Page 33 of Down Beat
THIRTEEN
Rey
“Bottom of a Bottle” – Smile Empty Soul
“What the hell?” Toby exclaims as the first notes of Tabby-cat’s performance play above us. “Is she on stage already?”
“It’s eight,” I tell him, feet kicked up on the small coffee table in the dressing room. “Time for her to start.”
“Shit.” He pushes to his feet.
Toby’s always the cool, calm, and collected one. It’s odd being in a role reversal situation. “What’s the deal, bro?”
He frowns at Emery as our resident drunk brings a hip flask out for a swig. “She said she had some music for me.”
“What?” I drop my feet and lean forward, elbows on knees. “What do you mean, music for you?”
He slices his gaze my way. “As in, she asked me to play for her final song. Said it was just a basic backing track, and that I could follow the sheet music easy enough.”
Kris pauses in his application of eyeliner to look at Toby in the mirror. “She wants you to play drums for a classical track?”
He’s on the money; it doesn’t make sense. Unless he’s literally banging his bass a dozen times in the climax, a drum set like Toby’s has no place with her music.
“Hey,” Toby protests. “I didn’t ask questions. I just thought it was cool she had enough kahunas to ask.”
Fucking little minx is up to something. “Where’s that pal of hers? Café Girl?”
He shrugs. “Haven’t seen her since before we warmed up.”
“Message her. Ask if she has it.” Fuck. “Do you even know when you’re going on?” I stifle a laugh.
He’s so royally messed up it shouldn’t be funny… but it is. It’s downright hilarious watching the normally collected band member lose his fucking shit.
“Christ, man,” he hollers, jerking his head. “What the hell do I do?”
“Get your ass side of stage,” Em offers, “and wait until you get your cue.”
Not much else he can do. I push out of my seat and chuckle under my breath as I turn for the mirror. Kris twists his head left to right, checking his makeup. We’d give him shit in the early days about prettying himself up like an eighties glam rocker, but I have to give it to him: his look is his image, now.
Black eyes, smudged so he looks like some child of the devil. Team it with his undercut black hair that’s forever in his fucking face, and he looks like some hot mess cross between emo and goth. He’s too pretty for one, and not skinny enough for the other.
He’s just Kris, and people seem to love that.
I lean over him to grab the tub of hair wax and then swipe a little out on my index finger. It warms between my palms; just enough that I can make sure the ends of my spiked hair stay rigid. I finish it off same as I always do with a cloud of extra-hold lacquer, making Kris cough in the process.
“Swear to God,” he chokes. “If I get cancer from breathing in that shit, you’re paying for me to go to some fancy Swiss treatment center.”
“Deal.” I pinch a wayward spike between my forefinger and thumb. “Come on, fuckers. Let’s go see when Toby has to get his ass on stage for the mystery song.”
“You know,” Em says, a little too rosy-cheeked already, “you could get a runner to shoot out to the sound guys and find out what it is.”
Damn man is a genius.
“There you go,” I tell Toby, arms wide. “Problem solved.”
He dashes out the door without a word, clearly off to torment or bribe some poor fucker on the road crew.
“Where are you going?” Em asks as I head for the door.