Once she broke out of her sleepy stupor, within seconds, Thorn's first thought was the album. Their first album, which they had been working on for over a year, was finally out for the world to hear today.
It almost didn't feel real to Thorn. The girls had been so invested in planning the album for so long that she had gotten used to that process being the norm, and now, it felt shocking that it had actually happened.
"Holy shit, the album's out!" Dusk could be heard exclaiming in the other room. Thorn chuckled, feeling the same way, as she quickly slipped into a black sweater and blue jeans.
"Morning, Thorn!" Luna greeted.
"Good morning!" Thorn smiled back, quickly heading towards the cupboard to get her normal morning cereal. "Good morning, Dusk."
"Morning." Dusk responded.
Opening the cupboards, Thorn took out the box of Cheerios and poured them into the bowl until it was about half full. She then headed towards the refrigerator to get milk. A quick glance on the top shelf, where the milk was usually stored showed a curious sight: there was none.
"Where's the milk?" Thorn inquired.
"Oh, my mom was thirsty for some yesterday." Dusk informed. "I gave her the last little bit."
"So there's no milk in the house?" Thorn gasped.
"Nope." Dusk confirmed. "You'll have to eat your cereal dry this morning."
"I hate dry cereal!" Thorn sighed.
"Well, tough shit." Dusk said in a teasingly-sassy voice.
"I'll go to the store and get some milk." Thorn immediately decided.
"There's some pancake mix in the cupboard. I could actually go for some pancakes too, so I'll just make that." Luna offered. "See, that's even better than cereal."
"Uh…" Thorn stuttered, trying to think of a reason. "Well what if I don't want any stinkin' pancakes?"
"Umm…Luna, does Thorn seem like she's acting a bit…quirkier…than usual?" Dusk said in a teasing voice.
"Wait a minute, I know what's going on." Luna smirked once she thought she understood Thorn's logic. "She just wants to find a reason to go to the store so she can look at our album on display in the CD section. Isn't that right, Thorn?"
"Well, I'm not going to say you're wrong." Thorn blushed.
"It's too early for this shit on our day off." Dusk sighed. "Can't we just wait until the afternoon and drive 20 minutes to Sam Stream's Record Shop?"
"Please, Dusk?" Thorn whimpered, putting on a sad puppy dog face.
"Wait a minute, can't you go alone?" Dusk challenged.
"Well, I could. It'd be more fun to go as a band, though." Thorn counterargued.
"Fine." Dusk sighed. "We can all go together to get milk and look at our CD on the shelves."
"I think it could be fun." Luna gave her opinion.
"By the way, do you think you could make us those pancakes before we leave?" Thorn asked, unable to keep a smile forming on her face from teasing her friend.
"Well, now we're going to go to the store fast…because I'm going to chase you there!" Dusk snapped, as she started playfully running after Thorn, then grabbed the keys and ran out the door.
The girls all climbed into the Soccer Mom Van once they reached the parking lot.
"Who wants to drive?" Thorn asked.
"Well, you're the one who pressured us to go, so it better be you." Dusk said firmly.
"Okay, okay, I can take a hint." Thorn rolled her eyes.
Luna climbed in the backseat this time, not squished up against heavy instruments much to her happiness. Dusk took the passenger's seat while Thorn hopped in the driver's seat, started the vehicle, and shifted to drive once everyone was snuggly buckled into their respective seats.
"So…I've been thinking…we just released our first album. What now?" Luna asked, uncertainly.
"We'll release a second album?" Thorn laughed, acting as if the question was obvious.
"I don't think that's the way it works, Thorn." Luna said. "Most artists don't just pump out albums every couple months. Usually they do stuff in between."
"Yeah, you know, like touring, album promotion. Stuff like that." Dusk added.
"What do you mean promoting the album? Haven't we already done that with recording stuff for radio bumpers?" Luna asked.
"It just means, like, filming music videos, having autograph signing events, maybe doing an interview, I think?" Dusk said, the end of her sentence turning into a question due her uncertainty.
"Making merch?" Luna added.
"Reading each of our songs to schoolchildren in dramatic form to teach them the importance of poetry?" Thorn offered, causing the other two to give her strange looks.
