by Palladian
“Well, when I talked to everyone about it, it seemed like most of us wanted to just try life on tour in order to see how things go,” Casey responded. “Even you didn’t seem to like the idea of being on the road for months.”
Riss raised an eyebrow. “You’re right about that. I didn’t realize that’s what it would take to do a lot more.”
Casey tilted her head to the side, thinking. “We can take as much or as little time as we want, but based on the amount of territory we all talked about when we started thinking about touring as a way to figure out where to settle, I think we’d really need several months to cover it all.”
Riss nodded then, and so did Lex as they all bent to look at the maps and schedules that Casey had printed out. For their first tour they’d decided to visit San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. They’d be playing at ten different venues all together, and they figured they’d be on the road nearly a month between playing the shows, visiting, and traveling.
A couple of weeks before their first show in San Diego found Lex and her friends busy making a large number of CDs. After they’d received a massive amount of raw supplies that they’d ordered, the group spent days making CDs by hand. Once they had 300, everyone agreed to call it quits, even over Casey’s argument.
“Look,” Riss said, putting the cover on the stack of blank CDs she’d been feeding into the CD printer the group had gotten. “That’s 30 CDs for every venue we’re playing. We’re not likely to sell that many each time we play, anyway. I think any more would just be overkill.”
“I agree,” Lex chimed in, putting down the scissors she’d been wielding for hours to cut the CD inserts they’d gotten done at a local print shop. “Let’s call it done.”
Lou looked over at Casey and nodded. Casey sighed and wiped her hands on her jeans, then closed the last CD case and put it in the box with the others.
“All right, but if we run into a situation like we did the other night, I’m going to make you take over for me and explain to your disappointed fans why we ran out.”
The group also decided to practice some simple team techniques in case anything happened on the road. From the first session Lex and Riss could see how Casey and Lou protectively closed in on them, protecting them from either side. Smiling to herself, Lex suggested a different version where Lou and Casey flanked her and Riss but not so closely that they couldn’t move.
The group did discuss, in detail, what to do if a situation came up where they’d need Lex’s Voice of Command.
“We should think of some sort of code word or something,” Casey said, “in case Lex has to use it. That way, she can shout the code word, we all cover our ears, and then she says the command.”
Lex sighed. “All right, but only in case there’s some sort of emergency.”
Everyone thought for a few moments, until Lex finally spoke up again. “How about if we use ‘orange?’ It’s pretty short, and most other words don’t sound like it.”
“Orange,” Casey mused, saying it slowly. “Sounds good to me. What do you all think?”
Riss shrugged and nodded, and Lou nodded as well. “OK, ‘orange’ is it, then,” Casey added with a smile.
Just a couple of days before they’d scheduled the tour to begin, Riss and Casey caught Lex in the kitchen after breakfast but just before she made it to the gym for her morning workout.
“Come on,” said Casey as she grabbed Lex’s arm. “We need to do some shopping today.”
Lex felt confused, wondering what had prompted the trip. “You need me along?”
“Yeah,” Casey agreed with a grin. “Some of the things we need to get are for you.”
She felt puzzled, especially when she realized Riss would be going too, until they arrived at a clothing store in their local mall. Lex didn’t mind as they browsed through a few shops, looking for things to wear on stage.
“Look,” Casey told them as they glanced through the racks, “I’ve been talking to some of the other bands and their managers, and the one thing they recommended as a way we could improve is to pay more attention to our look.”
Lex turned her attention from the t-shirts she’d been looking at and stared at Casey for a moment. “We don’t have a look,” she stated, raising an eyebrow.
Casey barked out a laugh. “That’s what they said. When we talked about it they said it really didn’t matter for Lou as much as it did for you two. I asked what they’d recommend, based on what you guys sound like, and they said dark colors and maybe some leather.” She scratched her head for a moment before continuing. “Not my idea, really, as I’m sure you can tell, but that’s what they said.”
Riss stopped what she was doing as well, and now both she and Lex stared at Casey. The taller woman held up her hands. “Don’t look at me like that, I’m just telling you what they said. A number of them talked about how your music sounds very Dark Ambient or Gothic, whatever that means, and that it was a common style of dress for that type of band.”
Lex sighed. “All right,” she agreed, willing to think about it. “Let’s keep going and we’ll see.”
Riss gave Casey another suspicious look and went back to browsing.
They bought a number of t-shirts for the two of them. Riss favored ones with cybernetic themes and found several that she liked, and Lex felt most pleased that she’d found a small shop that sold anime-themed gear. She picked up a number of t-shirts to replace the ones she’d lost when they fled. Her favorites had designs that wrapped all the way around the shirt, with characters or their accessories winding from front to back.
They ran into a snag when they reached the leather shop, however. Riss completely refused to try on anything other than a slim-fitting leather coat that fell almost to her knees, but that ended up looking so good on her that it didn’t seem to matter. Once Casey turned to work on Lex, Lex found that she had to veto some of the ideas her friend presented to her, as well.
“No, no, absolutely not,” she said in horror as Casey held up a bustier and short skirt to her.
