Audrey, Wait!

by Robin Benway

  I think he would have kissed me.

  I think I kind of wanted him to. qct

  And I didn’t know what to think about that.

  “Audrey, please bring your tray table to the upright position,” Victoria suddenly said. “You’re zoning out. It’s unattractive.”

  I looked past her to see Jonah talking to some guy near the bar. The guy was with his girlfriend, who I later learned had won some radio contest and brought him as her plus-one. You could tell that Jonah and this guy were each thrilled to have another guy to talk to, since all the other men backstage were wearing suits with baseball hats pulled low over their eyes. (“Industry types,” Victoria said knowingly.) They were looking at me too.

  Jonah waved and I waved back. Victoria blew him a kiss.

  “Are you going to marry Jonah?” I suddenly asked her. It struck me that in this whole room, she could look at one person and know that they knew her, really knew her, while everyone who looked at me only recognized me. They didn’t know me. Not at all.

  Victoria put her head back down on my arm and said in her quietest voice yet, “Yes.”

  And I kind of wanted to cry.

  But then the lights cut out and Victoria stood up straight and started doing her crazy whistle as the Lolitas walked onstage. They were the opening act, but they were the reason Victoria and I had gotten up early six Saturdays ago to get tickets to the show. Who cared about the Plain Janes? They were big last year, but then they released their horrible second album, and then their lead singer got caught with cocaine and a gun at Newark Airport, then went to rehab, and I kind of had the feeling that they had reached their creative apex. It was band infighting, tell-all exposés, and massive debt from here on out.

  The Lolitas, however, were incredible. Evan and I used to spend hours listening to the demo that he’d downloaded off some website, and we would drive up and down the freeway at midnight, singing along at the top of our lungs while we held hands over the gearshift. Their choruses made you wish you could fly, and we drove so fast on those nights, the orange streetlights lighting our way, taking us home.

  Also (and I didn’t mention this part to Evan), it didn’t hurt that the band was fucking hot. I mean, I was into their music and everything way before I knew what they looked like, but they had put their pictures in the CD insert and when Victoria and I got it, we were both like, “Why, hellooooo there.” Plus, they were British. I’m a sucker for cute boys with guitars, as you may have noticed, but throw in a London accent and I’ll happily sell my soul without a second thought.

  The Lolitas took to the stage and for the next half an hour, Victoria and I were the only ones dancing upstairs. Below us, the floor was packed with moving, gyrating people, and it looked like an earthquake was rolling beneath our feet as kids climbed on top of the audience, as bouncers threw them back, as the Lolitas shook their heads and stomped their feet and made everyone believe. “They’re so fucking good!” Victoria screamed at me as they started in on their final song, and I could only nod. Something happens during a concert like this, when people are packed into every corner of the floor, like you’re all in on some big secret, like that night could be the one show people talk about for the next forty years, the show where everyone says, “I was there!” but only a handful really were.

  I could already tell that I would remember this show for the rest of my life—it was that good.

  After the last song, I pulled my hair up into a knot and then hugged Victoria while we jumped around excitedly, still high off the show. “This is so cool!” I cried. “Can we do this again?”

  “Fuck that!” she yelled back. “We’re doing this every time!” She glanced over my shoulder. “Hey, do me a favor? Dance your way over to the bar! I need water!”

  I nodded and made my way through the suits so I could get over to the bar. I’m usually pretty good at sizing up bartenders to see if they’re willing to let a little drink slide by, but us VIPs were into the open bar thing, so the line was long. Once I got to the front, the bartender was all business as he got out a bottle of water and sprayed Diet Coke into a glass, so I didn’t even bother trying to finagle a little vanilla Stoli splasher.

  Which was a good thing, because when I turned around, all four Lolitas were making their way into the VIP room.

  Immediately, I felt a hot flush creep up into my cheeks as I took my drinks and went in the opposite direction, toward Victoria. “The Lolitas are here!” I hissed in her ear as I gave her the water.

