Chapter Thirteen

Thursday 23rd, April

One Way or Another

"You want me to turn away?" Max asks, fiddling with the tuning on his guitar for what feels like the hundredth time. He does this so often I've begun to wonder if he's not a bit nervous too about having to play in front of me.

"I dunno. No. Actually...maybe?"

Let's just say that our first 'practice' isn't going so well. And the elation of solving the crisis of being signed up to the talent show against my will has fully worn off. Just like the earlier thought that maybe choosing a song together would be fun.

How bad could it be?

Max knows a lot about music. He's bound to be great at this sort of stuff.

Unfortunately, he's also horribly indecisive and prone to split off into endless tangents about the bands we've been listening to over and over for the last three hours. Piles of CD's and empty plastic cases sprawl out around us and beneath our feet as we sit up against the end of his bed.

Unwanted and unwarranted heat spreads from my cheeks to my arm each time Max accidentally nudges it in his eagerness to show off and air drum. And it intensifies when I have to finally open my mouth and bare my soul. To sing out the opening lyrics from a song we both soon agree is too obscure for a college talent show.

After that my confidence nose dives about as quick as the next CD change.

"You know you have nothing to worry about Josie, because you've got a great voice and tone, I'm serious," he assures, again for what feels like the hundredth time. "It's...like gravel, gritty... Smokey, almost."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"What I mean is that it's got a surprising edge to it," he explains. When my face still dips in confusion, he pretends to hold a cumbersome shovel to dig a hole. "Forgive me but I thought it would be, well, girlier."

"Oh thanks," I sigh back, though in a way I am a little chuffed. Just not enough to scare away the self conscious doubts and shyness. Or the crippling nerves at having to properly sing in front of him and set notes free that I'd normally be able to rattle off in my sleep or in the shower with ease. Most have so far fallen as flat as the dregs of coke in the can beside me.

And all these words, I'm not even properly singing them, just kind of saying or looping them together in a nervous mash. I try to give it a bit of attitude but it feels fake and forced.

Then again, the way he looks up at me, with his arms hunched over the wooden guitar is distracting. And it unfairly fuels the jittery feeling in my toes and fingertips. Though that might be more to do with the earlier two cans of coca -cola I chugged in exhaustion from hiking up to Max's house from college in the searing heat again.

And as I scour the carpet for a CD that has yet to be discarded into the pile marked 'no fucking way', I soon realise that perhaps another reason for feeling this way is because all the songs I've listened and tried to mimic so far have all been sung by guys, or now middle-aged men.

Nothing quite fits. Their voices either too low or too nasal. A few are even too high for me to copy or sing out in an American accent that I can't quite nail as well as Max can, even if I pinch the bridge of my nose.

"Hey, what about this one?" He takes a shiny CD and flips it into the portable player. Slowly picking out every other note on his guitar, he tells me that it's a song he loves. He thinks I could do it justice. "But you'll sound better, obviously. And we can adapt it, so it's not as low. We can omit the screaming parts."

The song is good. With a better opening melody than the last but it's still fast and heavy in the middle. I can't keep up.

"I can't do this Max," I sigh, kicking out my feet and letting my arms fall to my sides. The CD case in my hand flops to the carpet again. "It's just...maybe I'm not as ready for this as I thought."

His cheeks flare and his eyes spike with worry, most likely that I might up and quit before we've even fully begun. "Josie, yes you can."

"I can't," I puff my cheeks out. "And it's pretty obvious: I suck at singing."

"You don't and how about a different song?"

"Different how, to the hundreds we've listened to already today?"

Max pulls the guitar out from under his embrace and props it against the bed. Tuffs of hair fall to his lashes as he gives me a wry smile. He knows I'm being difficult. I know I am too. That I shouldn't be on the verge of a strop, no matter how frustrating. But I can't stop myself.

When I flash him a frown, he leans side ways. Only an inch of space between his messy locks and my frazzled, split ends separates us.

"You've just gotta have faith. Faith, faith, fa-ith..."

"Oh please," I snort, side-eyeing the jokey grin playing across his lips and the sing-song imitation of a George Michael classic as Max's hips jut from side to side.

"You wanna try that one? I think I can play it on guitar," He gives up on the hip thrusts and begins to pluck strings at random on the upright guitar. The bum notes make my ears wince and shoulders hunch.

"Nope. No thank you."

"Okay." I know Max's sigh isn't because he's annoyed but because he's tired too, like me. "How's about a breather? Then we can figure this 'song thing' out, one way or another. Even if it eventually kills me."

