I Love the 80s Read online

  I the 80s

  Megan Crane is a full-time writer and she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and various pets. Her most recent novel is Everyone Else’s Girl.

  Praise for Megan Crane

  ‘A hugely enjoyable novel with brilliant, convincing characters and dialogue. It’s romantic, funny, intelligent, believable and gripping. I couldn’t put it down’

  Marian Keyes

  ‘Megan Crane rules! Cancel your evening plans: you won’t want to stop reading until you’ve devoured every delicious word’

  Meg Cabot

  ‘Crane’s style captivates and brings the story to life’

  Buzz

  ‘A fresh, upbeat read … explores what it’s like finally to have it out with that friend we love to hate’

  Martha O’Connor

  Delightfully wicked’

  U Magazine

  ALSO BY MEGAN CRANE

  English as a Second Language

  Frenemies

  Names My Sisters Call Me

  Everyone Else’s Girl

  I the 80s

  Megan Crane

  First published in Great Britain in 2011 by

  Quercus

  21 Bloomsbury Square

  London

  WC1A 2NS

  Copyright © 2011 by Megan Crane

  The moral right of Megan Crane to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 84916 999 8

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Typeset by Ellipsis Books Limited, Glasgow

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

  For everyone who grew up in the Eighties and can still sing along

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to Julie Barer – for everything, again and always. Thanks also to Caspian Dennis in the UK. And to Charlotte Clerk and everyone at Quercus for loving this book the way I do.

  Thanks to Louise Austin and Jon Reinish, for all things 80s in NYC. Any mistakes are mine.

  A million thanks to Louise Austin, Josie Torielli, Kim McCreight, Liza Palmer and Kristin Harmel – for reading the first draft and being so excited about this crazy idea.

  To Jeff Johnson for being such a great storyteller, time-travel nitpicker, reader, husband, and champion. Always.

  And to all my favourite Eighties bands for the music. All that wonderful music.

  PAST

  Crystal blue and deep bone shine

  My complicated Valentine

  Lucky penny, lucky penny

  How can I make you mine?

  The Wild Boys, ‘Lucky Penny’

  Not enough your rough and tumble symphony,

  Not enough your carelessness and apathy,

  Not enough my fullness and your scarcity.

  My misery loves your company.

  The Wild Boys, ‘Misery Loves Company’

  1

  ‘Oh, Jenna,’ came the sad voice from the doorway, making Jenna Jenkins jump in her chair and nearly spill her afternoon latte all over her keyboard – right in the middle of a gripping online throw-down on the Eighties Band Fans Forever Bulletin Board regarding the endless controversy over which mascaraed Eighties-era keyboard player was the hottest in 1985.

  She did not have to look up to know that it was her best friend and favourite co-worker Aimee who stood there in the doorway of her office. The strength of Aimee’s concern could no doubt be felt all the way down the wet stretch of Times Square in the summer rain outside the windows. It made Jenna’s shoulders hunch up closer to her ears.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said automatically, moving the still-steaming venti latte to a less precarious spot on her cluttered desktop. She clicked out of the Bulletin Board and looked over at her friend. She forced herself to smile brightly, though she doubted either one of them was fooled. ‘I mean, hi. How are you?’

  Aimee sighed, and moved further into Jenna’s office. She looked around as if she’d never seen the dark little cave before, when Jenna knew the truth was that the mess probably kept OCD Aimee up at night.

  Jenna pushed back from her desk and looked around herself, trying to see whatever Aimee saw that made her frown so ferociously, with her eyes so sombre. But she could only see her normal, everyday office. It was small and not even remotely neat, with files spilling out from the cabinets and four seasons’ worth of an emergency wardrobe hanging off the coat rack near the door or piled in heaps on the floor.

  ‘Okay,’ Jenna said. ‘Granted, I could probably clean this place up.’

