As they stood on the darkened stage looking out and watching the crowd order drinks and talk, Lisa turned around speaking quietly. “So, this is our last night at the place where the Wildcats were born. So many years ago, Robert let us entertain our friends while we found our sound.”

Gina smiled. “Tiny little wildcats with no claws, meowing to be fed, barely having their eyes open. So cute and cuddly.”

Zoe said it straight out, “We need to show these fans how much we appreciate them and love this place. Ideas?”

Tiffany nodded. “Uh, rock it hard for forty-five minutes, no break.”

Zoe smiled. “Yeah. One solid cardio workout of rock. We play hard, telling our friends how much we love them. We intersperse our songs with the hits they always request during whiteboard sessions.”

Gina stood up at her drums. “Yep. Every tune has to be a rocker. We gotta blow them out of their shoes. No breaks, just flood them with music. Ride them hard and put them away wet. Some of you know what I’m saying.” They all turned and stared at Teri.

Once again, Teri felt like their junior. “You know I’m gonna tell my mom you’re all being mean. And she’s gonna call your moms, and you’ll all get punished. Maybe no sweet treats for a week, maybe a month ‘cause you’re all awful!”

Lisa laughed. “You know we all want a big send-off. Maybe this will be our tune-up for Atlanta. We need to sweat a little blood tonight.”

She looked all around. “Okay. So, the usual opener, and then we’ll let the guitars start each song to overlap what we’re finishing up like we used to do with You Really Got Me or Rock and Roll All Night. Tiff, you tell Zoe what you want to do, and I’ll scream it out to Teri. Let’s step back there once in a while and hear what Gina has to say while we’re playing.” Lisa was grinning. “Seriously, we don’t have to introduce ourselves, do we?”

Everyone chuckled.

When Robert walked up on stage to start the show, he smiled. “I adore my Cats. I really do. It’s been a big circle of love that’s reminded me that I need to continue giving local groups a chance to shine like I did with you guys long ago.”

Lisa smiled. “Long ago.” She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

Robert turned around, and a pin light lit him up. He was grinning from ear to ear. The Wildcats had brought national attention to the Rendezvous; every night, it was sold out. He yelled out like it was a cheer. “Hey, everybody! How about a big cheer for Allentown’s Own Wildcats!”

Gina was already pounding on her drums, and the rest of them were clapping overhead when the big lights found them all up on stage. Gina was in back wearing a silver spandex jumpsuit that was glittery and almost transparent. Zoe was in a corset top made of glittering emeralds. She showed a bare midriff and wore skintight black tights. Tiffany was a goddess in gold. She had on a tight top and tight mid-calf shiny pants. Her four-inch stilettos raised her up over six feet, and all the curls piled on her head only made her more majestic.

Lisa grabbed the mic from the stand and screamed. In her signature red short prom dress, no one could take their eyes off her.

Her sister Teri was in all black tonight. Her thin, shapely body was encased in a series of shiny, wide ribbons skillfully designed to cover the intimate parts of her body, leaving the rest exposed. She wore a pair of low-heeled boots.

When the women complimented her on her look, she shook her head. “Okay, so I promised Barbara from Jersey Girl that I’d try to be more daring and feminine. But this is all too much.”

As the audience didn’t know where to look, Zoe cut loose with an incredible guitar solo that the rock gods would have loved. When Tiffany started playing her bass, Teri started chording the melody. The whole place went wild when Lisa let out a banshee cry to start Run, Run, Gone.

As promised, they played non-stop until their break at 9:45. By the time Lisa yelled out, “Back in fifteen!” Everyone inside the building was breathing hard from dancing. The place went crazy, cheering on their favorite band.

As they all walked off stage and grabbed towels to dry off, Lisa called out, “We’ve got fifteen minutes before we go back on. What shall we do?”

Zoe laughed. “Hey, I don’t know. But I do know that the first set worked. Let’s continue to play hits and some of our stuff, too.”

Gina nodded. “We’ll never get the chance to be this loose again for a while.”

Tiffany frowned. “Oh, I disagree. We need to keep it exciting for us, too. Playing the same stuff each night on this tour will turn us into Zombies.”

Zoe looked at Teri. “Zombies! We should resurrect all the stuff we were going to give to EBR and try it out. That way, we can throw in any new stuff, too. Who knows. We might find time to write while we tour.”