"I was joking, alright?" Thorn smirked. "I don't know any more about what comes after the album release than you two do. I don't think we're popular enough to be touring, so that's not going to happen. We'll have to bring it up in our next meeting with Gus."
"Alright, we're here, Thorn. Are you happy?" Dusk playfully harassed, as they arrived at the store.
"Yes. Very, in fact." Thorn teased back.
The girls got out of their car and headed into the store. The dairy section came before the CDs, so they headed over to pick up a half-gallon of milk first. After retrieving the milk, they headed over to the CD section of the store. All three girls felt a sense of accomplishment when seeing their CD on the shelf.
"Wow. There it is." Thorn gasped.
"Excuse me." a woman said. Quickly apologizing, the girls moved out of the way, as the woman picked out a Farmer Jones album, titled Beautiful Cowgirls, Beautiful Beer, Beautiful Life.
"If we're going to people-watch for a moment, we should really do it in a place that doesn't look so obvious." Luna whispered.
"She has a point. Our faces are on the cover, you know." Dusk reminded.
Thorn was a little surprised Dusk was so open to the idea of people-watching, but the black-haired goth was quite happy about it. Even if it was just for a moment, she was curious if anyone would walk up and buy their album.
Thorn pretended she was looking through the magazines in the next aisle down, while Dusk and Luna looked at the books, while looking up every few moments to see if anyone had bought their album.
"Look!" Dusk whispered, pointing to someone approaching the CD section. It was a girl a little older than them, looking like she was maybe in her mid-20s. Sure enough, the girl looked at their CD and picked it up.
"Oh my gosh!" Thorn whispered, hoping no one would hear them. "I can't believe someone bought our album!"
"Shhh." Dusk pointed to another girl approaching the CD section. This time, Thorn recognized the girl: it was the same brunette with braids that they had seen a few times during their concerts at Haylee's. She was the one girl who had looked up for the longest of anyone there while they were performing. She picked up a copy of Hex Girl, smiled, and walked away.
"Hey, she's the one from Haylee's!" Luna recognized.
"Speaking of people we've seen…" Thorn said, as yet another person approached the CD stand. This time, it was the older gentleman who had asked them at a number of concerts when the album would be released. He was wearing a brown coat, and was with his wife, who wore a purple coat.
"Martha! Martha! It's here!" the older gentleman exclaimed, as he snatched a copy of The Hex Girls' album off the shelf. "I'm gonna be tappin' my feet in the easy chair all day today!"
"That's very exciting, Gene." Martha smiled.
"C'mon Martha! Let's go pop this in the CD player in the car, and move and groove while we cruise!" Gene exclaimed.
Thorn couldn't help but smile. Even if it didn't end up being a lot of people, it was so nice and rewarding to see people enjoying their music so much. She knew their music would never have any sort of lasting legacy, but these people's happiness in just this moment filled her up with so much joy.
It had been a relatively uneventful week since the day of the album release. The girls went to work every morning like usual and met at Jack's every day at lunchtime, but the remainder of their days were very flexible. Oftentimes they'd go back to their apartment, but sometimes they hung out at Jack's and just talked for a little while after Dusk's shift. The conversation occasionally drifted into music-related topics, such as ideas to promote their new album through merch and what said merch would look like, but it wasn't about writing music like it had been.
Since the numbers hadn't come out yet and they hadn't seen Gus, the girls didn't have any idea of how their album was selling, but they assumed in the best case scenario that the sales would be moderately good. Thorn figured that liking a single song from an artist was a lot different than purchasing an entire album. It was easy to just enjoy a song on the radio, but buying their album required people to truly love the song enough that they wanted to hear 11 other songs in that same artistic style.
It was Thursday afternoon once again, which meant it was time for their weekly meeting with Gus. Thorn really had no idea what to expect in this meeting, as pretty much everything they had talked about since their first meeting with Gus was always about things related to the first album. She was sure Gus would have something he wanted to discuss, though.
Thorn's knock on Gus's office door was quickly answered with a "come in!"
"Hey Gus!" Dusk greeted.
"Hello, girls!" Gus smiled. "I hope you have the time this afternoon, because this is going to be a big meeting!"