  Aimee shook her head slightly, and faced Jenna as if she’d been plotting out what to say in her head. Jenna felt unease snake down her back. Because there was really only one subject Aimee ever plotted out how to approach, and Jenna didn’t want to talk about it. Still. Eight months later, and she still wanted nothing at all to do with that topic. Much less the memories that went with it.

  ‘I guess I never really paid attention to how much you’ve, uh, gotten back into that whole Eighties obsession of yours,’ Aimee said, the compassion and worry in her voice making Jenna’s stomach hurt. She waved a hand at the walls, inviting Jenna’s inspection, as if Jenna hadn’t decorated them herself, and didn’t know exactly what hung there.

  ‘I wouldn’t call it an obsession,’ Jenna protested. ‘A keen interest? Maybe. A certain focused enjoyment? Sure.’

  Aimee pressed her lips together and looked around the office, leaving Jenna no choice but to do the same. She saw what she always saw: pure Eighties perfection. The office was decorated exactly the way her bedroom in Indiana had been when she was a twelve-year-old girl, almost twenty-five years ago. She’d had it that way for years – although, in truth, over the past few months she had dug some more classic pieces out of the collection of posters she usually kept in storage.

  A huge, six-foot poster of Tommy Seer from the Wild Boys dominated the wall behind her desk. She pivoted around so she could better appreciate Tommy’s glowing green eyes and full, sensual mouth. She sighed happily, her automatic response and the reason the poster was behind her, because she would otherwise never get any work done at all. Her gaze travelled across the rest of the wall, where smaller posters of the band, and close-ups of Tommy’s gorgeous face, hung anywhere else there was space. She had a whole separate wall dedicated to other Eighties loves, like Duran Duran and Wham!, but it could be argued that Jenna’s professional environment was a shrine to Tommy Seer.

  Much as her adolescence had been.

  She failed to see why that was an issue.

  ‘Remember that guy Mark?’ Aimee asked in an offhand, casual sort of voice that Jenna knew better than to let fool her. ‘The one Ben and I set you up with after the Fourth of July party?’

  Jenna had to fight not to roll her eyes. Aimee and her husband Ben were wonderful in every respect except this one: they believed that no one could possibly be happy single, especially Jenna, especially after The Unfortunate Event That Could Not Be Named. Hence the constant stream of blind dates and set-ups, in some misguided attempt to ‘get her back on the horse’, a direct quote from Ben. If Jenna said no, she had to withstand furth
er emotionally taxing conversations like this one – so she usually gave in and simply went on the dates. She was convinced these exercises in social humiliation might, in fact, kill her one of these days, if she didn’t kill herself – or Aimee – first.

  ‘Which one was Mark?’ Jenna asked, trying to exude patience and calm. ‘Was he the alarmingly morose fitness instructor who wanted me to train for a half-marathon for, quote, the good of my soul? Or the pompous male nurse who lectured me on my dairy intake and made me buy a copy of Skinny Bitch after dinner?’

  ‘Mark is a consultant.’ Aimee shook her head as if Jenna’s words wounded her. Personally. ‘And he’s nice, Jenna. He’s a really nice guy.’

  ‘Oh, right. Mark.’ Jenna rolled her eyes this time, because she knew all there was to know about nice guys, thank you. She’d been close to marrying one once, hadn’t she? Not that she was talking about that! ‘The consultant – whatever that means – with such a busy, busy corporate life that he hasn’t had time to read a book since the mid-Nineties, right? What a winner.’

  Aimee crossed her arms over her chest and looked as if she was fighting for patience. Jenna pretended her teeth were not on edge, and her shoulders were perfectly relaxed.

  ‘We had him over for dinner last night, and asked him why he never called you again,’ Aimee said. Her voice was too kind. Much too kind. Jenna braced herself for the inevitable blow. ‘And do you know what he said?’

  ‘I can only imagine.’ Jenna had blocked most of that date – and, in fact, most of every date Aimee sent her on – completely out of her mind. Better to repress than remember and weep, she always said. Or would have said, had Aimee allowed her to complain about these things without looking as if Jenna had kicked her.

