"Right after Pencey broke up," Gerard added, glancing at Mikey.
The minutes she'd spent awake jolted into her mind again. "Oh," she said. "I didn't realize."
Mikey shrugged. "Dunno if we'll still be able to use their practice space. We might have to jam in the basement for awhile."
"Okay," Rae said. Pencey had been bigger than them, with CDs and merch. She swallowed hard. "I, um, I should get dressed."
Everyone was quiet on the ride over. They hauled their shit into the room before any of them noticed Frank sitting against the wall inside.
"Oh, hey, Iero," Matt finally said.
Frank nodded. Mikey kicked the sole of his shoe with his own foot, raising an eyebrow.
"I've got other projects," Frank said.
Rae nodded and started playing.
They sucked. Frank didn't say a word.
||
"Fuck no."
"Fuck yeah. " Frank bounced back on the balls of his feet, head whipping from side to side, like he thought he could glare the four of them into submission. "Look, I went through fucking hell sucking up to everyone in sight, okay? You made a demo tape in two weeks, you can do this shit."
"It was more than two weeks, technically."
"Fuck. No," Matt said again.
"Thanks," Mikey said quietly.
Frank shrugged. "You guys are going places, even if you're stupid."
Rae flipped through the sheet music. She had more lines than three of her could play, and if they were going to be recording, she'd have to trim them down, streamline and...
She looked at Frank, watched as he kicked Gerard in the shins and tugged his own hair. Maybe.
"Maybe," she said out loud. "It's a good opportunity, at least."
"And we should make a CD. That's what this was about." Gerard poked Frank in the stomach. "Doing something big."
"A CD's not big, asshole," Frank said, but he was smiling. "Seriously, your asses are getting in the studio. I'll blackmail you if I have to. Tell your moms, or some shit."
"Studios are for pussies," Matt said. "They fuck with your sound."
"That doesn't even make any sense," Rae said.
"Sure it does. Producers are fucking bullies, and studios are for candy-assed wannabes."
"Are you saying Geoff is going to bully us?" Gerard shook his head. "Man, sorry. You've been overruled."
Matt glared, but Frank clapped her on the back and called Geoff right there.
||
"It's missing something," Rae said, crumbling up the line of music and tossing the paper at the trashcan. "Hell if I know what, though."
"You could add another guitar part."
"And grow two more hands?"
"You don't think -" Gerard stopped, frowning. "Nah, he probably wouldn't."
She reached out with a food, poking his thigh. "Who wouldn't what?"
"Frank," Gerard said. "I mean, if we're talking about adding another person..."
She'd thought about it plenty of times since the first time it had occurred to her, but the only conclusion she'd been able to arrive at was 'maybe'. "We'll see," she said finally.
It might have stayed a "we'll see" for a lot longer than two days if Geoff hadn't come to see them practice. He was a friend, of course – or rather, he was Mikey's friend, and pretty decent to the rest of them. He was also the guy who'd be producing them, though, and that fact alone was enough to make Rae pay attention.
Halfway through practice, she decided. "Call Frank," she told Mikey afterwards. "Ask him."
"Ask him what?" Geoff said, slouching against the wall.
"We're thinking about adding another guitarist," Mikey said.
"Wait. What?" Matt said.
Geoff laughed until even Mikey got tired of it and punched his arm.
||
"Mother fucker," Frank said, and tackled Rae, burying his face in her midriff.
"Um," she said, patting his head.
"What did you want me to play?" He stared at her, bouncing and – fuck, she thought, he was nervous. That barely even made sense. "Specific parts? Because I had a few ideas, but I don't know if - "
"Go for it," Rae said. "I had some ideas, but it's your show."
"Our show," he said. "Awesome."
She didn't see him again until they picked him up on the way to Geoff's. "I had a few ideas," he said, talking rapidly and chewing on a pencil. "Just, yeah, most of the songs...fuck, we can fit in later, but one or two, I've got some ideas for one or two."
She nodded. "Go for it, man."
