VIP: I'm With the Band

by Jen Calonita

  “What if I freeze up when Heath talks to me?” Scarlet asked us. She burst into tears, and my mom looked at her strangely. “I’m sorry, I’m just sooooooooo happy! I need at least ten photos, Ms. L., okay? Promise you’ll keep snapping till someone forces you to stop. I need to get a good picture for this year’s Christmas card.”

  Mom dabbed Scarlet’s forehead with a cold water we’d just paid $4.50 for. (Concert food is such a rip-off!) “Girls, I’ve met a lot of musicians through my job, and the best thing you can do when you meet them is act NORMAL.”

  I knew Mom was right. She’s taken me backstage at concerts in New York City, and she always says the less you gush over artists, the more they’ll talk to you.

  “They want to be seen like everyone else.” Mom stopped talking to read a text, then frowned. “Well, you guys can hold off on the PS meltdowns for a bit. They’ve moved the meet and greet to after the show. The guys were stuck in traffic and just got here a little while ago.”

  My stomach lurched like it does every time I go on a roller coaster at Hersheypark. Now I had two-plus hours to worry about what I was going to say to Zander. Z100 sponsored Song Slam, and, thankfully, we liked all the acts they had performing, so it was easy to get distracted. Hieroglyphics opened the show with fireworks, Banana Rama brought a fan onstage for their set, and then before I knew it, PS came on and did their set. Mom couldn’t believe the fandemonium. They closed with a cover of the Beatles’ “P.S. I Love You,” and I didn’t even get annoyed when I heard the girl behind us ask, “Who are the Beatles?”

  How could anyone not know the first—and most worshipped—boy band EVER?

  The rest of the concert flew by. Lemon Ade played her new single, “Sour,” and Mom even let me run out to the souvenir stand to get a new Perfect Storm T-shirt. I guess she’s gotten over the time I came home with a seventy-five-dollar PS sweatshirt with Zander’s face on the back. (She still doesn’t know I wore it once before it shrank to the size of a Ziploc bag.)

  Then, a few hours later, it was really happening! The lights came up, I turned the lighter app off on my phone, and Mom was leading us to the side of the stage where a group of people was already waiting to meet PS. Scarlet screamed, “Look, it’s Mikey G.!”

  Mikey G., the band’s bodyguard, was checking everyone in at the door, and he looked as mad as he does in pictures. He thrust a sticker at me that said SONG SLAM on it and VIP BACKSTAGE PASS written in Sharpie. I put it on proudly. I was going to frame that thing! Then we were walking down a hall backstage at Nassau Coliseum, which should have been exciting but was actually very anticlimactic. The halls were bland white and crowded with crates that roadies (as Mom calls them) kept dumping outlets, lights, and gear into. Mom said they were breaking down the “set,” which is concertspeak for stage decorations.

  “If you’re here for Perfect Storm, come this way,” called out a woman in a headset. We followed her into a big room, where there was a huge group of girls already waiting. Lots of adults in suits were standing around, and Mom walked over to some people from her firm. They started talking about how good PS’s set was, but I didn’t pay too much attention. I was on the lookout for Zander. I scanned the room and got momentarily distracted by a camera in my face. There were photographers everywhere taking pictures. Suddenly I began to feel very dizzy.

  “Mac, you don’t look so good.” Iris put a hand on my back to steady me.

  “Get in line for autographs, please!” A guy with a clipboard began nudging us forward. I felt like cattle. Through the crowd I could see the back wall, where there was a long table and…

  Scarlet gasped. “IT’S PERFECT STORM!” The girls behind us started screaming.

  “I never figured out my opening line,” I mumbled to Iris. I pulled the T-shirts I had for the guys out of my bag. They were wrinkled like dirty laundry. Mom was too busy talking shop with work people to notice her only child was about to pass out.

  “Smile, ladies!” one of the photographers said.

  I fell flat like a pancake into a row of camera tripods and photographers, sending their camera equipment toppling like dominoes. The crash was deafening, like those fake ones you hear on cartoons. But it was all too real, and I lay on the floor, stunned.

  “Mac!” Scarlet and Iris screamed. Mom tried to help me up, but I was tangled in wires.

