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twenty-three
I am stumbling off the stage in my sweatpants and jersey after a particularly grueling seven-hour-long rehearsal, eyeing a single chair and fully intending to collapse onto it and never get up. Well, I eventually might.
When I’m at least seventy years old.
The only problem is, there are about three steps between me and the chair. Will I make it? I’m sweating profusely from every single part of my body and my eyes are drooping with sleep. I’m seeing dark spots.
The chair is still in my sights when I’m ambushed.
Jude, still on stage, goes to sit at the piano and starts playingLittle Bird, another one of my singles, one of the few we didn’t rehearse tonight. We did it three days ago and we killed it. But Jude is playing its sad, bitter melody so softly, it’s hard to resist. It almost stops me in my tracks, but it’s not enough to deter me from reaching that chair.
One of the lights crew guys starts it, and pretty soon every single person working on or around the stage in the stadium, from musicians, to sound techs, to guards to stage managers, is chanting:
“Sing off! Sing off! Sing off!”
Oh no.
“Hey, pipe down, everybody!” Jude yells into his mike. “Can’t you see the poor man is exhausted?” He points at me, a smirk on his face. His curls are wet with sweat, plastered to his forehead, and his smile is wolfish. “He’s going to keel over if he has to sing any more. That’s no competition. I’ll win in seconds.”
“Hey!” I try to yell and instead I croak. I should be downing about one hundred cups of steaming hot tea right now. But instead, I climb back up on the stage, and say: “You couldn’t win a sing off against me, Jude my boy, if I were unconscious.”
Laughter fills the space.
“Would you… like to be unconscious during it?” Jude asks, coming to stand beside me. As soon as he’s within a few feet from me, the spotlights come to life, focused on him and me. All around us, the technicians and crew stop working and stand around to watch. “Cause that can be arranged.”
“Miki, don’t you dare step on this stage,” I say, just as Miki steps on the stage and walks to the piano. He’s laughing his ass off, high on exhaustion.
“Oh, he’s daring,” Jude guffaws next to me.
“What song will it be, boys?” Miki says.
Is this really happening? Am I going to sing one more song on this stage with Jude? Well, it would have been fun if I wasn’t nearly dead from exhaustion.
“PlayHeartbreaker!” one of the stylists shouts, and is immediately booed down by everyone. I smile in spite of myself. Good to know they are sick of the song too.
“Noooo!” several people yell at once, and we all collapse laughing.
I notice one person not yelling ‘no’, and I squint past the spotlight’s flood of yellow light, to see who it is. It’s her. Eden is here, watching me from the pit. Just like she did in New York, except now she’s barely three steps away from the stage. The laughter dies on my lips.
“Can you playLittle Birda second?” Skye asks from somewhere behind me.
“A second?” I turn around and raise an eyebrow.
That song has been called ‘the next magnum opus of pop music’. It takes more than ‘a second’ to play, believe me. Skye smiles, shrugs. He knows exactly what he’s doing, the ass.
I walk to Miki and whisper “please playBoyfriend” in his ear. He nods.
Jude slings his guitar around his shoulders.
Miki starts playing the first notes ofLittle Bird. Traitor. The minute they recognize it, everyone starts clapping and whooping. Jude groans. I groan. Jude groans louder. He knows he’s going to lose this one.Little Birdis one of my hardest songs.
I stick my tongue out to him, and start the first verse. I’ll let him do the chorus—all the high notes are in it anyway. I’d love to see him try to hit them.
He whispers a profanity at me, and I pretend I didn’t hear as I start:
Horrible day, lessons till six