“Which one don’t you like?” the taller woman asked.
“Both of them…I can’t wear stuff like that! I’d look like…I don’t know. A total ass.” Lex frowned as she looked at the two rather small pieces of clothing, wishing them away.
“Come on, Lex. You know you’re in good enough shape to wear something like this,” Casey said, trying to sound convincing as she shook the two hangers in Lex’s direction.
Lex shook her head. “No, Casey, really. I just…couldn’t. I’d be so uncomfortable I don’t think I could sing right. Isn’t there anything else I could try?”
“Well,” Casey said with a frown of her own, then pulled a pair of leather pants off the table behind her. Lex sighed, then gulped as she looked at them, but dutifully put out her hand to grab them so that she could try them on.
When she came back out into the main part of the store, Casey wolf whistled at her, and Lex could feel herself blushing in response. Riss raised an eyebrow and smiled.
“You guys,” Lex said, twisting her hands behind her. “How do they look?”
“I think they look great on you,” Casey said with a nod. “What do you think, Riss?”
Riss nodded as well. “You should get them. Maybe Casey would let us go home then.”
Casey shook her head. “You make it sound like we’re on a death march or something. It’s just some shopping.”
Lex gave Casey a dour look, but Riss let out a small laugh. “Take a look at us. Do either Lex or I look like we’d like shopping?”
Casey gave a belly laugh. “Right. Lex, if you get the leather pants we can leave the store. Deal?”
“In that case, I’ll get them,” Lex said, smiling for the first time since they’d gotten to the shop.
They made one more stop before they left, at a boot store. Lex left with some motorcycle boots and a pair of short, red cowgirl boots. Riss got some slim black boots with a short heel and pointed toes, and even Casey found a new
pair of fairly plain cowgirl boots that suited her.
“All right, ladies. Let’s head home before Lou starts to think we’ve disappeared entirely,” Casey said with a smile.
The three of them fell silent as they drove home, Lex and Riss both looking out the windows as Casey drove. After a while, Lex spoke up.
“So, do you think we’re ready?” she asked, addressing no one in particular.
Riss turned from the window and gave her a hard-to-decipher glance, but Casey just laughed. “I think we’re all about as ready as we can be. Don’t stress out about it too much; just remember that the main reason we’re touring is to figure out where we want to settle.”
“Yeah,” Lex agreed, nodding at her friend as she met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “I just want to give people a good show even though we’re not really planning on making a lifetime career out of it.”
Riss nodded. “I think we’re ready. The things we’ve been practicing sound good, and even a few of the new pieces that we haven’t added to the set yet have been getting good enough that I think we should use them as encores, or if we need to play longer at one of the venues.”
Lex smiled back at Riss. “I think you’re right,” she replied, sitting back in her seat, feeling relieved.
The only thing that worries me, Lex thought as she looked out the window, are the non-musical encounters we might have. From everything they could tell (since Riss still had monitoring programs listening for mention of them), no one had found their trail, but Riss had noticed that an MSI team had been tasked to locate them and had now moved to investigate the states just west of the East Coast. The things that made Lex feel nervous in general were that they would be doing a lot of moving around and that plenty of people would be seeing them…
Lex shook her head to clear the train of thought away. She’d changed her appearance enough that no one was likely to recognize her, perhaps not even someone who’d known her well before the change. Since Casey had started dyeing her hair black, her appearance had changed as well. Lou and Riss’ looks hadn’t changed much, but all in all, Lex thought none of them were likely to be identified and spotted. Everything should be fine, Lex told herself as she slid down the seat a little, resting her head on the back and watching the road pass by.
Chapter 26: Reconnaissance
Lex stopped to look at herself in the mirror. She returned her own bemused glance before gazing up at the light fixture for a moment, thinking it odd that something like a dressing room existed in a club they got to play at.
She watched Riss’ reflection as she came into the room to pick up her laptops. Riss looked at Lex in the mirror as she shouldered her backpack, nodded with the ghost of a smile, and then went back out.
Lex recalled the tiny first place they’d played, in San Diego, on their “first West Coast tour” (as Casey insisted on calling it). It had room for no more than fifty people if they all stood shoulder to shoulder. On the day they played, a Wednesday, there had only been a small fraction of that number, but the crowd and the other two bands had been friendly, and everyone seemed to appreciate their performance.
San Diego itself had been great, Lex and her friends had agreed. They’d been struck by the beauty of the city, and the people there seemed welcoming and interesting. However, one of their criteria had been someplace without excessive heat, and it had already been hitting the 90s on a couple of their days in town in May. So they had moved on to Los Angeles.
After spending a few days in town, they had all seemed to know they wouldn’t choose to settle there even though no one came right out and said it. They had had trouble even before they’d gotten into town on Sunday night, getting lost on the freeway and having to backtrack a few exits to get to their motel. Casey had been driving and was thoroughly grumpy by the time they’d arrived, but on the plus side, the place had a hot tub, so Lex had been happy they’d been able to soak out some of their annoyance after dinner.
