The Official Boyband Handbook

[03] The Idea

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Someday, someone will walk into your life and leave a mark deeper than your thoughts.

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Chapter Three – The Idea

“But Genevieve, listen to me!” Frankie caught the annoyed girl’s arm, stopping her from flipping the current edition of Vogue magazine. “This thing could be the answer we’re looking for.”

Genevieve looked at her side-long, in a ‘are you insane’ sort of fashion. “Frankie, honestly, listen to yourself. You’ve gone mad!”

“No I haven’t!”

She put her magazine down abruptly. “Yes, you have. How do you know this book,” she now held up the red handbook, “isn’t some prank to get you all wind up? Jesus, from the looks of it, you already are.”

“At least I’m trying.”

She sighed, “and so is everyone else: Dr. Ross, Simon, their families…what’s happened to them is rare, Frankie, and we can’t drop our opinions where they aren’t wanted.”

“I know…I know.” Frankie felt defeated and in the most terrible way. What she was trying to do was seen as ridiculous to anyone besides her own self. To her, it was perfectly decent and she was ready to move on with her ideas. But Genevieve was right, too. How crazy would it be if the girls were to walk up to a group of boys who may or may not know who they are and demand they listen? It just wasn’t going to happen. “Want to grab something to drink?”

“Starbucks?”

“Sure.”

• X •

In all due respect to Mother Nature, Frankie’s patience with the weather was running on empty. In the time she and Genevieve had left their flat up until they were perfectly situated in her car, the amount of layers she was covered in was absolutely absurd. Her friend, on the other hand, was jubilant in a simple jumper.

“How are you not cold?” Frankie wondered, parking the car in an open slot at the Starbucks car park. 

Genevieve chuckled, “you haven’t experienced London till you feel the chill.”

“You Brits are strange.”

Genevieve bowed. “Why thank you!”

Laughing amongst themselves, Genevieve and Frankie travelled indoors of the coffee house. The rich aroma of coffee beans, sweet pastries and more, lightened the minds of the two girls. While Genevieve fell in line to order, Frankie headed off in search of a place to sit. The shop was awfully crowded. On one end, sat a group of aged people, delicately sipping their freshly brewed coffees while conversing with their companions or skimming the events of the afternoon paper. On the other end, a clutter of youth sat with their friends, enjoying one another’s company for a short while.

When she was much younger, possibly at the age of nine or ten, Frankie was fanatical with the notion to go out with people much older than she herself. She did not understand what it was, but something inside her consistently made her want to delve into the deep abyss of adolescence. When her mother found out, Nina was furious. Her daughter was far too innocent and naïve to be hanging on the arms of people so much older than she was. She wasn’t a toy to be messed around with.

Watching the same people she once wished to be, Frankie’s face softened. The scene reminded her so much of her dear mother, whom she had left behind in Canada. She remembered her mother’s light brown hair, completely unlike her own, her striking eyes and rapid speech. Most of her qualities did not fit in with her mother’s and it didn’t resemble her father’s either. This is what made Frankie the most curious. She was so contrasting of her parents and in a sense, this was one of the many reasons why she had left the bustling city of Toronto for London in the first place – to run away from all the things that didn’t make any sense at the time and still don’t. But at least here, she didn’t have to think too hard about them.