Page 36 of Before Eve

“What’s wrong?”

“West’s mike is out.”

What?

West stands a few feet away from his mike playing his guitar. To the audience, nothing appears wrong. He’s jamming out instead of singing.

“There’s a mike box stage left,” Ford calmly speaks into his headset. “Have a roadie grab cordless number two and make the switch.”

Someone signals West from off stage. He grabs the bad mike and shoves it in his back pocket, and while continuing to play, he strolls toward the awaiting roadie. A girl throws a bra and West snatches it out of midair, gives it a little twirl and tosses it back, all while making the swap and seamlessly continuing with the lyrics.

Ford looks over at me. “I thought you tested all those?”

His tone takes me off guard. “I did.”

“Well, a perfectly good mike doesn’t just go bad.”

I go through things in my mind. I had checked all the mikes, hadn’t I?

He sets the EQ for the next song and turns to me. “If I give you a job and you’re not sure how to do it, then you need to ask questions.”

“I did know how to do it.” The last thing I want to do is disappoint Ford.

“You can’t overlook anything in this job, Eve. It’ll get you fired.”

Fired?I stop breathing for a second.

He shakes his head. “I want you to go through everything after the show and figure out what happened.”

“Yes, sir.”

After the show, we break things down, the semis are loaded and en route to the next city, everyone heads off to a party, and I sit on the floor backstage studying the mike that had gone bad.

“You sure you don’t want me to wait on you?” Anne asks.

“Just go.” I wave her on. “I’ll meet you back at the hotel.” There’s no way I’m telling her Ford threatened to fire me.

“I’m probably going to hit that party on Tenth.”

I wave her on again, just wanting to be left alone so I can figure out what went wrong with this mike. Plus, Anne likes to party, and I want her to have fun. I’m not her responsibility.

She finally walks off, and I go back to the mike. I run my fingers over the metal head, testing for looseness. I jiggle the transceiver and find it good, too. I get a screwdriver from a toolbox, quickly disassemble the mike, and find one single frayed wire. What the heck? How did this happen?

My cell buzzes, and with an irritable sigh, I pick it up. Iswipe my finger over the screen and find a Google Alert for Grayson.

“Hey, Blue Eyes.” West emerges from the shadows. “We were supposed to hang out.” West puts his hand over his heart. “How quickly you forget.”

Between the bad mike, Ford’s “fired” threat, and now this alert I need to read, I’m not in the mood right now. “How did you know I was still here?”

West doesn’t answer at first, probably picking up on my irritableness. “I saw Anne as she was leaving. She said you were back here.”

I toss the screwdriver back into the toolbox. “Well, I’m fine. Can you just leave me alone?” My words come out meaner than I intend and looking at West’s confused expression confirms that. He has nothing to do with this. Why am I taking it out on him? I sigh, trying to make it right. “West…”

“Fine, whatever. Just thought I’d see where you were and if you still wanted to hang. In case you haven’t heard, that’s whatfriendsdo for each other.” He takes a defensive step away. “But, hey, you want me to back off? No problem.”

He turns and disappears into the darkness, and with every step he takes away, sorrow burrows through me. I didn’t mean what I said. I owe him a huge apology. Grabbing my phone, I start to text him to come back, but read the Google Alert instead:

Grayson Kader makes a surprise visit to NYC.