Music has a look. Rock, punk, metal, emo, whatever. It’s not that you need to be super beautiful (though, hello, it helps), but every type of music has its own look. Maybe it’s superficial, but music is a product. And products need to be branded, right? McDonald’s couldn’t just change the golden arches to pink arches and expect people not to freak out. I’m sure my mom would have plenty to say about the commercialization of cultural experience and the resulting degradation of blah, blah, blah, but they call it the music business for a reason.
So if you’re playing one type of music, your look should fit with it. It just makes sense. And as much as I think Tamara has a voice and a musical attitude that will set this town on fire, her look reminds me of a soccer mom. In fact, when I played soccer and my mom came to my games, she looked way more rock and roll than Tamara does.
Tamara says she still has all her Fantalicious outfits and that some of them still fit her and more or less cover her lady parts. I’m tempted to throw the whole lot into a vat of black dye and see how that turns out. But the outfits are pretty skimpy. And I hate that skimpily dressed rocker-chick look. Why do female musicians have to prance around half naked just because they’re girls? It’s not a beauty contest.
I guess it’s not a fashion show either. It feels a bit like one, though, because I’ve been waiting for Tamara to come out of the fitting room for ten minutes. We’ve already searched through her entire wardrobe, and apart from her Fantalicious clothes and her school uniform (which had a temptingly AC/DC effect), there wasn’t much that said Rock Goddess.
“Do you have the skinny jeans on?” I say through the fitting-room door.
“Yeah, but…”
“But what?”
“But butt. My butt looks huge.”
“Put the Clash T-shirt on with them.”
“Why? Does the Clash have magical butt-shrinking properties?”
The saleslady frowns at me as she folds artfully frayed chinos. I think she’s upset that someone is saying “butt” in her store.
“Just come out, Tamara,” I say. “Let me see.”
Tamara opens the fitting-room door and stands there in the skinny jeans and black T-shirt I picked out. She looks at herself in the giant mirror. “I look sad.”
She’s right. She does look sad. I may have met the only girl in the world who doesn’t look good in black. And the skinny jeans do nothing for her either. An outfit that is practically my uniform, and the only thing I really feel like me in, looks terrible and wrong on her. That’s an eye-opener.
“What do you like to wear?” I say through the door as Tamara changes back into her own clothes. “What’s your favorite?”
“Pajamas,” she says. “And the long robes we wear in the church choir. Hey! Maybe I could wear a burka! That would be a unique look. Or I could dress like a nun.” I’m still trying to picture this when she comes out in her own clothes, leaving the jeans and T-shirt behind. “Those are dumb ideas. I would never wear a burka. It’s not right to mock other cultures like that. And even nuns don’t dress like nuns anymore. I could wear a sari. I mean, not in a mean way either. I think they’re lovely. But I wouldn’t want to offend anyone. You know, because…I’m going to just shut up now.”
I can’t help laughing. Soon we’re both laughing so hard that the saleslady gives us dirty looks until we leave the store.
“Argh!” Tamara groans as we head up the escalator to the food court. “I hate shopping for clothes. It’s so demoralizing. Nothing fits or suits me. I should get a body artist to paint me and perform completely nude.”
We howl with laughter all the way to the coffee kiosk. But when we get there, there’s a massive lineup.
“The coffee here is awful anyway. Let’s go somewhere else.”
Tamara leads me out of the mall and down the pedestrian arcade to a little vintage diner at the end. Dad used to take me for breakfast here sometimes when he still worked at city hall. But I haven’t been here for ages. It seems to have had a hipster makeover. Jazz is drifting out of a jukebox, and there are posters of detective movies on the walls.
I join Tamara as she takes a seat at the counter. A second later, the cute guy from her choir practice plops two cups in front of us.
“You look desperately in need of caffeine,” he says, pouring coffee from a glass pot.
“Stella, this is my brother, Nate,” Tamara says.
Her brother? Why does he look cuter all of a sudden? He has little glasses and sandy-brown hair with a cowlick you could park a bike in. His eyes are so blue and bright, he looks like a cartoon version of himself. I reach out to shake his hand and knock over the coffee he’s just poured. Seriously? I should just run away right now.
“Don’t worry about it.” He wipes up the coffee as I apologize. “Tammy tells me you’re a drummer. That’s pretty cool.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I mean, thanks. Do you play an instrument?”
“Clarinet. Just in school band though.”
Oh dear. That’s disappointing. Saxophone would have been better. Still, he makes a good cup of coffee, now that I’m actually drinking one rather than flooding the countertop with it.
When we finish our coffees, Tamara and I hop on the bus and head to the studio. The boys are waiting there for us, Miles playing my drums and Jacob playing Miles’s bass.
“Hey, ladies,” Jacob says, popping the bass strings. “We thought of a name for the band.”
“Here we go,” I say. Jacob and Miles come up with about ten names per day, each one more disgusting than the last. “Let’s hear it.”
“Crustcore,” Miles says, embellishing it with a little cymbal flourish.
“Ew,” Tamara says. “What does that even mean?”
“It’s a terrible name. Next?”
“What about Scum? We could even make it an acronym. Like, Serious Criminals something something. scum.”
“Stupid Children Using Marijuana?” I suggest.
“Stoned Chimps Under-Motivated?” Tamara offers, not missing a beat.
Jacob and Miles look hurt. “We don’t use drugs. This is a drug-free band.”
“Scum is a doubleplusdisgusting name.”
“Newspeak? George Orwell. Nice,” Tamara says, nodding.
“Can you two speak English, please?” Jacob says. “We still need a name.”
“What about the Toenails?” I suggest.
“God,” Tamara says. “And you thought Scum was disgusting. Why would you want such a negative name? Why not just call us the Screaming Rejects?”
Before the boys can start discussing the merits of that name, someone knocks on the door. Nate pops his head in.
“I finished my shift early. I thought I could take some band pictures.”
“Nate, I’m dressed like a kinder-gym teacher,” Tamara says.
“No one cares about that,” Nate says and proceeds to take about twenty pictures of me before I even have time to fluff up my faux-hawk. “Do some drumming. I’ll get some action shots.”
I do a big rolling solo as Nate snaps a bunch more pictures.
“That was awesome. I slowed down the speed so the sticks are blurred. Look how cool it is.”
He shows me the camera screen, and he’s right. It’s pretty cool. After I’ve admired myself for a few minutes, I notice no one else is saying anything. Tamara is standing with her arms crossed. The boys just look awkward.
“I don’t mean to be a diva,” Tamara says, “but aren’t I the lead singer of this band?”
“Don’t be so touchy, Tammy,” Nate says. “Like you didn’t get enough pictures taken with the Fantasy Lickers.”
Tamara’s face falls. “You. Are. A. Total. Dick,” she says. Then she grabs her bag and flounces out the door.
The girl can sure flounce.
“Tammy! Wait,” Nate says, following her.
So much for rehearsal. This is why I’m glad I’m an only child.
“Well,” Miles says, after we’ve taken a moment to process what just happened. “I think it’s possible Tamara might actually be a bit of a diva.”
“No she’s not,” Jacob says. “Nate was making a fool of himself, slobbering all over Stella.”
“He wasn’t slobbering over me!” Jeez. Was he? That’s embarrassing. And oddly intriguing. “He was taking band pictures.”
“Yeah? And how many did he take of anyone other than you?”
I know the answer to that. It looks like we might have our first groupie.