13
Sasha
Quinn grins up at me.
“Can I give you a boost?”
I think he’s serious for a second, though he’s easily half a foot shorter than me and not exactly built like a powerlifter. I’m used to doing this thing with fans and industry people where I treat everyone as if I know and like them, since they all recognize me and I meet way too many people to conceivably keep track of. I’ve been working at switching it off, at not performing all the time. It’s in progress.
Then I laugh and jump down from the trash can. The skirt does a bit of a billowy thing that feels great, like I’m a cute heroine. This skirt is my absolute new favorite garment, though all of my clothes are new right now and most are my favorites on one day or another.
I’m genuinely happy to see Quinn, so my automatic response is correct. And he introduces me with.
“This is my friend Sasha.”
Which is pretty generous given that our relationship so far consists of sitting beside each other and chatting in chemistry class during the first week of school.
Or, oh my god, I’ve made a real friend. Sasha has, not my celebrity self. I mean, Quinn befriended me, but I haven’t messed it up. My heart goes through a sensation I’d describe as fluttering.
Quinn introduces the other people as his bandmates.
There’s Cyprus (she/her), who’s lanky in a way that seems like she must knock over a lot of glasses and has platinum hair in a way that seems very dyed over top of a different color. She’s white, wearing a purple Rosie the Riveter–style bandanna along with bandannas on both of her wrists like sweatbands and somehow making it all work. Lillian’s also white and she/her, though Quinn introduces her as sad/sadness. She gives him a push and corrects him.
“You trying to sneak in too?”
Lillian asks.
“That’s the general idea.”
Of all the concerts my downstairs neighbors recommended, I chose the one that’s sold out. I’ve never encountered this problem before in my life. Normally things like a show being sold out just miraculously don’t apply to me.
I point to what I was trying to reach.
“It looks like it’s fire escape or bust.”
Lillian’s already moved past me. She’s skipped the garbage can and gone to inspecting the wall.
“There are other ways.”
“Please spare Sasha the methodology,”
says Quinn.
“No letters, I’m begging you.”
“We could wait to see if a band member goes through a locked back door and use gum to jam the latch, so we can slip in after them, for example. Or or or.”
She pulls hard on a pipe on the wall. By my assessment, the amount it shifts indicates that under no circumstances should anyone climb it.
Her assessment differs. Lillian grabs the pipe and digs her boots into the brick wall and climbs way higher up than she should.
“Lillian …”
begins Cyprus, and then lets her be and films her.
I don’t love the camera being out so close to me.
I make a point of being out of the frame.
Lillian jumps to the side of the fire escape.
She takes an overshot approach, first crashing into it and then grabbing on.
The whole thing creaks.
It’s not graceful, but it works.
The door’s unlocked and with Lillian up there to help us, the rest of us manage to climb up from on top of the trash can.
At this point, I should mention that Lillian is one of the scariest-looking people I’ve ever met.
I talked to her for a few distracted seconds at the bike racks, and I’d already recognize her anywhere.
She looks like the bad kid who went to juvenile detention in an eighties high school movie.
And it does not seem like an act.
There’s the cutoff Packing Boxes T-shirt with a chunk missing from one side that seems … burnt off?
Her undercut looks very worse for wear, though disheveled is pretty much her whole vibe.
It’s too comprehensive to be accidental.
There are a couple braids in her dark hair that seem to have been there for a long time, including one that has an old fabric wristband from a festival woven into it.
She’s got a scarred tattoo of a game of hangman on her calf, though I can’t make out what word was being spelled.
Throw in a lot of plain silver rings on her hands and through her earlobes and nose, a big safety pin hanging from her ear, a septum piercing, and two eyebrow piercings.
Top it all off with actual black lipstick but no other makeup, and frankly I don’t want to mess with her.
Or anyone with that much metal in their head who looks like they haven’t slept for a week.
I doubt the people in charge of the Mercury share my feeling.
They run a music venue and have therefore seen everything and fear no one.
We wind up at the back of the upper tier of seats, but as soon as we’re there, I see people right in front of the stage and I can’t resist.
“We have to get there,”
I whisper. The band’s going to be onstage any minute.
“Why?”
asks Cyprus.
“Kind of comfy here at the back of the balcony,”
says Quinn.
But Lillian nods at me, scoping it out.
“Obviously close is the place to be.”
Cyprus is posting something, which seems to require about as much attention for her as walking does for most of us.
“It never sounds good close to the stage.”
“For sound, I put on my headphones,”
I say.
“Live, I want the crush.”
I’ve seen all my concerts with my helmet on. Or far removed, from behind reflective glass in a private box with only the few people who were allowed to see my face. Augustus, Isabelle, Heather Erin, my security team. That’s the full list.
“See, Sasha gets it.”
Lillian looks a bit obsessed, excited, and I feel it too.
Packing Boxes steps onstage with tattoo sleeves, grungy jackets and a vibe that promises a guitar-heavy show that will be considerably less mellow than their recordings. The crowd on the floor presses forward, creating a window for us to join them. Despite their protests, Cyprus and Quinn follow Lillian and me into the fray.
It only takes two songs to get me hooked.
For half of the first song, all I can see is the act.
They sound nothing like Admirer’s upbeat catalog of love songs, but I’ve done everything the lead singer for Packing Boxes does. All the gesture and show and revving up the crowd. Then the singer holds out his microphone to us, and I let myself go. I’m immersed in uncontrolled sound and the energy pouring off the crowd. Lillian is shoulder to shoulder with me and we’ve gotten right to the front of the stage. We’re in a pocket between the speakers where I can feel the drums live off the stage. Everywhere is sweat and noise and joy.
We’re applauding the second song when suddenly Quinn’s at my ear yelling over the music that we’ve got to go. I see venue security coming toward us and Cyprus is already weaving upstream through the crowd and Lillian’s grabbing my hand and I like how that feels and I barely have any time to consider it because she’s pulling me away and still singing along.
So am I.
We aren’t exactly the most visually sneaky group, but we probably could have stuck it out longer if we’d stayed at the balcony level. Still, it was worth it to get into the midst of it all.
I keep glancing back at the stage as it disappears behind swaying shoulders and hair. I want to be in front of that stage. I want to be on it.
I know I belong there, but maybe not in the way I’ve always been told I did.