  Her eyes grew wide and her head popped up. “Don’t look,” I said. “Don’t look. Just sort of casually glance toward Jonah—no, the other way—okay, yeah…a little more…see them?”

  Victoria, to her credit, managed to stay on her feet. “Sweet mother of God,” she whispered. “I’ve completely forgotten how to breathe.”

  I nodded in agreement, looking everywhere but at the band. Downstairs, I could see some kids spotting the band and whooping up to them, but I didn’t dare look to see what the band did in response. It must’ve been good, though, because the whooping got louder. “I’m dying,” I told Victoria. “Seriously. I can’t feel my mouth.”

  She did the casual over-the-shoulder glance again. “I think they’re coming over here.”

  “No!”

  “Yes! Okay, Audrey, seriously? This is not a drill. This is the real thing. Don’t screw up.”

  “Does passing out count as screwing up?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  I looked past Victoria and saw that the band was, indeed, coming closer, although they were being stopped every five seconds by well-wishers and hand-shakers. Then one of them, the singer, glanced up at me, and we saw each other. I held his gaze for a fraction of a second and then looked back at my drink. “The lead singer just looked at me,” I whispered to Victoria. It was getting really crowded upstairs, now that one of the bands had made an official appearance, and I had to lean in close so she could hear me.

  “So why aren’t you looking back?”

  But I didn’t answer because the band was coming closer and closer and then the lead singer was leaning on the railing next to me, laughing with the guitarist about something, and every single part of my skin was burning. If our arms accidentally touched, I might burst into flames. On my other side, Victoria was playing it cool, sipping at her water and watching the crowd down below, but if you looked closer, you could see her repeatedly tapping my ankle with her shoe, Victoria’s Morse code for Talk to him! Talk to him! Talk to him!

  Those three minutes when we stood next to each other were electrifying. It was so weird to be near someone that I knew but didn’t know, and I suddenly understood why so many people kept looking at me, then looking away when I looked back. I know because I was doing the exact same thing to the Lolitas, and especially the guy standing right next to me.

  My ankle was gonna be black and blue if I didn’t act fast, so I was just about to open my mouth and say something stupid like “Great show!” or “I love your CD!” when some girl downstairs started climbing up the scaffolding on one side of the stage. “I’m no Plain Jane!” she was screaming, and let me tell you, she was no Sober Sarah, either.

  “Oh, my God!” I said before I could stop myself.

  And just like that, a British voice said in my ear, “Do you think she’s gonna jump?”

  “She should at least wait until the show’s over,” I replied before thinking, and then Victoria quit kicking me. “Fucking finally,” I heard her whisper.

  Drunk Girl was getting higher and higher and sections of the audience were cheering her on, including the Lolitas’ lead singer. “Shake it, baby!” he was yelling, and then another chorus stage left started up with “Jump! Jump! Jump!” and she climbed higher.

  “She’s a little too good on that pole, don’t you think?” the singer said again. “Like, maybe…?”

  “Wave a dollar bill and see what happens,” I said. I had no idea I was so good at conversation when my mind was completely dis
associated from the rest of my body. You learn something new every day, I guess.

  “Ah, you’ll have to loan me some,” he said. “We haven’t changed our money yet.”

  I felt like I shouldn’t look at him, like he was the sun or something, but then he put out a hand and said, “Hi, I’m Simon. You’re Audrey.”

  If I hadn’t been hanging on to the railing, I probably would’ve toppled over. “H-How did you…?”

  He shrugged. His hair was all snarled and ratty and completely awesome, and his jeans looked like he had worn them during every show they had played. I wondered if they were his lucky pants, and then I realized I was thinking about his pants and my blush ran deeper into my face. Thank God it was so dark upstairs.

  “Don’t you know that word gets around?” Simon grinned. “‘Audrey, Wait!’ is a big fuckin’ deal back home and then our manager said that you and your friend were up here dancing like banshees—”

  Victoria had been waiting for her cue. “Hi, I’m Victoria, co-banshee,” she said, reaching past me to shake his hand. No nerves for her. I wondered how she did it. I’ve been her best friend for eight years and I still don’t quite understand how she works.

