairs, a dressing gown wrapped round her slim body. “Hello, Polly, love. Hello, Rhi.” She looked a little flustered. “Can you look after yourselves? I need to leave in ten minutes.”
“Where are you going?” Polly called.
But her mother had already disappeared into the bathroom in a fug of scented steam and didn’t answer.
“Does your mum usually have baths in the middle of the day?” Rhi asked curiously.
Polly lifted her hands. “Who knows what goes through my mother’s mind? I didn’t even know she was going out. You want a snack before dinner?”
They sat in the kitchen, munching crisps and drinking juice, jazz playing softly on the radio and the lights on low. Rhi felt relaxed for the first time in days. Polly had a natural calming effect on people, she realized.
Polly’s mum burst into the kitchen, checking her watch and smoothing down the red dress she was wearing.