"Don't I know you from somewhere?"
She appeared to be around forty, about half a dozen years younger than me. A face that had probably once been called impish, but had grown into a calm beauty that comes with the years. Red hair that hung loose over her shoulders. Hazel eyes behind large round glasses, and pale skin with freckles that covered her cheeks and nose. They were also visible in her cleavage that peeked out through her low-cut sweater.
We were both sitting at a long table in a coffee place. I came here most days to get out of my apartment and pretend to read the newspaper or a magazine. Around us, there was a low buzz of voices, broken by the loud gurgle of the Infernal Caffeine Machine (TM) and the barista calling out for a Luke to come and get his drink, Luke, your iced latte is going cold, haha.
I put down my newspaper and smiled. "I used to go by Daz." Deciding my coffee was still hot enough to drink, I took a sip and waited for realisation to hit.
It took a moment. I could spot exactly when she worked it out. Her eyes lit up with excitement. "Daz!" she exclaimed, sounding for all the world like the girl she'd have been back then. "Daz! I had such a huge crush on you back in the day!"
I gave her my usual warm smile. "A long time ago, I'm sure. But it's always lovely to meet a fan." I let the smile transform into the standard rueful grin. "Or at least a one-time fan."
"Daz!" She sounded like she was in a daze. "I knew I recognised you. I had your poster over my bed and all. Saw your show here in town, back in..." The sentence trailed off as she did the maths. "Gosh, is it that long ago already? I'm old."
I'd had the same conversation hundreds of times. Of course, the realisation of the speaker's age was relatively new. For a while, it was "Wow, you're so much older now!" No, I never got tired of hearing that.
"Are you kidding?" I drained my cup and rose. "You're not old. You're a beautiful woman, and I'm proud to have been part of your life."
That pale skin flushed a bright red, and she stammered a reply as I said goodbye and left. It was a standard line that I used every time I met a fan, but in her case it was true. I glanced in the reflection of the glass door as I went out, and saw her bent over her phone, typing furiously. It felt good, I thought as I stepped out onto the street and headed back home, knowing that I'd made someone's day.
In case it wasn't clear, I used to be famous.
At the height of the nineties boyband craze, I was "the Dangerous One" in an act called Street5. Pronounced "streets", but with a "5" because there were five of us. The record company's marketing wasn't very subtle. Our logo was the band name with five silhouettes in front of it.
But they'd done their research. We each had a role. The Leader, the Pretty One, the Quiet One, the Dangerous One, the Kid.
I was set to be "the Kid", except I hit a growth spurt, and my eyebrows grew thick and dark, so I was recast. At least it meant I could grow facial hair, unlike the other four. They had to maintain their smooth, clean appearance -- not threatening, just masculine enough for young girls to realise that boys weren't all smelly and pimply. Safe targets for their first teenage crush.
On the other hand, that facial hair required a separate stylist, so I'm not sure who had the better deal. I shaved it all off as soon as I could.
We weren't brilliant. We didn't need to be. We were marketed, and we sold. There's a long blur in my memory, two years of nearly constant touring and fan events, interspersed with sessions in the studio and talk show appearances.
Mostly I remember the strain of playing the part. Street5 was presented as a group of close friends from the shady part of town. I'm not sure anyone really believed it, but the fans bought into the fiction and we played our roles. The truth was we'd never met before the record company put us together like a recipe for making money.
You'd think we'd have hated each other, thrust into a cage and expected to get along. But early on we were all too excited, and too worried to rock the boat. We knew we were going to make it big, and none of us was going to jeopardise our success.
Later, as life became that long blur, the others just faded into the background. We all did our bits on stage. We said our lines, danced our steps, played our part. Off-stage I don't really remember us having much to do with each other.
It all started to change when I went off-script. It's as clear in my mind now as it was all those years ago, the first moment when the world came into focus. We were on tour, staying at a hotel in Algeria, of all places. I'd woken early, chafing at how bored I was, and something someone said on the telly caught my attention. I probably misheard it, but there it was in my brain, a line of magic. "Tears like the stars in the sky at night."
Half an hour later I'd written a song. It was good, too, and not as cheesy as you might think. Better than the anaemic drivel the record company gave us. So I put it on a fax to our producer back home, and ten minutes later he was on the phone and we were talking arrangement.
"Tears Like Stars" was our biggest hit. We knew it was going to be. I understood Street5, I knew how our voices worked together, I knew all our roles. The song worked for us.
We'd reached maturity, the media said. Grown beyond the straightjacket of the boyband mould and evolved into serious artists.
I wrote more songs, and tweaked the songs that were already written. I enjoyed it, and I was good at it. Hit followed hit, and we nearly reached the top spot for Christmas with "Heart In The Snow". I still think we'd have been the Christmas number 1 if that blizzard had come just a week earlier.
But it was the beginning of the end. Or the middle of the end, or something. The others resented my new value to the record company, and the extra money I got from the writing credits. And after the initial rush of performing my own songs, I started to dislike the whole act that we were putting on. I wanted to spend more time writing, and the shows got in the way.
I wasn't the first to leave the band. That was Gaz (real name Rupert), who played the part of the Leader. I was stealing his spotlight, he claimed, and he'd be better off on his own. He had a couple of minor successes, then dropped into obscurity. Looking back I feel sorry for him, but at the time I took a great deal of delight in it.
Street5 survived for another year, but the spark had gone. For the band, at least, and I think for the record company too. The fans were still as passionate as ever, but we'd reached the end of the road. The Kid, whose real name I don't remember but who went by Danny, went into acting and became a regular on one of the long-running soap operas. Pretty Dev and Quiet Kev (or Sammy and Peter, as their mothers called them) became co-hosts of a surprisingly insightful travel show.
And I became a songwriter and faded into the background.
It was a quiet life. Mostly just me and my keyboard, in my fancy apartment overlooking the city. There was enough money coming in that I could do as I pleased, and lately that meant staying inside except for my daily outings to the coffee place.
I didn't meet many beautiful age-appropriate redheads.
*
The day after the encounter in the coffee place I did something I never did. I went back. Usually when I encountered a fan there, I'd give it a day or two before returning. Leave them a bit of time to cool down. I'd had a few awkward experiences where an old fan had been waiting for me the next day, and the next, and the next.
But there was something about this woman that made me think it might not be so bad to run into her again. For a start, as the years flew by my days of being a stalk-worthy heartthrob had slipped behind me. And the fans were quite a bit older as well, and hopefully less starry-eyed.
So I ordered my usual and sat in my usual spot. I'd brought my e-reader, because I'd just bought a new book, and in moments my mind was drifting off in a combination of the story and an idea it triggered for a song.
"Hi." It was the same woman, sitting down opposite me in the same spot.
I'd almost forgotten why I was there. Yes, it was a very good book. I blinked while my brain made the long journey back from fantasyland. "Hi."
