Sun Poisoned (The Sunshine Series) (2 page)

The band
featured that night was one of the more popular ones: Honus. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was excited to finally see the place where we would be playing.

Midnight seems so small when no one's in it. The stage
, set at the far end of the space, is no bigger than the one at Lucky High School. There are plain black linoleum floors, and the walls framing the stage are made out of gray stone. There are also two huge fireplace-like nooks carved out like caves to the left and right of the stage where people can sit. On either side of the stage are statues of stags with sweeping antlers. Everything not outlined in grey cement is draped in thick, crimson velvet.

At night, when the lights go out and the music comes on, the place becomes a warm, beautiful dream. The first time I took this all in, I almost freaked. How were we going to pull this off? How were three punks from South Jersey with little professional training supposed to fake this?

As I walk into the cool, dark lobby of the place, I realize that's what's been bothering me. My heart thuds an extra loud beat that causes a lump in my throat. Myles places a hand on my shoulder and smiles reassuringly.

I take out my headphones.
“I can't do this,” I say, feeling the bile in my stomach rising.

There are other performers arriving: a guy with long black hair and a handlebar mustache that I recognize as the lead singer of Honus is rigging red and white Christmas lights around t
he stage. A girl with half of her head shaved and the remaining brown strands curved in dreadlocks, is duct taping wires down.

More enter;
a warm breeze from outside hits my bare legs as the door opens and closes again.

Myles' calm expression fades a little when he notices the look on my face. He grabs hold of my hand and leads me left of the stage where there's a door to the dressing rooms.

“No, I want to go.” I tug him the opposite way, but his hand is firmly around mine, not letting go until we’re inside one of the dressing rooms. There are some couches and chairs, a lighted mirror, as well as a flat screen that broadcasts what's going down on stage. This only makes me more uneasy. We're not the kind of people who get to play in awesome places made out of stone with musicians who know their stuff
and
get their own dressing room.

I sit on the edge of a black
armchair, staring at my knees.

“
Hey,” Myles says from behind me.

He loosely wraps an arm around my neck, and I turn my face to hi
m. “I think they made a mistake,” I say. “We shouldn't be here.”

Myles laughs lightly in my ear.
“They did not,” he says. “Both Evan and Jamie listened to your CD and thought you were perfect.”

Jamie's the one who runs the inner workings of the shows. I've only met him a few times, but he's nice enough. Probably dumb for picking us, but nice.

Sighing, I pick off a loose thread from Myles' shirt. “What if we aren't good enough?”

He walks around the chair now, sitting down on the actual seat next to me. I watch as a smile spreads across his face.
“That's impossible.”

Just then, the door swings open and Boo and Trei appear, followed by Jamie, who is clutching a clipboard.

Trei's wearing a black tank top with an alternating black and white tulle skirt. Boo's pants are vertically striped black and white, and he’s paired them with a top hat and a black buttoned vest with nothing underneath.

“
Whoa,” Boo says upon entering. “Are we interrupting something?

That's not funny and he knows it.

It wasn't funny when he said it for the first time a few months ago, when he spied Myles and I holding hands, and it hasn't gotten funny since.

“
No,” I say anyway. “Were
you
interrupted while you were looking for your shirt today?”

“
I'd
hate to interrupt,” Jamie butts in with his English accent.

He has a brown flannel shirt on and tight, straight legged jeans and converse. His clipped brown hair matches his eyes, which are framed with thick, black framed glasses.
Fashion
glasses. Gag. If I knew him better, I'd tease him.

“
But,” he continues, “your time has been moved up. You're now opening for Honus, so you're on first, at eight.”

“
What?” I almost lose it.

At the same time, Boo and Trei say,
“Awesome.”

We're opening for Honus.

The band that everyone goes bananas over. The one that has a piano player that’s probably way better than me in the crowd’s opinion. The band that most of the people are here to see.

Fuck.

Jamie leaves, off to talk to more of the musicians. Boo and Trei set their stuff in front of the mirror.

“
This is going to be awesome,” Trei says.

“
I know, right?” Boo agrees with her reflection before turning to me. “People are like, guaranteed to love us now.”

My stomach lurches. Myles places a hand on mine again.
              “How do you figure that, Boo?” I ask.

“
A lot of people like Honus.” He shrugs. “If we open for them, people might like us too.”

“
Are you serious, Boo?” I try to keep my voice normal but I’m not sure if it actually sounds that way. “You have heard them, right? How are we supposed to go on before
that
with 'Billie Jean'? People are going to think we're a joke.”

Boo stands and walks in front of the chair Myles and I are sitting on so he can cross his arms ove
r his chest and stare me down.

“
Nuh uh,” he starts. “You are not going to try to worm out of this.”

I open my mouth to say something, but he cuts me off.

“We didn't practice our eyeballs out so we could bail. And we’re
awesome
.” He smiles. “We just have to show everyone.”

Boo's eyes shift to Myles now.
“You tell her.”

“
Yeah,” Myles agrees. “It'll be fine.”

Trei turns from the mirror now.
“Yeah. As soon as you're up there, you won't be nervous.”

Oh Jesus, is this turning into an all-out-comfort-Sophie thing?

“Okay, guys,” I say, standing and replacing my headphones while sitting down at the mirror. “Can it.”

