Girls Who Play Guitars

•but you hardly know me•

~THE NEXT MORNING~

Ellie Devine's head and heart were all over the place. The more she tried to push Daniel out of her mind, the more she thought about his soft kisses and ever-so-fresh smelling skin and the way her senses prickled like static when she pictured his twinkling blue eyes.

She hadn't slept at all, tossing and turning, Wondering whether she should have kissed Daniel at all. Wondering whether she should have kept kissing him and got him out of her system like she wanted to when they'd started kissing. Eventually she'd got up and worked on a new song by the light of the moon.

When Kim and Meg pounded on her door at eight a.m., Meg was sombre in her sunglasses, sipping a can of Coca-Cola and groaning when they stepped into the blazing sunshine. It relieved Ellie that Kim was sane, sensible Kim today and she could move her mind on to other things with Kim by her side.

Then it was taxis, and interviews, and interviews in taxis on a fancy phone with a cute little aerial on the top that Brenin gave them. Brenin's assistant and publicist, a likeable woman in her forties called Nolan, had been put in charge of Slider while Brenin spent time with Glue. Nolan, in her silky shirt and fitted pants, tottered around in a pair of high heels the whole day, organising their schedule, introducing them to the people they needed to meet.

They went to a department store to buy a dress Kim saw in a magazine and to a music store to buy a couple of new guitar picks for Ellie. Three teenage girls with dyed blonde hair in Ellie's style blushed and stammered as they'd asked for a photo with the band when they queued up at the till. Then they'd gone to a radio station where they signed CDs and Meg joked with the lunchtime announcer about his haircut, got him flustered, and he'd missed the cue for his back announcement. When they exited the radio station, they stopped to chat to a group of guys wearing Slider t-shirts and sign some CDs.

"Els, Meg, check this out." Kim waved Ellie over to where she was having her photo taken.

Ellie sauntered across to the group; smiled around at the enthusiastic faces while Meg flicked a cigarette into her mouth and waited for someone to offer her a lighter.

"Where's that tape?" Kim asked, peering around. A tall guy hovering around the back waggled a cassette tape at Ellie as he flicked his lighter at Meg's cigarette. Kim nodded at him. "Yeah, check it out, Els. I signed one at Glasto too."

Ellie took the tape. "No way." She grinned up at the guy, who blushed a deep shade of crimson under his Slider beanie. In her hands, was Slider's demo tape—their very first release—with Jessie on vocals. The paper insert was a photocopied cartoon pencil drawing of a drum kit tipping over the edge of a cliff that Kim had designed. This was the demo tape they'd sent to as many radio stations and record companies as they could back in the day.

"Bought it a few years back," the tall guy said, blushing even more. "At that show – the one where Jessie was s'posed to be singing, but you came on instead."

"'91? The Afterblast gig?"

"Yeah. But I was there to see you guys." Pointing to the cassette, he said, "This is the first release of 'Green' ever, yeah? In the next release, it was you on vocals, but the bass is slightly different. More free form. And there's some weird in-studio talking at the end. It's cool. Different."

Ellie could never get over how much more her fans knew about her band's recordings than she did. She turned the tape over in her hands, casting her mind back to the day they'd recorded it. All the thrill of hearing her songs on tape, ready to share with the world.

Ellie popped open the cover; took out the photocopied insert and stared at Jessie's name written above hers on the sleeve. It seemed so long ago they'd made this tape when they'd all been friends with all the possibilities of their music inside them.