  “Hi, I’m Simon, co-Lolita,” he replied, and shook her hand. “And is this your fellow?”

  Jonah, surprise surprise, saw his girlfriend and her best friend talking to the hottie opening act and decided that now would be a good time to make his way back to us. So introductions were passed around and we met Luc (bassist), Roger (drummer), and Charles (guitarist). I could feel the eyes of everyone else in the VIP area boring into our backs and all I had was one thought:

  Thank you, Evan.

  11 “I wanna always feel like part of this was mine.…”

  —Jimmy Eat World, “A Praise Chorus”

  WE ENDED UP watching the Plain Janes’ set with the Lolitas, and halfway through the third song, when the lead singer was going spastic on the stage and looked like he was about to eat his microphone, Simon looked at me and smiled. “You should come backstage with us afterwards,” he yelled into my ear. “There’s gonna be a party but I’m not sure where yet.”

  “Okay!” I yelled back. I was already feeling pretty party-ready, since Simon was a pal and had let me finish his Jack-and-Coke for him. Most of the ice had already melted, but that was okay by me. It was also okay by me that I was able to drink from the same glass that he drank from. Next to me, Victoria and Jonah were laughing up a storm about something, and his arms were wrapped around her like ribbons on a present.

  Everything felt great. Simon felt great standing next to me. He smelled even better, a combination of hair dye, his drummer’s contraband joint that was passed back and forth between the band members, and somewhere way—way—down deep in the mix, soap. We weren’t really talking that much, but every once in a while, I’d catch him looking at me or vice versa, and then we’d both smile and look back toward the stage.

  The only real awkward moment was when, during their encore, the lead singer of the Plain Janes looked up toward our little VIP section and said with a laugh, “Here’s our new favorite song,” and then the band started to play the chorus of “Audrey, Wait!” and everyone started cheering on the floor and singing along. Everyone in the VIP area was looking at me, too, and I tried not to be weird about it.

  Still. It was weird.

  “If I had to guess,” Simon said as the Plain Janes took a sharp left and veered into their final song, “I’d say you were blushing!”

  “You’d be right,” I said back. And then I started to blush more, since freaking Simon from the Lolitas (ohmygodohmygodohmygod) had said that I was blushing.

  This was, I decided, the best night ever. The rest of my life was gonna have to be amazingly wonderful, like I would have to cure cancer or save the rain forests or win a Nobel Prize, in order for it to ever surpass the greatness that was this night.

  After the show, Jonah and Victoria and I followed the Lolitas down a small staircase into the crowded main backstage area, where someone had thrown a bunch of dark red curtains over the walls to make it seem less like a cinder-block cell and more rock-star-ish. “What’s with the insta-décor?” Victoria said quietly to me as we surveyed the scenery.

  “If Martha Stewart had a band, she would do it,” I replied.

  “Yes, because when I see red velvet, I think, ‘RAWK!’”

  Apparently the party was happening backstage that night, since it was wall-to-wall people. Simon and his bandmates were laughing about something, and within the space of ten seconds, I saw a movie star, a famous record label guy, and that one actor who’s on that one show, all sitting on the same couch. They looked bored, which kinda pissed me off. Were these the people that normally hung out backstage after shows? There should be a quiz, I thought, just to prove that you’re actually into the music and not just there to see and be seen. Multiple choice, true/false, maybe even a little short answer. Definitely an essay question.

  “Your arms look sooooo cute!”

  There was a woman suddenly in front of me, so animated that she could have starred on Saturday morning television, and Victoria and I each took a step backwards. I personally don’t like to stereotype women as dumb blondes because hello, I’m a blonde, and if anyone ever called me dumb, I’d act first and think later, but this woman, I’m sorry to say, was a dumb blonde. With dark roots. “Where did you get those cute arm-huggie things? They look soooo awesome!”

