Her golden hair was long and poker straight, hanging down her back like some sort of princess-gone-punk-rock. She was tall, almost as tall as me, with perfectly symmetrical features that she’d gotten pierced, one by one. Her lip, nose, tongue, eyebrow and belly button had all been pierced within weeks of each other (it’d been so funny when she’d gotten her tongue done, she couldn’t speak for days) and she’d been building up a collection of piercings in her ears for as long as I’d known her.
She wore more black clothes than me, which was no mean feat—black jeans, black tee shirts and black eyeliner. I’d seen her in a navy leather jacket once and had spent all afternoon worrying about what it meant. Turned out that her mom had guilt tripped her into wearing it, but it had been the first and last time I’d seen her in any color other than black.
“Long night?” Jess asked, hiding her knowing smirk behind her carefully trimmed bangs.
Ash shrugged in reply, just as Dylan pushed the door open.
Dylan was more of a mystery than Ash. I’d known him five years, and I was pretty sure I had only heard him speak about seven times in that period. We’d met at a rock show. I’d gotten separated from my aunt Rose and some older kid had shoved me down, earning a glare from me and a busted nose from Dylan. We’d been friends ever since.
He was taller than me and built like the back of a bus. Most people mistook him for a football player, but he shied away from all organized sports. I spent at least one hour a week begging him to transfer to Wayville High (his folks send him to a private school out of town) because there is no way in hell I’d get bullied half as much if people knew I was friends with Dylan.
Everything about him was intimidating, from the stony silence to his expressionless face, his dark eyes and black hair only adding to the air of menace. It had taken a while for him to get comfortable around me, and even longer for him to get used to Jess, but he was one of my best friends and a brilliant musician. Plus, I was pretty sure he had a soft spot for Ash, proving that he was not the unfeeling giant I had first suspected him of being.
“Oh look, the gang’s all here,” I beamed at them.
Dylan shrugged and pulled up a stool while the girls cozied up to each other on the counter, discussing whether or not Ash should get pink highlights in her hair.
“You need one of those little hammers,” Jessica pointed out as I started nervously drumming my fingers against the countertop.
“It’s called a gavel,” Ash told her with a big smile. “I don’t know how I know that.”
“Call this meeting to order, boss man,” Jess urged me, the twinkle in her eye making it pretty clear she knew exactly what I was about to say.
“I want to get The Band back together.”
The Band. I always capitalized it in my head, when my daydreams ran away with me. We’d never really been worthy of such grand delusions. Every day, just as math class started, I’d dust off those childish dreams and play them like old home movies—flickering, faded and perfect.
We’d been called Forever Fading Echoes, after a line in a poem my mom had written in her teens. A framed copy of it hung in the bedroom she had once shared with my dad. I used to spend hours just staring at it, memorizing the words, trying to keep the sound of her voice in my head.
Jess had been our bassist, and she was damn good at it too, holding down the heaviest rhythm with ease. She made it look so effortless because, like everything else she did, it just came easy. Ash had been our drummer, the brutal precision of her playing enough to take my breath away every time I heard her belting through a song. Dylan had played different roles, depending on what our “sound” needed at the time, rotating between guitar, keyboard and occasionally synth. He made all the instruments look so small, but he played them with surprising grace and skill.
I had been our guitarist and unofficial leader. I had started playing guitar when I was three or four. I’d sit cross legged on the floor with my dad and my toy guitar while he played his Fender Strat, eyes warm and smile wide as if there was nowhere in the world he’d rather be. I’d never had formal lessons, but I didn’t need them. Guitar playing was something, maybe the only thing, that came naturally to me. I could shred with the best of them by my early teens, stunning all the musicians and roadies that came to stay at my dad’s between tours.
When I had my guitar in my hands, I felt steadier. It had been an anchor for me. I’d learned at an early age that I was never alone as long as a guitar was nearby. I played every single day, even on nights when I was exhausted or when I was on the road. I played, and I played, and I played, lost in the sound and completely at home.
