“Because it’s not like I’m driving or anything!” he cried. “Jesus!”
“Sorry, sorry,” Victoria apologized. “Want me to kiss it and make it better?”
“You want to kiss my eyeballs? You’ll get your sticky lip gloss all over them.”
“Yeah, but it smells like strawberry. See?” She puckered up and stuck her lips under his nose. Meanwhile, I was trying to see myself in the rearview mirror, but no matter where I moved, all I could see was my chin, where I suspected a huge zit was days away from making its stage debut. “Great,” I muttered.
Victoria turned back from kissing Jonah’s nose. “Here, switch seats with me so you can see.” She practically dove over the front seat and into the backseat, while I did the opposite and climbed into the front seat. And because we’re both complete klutzes, we both managed to kick Jonah in the shoulder.
“Ow!” he yelled, and then two seconds later, “OW!”
I looked at him warily. “I don’t have to kiss it and make it better, do I?”
“You better not!” Victoria said, her voice muffled. Her dive had taken a wrong turn and she had landed with her head against the door handle and one foot above the backseat.
I craned my neck to look at her. “My kingdom for a camera right now.”
“I—goddamnit, that hurt.”
Jonah looked over his shoulder at her. “Why don’t you kiss yourself with your strawberry lip gloss?” He looked smug, no doubt feeling justified after getting whacked in the arm.
I ignored both of them and turned back so I could do my makeup. Thank God the traffic was heavy—I didn’t need Jonah’s brake-happy foot making me stab myself in the eye with my mascara wand.
There are basically two rules I have about going to concerts: (1) Wear waterproof mascara. I cannot emphasize this enough, especially if you’re trying to meet the band by the busses afterwards and want to take pictures. Trust me on this one. It’s going to be hot and sweaty and while you’re dancing up a storm and singing along, your mascara will be somewhere around your chin and you’ll look like a melted doll. And (2) do not—again, do not—wear any item of clothing that celebrates the band you’re going to see. If you’re seeing Band X, do not wear a Band X T-shirt. As Victoria says, “Don’t be That Guy.”
We ended up sitting in three hours of traffic on the 5 freeway, going past Disneyland and the spiky crown of Space Mountain at a colossal crawl. Getting to L.A. is always a freaking nightmare, and by the time we finally got off at Sunset, Victoria and I had to beg Jonah to pull over at Denny’s so we could pee. Then we spent forty minutes at the In-N-Out drive-thru across from Hollywood High, then ate our food while we waited in line to park Jonah’s car at the theater.
I had butterflies already and my hands were cold and I grabbed Victoria’s arm and did a little happy dance with her. “We’re going to the con-cert! We’re going to the con-cert!” we sang together in the parking lot while Jonah just glanced back at us like we were strangers. Too bad for him, we were both sailing on sugar and french fries and adrenaline. We wouldn’t be coming down for a while.
The inside of the theater was already warm and the line for the women’s bathroom stretched down the stairs and around the corner. I was about to say something to Victoria about it, but then I realized that two girls I didn’t know were staring at me. Like, staring at me. Ogling. And then they did the worst thing and turned their heads so I couldn’t see their mouths as they whispered. It was the most freshman girl move ever, and I decided that I hated them.
Victoria saw my face and followed my gaze to the girls. “Hey, Aud, c’mon,” she said, pulling at my arm. “Fuck ‘em. Just…let’s go, all right? Fuck ‘em.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said and let her and Jonah pull me into the theater, which was already packed with people, especially up front. Usually that’s not a problem—Victoria and I could teach a class on how to wiggle your way up the front barricade—but I suddenly realized that if I was going to walk through a crowd, people were going to see me. They were going to recognize me. They were going to say things like, “Audrey, wait!” and I was going to feel stupid and embarrassed and very, very small.
I do not like feeling small or stupid; ergo, I was about to turn around and walk out and go hide in the car when someone tapped me on the shoulder. “Are you Audrey?” he said.
It was a bouncer—the biggest, hugest bouncer I had ever seen. The kind of guy who’s so built you know his friends at the gym call him “Tiny.” He was actual theater security, too, not one of those hacks with the yellow jackets that don’t help kids out of the pit when they’re getting trampled. He was standing next to the stairs that led to the VIP loft, the one place that wasn’t packed with people. Yet. “Are you Audrey?” he said again.
“Um, yes?” I replied, like there was a wrong answer to the question. Please don’t squash me like a bug, I added silently.
Tiny was motioning with his walkie-talkie upstairs. “Yeah, management just radioed down to me and told me to have you wait. They want you upstairs.”
Next to me, Victoria made a small noise in her throat, and I felt my adrenaline and sugar rush start to pick up speed. “Um, why?” I asked.
The guy shrugged. “Just said to have you wait, that’s all.”
I still wasn’t getting it, which just goes to show how ridiculously dense I am sometimes. “Um, are we being kicked out?”