  Being single and in her mid-thirties in Manhattan should have been exciting, as there were so many other people in exactly the same situation. There ought to have been some camaraderie, or a sense of shared adventure. Instead, it felt a lot more like being an unpaid participant in a gruelling reality show.

  And the fact that her fiancé had left her for a perky aspiring yoga instructor eight months ago was, Jenna told herself, completely irrelevant.

  ‘He said that when you mentioned that you worked here at Eighties TV, he naturally asked you what your favourite Eighties band was.’ Aimee’s gaze made Jenna uncomfortable, and she looked away, towards the Wild Boys Live in Rio poster spread she’d put up near the door just last week. ‘And he said that he laughed when you told him you loved the Wild Boys, which isn’t unreasonable, and then you ranted at him. Like a mental patient. His words, Jenna.’

  The worst part, Jenna thought dimly, was that Aimee’s voice was still so kind. Concerned.

  ‘He was lucky I didn’t throw something at him,’ she said now. ‘He’s the mental patient if he can’t accept I take the Wild Boys very seriously.’

  ‘I know you do,’ Aimee replied. ‘I’m beginning to think you need an intervention. I know you keep saying that this has nothing to do with Adam and that you’re fine—’

  ‘Since when do we speak his name?’ Jenna was outraged. ‘Some things are sacrosanct, Aimee!’

  ‘Look at this office, Jenna.’ Aimee’s voice was low, urgent. She spread out her palms in front of her. ‘Look at you.’

  But Jenna didn’t want to do either of those things. Not the way Aimee wanted her to, anyway.

  ‘This office has a Wild Boys theme to it, yes,’ she admitted, walking out from behind her desk and leaning back against the edge of it. ‘I like Tommy Seer. And I can see how this might be a problem if we worked in, say, an investment bank downtown. But seeing as we work at Eighties TV, what’s the issue?’

  ‘Some of us work at Eighties TV,’ Aimee countered gently, ‘while living in the real world. The real world which is in the twenty-first century these days. But you’re acting like it’s still 1987, Jenna, and it’s not healthy!’

  ‘Again,’ Jenna said, temper mixing with the other, darker things and feeling almost like a relief next to that whole mess, ‘an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Eighties can only be an asset in this particular office. It’s my job.’

  Aimee waved her hand up and down, indicating Jenna’s outfit. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘You’re a few bangles and a side ponytail away from looking like a member of Bananarama!’

  ‘So what?’ Jenna demanded, stung. ‘Leggings are totally in. I saw at least ten starlets wearing them in the pages of US Weekly!’

  She was wearing black leggings beneath an artfully torn denim miniskirt. Complete with bright pink ankle boots and a T-shirt, she felt this comprised a normal workday outfit at Eighties TV, a subsidiary of the giant Video TV, which she and Aimee had worked for since graduating from NYU together. They ran only Eighties videos, all the time. The VJs were much worse than Jenna was in their commitment to Eighties fashion. Sabrina St Clair was known to wear her own version of Michael Jackson’s famous glove on the air, and sometimes even out to dinner.

  Jenna wanted to say something about Aimee’s outfit, but, of course, there was nothing to say. There never was. Aimee always looked polished, even at Eighties TV where professional staff were encouraged to dress ‘funky’. Even when they’d been eighteen, Aimee had effortlessly radiated cool competence from the top of her smooth blonde head to her always-pedicured toes.

  Jenna, meanwhile, had wild curly brown hair only a member of Heart circa ‘All I Want to Do Is Make Love to You’ could appreciate, and her fashion sense was pretty much the same as it had been when she was in high school. Which, she reminded herself, was a good thing, given her place of employment.

  ‘I don’t want to debate the merits of Bananarama,’ Aimee said, shaking her head again.

  ‘What’s to debate?’ Jenna replied at once. ‘Frankly, I think they’re underrated. “Cruel, Cruel Summer” stands the test of time – more than people think.’

