by Cassia Leo
“You gonna whack me, too, for tellin’ her about Sam’s song?”
Charlotte’s hands went up in a gesture of surrender. “I don’t know you well enough to hit you.”
“Not yet, anyway,” I muttered. “Just wait.”
“Fuck you!” Darla shouted.
“No need for nasty language like that!” I protested.
She waved her hand in my general direction. “Not you! I’m listening to the bouncer go off on me for not getting the preferred guest list to him yet.” She covered the phone piece and rubbed her head. “I’ll deal with you later,” she added, pointing to me with two fingers, then putting the fingers toward her eyes, then back at me.
Great. Darla the Mafia Hitman.
As Darla made her furious exit, Charlotte handed her the clipboard. “No weapons,” she said to me as if she were talking to a hostage taker and she was a SWAT negotiator. “So.”
“So.”
“So...what?”
“SO WHAT?” I wailed. “So now Sam’s proposing tonight AND he’s written me a song and I’m dressed like, like, like...”
“A Cabbage Patch Doll,” Charlotte said, nodding.
“Right! A Cabbage Patch—OH MY GOD IS IT THAT BAD?”
She scrutinized me, eyes cataloguing my every feature, like Clinton and Stacey, like Tim Gunn, like Heidi Klum.
Like RuPaul.
And I failed every.single.test.
“You need to go home and change,” she declared.
“I can’t! The show starts in twenty minutes!”
She scowled and checked her phone. “Damn. You’re right.” Darla was shouting out in the hall, Sam shot past the open door with a nervous look on his face, carrying a bottle of water and a microphone, and the buzzing sound of increasing numbers of people out front made the energy in the building morph into something that made me start to buzz with anxiety.
I could smell the change in me.
Charlotte seemed to as well. Reaching into her purse, she grabbed a bottle of perfume and pointed at me. “I’ll spray, you walk.”
“Huh?”
She gave me a frustrated look. “I’ll spray. You walk into the cloud.”
Spftt. I walked into it, eyes closed.
“Okay, good. Now you smell like fear and cotton candy. So...there’s really only one way to fix that.” Her hands waved in front of me like a mime with Parkinson’s.
“Fix it? How?”
“Unzip me.” She walked to the door, shut it carefully, then faced me with a look of utter authority, as if she knew exactly what she were doing.
“Excuse me?”
“Unzip me. You’re about my size. We’ll swap clothes.” Turning her back to me, she patted the spot where the zipper began, right under her neck.
“You’re serious.” She began kicking her shoes off, and as I unzipped her I let out a low whistle.
She slipped out of the belt and dress and wore a fire engine red bustier, a thong, and somehow had red garters attached to the thing, with red stockings.
“I can’t wear that!” I screeched as I pulled my t-shirt off, exposing my ratty old nude-colored bra that was about as sexy as a root canal.
“And you won’t,” she replied in an even tone, like a schoolmarm handling her charge with extraordinary patience. “This is Liam’s favorite, and there’s no way I’m giving it up.”
I scooted out of my skirt, unlaced my shoes, and we stared at each other. Charlotte reached out and put her hands on my shoulders, brushing my hair aside.
“I think you’ll be fine, but I’m bigger in the chest than you—”
The door flew open and there stood a very rushed Joe Ross, holding his bass in one hand, a bottle of water in another, and his phone balanced between his shoulder and his neck.
“Trevor’s not in the—OH WOW!” he exclaimed, the water bottle dropping to the floor, his phone nearly following but some quick acrobatics saved it.
“Do you mind?” Charlotte said evenly, not bothering to remove her hands from me. I took her cue. Joe was the least of my worries.
His eyes combed over us both appreciatively.
“Get out, Joe!” I snapped.
“Do you have any idea,” he said slowly as he backed out of the room, “how many porn movies start just like this?” His breath came out in little gasps, like he was panting.
“Out!” I broke free from Charlotte, shoved him with one arm and slammed the door shut with the other.