Unfortunately, my skills seemed limited to the guitar. I couldn’t sing, not really. I would do vocal exercises with my aunt Rose over dinner sometimes, and I wasn’t terrible, I just wasn’t good. I wanted The Band to have the best, and I was quite comfortable in the knowledge that it wasn’t me. I didn’t really do well in the spotlight anyway. It’s terrible for my complexion.
We’d gone through a small collection of “vocalists” over the past two years. I knew there were good singers out there, but we either had terrible taste or really bad luck because, more often than not, we ended up with egotistical, narcissistic, barely talented wannabes. Wayville wasn’t exactly a Mecca for music. We’d spent our short-lived career scraping the bottom of an already empty barrel.
I had thought I was ready to give up on Forever Fading Echoes, but starting senior year had been enough to shake some sense into me. I wanted to be a musician when I “grew” up. That was the only option, the only dream worth having. I had thought about compromising, disheartened by our lack of progress before, but the time for being shoved around by reality was long gone. I was only going to be young and stupid once, and it was time to really put my heart and soul into this band, to make my own dreams come true.
Or at least give it my best shot.
“Wow, alright!” Jess crowed, scrambling to her feet with her fists in the air. Ash, catching my panicked look, promptly pulled her back down into a safer, seated position.
“Really?” Ash asked me, the ghost of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
I let myself smile back, caught up in their excitement.
“Yeah,” I told her. “Being out on the road with my dad just made me realize that this is what I want to do. I want to be in a band with you guys, and I think we could be really, really good. If we can get a decent singer.”
“What do you mean, could be? We were really good! It was those douchebag singers that dragged us down,” Jess pointed out, practically vibrating with joy.
“They were the best around,” I reminded her with a sigh. “I don’t know how we’re going to get round not having a singer.”
“You should sing,” Ash suggested, promptly earning a vigorous nod of approval from her counter buddy.
I glared at them both. “No I shouldn’t. I get that it would be a quick fix, but I can’t really sing all that well. If we’re going to really go for this, it has to be right.”
“I think you’re a pretty decent singer,” Dylan offered in his usual deep murmur.
I was more surprised by hearing him talk than the fact he was backing the girls up, he’d always been very supportive. As far as Dylan was concerned, there was nothing we couldn’t do if we put our minds to it.
“I appreciate the vote of confidence, girls and guy, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable singing. It’s not my place.”
“So make it your place!” Jess argued. “Come on, kid. You can do this. Hell, rock and roll isn’t about having the best voice, it’s about having the biggest, bravest heart. There’s no one braver than you.”
I had considered stepping up to the mic, literally and metaphorically, but only if I really had to. I was convinced there was a singer out there for us, someone who fit, someone who would walk into the room and we’d just know in the pits of our stomachs that they were it.
“I appreciate it,” I told them, ducking my head
so I could run my hand anxiously through my hair. “I’ll consider it, but in the meantime, I think we should maybe try auditioning again. Next weekend?”
“Ugh, I hate auditioning people,” Ash groaned, melodramatically tilting her head back to flutter her eyelashes at Jess.
“I kind of like it,” Jess said with a wicked grin. “There’s nothing quite like crushing the dreams of egotistical assholes.”
Dylan chuckled, reaching out to bump knuckles with her just as the bell above the door chimed merrily. A bunch of kids wandered in, skateboards in hand, greeting us with a knowing nod as they headed to the new release section.
I pulled up a stool while Jess and Ash went back to talking about candy floss pink hair dye, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. This was our time, I was sure of it. We just needed a singer who was willing to work as hard as we were. Someone who loved music as much as we did. I knew it was a tall order, but when you’re seventeen and Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge is playing full volume over the shop’s top-of-the-line stereo system, it’s easy to believe there’s nothing you can’t do.
***
JJ was pretty sure he didn’t have a waterbed, but the unpleasant flip his stomach did every time he moved was enough to cast some serious doubt in his mind.
