Kurt walked down the hall with me after LRA on Friday. His hand was even sweatier than mine. There was a lot resting on this performance. If we failed, then Kurt’s family was going to go broke.
After I filled my backpack with books for the weekend’s load of homework, Kurt and I headed down towards the exit, him running ahead of me to grab the door as usual. The air was still like it was about to snow.
“Do you feel that?” I said. “It’s going to snow any minute.”
I went to put my arm around him, but he flinched and stepped to the side. When I reached for his hand, he flinched again and wouldn’t take it. I tried one final time to grab his arm, and again he stepped away. I grit my teeth.
“Lia, I’m sorry,” he said. “Would it be okay if you didn’t touch me for now?”
“Why? What the hell is your problem?”
“I’m just—” He sat down. I joined him on the cool grass. “When I have a lot going on I get like, really anxious and aspbergery and I don’t like being touched for some reason.” He sighed and kissed the top of my head. “I’m sorry if it makes me look like a dick.”
I turned my head away from his. “You could’ve at least said that before you started giving me the cold shoulder.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m really sorry and I’ll try to work on it.”
“Can I at least lean on your shoulder?” I asked.
“It’s probably going to bother me, but I want you to do it anyway.”
I inched closer and leaned my head on the shoulder of his puffy winder coat. When he whined and tried to move away, I grabbed his hand and started stroking it with my thumb.
“It’s okay Kurt,” I said. “I’m right here.”
“You know that you’re the best girlfriend ever, right?”
I nudged him with my elbow. “Would you stop being so mushy and romantic?”
“Nope. That’s never going to happen,” he said as he leaned his head against mine.
When I was about to ask him about our plans for later, Star came closer to me and leaned her head on my lap. I pet her back and scratched her ears. A few minutes later, Mom rolled up and started honking the horn. Kurt helped me get to my feet.
“So later, where are we rehearsing?” I asked.
Since we wanted to run through everything one more time, we had to figure out when we would be rehearsing. Since Mom was sick of us playing in the basement and also wanted to have “girl time” after school, Kurt was left to find a new place for us to practice.
“I asked my parents and they said that we could go to the coffee shop,” he said.
“The coffee shop? But won’t there be people there? It’s Friday night.”
He laughed. “If there are, it shouldn’t be more than five or so. We’ll be fine.”
“But what about the drums? I can’t get my dad’s old set in the car!”
“We’ve got a spare set in the back room. Like I said, don’t worry.”
Mom honked the horn again. I quickly kissed Kurt goodbye on the cheek and ran into the open door of the minivan. Star hopped in after me and I swung the door shut.
“Why did you keep honking?” I asked. “You always make a scene.”
“Because I don’t want us to be late for our nail appointment. Don’t you want to look nice for your big day?”
I rolled my eyes. “You mean my performance in front of ten people? I’ll be hidden behind the drums. It doesn’t matter.”
So we cruised our way down to the nail salon in the minivan, Mom pretending to be “cool and hip” by playing my Rayvn CD. When we got there, the girl doing my nails handed me a bunch of swatches and tried to describe some of the colors to me. I told her that I already knew blue, black, red, white, and green. I wanted something different that would fit my music. She then proceeded to ask me what I liked and didn’t like.
“You know the bird in the Rayvn logo? Its eyes are dark purple. Do you want to try that?”
I held out my hands and said, “Lay it on me.”
Mom sat in the chair next to me, asking her nail-painter-lady if she could get decals or red boxing gloves.
When we got home, I we had a dinner or takeout Chinese food, since it was what Emmit wanted. I plugged my nose while trying to eat a carton of shrimp lo main. I could care less about stereotypes. Maybe the food in China was a bit better, but the place we ordered from was gross.
After gagging on the lo main, I grabbed a fortune cookie and took off a piece, then handed it to Star. She sniffed it, but turned away. I laughed.
“See, look, even Star doesn’t like this stuff, and she eats everything,” I said, then handed the little slip inside the cookie to Emmit. “Can you read this for me?”
He took it from me and said, “You are really stupid and ugly.”
“Emmit, knock it off,” Dad said to him.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “It says ‘your life will change in unexpected ways.’”
I smiled. “I’m telling you guys, tomorrow night will be the start of my music career.”
Soon after that, Mom dropped Star and I off at Kurt’s coffee shop. A bell chimed when I opened the door. The place was almost completely silent. There was the faint smell of burning candles and vanilla coffee. I heard Kurt’s sneakers right after I walked in.
“There she is!” he put his arms around me. I leaned into his cotton shirt. “I’m so glad you could make it!”
I smiled, then tried to focus my ears. There was one conversation going on near the back of the room. Good thing I didn’t ask him if the place was closed. I listened in on the man and women talking in the back of the room. They were discussing how much they didn’t want to go to their neighbor’s baby shower and were thinking of made up excuses.
“Lia,” Kurt said, bringing me back to reality. “Are you ready to start practicing?”
“Sure, let’s go for it.”
“Oh, is she here?” I heard a woman’s voice. It sounded like she was wearing a pair of heels as she clicked closer to us. “It’s so nice to see you!”
“Oh, Lia, this is my Mom,” Kurt said.
“I’m Melissa. It’s nice to meet you, Lia.”
“Nice to meet you as well,” I said, shaking her hand.
“The stage is all set up for you guys to practice. It’s a slow night so I don’t think there will be any problems,” she said.
Kurt brought me over to the stage, and Star guided me up the three steps. I sat down behind the drums and Kurt handed me a pair of mallets. I reached my hands out and felt each separate piece of the set, making sure everything was there and in the same exact place as mine.
“Okay, so I’m going to go up to the mic like this,” Kurt said from across the stage, “and I’ll be all like, ‘Hey, we’re Blind and Dangerous. We’ve got a song from The Crazy Monkeys and Rayvn for you tonight.’”
I gave him a thumbs up and we started playing. After See You Saturday Melissa cheered and clapped in the back of the room. When I started doing my solo, the two customers clapped as well. At around ten we finished, and Kurt said that the only thing we really needed to fix was getting him in tune. I also admitted that I needed to stop using my mallets like they were hammers against the drums.
When Saturday night came, I had Mom come into my room and look through my closet. I wanted to find something that would make me look like a rock star. We both decided on a pair of black leggings and my bracelet with the spikes on it, but she was giving me the hardest time about my shirt.
“Why don’t you wear your fringe one with the butterfly on it?” she asked.
“Mom,” I whined, “Have you ever seen anyone in a rock band wear something with a butterfly on it?”
Eventually we decided on my navy blue top with the holes cut out in the shoulders. At eight, we drove down to Pleasant Plaza. The girls and their boyfriends were already there. Every one of them held some kind of drink in their hands except Sarah and Nathan. My family sat in the back of the room, despite Mom’s protest to be right in the front.
Before I knew it, I heard a man take the mic. I assumed that it was Kurt’s dad.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a special treat for you tonight,” he said. “Please welcome Kurt and Lia to the stage!”
There were claps, and I handed Star to my family, who wished me luck. When Kurt guided me up the stage and sat me down behind the drums, the spotlight hit my face. It was hotter than the previous night. I wiped my hands on my pants before Kurt handed me the mallets. My biggest fear was that they’d slip out of my hands.
“Well hey everybody,” Kurt said into the mic. “I’m Kurt and this is my girlfriend Lia. We um, we’re Blind and Dangerous and we’ve got two great songs for you tonight, from The Crazy Monkeys and Rayvn.”
The small audience clapped again and I held onto the mallets as hard as possible. This was it.