by Robin Benway
“I was misquoted,” I interrupted.
“Of course you were. But who cares about that?” She reached for my glue and began outlining the back of the photo. “Evan’s song is blazing and here you come with your can of gasoline and ka-boom! Instant news!” She scrutinized the article for a minute. “This is the best thing that could’ve happened.”
“Easy for you to say,” I muttered, making sure I had a second copy of Blender before I started hacking up the first one. (I’m obsessive about my magazines and always buy two copies, one for cutting up and one for safekeeping.) “You’re not the one who’s being maligned on every major Top 40 and alternative radio station in the northern hemisphere.”
“If I was, though,” she said, “I’d make damn sure that I was having some fun with it.”
“Whatever.” I grimaced and grabbed a glue stick to attach the photo to my collage.
“You are just so lucky,” Victoria continued as if I hadn’t said anything, “that they didn’t use your freshman year photo. Your hair looks much better in this one.”
I handed back the glue stick and pasted a photo of the Lolitas to the square of posterboard. “I’m seeing you tomorrow night,” I told the picture, sort of desperate to change the subject. All I had done for the past week was talk about myself.
“Yeah,” Victoria added, glancing over at the photo. “So don’t suck.”
9 “There’s music and there’s people and they’re young and alive…”
—The Smiths, “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out”
I LOVE THE DAY OF A CONCERT. I absolutely love it. Even when I was dating Evan and going to his shows every week, there was always a little zip in the air when I knew we were going out. Besides, I was ready to get out of my house and away from my parents, who were now totally paranoid that I was gonna start talking to every reporter who happened to wander down the street. They were none too happy when my yearbook photo got leaked, and didn’t seem comforted by the fact that, as Victoria said, at least it wasn’t my freshman year photo.
Other than school, though, all I had done was go to work and go to Victoria’s house to eat greasy Chinese food and watch late-night videos on MTV so we could make fun of them. I couldn’t help but notice that the Scooper Dooper was getting more crowded with each passing day, mostly with girls my own age who had this slightly dazed look in their eyes and kept staring at me. And I don’t think they were just admiring my hair. They came to see me, which could bring them one step closer to Evan. “What, do you think he’s going to drop in here?” I wanted to shout at them, but instead I just gave them really wimpy cones.
James, who—let’s just be honest here—isn’t great with girls, was suddenly all thumbs and could barely handle the soft-serve machine whenever it got crowded, much less the cash register. Which was kind of cute.
But I digress.
So yeah, the day of a concert has a certain electricity. I’m not one of those girls who wears tiny shirts and heels to a packed club show, but I like to look nice. Okay, hot. I want to look hot while I’m dancing around. If you’re going to see a band called the Lolitas, you’ve gotta bring your A-game, know what I mean? However, when you’re a laundry avoider, it can be difficult to pull something together at the last minute.
I was forced to forsake jeans, since my cleanest pair were too long to go with the boots I wanted to wear, which sent me into a crisis until I found a miniskirt that wasn’t too short or too long, and a pair of black tights to wear underneath them in case I had to get pulled out of the pit. (I wasn’t looking to give the whole theater a free show up my skirt.) Then I had a minor laundry miracle when I found a plain black T-shirt buried in the back of my bottom dresser drawer, and I ironed it with one hand while pulling on my dark red riding boots with the other. That still left the problem of my arms. It was late November and definitely cool out, but I didn’t want to have to take a jacket, because then I’d have to carry it, or worse, tie it around my waist like a preschool dork.
And then I had an epiphany: tube socks.
Five minutes later, I had snipped the toes off a pair of my dad’s socks and pulled them up over my arms so that only my fingers and upper arms showed. I wasn’t sure if it was genius or a sartorial disaster, but I figured that Victoria would be quick to make the distinction.
When she and Jonah pulled up at four o’clock, I was ready. “Hi,” I said, breathless as I fell into the car.
“You look hot!” Victoria replied, her eyes lighting up to see me. “Doesn’t she look hot, Jonah?”
Jonah just laughed through his nose and backed the car down my driveway. “You’re a lunatic if you think I’m telling you that your best friend looks hot.”
