Chapter 11: The Music Box
"I'm going to throw up," I muttered under my breath as I sat down at the dusty, old, mold-eaten leather sofa in the corner of the changing room. It was a small room, almost a cupboard, with no windows and no air. The walls had once upon a time been red, but the paint was pealing of the walls like bark on a tree. The mirror that hung above the little sink looked like some angry rock-guy had punched it after a bad performance, and nothing of this helped me calm down. It was friday night, and we were backstage at the Music Box.
"Don't worry Blonde, you're going to rock their socks off," Johnny smiled and sat down next to me, putting his arm around me and hugging me gently to his side. Jack sat down on the other side of me and did the same.
"Yeah, nothing to worry about. This is just one of the biggest opportunities we'll ever get to expose ourselves, no biggy," he said in a way to chipper tone, and I felt the bile rise in my throat. I slapped my hands in front of my mouth as I jumped out of the sofa and ran over to the little toilet that fortunately was right across the hallway and threw up the little food Christopher had almost forced down my throat for lunch.
I could hear Johnny, Allen and Jack howl with laughter, then tree loud smacks.
"Hey, cut it out you guys, or I'll personally kick every single on of you where it hurts the most!" Amanda yelled, and silence was accomplished. I had a feeling that this wasn't the first time Amanda had used this threat, and that she had gone through with it at least once. The thought made me smile before I once again bended over the toilet seat and emptied my stomach completely.
"So Seattle Sunrise, are you ready for your first performance ever?"
Oh no, no no no no no... I wasn't ready at all! I looked up from the intensely disgusting toilet and saw Christopher standing in the doorway to the cupboard-sized changing room, probably looking at the band with what I had come to know these last six days as his "you-can-do-it" face. I could see Jack and Johnny looking at me, then at each other, and then they both started laughing again. I managed to get up from the floor before Christopher turned around and looked at me. His face fell a bit.
"You all right there Blonde?" he asked, his eyes traveling up and down my body to make sure I was OK.
"Just give me a bottle of water and "don't-be-nervous" pill, and I'll be fine," I muttered as got to my feet, flushed the toilet, looked away from him purposefully and stared at my reflection in the mirror instead. I had started to get used to the blond hair by now, and Amanda had taken me to a hairdresser to give me a more defined look. So now, it didn't look at all like the old Bella-hair. It was cut into layers and Amanda had straightened it out for the concert. I still looked like me, just a little freer and different. And I needed to be different, to be able to distance myself from all the pain. I dared say that it worked, because these last few days, I had slept through the night without waking up screaming, not once.
The last five days, the band and I had worked so hard to make the songs perfect, record them one instrument at the time and write another song. After the first day, Amanda decided that we should celebrate. To tired to go anywhere, we ordered some pizza and had a little party in my apartment. Well, not so much as a party as just sitting in around the small table in my living room and talk.
Being me, I was a bit shy at the start, but Amanda refused to let me withdraw from the conversation that was flowing so easily around the table, so after a while I felt myself starting to relax and laughed with the others, enjoying myself. Not that my laugh was anything like Jacks, Amandas, Johnnys or Allens, and I mentally cringed every time I heard it, so horribly wrong in a way, but for a while, I almost forgot that I had two bleeding wholes in my chest.
It ended with everyone staying overnight, except Allen who had a date with Rebecca that he couldn't miss. Amanda had brought a sleeping bag and some change when she came this morning she admitted to me when Johnny and Jack went home to get their stuff.
"I didn't like the though of you being all by yourself when you woke up tomorrow, in case you..." she searched for the right way of putting my insane moment the previous evening.
"Incase I go nuts again?" I asked, half joking, half not. Amanda smiled sadly at me and nodded. I should have told her then, about the phone call with Jake, but I was in such a good place that I couldn't bring myself to go back down that dark, damp hole.
It was good having people around me, nice people that, even though the didn't know me that well, liked me and would take care of me. I think Johnny at some point told Jack and Allen that I had taken this job and moved here because of some "bestfriend/ boyfriend" issues, but nothing more detailed than that, and I was kind of glad that he had done so, though I was sure that Allen and Jack had figured out that much from my songs.
In the end, Amanda and I took the bed room and Johnny and Jack slept on air mattresses on the living room floor. I had the door between the two rooms open, and we all talked until the early hours of the morning, I don't even remember falling asleep. I remember dreaming of Jake, his face almost unrecognizable with anger, yelling at me, and I just stood there, taking it because I knew I deserved it. But I slept through the night, waking up early in the morning with traces of tears on my face.