Myles leaves at around 7:30 to go sit in the balcony section with Evan. Eight o'clock shows up faster than we could have imagined and we're waiting at the very edge of the stage curtain as people hook up our equipment, weaving in and out of the veil between us and the audience.

I spot Stevie, Jade, and Laura through a slit in the curtain just left of the stage, and I wave rapidly as they pass by, squirming their way to the front rows, if I know Jade at all. Finally, I feel excited. My nerves begin to settle a little bit. If nothing else, my family and Myles are here; no one else's opinion should matter.

Adam had to work. I figured the show would run too late for Leena, and I can't even imagine Momzilla in a place like this. Not that Mom has exactly accepted that this is my life now. We did kind of make up over my healing days, me numbing our mother-daughter bonding by watching daytime TV with painkillers while she talked at me. A lifetime of a messed up relationship does not just get better over a near-death experience, ice cream, and soap operas.  

Jamie comes backstage and announces that we'll be on shor
tly, disappearing behind the curtain before any of us has the chance to ask questions.

Soon enough, he emerges again.
“Right. So I'm going to introduce you now. Come out after that, got it?”
              He seems a little nervous. It must be hard being in charge of fitting a bunch of bands into a certain slot of time and making sure everything runs smoothly. He disappears again.

There’s a swell of applause from the crowd as Jamie announces us
: “Ladies and gentlemen,” His accented voice bounces off of the stone walls. “Please welcome An Anachronism.”

The instant I set foot
on stage, I'm someone else.

There are a lot of people clapping and cheering, but above all the voices, Stevie and Jade's stand out the most. I can't see them in the crowd when I glance
off stage because the spotlights blur everything out, but I hear them, shouting lines from
This Is Spinal Tap
, just like they said they would.

Instead of a light, electric keyboard sitting in front of Boo's drums, I'm greeted with
 a shiny, black piano, strung up with lights shaped like little Jack-o-lanterns. With the way the instruments are positioned, I can stare at Boo if my head is facing forward, but if I turn to the left, I'm facing the crowd. Trei picks up her violin from a stand and waits for Boo's signal.

“
Stone 'Enge!” Jade yells from somewhere in front of me, and I finally spot him with his arm slung over Stevie's shoulder. They're standing in the third row from the front, Laura pressed against them.

“
I want
real
bread!” Stevie screams when he sees me look their way, and I laugh a little.

I glance up at the balcony seats where Myles is leaning over the gold railing, clapping and smiling right
at me. I take in a deep breath and let it out.

“
These amps go up to eleven!” Jade shouts as I nod at Boo and then Trei, who both nod back.

My fingers touch the keys, slowly running through the first few notes of our version of
“Billie Jean.”

I start off with the middle low keys and layer high-pitched ones on top, making it sound like a music box. It’s nothing like the original, but that's okay. The crowd recognizes it as soon as I start singing.

Stray voices from the audience start joining in. A warm, fuzzy feeling works its way through my gut, and I don't hate it. I feed them every powerful note and they’re still starving when Boo comes pounding in at “For forty days and for forty nights.” Then Trei follows soon after, inserting her own beautiful, sad, and strong violin riffs.

I only mess up a few times when we double the speed.

When the song is over, the crowd erupts in shouts and applause. And we head right into the second song as I shout back a quick “Thanks!”

The excitement in Boo's face is impossible to ignore as he drums out a fast beat. I glance down at my wrist where I'd scribbled the order of our songs and start following the memorized notes with my piano. We're playing one of our own songs now: The Car.

Basically, it’s a dark song about waiting in a car after killing someone. I wrote it when I was still with Jack, but no one knows what it’s really about. It’s funny, but I can’t find one spec of me that cares about what the lyrics actually mean. All that matters is the music, me, and the crowd, who after the first chorus start clapping along with the beat.

This is nuts. One of our own songs, and they
like
it? Holy crap.

With only five songs for each band, the end of our set creeps up on us fast and soon we've
only got two songs left. Boo performs the same trick he pulled at the Mischief Night Dance last fall; the one where he magically produces a guitar from his ass and wants me to leave my piano to play Neutral Milk Hotel's “Two Headed Boy.”

I shake my head, I mouth,
no way
.

He smiles and speaks into his microphone.
“We're going to play you guys another cover,” he tells the crowd, who cheers in response. Boo closes his eyes momentarily, clearly eating it all up. “But Sophie's a little shy.” He
Heee
points at me, winking as I glare.

It takes everything I have not to shoot him the middle finger as I hear some
“Aw's” from the audience.
              Then Boo starts clapping and chanting, “So-phie, So-phie.” Trei joins in too, shrugging and smiling at me. Of course it’s not long before the crowd joins them, their chants getting faster and faster until I take my mic out of the stand in front of the piano and stand next to Boo at the front of the stage.

The audience bursts into cheers and I wave at my family in the third row and toss some glitter from my dress pocket at the crowd. Boo strokes a few strings of the acoustic guitar as he waits for the noise to die down. I take this time to spy up at the balcony, where Myles is still standing in the same spot, next to a bunch of people in varying degrees of drunkenness that I don't recognize. He smiles back at me, nodding.

I take Boo’s top hat from his head and he barely protests.

“
For anyone who's interested,” I say, my voice sounding weird and low in the booming mic. “Boo can't afford a shirt, so we're taking donations.”

The crowd laughs in response as I hand the upside-down hat to the first person I see in the audience, and Boo and Trei laugh too. I crack a smile, embarrassment forgotten.