Never Say Never (5 page)

           
Come
on, girl,
I told myself.
The band comes first.

           
But
as I walked back into Luc's living room, I felt a strange sense of foreboding.
Something had changed – something deep down within all of us. The more serious
the band was getting, the closer we got to making it, the more we had to grow
up. We all knew each other since middle school, but now we weren’t prepubescent
awkward kids anymore.

            Things
weren't going to be the same anymore.

Chapter
4

           
I
'd decided to fulfill my necessary Sociology
credit at USC by signing up for a Music-In-Society class – the somewhat
transgressive-sounding “Starting a Riot: Music, Sexuality, and Gender in the
Late Twentieth Century.” I'd been somewhat embarrassed about signing up,
despite my genuine interest in the topic – I was painfully conscious that it might
look like I was striving for an easy A off my dad's stories – but I hadn't been
able to resist the promise of studying my dad's punk lyrics alongside the
poetry of the beat generation and the Stonewall riots. I tried to dress down
for the class as much as possible – hiding my customary glam-inspired studs and
black stiletto boots under an enormous USC sweatshirt in the hopes that nobody
in the class would recognize me – at least not at first. The last thing I
wanted was to be “Keith Knight's daughter” here in the classroom. I remembered
what I'd said to my mother. I wanted to do this on my own – to forge my own
path. And if that meant taking out my ear studs and cutting back on the purple
mascara – well, I'd just have to sacrifice my glam aesthetic to the higher
calling of knowledge. The class was taught by Professor Edmund Poe, an
ethnomusicographer better known for his studies of Georgian polyphonic chant in
the South Caucasus than for his experience in the punk music scene. But rumor
had it that Professor Poe was going to be team-teaching the class with an
English TA with some experience in the contemporary music industry.

            “My
dear ladies and gentlemen,” Professor Poe stood up at the podium, standing on
his tiptoes so that his bushy white hair could just barely be seen behind it.
He couldn't have looked less like a rock star. With his wavy, tangled white
hair, his enormous owlish glasses, and his stained tweed suit, he looked more
like a professor of Medieval History than someone conversant with the lyrics of
the Clash. “It gives me great pleasure to be standing in front of all of you as
we prepare to embark upon this journey together. Music has long been a medium
that brings individuals and societies together – it allows them to affirm their
shared identity, or else – as we shall see in this semester's class – to
subvert it entirely. Its power has been called spiritual – it has also been
called dangerous. In the remote mountains of Svaneti, some tribes use music to
hold onto a religious and cultural identity all but lost. On the streets of New
York City and Los Angeles, some “tribes” used it to create their own
identities. Perhaps some of you are wondering what an old fuddy-duddy like me
has to say about Keith Knight or David Bowie...”

            A
few members of the class laughed along with his joke, but I flushed bright red.
Why did they always have to bring up my dad?

           
“But
this year I will be complementing my traditional ethnographic methods with what
one might call a more
youthful
approach. As many of you know, it is
customary within the department to teach alongside qualified teaching
assistants – graduate students in our department who wish to gain experience of
the classroom before seeking full-time teaching positions. Well, it is my great
honor to introduce to you your TA and one of my very brightest research
students, who is studying for a doctorate in the comparative imagery of gender
in late nineteenth-century ‘decadent’ fiction and in the ‘glam rock’ of the
1970's. I would like to introduce you all to Danny Blue. Danny, would you stand
up please?”

            My
mouth fell open. The tall young man in the skin-tight black jeans and the black
t-shirt couldn't have looked less like the typical graduate students. With his
long jet-black hair that fell down to his shoulders, his piercing blue eyes,
his chiseled Roman nose, high cheekbones, Danny Blue looked more like a rock
star than a music scholar. As he sauntered up to the podium, his long ebony
hair shining under the fluorescent lights of the classroom, I felt my heart
skip a beat. He radiated sex appeal – the kind of raw animal magnetism that my
father had always just called “it.” That thing that rock stars either had – or
never would have. That thing that separated the wannabes from the truly greats.
And Danny Blue, sporting a leather jacket and what looked like the tiniest hint
of eyeliner on his gorgeous, sky-colored eyes, had
it.

           
I
felt my face flush hot and red, embarrassment making the color brighter still.
What was happening to me? I'd managed to pass my teen years without even the
slightest hint of a crush on anybody – utterly uninterested in sex or romance.
I'd had my hands full with work and the band – and between my dad's stories of
groupies “back in the day” and the greasy wannabes in the club scene who used
to hit on me just because I was Keith Knight's daughter and could probably get
them a record deal, I'd basically been turned off to the idea of romance
altogether. But somehow sitting in a desk in front of Danny Blue made me really
regret wearing this sweaty USC shirt – a regret and self-consciousness utterly
unlike anything I'd ever felt before.

            “Thank
you so much for that very kind introduction, Professor.”

            And
that accent! Clipped, clear, and with just a slightest hint of Northern vowels,
Danny Blue's English accent sent shivers up and down my body. “I daresay he's
over-sold me quite a bit – he clearly hasn't read the latest draft chapter of
my doctorate.”

            The
class tittered, but I could sense that at least half the class was too busy
checking out his rock-hard abs and muscular arms to care much about what he had
to say. Even I – struggling to pay attention to what he said about the
development of post-punk as a genre – couldn't help undressing him with my
eyes, imagining what he might be wearing – or not wearing – underneath that
tight black muscle-tee. There was something more than beautiful about him –
there was a strange haunting sense of tragedy in his eyes – a brooding,
mournful look that suggested that there was more to this Danny Blue than met
the eye.

           
Is
he looking at me
? I felt my face grow hotter still as Danny Blue's icy eyes
fixed upon me.
Why is he looking at me? Stop blushing, Neve...

