My Name Is Chloe (20 page)

Allie just nodded, and when it was our turn, we both grabbed a hand and literally dragged her out. We tried to smile and laugh, as if it were all just a big act. But then I looked Allie in the eye and actually said a quick prayer. “God be with us!” I let go of her hand and walked over to the mike and started to speak.

“My name is Chloe, and my friend on bass over there is Laura. And the drummer who just barfed all over my guitar is Allie.” Well, this really cracked them up, and I think it gave Allie a moment to gather her wits.

“And we are Redemption!” I shouted, then turned and looked at Allie. I swear her face was white as chalk, but she started counting out the beat and then we played. Okay, we didn’t play our best—thanks to Allie’s stage fright—but at least
we tried. And we didn’t make complete fools of ourselves. The crowd actually seemed to like us—a lot. Or else they just felt sorry for us. I’m sure we were the youngest ones there, and the whole barfing thing must’ve sounded pretty pitiful.

I was just glad to be done with it. And as soon as we finished, I marched off to the bathroom to clean up my guitar. What a stench! To be honest, I was glad to have an excuse to get away. I was still pretty ticked at Allie, and I didn’t want to say something I’d regret. Like, “Thanks for helping me throw away twenty-five bucks!”

By the time I got back out there, the last band was performing. They were really pretty lame, but the crowd was generous and clapped anyway. But you could tell it was only polite clapping. Then the emcee came out again and started chattering away about everything from the weather to politics, trying to be funny. But by then nothing seemed funny to me; I just wanted to go home and forget about tonight.

So finally he’s announcing who the winners are, starting with third place, which turned out to be Fat Tango. I actually clapped and cheered now because I really thought they were good. They went up and received their award, a check for two hundred and fifty dollars. Not bad considering it was only third. Then the emcee said, “Now for second place. Hey, it looks like it’s
ladies night tonight. Will the band with the barfing drummer—
Redemption
—come on up here?”

Well, I thought I was going to faint. I grabbed Laura’s arm. “Did he say—?”

“It’s us!” she screamed. “Come on, Allie!” Laura gave her a shove toward the stairs then tugged on me. “Come on, you guys! Let’s move it!”

And the next thing I knew, I was up there saying thanks and receiving a check for five hundred dollars!!! Laura was hysterical and Allie was in tears.

“Did the drummer really barf on your guitar?” the emcee asked.

I nodded soberly. “Yeah, I was just in the bathroom cleaning it all off. Man, you shoulda smelled it!” Well, the audience went into hysterics over that.

Then, of course, Screaming Tangerine was presented with first place and got back on stage for an encore, which we enjoyed immensely. Afterward, we were getting our pictures taken and the drummer from Tangerine told me they would’ve rather had the check since his drum set was even better than the prize. Then I told him that our barfing drummer had been really hoping for a new drum set. “You should see the one she has to play on at home.”

“You wanna trade?” he said, but I thought he was joking.

“Oh, yeah, sure.” I turned and smiled for another photo.

Then just as we were getting ready to go, the leader of their band, Scott Cinder, walked up to me. “You guys serious about wanting to trade prizes?”

“Are you kidding?” I stared at him.

“What’s up?” asked Laura. I quickly told her what they were saying, and she said, “Why not? If they’re serious.”

So before Allie even realized what had happened we switched prizes.

“We’re just hitting the road now,” said Scott. “We don’t have time to deal with trying to sell those drums, and we could really use some extra cash. Besides, we thought it would be kinda cool to be known as the guys who helped out the barfing drummer on an up-and-coming band.” He smiled. “You guys are really good.”

And so there you have it! What an unbelievable night. Allie just about passed out when we told her what we’d done. Well, at first she didn’t even believe us.

“You guys are just trying to get even with me for messing up tonight,” she said. “And I don’t even blame you. I’m so embarrassed. I’m sorry.”

But when we showed her the certificate for the Right Chord music store and convinced her it was for real, she just started shaking.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “I cannot believe it! Scott Cinder really said that?”

So go figure. Allie lost it and barfed on my guitar, but we still came in second. And even though we came in second, we still walked home with the prize for first. Now, I am thinking that only God could do something that impossible.

Life seems to have slowed down during the last couple weeks. I suppose that’s good. I’m sure my parents were getting worried that all this success was going to go straight to our heads, like maybe we’d hit the road with our show. Ha! I could just see us piling into Laura’s little Neon (which isn’t even paid for yet) with all our equipment and stuff and trying to make it to Nashville or New York or wherever it is that bands go to hit it big these days.

But we do have a date to cut a CD now. Hopefully with our next two coffeehouse gigs, plus playing for a birthday party that Laura booked for us, we’ll have enough to cover the cost. If not, my dad promised to help us out. And Ron Stephensen said that he’d give us the best deal he could in the studio. Willy’s been working with us lately too. Mind of mentoring, I guess you’d say.

We don’t agree with everything he suggests, but he’s got some good advice and seems to know a lot about the music business. Although sometimes it seems as though he’s trying to scare us out of trying to do too much. “They’ll chew you up
alive,” he likes to say. “And then spit you out again.” But I’m thinking if God wants us to do something big, well, then He can make it happen, and He can protect us from the ones who would try to hurt us. In the meantime, I think we need to just focus on doing our best right here and now. Who knows what lies ahead? Besides God, that is.

Well, I guess I’ve been a little self-absorbed lately, what with music and friends and church and all. But I just got the strangest e-mail from
Caitlin today. I didn’t even know what to think of it. She and Josh were pretty much engaged at Christmastime, and as far as I knew everything was just fine. But now she has called it all off. I was stunned. And sad. She didn’t give me any details, so I called her up and asked what was going on.