  ‘I want to point out that you’ve been obsessed with Tommy Seer and the Wild Boys since you were in the sixth grade,’ Aimee said in that too-conciliatory tone, as if Jenna was mentally unstable. Jenna found she hated that tone. Passionately. ‘And while it made sense that you would, you know, sink into all that again when Adam broke up with you—’

  ‘Is this mention-the-unmentionable day?’ Jenna interjected. ‘What the hell, Aimee?’

  ‘—it’s been a really long time,’ Aimee finished, ignoring Jenna’s interruption. ‘It’s been almost a year since you guys finally broke up, and you know things were bad for a long time before that.’

  Jenna rubbed at her face with her hands, surprised to see that they were shaking.

  ‘Why are you talking about this?’ she asked, her voice too low to pretend Aimee wasn’t getting to her.

  ‘It’s time to let Tommy Seer go,’ Aimee said gently. Pityingly. It made Jenna’s eyes well up, and she hated that. She’d finished crying about Adam and his betrayal a long time ago. She stared out her window, and fought to bring herself back under control.

  ‘It was sort of adorable and quirky that you were so into the guy when we were in college,’ Aimee continued. ‘I know you saved all those B-sides and 45s, and that’s cute. It is.’ Her gaze was pleading. ‘And I understand why obsessing about the Wild Boys is some kind of safe haven now. Adam was a shit. Is a shit. But we’re in our mid-thirties.’

  ‘Don’t remind me, please.’ Jenna had never planned to be thirty-five and single, living in a tiny one-bedroom in Hell’s Kitchen all by herself. She and Adam had been together forever, and then engaged for almost two years before he’d bailed on her. This wasn’t how her life was supposed to be. She was supposed to be just like Aimee. Married. Happy. Not the discarded fiancée, humiliated after all those years of waiting for Adam. Waiting for him to call her his girlfriend. To move in with her. To settle down. To propose. To set a wedding date.

  This was not the plan.

  ‘Tommy Seer has been dead for nearly twenty-five years,’ Aimee said firmly. As if Jenna had missed that unpleasant fact somehow, and
the news might come as some surprise. ‘And you’re using him as a way to hide from the world. This is your life, Jenna. Right here, right now. You have to live it.’

  ‘I’m trying—’ Jenna began.

  ‘You are not trying,’ Aimee interrupted her fiercely. ‘You’ve given up.’ She made a low noise. ‘Adam’s moved on, Jenna. The truth is that he moved on a long time ago. When are you going to do the same?’

  ‘Aimee.’ She could barely get the name out past the lump in her throat. She was momentarily blinded by the wet heat in her eyes, and was terrified she might actually weep. ‘Stop,’ she hissed. ‘Please.’

  There was a small silence. She could hear Aimee breathing, and could feel the weight of her love, her concern, floating between them like all their history. It made her hurt.

  But then Aimee sighed slightly, and when Jenna glanced over at her, she was smiling. Not brightly, perhaps, but it was a smile.

  ‘At the very least,’ she said quietly, her blue eyes seeing too much, the way they always did, ‘you have to quit talking about your Wild Boys thing on the first date, okay?’

  Why should I give up the Wild Boys when I’ve been forced to give up everything else? Jenna wondered some hours later, still sitting in her office. Okay, maybe Aimee had a point – maybe she was a little bit obsessed – but who did it hurt? What else did she have?

  It was late and almost everyone else had already gone home to their spouses and children and grown-up lives. None of which Jenna possessed. Thanks, Adam, she thought sarcastically. She very much doubted he and his yoga-loving girlfriend were sitting around brooding over their life choices tonight. The last time she’d seen them, in fact, they had both been equally, repulsively arrogant about the necessity of their love.

  That was what he’d said, the back-stabbing, cheating liar. Right to her face, new girlfriend in tow, as he packed up his stuff. My love for Marisol is a necessity, Jenna. You wouldn’t understand.