“Hi, Jonah.”
“Hey, Aud. Cool boots.”
“I was there when she bought them!” Victoria said, leaning over the front seat so she could face me. “Are those socks on your arms?”
“Too much? I was trying to stay warm and be original at the same time.”
“No, it looks good. It’s like the girls’ hockey team ran over Green Day.”
“Um, thank you?” I decided the socks would stay on.
“Enough about socks. I’m already bored. Let’s talk about you! You’re actually leaving the house, this is so exciting!”
“I’ve left the house plenty of times,” I protested. Jonah braked hard, apparently forgetting there was a stop sign at the end of my street, the same stop sign he’d stopped at hundreds of times before, and I reached for my seat belt. “I’ve been to work and to school.”
“Those are required subjects,” Victoria said. “You haven’t been doing any electives, so to speak. You need some balancing out. A little yang in your yin.”
Jonah grumbled a little in the driver’s seat and Victoria rolled her eyes at him. “Jonah doesn’t want to go tonight.”
“Why don’t you want to go, Jonah?”
“Because it’s a chick show,” he said, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “It’s gonna be all chicks.”
“How lucky am I?” Victoria grinned. “My boyfriend’s upset that he has to stand in a roomful of women tonight. He’s the best!” She planted a wet kiss on his cheek with a hearty “mwah!” sound.
I swear, if they spent the entire freeway ride making out while we sat in traffic, I was going to throw myself under the wheels of the car. “A-hem,” I said. “Audience of one back here.”
Victoria kissed him one more time, then turned her attention back to me. “So now I want to hear about James.” She had this way of saying his name like it was a super-special secret, all hushed and excited. “Did you work with him yesterday?”
I thought about what to tell her. Yes, we had worked. Yes, he spilt vanilla soft-serve and burned a whole batch of waffle cones. Yes, he had stood right next to me while I was ringing up customers, close enough that I could smell what laundry detergent he used.
But all I said was, “He spilt the soft-serve. It took forever to clean up.” Then I started digging in my bag for my makeup kit, since it had taken so long to get dressed that I had no time to spruce myself up. “Here, tilt the mirror so I can see myself,” I said as we merged onto the freeway. “Mommy needs to put her face on.”
“Like this?” Victoria moved the rearview mirror, which reflected a sunbeam and nearly zapped Jonah’s eyes out of his head.
“Because it’s not like I’m driving or anything!” he cried. “Jesus!”
“Sorry, sorry,” Victoria apologized. “Want me to kiss it and make it better?”
“You want to kiss my eyeballs? You’ll get your sticky lip gloss all over them.”
“Yeah, but it smells like strawberry. See?” She puckered up and stuck her lips under his nose. Meanwhile, I was trying to see myself in the rearview mirror, but no matter where I moved, all I could see was my chin, where I suspected a huge zit was days away from making its stage debut. “Great,” I muttered.
Victoria turned back from kissing Jonah’s nose. “Here, switch se
ats with me so you can see.” She practically dove over the front seat and into the backseat, while I did the opposite and climbed into the front seat. And because we’re both complete klutzes, we both managed to kick Jonah in the shoulder.
“Ow!” he yelled, and then two seconds later, “OW!”
I looked at him warily. “I don’t have to kiss it and make it better, do I?”
“You better not!” Victoria said, her voice muffled. Her dive had taken a wrong turn and she had landed with her head against the door handle and one foot above the backseat.
I craned my neck to look at her. “My kingdom for a camera right now.”
“I—goddamnit, that hurt.”
Jonah looked over his shoulder at her. “Why don’t you kiss yourself with your strawberry lip gloss?” He looked smug, no doubt feeling justified after getting whacked in the arm.
I ignored both of them and turned back so I could do my makeup. Thank God the traffic was heavy—I didn’t need Jonah’s brake-happy foot making me stab myself in the eye with my mascara wand.
