Five Flavors of Dumb - Antony John [98]
“Where’s your fifth?” shouted Mike, wiggling his hands and fingers in a poor approximation of sign language. I pulled away, hurried back to the greenroom, but he stayed right behind me, trailing me like a bloodhound.
“Where’s your fifth?” he bellowed as we entered the room.
“There are just four now,” said Ed calmly.
“The contract says five. And I’m going to hold you to it.”
“Then we won’t perform,” Tash sneered.
Mike’s nostrils flared. “If you bail now, you’re finished, and you know it. You’ll be blacklisted on every TV and radio station across the country. This is an adult business. It’s time you kids understood that.”
Kallie stepped into the fray, thrust her guitar into my hands. “There. Now we’ve got five.”
“What?” muttered Mike.
“Piper is our new guitarist.”
“Her? But she’s deaf. She can’t even—”
Mike’s appraisal of my qualifications came to an abrupt halt as Tash’s guitar caught him squarely in the gut. “That’s discrimination, and if you don’t pay us, we’ll let everyone know what you just said.”
Mike wasn’t impressed. “Don’t screw with me. Discrimination or not, she’s deaf. In case you’ve forgotten, I negotiated with her, and she can’t even speak.”
I’d heard enough. “Yes, I can. And I can read your lips too.” Mike staggered back like he’d been Tasered. “So before you say anything else that will make me hate you even more, listen very carefully. I can feel music just as well as you can hear it. And if you want to debate that, go ahead—my mom’s a lawyer.”
Mike stared at me, weighing up his options. He wanted to win this showdown—he had to—but he also knew his head would be on the chopping block if we bailed. After all, he was the one who’d signed us up. Finally he shook his head and waved his arm toward the door. “Go ahead, then. The stage is through there. Have a great set.”
No one moved. We’d never actually gotten around to discussing details like who should go on first, but even if we had, it would have been irrelevant. Because what Mike had realized—and we’d somehow overlooked in our quest to outwit him—was that we were about to face a manic crowd of over a thousand people with a guitarist who’d never touched a guitar in her life, and a lead singer who’d grown afraid of her own voice. I could already imagine Mike snapping souvenir photos as the crowd lynched us midway through our first song.
There was no other choice but to walk through that door, past Mike’s self-congratulatory grin, away from the safety of the greenroom. And that was when panic truly set in. I couldn’t move my feet—could barely feel them—and I was hyperventilating. I was sure I was about to hurl, but then Ed was next to me, holding my hand. Step by laborious step he guided me from the greenroom and along the corridor leading to the stage.
“I can’t do it, Ed. Oh God Oh God Oh God I can’t do it.”
Ed squeezed my hand just once and looked at me, his eyes so wise and reassuring. “I’m going to unplug your amp. Just make sure you can see me. Watch my sticks.”
“No, I can’t.”
“You can. You can do this. You can do anything. You’re amazing.”
Ed wrapped his hand behind my head and pulled me toward him, kissed me with a passion that bordered on madness. I kissed him back with interest, and it wasn’t until I was standing beside his drum set onstage that I was again fully conscious of what was going on.
My heart was busting out of my chest. I felt like there wasn’t enough air left in the building. And worst of all there was a guitar in my hands, and I couldn’t even remember how it had gotten there.
In my borderline hallucinatory state, I even thought I saw Josh leap onto the stage and wrestle the microphone stand from Kallie.
CHAPTER 53
The crowd continued to cheer like this was part of the show—a reenactment of Tuesday’s meltdown, perhaps—but everyone onstage had frozen. Kallie stared longingly at the microphone.
Josh turned toward us, careful to cover the microphone with his hand. Spotlights gave him a demonic silhouette, and when he opened his mouth I struggled to lip-read because