There's a stack of folders piled up on the desk in front of me. All neatly labeled and indexed. A file for every month that i was in The Hormones. It's weird to see a year of you life measured out in press cuttings; legal documents; and recipts from restaurants, hotels, and musical-instrument shops.
I reach blindly for the folder nearest to me, and a photograph falls out. There's the five of us staring out arrogantly because smiling on photos was uncool. My hair was cherry red then. I look much younger. I'm wearing jeans and a green halter-neck top, a pink flower pinned in my hair. Flowers used to be my trademark, my thing. When we did gigs, fans would throw flower petals at me. Once in Birmingham, as i was walking off-stage i skidded on a big wet clump of petal mulch and slid right into the audience. Dean had to run to the lip of the stage and haul me out, while Jane nearly peed herself laughing.
I look back at the photo. Jane's standing next to me, ana rm slung nonchalantly around my shoulders. She's all hipbones and platinum blond attitude, a diamond navel piercing glints in the light from the ring flash. I remember how she'd tugged down the waistband of her black trousers in between shots. "You've got to shoe a bit of flesh", she said, laughing when i pointed out that you could see her knickers.