Vogue

‘Bella, I said two bags’ Justin cried as his sister walked down the steps of her Californian home before coming to a stop in front of two large trunks sitting in the middle of the driveway. She shot him a quizzical look before looking at the trunks in question.

‘I thought I was supposed to be the model J-Bo, there are two bags. Look: one, two’ She smirked whilst pointing to the bags at her feet. Her older brother shook his head before looking at her sternly, the hint of a smile across his face. He could never be tough on her, Arabella knew it. Nonetheless, she rolled her eyes, grabbed the handle of the first trunk and began to drag it back into her home as she heard her brother bringing in the second.

‘We go through this every tour sis, you know the rules’ He laughed after she screamed at him not to scratch the leather of the bags on the sandstone steps.

‘Justin, just because I’m a veteran at this doesn’t make the fact that I’m a girl redundant. Unlike the male species, I refuse to wear the same pair of underwear and jeans for months on end.’

Arabella, as much as she complained about it, had to admit – she loved touring with her brother and his bands. She had gone on her first tour with her brothers and the rest of Brighten when she was sixteen for a week and she likened the experience to a cold – a little uncomfortable at first but then it becomes bearable before the congestion clears and life becomes practically peachy. Ok so, not the best analogy but to some extent it explained Arabella’s love affair with touring. It was dirty and unhygienic but after getting into the swing of things it becomes enjoyable. At the end of tour, you can’t wait until it’s all over but once it is, you can’t wait till it all starts back up again. The cramped van, the energy of the shows and Denny dinners were a world away from the life she lived a cumulative five months of the year when she was working. The big fashion shows were over in less than two weeks each and then each print ad shoot only lasted one or two days. Despite this, the fashion industry herded their models around in style: swanky hotels, fine restaurants and taxis everywhere. For some illegible reason, to Arabella the sterile hotel rooms held no comparison to the filthy van or claustrophobic bunks. It was the dichotomy between the two lives Arabella lived that she enjoyed – she got semi-enjoyable luxury as she worked in a job she adored and she got great entertainment travelling with the boys she loved.

* * *

A series of ‘Bella!’, ‘Bells’ and a stray ‘Ari’ was all Arabella heard as she boarded the large black bus that was parked outside of her house Wednesday morning before being tackled by a skinny, brown-haired mass.

‘Halvo!’ she laughed as she returned the boy’s hug, smiling at the other guys scattered around the bus’s living and kitchen quarters. She hadn’t known the Rocket boys that long, only meeting them for the first time when she passed through Arizona last year, but after hearing all the good things about them from Justin, Arabella felt she had known them much longer.

For Arabella, there was something innate about boys in bands. From the minute she was embraced by the Richards’, Arabella had been introduced to music and the kids in garage bands, rocking skinny jeans and singing innuendos felt like home. She didn’t believe in stereotypes – she didn’t exactly fit the ‘model’ label herself – but it seemed that her life always came back to musicians: from her first boyfriend (the trumpeter from her junior school’s Band) to her closest friends (admittedly she had to share the majority of her muso friends with her brother but the close bond she had with a certain Lebanese guitarist pushed him more into ‘her’ friends category rather than ‘communal’) it increasingly seemed that Arabella’s stereotype for bands were simple – they made her life richer; in terms of happiness, entertainment, and even ‘sexually’, as Jack would certainly say. Then again, only someone who really loved the touring scene would have willingly signed up for one month on Warped Tour when they can’t even sing or make legitimate music.

Later that evening after she crawled into her new bunk after a satisfying Chow Mein, she smiled. This was more homely than any suite at the Hilton.

‘Um, Arabella? We’re not that used to buses so we're still learning the rules but I just thought I’d remind you...’ Nick blushed as his head popped through her curtain. Arabella could hear the laughs from the back room; the ginger had seemingly picked the short straw for this conversation. ‘But, um, yeah – there’s no um, you know “period paraphernalia” in the bus toilet’ he finished in a whisper before yanking the curtains shut again as his steps echoed down the corridor as the laughter in the back room reached a crescendo.

“Yes” Arabella thought as she leaned back on her pillow “definitely home”.