Hard Rock

by Ginger Rue

“Anyway,” Kyra continued, “they were talking about how Mrs. Marquez was planning the prom, so I popped over and joined in the conversation. I said Pandora’s Box was the hottest new band in town and that I had connections and might be able to persuade them to consider auditioning.”

  “But we’re not the hottest new band in town,” Tig said. “We’ve had only one real gig, and that was for senior citizens.”

  “It’s called buzz,” Kyra said. “Before you can actually become the hottest new band in town, someone has to start saying you’re the hottest new band in town!”

  “She’s not wrong,” said Robbie. “Buzz is a big deal.”

  “So is having a full set list,” said Tig. “The West Al prom is probably a three-hour show.”

  “Four, actually,” said Kyra. “But you really just play three. Two hours, an hour break, and then the last hour.”

  “We’ve got maybe an hour’s worth of songs, if we push it,” said Tig. “What do we do for the extra two hours? Hum?”

  “I thought for three grand, you might be able to figure something out,” said Kyra.

  “Three grand?” said Robbie. “Shut up!”

  “The academy doesn’t do anything halfway,” Kyra said. “They get most of their bands through the special events companies out of Atlanta or Montgomery or Birmingham. Three thousand is the minimum going rate these days.”

  “That’s a thousand dollars an hour!” said Tig.

  “Yeah,” Kyra said, feigning a sad face. “It’s just too bad you don’t have three hours’ worth of songs.”

  “For a thousand bucks an hour,” Tig said, “we’ll figure something out.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  The first bell had rung before the girls could discuss the prom audition further, but Tig could barely concentrate all morning. Three thousand dollars! The West Al Academy prom! Did she dare dream it could really happen?

  “I still can’t believe you got us an audition,” Tig said to Kyra at lunch.

  “I can’t wait to tell Paris,” Robbie said. “Curses on the school’s cell phone ban! I’ll have to wait until I get home.”

  “You think she’ll want to do it?” Claire asked.

  “Of course!” said Robbie. “Six hundred dollars buys a lot of livestock.”

  “Does it?” Claire asked. “How expensive is livestock?”

  “I don’t know, Claire,” Robbie said with a sigh. “I was just saying . . . I think Paris would do the gig just for the fun of it, but the money makes it even better.”

  “We need to start strategizing for your audition,” Kyra said.

  “Important question,” said Robbie. “When is this big audition, anyway?”

  “You have two weeks to prepare,” Kyra said. “Luckily my mom trimmed the sasanquas when she did, or I might not have found out about the audition date in time for you to prep.”

  “Two weeks!” Robbie said. “That’s not enough time to get down a three-hour set list!”

  “We don’t have to know all the songs by then,” said Tig. “We’ll just have to tell them what we’ll be able to deliver. We can get the list together by then. An audition would just be a couple of songs.”

  “Right,” said Claire. “All we’d have to do is select what we think we can master by the actual prom night. If we get the job, then we get to work on making sure we can deliver what we promised.”

  “This is such a rush!” said Tig. “I mean, a huge challenge for the entire band, yes . . . but how exciting! Of course we’ll all have to give one hundred and ten percent, but we can do that!”

  “I don’t think I can,” Olivia said. Until she’d finally spoken up, Tig hadn’t even noticed how quiet Olivia had been about the whole thing. Tig had been too pumped to pay attention.

  “What?” Tig said. “What do you mean you can’t? Of course you can!”

  “I just don’t have it in me right now,” Olivia said. “I’m too depressed. Y’all can do the audition . . . and the gig . . . without me.”

  “Oh no, you don’t!” said Robbie. “If this were about a busy tennis schedule, that would be one thing. But no way are we going to let you miss a chance like this so you can sit around and pine away for a boy! Nobody in this band is turning into a boyfriend girl on my watch!”

  “Oh no! Not the ‘boyfriend girl’ lecture again!” Kyra groaned. She got up and went to buy a carton of milk.

  “Robbie’s right, though,” said Tig. “Olivia, you can’t miss this opportunity. And we wouldn’t feel right playing without you.”

