by Jamie Shaw
The screech of a floor-cleaner echoes from somewhere behind me.
“Next!” I shout, and Leti leaves the cavernous room to bring in the next auditioner. So far, most of them have been airheaded groupies here for pictures or autographs. I may or may not have lost my temper on one of them and threatened to shove her Sharpie somewhere no one would find it.
There are six of us sitting at a long foldout table facing the stage. Joel is on the left, next to me, Shawn, Adam, Rowan, and Mike. Before the festival, I wouldn’t have felt like I belonged at this table. Now, I can almost believe that I do.
Last Sunday morning, after spending the night wrapped in Joel’s arms, I woke up early, hopped into my shorts, and went downstairs to make a pot of coffee. Shawn was already standing in the kitchen with mussed hair and a steaming mug in his hands.
“You’re up early,” he noted as I poured myself a cup and shoveled into the sugar.
“Couldn’t sleep.” It was a total lie—I could have slept all day. A big part of me wanted to, as long as Joel stayed with me in bed. When he holds me, he doesn’t snore, and I sleep better than I do alone.
“Looked like you were sleeping just fine to me,” Shawn said with a smirk I deftly ignored.
I leaned back against the kitchen counter and blew tendrils of steam away from the lip of my mug. “So how did that conversation about the ‘psycho groupie’ go last night?” I asked. I said it like it didn’t bother me, like nothing could bother me, but Shawn’s grin slipped away.
“Honestly?” he asked, and the steam stopped wafting away from my cup. I held my breath, and Shawn said, “Mike and I told everyone about the time Cody slept with his cousin.”
My jaw nearly dropped. “He did that?”
“No, but if he wants to spread bullshit lies, so can we.” Shawn’s grin came back ten times cockier, and when I laughed, he laughed too.
With his chin now resting heavily on the heel of his palm beside me, he says, “This is a disaster.”
I can’t argue. We all got our hopes up when the last person Leti brought in actually had a guitar with him, but those hopes were soon dashed when the guy revealed he had no idea how to play it and only wanted it signed.
“I’m screening everyone beforehand from now on,” I say, casting a glance over my shoulder at the unmanned bar. The guys made an arrangement with the owner of Mayhem so we could hold auditions here—I wonder how mad he’d be if I deemed this an emergency situation and raided his liquor supply.
“Driver?” Rowan says, stealing my focus from the bottles behind the bar. At the right end of the table, she’s been buried in a textbook and homework, but now all of her attention is on the lanky guy Leti just brought in. His hair is a curly burnt-orange mess; he has something-I-don’t-think-is-a-cigarette tucked behind his ear; and . . . is that a freaking banjo?
“Is that a freaking banjo?” Rowan asks, and Mike groans and lets his forehead thump against the table. Adam and Joel both break into guy giggles, and Shawn lets out a heavy sigh.
“We’re not looking for a banjo player, Driver,” he says, and Joel leans in to tell me that Driver is one of their roadies and that he drives the bus when the band goes on tour.
“Hear me out, man,” Driver says to Shawn. “This shit is gonna help your sound.”
“What’s wrong with our sound?”
Driver cocks his head to the side like he’s thoroughly confused. “It doesn’t have a banjo . . .”
Adam giggles harder, and Joel buries his face in the back of my shoulder to muffle his own laughter.
Shawn keeps a straight face for a moment before he can’t help releasing a little laugh too. He waves his hand toward the stage. “Whatever, man. Do your thing.”
The frayed bottoms of Driver’s jeans drag over the dance floor as he walks toward the stage. He hops up to sit on the edge and removes the definitely-not-a-cigarette from behind his ear, fishing a lighter from his pocket and lighting up. He takes a long drag, holds it, and releases it in a thick cloud of smoke. He smiles at us, then takes another long drag.
“Driver?” Shawn asks.
“Yeah?”
“You wanna play?”
“Oh, shit,” Driver says with the joint between his lips. He positions the banjo on his lap and says, “Yeah. You ready?”
Another bout of tiny giggles sound against my shoulder and echo from Adam’s direction. Rowan smacks him on the arm and says to Driver, “Come on, Driver. We’re hungry.”