  “She broke my tripod!” one of the newspaper photographers complained.

  “Is she all right?” I heard a man say. When he finally came into focus—things looked a bit hazy—I realized it was Briggs Pepper. He had a girl my age who looked like his daughter with him. A group started to form around us, and I heard someone ask if I needed first aid.

  I was so mortified I wanted to die.

  Don’t cry, Mac. Don’t cry! I told myself.

  And then he appeared, and my whole night changed.

  “Everyone back up. Give her some air!”

  When he leaned down, I knew those sea-blue eyes right away. “Are you okay?” I managed a nod. Zander flashed me an ultrawhite smile and extended his hand. “Good. Well, let’s get you up. I’m here to save you from yourself.”

  Melting!

  THEN ZANDER WELLING HELPED ME UP AND LED ME THROUGH THE CROWD TO THE MEET-AND-GREET DESK!

  Puddle on the floor!

  Scarlet, Iris, and Mom hurried along behind me.

  “Are you okay?” Zander asked me again as cameras clicked away. I saw a video camera zoom closer, too. “Ignore them and focus on me. What’s your name?”

  “Mac,” I said, but it came out sort of garbled.

  “Well, Mac, is that for me?” Zander pointed to the rolled-up shirts still in my hand. I held them out to him silently. “Thank you. Do you want to take a picture?”

  I nodded.

  “Guys, get over here.”

  Heath and Kyle were walking toward us! I could feel my heart pounding like a drum.

  “Are those your friends?” Zander asked. “They can come, too.” Scarlet and Iris ran over. I heard Scarlet squeak like a mouse when Heath put his arm around her. “Everyone smile!”

  Mom took a bunch of pictures. Their photographer took a bunch of pictures. The cranky newspaper photographer whose tripod I broke took pictures. And I just stood there dazed as Zander turned to me and KISSED MY HAND!

  “It was great meeting you, Mac. Thanks for coming,” Zander said, and winked. Then he looked to the crowd. “Who’s next? Oh, hey, Piper!”

  Zander knew my mom?

  “Nice T-shirt.” I looked up. Heath pointed to the T-shirt I had decided to wear—it was a drawing of the guys’ faces that I’d whipped up that morning when I couldn’t decide between T-shirts. “Did you draw that?” I nodded, my eyes on his tattooed arms. Were they fake sleeves or real? I couldn’t tell. “That’s majorly cool, dude. Isn’t that majorly cool, Kyle?” I didn’t even notice Kyle standing there.

  “Brilliant,” Kyle said in his British accent, and then he smiled at me. Wow, he had nice eyes.

  “I wish I had one of those,” Heath said, and I couldn’t help staring at his guyliner and the earring in the shape of a skull in his left ear.

  “She made you each a shirt,” Iris piped up as Scarlet hyperventilated. “Zander has them.”

  Heath grinned. “Awesome! Thanks!”

  I looked over and realized Kyle was staring at me still. I could feel my cheeks redden. “Lovely to meet you, ladies,” he said.

  “Heath, Kyle, next group is waiting,” Zander said, and then the boys were gone before I could even explain my drawing.

  But who cared?

  ZANDER HAD KISSED MY HAND!

  This was only the beginning, I was sure of it.

  Monday, February 22

  LOCATION: Home

  I was too busy drawing to write yesterday. To be honest, I was also daydreaming about Zander. Did I mention that HE KISSED MY HAND? That has to be a sign that we’re destined to be together.

  Another sign: He posted a picture of a beach in the Caribbean
on Twitter and wrote, “Wish I were here.” We’re meant to be! Well, as long as I can get over my fear of sharks. Scarlet and I watched The Sharkinator Lives, and after that I was scared of my own bathtub! In the movie a shark comes up the tub drainpipe!

  SHUDDER!

  But first things first: I had to make sure Zander didn’t forget about me. The question was how. Sure, I could tweet Zander about our encounter, but I always gag when I read those kinds of tweets on his feed (“Remember me? You high-fived me during ‘Love Bug’ at the Wave One Winter Ball concert in Rochester, NY.”). Not my style. If I was going to make an impression on Zander, I had to do something unique, just like Mac Attack would. In my comic, everyone remembers her because she fights crime with a metal nail file.

