One Hit Wonder (2 page)

“Yeah, right,” she chuckled. “Thanks, Matt. But I don’t really need a vacation right now.”

“Just hear me out. We’re getting ready to record a CD when these gigs are over and we’ll need promotional material and a new website. We have no real photographs of the band, and with your background I think you can be our photographer. ” He took a slug of beer and met her dubious gaze. “See? Although it might seem like a spur-of-the-moment invitation, we’ve thought it through.”

“We?” The smile she kept on her face for most of the night shattered and disappeared.

“The band. We discussed it after I’ve read on Facebook you got laid off. It works out perfectly.” Matt caught himself. “Sorry, by the way.”

“The band?” Her surprise was quickly escalating to anxiety, followed by a sudden need of tequila. Having her business discussed by other people had never been how she handled her problems. She made a mental note to beware of social networks.

“Listen, we plan to make the most professional CD we can. Since selling music online has become way simpler, we need to move out of Myspace and we — ”

“Matt, that is great, truly. I mean, I think your sound is amazing, you definitely got what it takes to grow. But if you want to make a professional CD, website, and whatever, shouldn’t you hire a professional photographer?”

“Well, it’s not just the obvious money reason. Hey, we’d like to have someone with us to photograph the tour. You know, a candid portraits sort of thing?”

She stared at him, expressionless.

“Who is better to be in a bus with five guys than a hot girl?”

Oh, goodness. She recoiled as if she had been just slapped on the face.

“I’m teasing. I’m teasing.” He patted her shoulder. “You know you’re like an annoying little sister to me.”

“I’m older.”

“Oh, bollocks. Seven months doesn’t count. I’m more mature.”

“Did you just say bollocks?” Audrey shook her head. “You can take a rock star out of the nerd, but you can’t take the nerd out … wow … stop.” She tried to shield her ribs with her elbows as Matt tickled her.

He obliged and straightened himself. “But seriously think about it, will ya? There is even a little salary involved; uh, more like a stipend, and we will take care of expenses.”

“Thanks, Matt, I’ll think about it.”

It was a no-brainer decision: she was unemployed and had found a gig to pay the bills. Nothing ominous about it. The tour would take two months; after it she would return and pick up her life from where she’d left off. Then why she couldn’t shake the feeling this was not a good idea?

Her concerns branched out in opposite directions, like cartoony versions of her good and evil selves floating above her shoulders and fighting over what she should do. Her good side worried about Matt’s feelings. Although he had said out loud he considered her an annoying little sister, he could be saying one thing but secretly hoping for another. She was happy to have found him again, but after their second meeting she was sure there was no spark.

You can’t do this. Get out while you can, her evil self warned with a screechy voice that lifted the hairs on her neck. She had never crossed the line between a hobbyist photographer and a hired one. Not only would she would be judged for her work, but she would be held accountable for it. There couldn’t be a change of plans or loss of interest, the two primary reasons that kept her from achieving anything in life. She would have to stick with it until the end and that scared her shitless.

• • •

“At least I don’t have to explain to my lady friends I’m not involved with the Brazilian knock-out I happen to live with.” Steve said when Audrey told him she was breaking her lease.

“I’m not Brazilian, but I’m glad I can help.”

“Half-Brazilian. You know what I mean: deep olive skin, long wavy hair, nice popozão.”

Audrey darted a vicious look toward him. “You know I hate that word.”

“I know.” He chuckled.

“The fact that you mention it doesn’t say much about you, does it? It was bad enough to like Kevin Federline in 2006, but still listen to this awful song four years later.”

“I don’t listen to it! I just remember it. A homage to my dear friend.”

“Charming.” She sighed in disgust.

“What are you going to do when the tour is over?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll kill myself before I take another secretarial job. Can’t live inside a cubicle hypnotized by fluorescent lights and addicted to bad coffee anymore.”

“Maybe you can go back to school; your mother would love it,” Steve said.

“I don’t know. Grad school is expensive. I don’t feel like adding another twenty grand to my student debt, regardless of the opportunities a master’s degree might bring. Maybe I’ll go back to Japan … or somewhere else.” She’d spent a quite enjoyable year teaching English to children in Japan. Except the job didn’t give her any invaluable skills back in America, where almost everyone already spoke English. Still, she had learned to surf and it made her year abroad magnificent.