"Okay."

Back on his feet, he offers out a hand to help me up. "It's hot in here. Let's go get some sun in the garden. Maybe a fat dose of Vitamin D will spur on some inspiration."

As I agree to both offers and his hand grasps mine, I twist on the balls on my feet and meet his gaze. My other hand curls behind my back, with fingers crossed as tight as knots.

* * *

Pinched from the wooden slate shelf in the lounge, Mrs. Montgomery's CD collection spreads out across the old fuzzy picnic blanket also nabbed from inside as we both sit on it. Basking in the afternoon's warm offering of sun.

It's heavy but refreshing too. It was a good idea to get out. My head feels less clogged.

As I pour another top up from the plastic pitcher of coca-cola, the tiny hawaiian blue straw umbrella bobs about in my cup. Max doesn't do things by half, which the scatter of bright coloured cushions, party straws and polished off ice lollies can attest too.

"You feeling better?" He asks, collapsing across from me on the blanket. Hair all a tangle, forehead sweaty from dancing the La Bamba and mock flamenco, courtesy of his mum's musical tastes. The portable CD player perching on the outer kitchen window ledge plays out another slice of Spanish salsa.

"I am. And who knew you had the moves Montgomery," I lightly tease.

"There are many things you've yet to learn about me," he says, pretending to twist up the ends of a non-existent moustache.

I laugh and think about what my mum would say after witnessing such dance moves. She'd say he's got 'Swayze hips', as in Patrick, à la Dirty Dancing. And when I tell him this he almost snorts coca-cola from out his nose.

Coughing back laughter, he rolls on the blanket. "Hah. Well, she's right. Nobody puts baby in the corner."

I flick my umbrella straw at him and lean on my elbows. "I never would have pegged you as a fan."

His dark brows wiggle and I wiggle mine back, enjoying the impasse we've come to. How I'm stalling and he's not stopping me.

I think I'm over singing for today.

"Can I ask you something?" My fingertips trail through the blades of grass as my gaze falls to his. "You don't have to answer, of course."

"Sure," Max says, with a nonchalant shrug. "Have I always been gifted at daisy chain making? Why yes, actually." Jokily he tosses a freshly plucked daisy and it lands on my lap.

I shake my head. "I'm being serious. I want to ask something but-"

"-but..."

"Okay, well it's about school." I start off slowly, my voice quiet. Soft.

He prods me into continuing as he settles on the blanket, both feet crossed and bare.

I fumble for words and latch onto the edge of blanket for support. "Why did you leave? Why did you choose to be home schooled instead?"

"That a good question, two good questions actually," His voice rises, in a sing-song fashion. He clips his chin with one finger. "Well..."

"I'm sorry if that's too personal," My own voice catches. "Or too weird to answer."

"No, no. It's just no one has actually asked me that. I don't think anyone from Southbrook High realised I ever left, or that I was even there in the first place."

"That's not true."

"Says the girl who doesn't remember me," he laughs.

"Not fully, but I do remember you. P.E. We had that together."

Max's laughter bows to a smile. "We did."

Spinning the daisy in my lap round, I lean in. "So, why did you leave?"

The outline in his throat bobs up and down. His jaw tenses slightly. "I left because I hated school and everyone in it hated me. I told my mum and my dad, before he left that if they made me go back after Year 8 Christmas break, that I'd kill myself. Things happened very quickly after that."

"Woah. Shit, Max." I recoil back. Like I've been hit in the face. I don't like how it leaves my insides feeling like mashed play-doh.

"Yeah. Not my greatest of moments," His eyes sink low. "I wish I could say now that I was just pushing them both as far as I could, to get my way but that's honestly how I felt. I know that's wrong but it's the truth."

"I'm sorry," I whisper meekly.

"It's okay."

"I hated school too," I offer, as if it's some consolation to what he's just told me. Which it isn't. "And everyone in it."

Max lifts his hand and skims a low five across my grassy palm.

"Were the kids nasty to you too?" I ask, hoping to find common ground.

He nods. "That's one way of putting it."

"What did they do to you?" My mind begins to race. I think about all the rumours of head dunking in the boys toilets. Or the kid whose school shoes and bag were set on fire because he made the mistake of telling a teacher about someone copying his homework. My chest tightens when I picture Max in his place.

Was it him? Probably not. But were they just as horrible to him? And if they were, why did I never notice?

