A Loser Fairy Tale

"I was about ready to give up," she says. "If it wasn't for their music . . ." Ryland puts her hand on her friend's back. "I've really wanted to tell them this," Tiano says.

Maybe tonight. Good Charlotte is playing at the 9:30 club, and she's on the list for the preshow meet-and-greet. Or, "maybe I can tell him now."

Joel is coming back through the corridor, dragging his Chuck Taylors across the carpet, and this time he stops. "What do you want to tell me?"

He puts his arm around Tiano, who is starting to convulse. "Don't cry on me," he says. Tiano waves her hand in front of her face, tries to compose herself. Inhale. Exhale. "My life would be horrific if it wasn't for you," she says, explaining how Good Charlotte's songs saved her.

"Awwww," Joel says softly, popcorn-size diamond studs gleaming from each ear. "Thank you."

He gives Tiano a hug, poses for a picture. Hugs Ryland, too.

"It's so nice to meet you girls," he says. "Thanks for coming today." Later, he'll say that he sometimes struggles to process all the pain Good Charlotte's fans share with him. "You can't get away from it. It creates this heaviness that just [messes] you up. It breaks my heart."

Tiano can't summon any more words as Joel leaves the brick building through a back door, climbing into the passenger seat of a black SUV. "She's wanted to do that for-EVER," Ryland says. "Ohhh. Myyy. God."

Tiano is still shaking. "I can't believe it." She and Ryland embrace.

"I'm having a full spaz," Ryland says. "I am SOOOO freaking out." She giggles. "I'm never washing my gloves again."

YOU REMEMBER GOOD CHARLOTTE, RIGHT? Or maybe your kids do? Five-piece band from La Plata High School by way of Annapolis, singing about a world populated by judgmental jocks and discouraging teachers and snooty girls and deadbeat dads. Punky with serious pop sensibilities, specializing in catchy, sometimes sarcastic and often autobiographical songs about alienation and isolation, family dysfunction and romantic confusion -- sort of like Green Day before that group turned serious and started singing about war and American idiots. The Maddens mixed a little bit of hip-hop and reggae into their music, and they portrayed themselves as outsiders sentenced to serve their adolescence in a small-minded small town, which could have passed for any suburb. And then, somehow, they escaped their tortured existence and landed in a rock-and-roll fantasy world. They became radio and MTV fixtures in 2002 and 2003, with "The Anthem" and "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" and "Girls and Boys." They had a Top 10 album and appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone. Big draw in concert. Their T-shirts and posters and stickers were bestsellers at Hot Topic, the mall clothing chain that caters to angsty, alternative youth cultures.

The hardcore punks called them poseurs. The critics dismissed them as a punk-rock boy band. They'd officially arrived. The misfits had gone mainstream!