Katie Cox Goes Viral Read online

  In fact, I got so caught up in thinking about how the chorus would loop into the verse and back that I’d sort of forgotten what we were doing there in the first place. It was only when we got to what had to be the biggest building on earth that I remembered again.

  “Wow.” Adrian looked up at this kind of infinite glass-roof thing that reflected us into a billion chopped-up pieces. “Tony’s done well for himself.” He glanced at the massiveness all around us, and it was as though he was literally shrinking. “We were pals,” he said like he was trying to convince himself it was true. “He was a good guy.”

  I tried to imagine Adrian being pals with someone like I was friends with Lacey. Tried to picture him talking to them late at night on the phone, but I just couldn’t. Possibly because cell phones hadn’t been invented then. Maybe landlines hadn’t either. He was pretty old.

  “Are we going in?”

  “Yeah,” said Adrian, fumbling his way through the revolving door and tripping over his own feet.

  I followed him in. The walls were made of this kind of ripply, shiny stuff, and there were TVs inside the tables and on the pillars and basically all the places you’d least expect to find a TV. They probably had them in the toilets too.

  It looked like a film set—one where the movie was all about a billionaire who lived in the future. On Mars.

  We stood frozen for a second.

  “Well?” I said.

  “I haven’t seen him since that afternoon,” said Adrian at last, and he looked down at the floor, which was glowing. And at the table covered in glossy magazines. “We didn’t leave on the best of terms.”

  “Chill,” I said. Not that I was feeling especially chilled.

  At which point he took a big breath and went up to the reception desk.

  “Hi, there. I’m Adrian Lambeth, and this is Katie Cox. We’re here to see Tone.”

  “Tone?” said the lady, who might have been a cyborg.

  “Tone. Eee. Tony Topper.”

  “Of course,” said Robo-Woman. “Take a seat.”

  We went and sat down, and I watched the different TVs playing Karamel videos.

  “They what you listen to at school?” Adrian asked, nodding toward the screens.

  “I’d rather saw off my own ears,” I said.

  He tried to take his big jacket off and got an arm stuck, and seriously, it was the most embarrassing thing in the world.

  “So,” I said quietly, “I was thinking maybe you could wait out here.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll give you a complete rundown of everything he says.” Then, because this didn’t seem to be going down too well, I said, “I’ve got a really good memory. Not in a photographic way, but I’ll definitely be able to tell you the gist of the conversation, and—”

  “Ade!”

  The voice boomed across the reception area, echoing up into the glass ceiling.

  “T-Tony? You all right? It’s b-been a while.”

  “Buddy! I didn’t think you’d make it! How’ve you been?”

  “This is Katie.”

  “Hi, Katie. Boy, it’s been forever, Ade. How many years? Come through, come through. So, you married yet? Gemma’s always asking about you, you old dog…”

  London, Yeah

  Trafalgar Square and then Big Ben

  Bond Street and Covent Garden

  Greenwich and the Cutty Sark

  And a really massively big Primark

  Put your hands in the air

  For London, yeah

  Camden Town and Kensington

  Notting Hill and Wimbledon

  Leicester Square and Regent’s Park

  And a really massively big Primark

  Put your hands in the air

  It’s London, yeah

  Take me to the bridge

  London Bridge

  Or the Millennium Bridge

  Either is good

  Put your hands in the air

  For London, yeah

  Put your hands in the air

  It’s London, yeah

  [repeat until exhausted]

  Tony was about the same age as Adrian—whatever that was—and the same kind of build too, sort of fleshy, with a big face.

  Which sounds like they were really similar, but they weren’t at all. Because this guy, he was rich.

  There are people at school who clearly have more money than me. You can tell because they come back from Christmas vacation all tanned. And they have designer bags and clothes and will not stop talking about them. I know more about Savannah’s Juicy Couture jeans than I do about some of my cousins.

  Tony was different though. He seemed rich all the way through. I’d hardly looked at him, but I could see he had the sort of ripped, rumpled clothes you only get if you spend zillions on them, stubble far too exact to be an accident, and teeth so white it was bananas. Like he’d put some fake ones into his mouth and then coated them in Wite-Out.

  “You look great,” said Adrian. “Seriously, buddy.”

  “I’m just back from the Caribbean. You should’ve seen me before I went. Kurt, from Karamel—you know Karamel, right?—he was telling me I needed to take a break before I dropped down dead. And he was right.”

  “So you’ve been busy these last few years,” said Adrian as we shot up two floors in an elevator that was all mirrors, giving me a great view my own behind. “Since…since everything.”

  “Yup, yup,” said Tony. “Started the label small, meant to keep it that way, but Crystal Skye went platinum, and then we just had to try to keep up, you know.”

  Crystal Skye was one of those people you heard everywhere—in stores, in cafes, in toilets… Her music was supposed to be relaxing, all plinky-plonky piano and the sound of rushing water. Which, come to think of it, probably explains the whole toilet thing.

  “So”—Tony glanced back at Adrian as we swung into a corridor smelling strongly of perfume—“you’re not in the industry anymore?”