As they opened the second set, Lisa stood at the mic. “We love you, Allentown, more than you can imagine. This is our hometown. Our parents still live here, where we made all our memories. Without you, we’d be nothing. She turned and nodded to Tiffany, who immediately started the bass line to Show Me Some Love.

Naturally, the crowd went wild while they performed a shortened version of their club hit. Everyone cheered when Tiff turned to Teri and spoke. “Oh, Teri. How beautiful you look tonight. Oh, Teri. How delicious you look tonight. I want to unwrap you and eat you alive!”

Teri realized Tiffany was calling her by her real name and had dropped the Tasha part. She thought for a minute and decided that it was perfect. She looked back at Tiffany and purred. “Oh, Tiffany. How beautiful you look tonight. I want to start at your feet and worship you all the way to the top of your head. You are a vision of beauty.”

As the crowd cheered, they all chanted along with Lisa as she said those words,

You can’t lose if you don’ try
If you don’t try, you can’t lose

You gotta give it a try
You gotta give it a shot

She kept repeating the lyrics as the crowd all danced and chanted along with her. The crowd whooped and hollered and screamed and yelled. As they were carrying on, Tiffany walked up to the center of the stage and began playing her bass with a reggae beat. This only meant that they’d be playing their radio hit, Summer Song. As they sang, the crowd sang along with them.

Then, they started all over again with non-stop rock and punk until the second set was finished. Lisa told them they’d return in fifteen minutes and to drink up.

When they reappeared for the last set, Teri came waddling out in her fluffy bunny outfit and grabbed the mic. The pink poodle played bass, the ginger cat was on drums, the red fox and the yellow chick were playing guitars.

They all did their mock heavy metal sound while Teri sung. Everyone sang along

Fur Face,
Fur Face,
Kiss your fuzzy fur face

Love my fluffy bunny slippers
Love my tiny chick
Sweet little puppy,
soft little fox
My cute poodle,
I think you rock

Fur Face,
Fur Face.
Kiss your fuzzy fur face

I love my soft white kitten
Love my pussy, too
Give you hugs,
Give you kisses
Bury my face into your fur

Fur Face,
Fur Face.
Kiss your fuzzy fur face

As Teri sang, everyone sang along. When she reached the line, ‘Bury my face into your fur,’ everyone screamed it out as one.

Then, the beautiful pink poodle slid her bass behind her back and did her rap.

In my arms I’ll squeeze you tightly.
You’re so small, and you’re real needy.
Tug my heart with all your cuteness,
Make me blush, I’ll hold and kiss you

Puppies, kitties, little sheepie.
Love ‘em cause they’re soft and cuddly.
Baby want you in my arms,
holding you and kissing me.
When you’re smiling, I love you more.
Give you kisses and bite your fur.
‘Cause teddy bears and little foxes aren’t
as cute as you can be

That night, when they walked off the stage, the crowd clapped and chanted Wildcats over and over again until the sound system came on, playing Wildcat music from the soundtrack they had recorded there for their first upload to the internet.

As they were packing up, Robert came up and hugged them all. “Best show ever. You sent everyone home smiling and singing their favorite Cat’s song. Our crew will pack you up and lock everything securely until Phil sends a crew for your stuff.”

Robert laughed and handed Lisa a manila envelope. “Here, for old times’ sake. And yes, everything you made this week is being donated, but this is from me. Not much, but it will pay for your dinner tonight. Oh, yeah. Did I mention that we’ve got a room reserved at The Spot for twelve-thirty? I talked the chef into doing something special for you guys tonight.”

Richard found them and grinned. “Now that’s the band I want to take to Atlanta. Your energy levels were so electric. Oh, yeah. The Flower Sisters are bringing their instruments and are ready to play on Saturday for your arena show. Rose said the girls were looking forward to the sound check in the afternoon.”

Lisa was nodding. “What band is going on first to warm up the crowd at our arena show?”

Richard smiled. “No one. You guys sold out twenty thousand seats. Everyone paid bucks to see you women play. Big crowd, lots of music. This should get you all tuned up for your tour while the Cats rock Atlanta.”

All of them were squeezing each other with excitement. “How long should we play on Saturday?”

Phil smiled. “A two-hour show will be okay, but if you can take a pause and come back to rock them for another thirty minutes or more, you will own them forever.”

Teri was nodding. “Easy. We can do that, especially having the Flowers with us. How about if we save them for that last part and play cool songs? We can easily fill two hours of our own stuff and then rock the night with some favorites. We need a big list at this point.”