Click.
We rolled our eyes at each other.
“Men,” we said in unison.
Five minutes later and I looked fabulous. Perfect. Dressed to kill.
And by the end of the evening, I was ready to.
***
SAM
Amy had disappeared, the show started in ten minutes, and I needed her. Our new ritual included a long, slow kiss and without it I felt shaky. Weird.
Incomplete.
Unfinished.
“Ten minutes!’ Darla hollered out, instantly upping the sound of all the techs and assistants, the rush of microphone tests, the push of chairs and equipment grinding against the floor and walls. All the noise made me explode inside, like a thousand little balloons popped at once, filling me with a combination of dread and excitement to the Nth degree, heightened by the package in my pocket and the song in my heart.
This was real.
This was happening.
I was making it happen. The ring was tiny. Too small, I worried. Nothing I could afford would ever be big enough to show her how much I loved her.
This quarter carat stone and the song I’d embedded in my head, my fingers, and my soul would have to be enough.
Six years was way too long to know I loved her and not be bound together forever.
Besides—and I couldn’t tell her this—living together made me feel like I was getting away with something I shouldn’t. Like I was wimping out. While I didn’t believe most of the religious crap my mom and dad had forced in me most of my life, I did have a moral code that said a beautiful, intelligent, loving woman like Amy deserved a man who would commit before God and the law to be with her forever.
To cleave.
To join.
And if that made me a sappy weirdo, then I’d accept the title. Liam’s words rang through my head: “Once that ring’s on her finger, you’re done. Forever. Are you sure?”
“As sure as you are about Charlotte,” I’d answered.
His grin had split his face in half. “Then you’re a lucky man.”
A lucky man.
A lucky man who needed to find his anchor.
I prowled through the halls like a man on a hunt, slipping and squirming past the throng of techies who were doing the final few minutes of prep. Looking for her long, brown hair I spotted a ton of chicks who had that, but none were my woman.
And then.
And wow.
I saw her, completely changed. Long hair cascaded down her back in a shimmery glow, backlit by a stage lamp that made her seem ethereal. She wore a black dress that nipped in at the waist, showing off those generous hips, her ample ass, the one I filled my hands with and ached for, even now. Her curves were bold and brightly set off by a red belt and she wore high heels.
What happened to her tennis shoes?
I reached into my front pocket and patted the small jeweler’s box, which now fit uncomfortably there next to my rock-hard erection. She filled me with dreams about home and hearth that I had long-ago vanquished. Long ago given up hoping for.
The only “long ago” I wanted was with her, sixty years from now, as we reflected on a life and a love well lived. The dream filled me with a montage of images, from a wedding to a honeymoon to a first house, babies, laughter and love filling my mind. She was beautiful. Amy was everything.
Everything.
But I guess even everything can turn into nothing if you wait long enough.
Suddenly, Liam appeared right behind her, his hands sliding up her legs under
that skirt, one breaking away to cup my dream’s breast and tweak it, that fucker’s chin nuzzling Amy’s neck. I was paralyzed, horror-struck as I watched him touch Amy with a lover’s stroke, her head tipping back to receive him, my stomach shattered like someone punched a wall of glass.
Run.
I turned away and sprinted down the hall, crashing shoulders with Joe.
“Dude, what the fuck? We’re trying to find you to get the mic set up for your little serenade to Amy—”
“Cancel it,” I spat out, fingers going nuts on the wall, my body trying to crawl out of itself.
I couldn’t unsee.
Unsee.
***
AMY
The illicit feeling of Sam’s hands on my legs, my ass, my breasts lingered like the push of a sudden cold wind. “You’re not wearing panties, are you? Good girl,” he murmured, nuzzling my ear.
Hold on.
I flushed cold.
Good girl?
That was not Sam.
My mind reeled at the musky scent of a man who was Not Sam, touching me and talking to me. I froze, my breath halting in my lungs, my mind screaming.
“And you smell so fucking good. I love that perfume.”