“It’s a long story, Chloe.” Her voice sounded so far away and tired.

“That’s okay. I have time. If you want to tell me, that is.”

She sighed. “Well, I know you’ll understand if I tell you it’s a God-thing. And more than anything else, I want to obey God. Does that make sense?”

“Sure, that’s what I want too. But are you saying God doesn’t want you to marry Josh?”

“All I know for right now is that I’m not supposed to be committed to Josh like that. For right now, I need to just wait on God and obey Him.”

“Then maybe later—”

“I don’t know about later, Chloe. I can’t see into the future.”

“Is there another guy?”

Then she laughed and I felt relieved. “No, of course not.”

“Do you still love Josh?”

“Yes, of course. I never quit loving him. I just can’t promise to marry him. It was really messing
me up. It’s like I was all depressed and confused, and finally God showed me that we jumped the gun. I never should’ve agreed to that whole thing.”

“Does Josh understand all this?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, he knows, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah. He knows.” Her voice sounded flat, or maybe it was just sad.

“Is he okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you okay?”

“I think I will be. It’s just so soon. Like I’m still sort of in shock. But actually, once it was done I did start to feel better—as if I could sense God’s presence in my life again.”

“Really? You mean being engaged to Josh took God out of your life? But Josh is a Christian and a—”

“It doesn’t have to do with Josh. You’re right; he’s the best. The very best.” She paused now. “It had to do with me trusting God completely and being willing to be 100 percent obedient to Him—even if it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”

“Was it really the hardest?”

“I think so.”

“So, you really still love Josh then?”

“Yes. But, Chloe, please keep this between you and me.”

“You know you can trust me,” I assured her. And then I told her I’d be praying for her and Josh too and that I thought God would work it all out for both of them. Of course, I’m thinking that means God will work it out for them to eventually get married—because that’s what I think is going to happen. But I didn’t tell Caitlin that. I could tell it wasn’t what she needed to hear right now. I just hope Josh doesn’t get too depressed with this news. I’ll be praying especially hard for him. Poor guy.

This reminds of what Caitlin has said all along about dating. She said that no matter how you do it, someone always gets hurt. I’m starting to wonder if maybe she’s right. Still, I haven’t even had much opportunity to go there myself, and I’m not eager to go closing doors—unless God wants me to, that is.

We cut our first CD today. Notice I say “first” as if I think we may someday cut another. Well, who knows? It could happen. Ron Stephensen thinks it could. And so does Willy. Despite Willy’s occasional gloom-and-doom forecasts about the music industry in general, he’s usually quite optimistic when it comes to our talent and potential.

“You just need the right connections,” he said today as we were loading our stuff into his van. “I keep praying that God will send the right people along for you—when the time is right.”

I laughed. “You mean, like someone to discover us?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what it takes.”

I guess the truly amazing thing is that we managed to do it all in one day—one very long day. Okay, it’s not a perfect CD. And if we’d had a couple weeks (and a couple hundred thousand bucks), I think it would’ve been much better. At least that’s what Willy said. But then it’s just a demo. Hopefully anyone who hears it will understand that.

Just as we were leaving the recording studio I remembered something. “Hey, I forgot to tell you guys that this coffeehouse over in Lake View wants us to play during spring break. It’s a
Christian place called the Samaritan. I went there last year with a friend. It’s funny because I wasn’t even a Christian then, and now they want us to come play.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Laura. “I’m not going anywhere for spring break. In fact, I promised to work for my aunt all week. What day is it?”

“It’s a Saturday. As I recall, the place is about three times as big as Paradiso so there could be a fairly good-sized crowd.”

“Is this a paying gig?” asked Allie.

“Yeah, but only a hundred bucks. Still, the guy said we could sell our CDs and make some extra money that way. Ron said we should have them by then.”

So we started talking about designing some kind of cover for our CD. And before long we were arguing about whether to use a graphic design or a photograph.

“Look, I think you guys should let me do it,” said Allie.

“Well, you are the most artistic one,” said Laura.

“Yeah, but we all have to agree on it,” I added. “Don’t go printing off a bunch of covers without showing it to us first.”

“Like I would do that.”

This morning my dad was walking around the house whistling and all happy, and I asked what was up.

“I’m thinking about booking a family trip for us during spring break.”

I frowned. “Really?”

“What’s wrong with that? I thought we could get one of those good deals on a Caribbean cruise. And Josh could come too. It would be fun. You know there’s probably not going to be many more family vacations with you kids growing up.”

I controlled myself from saying that it might be a good thing since our family vacations most often ended up in big family fights. “Do you think
we could be back by the twenty-eighth?”

“What’s going on then?”

“Well, we kinda had a gig set up.”

My dad rolled his eyes. “Chloe, you’ll have your whole life to do music gigs if you want to, but this might be our last chance to do something like this all together.”

“All together?” I raised my brows. “You mean the whole family is going?”

Okay, I know that was a low blow and probably undeserved. But sometimes I just want to jerk my parents’ chain a little when it comes to my oldest brother, Caleb. I mean, I get tired of them pretending he’s dead or something. It’s as if they won’t even talk about it. The only one I can talk about it with is Josh, and he’s hardly ever around. But at least Josh and I are praying for Caleb. And I really believe that someday Caleb is going to figure things out and that he’ll let God into his life and come back to his family. In the meantime, I just pray that he’s safe. It scares me to think about it too much. I realize that he’s probably living a dangerous life. And sometimes I think he could be in real trouble—or even dead—and we wouldn’t even know about it. Then I have to pray really hard!