Eighteen Kisses

numbers as they walked past the tables, balancing plates expertly on their arms. I could feel the heat coming from the huge hot plates behind the counter, where a guy was flipping crepes with a spatula. The sweet smells of cooking batter, melting chocolate and burning sugar filled the air. We sat at a small table in the corner. It was a bit crowded, but totally worth it because the crepes were amazing.

‘Do you come up to Dublin much since you moved away?’ asked Dillon, who’d already eaten half of his chicken one.

‘Yeah, a good bit,’ I said. ‘I’ve played a few gigs up here.’

‘I remember seeing you upstairs in Whelan’s once,’ he said. ‘I was there with Mark.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘You played a cover of “Pale Blue Eyes”… I remember cos it’s my favourite song.’

‘That was ages ago,’ I said. ‘Did you want to strangle me?’ I added with a laugh.

‘No!’ he said. ‘It was a really good cover.’

That was nice of him to say, I thought. I loved playing that song – it was one of my favourites too.

‘Most of the time people talk so loud you can hardly hear me, and sometimes there’s only, like, six people in the audience,’ I said with a sigh.

‘There were only six people at U2’s debut gig in London,’ he said with a smile. ‘So you’re in good company.’

I smiled too. Maybe Dillon wasn’t that annoying after all.

I wanted to turn the attention away from me. I love singing and love performing, but I don’t really like talking about myself all that much. ‘So, you want to be a music journalist?’ I said. ‘Who do you most want to interview -’

‘Hayley Williams,’ he answered before I’d even finished the sentence.

‘What would you ask her?’

‘To marry me,’ he said, trying to keep a serious face.

I laughed. I had to admit that he was kind of funny too.

‘I can’t believe we get to meet Willis Middleton,’ he said. ‘That’s class.’

‘He’s meant to be crazy,’ I said. ‘Genius on bass though. Do you play anything?’

‘A bit of piano, but not very well,’ he said.

‘Me too. Gran made me learn, but I much prefer guitar.’ She still asks me to play to her occasionally; I think it’s just so she can make sure that I’m still practising.’

‘You should give your demo to Electric,’ said Dillon. ‘Your stuff is probably so much better than the crap I’ve been listening to all afternoon.’

‘I sent it in to them a while ago,’ I said. ‘Never heard anything though.’

‘I’ll try to find it,’ he said. ‘Move it to the top of the pile.’

My phone beeped and I took it out of my bag. It was a text from Nick.

Hey babe, hope your first day’s going well x

I felt a flood of relief. I was so glad Nick had contacted me. He didn’t mention my angry text from last night at all, but maybe that was a good thing. I’d thought that he might apologize for being cranky, but it was probably best to just forget about it. Every couple has fights; I didn’t have to turn it into a big deal. I was just so happy that everything was OK between us again.

‘Oh gosh, it’s nearly five to!’ I said, spotting the clock on my phone. Dillon and I had been chatting so much that I hadn’t noticed the time pass.

‘We better get goin’,’ said Dillon, gulping down the rest of his Coke.

I rushed out after him, devouring the last bit of my crepe as I ran.

Chapter 8

After work I wandered around town for a while. I was due to meet up with Matt, but that wasn’t for another hour, so I had some time to kill. He’d called me earlier, during my afternoon coffee break, and said he wanted to introduce me to some of the other members of Operation Trail, and also to Kayla’s other half-sister, Hazel. We were going to meet in Rage Rock Bar, where Hazel worked, and where Electric were having their unsigned gig next week. I’d heard lots about the bar before, but I’d never actually been inside it because they were really strict on IDs. It was famous for its Acoustic Tuesdays – on the first Tuesday of every month a different musician would play a live acoustic set. But the cool thing was you never knew who the artist was going to be until they walked out on stage. So you could get a local singer-songwriter, a famous frontman or an international superstar. The guy who owned Rage apparently knew everybody in the music business, so people like Bruce Springsteen and Joni Mitchell had played there in the past. I was really looking forward to visiting it.

As I walked around, I decided to go to a charity shop, the one where I’d found my vintage microphone and pink typewriter. I love browsing in second-hand shops because you find really cool stuff that nobody else has. You have to do some serious rooting though, because the best things are the hardest to find. As I stepped inside, the woman at the counter smiled at me, then turned her attention to the broken porcelain owl that she was gluing back together. Its head had become detached from its body.

I sifted through the clothes, the hangers scraping against the steel rail as I pushed dated blouses and sequined tops aside. There was a musty smell in the air – the kind you just can’t shake from a collection of old objects. I spotted a grey Janis Joplin T-shirt hidden under a denim shirt, and took it out to have a look. It was a little bit big for me, but at one euro it was an absolute bargain, so I decided to buy it. I also looked through the small stack of books they had, searching for any music biographies. I still had lots at home that I hadn’t had a chance to finish yet, but I liked adding to my collection because they were my favourite things to read. There weren’t any this time, but I found a Definitive Guide to Manga for two euro and bought it for Colin.

As I was leaving the shop, my phone started to ring. I thought it might be Sergeant Lawlor. I searched through all the stuff in my bag and finally found it, but it wasn’t him calling me, it was Hannah.

‘Hey,’ I said.

‘You have some nerve.’

‘Um… what?’ I had no idea what she was talking about.

‘When were you going to tell me that you’re in Dublin?’ she said, sounding very annoyed.

‘Oh, sorry, Han, I’ve just been crazy busy and -’

‘Do you know who I had to find out from? Mark. My brother knows more about you than I do.’

He must have been talking to Dillon. I’d forgotten how fast news travels around here.

‘I’m doing work experience,’ I said. ‘It was sort of a last-minute thing.’

‘Yeah, I heard. You’re working at Electric? You kept that quiet. Like… when did this happen?’

‘I only found out the other day; I’ve just been really busy.’ I’d been so caught up in the case I hadn’t even thought to tell Hannah that I was in town.

‘Are you too busy to hang out now?’

‘Well, actually, I have to -’

Hannah did one of her dramatic sighs.

‘Tomorrow,’ I gave in. ‘I’ll meet you after school?’

‘Fine!’ she said, and then hung up. I wasn’t worried – she never stayed mad for long.

I put my phone in my bag and headed for Temple Bar.

I walked through the cobbled streets, past the buskers and groups of tourists, until I arrived at Rage Rock Bar. In the window there was a faded missing-person poster of Kayla, the same picture I had in my bag. Tape was peeling away from the poster’s corners. I pushed open the door and stepped into an almost empty pub. A girl stood in front of the bar. She wore black skinny jeans, a studded belt and a Clash T-shirt. She was quite a bit taller than me, and her black hair was cut into a blunt bob. She was beautiful.

‘Jacki, right?’ she said with a smile.