4. Atlanta
NICKY
“So, you understand the inventory system now, right?”
When Bianca the vampire dressed down, she wore skin-tight jeans and a white blouse—but the blouse was silk, the stilettos were snakeskin, and the statement necklace had probably been lifted from an Incan funeral pyre somewhere. She and I had very different ideas of what “casual” meant.
“Well . . . sort of.”
“Excellent.”
We stood in the cavernous halls of the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta. When the doors opened two hours later, this place was going to be swamped with humanity. In the meantime, it looked like a scene from an apocalypse movie.
Empty. Echoing. Dark as midnight with not a window in sight. It was four in the afternoon, and we might as well have been at the bottom of a nuclear bunker.
And she’d made me miss the sound check, so I still hadn’t seen Sheree.
Or Archer under brilliant lights, singing to the empty arena during the brief time allotted for the Aftermath sound check. I’d been hoping I’d be able to get a close-up of him singing to use on the T-shirt.
Instead, Mam’selle Vampire had buttonholed me at exactly the wrong time to drag me to the merchandise stand and confuse me with the inventory system.
“So, you’ll be here on duty during the show.”
“Right. How am I supposed to verify the stock on hand again?”
“Exactly. Just scan it. Anyway, I checked everything in when we loaded back in Jersey, so you’ll be good. Just keep an eye on the workers.” She eyed the six workers who were slashing open boxes and arranging the display board.
“Yes, but how will I know?—”
“Keep track on the tablet like I showed you. I have to go.”
“Wait, Bianca. Give me your number so I can text you if I need help.’
“How about I’ll text you. I’ll be around. Sheree is doing VIP, of course. She’s meeting with the mayor and the governor in the owner’s box, and Brian wants me there, so I have to go.”
“Mayor and governor of what? Oh.” She looked her scorn to me. That accounted for the shoes. The mayor of Atlanta, the governor of Georgia. Why wouldn’t they be at Sheree’s show? I’d been na?ve to assume there wouldn’t be VIPs to claim her attention. “Okay. Hope it goes well.”
Bianca clicked down the empty hallway to the box-tier elevators, and I turned with a sigh to the merchandise stand. Someone almost mowed me down with a large, rolling dumpster filled with collapsed cardboard boxes.
“Wait!” I called. “Hang on!” The guy ignored me, and I turned to the staff. “Were those boxes from the T-shirts?”
“Well, yeah. Some of them.” The young man who answered didn’t look old enough to buy a beer, but he seemed to be in charge.
“How many boxes did you guys open? I need to keep count.”
All the workers rolled their eyes. “As many as we’ll need,” he said. “Obviously. I scanned them, mostly.”
“Well, from now on, give me the scanner.” He snorted, a clear refusal. “Okay, tell me when you break down a box. I need to know the quantity and type of what you pull out.”
He chuckled, and the old lady at his elbow scoffed openly. “Sure, sweetie. You got it.”
Despair dropped onto my shoulders. “Okay . . . I need to get into the storeroom to count.”
“I can’t let you in there. Not without a pass.”
“I have a pass. See?”
“Not that pass. You need a storeroom pass.”
“A what?”
They were stubborn. Time was racing, and Bianca had decided to keep her contact information a state secret so she could hobnob with Southern royalty.
I gritted my teeth and called the only person I thought might be able to help. “Ken? Am I interrupting you?”
“Who’s this?” the bus driver growled.
“It’s Nicky. I’m on your bus.”
“My bus is empty, and I’m taking my union-mandated nap, so I’m going to hang up now.”
“Ken! I mean I’m—you’ve met me, you call me ‘missy.’ You have to remember me!”
He sighed heavily. “Yeah, Nicky. I know who you are. What’s up?”
“I need to call someone, but I don’t have their number. Do you have a number for Brian, the tour manager? Or Bianca?”
“Fuck no. I have the number for my dispatcher. That’s it.”
The dispatcher wouldn’t know. “Ismael!” I cried in sudden inspiration. “Can you radio Ismael for me?”
“Shit. He’s not going to like being woken up, missy.”
“Please, Ken? I need your help.”
The circle of influence was convoluted. Ismael didn’t have anyone’s number, either, but he agreed to bang on the door of the star coach until the security guard on duty there came to threaten him.
Then the security guard agreed to contact the former Army Ranger on Sheree’s detail in the VIP suite, who finally caved and found Dean, who yelled at me through the phone while Ken and Ismael and all the other drivers shouted their protests at his treatment of me where Dean couldn’t hear them. After an interminable amount of time, I heard Bianca’s heels clacking angrily down the hall to me.
I thanked the thousands who had helped me and hung up.
“For God’s sake, couldn’t you have improvised or something?” Bianca looked more predatory than ever when she fished a red badge out of her messenger bag and clipped it to my lanyard. “If you’ve made me miss Cardi B, you and I are going to have trouble.”
She stalked off again before I could either apologize or point out that this could have been avoided if she’d equipped me properly in the first place.
The kid behind the counter grinned. “Hey, lady,” he said happily. “Want to check out the storeroom?”
Arrogant little prick. And calling me lady? I was only twenty-five. “Thank you,” I said, trying to retain my dignity.
He showed me how to use the pass to open the door and then refused to walk in with me. It took five minutes and the light on my phone to find the light switch . . . which finally flipped on long rows of lights across a vast room filled with shelving and boxes.
I stormed back to the door and yanked it open. “This is all Sheree merch?”
“Fuck no, lady. We got Falcons stuff in there, and Atlanta United, and?—”
“Show me where the Sheree merch is.” My voice was icy enough to wipe the grin off his smug face.