  “Oh, um, they’re just socks,” I said as I tugged them up a little higher. “You know, it gets cold outside and there’s nowhere to put a coat, so—”

  “They are adorable, oh my God! I have to go get some!”

  “Now leaving from track 3, the train to CrazyTown,” Victoria said under her breath, and I gave her a poke in the ribs.

  “You’re lucky your arms are so skinny! My arms are soooo fat!” The woman’s arms were the circumference of a twig.

  “That’s why I’m friends with her,” Victoria jumped in. It was killing her to be quiet, I could tell. “Because of her skinny arms.”

  “Would. You. Quit. It.” I looked like an angry ventriloquist.

  “Allll abboooooarrd,” she whispered back.

  “And you’re Audrey, right?” Arm Woman hadn’t even heard us. “I looove that song. ‘Audrey, wait! Audrey, wait!’” She began bouncing around and singing like she was the only one in the room, sloshing her drink everywhere, and if people hadn’t noticed that I was backstage, they sure did now. Even Record Label Guy and TV Actor Guy were looking in our direction.

  I figured that the only way to stop her was to (a) trip her, (b) walk away, or (c) pretend she was on fire and tackle her to the ground for a quick Stop, Drop, & Roll, but luckily there was (d) none of the above, because Simon came back over and looked at Arm Woman, amused. She was still bouncing around and didn’t even notice him. “I see you made a friend,” he said. His voice sounded even hotter now that we didn’t have to scream at each other to be heard over the music.

  “It’s a casual acquaintance,” I said. “I’m not attached.”

  “Does this mean maybe you could come over here with me?” He held his hand out and gestured toward another part of the backstage area. “C’mon, these assholes are no fun.”

  My hero. Sigh. Swoon.

  Victoria and Jonah and I followed Simon into the Lolitas’ closet of a dressing room, which was filled with purple candles, tour cases, a table nearly collapsing with alcohol and water and sodas, and another table piled with candy, condiments, loaves of bread, and a tired-looking deli tray. The room was so crowded that no one could open or shut the door, and I found myself pressed up between Simon and the wall, holding another Jack-and-Coke. Victoria and Jonah had toppled over onto the arm of an old couch, where they were now perched precariously, giggling and helping themselves to cheese off the deli tray.

  Meanwhile, the voice in my head was losing control. Okay, I thought. Conversation. Gotta make conversation. Can’t be a bump on a l
og. Don’t look stupid. Dazzle him with wit and charm. Be natural. But be yourself. Talk about something. Anything. Current events, maybe? Is that boring? Depressing? Do I even know anything about current events? Will I sound stupid? Is he bored now? Does he look bored? GOOD LORD, WOMAN, TALK TO HIM.

  “There needs to be music,” I blurted out. “A party with no music just doesn’t sound right.”

  “So are you offering to DJ?” he asked.

  Wit and charm went right out the window. “Oh, my God, that’s my dream!” I squealed before I could stop myself. “You know how you always see pictures of DJs in New York and everyone’s dancing and they’ve got the headphones on and all this music stacked up around them? That’s like my perfect job!”

  Simon grinned. “And if you were a DJ, would you play ‘Audrey, Wait!?’ That’s what all the DJs are playing in New York clubs right now. You’re the belle of the ball in Manhattan.”

  “Well, if everyone’s already playing it, then I guess I’ll have to be more original.” But all I could think was, playing in New York clubs? This was a new one. Apparently my Do-Gooders message board rumor mill wasn’t as up to date as I would have liked.

  “You know,” Simon continued, “if you DJ, then we can’t talk. Or do anything else.” He bent lower so he could speak into my ear. “Don’t you know that DJs are always lonely at parties?”

  A weird chill was going up my spine and down my arms. Conversation, I decided, was way overrated, and I was glad I hadn’t taken the current-events route. “Just three songs,” I told him, standing on my tiptoes so I didn’t have to yell. Then I paused before saying quietly into his ear, “Just enough to get things started.” Holy crap, I’m doing it. Stand back, grasshopper, I am a flirting sensei and the world is my dojo.