He was also fairly certain it was Saturday, and judging by the strength of the sunlight currently tearing through his flimsy drapes, it was at least midday—if not later. Back when his dad still bothered to send him to summer camp, he’d been able to tell the time by looking at shadows on the ground. That knowledge had been wiped out at least seven or eight benders ago.
Lesley, the latest in a long line of housekeepers, was pottering around downstairs. Either that, or whoever he’d bought home last night was cleaning the kitchen, but he seriously doubted that. He forced one eye open, the rumpled sheets on the other half of the bed confirming that someone had come and gone.
“So gross,” JJ mumbled to himself, forcing his protesting body out of the fetal position he so often found himself in the morning after the vaguely awesome night before. Well, he was fairly certain it had been good, at least. Probably not worth the hangover, but the nights that were had become few and far between.
He stumbled to his bathroom, scratching idly at the swallow tattooed across his hip. There was a bruise forming there, he could feel it burning under the tanned skin. He’d probably bumped into a table or four at the bar. He tapped a half-remembered rhythm over the broken blood vessels, the jolt of pain clearing his head.
It took at least ten minutes and half a tank of hot water for him to start feeling like anything that remotely resembled human. The cigarette and sweat stench that clung to his tangled, spun gold hair was no match for the gaudy floral scent of the shampoo his soon-to-be-stepmom insisted on buying. He stepped into the shower smelling like a brewery and stepped out smelling like a brothel – he wasn’t sure which one he preferred.
He dried his hair, running the towel over his head hard enough to make it spin in a way that wasn’t entirely unpleasant. His hair didn’t require much attention, so he combed it quickly and dressed in last night’s jeans and a clean tee shirt, not bothering with a jacket. Water dripped down his back from the still damp hair at the nape of his neck, but he ignored it, slipping a pair of shades over his protesting eyes before braving the stairs.
Lesley was nice enough. She was efficient and discreet, two things that Mr. Keswick liked in his hired help. Really, she was a glorified babysitter—an insult to the both of them, as far as JJ was concerned. He resented her, just a little bit. When he wasn’t filling the house with drunken teenagers, he preferred to be alone with his thoughts and his father’s treasured possessions.
“Are you sure you don’t want to eat something, hon?” She asked, tying back her frizzy brown hair when JJ entered the kitchen, the freshly brewed pot of coffee firmly in his sights.
“I don’t eat before 5 pm,” he told her, throwing a glance over his shoulder when she tutted in despair.
“You kids amaze me.”
“I am amazing,” JJ replied, his trademark crooked grin covered somewhat by the rim of his mug of coffee. He downed it in three scalding gulps, grabbing his car keys from the counter on his way out.
“Are you sober enough to drive?” she called out, fretting already.
“As I’ll ever be!” he yelled back, pulling a jacket from the rack by the door on his way out.
It was obnoxiously bright outside, and JJ’s muttering mingled with the chirping of the birds. The house—well, the mansion, if you wanted to be precise—was set in a pretty impressive patch of well-tended lawn. The regal trees and gently sloping lawns designed to calm the mind of a highly-strung multi-millionaire. He didn’t really stop to notice the garden on his way out. He tended to pay more attention to it on his way home at night, where he’d always puke in the second rosebush on the left. It was his least favorite, for some reason he couldn’t quite put into words. He was sure it was the one his mom had planted, but like most things, his memory of that was hazy at best.
His car, as red and shiny as ever, was parked in the driveway. Whoever had brought him home must have done that, there was no way he’d been in any condition to drive, let alone park, the night before. He shrugged, pushing the thought away before the self-loathing could creep in. He’d mull it over later, he was sure, but he had business to attend to.
Saturday business for JJ meant heading to the coffee shop on Main Street, where he would sit on the overstuffed couch by the big window as he inhaled cup after cup of strong black coffee. He’d watch the world go by, idly, flashing a grin at the girls who giggled at him through the window as they passed. It would look as if he was interested in everything and nothing at all, the eyes he hid behind his sunglasses fixed firmly on the shop across the street.