Tiffany laughed. “For the second half, we return and open with Fur Face. And then we give them Bach, Sam Cooke, Aretha, and whatever we want!”

Lisa was clapping. “Should we end with our single?”

Phil smiled. “It’s singles now. Summer Song and Run, Run, Gone are both being pushed by Warner’s. I think they’re hoping we have five songs on the Billboard top ten before the summer is out.”

Gina laughed. “Okay. Will anyone tell us about this tour and where we’re going?”

Richard shrugged. “I wanted to see how the ticket sales were going in Atlanta first, but now that you have the confidence to headline a solo tour, it’s all up on your website. And yeah, you’ll have the option to include a warmup band before you come out each night while you’re on tour. We can support the young bands.”

Teri was already grabbing at her iPad. She pulled up their website and was looking at the dates. “So we go on the road June 15th and do show a couple of weekdays and weekends every month until the end of August.”

Richard leaned over and pointed out some gaps. “Uh-huh. In big cities, you play for two or three nights, and we also throw in some state fairs and festivals. We’ll do some of the smaller towns for one night and travel to the next place a day later. Bill Wiggins and Gimli have hammered this out. We even built in some three-day gaps for time outs from the road.”

Teri was counting, “Thirty performances.”

Richard smiled, “Right. You’ll each clear a million dollars after all the expenses. Wiggins is backing the tour so that everything will be paid for in advance. And we will hire more road crew, a wardrobe specialist, security, a massage specialist, and merchandise people. Everyone will tour with the band!”

Zoe thought for a minute. “I think we need a food truck and a chef.”

Lisa immediately thought of contacting Jessica Jade for security. “Can we invite Jessica?”

Richard smiled and nodded. “She’s already said yes.”

Teri was still looking at the list of stops. “This is pretty incredible. Will each show be as big as Atlanta?”

Phil smiled. “No. Atlanta-sized arenas are about the maximum you’ll see this time. They’re already putting together a second leg for September until Thanksgiving. It's the same deal: three-day breaks every two weeks to get you off the road. And you’re already booked to do the Christmas show on Saturday Night Live.”

“SNL!” She turned and looked at Zoe. “We need to start working on a Christmas Album!”

Zoe shook her head. “I’ll be heading into my third trimester around Thanksgiving. That will be interesting for my costumes.”

Tiffany nodded. “That’s great! Let everyone see that women have babies and still rock!”

Lisa shook her head in disbelief. “What? No Super Bowl Half-Time Show?”

Richard shrugged. “Warner’s is already talking about two years from now.”

Phil laughed. “Oh, yeah. And you’re going to play at this year’s Grammy Awards. Bill Wiggins says that you guys are up for several nominations. And your song from Chances might get nominated for Best Song at the Oscars.”

“Huh?” Lisa looked puzzled.

“Remember that song you wrote for Chances? The movie comes out on Thanksgiving Day. Teri penned that quick song, and all of you cobbled together. Well, you need to practice it because it will start getting airplay for their trailers in September.”

They all looked at each other. Finally, Gina said, “It was that James Bond sort of thing. I think we played it three times.”

“If that’s all we played it, I wonder if we could practice it and then rerecord it for their soundtrack?”

Phil nodded. “Yep. They’ll take whatever you send them. After all, it’s an exclusive Wildcats song that will only be available on the Chances soundtrack. Oh, yeah. Many of your songs are being remixed as club versions for their album.”

Tiffany laughed. “We’ve become a club dance band, after all. It’s Teri’s fault because she wanted us to record a club song for DJ Blank.”

Then Gina stuck her tongue out at Tiffany. “Yeah, Show Me Some Love, a totally stupid idea!”

“Yeah, nothing at all. Just the beginning of the Wildcats' rise to fame and fortune.” Gina smacked Tiffany on the bicep.

Teri raised her hand. She’d found it on her tablet. “Okay. So, here’s the song we did. It’s all here on the iPad.” She played chords on her guitar and sang the melody.

He was looking down and gasping
at the thin cable at his feet
The shiny wire stretched tightly
He knew it was a path that led him home

Taking a deep breath, he started placing one foot in front of the other
He thought that a wrong breath or blink would send him over the edge.
But there only was one direction to go

Once he started going forward
There was no turning back
There was no time to change his mind or room to turn around
Home was on his mind as he stepped out onto the wire

“It sounds okay. I like how it’s not about the movie but just about the universal need for humankind to go forward. I like that line, no turning back.” Zoe read it over and passed it along.