He was still sitting in the back when they went in to record. "I'm going to yank my fucking tooth out," Gerard said as Otter knocked.
She patted his arm as comfortingly as she knew how, and they went in.
||
Geoff wasn't as hands-off as Rae, had she thought about it, would have expected. Then again, she'd never been in a band that was successful enough to think about making a record, let alone going to the studio and having an actual producer.
They recorded a lot by the seat of their pants, putting what felt to Rae like half-songs to the test in the studio. Frank mostly kept his head down, playing his parts note-perfect and always deferring to Rae.
But then Monroeville happened. "I've got a line I could do for this," Frank said. "It needs lightening up."
"Lightening up? It's a song about vampires and dying and shit."
"And it needs lightening up. Just trust me, okay?"
She shook her head. "It's too late to make changes."
Experience told her he'd back down, but instead he shook his head, looking stubborn. "This is one that needs to be made."
Even when she'd admitted the need, she hadn't been sure of him. Now – now he was telling her he knew better than she did, and she didn't know what to think. She knew damn good and well she wasn't right all the time, but she'd almost gotten used to getting her way anyway with Frank.
It was that semi-shameful fact that finally made her give in. "Fine. Write it and we'll see."
"Done and done," he said, handing her a sheet of paper.
It was good. Fuck, of course it was good. "You'll have to slow it down here," she said, pointing to the first verse. "You can't cram all that in right away."
"But I can play it."
The tension was ridiculous. She sighed. "If you slow it down."
Frank nodded. "You know you're the only person who could say that like that?"
She blinked. "What?"
"Just, you know." He waved a hand. "Look at the sheet and say, oh, this is wrong."
"I didn't say it was wrong."
"Not the point." He crossed his arms. "Come on, seriously. You know what I mean."
She shook her head.
"Just – making suggestions. Knowing shit about the music just by looking."
It was a pretty straightforward compliment, really. She smiled. "Thanks."
"Yeah, well. I want to be in a good band, not one where the lead guitarist doesn't even know her strengths."
Mikey knocked on the door of the van. "Hey, Geoff says get in here or he'll kill you. Um, with your guitar strings. It sounded painful."
"We're coming, we're coming." Frank glanced at Rae before pulling her into the building.
The song worked, of course. After recording, Rae let out a breath and tried to relax, watching the others pack their equipment away.
"Okay?" Geoff said quietly.
"It's a little weird. We're learning a lot, and believe me, I'm glad you agreed to help us, it's just..."
"Feeling each other out? It gets easier."
"Frank and I don't always see eye to eye."
"Well, you are a giant. Kidding," he said quickly. "It'll work out."
"Yeah." She stood. "Tomorrow?"
"Bright and early. See you."
Frank claimed the spot next to her in the van. He was like that a lot, cocky and demonstrative to keep the peace between all five of them. It'll work, she thought again, and joined in on trying to convince Gerard to see a decent dentist.
||
She didn't really remember when she'd taken up smoking, except it had been sometime between the end of college and the beginning of this band. It was a definite habit now, though; she couldn't even count the number of times she'd gone up to smoke on Geoff's mom's front porch.
"We're all a bunch of fucking failures," Gerard said, crinkling the sheet she'd handed him into a ball and throwing it on the ground.
"Don't litter," she said. "We're not."
"Frank's not. Mikey had a chance not to be. So did you, really."
"And you?" She poked him hard. "You were going to be a cartoonist. But you didn't want to be, so failing would've been sticking with that, not doing what we're doing."
"My tooth really fucking hurts," Gerard said piteously.
She couldn't think of anything to say, so she hugged him instead.
||
The day they finished recording, Mikey invited Rae out to get falling-down drunk. "It's not tradition," he said. "Obviously. But we could start one."
She didn't want to be a girl any more than she already was and admit how much finishing it was affecting her, so instead she just shook her head. "I'm really tired, I need to crash."
"Crash at our place?"