“If you need a place, you can always come back.”

“How about your lady friends?”

“Let them think you’re competition. It gets them more motivated in bed.”

“Oh, please.”

“Remember Rebecca? She became a gymnast after she saw you. She even had to go to a chiropractor the next day to re-align her spine.”

“No way.”Audrey bawled with laughter.

“I’m dead serious. It was fucking fantastic — literally.”

“You’re bad.”

“That’s why they like me.”

• • •

Matt gave her the low-down on how the tour worked; their manager, Bill, had rented a RV (a.k.a tour bus). The band and the crew (she and Rob) would travel from one city to the next until the last gig in Austin, Texas. Then they would drive straight home, unless Bill booked something on the way. Some gigs were nearly back-to-back, a Friday night somewhere and Saturday night somewhere else. Rob was the official tour bus driver, but all the band members would have to help him to keep up with the schedule.

They were leaving in two weeks.

“These are blessings, minha filha.” Isabel, Audrey’s mother, believed being laid off and Matt’s invitation were the workings of guiding angels leading her to professional fulfillment and everlasting happiness. However, Audrey’s skepticism, despite her mother’s religious fervor, allowed her to believe only in the power of DSL.

The band was going to detour to pick her up. She didn’t quite like the idea because it made her think of a hitchhiking hippie smoking pot in a baby blue VW van. The word “groupie” also crossed her mind, and as a guide she watched Almost Famous three times that week. She wanted to learn from Penny Lane, but the woman contradicted herself and paid for it dearly. Instead of following her own advice: never take it seriously, never get hurt, Penny fell for the guitarist and tried to killed herself after seeing the spineless jerk with his girlfriend. However, Audrey learned something from Elaine, the overprotective mother — Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.

Bold was a word she hadn’t said or thought about it in ages; she spent countless hours trying to remember her last bold action. Almost three years ago, she found a job teaching English to children in Japan. It was the last risk she had taken, and perhaps the reason she thought about it so often. She couldn’t pinpoint when her life had made the turn to fuck-up-land. At last, she was being bold again.

• • •

You’ve got to be kidding me, Audrey thought, as she watched the old RV turning the corner of the street. The Winnebago’s brakes shrieked as it halted in front of her and she looked embarrassedly over her shoulders, hoping none of the neighbors were watching. It wasn’t much of a plan to begin with, and this had been the first mistake. The vehicle was not a century old, but it was from the last century: faded paint, avocado-green pinstripes chipped away at the edges, duct tape on the rearview mirror. She should probably get out of here as soon as possible, turn and walk back inside the house, but it was too late.

Even after strictly forbidding her parents to leave the house, she twitched with hope her father would come out and forbid her to travel across the country inside an unsafe vehicle. When she glanced toward the window, he was laughing hysterically — convulsion-attack style. Her mother stood beside him, waving one hand and covering her mouth with the other. She wasn’t sixteen anymore; she could no longer count on her parent’s overprotection. Audrey exhaled deeply, as though blowing out smoke, and her shoulders sank so low, she could have brushed the sidewalk with the tip of her fingers.

Like a B-movie spaceship, short only of dry-ice fog and neon lights, the Winnebago’s door opened slowly. Except the humanoid that appeared, with his hand up, signaling he’d come in peace wasn’t alien.

“Hi.” Matt’s smile was as big and as innocent as Sesame Street’s Ernie.

“Hi.” Audrey waved back. “So this is the tour bus, huh?”

“Yeah, how do you like it?” He stood beside her and they both stared at the Winnebago.

“It’s interesting.”

“It might not scream rock-and-roll, but it beats actual bus seats.”

“I can imagine it.”

Matt leaned closer and lowered his voice as if telling her a secret. “We have a full-size bed.”

Audrey rolled her eyes and threw her back-pack over her shoulders while Matt picked up her duffle bag.

“Wait,” Isabel hollered, coming down the driveway with, Audrey guessed, a tin of cookies.

“Mom!” She widened her eyes. “I told you to stay inside,” she murmured crossly as Isabel approached them.