"Oh…really?" Luna looked confused. "I would have thought it would be a small meeting."
"Knowing how motivated Gus is, he probably wants us to start thinking about the second album already." Dusk assumed.
"Not exactly." Gus corrected, looking quite anticipatory. "Why don't you girls sit down around my computer? I have some chart data I'd like to show you."
"Oh shit, did the album bomb?" Dusk looked anxious.
"Just sit down and let me explain before jumping to conclusions. This is going to require quite a lot of explanation." Gus informed.
Thorn started to feel quite antsy. What Gus was saying didn't sound like it was a good thing. If the album did well, why would it require quite a lot of explanation?
Nonetheless, Thorn did as she was instructed, and sat down next to Gus. Luna and Dusk quickly did the same, as Gus began explaining.
"This is today's pop radio chart." Gus said. "I'd like you to locate yourselves on that chart."
Thorn scanned the chart, looking first around the #20-30 area of the chart where it had been near the prior week. She quickly realized the other girls must have done the same when Gus corrected them.
"I think you might want to look a little up here." Gus pointed further up the chart.
Thorn's jaw almost dropped when she saw "Hex Girl" at #12. It had been played a massive 8,026 times on the radio this week.
"Oh my god!" Dusk gasped. "How did we climb so fast? We were just at #25 like a week ago."
"Before I explain, I need to show you the other chart." Gus opened another window on his computer.
Thorn didn't understand what was happening. Was the explanation something about how their song was doing well, but the album hadn't connected with people?
"Here's the Billboard 200 chart." Gus said.
Thorn, Dusk and Luna scanned the bottom of the chart, looking for Hex Girl.
"Again, you may want to look a little higher. Or a lot higher." Gus struggled to hold back his smile.
"What the shit?" Dusk gasped. Thorn quickly brought her gaze up to the top of the chart. Hex Girl was currently at #3.
"How is that even possible?" Luna shook her head in confusion.
"Your album sold 800,000 copies across the US this past week." Gus said. "Now, I know this is going to be shocking to you, which is why I want to dedicate our whole meeting to processing your feelings about this, as well as how you'd like to move forward."
"Eight hundred thousand?!" Thorn shouted, almost at a yell from her surprise.
"This isn't real. I must be dreaming." Luna replied in disbelief.
"I very much assure you girls, it is not a dream." Gus chuckled. "But it will be, in the sense that you will get to live out your dream of being a popular band. Now, before we move forward, I'd like to know how each of you is feeling."
"I'm freaking excited!" Dusk exclaimed, with glee in her voice.
"I…I think I'm just shocked. I'm happy people love our music, but…I'm...just shocked." Thorn repeated herself.
"I'm in the same boat as Thorn." Luna agreed.
"Now, I have another thing I'd like to tell you before we process through this together more." Gus said. "Are you open to hearing it, or would you like to process more first?"
"I think we'd just like to hear it." Thorn said, checking for Dusk and Luna's approval. A quick nod signaled Gus to keep talking.
"Since you've become overnight sensations like this, I think you should go on tour." Gus said. "It's your first tour, so it wouldn't have to be any longer than a month or so, but the interest is clearly here now."
"H-how quick should we schedule it?" Luna stuttered.
"Well, it's really up to you girls. Announcing tickets and booking venues wouldn't take more than a week. When would you want to go?" Gus questioned.
"We were spontaneous with the album and that got us a lot of success, so why not be spontaneous with this? How about in a couple weeks?" Dusk suggested, seeming eager.
"That seems a little soon." Thorn cautioned. "Maybe in a month or so. That still is spontaneous, but it's at least reasonable."
"That's fair." Dusk agreed.
"Next month?" Luna gasped. "That's so soon!"
"I kind of like the idea." Thorn said. "That would give us a month off to promote this album, and then we'd have a fresh start when we got back."
"I think it's quite a fine idea." Gus agreed. "Another aspect of things we'd need to figure out is hiring a few personnel to help with special effects, such as if you want some sort of explosion like you had at the Autumn Fest with "Hex Girl." However, my daughter Bridgit, and her friends Nia and Sam, have a lot of theatrical experience from high school, so I'm sure they'd be more than willing to come along. And if you'd have me, I'd like to come along as well."