"Jesus, Mikey, stop trying to kidnap her." Frank grinned at Rae. "He's a creep, isn't he?"
Rae's attention was on Mikey, though. He looked shifty – beyond that, he looked embarrassed. "It's cool," she said. "It's a long drive back to my place anyway."
"Feels weird, doesn't it?" Mikey said quietly after Gerard had gone to bed. They were on the couch, Rae stretched out and Mikey half-hugging her ankles. "We're done."
The thought made her feel half sick. "We're not done," she said firmly. "We're just...it's a beginning. We're beginning."
The basement smelled like mold and socks. The thought of having a CD, their CD, was only marginally less strange than the thought of leaving the basement in favor of rockstardom.
"That works," Mikey said. It was a little bizarre, how much he sounded like he believed her.
||
Geoff called them a week later. "So do you want to see it or what?"
They almost broke each other piling into the van and driving over. Frank was the first out and thus the first to tackle Geoff, yell, "Thanks!" and run to the nearest boom box, CD in hand.
They listened to it twice, taking turns falling over each other saying thank you. Even Matt got a little lovey-dovey.
The celebration didn't stop once they got back to the Ways'. Frank waved the CD excitedly. "Our fucking album," he said for what felt like the hundredth time, "our album we're going to tour with."
"Our fucking album you're gonna whack my nose with," Mikey said, and hit Frank's arm – but since Mikey was the laziest hitter in the world, it didn't even slow Frank down.
"I think you can hear my pain in all the vocals," Gerard said. He chomped on the wad of cotton in his mouth meditatively. "Don't you think you can hear my pain in all the vocals?"
"Totally," Rae said.
He brightened. "And touring and shit, 'cause we have a CD now, so...yeah. Mission accomplished."
"Man, touring's going to rock. Doritos and beer and sex." Frank pumped his fist.
"And playing," Mikey said.
Frank waved a hand dismissively. "Uh-huh."
"Touring," Gerard said again. "Because...we have a CD. Touring. Right."
Rae narrowed her eyes. Gerard looked twitchy like a weasel. "Hey, Gee, I need to talk to you," she said.
Gerard looked at her like she was crazy. So did the rest of the band, actually. "About what?"
"Girl stuff," Rae said.
"But I'm not a - "
Rae grabbed his arm and hauled him into Geoff's Mom's pantry.
"- girl," Gerard said. "Are you on your period? Do you need tampons? I have money, you can buy some if you need them."
Rae forced herself to talk through the blush. "I have tampons at my house. What exactly did you mean, mission accomplished?"
"Um." Gerard chewed his lip. "Well, we made an album, right? That's what we wanted."
"Right, you can totally save the world with one crappy album and a brand new band."
Gerard wrinkled his nose, shoulders drooping and head falling. For a second Rae stopped seeing their singer and flashed back to the creepy art student, Mikey's weird big brother. The social reject who couldn't even meet someone's eyes, much less front a band. "Don't even think about it," she said.
"Think about what?" Gerard peeked at her through his hair. "I wasn't expecting to even make an album, you know."
Right, of course, she didn't say. The rest of us dropped everything for a band you didn't expect to even make a shitty first album. Thanks for all the faith.
"Well, we did," she said finally. "That's what happens when you put out a demo, you know, people listen and get psyched."
"Psyched. Yeah, I know."
Rae raised her eyebrows. "And you can't quit yet. Mikey's in the band too, remember? You're making his dream come true, practically."
"That's playing dirty," Gerard said, looking torn. "Seriously dirty."
Rae didn't move. "We believe in you. Come on, Gerard."
"Fine," he said finally. "Fuck." He pulled – Xanax? Wellbutrin? She'd only glanced at the labels and the bottles all looked the same – from his pocket and swallowed two dry. "Right. Gerard Way's going to save the world."
It wouldn't occur to her until much later to consider that a warning sign.
||
"Are you sure," Mikey said flatly.
Frank grinned and nodded. "It's perfect."
"But you're sure."