  “No, not anymore,” said Adrian, and I wondered if Tony could hear the regret as easily as I could. “Got the shop now. Keeps me busy.”

  “In town?”

  “Little place called Harltree. Not very far from here.”

  “And are you married?”

  “No ring yet, but I’ve got a great girl—Zoe, Katie’s mom. It’s not all this”—Adrian waved his hand around as though five fingers could sum up the palace of amazingness that was Top Music—“but I’m doing pretty well, given what happened.”

  Tony nodded. Then, a second later, he was thumping Adrian on the back and saying, “Good for you, pal. I’m glad it all worked out.”

  We ended up in the biggest room ever. In the middle was an enormous table with twelve huge chairs all the way around. On the wall behind each chair was a big black-and-white photo: one of Karamel, one of Crystal Skye, and in the middle of the biggest table in the world was a really small plate of cookies.

  “Take a seat, take a seat,” said Tony waving his hand, which I think might have pretty recently had a manicure.

  I sat down as near to the cookies as I possibly could, but even then they were still way out of my reach.

  “So, Katie, here's my card—let me tell you a little about us. We’re Top Music. We’ve got some of the UK’s biggest artists—”

  “Wow,” I said, turning the card over in my hand. It said, “Tony Topper, CEO, Top Music.” There was a phone number and an email address. In gold.

  “We’re doing great things, Katie, and we’ve seen your video. And we love it.”

  So it turns out that dreams do come true. And not just the one where everyone in my class is laughing because Devi Lester has squeezed mustard in my hair.

  “You do?”

  “We do.”

  “Really?”
r />   “Yes!”

  Adrian cut in. “What do you like about it?”

  Tony looked me in the eye. “You’re so real, Katie. It is just you—your bedroom, your talent. We love it. Everything’s so overproduced these days.”

  “By you!” said Adrian.

  Tony held up those well-groomed hands. “Guilty as charged! But then, you haven’t heard some of our guys in their raw state.” He leaned in, and I caught a whiff of musky aftershave. “Crystal Skye can’t sing at all.”

  I found myself giggling. “She can’t?”

  “Nope. But you…you can sing.”

  “Um, thanks.”

  “So tell me—where do you see yourself going? Creatively, I mean.”

  I leaned over and took a cookie. No one had ever asked me where I was going creatively. No one had ever cared.

  “Er. Well, I’ve got lots more songs. I’ve been keeping them in a lyric book. Lots of lyric books, actually, because I’ve been writing songs for years and years.”

  “Not planning on giving up anytime soon, then?”

  “No! In fact, I think I’ve got one in my bag somewhere… Hold on.” I dug through my backpack. There was my English folder, a charger for my old phone, my sunglasses case, several pens, some broken headphones wrapped around my sunglasses, and…there it was. With half a Mars Bar stuck to the front.

  I picked off the Mars Bar and placed the book triumphantly onto the glass table.

  “May I?” said Tony. He flipped through it.

  “Most of the songs are ready to go,” I said, shoving my English folder back in again and managing to flip the rest of the bag’s contents onto the floor. “There’s ‘Respect Your Waist,’ which is about body issues and stuff.” I retrieved a balled-up tissue from behind Tony’s chair. “And this one’s called ‘Mobility Scooting on the Pavement.’ It’s about, well, mobility scooting on the pavement. I’m sorry, I’ve gotten lip gloss all over your rug.”

  And while I wouldn’t have chosen to pitch my future career while on my hands and knees scrambling through a pile that included a broken necklace from Mango and one of Amanda’s socks, it did at least feel quite authentically me.

  “These look great.”

  “So, Okay, ‘Respect Your Waist’ starts with a kind of strumming thing, just a few bars, then drums, one, two, one two three, and then the melody kicks in—”

  “You’re like a young Crystal Skye,” said Tony, closing the book and placing it back down on the table. “So much energy. This is just like the conversation I had with her all those years ago.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Tony glanced up at Adrian and then smiled. “Katie, how would you like to join us at Top Music?”

  “Hold on.” Adrian was leaning across, reaching for my book. “Don’t you want to hear any of this?”

  “No need. I think I’ve heard more than enough. Katie?”

  “That’s… Sorry… I’m just a little overwhelmed. Um, maybe a cookie would help?” He passed me the plate, and I ate three to calm my nerves. “So what does that mean? Like if I go with you. Not that it’s an if. I mean, when. When I do, what happens?”

  “You go into the studio and lay down ‘Just Me.’ And then we start thinking about a tour, build up your fan base as soon as possible, an album…and then if it all goes well, you, Katie Cox, are a superstar!”

  A tour. An album.

  “When can we start?” I said.

  “We’ll have to think about all this,” said Adrian. “Won’t we, Katie?” Then, to Tony, “This is all going faster than we’d thought. Decisions like these can’t be made in a rush. We’ll go home, talk it through”—he threw me a panicked glance—“really think about what’s right. And Katie’s not going on tour while school’s in session. That’s nonnegotiable.”

  “What? We can totally negotiate!” I said.