"Who's going to fill in for you while you're gone?" Dusk asked.
"Oh, ever since Ace retired, his nephew Mase Decade has been running the place. Short for Mason, of course. I'm sure he can spread out any duties I can't do while I'm gone among the other executives here. I can still bring paperwork along and answer my emails there, and all that drudgery." Gus assured.
"More importantly, who's going to fill in for us while we're gone?" Luna inquired.
"Well, I think our dads find our help useful, but they got along fine without us before. We don't need the money anymore either." Thorn answered. "I think they'll be fine without us for a month."
"I mean, we're never going to have to worry about money again!" Dusk exclaimed. "Who needs these crappy jobs?"
"Jack does." Thorn reminded. "He really likes you helping out, and arguably needs the most help out of any of our three jobs. I think he'll be fine if we're gone for a month, but you shouldn't just ditch him like that."
"Yeah, I guess." Dusk shrugged.
"Now, before I make any of these calls, I want to ask again how you girls are doing." Gus expressed concern. "Is this something you want to do?"
"Yes, I think so." Thorn nodded confidently. "I mean, it's definitely going to be weird traveling for a whole month, but I think it could be exciting sharing our music around the country, and visiting a different city every night."
"Oh, absolutely." Dusk nodded. "I'd be fucking stupid not to!"
"Yeah, it should be fun." Luna nodded, in an awkward way.
"Luna, are you sure that's how you feel?" Gus challenged, not fully believing Luna's façade.
Letting out a sigh, Luna's tone changed. "No. I'm sorry. I'm just feeling nervous. I like writing songs and sharing them with the world, but getting up on stage every night is a whole different thing. I can be kinda shy sometimes…and it's kinda nerve-wracking."
"That's completely understandable." Gus acknowledged. "None of your reactions are wrong, and in fact, they are very representative of the many different ways I have seen people react to realizing their song or album has suddenly become popular. It's completely normal to be a bit nervous at first."
"It is?" Luna said in surprise. "Oh. Maybe I'll get used to it, then."
"I'm sure you will." Gus smiled. "Now, if there's nothing else you need to process, I'll start making those calls for the venues right away, and talk to Bridgit, Nia and Sam about joining you on tour. I am so proud of you girls for all the hard work you put into creating your first album, and I'm even more proud that your music has become so huge that it's soaring up both the pop radio chart and the album chart."
"Thank you, Gus. We literally couldn't have done this without you." Thorn appreciated, as she got up from her chair and put on her coat.
"Yeah, you've been incredible." Dusk added, whilst doing the same.
"You're very welcome, girls! I can't wait to start the next part of your artistic journey with you." Gus smiled, with a hopeful look in his eye.
As the girls walked out of Gus's office and to their car, all of them were speechless. None of them could believe this was happening.
"Holy shit." Dusk swore.
"So…what do we do now?" Luna stuttered, lost for words.
"I think we need to go home and tell our parents. We can stop at Jack's on the way home, so you can tell him." Thorn suggested.
"We don't even know the date we're leaving yet." Luna pointed out.
"Well, we know it's going to be about a month." Thorn answered. "And it's better to just let him know right away so he can make other plans if needed for someone to fill in for Dusk, if he needs it."
"Yeah." Dusk shrugged. "I guess you're right."
Dusk seemed quite apathetic in her response. Thorn could tell her mind was most certainly not on work, but the black-haired goth didn't really blame her. All Thorn could think about was the fact that in just a month, she'd be traveling the country so the girls could share their music with a bigger audience than they'd ever imagined.
Luna and Thorn had been sitting outside in the Soccer Mom Van for at least five minutes, waiting while Dusk talked to Jack.
"I'm just feeling nervous about this whole thing." Luna admitted. "I'm not good at public speaking, so what's it going to be like being up in front of thousands of people every single night?"
"Sorry you're feeling nervous." Thorn said to Luna. "If it helps, Dusk and I are happy to do most of the talking. All you have to do is play the keyboard, if that's all you can handle. We're all in this together, and we'll make sure you never feel pressured to do anything you're not comfortable with."