Liam?
“Wait. Are you wearing a new bra? Because your tits seem smaller—oh, shit!” Liam’s hands came off me like I was napalm and I’d set his hands on fire.
“What were you doing?” I choked out, stepping away, putting as much distance between us as possible. His hands were in the air like he was under arrest. My hands stroked the places he’d just touched, as if I had a chalkboard eraser and could undo what he’d done.
“Why are you dressed in Charlotte’s clothes?” he sputtered, face twisted in a mask of confusion, blinking rapidly.
Charlotte appeared at his side, dressed in my t-shirt. He was right. She was bigger than me in the chest. The t-shirt was way more flattering on her than on me.
“Amy wanted to dress up, so we swapped,” she explained casually, looping her arm in his as if it were all no big deal.
Had she seen what just happened? Watched Liam’s hands on my—
“And if you wanted to cop a feel, all you had to do was ask, Liam,” she said in a mild tone, reaching for his arm and putting his shaking palm on her boob.
“Oh, shit,” he said, puffing air out of his cheeks. “I swear it was a mistake! I thought Amy was you.” He ran a nervous hand through his hair and gave me a tough-to-decipher look. My body was shaking, disoriented from Liam’s touch, and as someone shouted “FOUR MINUTES!” I realized the only way to center myself was to find Sam.
Now.
“I need to get out there,” Liam said, eyes flitting between me and Charlotte. He opened and closed his mouth several times, looking pained. Charlotte cocked an eyebrow and bit her lower lip, eyes narrowed. Impossible to decipher, but it looked bad for Liam.
“Okay,” I croaked out, following him.
He turned back at one point and hissed, “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.”
I couldn’t breathe. I needed Sam to touch me, to erase the weirdness of Liam’s skin on mine.
“It’s okay. Really. A simple mistake.”
“I thought you were Charlotte!”
She was right behind me and heard him. “You thought that? Seriously? I’m taller and have black hair and bigger than—”
And then Darla shouted, “CANCEL IT??? We’re fucking four minutes away from—”
Liam ran down the hall toward the sound of the shouting, me and Charlotte on his heels.
***
SAM
“Cancel it?” Darla screeched. “CANCEL IT??? We’re fucking four minutes away from—”
“You cancel it NOW or I walk out that door and don’t play. At all.” My voice felt like a roar but I knew it was a controlled whisper, feet carrying me to the emergency exit, hands gripping the door bar like I was dangling from a malfunctioning helicopter over the Grand Canyon.
“Jesus, Sam, what the hell is wrong?” Joe asked, touching my shoulder.
Liam appeared, red-faced and laughing. “Hey, man, I gotta tell you, I just accidentally mistook Amy for—”
Motherfucker.
I decked him. One clean punch was all it took and he was out on the floor. Knocked cold. My hand felt like a flesh bag filled with hot marbles, but I strangely didn’t care. It was like the pain floated a foot away from my body, like a ghost.
“Liam!” I heard someone call out his name, but everything sounded like it was under water now. Joe dropped to the floor, patting Liam’s swelling cheek. Darla was screaming at me but her words didn’t make sense, the rush of blood through my body like the sound of a tsunami inside me.
Amy appeared, saying my name, asking me something, her face muscles making her shift expressions that went from confused to angry to pleading.
All I saw of Charlotte was the back of her head, bent over and trying to make Liam get up. He was awake now and shaking his head slowly.
Hot, strong hands pushed on my shoulders and then pulled me on stage.
“TWO MINUTES!” someone screamed.
My eyes came into focus as I realized it was Trevor with me, saying nothing, pushing my body down onto the stool in front of my drums. No words. I had no words. The world was wordless.
That song? That fucking song I’d written about a woman who was smiling seconds ago when Liam pawed her was now just an assemblage of syllables that made no sense.
No sense at all.
“Sam!” I heard my name, could sense that it was Amy, but all I could do was shout one word back to her:
“No.”
