The Kiss Off (11 page)

“So um…” I said. “Where should this go?”

Mads took one look at it and said “The bin. Hippies don’t shop in our store.”

I nodded and tossed it aside, fishing out something new. How could I get my song back without sounding like a big baby having a tantrum? It’s not like he’d said he liked me or anything. We’d never even talked about it - hell, we had barely talked much in general before hooking up like that. In a loading dock, ugh! I honestly don’t think it could have gotten much classier. If we’d rolled around in a dumpster, maybe. Had he thought we were just having a bit of fun? It
had
been spontaneous, the kissing. Did it mean nothing to him? I couldn’t go and ask for my song back just because he had kissed me and not called. But wait a minute – he’d said he
would
call! So did that mean it was more than a hook up? Or was that just something boys said?

I turned my attention back to Mads, who wore her greasy mess of hair in a knot on top of her head. She was wearing sweat pants and a faded red over-stretched knit sweater that hung to her knees. Yesterday’s eyeliner was smeared down her cheeks, but she didn’t seem to care one bit. I had a suspicion her appearance might have been scaring the customers, which was why she had been delegated to sorting new stock out the back.

“He won’t even look at me,” Mads said as she picked up a pair of overalls with motor oil stains down the front. She threw it into the rubbish pile. “Have you noticed that, Poppy? He doesn’t even acknowledge me in the hallway. He’s ignoring my calls, and he definitely won’t talk to me in class.” Her face crumpled and if I didn’t do something, any second, she was going to start crying. Again.

“It’s not like I
want
to say this, Maddie, but you did cheat on him.”

“I was drunk! I didn’t know what I was doing! It was so stupid.”

“Yeah, it was.”

“I hate alcohol! Please can’t you say something to him for me? I just want him back. I love him so much.” She sat down in the pile of clothes and groaned. “Do you want to see the text? I’ll show it to you.”

“I’ve seen the text, Mads.”

“He broke up with me by text! Who does that?”

Maybe I wouldn’t text Ty then. She was right, it was a bad idea. Not that I was breaking up with him.

“Forget about Dev. Come to the party tonight,” I said, to change the subject. For the love of God to change the subject.

“No way – Dev will be there.”

“He might not,” I said. “I don’t think he knows Sammy that well. Van’s coming. We can make it like a girls night. Just us three. No boys allowed.”

I could tell she was thinking about it. “Girls night sounds good,” she said. “Alright, I’ll go.”

The idea of a girls night lasted about five minutes after it was organized, after I called Vanya and begged her to come out even when she was supposed to be staying in and studying and spending time with her Nan. So I’d lied to Mads, sue me. Thankfully I convinced Van to come out, and Mads had stopped crying and was making a mental list of what to wear as I left her.

And then Ty called.

“Oh, wow, hi, um,” I stammered. Real smooth.

“How have you been, Poppy?”

“Good um, you know, I’ve just-”

“I’m sorry it took me so long to call, a lot of stuff has been happening.”

“Oh it’s cool, I’ve been busy too.” I cringed. How lame was that. “So um, have you been taking a different bus or something? Has someone been giving you a ride to school? I haven’t seen you.” Wow, stalker much?

“I haven’t been going to school,” he said. “Some stuff’s come up.”

Stuff has come up? Stuff that meant he could just blow off his prissy private school? “Oh,” I said.

“Listen, are you busy tonight? We’re playing at FoxTail and I have some big news,” he paused. “Huge, actually. I was hoping you’d be able to come, I know it’s late notice but I’d really like to see you.”

“Yeah, I’d love to come!” I said. I coughed and cleared my throat. “I mean, yeah. Sounds cool.”

“Great.”

“I’m supposed to be having a girls night though, we were going to a party…”

“Bring them to the club! I mean, if you want to.”

“I want to!”

“Really?” he said. “You sure?”

“Yeah. I’ll talk to them, it’ll be fine. I’m looking forward to it.”

When I called Vanya, there was a different opinion. “What happened to girls night?” she asked. “‘Just us three hanging out, no boys allowed’?”

“I know, but-”

“You’re going specifically to see Ty, Poppy. Ty is a
boy.
”

“I’m sorry. It’s not like…he’ll be on the stage most of the time, won’t he? I’ll be with you for most of it and just have a quick chat before we leave. It’ll mostly be girls night, I promise. And Mads’ll be with you the whole time, even when I’m talking with Ty which won’t be for long, I swear.”

“Okay fine,” Vanya sighed. “But I’m holding you to it.”

We waited in the queue at FoxTail and I was quite happy to be stamped ‘Under 21’. We were enjoying our evening under the influence of nothing stronger than Mountain Dew. Maybe some Pepsi.

As we walked into the club’s main room, Mads nudged me and nodded toward a table that had been set up with merchandise. Two girls a couple of years older than us stood there, one was in a black tee and the other a grey one, both of which had ‘Academy of Lies: Now in Session’ plastered across their boobs. On the table sat more tee shirts, buttons, bumper stickers and some CDs.

“Hey, cool,” Mads said, picking up a button. I picked up a CD, it was a demo. I glanced up at the girls behind the table. They were both staring at me.

“Hey – you’re Poppy, aren’t you?” The one with the hot pink pixie cut said.

“Yeah…” Did I know them?

“PoppyLongStocking, right on,” the other one said, running her fingers through the ends of her white-blond ponytail.

Oh! No, I didn’t. But they knew me.
So weird.
“Right – yeah! Yeah, that’s me,” I said. The blond one came out from behind the table and wrapped me in a bear hug.

