The Rest of Us Just Live Here
“Do you see any of your friends?” I ask Meredith.
“Bonnie isn’t coming,” she answers. Bonnie is the other girl in her grade who takes all the insane extra tutoring that Meredith does. They have Jazz & Tap together. Bonnie’s mom is the meanest person I’ve ever met in my entire life.
“Anyone else?”
Meredith doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking around. I begin to wonder if there is anyone for Meredith besides Bonnie. God, poor Meredith.
“You don’t have to sing along,” Meredith tells us, “but I’m going to. Just don’t make fun of anything.”
“We won’t, Merde Breath,” Mel says.
“And don’t call me that.”
“Where’s the cancer girl?” I say, trying to see if they’ve roped off a VIP pit somewhere down front.
“She’s called Carly,” Meredith informs me, very seriously. “Our Thoughts and Prayers are with her.”
“I heard these tickets were going for $3,000 on the internet,” I say.
“NO TRUE FAN WOULD DO THAT!” Meredith yells. “And it was fan-club members only and you
had to prove that you lived here and everyone had to show ID at the gate.”
She has a point there. It was like getting on an international flight with the President just to get inside. And that was after the half-hour it took to get through the rows and rows and rows of TV
newsvans and journalists covering the story. We kept hearing reporters say “this little middle of nowhere” as we passed. Which, yeah, I also say a lot, but it’s different when I say it.
“Anyone want a pop or something?” Mel asks.
“No!” Meredith says, horrified. “It’s going to start in five minutes.”
“Oh, please,” Mel says, “concerts never start on–”
“Ladies and Gentlemen!” the loudspeakers announce. “Please take your seats, as the Bolts of Fire concert will start in FIVE minutes!”
There’s a deafening scream from around the amphitheatre that happens at about the height of my ribcage. Little girls jump up and down and hug each other and go crazy and are just otherwise disturbingly hysterical, while their parents start streaming in from the side, holding, yep, cups of coffee – no alcohol for adult prisoners of Bolts of Fire.
“That’s it?” Mel asks, having to shout over the whoops and hollers. “A five-minute announcement?
No opening act? No music and lights to warm up the crowd?”
“If the crowd were any warmer,” I shout back, “we’d need paramedics.”
Somehow a group of voices singing “Bold Sapphire” has emerged from the sound avalanche, and more and more of the girl crowd join in, including Meredith. “I broke Bold Sapphire’s heart on the day she turned eighteen/I never meant to do it and I hope she still loves me.” Within seconds, the amphitheatre is one loud, off-key, but really enthusiastic voice singing the band’s biggest hit.
Which, I admit, is kinda catchy.
“Are you singing?” Mel says to me, eyes wide.
“No,” I say, too fast.
The amphitheatre lights go down, which is ridiculous as it’s still daylight, but never mind, eighteen hundred little girls burst into simultaneous overwhelmed tears. I think my eardrums are about to explode. Meredith, though, is practically levitating. She’s between me and Mel and she’s so excited she doesn’t know whether to hold our hands or clasp her own or just stand there and hyperventilate.
She tries to do all three, which basically makes her like every girl here.
She looks up at me, tears in her eyes. “I’m so happy.”
“They’re not even on yet.”
She just cries some more.
The screams get even louder as someone comes onstage, but they drop respectfully quickly as we all see it’s a girl in a big-deal hospital wheelchair being brought on by what I’m guessing is her mother and a nurse. The girl’s got an oxygen tank with her and looks really bad. The non-nurse/possible mother takes the microphone that’s centre stage.