Playlist for a Broken Heart (15 page)

‘What is it, Paige?’ asked Mum when I burst through the sitting-room door. ‘You’re all flushed. Has something happened? Your hair’s been cut and
you’re wearing lipstick!’

‘Yes, I had a makeover but it’s not that,’ I said. ‘Something has happened. It’s not bad. Nothing to worry about. Dad, I’ve had the most brilliant idea for
your shop.’

Dad looked up from the television. ‘OK . . .’ he said.

I sat opposite them on the sofa and briefly noticed how cosy they’d made the room look. I told myself I’d have a proper look later. For now, I had important things to say.
‘You’ve been trying to think of a gap in the market, yeah?’

Dad nodded.

‘There’s nothing like it in Bath – at least I don’t think there is—’

‘Like what, Paige?’ asked Mum.

‘And you could use your degree in costumes, Mum. You could make the costumes,’ I blustered.

‘Costumes for what?’ asked Mum.

‘Photo shop.’

Neither of them looked impressed and I realised I needed to be clearer. ‘Not just a photo shop. More than that. Remember that time we went to Windsor and we went into that fancy dress shop
and had our photos taken? Remember? Mum and I got dressed up as Victorian ladies and Dad, you dressed up as a gentleman with a false moustache and we had our photo taken.’

Dad still didn’t look like he got what I was saying – he was staring out the window, seemingly lost in thought.

‘Yes, I do remember,’ said Mum. ‘They had clothes from different eras.’

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘And here we are in one of the most beautiful heritage cities in England and there’s nowhere like that for the tourists.’

Mum nodded but I wasn’t sure she’d got the potential of my idea either.

‘Everywhere you go in Bath,’ I continued, ‘people tell you about Jane Austen, that she lived here for a time, she set scenes in
Persuasion
and
Northanger
Abbey
here. The whole architecture of the town is Georgian. You could get rails of clothes from the Georgian and Regency periods into your shop, maybe some Roman costumes too, set up changing
rooms – you could even have the rooms styled in the old-fashioned way – and a photo area. People can come in, pick their costumes, have their pictures taken—’

‘Maybe with a backdrop from the town? One of the crescents or an interior from the period? A fireplace and antique painting behind them?’ Dad added. I sighed with relief. He’d
caught on fast.

‘Yes. And they would have a memento of the day,’ I said. ‘A great photo of themselves in period dress, the whole family, just like we did. What do you think?’

Mum looked over at Dad. ‘I . . . I think it’s a great idea. What do you think, Patrick?’

Dad got up. He was still looking thoughtful but then suddenly he broke into a wide grin. ‘Paige, I believe you might be on to something here. It could work. Course we’d have to turn
the photos round pretty fast so that people wouldn’t have to wait long. That would be crucial but it could done.’ He headed for the door. ‘I’ll just go and call Mike, see
what he thinks, then check a few things online and do a few calculations.’

‘And while the people wait, we could have some merchandise on sale,’ said Mum. ‘Cards, book markers, mementos, candles, ribbons.’

Dad came back in and gave me a bear hug. ‘Paige, you little genius. You might just have saved our bacon!’ He wandered back into the hall while he tried Uncle Mike’s number.

Mum went over to her laptop which was on a table by the window. ‘I’m going to check out Georgian costumes.’

‘And Regency. It was visiting all the vintage shops in Frome that gave me the idea,’ I said. ‘People love dressing up.’

Dad came back in after speaking to Uncle Mike. ‘I’ve left a message,’ he said and sat at the table. ‘Now. We need to do a business plan, research, a marketing
plan.’

‘And I’ll design some backdrops, a logo, think about the interior of the shop.’

‘And merchandise,’ said Dad. ‘We need to find out where we can source the right stuff.’ He sighed. ‘All we need is the financing, so fingers crossed that Mike and
Karen see the potential too.’

‘They will,’ I said, but neither of them were paying me any attention. They were both busy on their laptops researching online. I stood up and bowed. ‘My work here is
done.’

Once in my bedroom, I switched on my laptop and went to Facebook. I felt a shiver of anticipation when I saw that there was a private message from Alex. It didn’t say
much more than what Allegra had told me – that he was heading this way in the morning – but I felt such a rush of excitement. I went to his page, and in his comments space, he’d
written:
Going to Bath to catch up with old friends and new
. I got the feeling I was one of the new.

