Opening Act Read online

  That’s why Loni had agreed to come tonight. She didn’t like Club Uncumber, and she wasn’t a fan of their kind of music, but she knew how much this final hurrah meant to Zee. And, if she was honest with herself like she always tried to be, she was a little bit jealous. She’d never had a sense of community like Zee had with her fellow Overlords fans (who called themselves Underlings of Overlords, or just Underlings for short). She kind of wanted to be there to see them in their final burst of glory—and maybe get a little vicarious rush from it herself.

  The low drone of the cab’s radio switched from an announcer’s voice to the opening chords of a song, and Zee lurched forward and said, “Turn that up, please! Driver, please turn it up!” Her alpha earring flew off again and landed on the floor. She didn’t appear to notice, so Loni just picked it up and put it in her pocket. If Zee missed it later, she’d give it to her.

  The driver, a jowly old woman who looked as though she’d rather just do whatever this crazy girl said than argue, dialed up the knob. Loni recognized the tune. “For God’s sake,” she said, as Zee settled back into the seat next to her, wiggling her butt ecstatically to the throbbing bass line. “This is the Overlords, isn’t it? This is one of the same ten songs you’ve been playing incessantly for a week now. We just heard it five minutes ago before we left, and we’ll hear it again when we get where we’re going. What, you’ve got to hear it now, too?”

  Zee looked at her, her eyes wide and compassionate, as if sensing that Loni would never understand, and pitying her for it.

  Club Uncumber wasn’t any more inviting than Loni remembered it. In fact, it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since she’d been there more than a year ago, and it hadn’t exactly been a model of sparkling fastidiousness even then. The walls had been painted over too many times—currently they were black and red—and had a kind of mottled look to them, like no one had bothered to scrape off whatever had fixed itself there before slapping the next layer of latex on. When she walked, her shoes experienced a very subtle pull from the floor, as though decades of substances both mundane and unnameable had created a permanent layer of stickiness. Loni crossed her arms to prevent herself from touching anything but had to reach out her hand at one point to get a stamp, in case she wanted to go back outside and then return. She couldn’t imagine why she’d ever want to do that, and she didn’t relish the idea of having her hand touched by something wet that had been pressed against the skin of two hundred other people. With a petri dish like that, the club could revive the bubonic plague. But she also didn’t want to look like some kind of high-strung nerd either, so she just gave in and prayed she wouldn’t wake up the next morning with a rash or a cough…or bald.

  Zee was almost hopping up and down in excitement. In fact, forget “almost,” she was hopping up and down, though Loni could now see that it was in time to the music. The closer they got to the ballroom, the more she could feel the bass thrumming in the floorboards. Despite Zee’s earlier insistence that they stick together, she now seemed to forget about Loni entirely and went plunging on into the ballroom, which was brimming with people. Loni followed, clutching her purse in front of her like a breastplate so it wouldn’t get snagged behind her by dozens of stray elbows and spiky accessories.

  She found a suitable corner, next to an ancient video game that had been unplugged but not hauled away. Loni pressed herself against it and loudly emptied her lungs—she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding her breath—then took in the scene before her.

  Club Uncumber, she knew, had once been a dance palace called Diamond Jim’s way back in the 1940s, and you could still see the bones of that earlier venue in this one. The bandstand was gone, but its platform remained in place, and the high ceiling with its frescoes of the stars in the heavens was still there, as were the massive colonnades covered with colorful mosaics. But instead of boasting nattily dressed gents swinging big-skirted girls across the floor to nimble, jaunty jazz tunes, Club Uncumber was now dark, dank, and almost tomblike. Looking out across what had once been the dance floor, where legions of shaggy-haired hipsters now crammed together, jerking and bouncing like the band had its instruments wired to their central nervous systems, Loni couldn’t see anything except a sea of silhouettes caused by a battalion of tiny, piercing cell-phone screens.

