The truth about Mary.

     I don’t think I want this life anymore.

     Sure, it was fun to begin with. The flashing cameras and the screaming fans -- before we had even made a name for ourselves. It was amazing. Something I had dreamt of all my life, and finally it was coming true. The impossible dream that every little kid has of being on stage, looking out on thousands of adoring fans and knowing every one of them had come to see you. The adrenaline rush is absolutely indescribable. So for the first month in the studio, I was ecstatic with my life and they way things were going. Until her.
     So I know what you’re thinking, here comes the cliche. Boy meets girl, some rift comes between them and they’re both miserable for a time, before the grand happy ending. But what if the happy ending never comes?

     I met Mary on one of the first days we went into a recording studio. I don’t even remember meeting her.
     ‘Ah, what’s this?’, you say?
     No love at first site? No lightning bolt flashing out of the sky at the first glimpse of my lady fair’s smile? Nope. Not in the least. As it turned out, Mary’s nondescript name fit her more than perfectly. She was simply the most unnoticeable girl in the world. Mousey brown hair, plain brown eyes, thin-rimmed glasses, a tad overweight, and a plain but pretty face the blended so easily into the background. She was easy to miss.
     Mary Jones. A nice plain girl with a nice plain name. Not someone meant for greatness, no. This was no Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera, no, not our Mary. She wasn’t destined for grandeur, it was plain to see. So why was she forever at the studio? Abs asked that very question, two or three weeks after we began work on our first album.

     "Hey, who is that girl that’s always here?" Abs asked some random sound tech who was in fixing a broken mixing board while we sat waiting for our producer in a sound booth.
     "What girl?" the tech replied. Abs frowned.
     "That. . .that girl. . .the one who’s always here. . ." You could tell by the look on his face that he was straining to think of some characteristic that would make Mary stand out from the rest of the young women who milled in and out of the studio all day, but there wasn’t one. Finally, he thought of something that would make her unique. "She was with Britney Spears all day yesterday when her new single was being recorded."
     "Oh, you mean Mary," the tech said with a smile. "She’s one of the singers under contract with the studio. Has the voice of an angel, that girl. She does back-up on a lot of stuff around here, that’s her job. Anytime you hear one of that Spears girl’s songs, and there’s someone in the background very quietly keeping the harmony and the key? That’s Mary."
     "If she has such a great voice, what is she doing wasting her time trying to make Britney sound talented?" J asked smugly, and he and Sean chuckled lightly. "Seriously, though... how come she isn’t recording on her own?"
     The sound tech cast a look at J as though he were completely off his rocker. "Have you taken a good look at her?" he replied, and the other lads, who must have all formed a picture of Mary in their minds, laughed with the tech. As much as I hate to admit it, I laughed too.

     I laughed because I knew that Mary wasn’t pretty enough, didn’t have the sex appeal required to be a musician these days. I laughed until I realized how horrible I was for thinking that about her and I cut off in the middle of a snicker and never felt more ashamed of myself in my entire life.
     I laughed until I saw Mary standing in the doorway to our little booth.
     "Simon left a message with the front desk," Mary informed us coldly, and I knew immediately by the tone of her voice that she had heard everything that had went on in that room as we waited.
      Until that very minute, I hadn’t even realized that I knew Mary at all, but I did. I had seen her every once in a while around the building, passed her in the hallways, ridden in an elevator beside her. Once, she had even lent me change for a vending machine in a back lobby and we had passed a bit of mindless small talk. I couldn’t believe that I had been able to completely forget her, but I had.
     Scott, who had only moments before been laughing in ridicule at this poor girl, turned on that charm that had gotten him into the group and smiled his pop star smile at her. "Well what did he say?" he asked cheerfully, trying to make up for his cruel laughter now with a polite smile and cheerful disposition.
     Mary eyed him skeptically and the return smile Scott had been certain would grace her lips never came."He wanted his ‘new project’ to be told he was stuck in traffic and they should start without him, as soon as Eric could get the bloody mixing board that he’s been working on for three days fixed," Mary replied. "I was actually supposed to have told you this an hour ago, but it wasn’t exactly easy to find you lot."
     "And why’s that?" Abs asked her, a defensive tinge to his voice. That’s our Abs, immediately on the offense. If you so much as blink at him the wrong way, he turns all nasty. Mary’s obvious irritation at having been called upon to play messenger for us had pushed a button with him.
     "Well the message was for a group called ‘Five’," Mary told him innocently. "And I haven’t heard anyone in the studio calling you lads anything but ‘The Spice Boys’. So obviously I was a bit puzzled."
     "We’re not. . ." J started, that defensive attitude quickly spreading to him from Abs.
     "Look, honestly, I couldn’t care less what you are or aren’t," Mary told him, rolling her eyes. "I was sent to deliver a message. Two of them, actually. Eric, you have exactly twenty minutes to get that board fixed because you have a meeting with your supervisor. He says you should have been done days ago and he’s not paying you time and a half again."