“You are wicked talented, girl, your songs are fierce. Hey, everybody! This is Poppy - she wrote The Kiss Off,” she said, putting one arm around me and pointing me out to everyone around. It caught several people’s attention. She and the other girl from the merchandise table started singing. “Goodbye, you didn’t say why, but I’m not gonna cry, cos baby this is your Kiss Off.” and as I looked around at the crowd, at the Academy of Lies fans, people started joining in. “Goodbye, you cheated on me, but I’ll get even you see, I’m telling you to just Kiss Off!”

They freaking knew the words to my song! Vanya’s mouth dropped open and Mads was jumping up and down. I grabbed them both in a group hug and in a little circle of three, at the top of our lungs we joined in the impromptu a Capella audience performance. Girls night rules!

The pink-haired girl slapped a tee shirt against my chest. “Here, freebie.”

“Really?” I said. I put it on over my Guns N Roses tee, slipped my arms out of that and hauled it off me through the neck of my new tee shirt. Screw Guns N Roses. It was all about Academy of Lies now.

“So, tell us everything,” the blond one said.

“What?”

“How did you catch the guy cheating on you? Like, did you catch them doing it?” She blew a bubble with her gum.

“Oh, um…”

“Did he buy you a present and then give it to her? Guys can be such cheap shits,” the pink-haired one said.

“Did he text you when he meant to text her?”

“Or maybe he said he had like work or something but you caught him out on a date with her.”

“That’s cold.”

They didn’t even need me in the conversation. I just stood there and watched them talk, wondering when I was supposed to answer.

“I know a guy who was totally dating two girls, and the second girlfriend tagged him on Facebook in a photo of them making out and he didn’t untag it in time before his
real
girlfriend saw it. What a ‘tard.”

“Oh, um,” I said, flustered. “Well…”

“Wow, it really is her – you’re PoppyLongStocking!” A crowd of kids my age came up, all staring at me. Vanya and Mads stepped back, out of the way. What on Earth was going on?

“Can I get a photo?” a girl asked.

“Yeah, can we? I love your channel, you should put out a CD,” one of the boys said as the girl, without waiting for my reply, put her arm around my shoulder and posed with me for a photo. As soon as the camera had flashed, the next person took her place. I smiled awkwardly, uncertainly. This was new. How was I a celebrity now?

A girl shoved a pen in my hand and held out an Academy of Lies bumper sticker. “Can you sign this?”

“Me?” I said.

As I signed her bumper sticker, I heard someone ask “Who’s that?” It made me feel a little better.

“If you don’t put out a CD, you should at least put your songs on iTunes. I would listen to them all day,” another girl was saying as the boy with his arm around me poked out his tongue, and gave the camera a rock salute. “Your songs, they really speak to me, you know? I mean the one about that fight you had with your mom, I get it. I totally get it.”

“Really?” I said. She nodded earnestly. “Wow,” I said. “I don’t know what to say. Sucks to be you.”

Thankfully she laughed, taking the joke as I had meant it.

Vanya managed to squeeze into the crowd and she grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the throng.

“Okay, that’s enough now,” she said. She turned to me and said quietly, “Is that enough now?”

“Affirmative.”

“That’s enough everybody. PoppyLongStocking appreciates your support.”

“That was insane,” Mads said.

“Well, I guess we know who’s watching your videos now,” Van grinned.

People started cheering and we looked to the stage, and the band was announced. They walked on stage all casual again, but each member had a Cheshire cat grin on their faces that they were trying to hide.

Ty walked up to the microphone stand and held it loosely. “Thanks everyone for coming out, we appreciate all the support you’ve been giving us this last year, we couldn’t have done any of it without you.” He paused and looked around as everyone cheered some more.

A guy standing near us cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled at the stage. “Kiss Off! Play The Kiss Off!”

My jaw dropped open in surprise and Vanya squeezed my hand.

“Yeah, I’ll get to it, but before we start, I just wanted to tell everyone. So there’s some big news in the Academy,” Ty said, glancing back at his band mates who grinned back. “Since the last time we played, we have officially become members of the Faux Hawk Records family, and we’ve started recording our first record.”

The crowd went mental, jumping up and down, clapping in the air. Ty leaned forward and brushed the hands of girls that held them out to touch him. Whoa. And this was before they got famous.

“Do you think they’re going to use your song?”

I stared at the stage in shock, shaking my head. I had no words.

“And since you all seem to like it so much, our debut single will be…” and Archie clacked his drum sticks together and they played the opening riff of The Kiss Off.

Mads and Vanya turned away from the stage, and looked at me. We grabbed each others hands and made a circle, jumping up and down, screaming.

“So what do you think?” Ty asked at the end of the night, a towel around his shoulders and bottle of water in his hand. His hair was moist and his cheeks pink, skin glistening with sweat.

“It’s amazing,” I said. “I’m so happy for you.”

“I can’t believe it’s real,” he said. “They’ve put us up in an apartment above the studio, it’s unreal. You have to come see it, come hang out with us.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Definitely.”

“Are you cool with us recording The Kiss Off, and officially releasing it?” he said. “Wow, I can’t believe I’m talking about officially releasing a single. It’s crazy right? It’s completely crazy. We really should have talked to you about this first, but the label were adamant that this be our first single.”

“It’s not crazy,” I said. “It’s happening.” I couldn’t very well say no now, could I? And did I even want to? So the guy hadn’t called me immediately, but he had good reasons. And he did call me eventually.

He was releasing my song as an official single on a real rock record and it would be heard by I didn’t know how many people. I could handle that. And besides, had I misunderstood what I was to him? Did it really matter, now? I could be friends with him. Sure I could.

“And I’m psyched for you to release The Kiss Off as your single. That’s so… that’s really cool.”

“Good! I’m insanely glad, because you…your music…you’ve made us better. You rock, Poppy,” he said, not taking his eyes off me. It made my stomach flutter, and I realized maybe I couldn’t just be his friend. Unless I knew for sure.