“But—”
And another word:
“Why?” I thundered, making her flinch.
“I—”
“Canceled,” Darla whispered in my ear, grabbing my shirt. “Just get your ass on stage and we’ll do whatever we need to do to fix this.”
“Fix?” I choked on the word.
That song was everything and it was nothing and as someone shouted “ONE MINUTE” I saw Amy backstage, crying, wiping her eyes with a tissue.
And then I saw nothing at all as the stage lights came on and the crowd stood, one giant wave of cheers.
Roar.
***
AMY
Liam waved a hovering Charlotte away as the crowd screamed for Random Acts of Crazy. I felt shell shocked, like someone had carpet bombed the nightclub and I was standing in a daze.
What had just happened?
“Sam punched you!” I said, still incredulous.
“I need to play,” he ground out, Charlotte holding a cocktail napkin to his bleeding cheek. He shoved her hand away and stood, staggering slightly, waiting at the stage wings, taking deep breaths so quickly I thought he’d hyperventilate.
Me too.
My vision began to pin point and he took enormous, aggressive steps on stage, a tech handing him his guitar as a new set of lights aimed on stage for his spot. Joe and Trevor stared at the crowd, completely ignoring Sam. I couldn’t see him; the stage set up meant he was hidden to me from this angle.
Even if I could see him, what would that help?
Darla charged over, watching Liam nervously. “He was knocked dead thirty seconds ago and now that boy is on stage makin’ ‘em cheer.” She shook her head slowly and gave Charlotte an eye. “One hell of a showman you got.”
Then she turned her attention to me with a stinkeye. “And one hell of a hothead you got yourself. He canceled your song!” The words came out of her and she shoved one palm over her mouth. Charlotte gave us all a look of disgust.
“I wasn’t supposed to say that.”
“A lot of things weren’t supposed to happen that did,” I muttered. The amps and speakers destroyed our ability to talk. So did my heart. It exploded into a thousand drops of nothing and I sprinted for the nearest door I could find, blindly running up three sets of metal stairs to find a giant metal threshold marked ROOFTOP ACCESS.
I
pushed the metal bar and found myself in darkness, a handful of stars peeking out from the night sky, the city lights making it admirable that they could even be seen. The pinpricks of light were so ancient, billions of years old, that it seemed like folly.
A pair of chaise lounges were arranged by a wrought-iron table and I stretched out on one, my chest seized with a sob, my body doing its best not to fall apart.
The heavy bass from the second song in the set vibrated the building so well that terra cotta planters rattled on the brick edges of the roof. Boom boom boom boom.
A soundtrack for the end of everything.
***
SAM
Ninety minutes can feel like a decade in hell.
Liam managed to play and sing back up for Trevor, and I had to give it to him—he was good. Wound. Supercharged, like me, but in a different way. By the end of the performance I was a rag doll. My heart had been wrung out and used to mop the bathrooms. My hands were raw strings of flesh jelly, useless and spent.
But the crowd loved us.
And here came the words.
Darla marched backstage after the encore, dragging a pissed off Liam. he had a right to be angry.
So did I.
“You were all over my girlfriend, you fucking ass—”
“I thought she was Charlotte, so I—”
We said the same things at the same time, all the words sounding like noise salad to me.
“Hold on,” Darla insisted. “Sam,” she said with eyes that begged me to be reasonable. “Liam came up behind Amy and did that because Amy’s wearing Charlotte’s clothes.”
“Yeah. Right.” That was some bullshit. “Nice excuse.”
Charlotte appeared, red-faced and angry. Her finger got in my face and she too my hand, making me hold the rim of her shirt. “Look at me,” she said. Pointed to her shirt. “Amy’s.” pointed to her skirt. “Amy’s.” Pointed to her shoes. ‘Amy’s.”
Chuck Taylors.
Oh, shit.
“Why?” I barked. A techie wordlessly handed me my ukelele. I held it in my hand like it was a cocktail at a garden party.