“Shit, me too. I’m starving,” he says, and Adam howls with laughter. Joel rests his arm on my shoulder and buries his eyes in his forearm, his entire body shaking with giggles. I bite my lip to keep from joining him.
Driver laughs too, not minding how badly the boys are behaving.
“Hurry up so we can go eat,” Shawn says with a smile on his face.
With the joint dangling between his lips and his feet hanging above the floor, Driver begins plucking at his banjo. And for a banjo player, he’s pretty damn good. Joel whoops and slaps his knee before yanking me off my feet to do-si-do me around the room. Adam joins in, hooking his arm in mine when Joel passes me along, and Rowan drags Mike and Shawn on the floor to join us. By the time Driver finishes playing, all six of us have square-danced our asses off and are laughing hysterically. I lie down on the floor, laughing too hard to catch my breath, and Joel collapses beside me, grabbing my hand and holding on.
This week, he’s spent most nights at my apartment, and on the nights he hasn’t, Rowan has told me that he’s attached himself to Adam’s couch grumbling about how he wished he was at my place. We haven’t talked about him not wanting me with other guys, and we definitely haven’t talked about me not wanting him with other girls, but as far as I know, neither of us has been with anyone else.
Leti, who made sure to stay out of grabbing-range during our hoedown, moves to stand over me, giving me a smug smile. “Well aren’t you two just totes adorbs.”
I kick his ankle, and his smile widens.
“So do I get to be in the band?” Driver asks, and I lift my head off the floor to see Adam wrap his arm around Driver’s shoulder.
“No fucking way, man. But we’ll buy you dinner.”
Driver seems to consider this for a moment, answering with a shrug. “Sweet.”
At a Chinese buffet, I eat at a table with six hungry men and a bottomless pit of a best friend.
“Are you going to be able to eat all that?” Mike asks Rowan with a skeptical gaze directed at her plate.
I can’t help laughing. Rowan and I are the same size, but I swear she can eat double our weight in food. Eating ice cream out of the carton with her is like competing for digging space with a backhoe. “She’s just getting started.”
She gives me a closed-lipped grin, her mouth already full of lo mein.
“So how are the shirts coming?” Shawn asks me, and I pick at my Chinese donut. My appetite is starting to come back, little by little.
“Almost done. I’m taking pictures this weekend, so you should be able to put them on the website next week.”
“And you’re seriously cool with doing this?”
“Are you kidding?” Joel asks. “You should see her apartment. There are shirts everywhere. All she talks about is knots and slits and bows and shit.”
I chuckle and toss a piece of my donut at him, and he picks it off the table and pops it in his mouth, grinning at me.
Making the shirts has been a lot of work, but none of it has actually felt like work. Since talking to my dad, I’ve been more diligent about completing my overdue homework and studying for tests, since I promised him I would, but I keep catching my mind wondering to clothing designs. My college-bound notebooks are just as filled with shirt designs as they are with notes for class.
“You should see them,” Rowan says, finally having swallowed down her food. “They’re really good.”
“Like really good,” Leti adds.
“They’re alright,” I say. What I’m really proud
of are my other sketches—the ones of skirts and dresses and sexy little tops. But those are just for fun.
“You know what I’ve always wanted?” Driver asks. He’s sitting at the end of the table, but I can smell the smoke on him from three seats away. He nods to himself and says, “A cape.”
“A cape?” Adam asks, and Driver nods harder.
“Yeah. With hidden pockets and shit. That way if I get stopped by the cops, they won’t be able to find anything on me.”
“Couldn’t you just get hidden pockets put in your coat or something?”
Driver’s brows pull together with confusion. “You don’t think that’d be too obvious?”
Adam chuckles, and Shawn closes his eyes and shakes his head. “You think a cape would be more subtle?” he asks.
“No, I think a cape would be more cool,” Driver says, emphasizing the last word like Shawn’s having trouble understanding.
Shawn releases a heavy sigh, and I find myself laughing quietly with Joel.
“If he gets a cape,” Adam says, “I want one too.”
