Jem-20

Chapter 20

I get up early despite it being a late night because my brain just won’t turn off. I actually feel sore and achy but it doesn’t matter because at the same time I really feel good. It’s so one of those my heart is feeling better than my body and carrying me above and beyond.

I slip out of bed and pad through the house making the morning coffee and doing up a batch of French toast with the homemade bread. That done along with some bacon in the oven to warm I get the camera phone and make my way upstairs recording myself for our sites.

“Hey it’s Jem, it’s about six twenty in the morning and I’ve just got to show you something amazingly cool about one of the band. Her name’s Roxy and she’s our drummer and I’ll show you all why.”

I wait and save that part to memory and once I hear Kim up I stick my head in and watch her quietly as she bounces out of bed and opens her desk drawer and grabs a Redbull and starts to chug it back.

I swear it’s like actually watching somebody down a thing of Gummyberry juice.

“Psst…Kim…can I tape you?”

“Angel! Okay like sure wadda do want me to do?”

“Just you’re usual, I’m gonna put it up.”

She has this huge ass grin on and she puts on this face full of cold cream and then she takes a Q-Tip and she uses what she’s taking off to drawn the Peter Criss face on herself before getting behind her drums. I’m taping the whole thing. I say into the mic of the phone. “Ladies and gentleman Roxy-Moogle of Starlight Butterfly doing Tom Sawyer.”

The music turns on when she uses the remote for her stereo and it’s blasting pretty good but not loud enough to drown out her drumming. I dance with it in my night shirt and I’ve got my inserts in so I spaz self tape me dancing with the song and Roxy drumming her arms off and her heart out and it’s awesome.

When she’s done I turn the camera phone back on myself and smile as sweetly as I can.

“It’s kinda like we spiked Animal’s Redbull with estrogen isn’t it? Laters.”

I air kiss the phone and click it off and Kim and I giggle our asses off. “This is going to be so killer on the sites Kim.”

“Really because I think it’s like really, really like cool Angel and its like just me isn’t it! I mean Skummer never really gave a crap about anyone else in the band and this’ll be like maybe holy shit someone might actually know who I am! And OMG! I Loved that whole Moogle thing! I love them they’re like so cool! Final fantasy is like so one of my favorite games! Thank you, thank you thank you!”

She bounces off to get her clothes for school and stuff and I’m still laughing because all of that.

Was one breath.

I love Kim she’s awesome.

I head down stairs pour a coffee in a big travel mug three sugars and just a bit of creamer and since Kim’s up first and has the upstairs bathroom claimed I pass Brooklyn hers as she hits the bottom of the stairs. She takes it and stares/glares at me through her bed tumbled red hair and has about three sips before even speaking to me.

“You just had to wind her up. Like she’s not hyper enough?”

“It was worth it Brook…”

“How? Can that amount of energy and noise be worth it?”

“Roxy made a new word.”

Sip…raised eyebrow.

“Skummer.”

She grins around the mouth of the mug. “Okay it was fucking worth it.” She heads to the bathroom and stops and smiles at me. “Morning Angel thanks for the coffee….it’s really cool.”

I smile and go back to the kitchen and get the sink ready for the morning dishes and then sit with the laptop and download Roxy’s stuff and start replying to some stuff and accepting friend requests and stuff.

Twitter…we have 326 followers.

I’m working out an invoice sheet and stuff on the laptop when raven comes into the kitchen with a nice smile on her face and she’s got those hot dark glasses on from yesterday and she’s got her hair up and in sort of a bun but with those chopstick things some girls but through their hair there’s four two are jet black and two are chromed or steel.

I notice that she’s just skirting the edge of Hell-mart drabness and corporate clonage and looking very much like…well she looks like Raven going to work and not Rayne.

The make-ups a bit more but still just under the line and she’s wearing one of her push up bras and left the piercings in her ears. I can’t help but to grin at her. “Feeling better?”

“Yeah, lot’s like there’s a weight off my shoulders.”

“They going to say something about the look at work?”

“Don’t care; we might just be able to make some money doing this.”

“Actually I’m working up our cost sheet right now.”

“Cost sheet?”

“Uh-huh, our wages, costs like gas and set up and I’m doing it up like an invoice so when we do a paying job that this’ll be what we can give them.”

She looks over my shoulder at the computer. “Fifteen dollars an hour each?”

“Yeah I figured minimum wage is ten and a quarter plus we figure in our costs for gas, make-up, and other stuff we use and its fair considering that we are a semi-skilled trade. They’re paying for a band and we have sites and blogs and a name that is our product so we’re worth the price.”

“But some sets aren’t all that long. Sometimes an hour maybe two.”

“Raven that’s sixty bucks and one twenty respectively.”

“Okay.”

“Plus tips.”

“Okay.”