  The band on the platform at the moment wasn’t Overlords of Loneliness, Loni realized at once. They were the opening act, a four-man guitar combo with a drummer and a frighteningly skinny female singer who crammed the microphone so far past her lips that Loni was sure it would get hooked behind her teeth. The drummer was fairly restrained and kept looking over at the iPad he had perched on a music stand next to him—what, was he on Twitter or something?—but the guitarists were slashing out chords like they got five bucks for each one they hit and only had ninety seconds left to do it.

  Loni tried to locate Zee in the crowd. It wasn’t really possible. Too many girls were the same size, the same shape, and had the same hairstyle. The way everyone milled about made it like trying to count baby chickens. Or more appropriately, baby roaches. Loni sighed, succumbing to the easiest way to seem busy when alone in a crowd, by checking her phone. She hated herself a little for giving in to the urge, but she gave in to it all the same.

  She was surprised to see that there was a voice mail from Byron. She hadn’t even felt the phone vibrate. Well, she wouldn’t, would she? Not with being jostled by the crowd so much and with the competing vibrations in the floor being so overwhelming. She tried to listen to Byron’s message, but of course she couldn’t hear a thing.

  She texted him: Saw you called, can’t hear voice mail, at a concert. What’s up?

  She kept her phone in her hand so that she could feel when Byron replied, and looked back at the stage. The band—whose name, they’d just announced, was Nowhere Fast—now launched into a power ballad. Unfortunately, the singer’s voice was a plaintive but rather detached wail, so that the effect was less like a woman lamenting the loss of a love than like one calling for someone to please, please help jump her car battery. Loni watched, telepathically willing her to put a little more feeling into her performance, till she felt her phone buzz in her hand.

  She checked its screen and saw that Byron was calling again. She blinked in surprise. Hadn’t he understood what she’d said?

  She waited till the ringing stopped. Then she texted him back, Can’t take call, can’t hear anything, too loud at club. What is up?

  By the time she sent it, Zee had found her. “You’re just going to stand here against a wall, aren’t you?” she said.

  Loni shrugged. “Is something wrong with that?”

  “Yes, if you’re still doing it when Overlords start playing. Because that will mean you have no human feeling anywhere in your entire body. But it’s okay, I’m not complaining. If you stay here, I’ll know where you are and won’t lose you.”

  “I’ll stay right here, then.”

  Zee slipped her tiny purse from her shoulder, opened it, and pulled out a crumpled ten-dollar bill. “Here,” she said, pressing it into Loni’s hand. “In case you go to the bathroom, the table with all of Overlords’ swag is right there. Get a copy of their CD.”

  “But you already have one,” Loni said, holding the money away from her, unwilling to take it.

  “It’s not for me, it’s for you.” She grinned and closed Loni’s hand around the bill. “A gift.”

  Loni shook her head. “I don’t need one, I can just listen to yours.”

  “Only if you’re planning to live with me forever. Which you said you’re not.”

  She frowned and tried to give the cash back. “I can download it.”

  “Except you won’t,” said Zee firmly, backing away from her and lifting her arms to avoid contact with the cash. “I know you.” She dropped her arms and crossed them. “Look, we’re going to the after-party, where you can get them to sign it. All of them. They can’t sign a download. And anyway,” she said, letting her eyes glance
across Loni’s unfashionably large purse, “it’s not like you haven’t got room in that thing. You could smuggle a dog in there.”

  Loni hit her with the purse in question, and Zee reacted like she’d been hit by a freight train. They laughed, just as Nowhere Fast announced their last tune and thanked everyone for being a great crowd. Zee squeezed Loni’s forearm. “Overlords next!” she cried, and she scriggled away through a knot of already-drunk hipsters who seemed more like frat boys in disguise.

  Loni stuck the bill in her jeans pocket, then felt her phone vibrate again.

  It was a text from Byron. Call me need 2 talk 2 u

  She groaned in exasperation. Byron wasn’t that much older than she was—he was only thirty-four—but in some ways he was so clearly of an earlier generation. Very few of Loni’s friends actually used a phone as a phone anymore. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d made an honest-to-God call to anyone she wasn’t related to. Instead she texted. Everyone texted.

