Chapter Two- helter skelter
The whole joint is jammed full of withering lovesick old people all yearning to see Paul- what's-his-face. My mother is among them. She's dressed fully in sixties apparel, although that isn't anything new. Under normal circumstances, I would be humiliated to death right about now, but glancing around, my mom fit right in. I have to say I was surprised. I mean, my mom's never, and I mean never, fit in anywhere.
My mom goes to buy her tickets, humming along to the tune, "A Ticket To Ride." leaving me to find some decent seats. I'm tempted to choose seats all the way in the back but decide against it. I realize doing that would only mean having my mom dragging me to the front by my ankles in front of anybody, which wouldn't help for my plan to keep a low profile.
My mom returns with a enormous cardboard 'I LOVE YOU PAUL' sign, waving it around like a lunatic. If I had known she had one of those, I would have never let her left the house.
So much for keeping a low profile.
I take out my phone and start texting Loretta again to pass the time before the concert starts.
Me: hi again
Loretta: r u there yet?
Me: yup
Loretta: how bad is it?
Me: pretty bad…my mom is waving a sign around that says I LOVE YOU PAUL.
Loretta: wow.
Me: u think I'm a geek right?
Loretta: no comment
Me: THANKS!
Loretta: just doing my job….
Me: gotta go, its starting and my mom's gonna kill me
Loretta: ouch. well maybe you'll have fun
Me: seriously doubt it.
The concert begins with a bang. I mean, the whole place is totally- er- to quote my mom: helter skelter. I yank out my ipod and scroll through my songs. BOOM BOOM POW and Lady GaGa echo through my ears. I smile contentedly and sink into my seat. Now that's my kind of music, I think to myself.
It isn't long until I start drifting off, even with my ipod as an companion. I figure that, hey, if I can sleep for another one, one and a half hours, I've got it made. I wake up and the whole thing'll be a distant nightmare, right?
Wrong.
I awake with a start when my mother jabs her elbow into my ribs. She gestures toward the stage excitedly, obviously not aware that she'd just woken me from my sound sleep. "What?" I hiss, leaning towards her. Her eyes sparkle and I follow them towards the stage.
Paul is speaking. "So." He continues in his thick accent, a smile in his voice. He peers into the audience. "It looks like I need a volunteer from the audience to come up here and sing with me…."
He grins, and it's apparent to me his old charm just isn't there any longer. But it seems to me that the others don't think the same. Surrounding me, cheers erupt, the whole place just explodes into a frenzy of jumping and shoving and screams, which I am in the middle of. I hold my hands tight to my head over my ears, trying to just melt into my seat and disappear into the mob. That's not easy, considering my mother is one of those who is leaping around shrieking like a lovesick stands up and waves her sign around. I duck in my seat, before my mom whacks me with the colossal hunk of cardboard.
"How about that young lady, right there, you in the Beatles T-shirt." Paul points and yells over the crazed fans.
I look around for the unlucky person, but to my utter dismay I see all eyes looking eagerly to me. My eyes travel from the audience, following their way to the front, where I see that Old Man McCartney's eyes are fixed on me too. And that can only mean one thing: I've been picked. I have been picked. Picked to go up. Picked to sing. Picked to sing a Paul McCartney song in front of everybody. Everybody.
My plan to stay undercover has gone terribly, terribly wrong.
I gulp, my eyes wide. My mom is jumping out of her seat in excitement. "Go Michelle!" she squeals. Before I can say "it's Mitchie." She shoves me into the aisle. I want to turn back, but my feet think otherwise. They direct me towards the stage, guiding me, pulling me there like a force I can't understand. I stumble onto the stage. And then…