  “I think it would be good for you, Olivia,” said Claire. “This will give you something to focus on and take your mind off . . .” Claire stopped. Tig supposed she was afraid to even say Will’s name for fear of setting Olivia off again.

  “Nothing can take my mind off Will,” Olivia said.

  “You won’t know until you try,” said Robbie. “And just think! Three thousand dollars, divided by five, is six hundred bucks! Just think of the retail therapy you can afford with that kind of dough!”

  Olivia didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she replied, “Well, now that you mention it, there is this leather purse that might ease my pain a little bit. But only a little.” Olivia mustered a slight smile.

  “That’s my girl!” Robbie said. “See there? You’re on your way back already!”

  “Um, guys,” Tig said. “I think maybe Robbie miscalculated.”

  “No, I didn’t. Three thousand divided by five is six hundred.”

  Tig thought back to the joke her parents had made when BD had gotten them the class reunion gig—about an agent’s fee. “What’s fifteen percent of three thousand?”

  Robbie looked at the ceiling to calculate. “Four hundred fifty. Why?”

  “I think we owe Kyra an agent’s fee,” Tig said. “Assuming we get the job, which is a big assumption.”

  “Are you actually suggesting we toss four hundred fifty bucks at Kyra just for talking to her neighbor over the sasanquas?” Robbie said. “That cuts each of our pay down to only five hundred ten dollars!”

  “That’s five hundred ten dollars we wouldn’t have if it weren’t for Kyra,” Tig said.

  “True,” Claire said. “And I don’t want to be greedy, but maybe we should take some time to think about this and then vote. I appreciate what Kyra’s done, but as Robbie said, four hundred fifty dollars is quite a bit of money for simply speaking to her neighbor.”

  “I agree with Claire,” Olivia said. “We need to think about it. I don’t think Kyra expects to be paid. I think she just did it to be nice. And after the way she acted at the studio that day, maybe she owes us one anyway.”

  “We’ll think it over, then,” Tig said. “Here she comes.”

  “That line is ridiculous,” Kyra said, taking her seat. “I thought lunch would be over before I paid for my milk! Anyway, back to your set list.”

  “For high schoolers, we’re going to have to learn a lot of current pop,” Robbie said. “Which, to be clear, pains me.”

  “Selling out already, huh?” Tig said.

  “You bet,” said Robbie. “I can be bought.”

  “Actually,” said Kyra, “I wouldn’t go that route. West Al’s prom is different from other proms. It’s not just the students; their parents and the faculty all come too.”

  “What?” Tig said. “How weird is that?”

  “Not that weird when you think about it,” Kyra said. “Their school is small, and a lot of them have gone there since preschool. The teachers there have taught some families for a few generations. They’re tight-knit. They do this thing called the senior lead-out, where they call each senior’s name and they kind of parade in front of everyone with their date, and everybody claps for them. It’s kind of a thing for the parents to be there to witness the big moment.”

  “How do you know all this?” Tig asked.

  “Just took some time to ask Mrs. Marquez the right questions, I guess,” Kyra said. “Anyway, if you want to get hired, I’m thinking
you appeal to the whole crowd, not just the students. Yeah, you need a few contemporary songs, but you’re also going to need to cover several decades and all the styles: slow songs for slow dances, upbeat numbers, classics everybody knows, and probably some Motown because it’s easy to dance to and everybody knows it and likes it.”

  “We’ve already got ‘Signed, Sealed, Delivered’ from the reunion!” Tig said.

  “Also, you need something for the ones who aren’t that good at dancing. Something to get full crowd participation. You’ve got to bring everybody in. Do something they can all jump around to, or something that gets everybody’s hands in the air or whatever. And be ready to bring some of the audience up on stage to sing with you. Give it a real party flavor.”

  The girls sat staring at Kyra.

  “What? You don’t think this is doable?” Kyra asked.

  “No, it’s totally doable,” Tig said. “I think we’re just really impressed by how good you are at all this.”

