“Yes.” On an inhale, my eyes snapped open and I was transported from the dilapidated structure to the present. “Just not as many,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. “Not eight hundred.”
“I see.”
Seeing the worry lines crease his forehead, I quickly added, “But I’m fine. I . . . I just need a minute or two.”
“We have that,” Dominic assured me. “Drink some more water and—”
“I’m looking for someone by the name of Foster Kelly?”
Dominic and I looked in the direction of the deep scratchy voice, tinged with a slight southern accent. A tall, thin man, somewhere in his early fifties, with wiry, blonde hair poking out a black bandana, scanned the hallway, not speaking to anyone in particular. The faded black jeans he wore were plastered to his thin legs, tapering down over well-worn motorcycle boots.
He moved his hands to hips. “By chance, any of you know who that is or seen her?” He lifted a palm in the air, muttering to himself when no answered him. “Haven’t got all damn day.”
Dominic’s eyebrows hung low over his eyes as he looked the man over judiciously. “She’s right here, Sir,” Dominic hollered back. “We’ll need a moment, though.”
The man seemed not to hear the part about needing a moment. Even without smiling, relief swarmed his gaunt face. He took off in a long, bowl-legged stride toward where I sat and Dominic still kneeled.
He began issuing orders before he had fully arrived. “I’m Joe,” he said perfunctorily. “I’m your sound guy. I need you to find Pete, get a microphone and then meet me back—”
I gathered I didn’t look so good by the abrupt halt, and the way his eyes widened the closer he came. He stepped back, giving me a once over.
“You ain’t sick, are ya?” he asked, grimacing. He laid a hand on his chest as if this news would give him a heart attack. “I really can’t handle more bad news right now, so please tell me you ain’t sick.”
Dominic rose to his feet. The man was incredibly lean and tall, but Dominic was taller by at least three inches.
“She’s fine,” he answered a bit defensively. “Like I said, she just needs a moment.” He looked back at me, smiling reassuringly. “We’ll be ready soon.”
“Okay, well . . . sound checks in three,” he said definitively to Dominic. “She needs to be ready by then.”
~
Waiting alone in a small windowless room, I chugged down my fifth bottle of water, breathing loudly through my nose. I wondered how it was possible to have consumed the amount of liquid I had, without using the restroom even once. Continuing to guzzle, my eyes flicked to my wrist, then to the other. They glistened, beaded with sweat and steadily dripping. I glanced down to find the carpet a little damp where I stood. So that’s where it’s going, I realized as the last bit of water trickled into my mouth. I pulled the water bottle away, still thirsty, and tossed it in the same trashcan with the other four water bottles.
My clothes clung to my body. I plucked at the white tank top under my sweater, thankful there was another layer to absorb the moisture, and my sweater remained somewhat dry. Of all materials, why did I have to choose to wear wool tonight? I suppose I had been thinking about how cold I had been all afternoon, standing in the parking lot with Dominic. I might as well be wearing an electric blanket.
I slid my fingers around my neck, slightly repulsed when I pulled them away shiny and dripping. Along with a clean towel I found in the cabinet, I grabbed another bottle from the fridge and drained it. Mopping myself, and then the carpet, I placed the sopping towel in the sink.
The clock on the wall told me it was fifteen minutes until seven. While Joe had required me to be ready in three minutes, we had yet to run through the song once. The sound equipment—the bad news I presumed Joe had been referring to—was malfunctioning. Someone, an assistant or another sound technician, had eventually pulled me into this empty room, telling me to start rehearsing on my own in case the issue wasn’t resolved before the game started. Remembering I had forgotten to save seats, Dominic had stayed behind. This was both a relief and a source of disconcertion, because if he was there, that meant he couldn’t be back here—with me. I tried to tell myself I could do this—had already done this today—to believe, but my voice was a dismal substitution for Dominic’s.
I stopped mid-pace as the door swung open, holding my breath and saying a prayer that the face on the other side would be Dominic’s.
When Joe stepped into the room, I couldn’t help but be a little disappointed. “It’s time,” he said in his grisly baritone. He glanced around, adding, “Dang it’s hot in here,” then turned and walked out.
