Dear Diary,
I. Am. In. Love. Woah. I didn’t really ever think I would be, well, I guess I never really thought about it before but it’s official. We made it so right there in the back of that comic shop. Ha! It sends shivers right down my spine. He’s the most beautiful, gentle, gorgeous creature in the world. Aaaah.
It was literally all I could think about as I headed off in the middle of the night to Brooklyn to meet Leo and the rest of the guys. I sat back in the taxi (which Farley had once again expertly hailed for me!) and watched as the lights of New York whizzed by. I couldn’t help but smile and practically laugh out loud with happiness as the taxi made it’s way across Brooklyn Bridge. Wow. New York sure is wonderful. I kept my eyes on the flickering skyline.
After a little while we reached the other side of the bridge right into Brooklyn. The first thing I noticed is how the buildings were much lower and less lit up. There was still plenty going on but it was not so frantic as where I had come from – Manhattan.
I liked Brooklyn straight away and felt somehow at home, weird as it sounds when I compare Brooklyn to Ellwood. There’s definitely no sheep or green hills in Brooklyn but somehow, it’s hard to describe, the two places seem to be similar in some way.
All I had was the name of the pub where Leo and I had arranged to meet, written on a bit of scrap paper – O’Donnell’s. The taxi driver knew where it was and took me straight there. I gave him a few dollars and jumped out onto the pavement (or ‘sidewalk’ as these Americans call it – I’m getting used to them now!)
I looked up at the pub and thought how it wouldn’t look too out of place in Manchester. The front was all dark wood with the name written in gold coloured Celtic writing. There was an area just outside full of people. I took a deep breath and headed inside.
I was met with a wall of bustling noise and a room jam-packed full of bodies. I detected a voice calling out my name. It was Cheryl. I would recognize that voice anywhere. It took a while to see her but eventually my eyes picked up on a waving hand from a booth in the far corner.
‘Over here!’ she shouted.
I smiled and headed over. There they all were. Cheryl, Lambert, Jez, Tony, Marilyn and Leo. Cheryl grabbed me by the waist and hugged me as Lambert and Jez patted me on the back. Tony gave a wide grin as Marilyn nodded and smiled. Leo was on the end, looking particularly disheveled but lovely.
I reached down to kiss him on the cheek and he gave a one sided smile and patted the hair at the back of my head. I had almost forgotten about the earlier meeting between Leo and Farley but somehow, it was clear to me that he had not.
He remained quiet as the rest of the group threw questions at me and talked excitedly about the gig. I sat down next to Cheryl as she told me all about her love of all things New York. Her curls bounced up and down as she explained to me all the adventures they had been having. I have never seen Cheryl this happy before. Maybe we should all move to New York. Now that would be something. I think some of my ancestors did that, you know, got on a boat and came over here decades ago. I can imagine how it must’ve felt.
‘Oh my God, by the way!’ said Cheryl.
‘Look over there! You’re on a poster,’ she said, pointing to the doorway.
Just next to it was quite a big poster with me slap bang in the middle of it. I laughed.
‘It’s you! So exciting, no?’ said Cheryl.
‘Yeah, I suppose so,’ I said, feeling a bit strange to see myself in that way.
It didn't quite look like me.
‘They must’ve taken the photo at the Manchester gig, eh?’ said Cheryl. ‘That’s when you wore that purple cape isn’t it?’
‘Er, yeah,’ I said. ‘I guess so.’
After a while Cheryl and those guys went to mess around on the jukebox that sat in the opposite corner of the pub at the end of the bar, leaving myself and Tony on one side of the booth with Marilyn and Leo opposite.
‘So, my young talents, how do you feel about the gig?’ said Tony, his arms stretching all the way along our side of the booth.
Leo shrugged.
‘I’m excited,’ I said.
‘Well, you should be,’ said Tony. ‘Cos this is going to make you guys reach the stars.’
‘Yeah…’ I said, imagining us on stage in just a few days – playing to all those people, doing what we’ve dreamed of all these years.
‘What about you, Leo?’ he said. ‘How do you feel?’
‘Yeah, should be good,’ he said.
‘Good?’ said Tony, leaning across the table. ‘Young man, this is much bigger and better than we could have planned. I’ve never seen a band get a gig like this so quick.’
‘It’s not that quick, not to us,’ said Leo. ‘We’ve been doing this all our lives.’
‘Pah, well, alright,’ said Tony. ‘Just understand that this gig will be a total turning point in all our lives. There’ll be no looking back from then on.’
‘I guess so,’ said Leo.
I felt a heaviness grow inside me as I watched Leo talk. This was not Leo, this was not Leo at all. Not the brother I know and love. There was no way I was going to bring it up right then, not in front of Tony and certainly not in front of Marilyn. But Leo, not being bothered about a gig like this? No way. This whole thing has gone too far. I just need some time with him, just him and me – alone – nobody hanging about on the sidelines.
As soon as the gig is over I’m going to get Leo by himself and we’re going to have it out. No lies, no crap – just the two of us. Meanwhile it’s hard to get a word in without Marilyn being right there at the moment. How did she get so close?
As Tony continued to talk in his bellowing voice I kept noticing how Marilyn would lean in and whisper into Leo's ear. I just couldn’t think what she had to whisper to him about. Every time she did it, it wasn’t like they would laugh or anything. It’s more like Leo would start to look even more grim. His face would harden and I could see that he was gritting his teeth.
At one point Marilyn said:
‘Did you have a nice time with your boyfriend then?’
‘Uh, yeah, it was nice,’ I said.
‘Where did you go?’ she said.
‘Ah, just went to Chinatown,’ I said.
‘Ooooh, he took you to Chinatown, wow. He must really like you, taking you to Chinatown,’ she said.
