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“Are you going to sing?” I ask.
A pink splotch glowed in the center of his cheek. He glanced at his friends. “No. Technically, we are still on duty.”
I nod with a smile. “Well, I’m happy you are here.”
“Me too.” He kisses my cheek and joins his buddies.
I turn back to my girlfriends all staring at me with wide-eyed wonder. “What?” I giggle.
“Nothing.” Trish says with a tilt of her head.
“You say that’s your neighbor?” Cindy leans into me so she doesn’t have to yell over the loud, growing crowd.
“Yeah.” I sigh. “That’s Blaze Hemingway.” We let our gazes linger on him and his equally nice looking companions. Was it a requirement to look so good in order to be a detective?These four fellows could easily be members of the Chippendale dancers.
Our waitress rushes to our table with our drinks. I grab my coke and suck down the effervescent liquid in an attempt to settle my stomach. My nerves are on edge. Between worrying about Kate discovering our ruse, and Blaze as our Beta tester for the contest’s authenticity, I can barely sit still.
Mister DJ takes control of the rowdy crowd by speaking with his exaggerated deep voice. “Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to Buffalo Bodega’s Friday Night Karaoke Contest!”
The chatter ceases and applause fill the air in its place. “As you can see, we have a long list of contestants tonight, so let’s get started with our first singer.” He announces a name we didn’t know. “Alicia Stephens.” Our waitress swirls around and sprints to the stage. “Alicia will be singing, “Since You Been Gone.”
She bedazzled the onlookers with a bleach-white electric smile and put the mic to her pink glossed lips. Her voice is remarkably deeper than any of us expected, sounding remarkably identical to Kelly Clarkson in the original version of the song.
As she finishes, she leaps from the stage, snatches up her server’s tray and goes back to checking on her tables’ needs. Every one claps and Mister DJ announces the next contestant. The six of us were next starting with Suzie. The girls had signed us up with Kate last. I had texted Trisha earlier when Kate and I decided on the song for her to sing. So Mister DJ had all six of our songs cued in the karaoke machine. While we sing, he checks the clip board and continues to load songs. There’s a rhythm to the whole procedure and, as a personal organizer, I am pleased with his process.
He announces, “Katlyn Kroger next with, “Don’t let me get me.” She pales as she stands. We all encourage her and I crossmy fingers that all the Vitamin C and chicken soup I crammed down her gullet does the trick so she will be able to sing without a squawk.
She takes the mic and closes her eyes while the intro begins. When the music cues her to begin, my jaw drops.
“Never win first place…” She begins the song, right on key. She never drops a single note and sings the entire song without looking at the screen. One would never know she has been as sick as I saw her this morning. When she reached the end, we stand in amazed ovation. The rest of the patrons follow our lead and stand while clapping also. Kate ducks her head awkwardly and grins with a slight bow. She comes back to our table while Mister DJ quickly announces the next singer.
We squeal and pat her on the back and shoulder. Her smile lingers on her lips. I believe she is very proud of her performance. Little does she know, it was the best and she will win the prize. Blaze is still clapping as he looks over at me with a head-nod as if to congratulate us for Kate’s performance. Has he figured out our deception? Is setting up a contest with intent to gift a friend a large amount of money an arrestable offense? Sure, it’s a deception to the other contestants, but it is the only way we can get Kate to accept our help. If everyone knew…
If everyone knew, they would not have showed up. Then Kate would have figured us out. Maybe having so many people respond is a good thing. I smile at Blaze. He is speaking with his buddies, but seems to sense my gaze. He turns to me and smiles. An ember warms in my midsection and I wish we were sitting together. How I’d love to be holding his hand, or snuggled in under his arm.
But this is about Kate. Not me. So I force myself to turn away from the desires of my heart and pretend to enjoy the next several hours. Some of the performances are worse than silverware scraping on a ceramic plate and some are quiteenjoyable. Many could honestly be the winner, but of course we already know that has been decided.
Finally, we reach the end and Dell comes out to take the mic from Mister DJ. He grins from ear to ear, projecting quite the showman I didn’t realize he could be.
“What a night this has been,” he says looking across the multitude of faces. “You probably did not realize it but we have secret judges scattered out among you who will get together now and tally their results.” He walks out and several people stand to follow him. Including Blaze!
“What?” Blaze is one of the secret judges? What was Dell thinking? This wasn’t what we told him to do! Oh God! What if they choose somebody other than Kate? We left the prop check blank for Dell to write Kate’s name in, not somebody else’s. My eyes dart to Michelle. Terror coursing through me like snakes shooting downstream with the current. I almost stand, but realize I cannot or Kate will figure out something is wrong. I swallow, hard.
Six people join Dell to walk into his office. Several long, torturous moments later, they file out, grinning, and Dell is carrying the prop check blank side out so no one can see who it is made out to. I hold my breath. If this gets screwed up because Dell decided to ab lib this part… I’m gonna…
What could I do? I mean, really, what recourse would I have? The money is sitting in a make-shift account, ready to be passed over to the one who presents that prop-check to Wells Fargo. There really is nothing I can do without getting fraud charges brought up against me. How long of a sentence would that entail? I look terrible in orange!
The secret judges go back to their seats, including Blaze. He and his buddies chit-chat excitedly but from what I can tell Blaze doesn’t tell them who the winner is. Michelle glares at me and I shrug. How did we miscommunicate with Dell? Had Blazefigured out what we were doing and set this whole fiasco up to go sideways? Was he teaching me a lesson? If he did know what was going on for real, why didn’t he just tell me he knew and the gag was up? Why did he have to screw me over with letting somebody other than Kate win this money?
Fury turns to steam in my gut and fills my ears with heart-throbbing noise, a buzzing sound drowns out everything around me. I strain to hear Dell’s voice when he once again takes the mic from Mister DJ.
“Alrighty, folks. Now for the moment we all have been waiting for.” His smile broadens. “We have a winner!” He lets his gaze fall on, what seemed like, every individual at every table before we went on. He glances down at the giant check in his hand. “For the grand prize of $25,000 dollars… I’m happy to announce…”
I felt my heart clinging to my uvula at the back of my tongue. If he says anybody other than Kate, I’m going to throw up!
“The winner of Buffalo Bodega’s, Friday Night Karaoke Contest is…”
I mutter to myself. “Oh god, kill me now!”
