PICS and IT DIDN'T HAPPEN

06. The Call

It's the last day before the show. With the new girl, Ginny, the practice went better than before.

In fact she played the best of us all. My friends and I, on the other hand, need more time. Especially Tess who was forced to learn the keyboard.

After school, we go straight to Tess's house, the garage to be specific. We try to practice.

"This isn't working. How is it that everything sounds even worse than before? And I can barely hear Becca," Tess says.

She's right. We don't have any sound equipments here. Although my friends and I do play music, it's not like we ever needed anything more than our instruments.

Playing on a stage is different, however. Right now we could at least use a mic.

"Let's just go to our homes and rest a little first. I'll see what I can do," I say and turn to Ginny. "Don't make any plans for tonight or tomorrow morning, Ginny. I'll call you as soon as I've made the arrangements."

I return home, exhausted. After a warm meal and quick shower I'm at the basement checking if by some miracle a couple of amplifiers or mic had appeared inside one of the cupboards.

Nothing but dust and cobwebs and a lot of things I don't need at the moment.

I come out of the basement and into the garage. I stare at the neighbor's house.

Raylan was never in a band, so I'm sure he doesn't have those, either. But I don't know who else to ask. His car is not at the front of his house. He's not home.

I take out my phone and call him.

"By any chance you have any sound equipments we could use?" I ask him over the call.

"No. Victor took his with him," Raylan says. Victor is Raylan's second older brother.

"Shit. We need more practice time. Without the equipments it's not going well."

"You need to practice more even to sound bad?" He says.

All I could do is sigh. My mind is hazy. My fingertips hurt. I'm too tired to even conjure a comeback so I give up and end the call.

Maybe I should ask my mom for help. She has a lot of friends in the neighborhood. Maybe one of them has a kid who had once dreamt of starting a band in their garage.

When I enter the living room, my phone rings. It's Raylan.

"A friend's uncle owns a small studio at 51st. I'll send you the address. You can practice there," Raylan says and disconnects.

I stare at my phone with my mouth agape.

Did I subconsciously blackmail him in our last call and order him to find us a studio? How? Or have I blackmailed him so far so efficiently that even without me saying anything he is doing my bidding?

Either way, my energy is back. I call my bandmates.

At the studio we practice until late. The studio manager was cool.

The next day, at the show let's just say ours was quite the headliner material. Practice paid off. We won't win a Grammy, but we are happy to settle with not humiliating ourselves on stage.

After the festival, my friends and I head to a local pizza place that's famous among our school's students.

It's already packed when we enter, but we manage to get a table. I guess everyone's here treating themselves for the hard work they had given today for the festival.

While I'm devouring a slice of our order, I feel the free seat next to mine get occupied. Soon all the free seats in our table is full. Raylan, Tony and their friends are here.

"You guys' performance turned out to be surprisingly good," Tony says, "All thanks to the drummer Raylan found for your band. You should be happy he was in a generous mood yesterday."

I shake my head while chewing. "Oh, she is not the girl who truly deserves our gratitude."

I suddenly feel the toes of my right foot be crushed down onto the floor. "Dammit, Tess, where's my phone?" I say aloud and Raylan quickly takes off his foot from over mine. "Never mind, found it," I say to a confused Tess.

A table opens up at the back, and our guests quickly leave us to grab their seats.

Ah, some peace finally.

"What was that?" Tess says.

"Nothing. Just saving some toes."

"Ellie, your sister is here," Becca says. She's looking behind me.

I turn and see my sister coming into the shop. Karen sees me too.

"Oh, you guys are here, too," Karen says while coming over to us. "This is great, I don't have to wait in that long queue. Needed to grab only a bite," she says and transfers two slices from my plate to a napkin and wraps it.

Two slices! I wouldn't have let such an injustice happen to me if I didn't myself just a while ago had to stand in that long ass queue. So I offer her some ketchup packets, too.

"Is that Tony and Raylan?" Karen says looking ahead and waving. The boys notice her and wave back. I slap down my sister's hand. How dare she be all chummy with my enemies?

"What? You guys are fighting again?" Karen says. "We never stopped fighting since kindergarten," I tell her.

She looks judgmental and disapproving. Then she looks around. "Is it crowded because of the festival?" she says, "How was your performance by the way? Mom told me you guys were uncharacteristically working hard on it."

I open my mouth to tell her about the standing ovation we got (a lie, but she won't know) but her phone rings and she disappears on me.

"Wow, it must be tough being a nurse. She's always busy with work. I feel bad for her," Tess says.

"I don't," I say and start eating the rest of the slices before Karen decides to return and take them away, too.

End of Chapter

A/N - Catch you tomorrow, guys.