Ethan laughed.
“Just that some people look at our brand, and how we already present ourselves, and polish it up a little. Or down, I guess. They refine it. Then they pick out a bunch of shit for us to wear. It seems nice, right, not having to worry about that?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I already didn’t worry about that. “Uh, sure. Yeah, anything to avoid getting mobbed by fans, right?”
“I don’t really have that problem, but okay.”
“What do you mean?”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “I mean, I don’t really get mobbed by fans because I’m the drummer and people don’t recognize the drummer.”
“But…I’ve seen you.”
“You’ve seen people be all over the band when we’re all together. Not me.”
Was that true? I was sure I’d seen people all over Ethan after shows. But I guessed…that was different than out in the world, out of context. A spike of jealousy ripped through me. Jealousy that Ethan got to do what he loved but leave all the bullshit of fame on the stage when we were done performing, and have another life. Clearly, that would be the absolute wrong thing to tell Ethan, but as we walked into the next store, I ran back through as many times as I could remember seeing Ethan in public.
He was always quieter than Ven and Coco, though almost everyone was quieter than Ven and Coco. But the more I thought about it, the more I couldn’t really remember seeing fans going specifically for Ethan.
I’d always imagined the rest of my bandmates living lives similar to mine. Having to hide rather than show their faces in public, needing to plan the least-populated routes to get where they were going, weighing the stress of dealing with whatever unexpected public drama might play out against the desire to do an errand or see a show. I’d imagined that they knew some kind of secret that I didn’t. That they were coping fine and I was the only one who, for some reason, didn’t know how to deal with being a rock star when not performing.
But it seemed like I might have been very, very wrong. After all, they hardly invited me into their lives, so I hadn’t had much chance to observe them.
“Hey, Ethan?”
He held up a loud blue- and pink-checked shirt in answer and I wrinkled my nose automatically because the colors gave me a headache. But then I stopped.
“Do you like it? Does it fit your…um, brand?” I forced myself to say it with a straight face because clearly this was something Ethan took seriously.
He shrugged and put it back on the rack.
“Um, do Ven and Coco get…noticed a lot when they go out?” I tried to say it casually, as I flipped through a rack of gauzy long-sleeved T-shirts that looked like they’d be see-through.
“Coco does a bit. Not a lot of tiny black guitarists with blue hair, ya know? But she’ll usually take the car if she’s got to go somewhere.”
The car meant the limo service that Dougal had set up for us. I’d only used it when we were all heading to the airport for tours.
“Ven gets noticed because…well, because you know Ven.”
Ethan gave me a wry smile and I returned it. I did know Ven. He strutted like he was onstage all the time, and he wore distinctive red mirrored sunglasses that were practically a calling card.
“Did he always walk like that, even before the band was famous?” I joked, lightly bumping Ethan’s shoulder with mine.
“Kind of. It was more of a rolling hitch than a full-on surfer John Wayne, but still.”
“Surfer John Wayne. That’s the perfect description of it!”
Ethan held up another shirt, this one a leonine yellow-and-brown western-style snap-front. I gave him the thumbs-up since it didn’t make my eyes bleed, and I thought maybe brown would look good with his hair color. What the fuck did I know, though.
Because it seemed like we were kind of bonding or whatever, I said, “Did I tell you that someone asked if I wanted to be a guest judge on The Fashion Project?” I realized as soon as I said it that, given our previous conversation, Ethan might not appreciate this, but he just laughed.
“Man, your face when you said the words The Fashion Project was like you were telling me you were about to have a molar extracted without novocaine.” He cocked his head and looked me up and down. “Why the fuck would they ask you? You wear the same thing every day.”
“See, that’s what I said!” It was, in fact, exactly what I’d said to Caleb when Lewis had passed on the invitation: “I don’t have shit to say about fashion. Has he seen me? I wear jeans and T-shirts every day.”
“So, are you gonna do it?”
“What? No! Of course not.”