I decided to scroll down his list of friends to see if I recognised any of the boys from the bands and sure enough there was Callum Casey. Another idea occurred to me. I could also look for
Sarah’s page. I kept on scrolling and then came to a profile photo that I recognised. ‘Ohmigod!’ I gasped and quickly grabbed my phone. I punched in Tasmin’s number.

“Hey, sexy girl,’ she said. ‘Missing me already?’

‘Yes. No. Whatever. Tas, you have to go to Facebook straight away. You’ll never guess what I just saw on Alex Taylor’s page. I was scrolling down looking at his
friends—’

‘Stalker.’

‘I wasn’t stalking him. Oh. Whatever. I was looking for Sarah’s page too.’

‘Good idea,’ said Tasmin. ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’

‘Tas, the photo was there. The black-and-white shot from the back cover of the CD. Someone was using it as their profile picture.’

‘You’re kidding? From
Songs for Sarah
?’

‘Yes.’

‘No way.’

‘Did you check out the page?’

‘I tried to. I couldn’t get in. The privacy setting must be friends only. A message came up saying to see what he shares with friends, send him a friend request.’

‘Bummer. Did you do that?’

‘Not yet. I don’t know if I want him to be able to know all about me, look at my page and so on when I don’t even know who he is.’

‘Could you see anything? Sometimes you can see quite a lot without being a friend. Does it say anything about school or work at the top?

‘I’m looking now. Ohmigod.’

‘What?’

‘In the About section, it says, lives in Bath. So he
is
from here.’

‘Well we kind of knew that. Anything about school?’

‘Nope.’

‘OK, but you can see his friends even if he has privacy settings on. Click on his friends and see if there’s anyone you know. See if there are any Sarahs. Also, are there any mutual
friends?’

‘Good idea. I’ll have a look.’

‘Call me if you see anyone we know.’

‘Will do.’

I went back to the laptop and clicked on the boy’s friends. Tasmin called me back a few moments later. ‘I forgot to ask, what’s his Facebook name?’

‘That’s what’s really weird as well. It’s Will.i.am Shakespeare. I don’t think it’s his real name.’

‘Will.i.am as spelt like the musician from the Black Eyed Peas?’

‘Exactly.’

Mystery Boy

We met, Sarah and I, completely by accident. I was up at the Royal Crescent for the Grand Regency promenade and the crowd of people dressed in the period get-up had just set
off down to town. It was a hoot. Hundreds of them, probably boiling in the hot June weather. Men dressed as soldiers, others on old bikes with one wheel (penny farthings, I think they’re
called), women in long dresses and capes wearing bonnets and carrying parasols. It was like watching a film cast for a Jane Austen movie. When they’d moved off, I went with my mates to bag a
place on the grass in the park and there we were, drinking cans and soaking up the sun when who comes by and spreads out a blanket next to ours? Sarah, with three of her mates.

Course we got chatting, all of us, about music, what schools we go to, what we’d seen in the Regency crowd. All having a laugh, though Ethan, Callum and Finn did most of the talking. She
was friendly to all of us, not seeming to favour any one. I wondered if Ethan fancied her. Finn’s got a girlfriend so he’s not up for grabs and Callum’s gay so he’s not one
to worry about either, though I wasn’t sure whether she’d clocked it. Girls always like Cal. He likes them too, just doesn’t fancy them.

‘You the quiet mysterious one?’ she asked after a while. I hadn’t said much.

My first conversation with her and I couldn’t think of what to say. ‘That’s me. Dark and mysterious.’ It felt weird to be there, looking right into her eyes, the girl
I’d fantasised about for weeks. She was even prettier close up, brown eyes in a heart-shaped face.

‘I like your shades,’ she said.

‘Ta.’ And I like you, I wanted to say but didn’t. Girls don’t like boys to be too keen. They like a challenge.

But at least she now knows my name and we’re all meeting back here next week for the Zoom music festival. A casual arrangement, but is it more than that? Does she want to see me again? All
my mates are in the bands that will be playing so it should be a good day. Will she recognise the music? Has she even listened to the CD? If she has, she’ll know the tracks. Will she wonder
if I’m there? The boy who made
Songs for Sarah
. I almost asked her. It was on the tip of my tongue but I resisted.
Hang back. Be cool
, I told myself. And next week,
I’ll see her again and can see how she reacts to the music in the park.