On tuesday, our second day of working together, only Christopher met us down at North Star, and Allen came ten minutes after him. We worked on the songs we had already written, and at some point I remembered that I had to go to Charlie and pick up my stuff, and Christopher kindly lent me his car so I could drive to Forks and get what I needed while the band did some recording.
Charlie was pretty upset about the hair, but he was glad to se that I was OK, and he seamed a bitt happier when I left an hour later, with a bag of cloths and another bag filled with my favorite books. I decided to leave my truck, I didn't need it in Seattle anyway, not at the moment.
The days after that kind of blurred together. We worked so hard, we almost never saw the sun, and somehow, Amanda stayed over every night on a camping-bed improved with two mattresses. It was funny how it just worked out with all of us really, living so close with the band was actually quite easy. Allen, Jack and Johnny also stayed almost every night, and we talked. At first only about things that was easy to talk about like movies, music, books, music, traveling, music. But Wednesday evening, we were getting a bit desperate. We still was one song short for our little concert at the Music Box.
"I am totally empty right now," I told them as I threw yet another failed attempt on a song in the fireplace, where the fire consumed it and destroyed my failure. I had written my feelings away for a little while, and I looked at the others around me.
"Come on, doesn't any of us feel something we could write about? Except you Allen, I just can't handle playing a song about Rebecca," Amanda said, and Allen threw a popcorn at her in response. I registered, again, that Amanda didn't like Rebecca much.
Johnny coughed, and we all looked at him. He looked strangely uncomfortable in my very comfortable sofa, it was clear even to my that he was hiding something.
"Hey dud, if you got something, now would be a good time to share it," Jack said and play-punched his shoulder. Johnny looked uncertain from Jack to Allen, Amanda, me, and then he looked into the fire, away from us all.
"Well, I have been working on one song, or more thought about a possible..." Johnny started, but Amanda cut him off.
"Come on Johnny, spill already!" she said impatiently.
It was a brilliant song of course, it was Johnny who had made it. We worked together on the lyrics, and the next day the band finished the accompaniment to the song, and I could tell by the look in Christophers eyes the next day, when we told him we had written the last song, that we were done and ready, that he almost fainted with relief. One day before the concert, and we were finally done. The band had done the finale touches this morning, but I wasn't aloud to sing, Christopher wanted to be sure I didn't tire out my voice.
So here I stood, drinking greedily from the water-bottle Christopher had handed me, praying to all the gods I knew that I would remembered the lyrics to Johnnys song. It was so different from my songs, more rocked and with more power. Even though it wasn't me that had written all the lyrics, I could believe in them. It sounded weird, but we had created a story around the song, and I could pretend that I was that girl, I could convince others that I was that girl.
"Seattle Sunrise, ready in ten!" announced a black haired, mode-like woman when she ran past us with a notepad in one hand and a cell phone in the other. I felt my hands go cold, but at least I didn't feel like I was going to be sick any moment. I turned to Christopher and he grabbed my shoulders.
"Bella, you are going to do great, do you hear me?" he said, and I nodded weakly, not really believing it. I was going to die, and I knew it.
"Let me look at you," Amanda demanded and she made me turn around to see if my outfit was OK. We were all agreed on that we weren't going to dress up much, so to my utter relief, I was wearing some simple, blue Convers, black skinny jeans, a white t-shirt and the blue leather jacked I had bought the first day in Seattle. Amanda had added some of simple jewelry, and I felt good, I wasn't overdressed, just a bit nicer than when I normally went out. Amanda was wearing a long, white t-shirt with black dots, black leather tights, blood read stilettos and a matching little red cardigan.
Amanda smiled at me, and I could see that under her mask of calmness, she was just as nervous as I was. She took my hand and led me to the stage. I felt myself get more and more shaky for every step I took, but then I mentally slapped myself. Get a grip Bella, there is no way you'll ever manage to anything if you don't let go of your fears.
Johnny, Allen and Jack stood right outside the stage, all of them warming up their fingers and looking very concentrated, but calm. Johnny looked up at me and winked.
"Ready Blonde?" he asked, and I nodded determinately.
"Then go out there and kick some ass!" whispered Christopher and squeezed my shoulder as the announcer of the evening, a little redhead named Kathy Dawson walked on stage, our sign to get ready.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Music Box! We have a lot of new sounds tonight, so lean back and let yourself get inspired by what could might be the next big thing in the music world. Each band or musician will perform tree songs, and our first band for the evening is Seattle Sunrise!" As she said our name, she lifted her arm and pointed to where we stood backstage as she walked out of the stage.
OK, so this was it.
"Here goes nothing," I muttered as I walked in on stage.
A.N: Their first concert! Will they fail totally, or will they win the crowd? Well, you'll just have to wait for the next chapter to figure that out. Pleas tell me what you think of this chapter!
~B4E