their instruments, but Ruby smiled and blew the yeller a kiss. I searched the backs of their heads, trying to figure out who had been so lucky, and how much I should now hate them. But then Ruby took the mic in her hand as the drummer raised his sticks to count them off, and she had me captive all over again.
Their first song was, primarily, loud. I noticed Jamie’s head bobbing in time to what I could only assume was the beat, and I followed suit. It was difficult to isolate any one instrument from the others: they all crashed into and over one another. But above it all, Ruby’s voice soared. Most of the time her singing was clear and sweet, but on the choruses she broke into a Hayley-Williams-meets-Karen-O scream. These are not my words. I stole them from Jamie.
“She sounds a little like Hayley Williams,” Jamie shouted in my ear. “And maybe a little like Karen O.”
I nodded thoughtfully and shouted back: “I AGREE.”
Ruby had a surprisingly commanding presence for someone who mostly stood still, occasionally pointing to someone in the crowd (I always looked), or thumping herself so hard on the heart I had to wonder if it hurt. She was wildly expressive, almost goofy, and if she hadn’t been so obviously sure of herself (and so hot) it might have been hard to watch. But she was, so she was a rock star. As each song came to an end she dropped down into a squat and bounced there, bobbing to the beat of the next song starting up. She smiled at David and Ben and waved to people she knew in the audience, and I found myself craning my neck like I might intercept one of these gestures for myself. I was falling a little bit in love with her.
They finished another song and everyone clapped. “WOOOO!” I yelled.
“Thanks for coming out!” Ruby yelled back. This time she saw me. She broke into a huge, gorgeous smile. “We’re SWEETS!” People screamed. I swooned.
The band started up a slightly slower song, and David sang in Ruby’s place, plaintively mumbling with his mouth pressed up against the mic while the girls in the front lost their minds. What a waste, I thought. I watched Ruby sway back and forth and mouth the lyrics into open air. It wasn’t fair, how cool some people got to be. But maybe she’d fall in love with me, and I would become that cool also. Sexually transmitted coolness. Oh my God, I was really losing it.
Impulsively I leaned over and cupped my hand around Jamie’s ear. “She’s been texting me for weeks.”
The words left a semi-sour taste in my mouth. I was openly, pathetically bragging, and so soon after Jamie’s big Natalie reveal. Surely she saw through me now more than ever. But I had needed to say it, I couldn’t not; it was only a matter of when. The relief at having said it was instant, then gone, and then I just felt gross and strange. Surely I could have come up with a more natural segue. Almost anything beat suddenly shouting something like that in someone’s ear. But it was done, I’d said it, and at least now, if something did happen between Jamie and Natalie, I could claim I’d been first to move on. And couldn’t I be proud that Ruby, the person we were all here to see, wanted to spend her rare free time talking to me? So I couldn’t help myself. So I bragged. Sue me. I just wanted Jamie to be happy for me. And maybe the littlest bit jealous, too. Or a lot jealous. A lot would actually be great.
The way Jamie actually responded, though, shocked me: she squealed. Not only that—she clasped her hands together, like an old lady whose daughter has informed her she’s going to be a grandmother. She leaned in, grinning maniacally. Maybe she was drunker than I thought.
“Oh my God! Tell me everything.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes!”
I squinted. “Alexis? Is that you?”
She deflated, relaxing back into herself. “Okay. That was over the top. But I mean it. I know I was weird about