Rockoholic, Page 2

  Mac flops back on the bed so the hem of his white waiter’s shirt rides up a little on his stomach. He reaches his hand out and gives mine a quick squeeze. This would have been weird if we were in a soap opera and would have probably led to a momentous kiss, but Mac’s not into me, not like that. I think he’s gay but we never talk about it. He’s still in the closet.

  We hear whining out in the corridor. Alfie the Alsatian saunters past the open door with a pink plastic stethoscope in his jaws. Cree’s running after him with her pink plastic doctor case.

  “Alfie tooked it! Alfie tooked it!” she shrieks at us.

  “Alf! Drop it!” Mac shouts and the dog immediately drops the stethoscope. Cree grabs it and comes back in to set up her little hospital on my bed. “Let’s talk about tomorrow. Big day. What time do you want to leave for Cardiff?”

  “I can’t go now, can I?”

  “What? I thought death itself wasn’t going to stop you from going to that concert. You’re not going to let your mum stop you going, are you?”

  “No choice. She tore up my ticket. I’ve been on a diet for that concert and everything. Now I just want to eat until I puke.”

  “I’m sick of saying it — you don’t need to diet.”

  “I do. I’m way too big for —”

  “For what? Do not say for Jackass Gatlin.”

  “Well, he went out with that model, didn’t he, and she’s tiny. I should have stopped eating about four hundred pounds ago.” I can see Mac’s mouth grow wider and his eyes bulge like he’s just seen an apparition walk through the wall behind me. He can’t believe what I’m saying. A few months ago, I wouldn’t have believed it, either. But ever since I saw Jackson with that twinkly model, and read that article about his “type” of woman, I knew it would never be someone like me. I wasn’t size two. I wasn’t blonde. I wasn’t twinkly. But I could be. For Jackson. I would do anything for Jackson.

  “What are you talking about? You. Are. Not. Fat. I just don’t get it. So what, you think if you stick your fingers down your throat, Jackson’s gonna fall totally in luurve with you, is he?”

  “Maybe. Nobody as good-looking as Jackson would date anyone above a size minus zero.”

  I help Cree into her little white doctor’s coat. Mac hates it when I’m down on myself, which is pretty much all the time. It doesn’t matter how many times he tells me I’m not fat, or how many times he shoves me into a dressing room in Topshop and urges me into clothes that aren’t black to “bring out my inner goddess,” I still think he’s kidding himself. When I see the same face and lank brown hair and freckles in the mirror, I just want to smash it. Since Grandad died, it’s got worse. He used to say my freckles were “an extra sprinkle of sweetness.” But they’re not. They’re just not.

  Mac sighs and fiddles with his friendship bracelets. It’s awkward between us all of a sudden.

  Outside the sky is gray and smoky, and the orange security lights are on all over the parking lot. There’s quite a few cars in tonight, and a bus. Footsteps approach from the corridor and Mac’s mum, Tish, brings in two plates of saucy sausage sandwiches.

  “There you go, guys.” She hands me my plate and strokes my hair and Cree’s hair at the same time. Her nails are long and shiny red.

  “Thanks.” I sniff at my sandwich and pull a burnt onion from within. I don’t dare remind Tish that I’m vegetarian at the moment — not since she’s letting me stay and everything. And then I lift up the top slice of bread to see the sausages inside are as pale as my fingers. Yuck, they’re veggie sausages. Bless, she remembered.

  “My have a sammidge, Mumma?” asks Cree, injecting Mac’s stomach with her toy syringe.

  “No, you’ve had yours. Bedtime now. Have you called your mum, Jody? She’ll be worried.”

  “No, it’s OK. I’ve left her a note. I’ll pay you something. . . .”

  She flaps her hand as if to say “don’t be silly” and adjusts her vinyl belt back down over her spare tire. Cree steals a little mouthful of my sandwich and squeals as I catch her in the act.

  “Come on, Creedence, bedtime,” says Tish, offering the little girl her hand.

  “No, my stay with Dody and my Kenzie,” she flaps at her mum and hides behind me.

  Tish looks at me. “It’s fine,” I say, blushing. “She’s all right with us for a bit.” Cree peeks out, holding up both her hands right in front of her face.