“I’m going to talk to Mr. Walker over at the Pine Tree, him and I have a good rapport and I don’t think he like’s Summer and Kisses and Thorns that much so we might be able to get both slots on that Wednesday night that’s four hours, or two forty a week…”

“Whoa that’s…”

“Going to need up to get set up all legal and stuff, income tax and deductions and all of that stuff so they can’t come back on us later on. But yeah if we can get it I figure two hundred a week plus tips just there and that’ll pay the bills plus let us start saving money for the other stuff.”

“Other stuff?”

“Costumes, posters, tee-shirts, eventually studio time, maybe a small CD run…”

She’s staring at me and so are Roxy and Brooklyn who came in as we were talking and I’m suddenly mobbed in a great big group hug and crying and laughter and getting told that I rock and that I’m awesome and that they love me…

That’s really good on the self esteem.

We all sit at the kitchen table and eat the way that we’ve been doing and talking about the gig tonight and our plans for getting to Lucky’s Pool Hall & Bowling alley before Skummer and sucks on a rosebush shows up to do their sets. I get them to pick out and set out their outfits and stuff for tonight ahead of time.

“I’ll have it all packed up and ready for us to get there really early and we can park the cars well away from where someone will mess with them.”

I get and give some more hugs and the girls all leave for school and work and I’m having another one of those sigh to myself moments while I’m leaning in the doorway.

Okay…now what…

Dishes…then I do the laundry, while that’s going I spend some time on our site pages and send a copy of our pilling invoice to Mr. Walker at the Pine Tree and one to The Amsterdam Pub where we’ll be playing next week I add to that a note that we will still be performing at the price we had agreed on but this is now our formal band contract prices and I send it off with links to our pages so that they can look us up and then I start to go through the yellow pages here in town online looking for venues and sending them out E-mailed invoices with the imbedded links in case they want to see our stuff and us before deciding if they want us for a show or an event.

That actually keeps me busy until just after lunch and I need to play some just to get my head into the zone and I jam a little bit just as I am but recording it to the sights not being professional but in more of that reality TV kind of thing.

I do most of it on the acoustics and I play and sing.

* Enjoy the show…By Lenka.

* I don’t wanna be…By Gavin Degraw

* Life in a Northern Town…By Dream Academy…God that’s one of my favorite tunes and I kind of do the singing and the “hey ya ma ma” in a soft voice as I strum it and really get into it.

By the time that I log out of our pages I have an e-mail from Mr. Walker.

[Ms. Benton, I’ve reviewed you invoice and I can agree to the prices that you have quoted me on the condition of Starlight Butterfly providing three hours of music from the hours of 7PM until 10PM on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings exclusively for a term of six months.]

Oh…that’s good news. I type up my response. I text the girls and forward the e-mail that he sent us. We text about how we’re not really getting tied down as we’re in school and working and that we don’t have a CD yet or tune’s for download yet and we won’t be on the road. They all agree to it and I say that I’m going to hammer out the details with him and we can get the papers signed.

I send back to him the provisos that we do our own playlist and the gratuity box stays up and the right for us to sell any merchandise we might have for sale in time in regards to the band.

He agrees!

I relay the good news to the girls and I’m pretty bouncy. I mean it’s a paid gig at fifteen dollars an hour each for three hours and that makes… “Three fifteens are forty five and two forty-fives are ninety and two nineties are one eighty…minus deductions and expenses…”

Okay…maybe it’s not that much when you really look at it but it’s a definite start, its money that we didn’t have coming in and that’s a good thing.

It’s one hell of a morale boost with the girls though. I can really see this bringing some light and some confidence back into their eyes.

I start supper we still have leftovers from the other night so I make some canned tuna up with just some pepper and mayo in it and use the coleslaw from last night and dig out and make some canned orange juice and fill some water bottles with that and water and pop them into the freezer. I eat ahead of them and start to pack things up with the computers and the cameras and the instruments and our sheet music.

The girls are home first Brooklyn and Kim and I get them too eat and get ready and by the time that they’re in the showers and in their rooms getting ready I see Raven getting in through the door. “Hey, how’d work go?”

“It’s was good some assholes as usual but with the news today and seeing you playing on You Tube and Facebook plus everything else made it actually pretty rocking.” She looks at me. “I like your bandages.”

I had gotten my scrapes bandaged up then put white medical tape over them and colored it in pink with some of Kim’s markers and stuck some girly stickers onto it I’ve got them done on both legs and my right arm.

“Hey, it’s better than everyone seeing my scraped up body right.”

“Okay…just I’m not doing anything pink, that’s your color.”

We laugh and she eats and takes most out the food with her to get ready and the girls and I are loading up the car.

Yes, I’m being all manager like and efficient but tonight could be really good and stuff. I’m still charged up a bit really. This is a Friday night gig in a place that well people got to on a Friday night.