  “All what?” said Kyra.

  “All the thinking through the details,” said Tig.

  “Oh,” said Kyra. “I think it’s fun. Besides, it gives me something to think about besides my parents. And hey, just because I can’t play an instrument worth a flip doesn’t mean I don’t know what would make a good show. Ooh! You know what else I was thinking? Y’all need a website or a social media page. Maybe both. Something the students and parents can go look at when someone brings up your name. Maybe a home page with a lot of red for the border? And maybe . . .” Kyra continued churning out ideas for marketing the band as the girls listened.

  Robbie, Tig, Olivia, and Claire looked at one another while Kyra talked. They all seemed to be thinking the same thing: Who knew Kyra had such a head for this side of the music industry?

  “I could set all that up for you,” Kyra said. “If you want.”

  “We couldn’t ask you to do that,” Robbie said. Tig wondered if Robbie just wanted to make sure Kyra wouldn’t do anything else to earn that percentage.

  “I wouldn’t mind at all,” Kyra said. “I think it’d be fun.”

  By the end of the week, Pandora’s Box had a social media page with more than three hundred followers.

  “How’d you do that?” Tig asked Kyra one night on the phone.

  “It wasn’t hard,” Kyra said. She explained how she’d targeted people who seemed likely to support the band, and then courted their interest. “What you do is, you find the people who have the most influence, and you go after them. Then other people just naturally follow whatever those people buy into, and before you know it, you have an audience.”

  “Thanks, Kyra,” Tig said. She was so appreciative, she decided she felt generous enough to bring up Kyra’s favorite subject and listen to her drone on, no matter how long it took. “What does Milo think of all this?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Kyra said. “I haven’t talked to him in a few days.”

  “You haven’t?”

  “No, we broke up.”

  “You broke up? When?”

  “I can’t remember, exactly. A couple of weekends ago?”

  “And you didn’t tell me?” Tig asked.

  “Nothing much to tell,” Kyra said. “We’re still friends and all. But as a boyfriend, he was kind of . . . well . . . exhausting. He expected us to talk every day. He thought I should come to all his extracurriculars. I swear, he was a bottomless pit. It got old kinda fast.”

  “Wow,” said Tig.

  “Wow what?”

  “You surprise me sometimes, Kyra. I thought all you wanted in the world was a boyfriend.”

  “I used to. But all this with my folks . . . You know how Robbie’s always going on about ‘boyfriend girls’? She’s got a point. You can put everything into another person and then wake up one day to find that they don’t care about you anymore. I’ve watched it happen from a front-row seat. I guess it’s just . . . I don’t want my entire life to be about some guy. I want to find my own thing.”

  “Well, I think you’ve found it,” Tig said.

  After they hung up, Tig thought about how brave Kyra was being. If Kyra could be brave about something as big as her parents’ divorce, maybe Tig could be brave about things in her life too.

  She mustered the courage to send the text she’d been delaying all week.

  You heard about Olivia and Will? she texted Paris.

  Yep.

  I had nothing to do with it. Promise.

  I believe you.

  Tig didn’t know what else to say. A few minutes went by, and Paris texted again:

  I’m not going to tell anyone. You can trust me.

  Thanks, Tig replied.

  Paris had been cool about everything else so far. Maybe she’d be cool about this, too.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  “I liked your band’s page,” Regan said in algebra. “You’re up to five hundred and something followers now. Your design is great! Did you pay somebody to do that?”

  “Actually, Kyra did it,” Tig said.

  “Really?” said Regan. “I’m impressed. Hey, a little birdie told me that y’all are auditioning for West Al Academy’s prom.”

  “Let me guess,” said Tig. “A little birdie named Kyra?”

  “No,” Regan said. “A friend of mine at West Al. Kyra hasn’t really tried to talk to me in a while. I think she’s over it.”

  Tig was both taken aback and proud. Maybe Kyra really had gotten the self-confidence she needed. Could it be that she’d actually given up chasing after the Bots? “She’s been pretty busy with promoting the band,” Tig said. “I think we’re going to make her manager. Don’t tell anyone, though. We want it to be a surprise when we ask her.”

