Goodbye Reckless

"She's called what?" I asked incredulously.

"Beatrice Wisner," came the meek reply down the phone from my father.

"Beatrice? Wisner? Oh Papa really."

"Don't be like that, she's wonderful." When he said wonderful there was still a slight accent and he ended up saying 'vonderful'.

"I'm sure she is," I said distractedly whilst trying to slip into my leopard print heels, still holding the phone to my ear.

"She's delightful Amina, really is. We were planning to go to Alaska together."

"Alaska?" I stood up straight now, disbelief etched onto my face and into my voice.

"Yes she works for Greenpeace and is in charge of the 'Anti Seal Clubbing' campaign. I think it’s a wonderful cause."

"And this is coming from a man who bought fur coats for a Russian bombshell to make her go out with him, and in the end giving her one as a wedding present."

"Ach Amina, we all make mistakes," came the reproachful sounds from my father.

"Well some more than others, or so it seems. Papa I have to go now I'm meeting Ryan in fifteen minutes."

I awaited his goodbye's and after him fussing for another few minutes he finally hung up leaving me to go and enjoy the evening.

- - -

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Ryan's friend was in fact, unlike my expectations, a girl.

What made me like her even more was that amongst the first things that she said to me was: 'I love your shoes!' as she pointed to my four inch leopard print heels that I had let slip from a Chloe photo shoot.

Eva Siska was a girl of the same age as my half brother; her brown hair resting in light curls on her shoulders with the ease that I wished mine had done before I decided to chop it off. She was dressed simply in grey skinny jeans and a white t-shirt, red flats with little bows on her feet.

Despite dressing so easily and without seeming to feel the need impress, the way that people walked around her and talked to her, gave the impression that she was known.

Ryan quickly explained to me that Eva's brother played bass in the band that we were about to see, when Eva had gone to fetch me a bottle of water, promising that it would soon get hot in here.

"I didn't know you had a girlfriend!" I said gleefully wheeling around to my little brother who blushed.

"She's not my girlfriend…" He attempted to sway the conversation bashfully.

"Not yet at least," I said with a grin. "Oh by the way; Papa's new flame is called Beatrice Wisner and works for Greenpeace. They're going to go to Alaska together to save the seals."

"Oh my god," Ryan breathed exasperatedly.

"Precisely," I said thankfully accepting the bottle of water that Eva had returned with.

The show began ten minutes later and I must say I was quite impressed.

Eva pointed out her brother with pride lining her every word. Apparently the band was called The Academy Is, it might have been The Academy Was but over the throbbing noise of the bass and guitars I couldn't quite make out what either Ryan or Eva were saying.

After an energetic and heartfelt set that lasted three quarters of an hour the band finished and jubilantly walked off stage leaving the crowd with a satisfied feeling sinking into their stomachs, the smiles of the band members evident even from where we were standing at the back of the venue, not having felt the need to be right at the front.

The venue cleared rapidly, the visitors either having had enough for one night or in search of the various band members for photographs and autographs; obviously this band was more famous than I had know. Eva dragged Ryan off to go find her brother and I was left alone with the feeling that the bottle of water just wasn't cutting it for me at present.

I glid over to the bar and ordered a local beer, despite the fact that I could never drink any beer unless it was German, and gratefully took a sip of it.

Ten minutes later Eva came back with Ryan and three others guys in tow.

"Amina I want you to meet some of the guys from the band," she said with a grin on her face and pushed the three men towards my way. The latter had confused but happy expressions on their face, not knowing what to make out of the situation.

The first thing that struck me about then men was how abnormally skinny they were. All of them could have easily fitted both their legs into one of the legs of my skinny jeans.

They introduced themselves as William Beckett, Mike Carden and lastly Adam Siska, the older brother of Eva. The resemblance was there, not so much in facial expressions but in the same set of humour and easy laugh that fell from their mouths every now and then with ease.

After initial chitchat about the show everybody seemed to loosen up and conversation flowed easier and laughter became louder and more confident.

"I can't believe you're having a good time here without us,' came an amused voiced from the backstage door that had just swung open. Two more men walked into the room and joined the crew already assembled there, making the band complete.

William introduced them to me as Michael Chislett and Andy Mrotek, or The Butcher.

It was the latter that caught my eye most, cowered in colourful and vibrant tattoos, which were visible due to lack of upper body covering. A perfect set of white teeth were in place and these could be seen thanks to the amount of time he spent laughing of joking which was agreeably a lot of the time.

He had previously been talking to my brother but then his attention focused on me.

"Those look like killer shoes," he said with a grin pointing at the said Chloe leopard print shoes, which had been gracing my feet all night. "How do you even walk in those?"

"I have a lot of spare time to practice, sadly." I said with a grin.

From there on the conversation carried on, at first rather aimlessly, but by the end of the night we had exchanged numbers and I had managed to collect the numbers of the rest of the band members with promises to stay in touch.

The evening held a special place in m heart for the following weeks, having never met so many amiable people in one go, but the one person who stayed in my head the most was the boy with the bright smile and the equally bright tattoos,