  “Ten more minutes, then. Make yourself at home, Jody. You know where everything is. Kenz, you got some tables to clear, love. We’re ever so busy.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming,” he mutters.

  “Thanks, Tish,” I say as she totters out on her stilettos, shutting the door quietly.

  “You’re always ever so busy,” says Mac, glaring daggers at the door. “Hate this place.”

  “Your mum’s nice. Wish mine was half as nice as yours,” I moan to him. He’s still lying back on the bed with his arms over his eyes, his sandwich balancing on his stomach. “Wish I was you.”

  Cree is still chomping on my sandwich. I crane my neck to chomp the bread from the other side of it, which makes her smile. She has ketchup all over her little doctor’s coat and the bottom half of her face, like a surgeon who’s been eating the organs.

  “Mackenzie,” I say to him, eyeing Cree cos I know what she’ll do and I love it.

  Cree points her finger at me. “No, My Kenzie.”

  “No, Mackenzie.”

  “My Kenzie,” she shouts and flings herself on her brother’s chest. He oomphs and his plate bounces off onto the bed. She laughs. There’s now ketchup all over his white apron and onions all over the sheet.

  “OK, OK,” I laugh, clearing away the sandwich mess to the bedside table. I love being with them. I love not being at home. But how long will they want me here? I wonder. I’m not part of their family. I’m a Flook, however much I want to be a Lawless. This thought plunges me down deeper into my dread and reminds me why I’m here in the first place.

  “Grandad told me once that when he was younger he saw Jimi Hendrix play at this club in New York and met him afterward and that night changed his whole life. Like, completely. He said something inside him just clicked open and he knew he had to change.”

  Mac strokes Cree’s hair as she lies on him. “What, he fancied Jimi Hendrix?”

  “No. It was more the rock lifestyle. So he quit his crappy job and went traveling and got tattoos and stopped being . . . what was that word he used to use?”

  “Normal?” Mac suggests.

  “Mediocre. That’s what he said. He knew from that night on he didn’t want to be mediocre anymore. I just . . . wanted that to happen to me. I wanted to have that kind of night at the concert. And I wanted Jackson to notice me. He’s not just some rock dude, Mac. I love him. I guess that doesn’t matter much now though, does it? I’m never going to meet him now.”

  “They never do meet and greets, do they?”

  “Sometimes they do. Something was going to happen at that concert, Mac. Something great. It was going to be so good!”

  Mac levers himself upward and strikes a dramatic pose, bursting into song. “Could it be? Yes, it could. Something’s coming, something good, if I can waaaaaaait. . . .” Cree giggles in his arms and squirms to return to her doctoring. She’s heard it too many times.

  “Shut up,” I laugh, feeling my cheeks begin to warm up.

  He stands up on the bed. “The air is humming, and something greeaaaaaat is coming!”

  “It’s all a bloody joke to you, isn’t it?” I say, throwing a pillow up at his face. He always does this, bursts into song when I’m trying to be serious or banging on about Jackson. He doesn’t understand. That’s OK, nobody does. But after everything that’s happened with Grandad and the general shitness of my life during the last few years, the thought of no Regulators concert, no possibility of seeing Jackson for real . . .

  “Grandad, do you like The Regulators?”

  “Yeah, they’re good. I can see wh
y you like them, darling.”

  “I’m going to marry Jackson Gatlin one day.”

  “He’s the one, is he?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then you go for it, darling. Reach up high enough, you can have any star you want.”

  Mac sighs and jumps down to the floor. “The Regulators aren’t the be-all and end-all, Jode. Jackson’s just one of many thousands of shock-headed rock dudes who get girls all crazy for a few years until the next big thing comes along. And let’s face it, his music isn’t going to change the world. Women in labor scream more in tune than him. You’re so infatuated, you’ve just forgotten what’s real.”

  “No I haven’t. I just . . . love him. And The Regulators. Going to that concert was important to me, that’s all.”

  Mac looks like he’s struggling to find the words. Then he says, “I guess love really is blind, then. And deaf.”

  I shrug. I’m too embarrassed to talk about it anymore. Even Cree is looking at me strangely. She’s set out her doctor instruments on the bed and scribbled on a little plastic doctor pad. She leans over and presses a Band-Aid on my forehead. It’s an over-used Band-Aid that several dollies have previously worn so it falls straight off. She burps in my face and I can smell onions.

