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Philip soon followed with a murmured, “Protect my guitar; help us follow Your will. Amen.”
“Let Your will be done,” Danny intoned. “Amen.”
“You’re the one, the only,” Kevin murmured. “Thank You.”
“Grant us Thy peace,” Andrew said. He squeezed my hand again, and my breath caught in my throat. Grant us Thy peace, indeed. “In Jesus’ name.”
There was a long silence before I realized that everyone was waiting to see if I would contribute. Finally, I muttered, “In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.”
“Amen,” they all echoed. Yasmine clapped her hands twice.
“Alright, you saps,” she said and grinned. “Showtime.”
As the band continued to get ready for showtime, I paced at the back door of the café. Andrew watched me with a calm alertness. “You okay?”
“No bullshit? I hate the pre-gig ritual.” I picked at the skin around my fingernails, stopping only when I remembered about the bacteria. “Why pray to a God that doesn’t care or exist?”
“He doesn’t care or exist? How can it be both?”
“It’s not. Either he doesn’t exist, or if he does, he doesn’t care.”
“Wow. Okay.”
I stopped in my tracks, now watching Andrew as carefully as he was watching me previously. “What?”
“When you get into godless mode, you’re a bit…intense.” He frowned. “You could tone it down a notch. Some of us still believe, you know.” Suddenly, he couldn’t look at me. He adopted an almost-bored look that I knew was his precursor to anger. I suddenly had the urge to freeze in place and not make any sudden movements.
“Why does that bother you so much?” I blurted. “Why do you care whether I believe in God or not?”
“Why?” he repeated.
“Yes, Andrew, why?”
“Because it’s hopeless. It makes it seem that you don’t have faith in anything. That’s not agnosticism or even atheism. That’s just sad.”
“No, that’s not only it, though.” I squinted, the feeling of something being right outside my grasp. “It’s something else, too. What is it?”
Before I could hammer in my point, Kevin stuck his head out from behind the café door. “Hey,” he said. “You two ready?”
I cast one more look at Andrew, who was now frowning in earnest. I, too, frowned for a moment before wiping it away and pasting a smile in its place. “Yes,” I said. “We’ll be in in a moment.”
This whole thing with Andrew would just have to wait.
The band walked in as a unit: Jean Lee and Kevin were laughing quietly and fake-punching each other; Philip strode with purpose in front of them, eyes scanning the room; Danny strummed his air guitar and nodded to a rhythm only held in his head; and Yasmine, our fearless leader, was at the front of the pack, a ready smile on her face. Andrew and I brought up the rear.
As we reached the middle of the room, the band went ahead to the shallow stage, and I walked toward the front right-hand side of the stage. Andrew squeezed my shoulder and murmured, “Break a leg.”
“But that’s only for—” He was gone before I could finish. I let my breath out slowly, counting to ten before I ran out of air. My diaphragm quickly filled with air again. It’s like a metronome, I could hear Dante say. What swings one way must swing back the other way. What air is emptied from your body somehow finds its way back in.
Suddenly, the room’s ambient noise faded into the background, and it was just me in a quiet room. Warmth spread throughout my body, and a sense of calm settled itself over my shoulders.
I looked down at my camera. Nothing was out of the ordinary, as far as I could tell.
I clicked the main button to the ON position, and my camera sprang to life. The metering icon flickered, but otherwise, my camera was as still and calm as my body had become. I checked all of my settings—the ISO, the picture mode, the photo type—and everything seemed to be in place. As if it had set itself. Strange.
Just focus on what’s in front of you.
I looked toward the stage, and the noise of the room came rushing back to me.