I followed him out the door, down a long, very bare hallway. His boots made dull thumps on the linoleum floor. We turned left and right so many times, I wondered if he was lost. After what felt like we had walked a few blocks, the sound of bouncing balls started to surface over the loud din of a crowd. My breath came in short blurps; frantic and more strained with each step that took me closer to my incapacitating phobia. Joe didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t speak or turn around to see if I was still following behind him.
“I don’t think they’re gonna hear you from there, kid,” he quipped, when I paused at the last turn. “Come on,” he impelled, his accent making the word sound like “Cummawn” to me.
I hesitantly stepped through the doorway, surfacing under the bleachers. There were purple and black streamers hanging from in between the rows and concession food littering the floor. The sound of the gymnasium from where I stood was beyond loud; it was deafening. The footsteps above me sounded like a stampede, and the chatter like enraged rioters. I assumed that everything was amplified, the way it would sound were I standing inside a tunnel, so it came as somewhat of a surprise when I emerged to find that it was even louder on the outside.
I nearly tripped on a cord nailed down to the floorboards, coming to a halt at the door where Dominic and I had first entered. I was partially concealed by a flock of cheerleaders, and peered over their heads, down the length of the court. Once again I was unable to breathe. The tremors wracking my body escalated to a near painful throb.
What I was looking at didn’t seem real. I ogled my surrounding with horror. From where I stood, the basketball net furthest from me looked like the size of a lifesaver. And to the left, across the way, the wall of metallic bleachers exploded with people; bodies spilled out the sides of the benches like they had been squeezed through some sort of human mincer.
Both teams had taken to the court already, some dribbling to the hoop, others fetching the ball and passing to a teammate. The opposing team was closest to me; their boys were dressed in blue and gray. The cheerleaders stood on the sidelines stretching, lifting their legs parallel with their bodies. Music was blaring over the loud speaker, mingled in with hundreds of voices carrying on in excited anticipation.
My eyes lolled over the faces in the crowd, landing on a young boy and girl holding a hand-made banner, painted in our school colors that read:
Be scared Bayview Dolphins! These Sharks are going to eat you alive!
I gulped, but there was nothing to swallow. My tongue was a stiff, moistureless sponge, dead weight. I took in the rest of the people filling the stands—people of all ages, donning our schools colors in shirts, hats and even faces. My stomach clenched and knotted into angry fireballs. I scanned the crowd for a familiar face, hoping I would be able to see Dominic before I had to sing. If I could talk to him—even just get a glimpse of him before I did this, maybe I wouldn’t be so frightened.
“Hey!”
I jumped at the cheerful holler, but smiled when I saw who it was.
“Emily!”
She jogged up to me in her water polo tank and jeans, her hair pulled up in a haphazard side ponytail. I glanced behind her and saw Jake and Maddie waving from the floor of the basketball court. I waved back just as Maddie leaned into Jake, narrowly avoiding being stepped on by a man carrying a child in each arm.
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Emily reached out to give me a quick hug, looking around the gym in wonder. “Geesh! Finally they fixed that stupid speaker. You’d think the Lakers were playing tonight or something,” she shouted over the noise. “It’s freaking nuts in here and about a thousand degrees. Aren’t you dying in that sweater?”
I nodded, making my mouth curl up at the ends to resemble something close to a smile. “Is this—”
“What?”
I raised my voice and started again. “Is this more people than usual?”
“Oh yeah,” she said, wide-eyed. “Way more! It’s the semifinals, Fost. One more win and they go on to play in the C.I.F. championship game.”
I nodded along, pretending I had a dim notion of what she was saying.
“We should have come early and saved seats,” she said, scowling. “Now we’re going to have to sit on the floor. And”—she raised her arm to point to where Jake and Maddie were seated—“you see that guy to the left of Maddie? He’s already downed five chili dogs.” She gave me a dark look of fury. “Oh, but it gets better. His kid’s had a dirty diaper for the last half hour. Not the toddler—the four-year-old! And I’m talking like grade A, freshly laid buffalo chips. I don’t think I have ever smelled something so foul in my entire life. Seriously, if he doesn’t get on it and do something about that diaper, I’m gonna spray the kid with hand sanitizer. ” She glowered in his direction, emitting a noise of disgust when he started on his sixth chili dog.