  Can’t talk, like I said too loud here, what’s going on?

  The lights went up, minimally, and many of the patrons started to file out to the three bars stationed in the lobby and on the mezzanine. Loni noticed that this was just what Zee had been planning for; as the ballroom emptied out, she scooted up to the front of the room, just before the stage, where a few other diehards were also staking their claims. They stood edgily together, legs wide apart, each defending her turf—or his, as there were a couple of guys in the mix as well. Loni wondered if it was wrong that she assumed they must be gay. Why else position yourself right where your face will be at the level of some dude’s crotch?

  For a moment, Loni thought the turf-holders might edge into a scuffle, or even an outright brawl, but they managed to keep their composure, only emitting a few warning snarls whenever one of them seemed—whether inadvertently or not—to encroach on another’s territory. This wasn’t very entertaining to watch, and Loni began to feel thirsty. She hated watery concert-venue beer, which always came with about two inches of foam in flimsy plastic cups that puckered when you increased the pressure of your grip even slightly, sending beer slopping over the edge and onto your clothes. But maybe they had something in a bottle? She’d pay premium if she had to. It was going to be a long night.

  She guessed the line for the mezzanine bar would be shorter, so she climbed the crumbling marble stairs, passing a variety of pint-size human dramas on the way—weeping girls, bellowing boys, people bumping into one another while glued to their smartphones and then barking in fury at one another. She found the line still pretty long, but there wasn’t much to be done about it. She took a place in it and waited.

  As she inched her way forward several people came to stand behind her, which made her feel much better about the whole thing—she might have to wait, but they had to wait longer. Then her phone vibrated, and it was Byron calling yet again.

  She blurted out an expletive, then looked up to see if anyone had reacted to it. Of course they hadn’t, which made her feel even sillier. What on earth was wrong with Byron tonight? Why was he not getting that she could—not—hear?

  On impulse, she pressed Talk, then put the phone to her ear.

  “Byron?…Hello?…Byron, are you there?” It was no good. Even without the band’s clangor, the place was noisy as hell. She couldn’t make out a thing. She gave a little grunt of exasperation, then gave in. “Hold on,” she yelled, and left the line. Muttering darkly under her breath, she clattered back down the stairs, pushing through the crowd to the front door. The cool night air gave her a little slap in the face, knocking some of the anger out of her, but not enough.

  “Hello?” she said. And now—even with the hiss of the outdoors and the hum of traffic, it was just barely possible to hear him.

  “Hello,” he said. “Listen, we need to talk.”

  “Clearly,” she said. “Given the extraordinary lengths you’ve gone to get me on the phone.”

  “I just want to know whether you’ve come to a decision yet.”

  Her head felt as though it was going to rocket right off her shoulders. “Don’t you think I would have called you if I had figured it out? We just talked yesterday! Just yesterday, you said I had till the weekend!”

  “Which is now two days away.” There was a short pause. “Plus, I can’t believe you actually need that much time.”

  “What?”

  “When I gave you three days, I thought you’d say you didn’t need them. I didn’t honestly think you’d grasp at them like some kind of life preserver. I never dreamed you’d insist on every last second of indecision you could get. I gotta tell you, it hurt my feelings. Like being my TA is such a fate to be dreaded or something.”

  “You didn’t say any of that at the time!” She started pacing up and down the sidewalk in front of the club.

  “Well…no. I was kind of in shock. Plus, I felt I had to be cool about it. I mean, I did offer you that time.”

  “Yes, you did!”

  “Only now Tammi’s putting some pressure on me. She needs to know whether I’m taking her or not. She’s got another offer and they want to know her answer by Saturday.”

  “Then I’ll tell you my answer by Saturday.”