  What is my secret weapon?

  My art, of course!

  Drawing is what I do best, and if I drew something that reminded Zander of how we met, then… well, then… then what? Even if he remembered me, it’s not like he could invite me on tour. (How amazing would that be?) I needed to ask him to do something together, like…

  (Long pause.)

  Go to the Spring Fling!

  The Spring Fling is going to be my first middle school dance, and everyone is talking about it already, even though it is still months away. Iris, who has two older sisters, says the dance is a make-or-break-you middle school rite of passage. Apparently, if you don’t take a date to your first dance, then you’ll be cursed to go to every middle school dance alone!

  I cannot let that happen. I need to bring a date to the Spring Fling, and the only date I want to bring is Zander. So I got right to work and started to draw.

  And draw and draw and draw and draw and draw and draw and draw and draw and draw!

  I made several drafts of my poster before I finally had my masterpiece.

  It turned out to be the best portrait of the band I’ve ever done. No, not just of the band, it’s the best thing I’ve ever drawn, period! The band is standing in the middle of my gym under a disco ball, but Zander is the star of the poster. I drew him standing in front of the guys, like he’s going to pop off the page. Then I just had to write him a note. I’m no Shakespeare, but I do know music—especially PS songs, so I used titles and lyrics from their album to write Zander’s letter.

  Zander,

  I’ve caught the LOVE BUG! And it’s all because of you. When I hear you sing, I NEED YOU, LIKE A FISH NEEDS WATER. And that’s A GOOD THING TO FIND. So I have just one question, and the answer could CHANGE MY LIFE. My school has the DANCE OF OUR LIVES coming up, and I’d love nothing more than for you to be my date. It’s in April, so we DON’T HAVE LONG TO WAIT. But I’ll wait however long it takes to make you notice I’M THE ONE. WHAT DO YOU SAY, Zander? Will you BE MINE TONIGHT?

  If my art teacher, Mr. Capozzi, saw this drawing, he would say, “You put some passion in your pencil!” It’s his catchphrase, and thinking of him saying that made me a little sad. He was never going to grade this poster. What if my poster never made it to Zander, either? I had a sudden vision of my little poster collecting dust in a PS fan-mail bin for years, and I wanted to cry. My poster deserved better than that fate!

  Then I had an idea: I quickly scribbled a note to the fan-mail peeps and stuck the sticky on the poster: “Please give this to Zander! If you can’t, please send it back. This poster means a lot to me. Thanks!”

  I signed it from Sabrina, which is my middle name.

  My mom has a strict no-boyfriends policy for middle school (“You have high school and college for boys!”), so I didn’t think she’d be thrilled about me asking a boy—let alone a celebrity boy—to the Spring Fling. And if PS mailed my art back, I definitely didn’t want Mom opening my mail and reading my note to Zander. This way, Mom would think someone just had the wrong address and would set it aside.

  I finally finished the poster when the sun was coming up this morning. Even though I was exhausted, I managed to create an e-mail address for “Sabrina” in case PS reached out. Then I carefully rolled the poster in a tube, addressed it to Zander care of the official PS fan club, rode my bike to the post office, and waited for it to open. The great thing about this being the first day of February school break is that I didn’t have to wait until after school to send this message off to Zander. At 9:05 AM I wasn’t in homeroom. I was at the post office making sure my poster was on its way! I had goose bumps when the postal worker stuck a FRAGILE sticker on the poster tube (at my insistence). If Zander gets my message, I know he’s going to flip over it.

  When I came home, Mom was sitting at the kitchen table drinking her coffee with extra hazelnut creamer swirled into it. (She always tries to work from home a few days when I’m on school break.) “Where’d you head off to so early?” she asked with a yawn.

  “Scarlet left her PS shirt here, and I wanted to get it back to her because it’s her favorite,” I lied, immediately feeling guilty. I was so excited about that poster that I wanted to burst! But I couldn’t tell Mom.