All these questions race round like super cars in my head until Max lifts his fingertips to his face. A daisy twirls between them and then he drops his hand, to knock the tiny white petals against the one on my lap.

He stares down at me. Lips offering the hint of a smile. Possibly a grin, which doesn't explain why he also looks kind of sad. It's hard to work out.

My mouth itches to whisper what? Why are you staring at me like that Max? What is it?

I want him to know that he can tell me anything.

But the searing and unexpected crash of metal - so loud and piercing it vibrates deep beneath the ground and grass, cuts all my thoughts short. I can't find the guts again to try and ask him if there's more to the story than he's letting on. Turning his attention, Max leans away from me and his eyes latch onto the large wooden fence of next door.

"What was that?" I ask, rooted to the spot.

He rolls his eyes and chucks the daisy up in the air. "Two houses down from here - neighbours kid. Plays the drums like clock work, 4.30pm when school finishes. Every. Single. Day."

I catch the distain in his tone so I stop tapping my foot along to the noisy but infectious rhythm. "That sucks."

"Yeah. It'll go on for at least two hours. Which means that it's pretty pointless to try and practice out here..."

I offer a smile. "It's fine. I have to get back soon anyways. Mum sold a whole plot of land to some developers yesterday and we're going out for dinner to celebrate."

"Nice, anywhere fancy?" Max arches his back and stretches. His arms held up, like he's trying to hook the clouds.

"That little Italian place, with the weird staring waiters..." I grumble, scrapping my hair away from my sweaty neck. "Piccolo... something or other."

He chuckles. "Damn. I never get that kind of treatment when I go there. They ignore me. You must be a very special, hard to ignore customer Josie."

My hands fight to mask the blush on my cheeks as I sit and cross my legs. "Very much doubt it."

"You doubt yourself too much," he says, scooping up the mess of CD's.

I know what he means but still, it makes me feel weird. I shouldn't care what he thinks. 

I swallow the lump in my throat and curl my lips, like I'm not that fussed. "Okay." And then I change the subject. "So, when can I get a lift home?"

His laughter dances in the gaps between crashing cymbals and high-hats. "Is that what I am to you now? A taxi service?"

"A girl shouldn't be expected to walk home alone..." I gently tease, pulling my hair into a low ponytail. "Or in this heat. I may evaporate and then who will do the talent show with you, huh?"

"Fine," he drawls, mocking me. "But first, I have to clear out all the junk Melissa's left in there. She borrowed the car a couple of days ago. Trashed it."

My bottom lip juts out. "How?"

"Camping. Apparently her tent broke so she slept in the car. There's muddy footprints all over the inside roof."

I can't help but laugh. "Sorry. But hows that possible?"

"I don't even want to know. Mel went with this guy she's recently started seeing... so..." Max's cheeks fill with air, as if he might be sick.

"Say no more."

"Yeah."

As Max finishes fake gagging, he tells me to give him five minutes to sort it out and he leaves me the half empty pitcher. I finish it off, plucking stray daisies. And I continue to listen to the drift of drums and music coming from two fences over. My feet feeling the beat.

The repetition sounds familiar. Like a song I've heard before. Stripped down. But I can't place my finger on it.

And when Max finally sticks his head out from the kitchen window, I give up on finding out. Too easily distracted by the lazy and goofy grin plastered across his sun-kissed face.

"You're carriage awaits..."

* * *

Max cuts a corner and with it the CD skips. He gestures for me to swap it for another. And I happily oblige because I'm keen for him to keep both hands on the steering wheel this time.

My mum would have a heart attack if I ever told her that.

Maybe it's because I'm picturing her expression - fraught with panic, eyes glazed over in terror at being told that he doesn't pull the handbrake up at every traffic stop or because the opening verse spilling out from the radio is to familiar to ignore, but I stop and chuck the CD I had chosen back into the glove compartment.

Max flashes me a grin as he puts the pedal to the floor and speeds through a quick to change green light near the college. He winds the windows right down and warm air whips in whilst he casually rests his arm half out, fingertips grasping the breeze.

"You're favourite, right?" he says, turning the volume up.

I blink fast. And I shrug. "Huh?"

His laughter is soon drowned out by the drums and a voice that I'd recognise in a musical line up. It's raw. It's edgy. Unique. Still, even now decades later.

"Bl-on-die," he drawls, before he singing along to the radio. His voice is mucher deeper than I'd expected. Loud. Not half bad. "One way or another, I'm find ya, I'm gonna getcha..."