Hearing the familiar word, my heart gladdened. “Hand sanitizer?” I asked, a little abstracted. “I have some. It’s in my purse, with Dominic.”
Emily turned and giving me a good long look, smirked. “Fost, I was kidding. And, to be honest, I don’t think anything’s getting through that smell. I don’t think the strongest chemical . . .”
Suddenly, I was hit then with a wave of panic so potent, I swayed backward.
I felt something firm come around the side of my arm. I followed the small hand all the way down to Emily’s concerned face tilted up at me. “Hey, you okay?”
Realizing I had neglected to hear the rest of what she’d said, I nodded apologetically. “I’m sorry, Em. Can you repeat that?”
Her brows furrowed. “You’re nervous, aren’t you?”
I don’t know why, but hearing those words aloud, hearing the truth, it triggered the volatile hysteria I had worked so hard to keep undetected. Tears sprang to my eyes and my throat instantly felt thick and heavy.
Emily took my other arm and shook me lightly, forcing me to look at her. “Hey! You have nothing to worry about. You’re going to be great. I heard you today. Fost, your voice is rad.” She gave me an Emily smile, and shook me again. “So stop this, k? Shake it off. It’s just nerves.”
“Okay,” I said weakly. “I’m glad you’re here, Em.”
“You’re going to be great,” she repeated, which I understood was her way of saying “Me, too.”
“Um.” Emily glanced past me, her eyebrow dropping low. “I think that means they want you over there,” she said, gesturing with her chin.
I turned around to find three men—two of whom I hadn’t met—standing along the sidelines at center court. One of them, clad in all black and with long artificially dyed jet-black hair and wearing sunglasses, waved me over with exasperated hand signals.
“Hold your freaking horses, Ozzy Osborne!” Emily bellowed beside me, her voice carrying competently over the raucous spectators. “She’s coming.”
Doubtful that Emily had acquainted herself with any of the men behind me well enough to be on a first and last name basis, I assumed the reference was indicative of his apparel and appearance—or both. The man seemed unphased by Emily’s unflattering epithet, or perhaps it only looked that way because his eyes were concealed behind very dark sunglasses.
“I should probably go,” I said, every instinct telling me otherwise.
“Okay. Go and be awesome.”
I gave a light laugh and nodded. “I’ll try.”
“You don’t have to do that,” she said, her expression earnest. “Trying is for people who don’t know how to do something. You know how to do this.”
She began backing away from me, a smirk unfolding at her lips. I lost sight of her when she disappeared behind a cluster of people, but there was a part in the sea and she reappeared again. She stood on her toes, with her hand at her throat where her delicate e dangled. I tilted my head and studied her mouth, trying to discern what she was telling me. Behind me, my name was shouted in impatient tones, and I knew I had to go now. Apologetically, I shook my head and lifted my shoulders to say I didn’t know. She pointed at me, her other hand still wrapped around her necklace and mouthed it again, her lips curving around the syllables. And this time I caught it.
My hand rose, not of my own volition, searching out the word. I found it quickly, thumbing the smooth surface, feeling first the flatness of the thin silver, then the sharpness of the edges pressing into the pads of my fingers: Believe.
A stream of warmth emanated at the center of my body. Emily beamed. I smiled in return—a real one—continuing to finger the necklace and desperately clutching for its majesty to have some effect on me.
My name was called for the third time. I spun too fast and nearly fell flat on my face. I wasn’t sure if it was nerves or something attributed to my back injury, but both my feet had fallen asleep and the bottom half of my body seemed to spasm. Though I tried to move quickly, it was like walking on electrical wires, my legs wobbling the entire way.
