Above the Noise (19 page)

“I love you, too.” I wrapped my arms around his waist and squeezed. He kissed me on the top of the head and sucked in another deep breath.

Ronaldo, the owner we’d met when we first arrived at The Moondance earlier that evening, popped up on stage. The guys told him the problem. Ronaldo scratched his head, and he headed back down the stairs and out into the bar.

“He said they have extra cords we can try. He’s going to bring us what he’s got in the storage room.” Bones yelled over all the techno music to where Calon and I stood.

“Fuck! We look like amateurs, and that label is supposed to be here.” He mumbled under his breath then cupped his hand next to his mouth and called out to the guys who had gone back out to fiddle with the cords. “Can someone go tell the DJ to make an announcement?”

Bones nodded and jumped down off the stage and out into the crowd. He was mobbed by girls, which I’m sure was part of his plan.

“Calon, it will be okay. Ronaldo will be right back, and then you guys can go back out and give them even more than what you planned. They’ll think it’s awesome.” I rubbed his arm hoping to ease the tension I could see spreading to every part of his body. Just then the DJ faded the music.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” it was a girl’s voice over the PA system, not Bones, “it appears as though Alternate Tragedy has called it a night. I guess they have another gig to play this evening.” The crowd was flipping out. “I know, I know. But DJ Jax has enough talent to keep you rocking long into the night. Let’s Party!”

Calon lunged past the curtain as if he was going to rebut what the woman, whoever she was, had just said. But the lights had gone out on stage once the DJ amped up his playlist.

“Cal, listen…” Spider, always the voice of reason, patted Calon on the shoulder and then squeezed it as though reassuring him it was going to be fine. “When Ronaldo comes back with those cords we can set this all straight. It’s all gonna work out.”

I felt my phone buzz in my back pocket. When I looked down at the screen a wave of dizziness came over me again. I leaned into Calon and felt my legs get weak.

“Whoa, Becks. You okay? Honey, what’s wrong?”

“Just stressed. I’m okay.” I smiled up at him, not wanting to worry him. And also as a feeble attempt to keep myself from worrying.

He didn’t need one more thing to be concerned about. I was just tired, hot, and stressed. I hit the
accept call
button when I saw Ronaldo’s name on my screen. I plugged my other ear just as Calon scooted a stool from back stage around the corner and motioned for me to sit while, unbeknownst to him, the once chill club owner was ripping me a new asshole. I hung up. They were not going to like what I was about to tell them.

“That was Ronaldo. He said the closet’s been cleared out since he’d been in it last and there are no cords.”

“Fuck!” I think all four of them spoke simultaneously.

“Guys,” I didn’t want to finish Ronaldo’s message. “He also said he was deeply disappointed at the lack of professionalism in the announcement that cancelled the set. He said he made it clear that we were to play a full two hour show. Then he asked us to leave the premises… immediately.”

“WE didn’t make that announcement!” Bones yelled as he joined us back stage.

“Who was that?” Manny pointed out toward the DJ booth.

“I have no fucking idea. I didn’t even have time to get to the booth.” Bones shook his head in frustration.

“Look, I think it’s best we just pack up and head out quietly, and I will smooth things over tomorrow when I call Ronaldo to tell him what actually happened. If I can figure out what actually happened.”

The guys started to pack up the stage in the dark, so they could haul everything out the back door and into the van. I headed back to the merchandise table where Cyan was convincing some customers that all sales were final. I couldn’t believe people were trying to return t-shirts because the guys had to stop playing. I was so frustrated I could spit. It wasn’t like we could somehow let everyone know what happened without taking the mic from the DJ and making an announcement that would inevitably sound like a whole string of excuses. Especially since someone else took it upon themselves to make up a pretty shitty one.

“What the hell are they doing, Becki?” Cyan folded piles of t-shirts into boxes as she spoke.

“Something happened to silence the band and then someone made that unauthorized announcement.” I shook my head.

“The girl you sent to borrow my VIP pass is the one who made the announcement. I assumed you told her to.”

“What? I didn’t send anyone to you.” I grabbed the crate we used for CDs and started piling them in so we could close up the table before more people came to return their purchases.

“Oh, shit! Some girl said she needed to borrow my VIP pass to give to you because you lost yours and the bouncer wouldn’t let you back stage.” She cocked her head a little.

“Cyan. I’ve had mine the whole time. I didn’t ask anyone to come borrow yours.”

“Well, the girl who took my VIP pass is the one I saw making that announcement. Becki, what the hell is going on?”

“I have no idea, Cyan. What did she look like? Would you recognize her if you saw her again?” I wasn’t sure what difference it would make if I knew who she was. It’s not like I could find her in the masses inside The Moondance.

“She had long dark hair, real thin. She was wearing a crop top and leggings. Slutty looking. But, that’s all I remember.”

“She’s the one who asked me if I was Calon’s girlfriend. This doesn’t make any sense.” I stood there holding the crate of CDs trying to figure it all out.

“Becki, I am so sorry. I should have texted you to confirm that you actually needed it, but it was so crazy back here. I was so scared if I got distracted people would start stealing stuff off the tables.”

“It’s not your fault, Cyan. But it’s obvious she wanted your VIP pass to convince the DJ to let her make the announcement that made us sound like total assholes. Shit.”

“I’m really sorry, B.”

