Wild Awake - By Hilary T. Smith Page 0,92
No kidding. Didn’t know he was even around. I’ll get Hal to throw up an announcement on the website tonight.”
I favor him with my most gracious smile.
“That would be lovely.”
chapter forty-one
“Oh no.”
Skunk stops on the sidewalk outside the Train Room, his bass in one hand and the amp in his other. His face goes pale.
“Kiri. You didn’t.”
I beam at him. I am wearing my favorite black-and pink-striped dress, paired of course with Sukey’s silver shoes. On the ride here in Skunk’s van, I had to distract him every time we passed a bus stop or lamppost where I’d taped a poster. This, of course, turned out to be futile: There’s a bright yellow Daffodiliad poster taped to door of the Train Room with the words PHIL COSWELL RETURNS!!! scrawled across it in permanent marker. I’m so excited I can’t help but peek my head in. When I open the door a crack, we can hear a loud, low rumble at the top of the stairs. It must be packed in there. You can practically smell the crush of bodies all the way down on the street.
“I can’t go in there,” says Skunk.
He turns around sharply and heads back to the van as fast as he can with the amp and the bass. I hop along beside him with my synth under my arm.
“You can, Skunk. Yes, you can. Oh, Bicycle Boy. We’re going to be famous. It’s going to be great.”
He doesn’t slow down.
“It’s not going to be great,” he says. “It’s going to be a freak show. Come see Phil Coswell, the psychotic gorilla, live onstage for one night only.”
We get to the van. He plunks down the amp and pulls open the door. When he lifts his bass inside, his hands shake. For the first time, I realize he’s angry.
I put down my synth and clamber all over him, nuzzling his neck and kissing his ears and squeezing him.
“It’s going to be okay, Skunk. It’s going to be okay. They love you. There’s this record store owner, he says he was at your last show, and he told me everyone who was really there agrees that—”
“I’m not going in there.”
Skunk’s face has frozen over like a pond. He shrugs off my arms, walks around the van, unlocks the driver’s-side door, and gets in.
“Skunk.”
I knock on the passenger-side window.
“Skunk. Let me in. Come on, Skunk. Please.”
He doesn’t unlock the door. He puts the key in the ignition and turns it one notch, then pushes the volume dial to turn on the radio.
I stand on the sidewalk, my heart jittering like a wind-up toy and breaking like an egg, and watch as my dear beautiful love-bison puts his face against the steering wheel and cries.
I dance and knock and plead. Skunk doesn’t move and he doesn’t look up. I can hear the radio through the van window, some awful party station playing pop songs and ads for discount furniture stores while my love-bison sits there with his head on the wheel. More and more people are arriving for the show. Soon, there’s a long line stretching all the way down the stairs and out the door. I can see our fans standing against the wall in their miniskirts and vintage jackets, smoking cigarettes and chatting and texting and complaining about the line. Every time I look over, the line has gotten longer, until suddenly it’s gone. Everyone who’s going in has gotten in. All they’re waiting for is us.
Denny texts me.
WHERE R U GUYS?!
He’s inside selling our CDs, and people are getting impatient.
I leave Skunk in the van, walk to the Train Room door, and rip down the yellow poster. I scrawl a note on the back of it, go back to the van, and stick the note facedown on the windshield, where Skunk will see it if he ever looks up.
I knock on the window one last time, wishing he would lift his shaggy head just once so he would see how much I love him.
No response.
I pick up my synth and the amp and hurry up to the Train Room alone.
If there was ever a situation that called for the services of a professional monomaniac, it’s tonight. I blaze into the Train Room, proud and twinkling as a star, an hour late but gorgeous, charming, ever so interesting. I do a quick promenade around the room, shaking hands and giving hugs to my many fans. I air-kiss the snack booth tender and the ninth-grade girls from East Van