  Tony spread his hands on the glass table. They were even more perfect than Savannah’s, and she gets her nails done every Saturday morning in town. “There’s no hurry. You take all the time you need.”

  “Thank you,” I said, casting a triumphant look in Adrian’s direction.

  “Although I would say that we shouldn’t wait too long. I had a look at your analytics, and your hits are still going up, but not at the same rate they were even a day ago. You can’t afford to lose momentum on this. And of course, we need to strike before the backlash.”

  “Backlash?”

  “It’s inevitable. There’ll be haters, trolls, maybe someone will send you a teddy bear cut in half or something—nothing to worry about. The important thing is to have a new story ready, regain control of the conversation…”

  Adrian was tilting his head in a way that meant, Let’s talk about this outside. I pretended not to notice. And when that became impossible because it started to look like he was going to break his neck, I pretended I didn’t get it. There was just no way I was going to leave the room. I mean, there are times you can go off into the corner to have a quiet talk about stuff, but while someone is offering you the chance of a lifetime is really not one of them.

  “Do you mind if I just borrow Katie for a minute?” said Adrian.

  “Sure, sure,” said Tony.

  Adrian didn’t ask if I minded—he just yanked me out the door, Tony politely pretending he hadn’t noticed that I was being pulled along by the back of my jacket.

  Only, because the office had a glass wall, even once we were outside, we were still basically standing next to him.

  “Come here,” said Adrian, heading back toward the elevators. We went and stood next to an indoor palm tree, which wasn’t the most private place in the world, but hey.

  “I’m not sure about this,” said Adrian.

  “I know,” I said. “Next time you want to talk to me, can you please not semi-kidnap me first?”

  “I mean, with him. In there.”

  I didn’t think Adrian was as a complete idiot, just a partial one. Even so, I decided I would have to spell it out. “He is offering to record ‘Just Me.’ He wants me to make an album. How is that not right?”

  “It’s too fast. It’s wrong. We should be having a longer conversation. This is… It’s not…”

  “So you think that me being offered a record deal is wrong?”

  Adrian leaned against the palm tree, which wobbled. “No. Yes! I think this deal is wrong. We should’ve approached a few other places, waited… Don’t look at me like that. This is only because I care about you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “All I’m saying is that we leave it for now, go home, talk it over, and go from there.”

  “But you heard what Tony just said. There’s no time for that! He wants to make me a superstar, but if we don’t start now, then it’s over!” My voice cracked. “Before it’s even started.”

  “You have the rest of your life to write music,” said Adrian.

  “What, like you?”

  Even I knew that was harsh.

  I guess that’s why he didn’t reply but just looked down at his feet as I turned around and went back into the office, where Tony was waiting for me.

  He smiled like everything was fine. And it was, I told myself. Just because Adrian’s having a freak-out. It doesn’t mean anything.

  “One thing,” said Adrian from behind me. “Just let me ask: what’s the catch?”

  “There isn’t one,” said Tony.

  “Of course there’s a catch, you old dog,” said Adrian. “I know you, Tony.”

  It was one thing to say all this while hiding behind a fake palm tree. It was another to say it to the man’s actual face—and after he’d been so incredibly nice and basically offered me my dream on a plate. As well as a plate of really excellent cookies. I felt like one of those old-fashioned teakettles. You know, the ones that shriek.

  Tony l
eaned back in his chair. “Do you ever think about the old days, Adrian?”

  “Nah,” said Adrian. “I mean, yeah, a bit. A little bit. Yeah.”

  “Me too,” said Tony. “We were something, weren’t we?”

  “Yeah,” said Adrian. “We were.”

  “I meant to say: I loved your work on Katie’s video. Are you sure you haven’t been doing a few gigs over the years?”

  “Ha!” said Adrian, looking away. “I might’ve done the odd folk night down at the pub. But—”

  “Because your technique—it’s old school. You’re the real deal, Ade. You could show those Karamel boys a thing or two.”

  “Well…” Adrian was grinning, even while trying not to. “I guess I could give them a lesson.”

  “I was thinking more about some session work on the album. Their new single has a retro vibe I think you’d really like. We could make a big deal about it. Feature you in the next video. Maybe not a bad idea to give the moms a reason to fork out some money for their little darlings too. You would be building a whole new fan base.”

  “I’m in a very steady relationship,” said Adrian, but I could see he was pretty flattered.

  “Well,” said Tony, “just something to think about. Maybe while you’re thinking about Katie.”

  “I don’t know,” said Adrian.

  I must have sighed or made a little noise or something because something inside of him seemed to collapse, and Adrian said, “It’s your call, Katie.”

  Tony turned to me and held out his hand. “So do we have a deal?”

  I had this very, very strange feeling.

  That if I said yes, I could stop being the girl who had a half-eaten Mars Bars shoved into her bag. Who had pimply skin and a messy room and a brick for a phone, who had to save up if she wanted to buy new strings for her guitar. The girl with big thighs who’d never been on a trip farther than Plymouth. I was about to burst free from her, leave her behind like an old skin.