Page 64 of Backstage

“Technically, they pay to see the Jailbirds, not us,” I say, the others snickering.

“Details,” says Luke with a frown.

“Luke is right. Everything has changed, and you know how I know? Girls on the other side of the world, who have never met me in person, message privately on Instagram to confess their strangest secrets,” says Martin.

We all burst out laughing. It’s evident that girls are into him.

“Don’t laugh, I’m serious. If you think about it, there’s someone on the other side of the ocean who knows we exist. Do you realize how massive this thing is?”

We all get quiet and think. This may sound stupid and shallow, but he’s right. I’ve been forced to block comments and messages because of the hatred I get from the Jailbirds’ fans. Girls are calling my bandmate’s names outside the arenas we play in; since we’ve been added to the Jailbirds tour, our follower numbers have grown by several digits. Sometimes we still find it hard to believe it’s real.

“Do you think at the end of this tour people will still remember us?” I ask curiously.

“I think so...,” Taylor says. “I mean, we have to work on a debut album, but with the record company behind us, it shouldn’t be so hard, right? I mean, that label is huge. We’re not kids recording an album in the basement and then putting it up on iTunes. They’ll promote us, we’ll do interviews, we’ll tour.” He sounds convinced.

We stay quiet a little longer. Our life is really changing, and I realize why Damian gets so angry when it comes to maintaining his privacy. Maybe I’m starting to understand what it’s like to make my life accessible to everyone, even people on the other side of the ocean who don’t know me, and it scares me. I feel like everyone wants a piece of my soul.

*

Martin and I watch in the park as Luke and Taylor play baseball with some guys who approached us a bit ago, asking if we wanted to join them in a game.

“They’re really hopeless, aren’t they? Good thing they chose to be musicians for a living or they would have starved to death,” Martin comments when Luke misses a ball a six-year-old could have caught.

I laugh out loud because it’s true, I’ve never seen anyone play worse than them, including myself. “Seriously, it’s like they’ve got...I don’t know...two left hands or something.”

Martin laughs his head off and then gets up, giving me a slight shove. “Look, I’m sick and tired of watching them make a fool of themselves. Do you want to go get a milkshake?”

Martin and his milkshakes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone more obsessed; he’s almost got an exclusive relationship with vanilla ones, and thinking about it makes me laugh. He really is a kid in some ways. “Gladly.” I grab his hand and stand up.

It takes us an hour and a half to find a place where they make milkshakes because, according to Martin, what’s so great about walking around a new city if you have to watch a screen? I agree with him, but I would have gladly used Google maps to find the place after forty-five minutes. We crossed the river, walked through Cambridge with its red brick houses, passed by the MIT Museum, and climbed a bit further until Martin decided that there was nothing on this side that interested him. We went back, crossed the river again using a different bridge, and ended up at Shake Shak, a place near the park where we were lying down. I’m thinking about killing him.

The guy behind the counter hands us our two drinks, and when I go to get my wallet out, Martin stops me. “It’s on me.” He smiles at me while he’s paying, and we leave the cafe looking for a bench with a view of the water.

“Thank you, but you didn’t have to.”

“I want to make it up to you for the mess I made,” he confesses, looking down guiltily.

“What mess? You didn’t do anything.”

“When I told the whole dinner you two were fucking?” He gives me a half smile.

I burst out laughing and point to a bench. “It’s not your fault, we’d get caught sooner or later, it’s not something you can keep secret for long.” I hug him and give him a light kiss on the cheek.

Martin smiles and ruffles my hair like he usually does when he doesn’t know what to say and feels embarrassed.

“Did you know we were almost caught doing it in a hall bathroom before a concert one time? We stood motionless and didn’t breathe with him between my legs until we heard the voices going away. Needless to say, we didn’t finish,” I confess, amused, to make him feel a little less guilty.

If he hadn’t brought it up, maybe we could have kept it more discreet, but now the damage is done and I don’t want Martin to feel any more guilty than he already does. Those were hard days for me, who was attacked on several fronts, and for the band, who were asked questions they couldn’t answer. In short, we had to learn quickly how to move into this environment and what to do to survive.

“I don’t even want to know where you two had sex,” he admits with a disgusting and, at the same time, amused grimace. I burst out laughing and he adds, “Remember, at the beginning of the tour, you were worried we might have sex in the TV room on the bus? Now it turns out you’re the only one using it for that.”

We both laugh at that.

“That’s not true. You have girls around you too!” I joke and push him a little bit.

“Don’t think it’s that easy. They’re either too young, and we can’t trust them to make any moves because we don’t know if they’re underage or not, or they’re older and much more experienced than us. Do you know how terrifying it can be for a guy when an older woman wants to take you to bed, and you suddenly feel like a high school kid, insecure and full of pimples?” he asks with a smile, but a seriousness in his voice.

I’d never seen it like that, I thought guys had a lot less trouble, but I realize now that they too have a lot of insecurities and, like us girls, they’re afraid of not being up to it.

---