There are basically two rules I have about going to concerts: (1) Wear waterproof mascara. I cannot emphasize this enough, especially if you’re trying to meet the band by the busses afterwards and want to take pictures. Trust me on this one. It’s going to be hot and sweaty and while you’re dancing up a storm and singing along, your mascara will be somewhere around your chin and you’ll look like a melted doll. And (2) do not—again, do not—wear any item of clothing that celebrates the band you’re going to see. If you’re seeing Band X, do not wear a Band X T-shirt. As Victoria says, “Don’t be That Guy.”
We ended up sitting in three hours of traffic on the 5 freeway, going past Disneyland and the spiky crown of Space Mountain at a colossal crawl. Getting to L.A. is always a freaking nightmare, and by the time we finally got off at Sunset, Victoria and I had to beg Jonah to pull over at Denny’s so we could pee. Then we spent forty minutes at the In-N-Out drive-thru across from Hollywood High, then ate our food while we waited in line to park Jonah’s car at the theater.
I had butterflies already and my hands were cold and I grabbed Victoria’s arm and did a little happy dance with her. “We’re going to the con-cert! We’re going to the con-cert!” we sang together in the parking lot while Jonah just glanced back at us like we were strangers. Too bad for him, we were both sailing on sugar and french fries and adrenaline. We wouldn’t be coming down for a while.
The inside of the theater was already warm and the line for the women’s bathroom stretched down the stairs and around the corner. I was about to say something to Victoria about it, but then I realized that two girls I didn’t know were staring at me. Like, staring at me. Ogling. And then they did the worst thing and turned their heads so I couldn’t see their mouths as they whispered. It was the most freshman girl move ever, and I decided that I hated them.
Victoria saw my face and followed my gaze to the girls. “Hey, Aud, c’mon,” she said, pulling at my arm. “Fuck ‘em. Just…let’s go, all right? Fuck ‘em.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said and let her and Jonah pull me into the theater, which was already packed with people, especially up front. Usually that’s not a problem—Victoria and I could teach a class on how to wiggle your way up the front barricade—but I suddenly realized that if I was going to walk through a crowd, people were going to see me. They were going to recognize me. They were going to say things like, “Audrey, wait!” and I was going to feel stupid and embarrassed and very, very small.
I do not like feeling small or stupid; ergo, I was about to turn around and walk out and go hide in the car when someone tapped me on the shoulder. “Are you Audrey?” he said.
It was a bouncer—the biggest, hugest bouncer I had ever seen. The kind of guy who’s so built you know his friends at the gym call him “Tiny.” He was actual theater security, too, not one of those hacks with the yellow jackets that don’t help kids out of the pit when they’re getting trampled. He was standing next to the stairs that led to the VIP loft, the one place that wasn’t packed with people. Yet. “Are you Audrey?” he said again.
“Um, yes?” I replied, like there was a wrong answer to the question. Please don’t squash me like a bug, I added silently.
Tiny was motioning with his walkie-talkie upstairs. “Yeah, management just radioed down to me and told me to have you wait. They want you upstairs.”
Next to me, Victoria made a small noise in her throat, and I felt my adrenaline and sugar rush start to pick up speed. “Um, why?” I asked.
The guy shrugged. “Just said to have you wait, that’s all.”
I still wasn’t getting it, which just goes to show how ridiculously dense I am sometimes. “Um, are we being kicked out?”
Tiny cracked a small smile. I guess I was a pleasant change from all the drunk people he had to corral every night. Either that, or he thought I was an idiot. “Naw, you’re not getting kicked out. They want you”—he motioned upstairs with his walkie-talkie again—“upstairs.”
Victoria grabbed onto my arm. “Upstairs,” she repeated. “The VIP area! They must have seen you come in. The security guards must have told someone!” I could tell that she was about to implode like a star; even Jonah looked impressed. No doubt he was thinking about the possibility of an open bar and bartenders who didn’t check IDs.
“But why do they want me up there?” I whispered to Victoria, trying not to look at Tiny.
“Because you’re Audrey!” she hissed back. “You’re ‘Audrey, Wait!’ You’re a celebrity!”
I gaped at her. “Do you think we might be able to go backstage?”
She squealed and jumped around, and I grabbed her hands and squealed with her.