The group quickly learned that they had to leave early to get anywhere on time because of the maze of streets, freeways, and unpredictable traffic. To Lex, the topper had been the occasional street closure due to filming crews. After a while, she had noticed that all of them seemed to feel stressed out even before they had to get in the van to go anywhere.
They had played on Tuesday at a small venue, about the size of the one they’d played in San Diego, but Lex had noticed right away that the crowd seemed different. Aside from some of the people from the other bands, many individuals in the crowd had seemed like they felt too cool to be with anyone else there, talking only to their little cliques or on their cell phones. Lex had felt disappointed as she’d taken the stage that night, but somehow managed to throw it all off when they had started to perform. They had begun with “Crazy Wind,” and as she had sung Lex had lost herself in thoughts about when she’d fled her parents’ house and later when she’d run away with her friends, and how her life had changed both times, including the new opportunities that had sprung up.
When she had finished singing, Lex had looked up at the crowd. As the last notes of the song had died away, she’d realized that the room had stood in complete silence. The audience had all seemed to be listening with great concentration, a number of them with surprised looks on their faces. Lex’s eyes had slid to Riss, who had sat to her left, and Lex had seen the other woman shrug minutely out of the corner of her eye before she’d heard someone in the audience start to applaud.
After a moment everyone else had joined in, some people cheering and howling. Lex had waited, turning slightly back to look at Lou, who had just raised an eyebrow and canted his head to the side a little, as if to say, no harm in letting the crowd continue. The applause had continued for longer than Lex had expected, but she’d stepped back up to the microphone some minutes later once it had died down.
“Thanks, LA,” she had said, hoping the heat she’d felt in her cheeks wasn’t a blush. “That’s a really warm welcome, and we thank you for it. We’re Alexander’s Army, and the next song we’re going to play for you is called ‘Hungry.’”
As they had started the song, Lex had noticed that they now seemed to have the full attention of most of the people in the crowd, and she had made herself take deep, calming breaths as her stomach had flip-flopped. She had felt amazed and a little scared at the difference in the crowd from before they’d started their performance to after the first song. Might as well keep going and give them a good show, though, Lex had thought as she had drawn in a breath just before she’d begun singing.
They’d sold more CDs that night than anyone had thought they would based on the size of the crowd. Lex had ended up feeling pretty good for one of the first times since they’d arrived in the city, and as she’d checked out her friends’ expressions as they had headed back to the motel that night, she had been able to tell they shared that feeling.
The following day they’d had no show booked and painfully made their way around the city to some things they’d wanted to see, but on Thursday they had had their next gig. Lex had been able to see the club was bigger and more packed than the last one they’d played at. Alexander’s Army had gone on first, and Lex and the others had expected that most of the people had come to see the following acts, so Lex had felt surprised to see that they seemed to have had the full attention of the crowd when they’d started their performance.
Lex felt the show went over well, and afterwards Lex, Riss, and Lou had joined Casey in the club to watch the second and third acts. Later that night they had ended up having a long conversation with the closing band, End of the Road. The band members had begged them to stay after the show, so they had and the whole lot of them had ended up going to a nearby all-night diner to have breakfast and “talk shop.” Laura and Eddie Vander, the bass and guitar players, were a married couple, and Laura’s brother Hal Robbins played drums. They’d been fixtures on the LA music scene for about a year and proceeded to tell Lex and her friends lots of stories about the scene in town.
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When Casey had mentioned where they were playing on Saturday, Laura’s platinum blond eyebrows had nearly lifted off her head. “We’ve only played there once, and it was during the week!”
Casey had shrugged. “Well, the day I called they told me they’d had a last-minute cancellation for the show and asked if we wanted to substitute. I guess it was a lucky break.”
Eddie had laughed, leaning over so that his black hair nearly touched his wife’s long blond locks. Even sitting he remained about a foot taller than his petite wife. “I’d say. Too bad we’ve got another show that night or we’d love to come out to see you. Hey, though, I just thought of it—are you guys booked for tomorrow?”
Lou had looked over at Casey, and Casey had returned the look with a shake of her head. “No, we don’t have anything booked for Friday night, actually,” he’d replied to Eddie.
Eddie and Laura had both smiled, and he had continued. “You should come to our house, then! We’re having a party. Nothing fancy, just a bunch of folks coming over, mostly music people. If you can come, we’d be glad to introduce you around, and it’d be great to hang out with you guys some more.”
Hal had nodded his head in agreement, the overhead lights glinting off the reddish highlights in his brown hair. He’d shot them a winning smile before adding, “Yeah, come over. It’ll be fun.”
Riss, Lex, Casey, and Lou had all exchanged glances in which Lex had noticed all of her friends smiling. Casey had answered for all of them. “Thanks, we’d really like that.”
So, when Friday had rolled around and they had visited the address they’d been given, all four of them had dressed in jeans and t-shirts. They’d brought beer and snacks for the party, but Lex had felt odd as they had arrived and realized that about half of the party had looked like they did, and about half had dressed up as if going out for a fancy night out on the town.
As they had made their way through, Casey introducing herself to several of the people they passed, they had finally run into Laura.