"Oh right. Yeah. My mum used to play this in lot in the car, when I was younger," I pull down my sunglasses as the afternoon suns rays hit us like lasers as we drive up and over Warren Hill, near the golf club. "I've always loved it too."

Max continues to sing loudly, as if in a music video. Performing to the cars and pedestrians we pass by. And he keeps it up, like he doesn't care who hears or that I'm in the car with him, watching in amusement as his face scrunches with mild menace.

Cranking the dial and volume, Max briefly turns to me as we settle for a traffic light stop. "If I feel like shit, I get in the car and whack a CD in and I just sing. Or shout. Or scream as loud as I want." Just for emphasis he shouts the latter. "I always feel better for it - belting out a song. Brings out my inner rock star."

I chuckle and cautiously hum along but it's hard not to follow suit. And soon I sing. It might be directed out the open window and maybe not as raucous as Max's best Debbie Harry impression but I try.

And weirdly I feel better for it. Like the cobwebs of doubt have been briefly blown away.

Soon we're both making claims that if 'all lights are all out, I'll follow your bus downtown' in unison, though Max gives better snarl then I could ever hope to replicate.

When my shoulders bob in time to the last breakdown and outro, they feel light. The mood lifted considerably. And as Max perfects his left hand turn down a narrow road, he slaps one hand down on the dashboard, then twists the radio low so it's only a faint murmur.

"What?" I say, breathless and red faced. My hands and head filled with adrenaline. I want to sing again.  

"I've got it Josie." His mouth curls into a wide grin.

"Got what?"

"The answer to all our 'song choice' woes."

I scoff and shake my head. "Nah..."

Max squeezes the breaks as my house comes into view. "I'm serious. Your voice... it's perfect for that song! Suits it, like well you were singing and I stopped and you didn't even realise. You were in your own world. Sounded like you'd sung it a thousand times."

"Oh, I did?" I try to recall the moment but I come up blank. Maybe I was really lost in my own world for the last three minutes.

"Yes. And this is the one. Trust me."

"I don't know..."

Max laughs. The excitement in his voice builds with each word as he says, "I do. It's punk as fuck. And in your face. Granted, it's kind of creepy."

"It's about a stalker, at least that's what my mum used to tell me," I cut in.

"Yeah, creepy, like I said," he grins. "But whatever. We can work around that or just totally ignore it because it's clearly a song your comfortable with. Better than all the others from today."

My chest rises as I make the comparison too. I suppose it could be cool to actually sing a song performed and written by a woman. Not by some all-male pop punk band. At least then I won't have to sing like my balls have dropped.

"I knew we'd get there eventually," Max muses wistfully. Really chuffed. "Obviously it's meant to be."

I shrug, hoping that the car's noisy engine won't alert my parents to our presence close by. "But, it's not really a 'winning' song is it? I mean yeah sure, it's iconic but I doubt anyone at college would even care..."

"Who said anything about having to win?" His eyes narrow and his bottom lip folds. "Call it cheesy but it's the taking part that counts."

I can't help but laugh. "Suppose." And then the thought of Maddie and our bet makes me stop.

"Don't make me twist your arm over this Clarke. The song suits your voice. I just know, deep down, you've got that sassy, don't-give-a-fuck and don't dare fuck-with-me attitude-"

"Shhhh! My parents might hear you-"

Max giggles. He actually giggles. "Oops, sorry!"

"Just keep your voice down. My mum will be twitching behind the curtains, just to see what kind of loon has driven me home. And she won't approve if she hears you swearing, that's all," I reply, though I do snigger a little.

"Parents love me," he announces proudly.

"Mine might prove to be the exception..."

Resting back, he shrugs and spins the car keys round his middle finger. "I've got to meet them first, so let's no get ahead of ourselves."

My cheeks fire up at the thought and I notice that his are rosy too.

"Shut it," I prod him gently in the ribs. "I have to go now."

"Friday, practice at mine?" Max's gaze rises expectantly. It's hard to say no, though he still pleads his case. "So I can figure out the guitar part first and then we can work on the arrangement together."

"Okay."

"Okay."

As I step out and carefully shut the passenger side door so mum won't hear, Max leans across and smiles. "One way or another, we're gonna crush this."

"Oh god," I snort. "That's awful."

"I know. But had too. Couldn't let the opportunity slip by."

I yawn. Not because his little pun was boring but because I'm tired.

Tired and happy. It's not been such a bad day.

"Bye Josie," he says, starting the engine.

I turn and part with a wave though I wish I didn't have to. 

"Bye Max."