Groupies by Sarah Priscus

Author:Sarah Priscus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-07-12T00:00:00+00:00

Holiday Sun planned a promotional concert for Outfield Flowers to remind people they still existed. They couldn’t afford to coast through this promotional cycle. The band had reached that dangerous musical age where they’d become a memory, a novelty, or an icon. Newer bands, with flashy names like Venomous and Northern and Eastcoast, were encroaching on Holiday Sun’s rich radio-rock niche. Loyal, Josie and I counted down the days, watched all the band’s TV appearances, and made sure every local record store would be carrying the new album.

I was half dressed and fully ready for the promotional concert when the telephone rang again. Josie was at the post office, sending last-minute wedding invitations to people she didn’t want to invite, hoping they’d get lost in the mail. She said the wedding planner Cal chose could never do anything right, so she snatched all the chances she could to take over and fulfill her girlhood dreams. She said that in middle school she’d put magazine cutouts of Chantilly veils and baby’s breath arrangements in her hope chest. Now someone else was doing the hoping for her. The wedding was less than two months away, and I still couldn’t believe it was happening. I almost hoped it wouldn’t, but I couldn’t tell Josie that.

I picked up the telephone, preparing to greet Harry, but he wasn’t on the other end. Floyd was. His calls had become disappointing. The other girls were right about him. I wasn’t going to lower myself back down to dating a roadie; roadies were starting points, not end goals. But hearing his voice was comforting, a tinge of familiar tranquility in an otherwise antsy day.

He apologized for calling and asked if I had an extra ticket for the concert tonight. He wasn’t working it, had moved on to some other contract.

I said no (the truth).

“Well, are you free to catch up tomorrow?” he asked.

I said no again (a lie).

Any night could be the night Harry called. I would have rather spent the night with someone famous I didn’t really know than someone insignificant whom I did. Was it too late for a key-chain collection, like the kind Josie had joked about at Goody’s party? Maybe I could keep Floyd an arm’s length away, close enough to go back to. I said, “I’m sure I’ll see you around. That’s the same as going out.”

“I shouldn’t have asked.”

“What do you mean?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Hey,” I said.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, souring, “I’ll see you around.”

“And, I mean,” I said, “we could get dinner if I’m not busy, or—”

He hung up.

Taking a page from Josie’s book, I downed half a bottle of wine and layered on more blue eyeshadow.

Josie and I met up with Darlene an hour before the Troubadour was set to open. We knocked on the stage door. Josie’s backstage pass sat cufflike around her wrist, while Darlene used hers to tie up her frizzing hair. An affected gesture of coolness—not only were we let backstage without having to ask, we were so important we didn’t even care.

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