  Mac makes for the door. “You can still go, you know. To the concert.”

  “Yeah? You got any loaves and fishes you want to multiply while you’re at it? I don’t have a ticket, do I? I can’t afford to just show up on the night and get one off the scalpers. They charge the Earth. And it’s not as if I can invest in a Wonka Bar, is it?”

  He takes a step toward me. “You know you can have my ticket.”

  “What?”

  “You can have mine. I’ve never been that fussed about seeing them. You’re the one who plagued the life out of me to get tickets. You’re the fan. Makes sense for you to have it.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah. If you don’t mind going in on your own, that is. . . .”

  “Mac . . .”

  “Doesn’t make any difference to me. You’re not going to start blubbing again, are you?”

  I launch myself at him, pinning him onto the bed. “YOU ARE AMAZING!” I scream.

  “Thanks, for the deafness,” he says, smiling as I push him back on the bed and kiss him all over his hot face. Cree’s giggling her head off.

  “You . . . are . . . officially . . . my . . . favorite . . . person . . . ever!”

  He stops and looks at me. “Apart from Jackson Gatlin, I suppose?”

  “Of course,” I say. “Where is it, where’s the ticket?” He rolls over onto his side and pulls his wallet out of his back pocket by the chain. He sifts through some receipts in the main section and then he hands it to me. There it is again. That beautiful ticket. The hologram. The writing.

  I can barely see it through my tears. I kiss it. I stare at it. I hold it against my face. I move my fingertip over the lettering and make the little silver hologram shimmer in the light.

  I look up at Mac and wipe my eyes. “Why didn’t you say something before?!”

  Cree starts bandaging one of my Converse with a length of toilet roll. Mac sits up and shrugs. “Just wanted to see you squirm. Have it. It’s fine. Truly.”

  “Serious voice truly?”

  “Serious voice truly,” he says.

  5:00 A.M. — Mac grabs two cans of orange Tango and a fistful of Curly Wurly chocolate bars from behind the counter and we’re off up the motorway toward South Wales. The sky’s dark. I’m wearing black cargoes, my long black fleece coat, and, for the first time ever, the eBay shirt. Jackson’s signed-for-charity, one-of-five-in-the-world, jellyfish-design T-shirt. Everyone will notice it and know how massive a fan I am. Jackson will notice it. He’ll pull me out of the crowd and we’ll duet.

  6:05 A.M. — Mac parks at his cousin Alastair’s flat and we walk to the arena. Fifteen people already at the entrance. Fifteen! With sleeping bags. Can’t believe I didn’t think of sleeping here. Damn.

  6:09 A.M. — Mac gets out the Curly Wurlys, chomps his way through two of them, and calls it breakfast. We’re lining up alongside a short wall and he jump-sits straight onto it, almost falling backward into the flower bed behind. I can’t do that so I stand beside his knee. I’m going to starve myself today so I’m as thin as possible when Jackson sees me. Mac shoves the rest of the Curly Wurlys in my thigh pocket and disappears to sniff out a Starbucks.

  6:39 A.M. — Mac’s not back. I’ve eaten one of the Curly Wurlys. Still three in my thigh pocket. I take out my moon rock and twiddle it around in my fingers. I haven’t spoken to any other fans yet.

  6:49 A.M. — Still haven’t spoken to the others. Think I’ve worked out why I don’t want to talk to them. Regulators is my band, not theirs. I know other fans exist, of course. I go on message boards and see the crowd photos from the gig reviews in Lungs magazine. But when it’s just me, listening to Jackson singing through my earphones, or just me watching the DVD, I can pretend The Regulators exist just for me, like Jackson’s lying next to me and stroking my hair as he sings. I don’t want to think about him stroking their hair, too.

  7:03 A.M. — The sky is getting lighter. Some girls in front have their hair like Jackson. One wears the same outfit he wears in the “Tortuous” video when he’s on the beach — black T-shirt, skinny jeans, and black DMs. A boy in a tank top is showing off a burning-rose tattoo on his upper arm, just like Jackson’s. One girl has a zebra-pattern T-shirt on. This is because Wikipedia said Jackson’s favorite animals were zebras. I started collecting zebra stuff when I read that. A week later, it said llamas.