Isabel ignored her and walked toward Matt. “Matt, Oh my goodness. Look how big you are.” She lifted her arm around his shoulder and kissed his cheek.

“Hello, Mrs. Whitman,” he said shyly.

“Look at this beard.” She ran her hand along the side of his face. “You were twelve the last time I saw you. You are so handsome.” She turned to Audrey. “Isn’t he handsome?”

“Audrey thinks I’m cute.”

“Nonsense, you’re handsome,” Isabel reassured him.

Isabel’s hand was still on Matt’s face when her attention pivoted to a man coming out of the Winnebago. Lean and tall, he had tentacles of blond hair framing a long face, lit by fluorescent green eyes. After him, a man with brown hair, full lips, and arms that stretched the sleeves of his shirt. He was followed by a square-jawed man with honey eyes and wide shoulders, the tallest of the washboard-abs-type trio.

Isabel stepped to Audrey’s side and muttered, “Oh my.”

Audrey looked away and, clearing her throat, said inconspicuously, “Wait, there’s one more.” At that moment, another man, older than the others came out, a balding version of Michael Madsen.

She imagined what her mother would be thinking; she had wondered about it herself.

“I’m glad your father decided to stay inside,” Isabel whispered, squeezing Audrey’s hand.

“Mom, meet Kevin, Tyler, John, and Rob.” Audrey introduced them in the order they had exited the Winnebago.

“Nice to meet you,” Isabel said. The men replied politely, then lapsed into silence.

“Okay.” Audrey turned to her mom. “We have to go, the band has a schedule. That’s why I’ve asked you to stay inside.”

“All right. You guys drive safe now.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Whitman, Rob is a professional.” Matt tapped Rob’s shoulder as they hustled back inside the bus.

“Very good, then. Oh, wait. I’ve made you cookies for the trip.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Audrey said, reaching for the tin without a trace of enthusiasm.

“Thanks, Mrs. Whitman.” Matt grabbed it from Audrey’s hand, leaned to give Isabel a kiss, and moved away opening the tin and stuffing a cookie in his mouth.

Isabel rubbed Audrey’s arm, and hugged her. “You have fun now. Call me and tell me everything.”

“I will,” Audrey said, biting her lower lip.

“And stop worrying so much. When I was your age, I would have given an arm to be inside that … .” She looked over Audrey’s shoulder. “… RV?”

“It’s a tour bus, Mom.”

“Right on.”

Audrey wondered if hanging out with musicians would be like hanging out with the band. Was this how rock stars did it? Well, maybe rock stars on a budget that partied in camp sites, roadside hotels, and rundown pubs across the East Coast. Most of the time, she felt in her teens again, except she could legally drink, and so she did — a lot.

The truth was, the alcohol helped to drown her worries. She took a million pictures, hoping quantity would give her a cushion to relax. If ten percent of the photographs were average and one percent was excellent, more pictures could save her from embarrassment when the tour was over. The internet was a wonderful resource for inspiration. Everyone is a photographer now, she thought while browsing on Flickr. Her models were cooperative and, for the most part, she didn’t bother them much.

The bulk of her work consisted of positioning her tripod around the stage during the performances. Light was her fierce enemy; she could never shoot with a flash, afraid it would disturb the band or the audience. It wouldn’t matter, anyway, her shoe-mount flash wasn’t strong enough to light the entire stage. She liked the mood in the photographs, colored only by the dim lights of the pubs, although foggy faces hardly made for good marketing material.

• • •

“Let me take some pictures of you.” Kevin grabbed her camera from a table at a fast-food restaurant connected to the gas station they’d stopped at in North Carolina.

“No.” Audrey shook her head adamantly and reached for the camera. Kevin ducked away and Audrey gave up, not wanting to inflict the innocent patrons of The Biscuit House to a cat-and-mouse chase. Surely, the elderly couple splitting and buttering their biscuits in unison at a table by the window wasn’t interested in the mayhem-with-gravy combo.

“Cut it out, Kevin. You might break her camera.” Matt paid for the bag of biscuits he was taking back to the bus. He was always attentive and, most importantly, truthful to his words, which meant no sexual vibe between them. He really considered her an annoying little sister. That was a relief, although she resented the “annoying” bit.