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CHAPTER 9 Upon walking into the main room, Kim started getting the idea behind
existentialism; the world was
a very strange place where the most absurd things happened and couldn’t be
stopped. Either that or her karma was bloody well playing games with her.
Chatha’s friend was a goth. A very goth goth. Such a goth, in fact,
that she would have either made Gwen insanely jealous or just as insanely horny.
Kim couldn’t believe her eyes, and beyond that, couldn’t believe that this
thing of darkness sitting on her mother’s chesterfield was a friend of Chatha
Darling’s.
“Have I gone bloody daft?” Those were the first words Kim could
muster.
Elke glanced over at her. “Nice of you to join us, Kimberly. This is
Amanda Terson; keyboards.”
Kim blinked, then blinked again. When she still saw the goth sitting
there, she tried blinking yet another time. And the goth remained. “You a
friend of Chatha’s?”
Amanda smirked, glancing at the hyper girl in pink who was chattering to
herself in the corner. “She’s my foil, if you like literary terms, I guess.
Makes me look good.” The smirk eased into a slight smile; which seemed extreme
and shocking against the total goth exterior.
“Ah’m no’ a’yones foil, y’hear?” Chatha bounced across the
room, then tugged at Kim’s hand. “We brough’ ‘er keyboard in th’
lorry! You’ve jus’ go’ah ‘ear ‘er.”
“You’ve got a lorry?” Kim was now even more surprised at the goth.
“Nah, ah’ve go’ th’ lorry. Well, et’s m’brother’s, but he ain’t usin’
it roit nah.”
“You can drive?” The thought of Chatha behind the wheel scared her
even more than the thought of her being friends with the goth on her mother’s
chesterfield.
“Technically, I’m not asposed t’. Bu’ ah can. We’ll go get the
keys, awright? Then y’ can ‘ear ‘er play, an’ we can really be a band
an’ all.”
“Any chance you’ve got your sax so I can hear that too?”
“Natchurly! Yer ‘rents ‘ome or anythin’?”
Kim actually laughed at the suggestion. “Nah, never. As opposed to
avoiding each other today, though, they’re off on yet another ‘trying t’
save the marriage’ weekend. I call a divorce in the next year or so, and I’m
willin’ t’ bloody well bet money on it.”
The concept of divorce seemed to fly past Chatha, who completely ignored
the comment, then dragged her goth friend off the couch to help her bring the
instruments in. Before disappearing out the door, she looked back at the
remainder of the band. “D’ya ‘ave neighbours?”
“Naturally.”
“Any ‘oo’ll call the coppers abou’ excessive noise?”
“Nah. Everyone here makes noise all night, an’ we just all get pissed
off and grumble to ourselves an’ families about it.”
“Awright, good.” Chatha was out the door.
Elke walked over to take up Amanda’s spot on the chesterfield, and Gen
laughed from her position on the floor. “You’re the one who invited her in,
Kim,” Gen pointed out. “There’s no getting rid of her now. It’s like
with vampires; invite ‘em in, and they can come back whenever they bloody well
want to.”
“Oh, bugger off.” Kim crossed her arms. “I remain in the standpoint
that we need a l’il bit of perkiness in our band, and I’d say Chatha is
beyond doubt perky.”
“Y’heard Amanda talk yet?”
“Barely. I just came in here.”
“She’s in love with herself,” Elke muttered.
“That’s what we’re goin’ for, luv. Bitches.” Kim flopped down
on the chesterfield beside her friend. “Y’know a lot about bitches. You
wouldn’t be my friend if you weren’t such a bitch.”
“Should I feel proud, or what?”
“D’ya see bein’ against the norm as positive?”
“Well, no shit.”
“Then be ever so proud of yourself. You’re a bitch to the extreme,
which is not normal in this world.”
“Thank ya’ dearly, luv.”
Gen leaned forward in the easy chair. “Are we actually going to play
today? We can at least test th’ waters.”
“I hope so. I’m gonna’ pull a dry run of one of my peevish songs
with Elke, then I wanna’ see if you guys can join in.” Kim sat up
straighter. “We’ve got things worked out for vocal an’ guitar on a few
songs, an’ we just have t’ see how they integrate with the other
instruments.”
The front door opened, and in hopped Chatha--though now considerably
slower--with a bari-sax hanging off her shoulder. She also had a collapsed
keyboard stand under one arm. Amanda came in behind her, carrying the keyboard.
“Where’set ahl go? Here, inanother room?”
“Back room.” Kim stood up. “I’ll show you.”
The back room had amps, guitars, mics, and a terrible light hanging low
enough that Chatha had to fight the impulse to duck when she walked into the
room. “Oh wowowow, it’s all so moody! Et’s amazin’, so darkly dank an’
i’s ahl s’ cold, an’ ... is tha’ cement?” Chatha stomped her foot on
the cement floor. “It’ll eat th’ sound! We’ll ‘ave n’clue ‘ow weh
sound! Too bloo’y cool!”
She whipped through the room, spinning and investigating. She dropped the
keyboard stand beside one of the amps. Finally standing still, she started
playing her sax. The clear, low sound bounced across the room like she had,
breaking and distorting on the cement walls and floor before coming back. “I
love it!” Chatha gasped in the same breath that had put out the notes.