From the trio staring at me, a short stocky man spoke first, Joe and “Ozzy” with grim looks on their faces. “Welp,” he said, swiping his nose roughly, “unfortunately our engineer can’t figure out what the problem with the sound board is.” He pawed his ruddy face, sweeping sweat back into his straggly strawberry blonde locks. “So that means,” he added in a cheerfully sarcastic tone, “you’re going to have to sing without a microphone. Hope you got a real good set of pipes.”
I stared at him wordlessly, wondering if this was his idea of a practical joke or punishment for making them wait.
He held up a hand and glanced down at the floor. “Wait.”
Stupidly, I followed his gaze, having no idea what he was referring to. “For what?”
His unfriendly eyes flicked up at me. He smiled without kindness, pointing a thick finger to the side of his head where a device was snuggly pressed into his ear.
“Hold on, Pete,” he growled, and turned to walk away. “I can’t hear a damn word you’re saying.”
In his absence, the two men carried on a private conversation having nothing to do with music. A few moments later, the stocky man strolled back over, hiking up his extremely baggy and beltless jeans and look to be in much better spirits.
I kneaded the hem of my sweater, waiting for what most surely must have been good news from Pete. Please tell me something wonderful happened, I pleaded. Like Baby Gaga’s outside and wants to take my place.
“All right, folks, we’re back in business,” he said unceremoniously. “Pete said some kid had a spare cable in his car and was able to swap it out with the old one.” The man gave a toothy grin, revealing a missing incisor. “You got lucky, girly.”
Only I didn’t think so—something told me what had happened had very little to do with luck.
The man moved a little to the left, raising a hand high into the air to give a signal to someone on the other side of the basketball court. I looked over just in time to see Dominic sliding out from beneath a humongous contraption adorned with hundreds of switches and buttons . . . the soundboard.
I heard some kid in my mind and shook my head defiantly. Dominic was many things, but “some kid” wasn’t one of them. I willed his eyes to find mine. I needed to see him. Before I could start, I needed him to see me.
Look at me.
He was profiled, conversing with a man who laid a grateful hand on his shoulder. Dominic smiled pleasantly, but wanly, handing him something
charred and corroded. His lips were moving too fast to make out a word or sentence.
Look.
One of the men laid a heavy hand on my back, ushering me onto the highly polished court. I kept my eyes on Dominic the entire way, barely realizing that the stocky man had deposited me directly beneath an American flag that hung from the rafters.
Dominic, look at me. Please.
The man shoved something tube-like in my hands and said, “Go time,” before skipping away, and leaving me there completely alone.
The noise was at an all time high, no one sound distinguishable from the other. A couple hundred heads began turning in my direction, noticing the person standing at center court. Their eyes fell on me like boulders. I felt faint and my wobbly legs had turned to dust.
Again, I sought Dominic’s attention, desperate to make eye contact for even one millisecond. But he wasn’t looking in my direction. Just then, from out of nowhere, Emily appeared at his side, a quintessential Emily expression on her face. Dominic’s head whipped around so fast I was afraid he might incur whiplash, but as soon as his eyes were on mine, I felt my legs fortify, my spine lengthen.
The tether between us was sentient, but lasted only for a few too short seconds when a steady flow of teenagers sauntered by, eclipsing all sight of him. Searching, I found my parents instead, waving enthusiastically from the front row. Each had dressed in respective college attire—blue sweatshirts—though my mother’s Yale sweatshirt was considerably more vivid.
I waved back, foolishly using the hand holding the microphone. I—along with everyone else in the gymnasium—grimaced and winced. The feedback seared through the speakers. People rushed to cover their ears, voices dropping off to silence as each of pair of eyes settled directly on me.
“Please rise,” came the announcers booming voice, “as Foster Kelly leads us in singing our National Anthem.”
There was the collective sound of people getting to their feet, like thunder, followed by a brief, dim murmuring. Sharp pains ripped at my stomach like the claws of a Gila monster trying to shred me from the inside. Dusty-legged once more, my lower back was in spasm, sending painful twitches shooting up my spinal cord. Cold sweat dripped down the side of my face.
Awakening Foster Kelly Page 83