Page 57 of 16 Forever

The back door of Bean-Age Dream swings open, and Misty, the gray-haired woman in her fifties who owns the place, pops her head out. “You three ready to roll?”

Shana, Ember, and I look at each other.

I violently shake my head.

Carter

Bodhi is talking to me, but I’m not really hearing the words.

I’m sipping my hot chocolate and staring at the empty stage—it’s nothing fancy, probably just a foot or two off the ground, with a piano, acoustic guitar, and drums set up and ready to go. I wonder which instrument Maggie’s going to play. I bet the drums. She seems pretty intense, like she could really whack the shit out of those cymbals.

“Are you keeping those sunglasses on the whole time?” Bodhi asks. “Probably gonna be hard to see.”

“Oh.” I wore them along with my Knicks cap when we came in so I could be as inconspicuous as possible. It’s been all too apparent this week that Maggie wants nothing to do with me, so I don’t really want to be spotted. “No.” I pull off the sunglasses.

Bodhi and I have planted ourselves at a table in the very back. It’s not that big a place, but this spot gives us the best chance of getting lost in the shadows.

“Anyway, what do you think about that?” Bodhi asks. “Like, with Lizzy. Should I text her again or wait some more?”

“Uh,” I say, having taken in none of the context for this question. “Probably makes sense to—”

“All right, folks,” a woman with gray hair in a dark blue blazer says, leaning over slightly into the microphone near the guitar. “We areveryexcited to be hosting the debut of a new band. They’recalled...” She squints down at her phone. “Angry Baby! Isn’t that a killer name? I just love it. So let’s give these three a warm hand! Angry...” She looks down at her phone again. “Baby!”

Shana emerges first from a door next to the stage, followed by an Asian kid with short pink hair, and then Maggie, who’s wearing jeans, dark blue Converse, and a light green, short-sleeved button-down that looks so good on her, it makes my chest go floaty. Shana goes to the guitar and confidently flips the strap over her head. I assume the pink-haired bandmate is headed to the piano, but instead they sit down on a stool behind the drums while Maggie slides slowly onto the piano bench.

Wow. She plays piano. And, from the way the microphone is set up right next to it, sings too.

There’s complete silence as Maggie arranges her fingers on the keys. They’re shaking in a way that makes me nervous for her.

She begins, her hands plunking out gentle chords as the other two musicians watch. After thirty seconds and a few bungled piano notes, Maggie opens her mouth and starts to sing.

Her voice comes out thin and quiet, even with the microphone. It’s hard to make out the lyrics until she gets to the chorus where she repeats the wordsNo, thank youa couple times. With a resonant strum, Shana announces herself on guitar, followed moments later by the drummer, who comes in with this cool shuffle sound.

As if buoyed by the arrival of her bandmates, Maggie’s voice gets slightly more powerful, her fingers more decisive. Her singing has a ghostly quality, and there’s also, like, an honesty to it. Like I could just listen to her for hours and believe every word.

I start to get lost in the song. I wasn’t expecting the music to be this... good. I look over at Bodhi. He’s got his phone under thetable, texting. Annoying. When the song ends, I join the crowd in applauding, though not too loudly, as I’m still trying to stay under the radar.

“Whoa,” Maggie says into the mic, blinking into the crowd. “Thank you.”

“You mean,NO,thank you,” Shana says, which gets a laugh.

“As you heard, this is our first-ever show,” Maggie says. “And we are all very afraid.”

“Don’t be afraid, you’re killing it!” some dude shouts from the other side of the room. Maggie smiles and blushes. I glance over, and, wouldn’t you know it, it’s Glowy Adult Guy from the party.

So they’re some kind of thing now.

I hate Glowy Adult Guy.

No, wait:Cord.

Maggie said his name is Cord.

That’s even worse. He looks every bit as handsome and adultified as he did at Shana’s house, and he’s sitting with three other similarly adult-looking people.Collegepeople.

I should’ve been the one to shout something to Maggie. Definitely would have said something more original than Cord.

We’re afraid of how talented you are!!!