“Can mine be sherbet orange with vanilla trim?” Leti asks. “Oh! Wait, no! Orange with fuschia sequins.”
“That sounds hideous,” I gripe, and Leti scoffs at me.
“Your mom sounds hideous,” he counters.
I shrug. “My mom is hideous.”
My mom was only beautiful in ways that won’t matter once her skin starts to sag. On the inside, she’s disgusting, and I pray the last seven years have taken their toll on her.
The rest of the group continues imagining their capes and arguing over whose sounds the coolest, and I find Joel watching me. He does this sometimes now—stares at me like I’m a puzzle to solve or a maze to navigate. A few times, I’ve asked what he was thinking, but since I never like the answer—because it always involves him asking me something personal—I’ve learned not to ask.
“You should make Joel a cape with mohawk spikes running down the back for his birthday next week,” Adam says, and my eyes dart to him before settling back on Joel.
“Your birthday is next week?”
Joel looks back to his plate and scoops the peas out of his stir-fried rice. “Yeah. It’s not a big deal.”
My heart pulses painfully in my chest when I remember the story he told me about his mom selling his birthday presents to pay for booze. My childhood was filled with princess-themed birthday parties and more gifts than I knew what to do with. I doubt Joel has ever had a themed birthday party in his life.
“Are you guys having a party?” I ask.
“We usually take him out and get him wasted,” Adam says with a laugh. “Does that count?”
Joel gives Adam a genuine smile, but I cut in with an uncompromising, “No.” The guys stare at me, and I rush to resume my usual self-serving attitude. “It’s been too long since we’ve had a party. I want to throw one.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Joel stammers.
I brush him off with a flick of my wrist. “I love throwing parties. Ask Rowan about my Sweet Sixteen. It was amazing.”
Rowan nods, keeping her eyes trained on me. She knows something is up. “It was epic,” she says without missing a beat. “She had a DJ and everything. And she had three dates, and none of them were allowed to wear shirts.”
I snicker at the memory, but Joel still looks skeptical.
“Just trust me,” I tell him. “It’ll be awesome.”
Chapter Fifteen
THE FIRST TWO days after learning about Joel’s birthday are spent gathering intel. The next three, collecting materials. The following two, running around like a chicken with my head cut off while cursing Joel’s name for not telling me about his stupid twenty-fourth birthday a few months sooner.
“MOTHERFUCKER,” I shout, raising my needle-pricked finger to my mouth to suck the hurt away.
Rowan ignores me and finishes hanging streamers from one of the card tables lining the walls of our living room. She stands up, brushes off her knees, and smiles wide. “Joel is going to flip.”
Leti spins a mini Ferris wheel on top of one of the tables. Mini liquor bottles occupy each car as party favors. “You should be a party planner,” he says, and I huff out a breath.
“Party planner. Shirt designer. Cape maker to the stars.” I lift a neon-green cape with black spikes running down the back of it off of my lap, silently praying Joel likes it.
Leti turns on music while Rowan finishes setting out snacks and I stand in the middle of the room with my hands on my hips making sure everything is ready to go. When someone knocks on the door, I take a deep breath before answering it.
“Holy shit,” Shawn says as he walks inside, the expressions on the rest of the guys’ faces echoing his sentiment.
“Do you think he’ll like it?” I ask, but Shawn doesn’t have a chance to answer before Adam squeals, “Are those capes?!”
He practically dives into the pile and pulls out one that looks just like the one he described last Saturday—it’s red with a golden A stitched into it, just like Alvin the Chipmunk’s shirt, and he beams like a little boy in a candy shop. Rowan helped me remember the capes all the guys described when they were joking at the buffet, and I did my best to create them. Adam’s looks like Alvin’s shirt, Shawn’s is black with the Batman symbol stitched onto the back, and Mike’s is camouflage with pockets stitched to the inside. He laughs when he finds the toy guns I stashed in the pockets, and I don’t try to stop the smile that blooms across my face.