     With that, she left, leaving us to stare after her. The tech tweaked a few wires and screwed the top back on the mixing board and told us someone would be in to help us start in a minute, and left.

     We are all pretty quiet after that. I had it set in my mind to avoid Mary for the rest of my time in the studio, not wanting to deal with her now. We had insulted her and she had made it painfully clear that any future interaction between us would not go well at all. So you can see how my plans were somewhat botched when Mary came back to the booth ten minutes later with a can of Sprite and a frown.

     "All right, in the booth, now," she ordered with a heavy sigh.
     "Since when do we take orders from you?" J demanded.
     "Since your producer is stuck in traffic, your managers are in a meeting downstairs, and there’s no one else here who will work with you," Mary replied. "Something about working with manufactured pop bands tampering with their artistic integrity."
     "So you don’t have any integrity then?" Scott asked her. Even he, the token hyperactive, constantly cheerful member of the band, was a little ticked at her. You could read it on his face; so, he had insulted her vanity, so what? Did that give her the right to treat us so poorly?
     Mary snorted. "Artistic integrity? Please," she replied. "That’s a load of bull. Like everyone else in this building, I’m in it for the money. Now get in the booth so we can get started."
     I learned that day that Mary Jones was a force to be dealt with. I just didn’t know how much we would be dealing with her from that day on. I would learn that lesson soon enough.

     Its funny sometimes, how fate works. Looking back on it now, I realize that there are so many little factors that led to the slow deconstruction of Mary.

     If Simon hadn’t gotten caught int traffic, Mary would never have head a message to deliver to us that afternoon, and wouldn’t have heard Eric the Tech’s insult.

     If Bob or Chris had managed to get out of their meeting just a little early, Mary would not have had to sit in with us that afternoon.

     If we had been just a little nicer... if we had acted like decent human beings and told Erin to get stuffed for speaking about her that way... if we had just stopped ourselves from laughing... it all could have been different.

     It was obvious that our little conversation had effected her a lot more than she wanted us to know. After that day, I thought back over all the times I had seen her in the studio.

     A lot of the women there dressed up. It’s understandable, I guess. Were the situation reversed, and I was the one with the menial office job, working side by side with the young rich and famous day after day, I know for certain I’d pass more than a fleeting glance in the mirror each morning before leaving the house. But that wasn’t Mary.

     She simply didn’t care. She wore her jeans and trainers to work, didn’t bother with make-up or hair spray like the others. This was just a job for her, nothing to get all dressed up for. But it changed after she heard our cruel conversation that afternoon.

     We made her self-conscious and even now, after all this time, I still feel like dirt because of it. In this day and age, there aren’t many people out there who can live their lives without spending half their time worrying about what everyone else thinks. Mary used to be one of those people, but we struck a nerve with her that day.

     It was subtle at first, but as time passed it became more and more obvious that she was slowly changing her appearance. Jeans became skirts, trainers became heels, ponytails became perfectly rolled curls.

     Simon had decided he wanted Mary in on our recording sessions permanently after that first day. You see, this was our first time doing any real professional recording. We were all very young and excited, and had gained something of a reputation for mucking about when we were supposed to be working. Mary’s presence that first afternoon had us all very sullen and uncomfortable, doing the work just to get it over with and get away from the awkward feeling her presence invoked in us all. Simon decided she was a good influence on us and wanted here there on a daily basis, so we had a front row view of her transformation, and we weren’t the only ones who noticed the change.

     Simon made a comment one evening.

     "That girl could get herself a solo contract if she just cleaned herself up a bit."

