Entry #675677, added on 11-10-09 @ 11:26 pm EST
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| 1197 -- falling behind but going to bed. | Entry #675677 |
Chapter Three
Josh was already trying to work his special magic, aka ‘I’m good-looking, sleep with me’ on Jess.
“You don’t look like an Indian,” he said.
“Yeah,” Braden piped up. “Matt’s blacker than you. Are you full-blooded Indian?”
Matt said, “Indians come from India. Jess would probably prefer it if we referred to her as First Nations.”
Braden threw a throw-pillow at Matt and said, “Butt-kiss.”
Matt threw it back and said, “Wanker.”
Josh said, “What tribe are you?”
Jess didn’t speak much. She didn’t even crack a smile at Matt and Braden’s tomfoolery. She looked at Josh and answered in that low, slow, indifferent voice, “My mother is Cree and my father is Sarcee.”
Josh let out a slow whistle. “You’re a genuine redskin,” he said.
“How come you’re so pale?” Braden asked.
Jess didn’t answer him.
“Drop it, wanker,” Matt said.
Matt was the only one of the three boys who had any couth, which was strange considering he was the Brit, and had a heritage of irreverence. Braden was irreverent because he knew he was the coolest, riches, best-looking person around and everyone looked up to him, and Josh was irreverent because he was a bit dumb and didn’t know any better. So it instantly became Matt’s duty to protect Jess from his two best friends.
Uncle Razz finally came back from the van. He had been getting stuff out of his trunk, and came in bearing a camera and a laptop.
“Time to start making promotional material,” Uncle Razz said.
Braden took the camera, a hefty high-res Canon SLR (that’s the professional-quality style of digital camera), and said, “And promote what? Shouldn’t we get a name?”
Back to the drawing board. Uncle Razz still voted for Razzamanaz. Josh had been mishearing him and thought it was Razzamataz, which was actually a pretty cool name. Braden suggested Razz Rox, and Matt said he’d go for that, so then it was undecided.
Jess hadn’t said anything. Everybody goaded her to suggest something. Jess said, “I like Razzamataz.”
So it was decided. They were Razzamataz, and Josh was in love.
Then Uncle Razz started snapping close-ups.
“Unc,” Braden said, “Don’t you think we should dress cool or something?”
Razz zoomed in to Braden’s face and started clicking. “You’re building this band up entirely on your looks,” he said. “So let’s focus on your faces, eh?” Click click click.
Braden pushed him away. “We’re sexy mo-fos, too. We need some full body shots.” He led the boys up to his room to dress in the coolest clothes and accessories he could find.
Razz was left alone with Jess. Since he’d raised a son, he didn’t have much clue how to relate to teenage girls.
“What about your look?” he said.
Jess answered, “I joined this band to drum, not to look good.”
Razz laughed. “Well, you joined the wrong band then. These guys’ idea is to cover one-hit wonder songs, so they won’t have to do any actual work like song writing, and to rely on their good looks and personality to make it big.”
Jess didn’t care. “I’ll probably just use them as a springboard then,” she said. “It’s not so easy for an Indian girl drummer to get noticed. Maybe this will be my break. But I’m not selling out.”
Razz nodded. He fired up his laptop and started clicking away at it. Trying to keep Jess interested, he explained what he was doing.
“The band needs a website,” he said. “So, I’m going to register the domain, and then add it to my server. I can host dozens of websites on my server, and right now I’ve only got about ten. So…”
He clicked a bit more, and then said, “Good – razzamataz dot com is available.” He pulled his credit card out of his wallet and bought the domain.
Jess said, “You’re Braden’s uncle?”
Razz nodded. “The great Uncle Razz,” he said, bristling his mustache in a silly grin.
“Are you, like, our manager or something?” Jess asked.
Uncle Razz looked perplexed. He was just helping out, but he was something of a manager, now, wasn’t he? “Guess I am,” he said.
“Don’t you think,” Jess said, “you could maybe convince the guys to take this a bit more seriously?”
Uncle Razz sat on the sofa next to Jess. He thought about what to tell her. How to explain. He had wanted so badly for his boy, Tyler, to start a band. He’d pushed Tyler so hard, to learn drums, to love rock, to hang out with other musical kids, that he’d basically pushed Tyler right away from the whole idea of creating music. If he pushed Braden, a kid who had sailed through his life so far on natural skills and abilities, the band would last a week.
“I think,” Razz said, “They’ll realize soon enough, that this is going to take more than Braden’s face and some old hit songs. Hopefully when they do, they’ll be into it enough to keep it going.”
Jess shrugged.
Razz snapped a photo of her, and then, looking at the camera, said, “Oh, that is very sexy. You’re one hot mama.”
Jess giggled. “I’m a hot mama?”
“Yep, you’re a hot mama.”
“Give me that,” Jess said, trying to take the camera.
Razz held it away from her. Trying to use a French accent, he said, “Mustn’t disturb the artist at work.”
A sound like an avalanche came down the stairs at them. They presented themselves by forming a line in front of the sofa.
Braden was wearing meticulously scuffed jeans, made to look very well worn, and a rumpled button-down shirt, half buttoned, with a tank top underneath. He had done something to his hair to give it that just-got-out-of-bed look.
Josh, with his slightly-too-long, straight hair all over the place, especially in his sexy green eyes, looked like a lion cub. He was wearing another pair of scuffed-up designer jeans and a faded Superman t-shirt.
Matt went with the Brit Pop look, with too-small skinny jeans of British Punk days gone by, and a too-tight black t-shirt. He had one of those Arab scarves tied loosely around his neck and a pair of round John Lennon sunglasses.
Jess smiled. It was the first time any of the boys had seen her teeth, and they hammed it up for her a bit as Uncle Razz snapped about a zillion photos. Then his cell phone rang and he disappeared into the rec room bathroom to take it.
The boys fooled around until Razz came back out of the bathroom, gathering up his stuff. “I gotta go, guys,” he said. “Wifey’s waiting.”
“Aww, Unc,” Braden protested.
The maid called down the stairs, “Supper, Braden.”
“Can you come tomorrow?” Braden asked.
Uncle Razz nodded. “I’m gonna make a cool website tonight, and look through these pictures to see if I got any that actually make your ugly mugs look half-decent. Not you, Jess; you’re beautiful.”
So the party broke up, everybody went their own way, and Braden enjoyed dinner with his TV, since his parents both had their own places to be at dinner time that day.
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© Copyright 2009 katt (UN: kattbee at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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