I Was Born for This(21)
‘But, it’s not like a party, is it?’ she says.
‘No, but we’ll be at Spoon’s.’
‘Spoon’s isn’t fancy, though.’
‘Definitely not.’
‘But it’s not a dress event, is it?’
‘Nah. Smart-casual, I reckon.’
I myself am wearing black mom jeans and a loose stripy top – my go-to outfit for when I think I might come into contact with cool people. And the other Ark fans are people I definitely want to impress.
‘Mac’s coming tonight, right?’ I ask her.
She turns to me, a black-and-white skirt in one hand, and high-waisted shorts in the other. ‘Yeah, of course? Why?’
I shrug. ‘I dunno. He doesn’t seem like he actually likes The Ark that much.’
Which is true. There was barely any reaction from him while The Ark were performing last night, while Juliet and I were trying not to scream too loudly or say ‘I love my boys’ too many times. Mac had just sat and watched.
I’m not going to go as far as to say he’s been lying about liking The Ark just so he can get with Juliet, but …
That’s exactly what I think.
‘Also,’ I continue, ‘he’s very annoying.’
Juliet snorts, thinking I’m joking. Then she realises I’m not. ‘What! What d’you mean?’
‘He just … He tries to make every conversation about him.’
Juliet frowns. ‘Nah, I think he’s just nervous.’ She flicks her hair, strikes a pose, and raises her eyebrows at me. ‘I mean, who wouldn’t be nervous to meet Juliet Schwartz, am I right?’ She starts to strike several fashion poses in a row, which does kind of make me laugh.
‘And,’ she continues, ‘he’s just not as … I don’t know. He’s not as fangirly as we are. He’s not as weird as us.’
He seems pretty weird in my opinion, but in more of a conventionally attractive way, like the protagonist of an indie movie, which I expect is why Juliet likes him. Being a male fan of obscure old bands is, for some reason, more acceptable than being a female fan of a twenty-first-century boy band.
There’s a pause, and then I say, ‘Anyway, I cannot believe you brought this many clothes with you! It’s like you’re planning to stay at your nan’s for the next four months!’
Juliet freezes on the spot and turns to me. She opens her mouth, and for a moment, I feel as though she’s about to say something very serious, but then she just chuckles and says, ‘Yeah, I know right?’
The only person who seems to have no degree of nervousness about tonight’s event is Mac. Must be easy to socialise when you’re a cute boy with a cool taste in music, I suppose.
We hop on the tube and arrive at Leicester Square at around 7.30 p.m. – a sensible half-hour later than the start of the event – and The Ark fans are immediately visible. A gathering of at least fifty people of our own age are scattered around one side of the square, sitting or standing in little groups, chattering and laughing and taking selfies.
I’ve never been to anything like this before. I stayed well away from the kids at school who started cruising the clubs at fifteen, armed with fake IDs and bottles of Archers. I don’t drink. Even if I wanted to go to a club, I don’t think I could face going into a club sober. I’ve never actually been drunk, but from what I’ve seen it does make you a little bit more enthusiastic about entering a dark, sticky, cave-like building and jumping up and down to DJ Snake.
Doesn’t mean I didn’t socialise. But most of my friends from school were like me – not interested in that scene. And none of them wanted to talk about The Ark with me.
So, I never really had much to talk about at all.
‘Holy shit, are you Angel? @jimmysangels on Twitter?’
I spin round. Hearing someone say my Twitter and Tumblr username out loud is pretty much a spiritual experience.
I recognise the girl immediately. She’s a little shorter than I expected, but I’ve seen her in pictures she’s posted on both Twitter and Tumblr – curly hair dyed green, thick-rimmed glasses. Goes by the name of ‘Pops’, username @superowan. Next to her, someone else I recognise – ‘TJ’, @tinyteej – cropped hair and a polo shirt, holding their phone in one hand like it’s got a treasure map on it. Both are pretty big name fans. If I recall correctly, they each have over ten thousand followers on Twitter. Like me.
I point dramatically at both of them and say, ‘DUDE.’ Then I hold out both my arms. ‘Look at us, meeting in real life!’
When fans get together, there’s little we actually talk about apart from the thing we’re all fans of. In this case, obviously, it’s our boys.
When I was at secondary school, I didn’t have any friends who cared about The Ark as much as I did. And dear God, I tried. I talked about The Ark to anyone who would listen, thinking maybe, maybe one day someone would understand why they’re so important.
No one ever understood, though. So I was alone.
But here – here is different. People get it. People understand. I keep checking Twitter and seeing a load of tweets tagged #TheArkLondonMeetUp. People putting internet usernames to faces. Meeting their best friends in real life for the first time. I start talking to a girl about the Q & A video Jimmy and Rowan made together three years ago, talking about our favourite moments – the little shoulder nudge, the spontaneous harmonised rendition of an old song, the synchronised laughs. The girl lights up, she talks back to me. She gets it. It’s magical.