I went to meet Allegra from the train at ten-thirty the next morning. As I waited, I pulled out my sunglasses and put them on to hide the bags under my eyes.

I was feeling shattered because I’d spent half the night travelling the various mazes of people’s Facebook friends. After I’d found Will.i.am on Alex’s page, I looked at
all his friends. There were loads of musicians there including Callum Casey, who was a mutual friend of both his and Alex’s. In fact, they appeared to have a few mutual friends. I wondered if
they actually knew each other or if, like so many of us, they have thousands of friends on their Facebook lists, some of whom are friends of friends or just at the same school, not real
speak-to-every-day-text-every-hour friends. And so many Sarahs. It was such a popular name. The CD could have been made for any one of them.

It was frustrating looking at all the pages and not knowing who they really were. When Facebook first appeared, everyone at my old school added each other just because we could and it was like a
competition to see who could get the most friends on their list. Only later did Allegra and I start to sift through and unfriend people we didn’t actually know. Alex Taylor had a thousand
friends. He couldn’t possibly know them all, so might not actually know Will.i.am or whatever his real name was.

I made a note of the names of all the mutual friends that Alex had with FB and Will.i.am then went to their lists of friends and did the same.

Once I’d got started, it was addictive. Will.i.am Shakespeare showed up in a few of the lists of friends of friends. So did FB. He had added me as a friend the same day that we met so I
could look at his page easily. I travelled down his lists. Alex was there and amazingly so was Niall Peterson. It appeared from the frequent comments from him that they were good mates. That
surprised me. It didn’t make sense – someone as nice and interesting as FB being a friend of Niall the knob. I had a quick look on Niall’s list of friends to see if Will.i.am was
on there. He wasn’t. I also made a note of all the Sarahs – there were eighty in total!

By about two a.m, I had lists and cross references to some different people. It seemed that most of the teenagers in Bath knew each other. I made a list of all those that I’d found with
Will.i.am on their lists of friends and put it in my bag to take to the Zoom festival in the morning. There were too many Sarahs to write down and I didn’t have the time in the end. If our
plan A – walking around in the
Songs for Sarah
T-shirt – didn’t work, my plan B was to try and find everyone on the Facebook list and ask if they actually knew who
Will.i.am was. Clover and Tasmin might already know some of the names.

When I’d snuggled down into my duvet, I found it hard to sleep, even though it was late. I felt that I was getting close to finding out who the mystery CD maker was and it had occurred to
me that he might even be Alex. It was possible. He had lived down here. And he still came down here regularly, and his cousin was a musician as well as the singer on track number one of the CD. So
the likelihood of the boy I was looking for being Alex was completely plausible.

The London train was five minutes late but soon passengers were spilling out of Bath station into the square. Despite being tired, I had a really good feeling about the day
– mates together in the park listening to good music, and maybe I might get closer to finding out who my mystery boy was. I took a quick look at the list in my bag, cross-referencing who knew
who on Facebook. In the light of day, it made no sense at all – too many names and lines and squiggles – so I put it back in my bag. I stood on tiptoe to see if I could see Allegra, and
there was she was coming through the turnstiles. She looked great as always. Her blonde hair tied back, dressed in skinny jeans and a white linen shirt and fabulous big sunglasses. Her face lit up
when she saw me.

‘Wow, you look amazing, different . . . more relaxed,’ she said after giving me a bear hug. ‘Bath agrees with you and I love the hair.’

I was wearing Clover’s dress, the bolero jacket, a pair of denim blue Converses, my hair loose, and it felt good, like I was finding my style.

‘You look great too,’ I said, but secretly, I thought she looked a bit straight and safe. Probably how Tasmin viewed me when I arrived in Bath. Not that it mattered what Allegra
dressed in. She was such a perfect English rose, she’d look good in a bin liner.

‘Where’s your mum?’ I asked.

Allegra laughed. ‘Driving down later. You know her. Couldn’t get up. I didn’t want to miss the music so she said I could come on the train. She’s texted me about a
million times already though to ask where I am? What time did I arrive? Double-checking that I call her later. She’s on my case twenty-four seven.’