"Hell yeah I'm sure."
Rae shrugged when Mikey looked at her. "I think it's kind of dumb."
"That's the point," Frank said. "I – I fucking love this band, you know? But more than that, I'm tired of messing around. This is it. I'm not going to let us slack off on this for some shitty-ass desk job."
"So it's this or Burger King?" Mikey said.
Frank just nodded.
Rae was the first to hand over the money. "Not that I don't think it's stupid," she said, dumping the quarter on top of the twenty into Frank's hand before giving him the bill itself, "but it's the right kind of stupid, I guess."
Frank hugged her tight before turning around, sticking his hand in the other's faces. "Gimme."
She wasn't really surprised when they all coughed up all the wrinkled, damp, and stained bills they could find.
The tattoo was raw-looking when he came back, almost shiny enough to be fake. Gerard was too drunk to stare, but he laughed, spilling beer all down Frank's front. "Your fucking parents are going to fucking kill you," he said, poking Frank's jaw.
"Fuck off." Frank ducked to the side, scorpion inches from Rae's nose.
"You're so screwed," she said finally. She'd caught his arm automatically, and she used it now to pull him into a hug.
He wiggled. "Jesus. This is a band full of saps."
"You knew that when you agreed to join," Mikey said. "And Matt's a total badass."
"Matt's a total asshole," Frank said.
It was a mark of how much he already thought he belonged that he said it so easily. "We try not to point it out too much," Rae said.
"Yeah." He touched the tattoo and winced. "So anyway, my parents are going to kill me. I'm thinking knuckle tats next."
She shook her head. "What are you going to do when the band falls through?"
The punch was hard and unexpected. He shoved her down afterwards. "It's not going to."
He didn't look angry, exactly. She'd have been able to fight him if he was angry. "Okay," she said. It was surprisingly easy. "Okay. You're right, it won't."
"Goddamn right I'm right. Oh, and I got us a gig."
"A gig?"
"Shut the fuck up." He grinned at her. "It's just a little thing, I talked to Jamia and she knows a lot of people, so..."
"We've got a long way to go." She bumped shoulders with him. "I just keep forgetting you're going to help us get there, you know?"
"You don't have a choice now. I won't get hired for shit with this on my neck."
He sounded half-giddy, half-terrified; she heard what felt like dozens of her own self-doubting and somehow still endlessly hopeful nights in his voice. She leaned back against the van and patted the space next to her. "We're playing tonight, too. Save your energy."
Frank snickered, but sat next to her.
||
"So, hey," the short guy said.
Rae blinked down at him. "Hi?"
"I'm not hitting on you," the guy said. "Well, I mean. You're cute and all, but not really my type."
"Okay," Rae said slowly.
"What's going on?" Frank jumped on Rae's back. "Oh. Hi, Brian."
"You know him?"
"Yeah, totally. What's up, man?"
"He's not hitting on me. Ow, fuckhead," she said, grabbing Frank's leg to keep him from kneeing her in the kidneys again.
"I hope not." Frank's hands appeared in her line of vision, waving crazily. "State your purpose!"
"I was just going to a show for fun." Brian raised his eyebrows. "But I'd like to manage your band, actually."
"Manage our – what?"
"Your band," Brian said patiently.
"My – oh. Gerard's."
"It's your band, too," Frank said.
"It's all our band, but he started it. He's the one you need to talk to." Rae pointed to Gerard, slumped drunkenly over the bar.
"Really." He sounded flat-out skeptical.
She'd given up on trying to look or sound intimidating, or even really convincing. "If you believe in the band, you should at least talk to him."
"Okay, okay." He held up his hands. "I'm going."
"He's going to turn Brian down, you know," Frank said as soon as Brian had left. "He's just adjusting to the idea of playing shows and having an album out, there's no way he's going to go for the touring, manager-having, serious stuff."
She patted his side awkwardly. "You wanna have a manager who gives up first thing?"
"I never said Brian wouldn't win him over." He grinned. "I gotta piss. Carry me."