  “Yes,” he said, and she could tell by the way he twisted the word into two syllables that he was gearing up for a little spray of sarcasm. “You’re obviously devoting a lot of very intense consideration to it.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” She realized she was pretty much yelling. She’d suddenly become the kind of girl she hated: the one storming around in public, being all dramatic and bitchy to some poor schmuck on the other end of a phone call.

  “You’re at a concert,” he said. “A rock concert, from what I’m able to tell. Your future weighing in the balance, mine as well, and you go rushing out for a night on the town.” He laughed, and she could hear the derision in it. “I have to say, you have bouts of immaturity that sometimes make me wonder whether I’ve made the right choice in mentoring you.”

  “Then un-mentor me. Call Tammi and tell her the job’s hers.”

  “You don’t mean that.” He seemed suddenly chastened.

  “Don’t tell me what I mean.”

  “Don’t be so angry! For God’s sake. Listen to yourself.”

  “Fine, I will. And you listen to this.”

  She mashed End on her phone’s screen and longed for a bygone era when you could actually slam a phone down. She stood with the phone in her hand and just concentrated on not screaming. Her breath was coming hard and ragged, and she felt her face begin to swell. She didn’t want to go back into the club like this, so she found a dark spot near an alley, melted into it, and had a furious, sixty-second cry, then pulled herself together and strode back into the club, displaying the stamp on her hand like it was a weapon she might fire off if anyone tried to stop her.

  She went back up to the mezzanine, where she found the line for the bar even longer, which did nothing to improve her mood. She waited as the line moved forward agonizingly slowly. And this time no one even came to stand behind her. She was the last jerk and had to wait the longest.

  By the time she was up front and able to order a drink, the lights were flashing, and a flurry of excitement stirred the air in the club.

  “Do you have any bottled beer?” Loni asked the bartender, who looked like he was about eleven.

  “No, just tap,” he said.

  “Anything else besides that?”

  “Soda. Also tap.”

  “I mean, anything alcoholic.”

  “Electric dream shots,” he said.

  She blinked. “What?”

  He nodded to a rack of what looked like plastic test tubes filled with neon blue experiments.

  “How much?”

  “Six dollars.”

  She laughed. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  The speakers came alive, and she heard someone from the ballroom saying, “Right—it’s now, it’s happening—the main e
vent, the final hometown appearance of Haver City’s hometown heroes…”

  “Beer’s fine,” Loni said, feeling defeated.

  “…before they leave us to pursue fame, fortune, cultural immortality, and their rightful place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame…”

  “That’ll be eight dollars.”

  “…people, give it up for…Overlords of Loneliness!”

  She forked over the cash from her purse. The roar of the crowd was crazy-making; the speakers magnified it to the point that it felt as though her brain was being scrubbed with a potato brush.

  The bartender handed her the plastic cup, and when she took it from him, it puckered at her touch, slopping the beer over the side and onto her sleeve.

  “I hate concerts,” she muttered, and she headed back down the stairs.

  She reached the ballroom just as the band was gearing up for its first tune. The two guitarists were plucking away and the keyboard player was running some trills. Lockwood Mott, the drummer, Zee’s friend, gave a friendly staccato hello on his hi-hat.

  Shay Dayton stood alone behind the mic. Loni hadn’t realized that the band’s front man was only a vocalist. She’d presumed he played an instrument as well, probably guitar, as that seemed to be the rock-god cliché. But he had nothing…nothing, she now realized, to hide behind. No instrument to connect with, to form a kind of closed system—a protection from insecurity and rejection. The lead guitarist—a rangy-looking, bearded black guy—was striding across the stage now, running through a few riffs, as if to prove Loni’s point. For him, the audience might not even have been there. And the rhythm guitarist, a diminutive woman sporting a buzz cut and a wife beater, was also wrapped up in contemplating her fretboard. But Shay Dayton stood with his hand on the mic stand, looking serenely out at the whooping crowd. No barrier between him and them. He was open to anything they hurled at him. Tonight, what they hurled was love, but even so Loni was impressed by the courage it took.