     Here comes another one of those big ‘if’s - if we hadn’t been so "good" during our session with Mary, if we had just been our normal, loud, obnoxious selves, than Simon would never have scheduled Mary to work with us day in and day out. He wouldn’t have noticed her slowly evolving into the beauty she became. He wouldn’t have noticed her at all. Maybe it would have been better that way.

     And here’s another; If Mary hadn’t gotten sick, she would probably never have lost any weight and gotten that look Simon was waiting for.

     About a month into our recording, a nasty flu bug was going around the studio and Mary caught it. I’m not entirely sure what happened to her in those weeks she was off of work. I’ve been told she became severely dehydrated and was hospitalized for a few days. When she arrived back, you’d never have known it was the same girl.

     I have to confess, I embellished a bit in my earlier description. Yes, Mary was plain, and yes, Mary acted a bit like a tomboy, but she wasn’t really overweight. Sure, by pop star standards, she was a tad on the pudgy side. She was a normal girl – the size a normal girl should be. These pop princess types, they’re practically anorexic. Believe me, I know – I nearly married one. Thank god I dodged THAT bullet. She was so... bony. You could practically feel the little knobs on her spine, it was... for lack of a better word... really gross. Mary wasn’t like that. She was normal, healthy. Until she got really ill and dropped twenty pounds in less than two weeks.

     Simon saw it instantly. Our Mary now had the Britney Spears body type and the talent to back it up. I think he was drawing up the contracts in the back of his mind before he even had a chance to approach her with an offer.

     I have confessed to you that I lied in my description of Mary, but she lied as well. She said she was in the business for the money, exploiting her talent to earn her keep, but that wasn’t true. Not at all.

     There’s something I’ve realized after almost five years living the life of a pop singer.

     When you’re a kid, growing up, you say you want to be a lot of things. Astronauts and doctors and firemen and police and pilots and lawyers and scientists. All plausible career choices, things that every one of us has the potential to be if we just worked at it a bit. But those children who grow up to be those doctors and those pilots and what not, every one of them has wanted to sing. Every one of them has craved that fame, that respect, that cult following that comes with being a musician.

     Everyone wants to be that face up on the stage, that person who has the audience screaming for them and crying for them and singing the words to every song right along with them.

     Almost anyone can grows up to be a fireman or a lawyer if they wanted it bad enough. But only a select few get that dream of fame they craved.

     I need that fame. Hunger for it. And I got it. Mary needed it too. She knew she had the talent and when Simon offered her that record deal on a silver platter, she took it without so much as a second thought.

     Maybe if Chris and Bob had wanted to take her on, things would have been different. But they were still a little sour on women after the Spice Girl fiasco and wanted no part of it. So Simon got Mary signed in with Plaza Management, under a dragon of a woman named Margaret Banks.

     I walked in on the three of them, Simon and Margaret and poor Mary, in an unofficial meeting of sorts they were having in a break room at the studio. I lingered at the vending machine, pretending to be torn between a packet of crisps and a chocolate bar, just so I could listen in on what they were saying.

     "The name will have to go, of course," Margaret said.
     "Oh, of course," Simon agreed.

     "‘Mary Jones’," Margaret continued distastefully. "Too plain. It just doesn’t... pop."
     Mary just stared at the two of them as though they were both mad, but they continued on anyway.
     "Jones. That you’re father’s name?" Margaret demanded of her loudly.
     "Stepfather," Mary replied slowly. "He adopted me when I was six."
     Margaret clapped her hands cheerfully. "Well there we go, now we may have something to work with! Father’s surname?"
     "Chulski," Mary said.

     "Chulski?" Simon asked, nose wrinkled. "That Russian?"
     "Polish," Mary replied.
     "Either way, too ethnic," Margaret interjected.
    "Agreed," Simon said, nodding, then turned to Mary. "Mother’s maiden name?"
     "Sparrow," Mary told him with a sigh, leaning back in her chair.
     "Perfect!" Margaret shouted. "Now... for your first name..."
     "What’s wrong with my name?" Mary demanded angrily.
    "Boring, dear, dreadfully dull," Margaret replied with a dismissive wave of her hand. "What’s your middle name, then? Probably something just as dodgy, Ann or something, right?"
     "Zosha," Mary told her, glaring.
     "Zosha?" Simon and Margaret asked together.
      "Z-o-s-i-a. Pronounce ‘Zosha’," Mary informed them indignantly. "It’s the Polish translation of Sophie."
     "Sophie Sparrow?" Simon theorized.
     Margaret shook her head. "Not Sophie... Not Zosia... Zoe! Zoe Sparrow!"
      "Brilliant!" Simon agreed. Mary just sighed again, and I hurried out before they noticed I was even there.