It was lucky she wasn't the person Brian had to win over, really, since she was so easily persuadable.
||
Brian was a good guy, which was important, and good at Gerard-sitting, which Rae privately thought was slightly more important. Matt liked him, but Matt liked most people who gave him beer; Mikey, though, was a coup.
It helped that he came to all the shows. That kind of loyalty would win anyone over, and Mikey, no matter how hard he was to crack, was still human.
Mikey admitting him in was somehow both subtle and simultaneously glaringly obvious. They'd been living like monks for a few weeks in preparation for this show; it was one of the biggest they'd played so far, and afterwards they pooled their money and went to Denny's.
They were about to leave when Mikey looked over Rae's shoulder and said, "Hey, are you coming?"
Brian didn't say no, of course.
It turned out he knew pretty much everyone in the local scene, a bunch of people in the region, and a few people nationally. It boggled Rae's mind a little that some short, over-earnest guy who was spending way too much time courting a band that was still mostly promise had already made that many connections, but then, it was Brian.
"And you're one to talk," Brian said when she told him.
She didn't have to ask what he meant. "That's a little different, don't you think?"
"No," Brian said plainly.
She couldn't really argue that, so she switched tacts. "What do you have lined up for us, then? Spot on TRL? Interview with Letterman?"
"Touring in filthy cars with no guarantee of food or a place to sleep," Brian said, grinning.
"Good enough for me."
||
Two not-really-tours later, Rae and Mikey were sitting on a bench outside the McDonald's the others were still eating in, practicing for their next show.
"It's been months. Think Gerard will ever decide we're enough of a band to hire him for real?" Rae moved Mikey's fingers down the bass's fret a bit and went back to her guitar.
Mikey shrugged, fingers slipping back to their old position. "I think Brian's still more convinced than Gerard, at this point."
"But?" She reached out and held his hand still, demonstrating how he was supposed to play.
Mikey didn't look away from her, but she felt his fingers stiffen a little, holding them the way she'd put them. "He likes Gerard and Gerard likes him. That's kind of a huge point in his favor, since most of Gee's favorite people are animated."
Rae raised her eyebrows. "That explains you being nice to me, I guess."
"Whatever." Mikey rolled his eyes at her. "I think I've got it."
"Oh! Right." She pulled back, gritting her teeth and trying not to blush. There wasn't really a reason, but she blushed about almost everything, and...yep, definitely blushing. "Okay, from the top."
Three days later, Gerard called a band meeting to discuss hiring Brian. Four days after that, Brian started making calls to venues, setting up a tour. Rae thought of playing in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, all of New England and then – fuck, the South, the Midwest, all the way across the country.
"If you're good enough," Brian said. "We have to start small."
The shows after that were tense for all of them, apprehension and excitement mixing together. Even Mikey took a few steps forward sometimes, smiled a little at Gerard or Frank. Rae didn't know if he even looked at her; she watched the floor of the stage or the wall behind the crowd, trying not to make eye contact. It was fun and good, and she headbanged and generally rocked out without worrying about the catcalls or the insanity in the pit.
"I had news," Gerard slurred after an hour of playing and three hours of drinking. "Shit, fuck. News. Tell you in the morning."
Brian had chewed them out for not always having a designated, so they made doubly sure now. Tonight, Frank was it. "Get in the car, asshole," he said, clapping a hand on Gerard's back.
"News? Shoulda told us." Rae was drunk, but not trashed. A guy had hit on her earlier, maybe, but she was pretty sure she'd turned him down. If he'd been hitting on her to begin with. Sometimes you just wanted coffee in your apartment, and that could have been one of those times. But if he did want to fuck her...huh. "I totally could've done him."
"He had a naked girl tattoo." Mikey's head lolled onto Gerard's shoulder. "You can't do a guy with a naked girl tattoo."
"Can so." Rae met Frank's eyes in the rearview mirror. "Stop wishing you were drunk too and drive, Peewee."