Jack Daveyson seemed completely unaware that he spent most of his Saturday shift being watched from across the street. He’d sit at the counter with his friend, Jessica, talking and laughing. There was always a steady stream of customers on Saturdays, kids coming from miles around to make their weekly pilgrimage to Daveyson’s. Jessica would flirt outrageously with everyone while Jack worked the till, no doubt talking about the week’s new releases or latest shipment of vinyl.
JJ could tell that Jack loved music, his job and his friends. It radiated from him, even across the street. It was captivating. He knew it was creepy, spending his weekends watching a boy he’d never actually spoken to, but he couldn’t help it. Jack Daveyson was bright, genuine and oblivious to his own reflection. He didn’t carry himself with the confidence JJ had come to expect from people who knew how good looking they were. Jack hid behind baggy tee shirts and his long hair. His breathtakingly sweet smile and hazel eyes almost obscured by a fringe JJ had overheard Jessica begging him to cut off.
Their paths would cross eventually. JJ would make sure of it. He just wanted to be ready for it when the fateful day came. Jack Daveyson was nothing like the other people JJ had lusted over, which meant that his approach had to be different. So he’d watch and he’d wait, smiling when Jack smiled, frowning when Jack frowned, wanting more than anything to close the distance between them.
He grabbed his coffee and his usual spot by the window, phone in hand so he could scroll one-handed through the headache-inducing list of texts and notifications he had racked up the night before. There were a few blurry photos on his phone, drunken smiles smudged across the screen. He admired them for a moment, the colors and the chaos, before deleting them.
Jack was standing by the new release rack, re-stocking CDs while Jessica danced around the shop with a gorgeous blond girl that JJ vaguely recognized. She was one of Jack’s friends, and the fact that JJ didn’t spare her a second glance was a pretty sure-fire indication that his crush on the dark-haired boy was getting completely out of hand.
He tore his eyes away from the heart-warming and nausea-inducing sight across the street and glanced around the bustling coffee shop. A poster hung on the w
all opposite his couch, a bright yellow, photocopied flyer that was surprisingly endearing.
“SINGING LESSONS! PIANO LESSONS! HAVE FUN WHILE LEARNING! ALL SKILL LEVELS ENCOURAGED! REASONABLE RATES!”
It made his head hurt a little, but he managed to make it to the end, where the teacher’s name was noted in little letters—Rosemary Watson. That name rang a bell. He’d made out with the girl who volunteered in the school office in exchange for a glance at Jack’s file, and he was sure that Rosemary Watson was noted as Jack’s emergency contact. It was pretty widely known that Jack’s mom had died when he was little
“Maybe that’s why he’s such a terrible dresser,” Kelly had mused one afternoon while JJ had given her some serious side eye.
“Singing lessons,” JJ murmured to himself, staring down into his half-empty mug of coffee.
He could sing, or at least, he had been able to sing back when he’d been forced into his boarding school’s choir. His headmaster had been convinced it would give JJ focus, but really, it had just cut into his free time and had led to an incredibly messy love triangle that the kids at the school still talked about.
He got to his feet, shoved his phone in his pocket and pulled the poster down from the wall before walking out of the coffee shop, earning an appreciative glance from the girls sitting by the door.
The sun was still shining like an elusive promise that summer wasn’t completely dead. JJ flipped his sunglasses back down over his eyes as he walked down the street, heading for the small community theatre. His dad had donated a couple of thousand dollars to the theatre, funding a production he hadn’t come back to town to see. JJ had never been inside, but was pleasantly surprised by the space—it was spotless, the walls lined with photos from various plays and artwork from the kids who attended the weekly art class.
“Can I help you, dear?” the receptionist asked, a kind smile on her wrinkled face.
“I’m looking for Rosemary Watson,” JJ replied, holding up the stolen poster.
“She’s at the end of the hall,” the receptionist replied, nodding in the direction of Rosemary’s room.
Fake It (The Keswick Chronicles Book 1) Page 3