Lisa Clark - And the Rainbow Hearts

This was a huge faux pas. Y’see, Bella takes her music making VERY seriously. She wants to be the next Joan Jett. (JJ was this really cool guitar girl in the seventies and in the same way that I take props from retro film girls, Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe, Bella’s inspir-o girl is guitar goddess, Joan Jett): Now, in times of crisis or self-doubt, the Pink Ladies each have an inspiro-girl to who they utter the immortal words:

“What would____________(insert name of inspir-o girl here) do?”

Well it turns out that Joan Jett would not perform at a Missy gig. She would not want to meet what Bella terms as a ‘boyband’ and apparently, under no circumstances, would Joan Jett want to meet Tom Tootie either. Right now, Joan Jett is not my kinda girl.

Sadie and I pull our best glum-girl faces, complete with jutting bottom lips and everything, in the hope that it will be enough to change her mind. But we should never underestimate The Bella. She’s a tough cookie. She has a super-mellow-yellow side, that’s thanks to her yoga-dad who, as his title might suggest, is a bendy wendy yogini guru. But there is no denying that Bella is every inch the punk rock princess she claims to be. Today for example, her look says it all. She is working a must-have rock girl snarl painted with a thick slick of Gwen Stefani red lipstick and is wearing a Sadie-made tutu with big chunky black boots and a Care Bear t-shirt. Let’s face it, a girl this cool was never going to agree to Tom Tootie Time, was she?

I almost kick myself at not taking time out to really think this through, but I didn’t, ‘coz that would hurt. Sadie, seeing that Bella is not planning to budge on her decision anytime soon, resigns herself to a future filled with No-Tom-Tootie-Time and sulks. As in legs crossed, arms folded, real-life sulking.

This is a first.

Sadie is usually a total ball of fun-filled energy and fabulousness, no matter what. But it seems that everyone, including Sweet Sadie, has something that makes them glum. I have to admit that I too was feeling a li’l un-pink, but despite suffering from Tom Tootie fever too, I was actually more upset about the idea that we weren’t going to rock it up.

Hold up, I’m a pink-thinkin’ genius—that’s it! If only I had thought of this earlier, Miss Sades would not be glum and Bella would not be playing that really annoying noise that is still coming from her guitar. Y’see, since our one-night-only appearance as The Pink Ladies, Bella has had big plans for a girl-rock revolution.

Which we would front, natch.

Now Sadie and Bella used to be in a band with Jo-Jo, a Japanese version of Emily Strange. She was a bit scary-looking because her punk-girl snarl was a permanent one. Her family run a yummy-scrummy Japanese restaurant in town and they made her give up the band to work in the shop with them in her spare time. Bella kept threatening to bust her out under the cover of darkness, but every time we went to eat there, Jo-Jo seemed so un-snarly and nearly even happy, that Bella decided against it. But Jo-Jo’s departure left a guitar-shaped space in the band, and Bella says that if I keep practicing, she really thinks I could fill it. I am all about rocking out. I love it, in fact, I plan on getting so good I get to do a really screechy guitar solo—that’s the stuff of my pink-tinted dreams.

“Bell, can you stop a minute, please?” I ask, trying to make it sound like a simple request and not a desperate plea from the noise police. Surprisingly, she does.

“If it’s about meeting your boyband Lo, I don’t want to hear it.”

Oh.

“No, it’s not,” I lie, only a teeny weeny li’l white one. “I do want to talk about the band though, our band.”

Bella puts her guitar down. Ok, she means business. I better make this good. “So, sock it to me, kiddo,” She’s American-o, she says crazy things like that all the time.

“I L-O-V-E being on stage, Bell,” I tell her, channelling the very best persuasive Marilyn Monroe to help me deliver a prize-winning performance. “I know we’ve only done it once, but I loved looking out at the audience and seeing people clapping and cheering, I loved making a pretty noise with my guitar, but most of all I had loved looking across the stage and seeing my BFFs.” I paused. She seemed to be listening. “I remember thinking this is where I belong. Not necessarily on stage, although being on stage is a total high-energy buzz, no, I mean, three girls of total and utter amazingness—each totally different but when put together, make the perfect team. We rock, right?”

Sadie leaps to her feet and whoops in agreement coming over to hug us both but Bella stares right at me, her big eyes fix my gaze and I know she’s checking me out for fibs but that’s okay, there’s nothing to read because I actually really mean it.

“Right?” I ask again looking for confirmation.

Bella purses her lips and moves them from side to side as she thinks.

“I guess it would be good practice for you,” she ponders.

“Exactly!” I say trying not to show too much excitement. “And it would be great exposure for the Pink Ladies if we win too.”

Bella sat up. “What do you mean if we win?” she asks pulling her Debbie Harry platinum blonde hair into a tight pony-tail. “If we enter this competition, Lola Love, we will absolutely win!”

Bella’s positive ‘tude is one of the many reasons I adore her. She never entertains the idea that she might fail, yet if she did, fail that is, she’d pick herself up, dust herself off and start all over again. I love Bella. I love her even more now that she is entertaining the idea of Tom Tootie Time.

“So we are going to enter then, Bell?!” Sadie asks, totally unable to hide the desperation from her face.

Bella, like every good scene-stealer should, allows for a rather dramatic timely pause before making her final announcement. “Yes.”

Sadie squeals with delight and I am beside myself with excitement as we all fall to the floor in a group hug.

“Wait, I haven’t finished yet,” Bella says, milking her moment for all she can get, “we enter on the basis that I get to choose the band name, ok?”

I kinda liked The Pink Ladies, I thought it had a real ring to it but this was no Grease movie re-run. This was the next exciting instalment of My Movie, Starring Me, Lola Love. A movie that was to be filled with guitars, Tom Tootie and pink hairdye.

“You’re on!” I tell her.

So far, so not so good.

I am not yet able to even tick the first thing off on my Tom Tootie Time to-do list.

This is a sad, sad state of affairs.

It should be simple. Gather gal-pals, form a band. Tick off list. Move on to item number two. At no point was item one ever meant to be difficult. In fact, like I said, it should be stupidly simple.

Well, not if you’re Lola Love apparently. Because if she of the pink-tinted disposition, she being me, obviously, thought getting Bell on board was tough, well I hadn’t reckoned on the curveball that is Angel.

Now Angel, by her own omission, is an attention-demanding diva. It’s actual real-life factuality. She’ll happily tell anyone who’ll listen how fabulous she is. Not in a big-headed way, just in a ‘I’m completely cool with who I am’ way. And if they’re not listening, she’ll shout a li’l louder until they do. When she walks into a room, people look at Angel. Yes, she’s got an afro the size of my house, and yes, she wears outfits straight out the pages of high-end fashion magazines, but it’s not just that. It’s the fact that she can demand attention without saying a world, that, mes amies , is star quality and that makes her pretty dang awesome, right?