“So you’re that Audrey, huh?” Tiny said. “That’s cool. My kid sister likes that song. She’s got a crush on that lead singer guy.”
“That’s her ex-boyfriend!” Victoria told him, jabbing me the ribs. “Evan!”
“Whatever, man. It’s a cool song.”
I decided that I could dig Tiny’s Zen vibe about the whole thing. And as a man in a suit rushed down the stairs and introduced himself as Eric, the promoter of the show, I realized that this was really happening. My hands were shaking a little and I have no idea why, but I looked over to Tiny for support.
And God bless that man with the thick neck, he got it. “Hey, girl,” he said to me under his breath as he lifted the velvet rope so we could follow the promoter back up to the VIP area. “Enjoy yourself, all right?”
“No worries, my friend,” I told him. After all, my privacy hadn’t been sacrificed just so I could sit at home in my pajamas and watch Laguna Beach marathons and wonder for the thousandth time why I hadn’t told that Isabella reporter to fuck off. I looked awesome. No one else had my boots on. I had my best friend on one side of me and the love of her life was on the other side of her, and when the promoter guy came back with all-access stickers, I slapped mine onto my hip, exchanged grins with Victoria, and thought, Let’s dance.
10 “Amazed to stumble where gods get lost…”
—Patti Smith, “Beneath the Southern Cross”
NO MATTER WHAT YOU READ in all the magazines or see in movies and TV shows, it doesn’t give you a sense of what it’s like to be in the VIP area.
It was just so calm that I couldn’t believe it. I think it was the first time that I had been at a show and no one tried to climb over me or trample me to death in the pit. (That happened to Victoria last year at the My Chemical Romance concert and oh my God, we could barely get her up. They had to stop the show so she and a bunch of other people could get pulled out. Totally scary.)
But this? This I could get used to. Here Victoria and I had all the room we wanted, and there were free drinks in the corner, and we could actually talk to each other without screaming in each other’s faces to be heard over the sound system. And the view of the stage was incredible.
Still, I couldn’t help but notice something.
“Do you get
the feeling?” I said into Victoria’s ear as we leaned up against the railing, “that people are watching us?”
Victoria, subtle as she is, immediately started looking around to see if I was right. “Don’t look!” I hissed. “Great, you’re looking now. Never mind, you ruined it.”
“How can I tell if they’re looking at us if I’m not looking at them?” she shot back, then peeked over our shoulders. “Oh, yeah, they’re definitely looking at you. Not us. You.”
“Me?”
She sighed and rested her head on my arm. “Yes, you, mon cherie. They didn’t invite us backstage because Jonah slipped the bouncer a twenty.”
We watched the crowd for a few minutes, pointing out the drunk girls and the loner guys, when I suddenly saw a guy with longish red hair, tall and towering over the rest of the crowd. James. “Hey, it’s—!” I started to say, but then he turned around and I realized that it wasn’t James after all. His nose was too pointy. James had a cuter, more buttonish nose.
Too late, though. Victoria had seen me point. “Who?” she said, and followed my gaze. “Oh.” Then she turned to me with a knowing smile. “Oh.”
“Shut up,” I told her.
“I haven’t said anything yet!”
“Don’t.”
“How can I shut up if I haven’t said anything?”
“I know you. You’ve got a monologue coming up.”
“No, I don’t.” Then she paused. “But if I did, I would say that maybe you should ask James out and stop torturing the rest of us, and that James obviously likes you in a ‘let’s have our own pep rally under the bleachers’ way, so you don’t have to worry about rejection.” Then she sipped at her water innocently. “But don’t worry, I’m not saying anything.”
I pretended to be annoyed and ignored her, but Victoria always had a way of saying what I didn’t want to admit to myself. In the car earlier that day, I hadn’t told her that after those girls came into the Scooper Dooper and James spilled the soft-serve, he and I had both cleaned it up, and I’d accidentally gotten some vanilla on my face—and he had wiped it off with his fingertip. The store had been so quiet and we were below the counter where no one could see us, and if this mom and her three kids hadn’t barged in just then…well, I think something would have happened.
