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She held out her hands in front of her.
“Do I know the back of my hand? I might get nervous and forget it.”
I reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing it tight. “I’ll be there. If you struggle or have any problems, I’ll field it. But really, you’ll be great.”
She let me hold her hand but there was something missing. The way she responded was nice, like I didn’t thrill her anymore. It was just nice. I wasn’t the kind of guy who wanted nice, though. I had to shake her out of that but not while she was so nervous.
The receptionist at the radio station told us to wait outside the studio until we were called in.
“Have you ever been to a radio station before?” Violet asked.
“Yeah, a few times.” I didn’t say any more than that. It wasn’t something I wanted to get into.
“Ah, good. At least one of us will know what we are doing.”
I shot her a reassuring smile. We sat down and Violet pulled a CD out of her bag.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Razer’s stuff. Since he’s not doing the interview, I brought it along.”
“Violet, this is my interview. You understand that? They are interviewing me because I paid for the ads. Me. Not Razer. We aren’t here to promote him.”
She screwed up her face and put the CDs back in her bag. “I thought we were promoting the club. But I see what you mean... “
The host of the radio show called us in and indicated our seats. When we were settled, he asked us to wait until he went back on air. I reached out for Violet’s hand but she’d taken out a bottle of water and gulped it down.
Then we were on air.
Like I’d told Violet, he went through the stuff on our press releases, both mine and the one for the club. The questions were all directed at me until he went to the next song, one of mine.
“So, Violet,” he said when we went back on air, “what can we expect when we come down to Trouble? Is it going to be trouble?”
She gave a nervous laugh then nothing. I was about to jump in when she started talking.
“There’ll be trouble alright. Rock trouble. If you can’t handle two of the best nights of rock of your life, then stay away.”
The announcer laughed and then eased into the rest of the questions. She sounded a little nervous but nothing too bad.
“So, if you want to show your support for the best in local rock, get down there. What dates again?”
Before Violet could answer, I jumped in.
“Next Saturday, that’s the only date you need to know. This is a competition and I can’t support the other guy.”
The announcer laughed and wrapped up the session.
“Thanks for coming down,” he said. “I’ll definitely come along. But this competition thing, it’s just a gimmick, right? It’s not like there is anything serious on the line?”
I stood up. “There is more on the line than you could possibly imagine.”
Chapter 31 VIOLET
THE BUZZ OF ALEX'S gig had built up nicely. We'd had a shitload of advance ticket sales and people lined up down the stairs for door sales. Sally worked the door because I had too much else on. I mean, I had to organize the bands and then I had to watch because I had a stake in all this. And Sally was reliable, not the type to call in sick at the last moment.
"Make sure you keep a proper count of who comes in," Alex had told her. "And no one gets in without paying unless their name is on the list."
Sally rolled her eyes. "I have done this before, you know. It’s not my first rodeo."
