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Chapter Four

The Secret

I feel so old right now, and I’m only twenty-five. I’m at the Plastic Rap gig and, apart from a handful of parents and their young kids, I am surrounded by excited teenagers, most of them female. Unsurprisingly I haven’t bumped into anyone I know, so I have been entertaining myself. I’ve knocked back a few drinks and messed around on my phone quite a lot. It’s very important to keep the good people of Twitter and Facebook up to date on what I’m doing – not to show off, I promise.

Plastic Rap are currently playing their last song and for the millionth time since I got here I am checking my bag for my Dictaphone. Absolutely nothing can go wrong tonight.

Looking up at them on stage, I have to admit that I can see exactly what the thousands of screaming girls see in them. They’re good-looking in a goody-goody pop kind of way, not a tattoo or piercing in sight, which is something I actually quite like; it’s not that often you find a musician without one or the other these days.

When the gig is finally over, I make my way to the hotel next door where our interview is taking place. Before I know it, I am plonked down in front of the band, who are eagerly awaiting my questions.

All five of them are so chatty, they’ve got bags of character and they’re definitely saying all the right things.

Sometimes the really famous ones are rude or awkward and I hate it when there’s a particular subject I’m not allowed to ask about, but that’s not the case with these guys.

I’ve asked all the music-related questions that we’re expected to ask, so it’s time to get down to the juicy stuff.

‘So, are you boys allowed girlfriends? A lot of bands with large teenage fan-bases are told to keep their girlfriends a secret.’

Sam (the hottest one in my opinion) is straight in there with an answer.

‘Yes, we’re allowed girlfriends and we all have a girlfriend at the moment. Our fans are the most loyal fans in the world, they certainly don’t mind us having them. It’s all about the music.’

Fantastic answer, although I have to disagree. It’s partly about the music, but their fans are genuinely in love with them. Hearts will break when they read this, that’s for sure.

Eventually we wrap up the interview. I pose for a few photos with the band and I’m not going to lie, these are for Facebook. I’m still a band lover at the end of the day.

Sam moves to stand next to me and slides an arm around my waist as we continue to pose for the camera.

‘We’re having a bit of a party if you’d like to stick around,’ he says between smiles. Before I have chance to reply, in walks the band’s tour manager with a group of ten young-looking fans. They’re maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, so I assume they’re here for a meet and greet before the party starts. For someone who has been hanging around bands for so long, that’s a pretty naive assumption it turns out. As if to remind me exactly how these things go, Carl the bassist walks straight up to one of the fans and sticks his tongue down her throat. Maybe it’s his girlfriend? Sure she looks a bit young, but who am I to jump to conclusions? Then again, if it was his girlfriend he probably wouldn’t be kissing the next girl in the line right now. Or the one after that.

Now I really do feel old. When I was sixteen I certainly wasn’t hanging around in hotels with taken men.

‘Thanks for the offer, but some of us have got work in the morning.’ I try to sound friendly, jokey, anything but shocked and appalled.

‘I’ll give you my number, yeah?’ He’s persistent, I’ll give him that. ‘We’re back here again in a few weeks, we’ll have to meet up, babe.’

This is the second phone number I have been given today that I have no intention of calling – unless we ever need another interview, of course.

As I gather my things and walk towards the door, I take one final look back at the band, just as they are working out which band member gets which girls. Ten girls – that’s two each. It reminds me of when we used to pick teams during PE at school. I bet a couple of those girls still have to do PE, how creepy is that?

The band’s chubby, bald tour manager stops me on the way out to ask a few questions about the magazine so I answer and politely thank him for his time. As I go for the door, he puts his arm up like a barrier blocking an exit.

‘These girls are all over sixteen, so don’t go putting this in your magazine,’ he warns me – protesting a little too much if you ask me.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ I reply bluntly, waiting for him to move so I can pass him. Eventually he does, but not without trying to intimidate me a little. I can’t wait to tell Emily about this, in fact I’m actually dialling her number before I’ve even left the building. It doesn’t take me long to relay the night’s events to her as I walk home.

‘I cannot believe it!’ she squeals.

‘I know, right? No wonder their fans don’t mind them having girlfriends, it really, really doesn’t matter.’

‘Well yeah, that is shocking, but I can’t believe you didn’t stay. You were in there, Nic!’

‘No way! You’d have stayed? Those girls were the same age as your little sister. God, I felt like a prudish old woman.’

‘It would have been quite the scoop for the magazine though, wouldn’t it?’ she says cannily, but I know she doesn’t really mean it. She’s right, but not only did I promise their tour manager that I wouldn’t blab, I don’t really want to be pissing off a band that I will probably want to interview again in the future. They may not be very nice guys, but they pull the hits and that’s what I need.

‘We need to keep our heads down, Em. Trying to ruin the reputation of a huge band like Plastic Rap would probably just get us sued. Right, I’m at my door. I trust we’ll be keeping this little discovery between us?’

‘Say no more. See you in the morning and try not to be late, yeah?’

Cheeky bitch. Then again, I am always late.