……………………………….. Lucky’s is an old bowling alley that had once had one of those laser tag places built onto it and when that tanked the new owner turned that half into a pool hall with tables on one side of the place halfway down and tables for the bar and kitchen along side of those but the back half of the place is a dance floor with a stage and lot’s of room to set up and to play.

They actually do a lot of teen bands and stuff; I guess the owner’s son had a garage band that used to play here so that’s why he set it up and everything.

We talk with the owner and he seems a decent enough guy and has no problem with the tip box we’re setting up or me setting things up to record our performance. “Hey you’re putting this stuff up on the internet right?”

“Yes sir.” Most guys, older guys and the types that run businesses like getting called sir. They also like nice mannerly girls until they tell you what to call them. Getting into the street talk or swearing all the time just isn’t cool or respectful. So we’re nice.

“So do you girls think that you could do like a shout out?”

“Like and online thing for you?”

“Uh yeah.”

“Uhm sir don’t take this the wrong way but who’s your cutest waitress?”

“That’d be Shelly why?”

“Give us four of your burgers and ask her to come over?”

“Uh okay.”

Shelly is this young twenty something waitress with brown hair and sexy glasses and a short skirt and a really tight red tee-shirt with two yellow stars on either side of the big printed Lucky’s logo. The logo fits perfectly across her breasts.

“Hey you must be Shelly.”

“Uh-huh!” Ooooh…perky. And bubbly too.

“Okay we’re just shooting a spot for Lucky’s before our show and I thought that you’d be great to list off the specials here and stuff and be like all cute and sexy about it.”

“Uh-Huh! That’d be like cool!”

Oh snap…it’s really hard to not burst out laughing as I get her to sort of ditz it up and say the specials and the table rates with her bent over to take a shot and the same for the bowling. We do our own shots of the four of us eating the burgers and they’re actually not too bad and Brooklyn “spills” some ketchup on her cleavage and does the finger sucking thing and the five of us yell. “Lucky’s! Come get some!”

Kim adds in her own yell of. “Come for the food! stay for the rock!” and pulls the devil horns and sticks out her tongue and we all burst out laughing.

Shelly hugs us and giggles. “I like can’t wait to see this when it goes up!”

I’m down loading it and sending it out to all our online stuff. And I wait and then play it back. “Here, and it’s on our Twitter page and Facebook and the rest of the stuff and I’ll put it in front of the video for tonight’s show.”

She squeals and bounces away and gets the owner to come over and to watch it. He looks at us a few times as he watched it about three times. “So how much do I owe you girls for this, I mean I was just hoping for an on stage thing but this was above and beyond.”

“That’s our Angel, for real y’know.” Kim says. “She’s doing that above and beyond thing ever since we met her with everyone she like meets.”

I’m blushing and Raven and Brooklyn are both nodding. I cover my face a bit. “Nothing sir it’s free, just think of it as a goodwill gesture.”

“Well its worth more than that let me think on it okay girls.”

“Yes sir.”

“Call me Charlie.”

“Thank you Charlie.” We all say. Kim giggles. “We’ve got a Charlie and an Angel cool!”

Which gets us laughing and setting things up and I can see Shelly when she’s not serving people she’s on her phone texting and talking really, really excitedly.

“Shelly, hey Shelly!”

“Uh-Huh! Whatcha need?”

“Tell all your friends if they show up with a dozen home-made posters saying how much they like starlight Butterfly that I’ll set the cameras up to get them into our video.”

“Rilly! OMG! That’s Like Sooo Cool!”

She takes off to tweet some more and talk.

Raven comes over and leans on me. “Are you bribing our audience with fifteen minutes of fame?”

“Absolutely, if the have the signs it’s good for us, they’ll be college aged which is good for us, the younger crowds of girls will want to catch the next hot trend…which will hopefully be us.”

“You’re really good at this stuff.”

“Thank you but some stuff just comes to me.”

She looks at me. “God Angel you’re too good to be true.”

“I’m made up remember…” Okay there’s a little ow to that but it’s a good ow and we’re right back to being on that edge of us dancing around each other again. But it’s still good. I don’t know why we keep doing this at these times, the adrenaline maybe but it’s actually okay. The tension like this is kind of this female vibe, this energy…this edge…

It’s that stuff why all those edgy emo- novels do so well I bet.

God I kind of like this feeling.

Raven blinks. “Oh shit…sorry…I didn’t mean it like that.”

I give her a gentle push away. “I know..go..I need to finish setting up.” But as I let go my fingers do this light brush down her arm.

Why did I do that? She definitely noticed. I go back to work setting the feeds up and tuck some of my hair behind my ear and start singing “I don’t wanna be.” to myself.

I just get done when I hear Summer’s voice. “You fucking little Skank, you cost me the Pine Tree gig and now you’re here?!”

I look up and I see stars as she slaps me so hard in takes me right off of the folding metal chair that I was on. I can taste blood I think.

Oh what a bitch!