'Why?' I said.
'Well, I hear it's very fancy in Chinatown,' she said.
'Not really,' I said, fidgetting in my seat and hoping she would shut up.
‘So, you two are like a proper item now then?’ she said.
‘Uh,’ I said, feeling everyone’s eyes right on me.
‘Aw, sorry for embarrassing you Amber, I’ll shut up now,’ she said.
‘Yeah,’ I said ‘that’s a great idea.’
I looked at Leo who was intently staring at his glass as he spun it around on the tabletop. I never felt so far away from him. By this point we were well into the wee hours of the morning but the night was far from over.
As if I hadn't had enough events for one night... I decided to go to the bathroom and weaved through the crowd to get to the back of the bar area, then round a corner to a surprisingly huge room lined with pool tables. There were far less people in there, in fact mostly just one group of guys about the same age as me.
The bathroom was right at the back so I walked along, aware that the group of guys were turning around to look at me.
‘You’re the chick on the poster, eh?’ shouted one of them in a Dublin accent.
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘You’re gorgeous!’ shouted another one.
I could hear murmurs but didn’t know exactly what they were saying but I just knew it was about me. I kept my eyes forward and concentrated on where I was headed.
‘Come over here!’ I heard another one say as I went through the bathroom door.
I swung open the door of the bathroom, hoping there would be people inside. There was no one. Nobody near the sinks and every cubicle empty. Even as I was in the bathroom I could hear their voices outside. As I washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror I told myself that I would waltz out the bathroom as confidently as I could and head straight back to the bar. Even though the bar wasn’t that far away it felt like I was in a completely different building - a much creepier one.
I walked out the bathroom and to my dismay found there were no new people in the room and that the group of guys had moved closer to where I was. A few held pool sticks in their hands. One of them, the tallest one, started to move towards me.
‘Hey, darling, where you going?’ he said.
For a split second I thought how much he looked like Farley. Longish blonde hair and the same broad shoulders. But it soon became clear that's where the likeness ended.
‘I saw you on that poster. We’re going to that gig. I can’t wait to see you in action,’ he said.
I kept moving, knowing I would have to walk almost right through the middle of the group to get back to the bar. As I moved along the blonde guy took me by the elbow.
‘Get off me!’ I said as he spun me round against the nearest pool table.
He sort of pinned me against it. My heart punched against my chest as I saw the group of guys gathering around behind him.
‘My friends are just through there and when they know what you’re doing they will kill you,’ I said.
‘Oh yeah?’ said the guy. ‘Well I don’t see them anywhere. So I guess you’re on your own for now.’
He nudged me further back and put both his hands through the opening in my jacket onto my vest underneath. Ew. I knew at this point things were not going to go any further, it wasn’t an option. So I smiled at him then raised my right knee as quickly as I could with as much force as I could, right into his groin; I really gave it my all.
He fell back, holding onto his bits as though I had just crushed them. The rest of the group didn’t do much as I jumped up onto the pool table and ran across it, leapt off the side and ran down the room to get to the bar.
My first thought was – where’s Cheryl? I knew that she plus Jez and Lambert would be the best ones to have in this situation. I ran to the booth where I had just been sitting.
‘Where’s Cheryl?’ I said, probably looking absolutely frantic.
‘Don’t know,’ said Tony. ‘Look, what’s wrong?’
‘I just, I just need to find Cheryl,’ I said, turning away from the table.
‘I think they went outside,’ said Marilyn.
I span on my heels and pushed my way through the bar to the outside door. Once outside I scanned the area and didn’t see any sign of her, Lambert or Jez. Damn it. I rushed back into the booth and started to tell the guys what had happened.
‘What the hell?’ said Leo, rising to his feet. ‘Where are they?’
‘Through there,’ I said, pointing to the pool room. ‘But there’s a lot of them. We need the others as well.’
I was so pumped up with disgust all I wanted to do was get back at those guys, especially the creep who had touched me. I wanted them to go down.
‘I don’t care,’ said Leo, pushing himself along.
I followed just behind him and Marilyn tagged along too. We got into the pool room just in time to see the group going out a back door at the far end of the room.
‘Hey! Come back her!’ said Leo, chasing down the room to get to them.
They were gone before he got to them. Cheryl, Jez and Lambert appeared from round the corner.
‘Where are they?’ said Cheryl.
I presumed Tony must have told them what had happened.
‘They just got out that door, Leo saw them,’ I said, pointing to where Leo was.
They all ran for the door at high speed and left the building.
Marilyn and I went back to the bar and sat down in the booth. I felt completely bewildered.
‘Did he hurt you?’ said Tony.
‘No, no, he didn’t,’ I said. ‘I think I hurt him though.’
‘You’re some girl,’ he said, smiling.
We stayed in the booth for a while as I wondered what had happened with Leo and those guys. Eventually they came back through the front door of the pub.
‘We didn’t catch them,’ said Cheryl.
‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘They said they were coming to the gig on Saturday.’
‘Good. We’ll get them there,’ said Cheryl. ‘Who saw what they looked like?’
‘I did,’ said Leo.
‘Me too,’ said Marilyn.
‘Right, good,’ said Cheryl.
Leo came to me and put his arm around my shoulders.
‘I’m glad you’re OK,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ I said, feeling so much better to have my brother by my side.
The weirdest thing though was how Marilyn watched us, in that same disturbing way she has been watching us for the past few weeks. I noticed a little while after that when Leo went to the bar that she followed him over there, sat next to him and started whispering to him again.
There wasn’t even anyone around to hear what they were saying so why whisper? When she had finished saying whatever it was Leo had a look on his face that almost made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It was like he was possessed or something. I just could not figure out what the two of them were up to.