“No worries. There’s nothing we can do about it now. Unless you can come up with something that will help us keep this from becoming a huge rumor that snowballs out of control. This place was packed tonight because Alternate Tragedy was playing. And, now, all these people think they’re dicks for shutting down the stage and leaving for what they think was another show.”

“Let me make some calls, Becki, and I will see what I can do. I may not be able to get ahold of anyone tonight, but I’ll call you sometime tomorrow to let you know what I come up with.”

“That would be amazing, Cyan. Thank you so much.”

She gave me a hug, and we grabbed a couple bouncers to let us out the employee exit and help us carry the boxes to where Spider had the van waiting for us. We packed everything in, and I stayed outside the van to thank Cyan one more time for whatever she was planning to orchestrate for us. We rode in silence toward the hotel. I dozed off a little but was startled by the buzz in my pocket.

Cyan:
B! I was wrong. Got ahold of a friend at B103. They can do an afternoon interview on Friday, during their Rock Block. And…

Me:
Cyan! THANK YOU! And… what?

Cyan:
I did a little digging. Our slutty announcer is Malcolm Phoenix’s daughter.

Me:
Malcolm Phoenix? The sleazy band manager?

Cyan:
That’s the one.

Me:
Why would SHE do that?

Cyan:
No idea. Will keep digging. Gotta go.

Me:
You rock! Thx.

“Guys! Cyan got you an interview Friday with B103. You can set everything straight about whatever the hell it was that happened tonight.”

“Thanks, Becki. You da bomb!” Spider flashed me his gorgeous smile in the rearview mirror.

“And, she also said the girl who made that announcement is Malcolm Phoenix’s daughter.”

“What the FUCK?! That guy’s an ass!” Manny slammed his fists on the dashboard.

“He was pissed that we didn’t sign with him last year. I bet this was his chicken shit way of getting revenge.” Calon rubbed his forehead. “Well, we can’t prove anything. So, we just gotta move past it.”

Spider cranked the stereo. Pearl Jam’s “State of Love and Trust” was a good song to pull us out of our funk. We all sang at the top of our lungs to rid ourselves of the tension from the evening.

I WAS SO
pissed I could barely breathe. Becki told us some girl asked Cyan to borrow her VIP pass. Something just seemed messed up about the whole night, but I couldn’t make sense of any of it. My blood boiled. I couldn’t wait to refute the unauthorized announcement that made it sound like we’d just stopped after the fourth song and left. If the faulty wiring was going to shut us down it could have at least happened mid-song, so the whole crowd could tell it wasn’t part of our plan to just cut out. Fuck. That whole thing made us look like huge dicks.

I threw my head back against the headboard of Becki’s hotel bed and sucked back the last of my beer. A loud crash that came from the bathroom startled me, and I dropped the empty bottle to the floor.

“Becki!” When I flew through the door, the first thing I saw was blood dripping down the side of the tub. The curtain rod was hanging off the wall on one end. There was water pouring down over the curtain and out onto the floor. I couldn’t make sense of what was going on until I realized Becki was lying at the bottom of the tub, unconscious and bleeding from a large gash on her forehead.

“Oh, God!! Help! Becki! Someone help!” It was just us in her room, and I knew no one could hear me. I turned the water off and tried to get my hands under her arms, so I could lift her, but the soapy water made her skin too slippery. My phone was in the other room. As I was trying to decide if I should call 9-1-1, her eyes fluttered open, and she winced.

“Ow. My head. What happened?” She pushed herself up on her hands and looked down at the bottom half of her body still entangled in the shower curtain. Blood dripped from her forehead onto her chest and ran down between her breasts. “Calon! What happened? Why am I bleeding? Calon!”

“Shh. Becki. Let’s just get you out of this tub and decide if we’re taking you to the hospital or not.”

“Hospital? No fucking way. I don’t do hospitals. I think I just passed out. I had the water super hot.”

“Well, let’s just get you dried off and cleaned up and see how you feel.” I helped her up, handed her a washcloth to hold on her head, wrapped her snuggly in a big white fluffy towel, and carried her out to the bed and propped up all the pillows against the headboard. “Just sit back and give me a sec to get you all cleaned up and see what we’re working with here.”

She smiled and then winced when she pulled the washcloth from her head and saw it was soaked with blood. My hands shook. I didn’t do emergencies well at all. It brought back way too many memories of what I went through when my mom started dating Carver, a nasty son-of-a-bitch who used me as a punching bag when my mom wasn’t around.

Soon after she gave up Kate, my mom pretty much lost her marbles and fell off the edge of reality. I spent the next ten years fending for myself and trying to stay out of the way of Carver and a handful of other violent drunks. But, more than once that I pissed one of them off so badly that it landed me in the hospital bloodied and bruised.

Carver was the most convincing liar of them all, and he wasn’t stupid. It always ended up looking like an accident, something I’d carelessly done to bust up my face or break both my wrists. He and my mom were a blip on the doctors’ and nurses’ radar as soon as we would walk into the ER. Gnarly looking dude carrying a busted up kid and a crying mom standing off to the side with her arms folded and her head down. Classic abuse case. When they’d ask what happened, Carver would come up with these elaborate scenarios that meticulously described each bruise and cut in a way that made it virtually impossible to be suspicious. And like all abused children feel, my mom’s life was at stake. If I told anyone what really happened, he’d have killed us both. Hospitals are the only thing that can throw me into a panic attack. And I have huge trust issues with medical staff, since no one saw through his charade like they should have.