Kim backed out of the room and beckoned the others in. “We’ve got
bloody hyper approval. Damn bloody hyper approval.”
Amanda came in to calm her friend with a few soft words. Chatha whispered
excitedly back to her before finally setting up the stand so Amanda could put
her keyboard down.
“Anyway, ah guess you’re gonna’ wanna’ hear Mandy firs’ an’
all. She’s amazin’. Truly!”
“Very well.” Kim waited for Elke and Geneveve to enter before
continuing. “I wanna’ hear something fast, just so I know you won’t be
trippin’ over yourself when things get heavier.”
“Easy enough,” Amanda muttered. She began playing the opening to
Faster Than the Speed of Night, only hitting a bad note toward the middle where
she had to jump up an octave practically instantaneously.
“Goths can listen to Bonnie Tyler?” Elke laughed, taking a seat on
one of the amps. “Is that possible?”
“It’s not for Bonnie Tyler, it’s for Jim Steinman.” Amanda
switched over to another song, this one slower and with more chord work. It took
Kim a second to recognize it as Tonight is What it Means to be Young.
“Jim Steinman is the greatest musical wanderer in the history of
music.” Amanda lifted her hands off the keyboard. “He’s obsessed with th’
piano, which is why I got into him; proof tha’ powerful rock ‘n’ roll can
still be fuelled with a piano.”
“I can respect that. Eclecticism is good in a band, ‘specially a band
that’s gonna’ be as big as this one’s bound t’ be.” Kim walked farther
into the room, resting her hand on the mic stand. “You’re in. We need to
consider a different name for you, though. Somehow, Amanda Terson just doesn’t
work.”
“That’s what I’ve been telling my parents since I knew what my name
was.”
“Elke here is originally Alexandra. Geneveve was Jennifer. And, of
course, you know that Chatha was Nicole.”
“How ‘bout Ebony? Sh’ looks lahk an Ebony, don’t she? Ahl black
an’ shit. Ebony ... Ebony, Ebony, Ebony.... Darkness! Ebony Darkness. Tha’
she is!”
The soft smile that was so strange against her image was Ebony’s
acceptance of the name. She hummed the opening of The Sisters of Mercy’s Black
Planet to herself. Kim, being unable to resist, started singing it. “So still, so dark all over Europe, as I ride down the highway 101. By
the side of the ocean headed for sunset. For the kingdom come, for the--”
The others joined in for the chorus. “Black
(black!), black planet. Black (black!), black world.”
Chatha took up the opportunity to accompany with her saxophone, and the
girls ended singing louder to compensate. The room was filled with the
rebounding noises of Andrew Eldritch’s bitter lyrics and a manic sax, getting
louder with every passing moment. By the time the girls started running out of
lyrics they remembered (though Kim and Ebony still had the rest of the song off
by heart), everyone started laughing together, and Chatha yelled out “we
really are a band!”
After a few more hours spent together within that room, Kim and her grrls
had worked out what Kim considered to be the perfect set-up for three of her
most bitchy songs. Nice Shoes, Let’s Fuck (which Geneveve cautioned would have
to become “Nice Shoes, Let’s...” should they ever get signed) became one
huge playground for Chatha to test the limits of a saxophone’s power. Moaning
lovers to screaming banshees; very intense sounds to be coming out of such a
small, pink girl.
Ebony and Chatha spent a long time after asking Kim how she’d become
such a lyrical and musical genius. It was bitch-out extraordinaire! The true definition of grrl power!
Empowering, overpowering, charged, deadly, and guaranteed to never, ever hit the main stream.
Kim got everyone calmed down again after a while. “I see the first CD
as having only bitch songs on it.”
“Y’see us gettin’ signed?” Chatha actually jumped into the air
and clapped.
“Bloody hell, yes! Which means we won’t, of course, but a girl can
always dream.” Kim smiled. “Now, I want to bring someone in to watch us play
after we’ve worked out a few more songs. She’s a little biased, since
she’s dating me, but--”
“No.” Elke dropped her guitar into its stand. “You’re not
bringing that bloody slut into our presence.”
Kim cocked her head. “I know why you’re like this, E m’dear.”
“Do you, now?”
“I suppose.” She turned away, knowing how much that pissed Elke off.
“You suppose? You bloody suppose? What the bloody hell are you
supposing then, bitch?”
“Don’t you love best friends?” Kim asked Geneveve in her driest
voice.
Gen grimaced but didn’t answer.
“Talk to me, Kimmy-dear.” Elke took hold of her shoulder. “What do
you suppose you know?”
“Oh, that you and my dear girlfriend snogged, and now you’re all
uptight about the entire Gwen thing. What I don’t get is why you set me up
with her and now think you can be all up in arms about us.” Kim turned to look
at her. “You want Gwen back? Too late, m’dear. She’s mine, and it’s that
simple.”
“You little bloody whore.” Elke lunged at Kim.
This chapter includes lyrics from The Sister's of Mercy's Black Planet. |
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Talk to LL,
the author. |