  “Why don’t you have a seat? We need to talk about something important.” Mom slid over a glass of chocolate milk. My favorite. Her mouth looked funny, and for a minute I got nervous. The last time she got like that was…

  “Are we moving?” I blurted out. “I do not want to move to Los Angeles!” I freaked out. “I can’t leave Scarlet and Iris or my school. Mr. Capozzi is the best art teacher ever! Plus, PS are hardly ever on the West Coast. They spend all their time recording in New York and…”

  “Mac?” Mom waved her hand in front of my face to get my attention “Calm down. We’re not moving.” She smirked. “Although we are going away for a month or two.”

  Just as my stomach started to settle, I felt it tighten again. “A month or two? Where are we going? How are we going away for so long? I have school.”

  “You’re going to have a tutor,” Mom said, and I opened my mouth to protest. A tutor? Did she mean homeschooling? “I don’t think you’ll mind the tutor at all, especially when you hear where we’re going and who we’re going with.” She patted a manila envelope on the table. Intrigued, I sat down. “You’re finally going to see Nashville, dip a toe in the ocean in Miami, ride a mechanical bull in Texas,” Mom said excitedly. “All the things we talk about doing when they’re doing them on Life After Life.”

  Life After Life is my mom’s and my favorite soap opera. We DVR it every day and watch it together every night. The characters are always on the road. Mom and I talk about doing road trips like that all the time, but…

  “I can’t go away for months. I’ll miss my friends too much. No sleepovers, no art class, no tae kwon do, no repeat viewings of The Sharkinator Lives.”

  “You hate that movie,” Mom pointed out.

  “Mom!” I was starting to get aggravated. I didn’t understand what was going on. “We can’t go away for more than a month! I have school and you have a job!”

  Mom laughed. “Now you sound like the parent.” She squeezed my hand. “Don’t worry about my job. I’m going to be working the whole time.” I must have looked confused because then she said, “Remember how you wanted to know how I got those PS tickets when no one could?” I nodded. “And how Zander knew my name backstage?”

  I nodded slower and took a sip of my chocolate milk to calm myself down.

  “It’s because I’ve been meeting with Briggs Pepper the last few weeks, and he asked me to step in as PS’s tour manager.”

  “WHAT?” I screamed so loud Mom’s coffee shook. “You’re going on the road with my band?”

  Mom laughed. “We both are!”

  My hands were shaking. My mom was going to be Perfect Storm’s tour manager.

  My mom was going on the road with Perfect Storm.

  I was going on the road with Perfect Storm.

  “How did this happen?” I asked, leaning in close so I didn’t miss a word.

  Mom explained that her firm had been talking to Briggs about how PS was blowing up. When PS was asked to open for the winter leg of Lemon A
de’s Sweet and Sour Tour, Briggs decided to hire a tour manager to keep the band in line. Mom said she’s known Briggs forever, since she went on the road with one of his other groups, and he immediately thought of her for this job. How did I not know they were friends? I could have met PS ages ago!

  “I miss being on the road with a band, and you and I have always wanted to travel, so this seemed like the perfect time to try tour life again,” Mom said. “Briggs said PS has a bit of a reputation for playing practical jokes and making a mess of their greenroom at concerts, so he needs a tour manager to help keep them in line. Who better to do that than a mom?”

  I pinched myself. Wake up, Mac! Wake up, Mac!

  “You’re not dreaming, Mac,” Mom said. “We’re going on the road with your favorite band. Traveling on the bus with them, staying at the same hotels, getting tutored together for school, having VIP backstage access at all their concerts. You are going to be hanging out with Zander, Heath, and Kyle 24-7.”

  That’s when I let out such an ear-piercing scream that Cody the dog started howling and our neighbor Mrs. Greenbank called to make sure we weren’t being robbed.

  “THANK YOU!” I said, squeezing Mom like a lemon. “You’re the best mom ever!”

  Mom slipped something out of the envelope and over my head. “You’re going to need this.”

  I looked down at the lanyard. There was a picture of PS on it, and on the back it said I’M WITH THE BAND: VIP ALL-ACCESS PASS FOR LEMON ADE/PS TOUR.

  Oh. My. God!

  “You better get packing,” Mom said. “We leave in two days for their first stop.”

  Two days till Zander and I are together for MONTHS!

  Wednesday, February 24