“Leti, yours is in my bedroom,” I say, and Leti disappears down the hallway in an excited blur. He pouted when he saw I was making capes for the other guys but not for him, but really I just wanted to keep his hideous sherbet-and-magenta-sequined cape a surprise. He runs back out with it secured around his neck and strikes a flawless Superman pose. The rest of the guys are fastening their capes around their necks too when a knock sounds at the door.
“Close your eyes,” I demand with my hand on the knob.
“Do I have to?” Joel whines from the other side.
“YES!” the guys all yell, and I chuckle.
“Are they closed?” I ask.
When he tells me they are, I open the door and lead him inside, plopping a plastic crown on his head and telling him to open his eyes. He opens them to find three grown rock stars and a very giddy-looking Leti wearing homemade capes and little-boy smiles.
“Oh my God,” Joel says with a laugh that tells me he loves it. I hand him his cape, and he holds it up, laughing even harder. “This is fucking awesome.”
His gaze travels around the room, skimming over the Ferris wheel carrying liquor bottles, the one-person beer-pong table with stuffed prizes hanging on the wall behind it, the painted cardboard cutout of two rock stars with holes for people to put their faces in. There’s a table covered with red-and-white-striped bags of popcorn and mason jars full of candy. The star attraction is a cotton-candy maker, and the entire room is flooded with rainbow streamers and balloons.
When I was covertly prying intel out of Joel earlier this week in my attempt to get ideas for his birthday theme, I asked what his favorite childhood memory was and he told me about the time his grandma took him to the circus. I ran with it, throwing together an apartment-sized circus in a matter of days and never doubting it would be worth it.
His expression is utterly unreadable as he takes it all in, and I nibble at my bottom lip, worried that he doesn’t like it. But then he finally looks at me, and his soft smile melts away all my apprehension. “This is too much.”
I shake my head. It’s not too much. It feels like it isn’t enough—not after everything he’s been through, not after everything we’ve been through—but I’m guessing no amount of streamers in the world is going to fix that.
Joel scoops me into a big hug and whispers in my ear, “Thank you.”
“Happy birthday,” I say, burying my face in his neck and squeezing him back. I’ve barely seen him over the past two days since I’ve
been too busy setting up and wanted to keep the details a surprise, and I’ve missed him too much to try to hide it.
Another knock at the door interrupts our moment, and the rest of the guests begin trickling in—Driver, some other roadies, a bartender from Mayhem, a few guys from other bands, and a couple of Joel’s friends from high school. I got all the names and numbers from Adam, Shawn, and Mike, and lucky for me, they were all names of guys. Girls show up too, but on the arms of dates, and pretty soon, my apartment is packed with people. Most of the guests don extra capes I made—I reserved a special one for Driver, complete with a giant pot leaf on the back and hidden pockets on the inside—and the guests who think they’re too cool for capes seem content to guzzle down beer and shots and munch on pizza and mozzarella sticks. The cotton-candy machine is a huge hit, and so are the candy table and the rock-star cutouts. Guys play the beer pong game and win stuffed animals for their dates, and Joel nuzzles his chin into the crook of my shoulder as we watch.
He’s laughing on my couch surrounded by a bunch of friends when I sneak to the kitchen to put the candles on his cake—vanilla ice cream with confetti sprinkles. I stick two tall candles at the sides and drape a mini carnival-style banner between them that says, “Happy Birthday Joel.”
“He’s so happy,” Rowan comments, and I stare out to the living room, watching him pick at his blue cotton candy as he laughs at something Adam said. “So are you,” Rowan adds, and I catch myself smiling. I wipe it from my face quickly, ignoring the knowing grin she gives me while I light the candles.
“Flick the switch,” I order, and she gives Leti the signal to cut the lights. The room plunges into darkness, lit only by the brightness of the candles as I walk the cake toward Joel and start singing “Happy Birthday.” Everyone joins in, some singing far more drunkenly than others, and I set the cake on the coffee table in front of him. “Make a wish.”
With the light of the flames flickering between us, Joel’s blue eyes find mine. They linger, neither one of us looking away, and a soft smile touches the corner of his mouth. He blows out the candles with one swift breath, and everyone cheers in the dark.