           
My
mother always used to tell me the story of the first time she met my dad,
screaming her head off at one of his concerts, catching his eye from across a
crowded room. Was this how she felt?

            It
was almost a relief when class ended, and I could get away. I briefly switched
on my phone, noticing a text from Steve.

Steve:
Ten
for auditions. Got some recs. Meet at the apt. S.

Luc and Steve
– already sophomores at USC – shared an off-campus apartment near the dorms.

Me:
Will be
there
.

I texted back,
noticing Danny out of the corner of my eye. He was checking his phone, too, his
expression tense with concentration. He looked up at me, noticing that we were
doing the same thing, and smiled, sending my attempts at cool aloofness
torpedoing into destruction. He slid his phone down the front pocket of his
jeans and walked over to me as I stood up with my book bag. He was a full head
and a half taller than I was, I noted – a feat; I was nearly five-ten myself,
having inherited my mother’s height and pretty much her build.

            “I've
got to ask,” he said – his accent even more swoon-inducing than it had been a moment
ago. “Have we met before? You look awfully familiar.”

            I
turned even redder. If I told him that the reason I looked
awfully familiar
was
because he'd probably seen my dad in concert, he'd probably think what the
others did – that I was only taking this class like every other celebrity's
daughter, for an easy A. “I just have one of those faces,” I said, avoiding his
gaze. “I get that a lot. I'm always being told I look like somebody....”
Neve,
get a grip. Why are you stammering?
I never stammered. I never got this red
or embarrassed around a guy, ever.

            “I
doubt that very much,” said Danny. “You definitely don't have that kind of
face. If I'd met you before, I'd remember, ah...”

            “Neve,”
I said quickly.

            “Neve
what?” He looked down at his class list.

           
Damn
it.
“Neve Knight,” I admitted. “It's – uh – it's under Never Knight.”

            “Never
Knight?” he smiled. “Like – Never Ever Never?”

            “Exactly
like that. But I just go by Neve.”

            “Were
your parents hippies or something?”

            I
breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't put two and two together yet.

            “Yeah,
you could say that.”

            “Pleased
to meet you, Neve...” he said. Then he frowned, suddenly, his eyes darkening.
Does
he know who I am
? “I imagine I'll talk to you more in the coming weeks.
We'll be dividing up into small workshop seminars to work on our first-semester
projects. We'll be choosing a decade and working on research presentations
accordingly – so start thinking about which time period you want to work on,
and we'll discuss music from then.”

            “Well
if there's one thing I know about,” I blurted out before I could stop myself,
“it's music.”

           
Idiot.
I wanted to clap my hand over my mouth in shame.
Idiot.
Did I just
tell Danny Blue, future doctorate in musicology, that I was a music expert?

            But
he didn't seem too offended. “Good,” he chuckled softly. “Same here, really.”
He patted me lightly on the arm, sending electricity flying through my body.
“Later, love,” he said, striding off, and leaving me standing with my backpack,
staring after him and gawking like a schoolgirl. I couldn't believe it. This
guy had me grinning like an idiot in ten seconds flat.

            Far
from an easy A – this class was going to require every ounce of concentration
to stop me from turning into a puddle of goo on the floor.

Chapter
5

           
T
hat night I made an extra effort to change
before the auditions, although I would never have admitted it to anyone but
myself that it was because of Danny Blue. He'd caught me in sweats and a
ponytail – well, this time, if he ran into me on campus, he'd see me in my glam
rock glory. I squeezed into my favorite white skinny jeans, matching them
perfectly to a pair of high-heeled silver sandals encrusted with spikes I'd cut
off my dad's old jacket when I was ten. I had turned one of my dad's enormous
T-shirts into a fashionable halter – the disparity in size was nothing
scissors, a needle, and thread couldn't fix – fending off the night breeze with
a black leather motorcycle jacket I'd picked up at a vintage store in San
Francisco last summer. The perfect blend of glamour and grunge, I thought,
intentionally smearing my eyeliner just a touch to give it that studied
“morning after” look.

            Not
that I needed to dress up for Luc and Steve. Their apartment was the epitome of
“dressed down” - filled with beanbag chairs, empty Chinese food containers, a
games console or two, and a few piles of dirty laundry Luc had given up ever
bringing to the bathroom and seemed to have converted into miniature cushions
instead.
Typical guys,
I thought, smelling the familiar aroma of two-day-old
pizza as I walked through the door.

            “Looking
good!” Steve laughed. “Did you get all dressed up for us, Neve? Or have you got
a hot date tonight?”

            “You
know me,” I said, trying not to think about Danny Blue's piercing eyes. “I've
got two dates lined up, back to back.” I settled down on the black leather sofa
in the middle of the room, before catching sight of a lacy red bra sticking out
between the cushions. “So, guys, is there – uh – something you want to tell
me?” I threw the bra over to Steve. “Funny, I wouldn't have pegged Steve for a
32DD, myself. He looks more like a 36B to me.”

            Luc
turned redder than the bra itself, his eyes downcast on the floor. Steve,
however, only grinned.

            “One
of those blonde twins, was it?” I looked over at Steve.

            “
One
?”
Steve looked like a cat that had finished all the cream. “You underestimate me,
my friend.”

            I
rolled my eyes. “I don't even
want
to know.” I picked up a pile of dirty
socks. “Come on, guys. If we're going to hold auditions here tonight, can't we
at least try to make the place look professional, okay?” I began moving the
laundry into the bedrooms. “Come on guys – help a girl out?”

            The
others hurried to tidy up.

            “So,
who's coming tonight?” I asked.

            Steve
ran through the updated list. “We've got ten sign-ups so far,” he said. “And
two recommendations that some other bands sent us.”

            “We'll
be up all night,” Luc sighed. “If we want to get through all of them tonight.”