  “Consider it in the vault,” Regan said. “And speaking of items in the vault, how are things since the big breakup?”

  “I’m not sure,” Tig said. “Olivia is still pretty down about it, but I think she’s getting a little better every day. We’ve been focusing pretty hard on the audition, so I think that’s helped to take her mind off things.”

  “I meant with you and Will,” said Regan. “He’s free now; you’re free. . . .”

  “Oh, I couldn’t,” Tig said. “It’s too soon to even think about anything like that. I wouldn’t do that to Olivia, and neither would Will. In fact, I haven’t even talked to him since they broke up, except just saying hello in the halls and in this class.”

  “I wouldn’t leave him hanging for too long,” Regan said. “That boy is getting cuter all the time. Somebody might swoop in, you know?”

  Tig laughed. “I’m too busy with the band to worry about swooping.”

  Will came in and sat down. “Regan,” he said. “Tig.”

  “Good day to you, sir,” Regan replied.

  Will smiled and shook his head.

  “Guess who’s auditioning for West Al Academy’s prom,” Regan said.

  “Really?” Will asked. “That’s cool.”

  “Cool is exactly what it is,” Regan said. “This one right here? Cool, man. Cooooool.”

  Tig scrunched up her face and held up her palms. “What are you even doing, Regan?”

  “Just trying to start some trouble, I guess.” Regan smiled. Then she whispered to Tig, “Somebody has to get you two talking again. You’re both afraid to breathe around each other!”

  “What songs are you going to play at the audition?” Will asked.

  “We’ve narrowed it down to a few we’re trying to choose between,” she said.

  “If you need an outside opinion, you know, on the song choices,” Will said, “I’d be glad to help. Maybe we could talk about them later or something.”

  “Maybe,” said Tig.

  That afternoon Tig thought about calling Will. She knew his remark in algebra about talking later had nothing to do with the song selections and everything to do with Olivia . . . or more specifically, what would happen now between the two of them.

  But Tig wouldn’t make the call. She felt
disloyal to Olivia for even considering it.

  It was almost four p.m. when her phone rang. The screen verified her gut feeling that it was Will.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Tig said.

  “Got a lot of homework tonight?”

  “A little.”

  “Oh.” Long pause. “Well, I’m glad we had this talk.”

  Tig laughed gently. “Yeah, me too.”

  “Olivia doesn’t seem to be taking it too well,” Will said. “The breakup, I mean. She won’t even talk to me anymore.”

  “Give her time,” Tig said. “It’s a fresh wound.”

  “You’re not mad at me, are you?”

  “No,” Tig said.

  “At least there’s that. I think the rest of Olivia’s friends think I’m the devil.”

  “They don’t,” Tig said. “They’re just trying to support Liv, which is good. Especially since I’m probably not doing the best job of it. I feel so guilty, I can hardly say anything to her.”

  “You don’t have any reason to feel guilty,” Will said. “Like I already told you: it’s not your fault. You can’t help it that you enticed me with your feminine wiles.”

  “My what?” Tig said.

  Will started laughing. “What? Didn’t you know you had feminine wiles?”

  “I’m not even sure what feminine wiles are, so no, I didn’t know I had any.”

  “Well, you do,” Will said. “Trust me on that.”

  “Listen, Will,” Tig said. “No offense, but I don’t think we should be talking right now. It’s too soon. If I were to let it slip, something like, ‘Will said on the phone that . . .,’ or whatever, it would be bad. Do you understand?”

  “I understand,” Will said. “I don’t like it, but I understand. I want to be able to talk to you, but I can wait a little longer. I’ve waited this long, right?”

  Tig was glad Will couldn’t see her blush. “I’ve got to get to my drum lesson. Catch you later,” she said, and hung up.

  Traffic was terrible as usual on the way to the music store, so Tig was her typical five minutes late. But Lee was so excited to hear about the West Alabama Academy audition, he didn’t even scold her.