Page 38 of Resonance
I stumbled behind the curtain and gasped for a breath that this time poured into my lungs as if from a waterfall, so much oxygen dousing me at once that I slid to the other end of the spectrum and got light-headed.
When something landed lightly on my shoulder, I jumped a mile back, shooting a bewildered gaze to my left.
“Slow down. You’re panicking,” a voice said. Soft, smooth, and masculine. It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the dimness backstage enough to register the figure standing there, the body of his guitar resting on the ground, his fingers dancing idly over the neck.
“No shit,” I muttered, “And now I’m having a heart attack on top of it.”
He gave me an apologetic smile. I didn’t recognize him at all, but his expression was warm and understanding. His eyes were a funky meld of gray and steely blue. Maybe it was the lighting. I’d seen the list of acts posted on the wall in the back room, glanced at the name of the guy going after me—John something. John Paul. Guess this was him. Better than the guy who’d been backstage at the Sparrow.
“Want me to go on out, or are you gonna go back?” He thumbed toward the curtain.
Howie’s rules were fifteen minutes to fit in whatever we wanted, and right now I felt those minutes crawling all over my skin, eating me alive.
“I can’t go back out now, I’ve already left. Who does that? Gluttons for punishment?”
“Happens.” He shrugged. “I panic, too. Every time.”
I looked him over, his casual posture, the quiet repose. Even the softness of his voice had a soothing white-noise quality. “You don’t look like you’re panicking right now.”
“BecauseI’mnot here. John Paul is, and he’s gonna walk out there and perform two songs and then walk right back off. The panicking can happen before and after to the other guy.”
I studied him for a moment. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t place it. Maybe he’d been in the shop before, but I thought I would’ve remembered his eyes. He looked me up and down assessingly, then glanced away and hitched up his guitar by the neck as he took a step forward.
“No, wait.” I threw my arm out to stall him, and he bumped into it with a grin. “I’m going back.”
I got what he was saying, sort of. The whole bit about dissociating yourself from what you were doing. It was a bandage for the larger issue of stage fright, but I didn’t want to tuck tail and run. Again. Fuck that. I’d done harder shit in my life than play two songs in a dive bar on Second Avenue. Dan wasn’t gonna fire me if my songs bombed or if I sucked as a musician. Ru wasn’t going to stop being my friend or giving me shit—and god, I expected plenty of shit from him after this. And the rest of the people out there? The guy who’d shouted at me, and the group of girls near the front of the stage who’d been giggling? Whatever.
Or at least that’s what I tried to tell myself. It was kind of like lobbing spitballs at a tornado, though.
“That’s the spirit. And maybe don’t even try talking to them this time. The crowd, I mean,” John said. “That’s a different skill set. Harder to master, and they don’t care yet, not at shit like this. They just want to hear music. Worry about the rest later. You give them music when you’re no one until they decide you’re someone. So go give them something to talk about.”
I nodded, adjusted my guitar strap, and took two seconds to close my eyes and drag in a deep breath just in case it was the last good air I’d get.
Then I walked back through the curtain before I got all worked up again.
The chatter that’d started up in my absence died down, but I noted it only distantly and found a dark notch in a wooden post holding up the balcony to focus on. There was laughter, too, and someone shouted, “The sequel!” but I took a breath and forced it to the background.Play a song. Just play a song.Inner cheerleader had reappeared, but was slightly less annoying this go round.
I didn’t bother sitting down this time, just shuffled back to the mic.
And then I played my song.
Not perfectly, maybe not even well, but my fingers moved over the strings and remembered what they were supposed to be doing, and I opened my mouth and let my vocal chords and breath do the rest, focusing on that knot in the wood the whole time, like I’d ground everything that was Owen Harper into a ball in my fist and was pushing it into that space, far away from the guy standing onstage.
I didn’t really remember finishing. The scatter of applause and encouraging whoops at the end seemed like they were chasing me offstage. And I couldn’t even enjoy that brief second of redemption.
“Not bad for a first run.”I jumped as Dan’s voice boomed behind me. Even backstage, the small area crowded with other folks tuning their guitars or milling around, the deep resonance seemed to muffle everything around it.
I finished tucking my guitar back in its case, then hitched it up and turned around. The expression he’d been wearing earlier was gone, thank fuck.
“It’s not my first run. It’s my second, but the first run was so embarrassing that it might as well not count at all.” I wrinkled my nose at him. “You’re not a bullshitter. It’s what I like about you, so don’t start now. Just tell me if it gets better or worse. And how I fix it. “
Dan rested his hand against the nearby wall and scanned the room before his focus returned to me. “Both. Some things get easier, some get harder. Facing the crowd, you can learn to do that. Being nervous as hell what they think? Takes a lot longer to get over that. For me at least. But a lot of people get over that, too, the more they put themselves out there.” He gestured toward the door. “C’mon, Ru and I’ll buy you a drink.”
“I don’t think so.” My whole body vibrated with residual energy and anxiety, that ball of Owen I’d stuffed into the hole of the post beam returning full force and flooding me with adrenaline. “I’m not about to go sit out there after making a fool of myself. You still kinda look like you want to hug me, and it’s freaking me out.” I squeezed the handle of my case tighter. “I can stand someone being embarrassed for me, but I don’t think I can stand your pity. I’m legit having a physical reaction to it. It’s itchy and gross like a rash.”
I skirted around him and walked out the door, heading down the hall that would lead me to the back exit and trying to ignore the sound of Dan’s footfalls behind me.
He caught me by the elbow and turned me around. “You need to be washing better in the shower, then.”