It took me forever to verify the inventory against the tablet Bianca had given me because, as they ran out of space, the crew had spilled over into non-Sheree shelving. And since I didn’t know how many boxes they’d opened, I wasn’t sure I’d found all of it. But I did the best I could.
The final thing I could do was count what they’d unpacked behind the counter, but when I emerged from the storeroom, the concourse had come to life. Sales were busily being rung up, and it was clear the sales team wasn’t going to accept me crawling along the floor at their feet, counting the number of size-medium, Sheree Untethered World Tour tank tops.
Hell.
My first day on the job, and I was definitely not in control.
I tried to stay out of the way until I saw one of the workers ring up an “Untethered” T-shirt under the “Sheree and Her Kitten” code.
“What’s the difference?” she complained when I stopped her. “They’re both thirty-five dollars.”
“Where’s your boss?”
I should have known. Her boss was the kid, who stopped selling a four-hundred-dollar Sheree baseball jacket long enough to indulge me when I lectured him.
“Kerry,” he said, bored. “Ring up the shirts under the right code. Okay?”
“I did,” she protested. He didn’t care, but he shrugged at me in a what-do-you-want-me-to-do-about-it gesture.
What indeed? I wasn’t even an official employee of Lyre Records. He knew I was too powerless to come equipped with even a storeroom key.
I stood back and stayed out of the way, but I watched. I tried to make sure all six workers were ringing up the right merch at the right price. I failed to have full oversight, but I did the best I could.
By the time Aftermath took the stage, the concourse was thick with bodies, and the line for merch stretched out of sight. I heard them begin with “Lizabella,” and even from my sweat-stained corner of the concourse, I could tell they were off. The easy swing of the dance song was missing.
My heart bled for Archer. I knew he and the other two were nervous about their first stadium performance, and it wasn’t going well. Fortunately, I thought, everyone with a ticket was currently glaring at me for holding up the line when they wanted to buy a Sheree baseball cap and a Sheree beer koozie. I was probably the only one who was even listening to the music.
By the time Archer closed their set with “The Salesman,” some of their jumpiness had worked out, and their sound had gotten better. A large, bearded man who was buying matching T-shirts for his daughters surprised the hell out of me when he suddenly grinned.
“I love this song,” he said. “This is the ‘blackhearted turd’ song. Hurry up, I want to see this!”
I did, too, but instead I stood at my post and kept an eye on the merch while Archer’s glorious voice boomed from massive speakers.
Oh, you’re a social media influencer
and want this thing for free?
Absolutely. Let me bend over backwards
to make sure you and your fourteen Twitter followers are happy.
I’ll just take it out of my vast and glowing paycheck,
shall I?
I live to serve you because YOU are SO special.
Two women taking a shocking amount of time to consider the quality of a shirt’s cotton content sang the last line with a shared laugh. “Because you are so special!”
How funny, I thought, that Archer was singing about the annoyance of customers just like them. Sing on, you gorgeous man. Maybe they’d get the message.
And he did.
Oh, you’re unsatisfied and are going to leave
a bad review on Yelp?
What a tragedy, and me the sole owner of this
multistore chain too
I’m just dressed in this polyblend uniform ’cause
I love to meet my customers
Your bad review will probably tank my entire empire
because YOU are JUST THAT special
The adolescent boss of the merch stand was singing along, and his workers chimed in too. Of course they’d know this song. Hips were swaying, feet were stomping as money changed hands and credit charges were rung up.
Go on. Teach me that lesson. It’s what I deserve, right?
Don’t worry that I’ve spit in the pockets of
your new coat.
Ignore that I wipe my unmentionables on
your new acquisition.
Get you a latte? This is a mattress store, Karen.
Darling, do your worst, you blackhearted turd
It wasn’t just the people in the line who sang the last couplet. I could hear the roar from the arena, where a lot of people had begun to find their seats. Aftermath had saved their biggest hit for last, and it got a fantastic reception. The applause was shocking to me.
I wished I could dart through the crowd, find the nearest entrance to the arena with a view of a jumbotron, and get a look at how Archer was feeling when he heard the energy his song had created. I was dizzy with excitement, and I’d known the song for less than twenty-four hours.
Aftermath left the stage to decent applause. I was deeply proud of Archer. He and I were fated—there was no question.
I wanted to text Selene and Judy, but they would have to wait. The crowds in the concourse had only gotten worse, and the stock was being sold almost as fast as it could be replenished from the stockroom. The cadence and speed of the sales kept steadily increasing until I thought I would lose my mind—until after an eternity, some announcer’s voice came through the speakers like God.
“Ladies and gentlemen . . . Sheree!”
There were shrieks in the line as a driving beat thumped throughout the vast space. Half the people screamed and ran for their seats. The other half glared at the staff and declared we were keeping them from their seats. My heart was thumping in my neck, and my stomach muscles had turned to lead. The kid sent me running for a last box of tank tops, and then the concourse was all but empty.
“Shit,” he said happily. “That was a good one. Okay, you guys. Ten minutes each, in shifts.”
He looked at me as if maybe I was going to challenge him. I had nothing. I shrugged.
He raised an arrogant eyebrow at me and turned away. I went to hide in the storeroom. This was my chance to stand at one of the entrances and watch Sheree at last, but I was shattered. It had been three hours of tension and confusion and adrenaline. I sat on one of the heavy boxes of baseball jackets and tried to relax.
And to blink away tears of stress.
Little did I know that I was enjoying the calm before the storm.