     It spiraled out of control from there. Her hair was cut and dyed. Her glasses were exchanged for contacts, and they even trained her speaking voice to be lighter and bubblier than it had been before. Mary Jones was slowly disappearing as Zoe Sparrow took over.

     She made her debut not long after we made ours, and was an instant smash. Looking at her then, I could barely recognize the girl I had just been getting to know.

     I suppose I never really got to know the real Mary Jones. But I do remember a few little things about her.

     I know Mary liked wide leg jeans, ponytails, Sprite and microwave popcorn for lunch from the vending machines. I know she took her work seriously and enjoyed recording herself covering eighties rock songs after hours. I know she was polite, quiet, talented, and confident.

     I don’t know Zoe Sparrow at all.

     I ran into her at a party not too long ago. She’s even thinner now, and has honey blonde curls. She’s had surgery and doesn’t need her  contacts anymore, but wears a pair anyway to hide the brown beneath a plastic green.

     I was sitting alone in a VIP booth at some random club party when she stumbled over and sat down. Her eyes were half-lidded and glassy as she sat there chain smoking for a full ten minutes before she noticed me. When she did, she only sat and stared at me, not speaking at all, perhaps wondering if I was really there. It was easy to see she was higher than a kite.
     "Hey Mary," I said to her finally, and her eyes widened for a second before she burst into tears.
     She must have sat there sobbing, head on her arms on the tabletop, for a good twenty minutes. I thought I might try and quiet her before anyone noticed, but it was so dark in the club and the music so loud that I realized no one would possibly know. When she calmed down and collected herself, she looked up at me again.
     "No one’s called me that in the longest time," she said softly, and we sat there in silence for another half hour before she spoke again.
     "I used to feel like I was two people, you know? Mary and Zoe. Mary at home, with my friends. Zoe everywhere else. But I haven’t been Mary in so long... I think she’s gone now. I think Zoe killed her."
     I didn’t know what to say so I just waited for her to speak again. I doubted she even knew who she was speaking too. We never ran in the same circles when we were both starting out, were never really friends. I thought it strange she would be telling me this, but then I realized she must just have wanted to get it off her chest.
      An hour after those few words spoken, Mary stood up to leave. She glanced at me and looked me straight in the eye before departing, and said, "You know? I think I’m dead inside." And then she stumbled away again, leaving a cigarette smoldering in the ashtray.

     Our third album will be out soon.

     I am sat here contemplating my album thanks and you know what, I don’t even know where to begin. Having to write these album thanks has got me reflecting on the past four or five years in the band and my whole life in general. I am trying to work out what’s going on. I suppose George Michael put most of what I am feeling into words on a song called "Listen Without Prejudice" especially the line, "You look for your dreams in heaven so what the hell are you supposed to do when they come true." *

     I guess that’s what got me thinking about Mary again. I know these will be edited to suit the needs of the record company, but I feel as though I need to write it down anyway.

     As I sit here writing this, hurting for a girl whose lifelong dream destroyed her, I can’t help but reflect on myself. I caught my image a few minutes ago in the mirror above the dresser in this hotel room and I don’t like what I saw.

     I bleach my hair. I wear expensive clothes. I listen to pop and I write pop and I sing pop. Five years ago I listened to bands like Pearl Jam and Bush and I played in a garage band. I wonder now whatever happened to Rich Dobson. Did Ritchie Neville take over and kill him off?

     I am supposed to be writing a bunch of heartfelt thank you’s, but I can’t do it. I know now that this, our third album, will be our last. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to be Ritchie Neville anymore. That just isn’t me. I want my own identity back.

      I will forever be ashamed in the role I played in murdering Mary Jones and replacing her with a synthetic sound-a-like called Zoe Sparrow, and I’ll never forget it. I refuse to let it happen to me.

     I feel like I’m starting to die on the inside.

* = This paragraph was taken from the liner note thank you's written by Ritchie Neville in the final Five album, Kingsize.