"I will make you walk the fuck home, Toro," Frank said, but started the car.
She'd gotten used to crashing on the basement couch. Gerard had even doodled on a pillowcase for her, so she could go to sleep with zombie-fighting ghosts wrinkled against her cheek. Frank crashed on the other end, shoving his feet up against her ass. "Don't smush me," he mumbled, already half asleep.
She wrinkled her nose. "You smell," she said, but it was nothing she wasn't used to, and not nearly as rank as Gerard or Mikey.
The next time she opened her eyes, it was morning and Gerard was staring at her. "Creepster," she said, sitting up.
"We've got a van," Gerard said.
She sat up. "Seriously? Like, an actual van we can tour in?"
"Elena's giving it to us." Gerard wrinkled his nose. "I don't want to know what she did in it."
"We're paying her back, right?" Rae stretched, cracking her back. "I mean..."
"No, yeah, we'll totally pay her back." Gerard had the look on his face that only dudes who lived with their moms and didn't pay rent could get. "When we get famous."
She rolled her eyes, because yeah, totally. "Okay. So...a van means long-term, right? When do we start?"
Gerard chewed his lip. "Um. Two days?"
The story she'd never tell to reporters because it made her sound completely crazy was that, when she called work to tell them she needed two weeks off starting the day after tomorrow and got fired for it, she knew exactly what she was doing.
||
The first time the van broke down, they blamed it on bad luck. The second time the van broke down, they blamed it on bad weather. The third time the van broke down, they blamed it on -
"Fucking broken glass right in the middle of the fucking road!" Brian yelled. "What kind of fucking idiot does that shit? Jesus fucking Christ, someone get the spare tire."
They all five, even Matt, scrambled to obey.
"You know what I don't understand," Mikey said slowly, "is why it's called a jack. Like. It doesn't look like jerking off."
"Maybe some guy named Jack invented it." Frank scratched his balls. "Or like. Your dick rises, right? And that's jacking off."
"Or maybe one of you assholes should get down here and help me out," Matt said.
Rae looked at the others. They all raised their eyebrows and shrugged. "Sorry," she said. "We'll buy you a drink afterwards."
Matt flipped them off and kept working.
"You could, though." Mikey leaned against the van next to where Rae was standing and touched her arm. "I mean, seriously, you probably could. Right?"
Rae shrugged. "I know how to in theory."
"I might drop it on my toes." Mikey blinked at her through his glasses. "So it's good that you know."
"Mikey! Get the fuck off the van, are you fucking stupid?" Matt kicked Mikey in the shin, and Mikey leaped sideways, away from both Rae and the van.
"I'm gonna go get something to drink," he said before Rae could answer him. "Want anything?"
Rae shook her head, watching Mikey climb over the ditch and towards the BP.
"Fucking sunlight," Gerard muttered, hunching in the tiny bit of shade the van offered. Frank laughed and sat on his head.
"I'm calling my mother. No, fuck that, I'm calling your mothers," Matt said, standing and wiping his hands off. "Assholes."
When Mikey got back, he handed Rae a Gatorade. "They were on sale," he said.
Frank laughed harder. Rae shrugged and took it, smiling a thank-you.
||
Underoath were fantastic, both as people and as a band. Rae wasn't a fan, exactly, and completely agreed with Frank the night they started playing Jimmy Buffet at volumes that made sleeping impossible and Frank muttered, "Swear to god I'm going to kill them slowly." Still, they became her friends as much as they were everyone else's, and she liked watching them perform.
Touring was proving to be fucking hard in ways she didn't think any of them had really expected. The lack of bathing, the smelliness, the weird gas station food, that shit she'd known about. But it didn't occur to her until the first time she broke a string on her guitar and reached into her case for her other D string that she'd have to save change for weeks to afford to buy a replacement. She hadn't thought about playing venues far enough from home that Frank forced them all into the buddy system. And somehow, despite seeing them, she hadn't given tour hookups more thought than the time it took to acknowledge their existence.
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