gave me a sidelong glance and, seeing my bewildered expression, burst into laughter. My shoulders dropped, releasing tension I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, and I laughed too.
“I’m sorry,” Jamie croaked. “That was beneath me.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say ‘sucks to be you’ since fourth grade.”
“I’m bringing it back.”
“Please don’t.”
She shrugged and took a big gulp of water, and for a minute we both scanned the room. Now that it was almost time for the lead act, Triple Moon was as packed as I’d seen it in months, if not years. I couldn’t wait to find out how much money Dee and Gaby had made, and to see how happy with me they were. Maybe they’d let us—well, them—have another show or three here. Maybe I could convince them to give me a dollar commission for every cover charge they collected. Or even fifty cents. It looked like there were probably sixty people here, which would translate to thirty dollars a show. Which wasn’t a lot, but after five shows, it would be enough for…one college textbook. Hm. Maybe we could compromise and do seventy-five cents a head.
I looked for and found Natalie Reid, easy to spot in her stupid neon beanie. She appeared fully engaged in conversation with Justin (trombone) and Becca (flute—why did I know this?), and I breathed relief in and out. It truly hadn’t occurred to me that anyone from band would be here, least of all Natalie. I imagined her as more of a gentle indie girl. Songs with ukuleles, and people who murmured more than they sang, so you couldn’t really tell if they had good voices or not. Then again, I was here. There could be other motives for coming here. Mine was a girl. I hoped Natalie’s was anything else.
Natalie Reid aside, everyone else I could see was more or less whom I’d expected: the burnout boys, helmed by Sam Perpich and Nick Weiss; Lara Hammond and Kaela Brown, the otherwise straitlaced popular girls whose interest in MDMA necessitated their friendship with Sam and Nick; the nervous-looking sceney sophomore boys, wearing lots of hair product and cologne, and the goth-lite girls they were trying to impress; a cluster of freshman and sophomore girls who were one hundred percent going to cry the second Sweets took the stage. As if reading my mind, Dee leaned over the counter between Jamie’s shoulder and mine and muttered, “I’ve never seen so many heteros in here at once.”
“You don’t know they’re all straight,” Jamie scolded.
I looked at her in disbelief, but evidently she was too tipsy to notice her hypocrisy. Now that Natalie was here, we weren’t supposed to assume anything about anyone. How interesting.
Dee squinted. “Mmm. Yeah. I do.”
I tried to distract myself, watching as some skinny freshman who looked about twelve in his dad’s jean jacket bustled onto the stage from behind the drop cloth hanging from the rafters and began arranging the instruments. I wondered if Sweets paid him part of their earnings for his services. Or, I thought, maybe he was planning to put this on his college application as volunteer work. Assisted local artists in presenting their work to the community. Or, maybe more likely, he was in love with Ruby too.
“Is she still dating that guy?” I asked suddenly. I knew, of course, that Natalie Reid’s college boyfriend, Ian, had dumped her in our junior year, just as I knew Jamie knew I knew. Just as I knew she knew who exactly I meant. All the many associated implications hung between us like cobwebs, and as a favor to each other we tried our best to ignore them.
“Who?” said Jamie.
“Natalie Reid,” I said.
“Oh,” she said. “No. They broke up last year.” A pause. She couldn’t help herself. “Remember?”
I pulled my best perplexed face. “Huh. No.”
Jamie nodded, eyes firmly fixed to the stage. Again I tried to focus: the twelve-year-old, disappearing behind the curtain, the crowd perking up in response. You could feel it—the specific, restless energy of waiting for your favorite band to show themselves. One of Sam’s friends tried to start a slow clap,