"Aww, thanks. I really appreciate it." Luna smiled.
At that moment, Dusk came out from the restaurant, as Jack stepped outside with her. It appeared they were just finishing their conversation.
"I'm really happy for ya, Dusk, but I'm sorry to see ya go." Jack's tone seemed sad. "It's been really nice having you help out around here."
Thorn found it sweet that Jack was going to miss her so much for just a month.
"Yeah, I'm sorry I can't help out." Dusk said. There wasn't as much sympathy present in her voice as Thorn would have expected. "Clearly the time to focus on my music is now, with all the sudden interest. Have a great day!"
"Alright…see ya later, Dusk." Jack said somberly, as he headed back in the restaurant. Dusk quickly hopped back in the back seat of the car.
"Aww, that was sweet how much Jack is going to miss having you around for that month." Thorn put her hand on her heart.
"Oh, no, it's not just a month. I told Jack I was quitting for good." Dusk clarified.
"WHAT?" Thorn shouted. "Why would you do that?"
"Well, if the world likes our music so much, clearly we need to dedicate ourselves completely to that." Dusk rationalized.
"No, we don't, Dusk." Thorn's tone quickly went from surprised to disappointed.
"Yeah, not at the expense of helping out our friends." Luna agreed.
"Why are you being so judgy? It's not like I'm telling you two to quit! You can do whatever you want, and so can I." Dusk defended defiantly.
"Because you made a stupid decision, Dusk." Thorn sighed. "We just found out about the tour 20 minutes ago and you're already acting like you're Elvis or something. We don't know if this success is going to last long. Maybe we just got lucky with this album. And now you let Jack down because you didn't want this job to interfere with your music career."
"Well, am I supposed to wait months to make the decision and just keep Jack on standby?" Dusk snapped.
"No one's saying that. You could have just thought it over for a few days or something, and maybe talked it over with us before making such a rash decision." Thorn reasoned.
"So, you're saying you're mad at me now?" Dusk hissed.
"No one's mad at you." Luna defended Thorn. "We're just saying you made the decision a little quick. You could have thought about it longer before making a snap decision based on fear."
"I'm not scared of anything." Dusk hissed. "I'm excited that we got our music career, and I don't need that damn job anymore."
"Ugh, I hate it when she gets defiant and mean like this." Luna sighed.
"Yeah, me too." Thorn replied. "Don't be that person who only cares about themselves, like your parents."
"You fucking take that back, bitch!" Dusk screamed. "If you two don't like my decisions, then we just won't talk about it, alright?"
"That's just fine by me." Luna angrily agreed.
With that, the girls sat in silence in the car for a moment. Thorn was quite excited about this too, but she hoped Dusk's sudden decision didn't mean the fame had already gone to her head.
Author's note:
Happy new year, all. I hope you had a wonderful holiday season if you celebrated.
Dusk's mention of Sam Stream's Record Shop is a cross-fanfic reference, calling back to chapter 34 of my previous fanfic Fangs for the Memories. In the chapter, one character says he is going to "stream" an album, much to the confusion of the other characters because streaming music has not been invented yet. The character then humorously clarifies he was talking about buying the album at Sam Stream's Record Shop, and that kids say "streaming" an album as slang for when they are going to Sam Stream's. Just a bit of a joke where I made it seem like I was going to date the fanfic by using modern technology, but then didn't.
Also, in terms of Hex Girl selling 800,000 copies, I researched average album sale numbers from the late 1990s and early 2000s to come up with that number. The number might seem a little large now, but keep in mind that album sales have actually seen a significant decrease in recent years in the age of streaming. To demonstrate that example, even the two highest-selling albums of 2021 sold what would have been considered average back then. Adele's 30 sold 839,000 albums, and Taylor Swift's Red (Taylor's Version) sold 605,000 albums. It's amazing how much streaming has changed album sales and the music industry in general in recent years.
This chapter was a bit different than the past few have been, but I hope you all still enjoyed it! Reviews, whether positive or constructive criticism, are always greatly appreciated so I know what I am doing well, and what I could improve upon. Thank you as always for reading, and I hope you're looking forward to the next chapter!