As Teri played the chords, she sang.

Tiffany gave her a hug. “Sounds good to me. Let’s keep working on it this week. We have the time to give them another recording.”

Lisa nodded. “What should we call it?”

Gina grinned. “A Leap of Faith.”

Teri nodded. “No Turning Back.”

They all cheered.

After packing up, they all walked out into the empty parking lot. They were quietly curious as their shuttle drove them to The Spot, the best restaurant in town. The big sign was dark. As they went through the front doors, everyone they knew was holding a glass of champagne. Teri spotted her mom standing with Conor, Bruno, Mike, Grace, and Jenn. She saw Phil and Richard talking to Robert. Everyone looked like they’d already started drinking as the server brought each a glass and offered trays of snacks, too. They all hugged and greeted each other at this after-hours surprise party. Lisa’s boyfriend Smith appeared from the back stepped up and gave her a hug.

Everyone was talking about the tour until Robert held up his glass. “Folks. This little celebration acknowledges our talented musicians who have put Allentown on the map. Here’s to the beginning of a new journey for our Cats. Finishing up tonight and generously donating all their money to Allentown charities really says a lot about our kids. We’ve watched them grow up and change. We’ve seen and heard an amazing band headed out to conquer the world. So raise your glasses high to The Wildcats!”

Everyone drank champagne and nibbled on little snacks until the doors to the private room opened. At each place setting was a beautiful salad with fruit and cheese. After that course, there was a tiny dish of sherbet to cleanse the palate and then a roasted fish dish with grilled potatoes and fresh green beans on the side.

After everyone finished, they moaned that they couldn’t eat another bite. Then out came a flourless chocolate torte covered in fresh raspberries. Naturally, there was homemade whipped cream and ice cream, too. When they were done, everyone thanked Robert for his generosity and kindness.

Laughing, Lisa handed over her envelope with Robert’s money to pay for the dinner.

Two shuttle buses were heading out, and the Wildcats and their lovers filled one bus. Their bus made a side trip to Bruno’s townhouse and then dropped all the sleepy Wildcats off at their house in the woods.

As Zoe was walking off the bus, she turned and yelled, “Sleep in kittens. No work tomorrow!”

Teri yelled out, “But we’ve got to make a new song for Chances this week!” She was overwhelmed with the loud boos she received from her best friends. “Okay, so maybe on Tuesday?”

Jenn and Teri climbed the steps to the top floor. As they were showering together, Jenn kissed Teri on her mouth. “I love you, Rock Star.”

The next day was Sunday, and Teri woke up early and headed to the music room. She was determined to turn that quick song into a dramatic one. She sat down at the synthesizer and pulled up the piano sliders. Looking over the lyrics, Teri trimmed and substituted new words. Her goal was to change it, add punch, and give the song a mysterious feel. She wanted to make it more universal and tightened it up

Looking down
at the thin cable
Stretched tight out in the night
The path to home

One foot in front of the other
A breath, a blink
Only one way to go

One foot in front of the other
A breath, a blink
Only one way to go

A deep breath
Stepping off
Never looking down
Just focusing ahead

One foot in front of the other
A breath, a blink
Only one way to go

One foot in front of the other
A breath, a blink
Only one way to go

Once you start
There’s no going back
No changing your mind
No turning around

One foot in front of the other
The only one way to go home

When she had finished the words, she tried to create a melody to accompany it. It wasn’t long before a sleepy-eyed girlfriend was sitting next to her. Teri looked over to see Jenn wrapped in their comforter. She still looked sleepy but quite content. “Sing it to me, Rock Star.”

Teri smiled and began to play. As she did, she realized that this song would fit perfectly into her quest to find something they could do on stage to replace Paint It Black and the Bach piece. As she played and sang, she could sense where Lisa would start to sing and how it could morph into a real heavy rock song.

She stopped and kissed Jenn hard on the mouth. She grabbed Teri’s head and hungrily kissed her back. She pointed to the sheet music. “Where’d that come from?”

Teri smiled. “This is the core of a new song for the movie Chances that we did a while back I hope the band likes it enough to keep working on it with me.”

Jenn moved to sit in her lap. She whispered in Teri’s ear. “Of course, they will because they love you and the song, too. But I have a serious problem, Rock Star. I need your help. I’ve lost all my clothes and don’t know what to do.”