Margaret Lacey is a Lesbian

In the weeks to come, Pete John Allan was frequently seen ducking around the girls, in the company of Stu, who seemed to find the whole thing rather entertaining. It was a good while before Stu sauntered over, with John sidling in a completely indifferent and totally casual way behind him, and started a conversation with Margaret Lacey.

“I’m in a band with this runt,” he thumbed over his shoulder at the boy, who was lighting up his ear cigarette. “And we’ve decided we’re tired of it being a sausage fest. I think you can hold off the boys from getting in your very pretty panties better than most birds so we’ll let you attend practise if you want.”

“I don’t play any instruments, Stu. Am I expected to play the cowbell?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Well I mean, fuck, you could if you wanted. I don’t think I can stop you. We more meant—.”

“You meant let me sit there and look pretty so you can pretend I’m a sea of adoring fans,” she finished for him.

“You’re already a sea of adoring fans babe,” Stu replied. He was smirking, but then, he was always smirking, so it’s not especially of note.

“I’m in. But I’m bringing a book.” She pretended to huff at him, but she was clearly pleased.

Stu made it clear where/when the practise was, and communicated that lame books were not allowed, and she wasn’t permitted to bring books in other languages that she couldn’t read just to look cooler to the lads in the band. She laughingly agreed, and he walked off to go to do Stuart Sutcliffe activities, whatever those comprised of.

The Saturday of the rehearsal, Margaret Lacey didn’t take too much time getting ready. She, as much as the boys she disdained, cared very much about not caring about how she looked—until it was inconvenient. That night, however, it was convenient to care about not caring. She put on a white slip that fell just to the middle of her thighs, and perused her closets thoughtfully. She settled on a black dress with a narrow skirt that came to her knees and a three button collar. Last second, she realised she ought to brush her hair, and maybe even put on panties. Naughtily, she unbuttoned two of the buttons, to reveal a collarbone.

Heading out in time to be fashionably late, she grabbed her pink coin purse and a so-far unread book by Alfred Bester. It promised to be sci-fi, and hopefully interesting enough that she could resist staring at sweaty singing boys in leather pants.

She waved a salute to Stu’s parents, and skipped and hopped down the stairs to his smoke-filled basement. Her plan had gone excellently, and they were already playing. Pete John Allan VIX was at the front, screaming and playing a shitty guitar. Sure enough, dripping with sweat. Even Stu was on the edge of losing his cool, he was so into the music. There was a baby-faced guitarist, strumming away with cherry cheeks and an earnest expression, and a boy that seemed to be made of cheekbones and legs that went on forever—both of which who seemed far too young to be smoking those cigarettes. The drummer was the only one who hadn’t gotten the dress code card concerning massive amounts of leather, as he was equipped with khakis and a bored expression.

All things being equal, the music was frightful. The guitars were out of tune, the amp wasn’t even properly plugged in, and the acoustics in the basement were absolutely dreadful. Still, Margaret Lacey found herself smiling and nodding in time with the music. There was a single, mostly broken, wicker chair in the basement, and she pulled it up and sat in it, tapping her foot. For a while, she tried to nod encouragingly to the members, but when she realised that their eyes were all squeezed shut in concentration, she turned to her book.

They paused between songs, collapsing in exhaustion and elation. She looked up when the music came crashing to a standstill, and smiled broadly at all of them. She put down the book and started to clap.

“Whaddya think?” John panted, lying on his back and angling a look at her through the smoke and his own hair falling in his face.

“I loved it!” she said, and she wasn’t lying. Although the shocking adventure of Gully Foyle in his pursuit of revenge had been thrilling, the music had clearly affected her. There was pink to her cheeks that rouge companies paid massive amounts of money trying to reproduce chemically.

“Was it any good, then?” he asked, squinting at her. Sweat was coursing down his face, in a way that really oughtn’t to have been so attractive.

“Oh, I wouldn’t use the word good. Probably horrible. Tremendously bad. But I loved it. Are you going to do more, or are you an Elvis parody band?” she asked, and brought a panted chuckle from the tired lads.

“We’ve got some originals too, but none of us can be bothered to learn notes, so they’re even worse than our covers,” said the boy who was cheekbones. He smiled big, leaning against the amp, and his teeth would have made an orthodontist faint. His eyebrows almost met, and his thick eyelashes hid his eyes. He was decidedly really cute.

She laughed, and Stu grumbled something along the lines of them having to get back to work so that someday a girl would say that they’re good. With groans, sighs, and many light clicks, they began another song. This one was mellower, and proved that perhaps the cheekbones lad actually knew more notes than he gave himself credit for. John was singing again, but his larynx got to take a little break after the last, so he sounded much mellower.

The lyrics clearly hadn’t been worked on, as half of the song was humming and “la, la, la” to take the place of the melody, but when the baby-faced boy, Stu, and Cheekbones cut in for the chorus, their voices did a thing that was not, in fact, bad. Margaret Lacey didn’t open her book for a while yet, instead choosing to listen to the way their voices blended. She decided that if they worked on it, they might actually have a nice sound. Sometimes their voices clashed awkwardly with each other’s, and there were plenty of times where they forgot to play their instrument in order to sing, or vice versa, and frequently they’d skip over notes in order to catch up with the song. It was by no means anywhere near perfection. But when the four teddys and their drummer would sync up, and press the right strings and hit the right drum at the same times as a hum issued from three or four of them, potential for greatness gave Margaret Lacey goose bumps.

Then again, she’d always been fond of the dramatic, even inside her own head. Perhaps there was nothing to this band of sweaty boys with crooked teeth.