  7:22 A.M. — A white taxi draws up. Two emo versions of the spooky twins from The Shining clamber out the back. They both have purple and pink extensions in their long black hair, and are wearing black leather skirts, striped tights, black DMs tagged with Wite-Out, and matching T-shirts, which they’ve obviously designed themselves. I realize they’ve come as the conjoined twins from the “Freaktasia” video, where Jackson plays a ringmaster and he’s luring all these freaks into his circus tent like some mad Pied Piper. One of the twins carries a small rucksack with loads of buttons pinned to it. One of the buttons says “Mrs. Jackson Gatlin.” I want it.

  7:23 A.M. — Mac returns with grande hot chocolates, blueberry muffins, and cheesy paninis.

  “Is it vegetarian cheese?” I ask him.

  “Yeah,” he says. I know it’s not. I resist it all for about a second and then dive in. Dammit!

  “You talked to anyone yet?” he asks, pulling at the blue-tinged lashes on his eyelid. I shake my head and slurp my hot choccy in between bites of the best panini ever. Mac does a little dance to get warm. He’s got this tricky routine he has to learn for one of his numbers, so every standing-still opportunity, he’s at it. He’s in our town production of The Rocky Horror Show, this musical about a geek couple who stay at this castle full of transvestites when their car breaks down. Mac’s playing the head transvestite, Frank-N-Furter, and has to seduce the couple. It’s well sketchy but Mac’s going to rip it up.

  The hot chocolate tastes like liquid sunshine. Sometimes me and Grandad used to sneak downstairs and have hot choccies with cheese-and-Marmite sandwiches. We liked dipping our sandwiches in the chocolate. Mum didn’t like that, said it was childish. That’s why we had to do it on the sly. I put my free hand in my pocket and clutch the moon rock tightly.

  “That rock fell from the moon, Jody. Neil Armstrong himself kicked it down and I caught it. It’s magic. You look after that.”

  “I will, Grandad, I promise.”

  8:31 A.M. — I catch the eye of Zebra T-shirt Girl but pretend I’m looking at the poster behind her. Three more fans turn up in a red Vauxhall Nova — a small red-haired girl with a photograph-covered bag, a blond boy in orange coveralls eating Sugar Puffs out of the box, and a lanky boy who looks like he’s cut his hair and stuck clumps of it to his cheeks. Way too much random there for me.

  8:38 A.M. — Ma
c and I sit on the wall and play with the piano and dressing-up apps on his iPod. The wind is cold but sitting next to Mac in his bomber jacket, it’s warm. The Hairy Boy from the Vauxhall Nova asks Mac for “some herb or bounce or summing” and Mac says no, sorry. Then he asks him for “a light” and again, Mac says no. Mac doesn’t smoke, because of his singing.

  9:00 A.M. — People in suits and skirts clip-clop by. I’m glad I’m not at work today. I work at Bumblebees, this three-story town house that’s been converted into a children’s day-care center. The only two staff members I get along with are Alice and Serena, since they have at least heard of The Regulators, and Regs are all I like to talk about. But Alice breeds pot-bellied pigs and Serena thinks Chris Brown is a genius. And this is all we usually talk about.

  9:31 A.M.— We run through Mac’s steps for one of his Rocky Horror songs, “The Time Warp.”

  10:12 A.M. — Hairy Boy gives Small Redhead a piggyback. Then they make out for ages, slurps and all. Ugh. More fans join the line — boys in shorts, skinny girls in tights and ribbed wife-beaters. It’s, like, minus ten degrees? I can’t help giving them the warm evils. I ask Mac what “herb or bounce” is. “Drugs,” he says. “What did you think it was, laundry detergent?” He laughs. I laugh, but I kind of did, yeah.

  10:46 A.M.— A bus pulls up, drops off some fans and other people in work clothes who head toward town. As the bus pulls away, some lads lean out the window, gob on the pavement, and shout, “Sad wankers!” at us. I get the moon rock out and rub the smooth side against my cheek.

  10:58 A.M. — There’s nothing to look at other than the cinema posters opposite, so it calls for drastics: OK! magazine. We take the piss out of the celebs and their “Look at my endless sofa” poses for a bit, and then Mac starts up a random convo with Number 13 in the line about how pregnant weather girls annoy him. Number 13 looks like Hermione out of Harry Potter, but with black hair and not posh.