Sarah’s smile broadened. “You’re totally dressed for it. Stompers, all black…goes with anything. Hella cool.”
“What kind of music is it, anyway?”
Sarah glanced at the poster and shrugged. “He does a lot of stuff, actually. And does it matter? You’ll see. Come on. It’s an adventure, and best of all, it’s free. Live a little.”
Twenty minutes later I was tromping down the path, my hair still damp from a hurried shower. I’d pulled a black and yellow lumberjack shirt over a purple tank top. Sarah easily managed the treacherous path in four-inch hooker heels and a miniskirt short enough to be a halter top, while Kate was wearing leggings and boots that could have been twins of my own.
When we reached the gate, I could just make out a heavyset man in a security guard uniform seated on a folding chair beneath an overhang. Sarah gave the man a wave and called out to him with a flirtatious lilt. “Yo, Cliff. Nice night, isn’t it?”
I could see him smile in the gloom. “Best time of year. You girls headed into town?”
“Maybe. Unless you make us a better offer,” she said with a giggle.
“Stay out of trouble,” he warned, his tone equally playful, as he appreciatively eyed Sarah’s long tanned legs.
Sarah led us to where a sixties-era Pontiac in perfect condition was waiting two hundred yards from the gate. She lowered her voice to a stage whisper and leaned into us. “That’s them. Luke, Kurt, and…oh, crap…”
“Kevin,” Kate finished for her. “Or maybe Kenneth. But probably Kevin.”
“And they’re juniors at the college?” I asked, trying to sound enthusiastic.
“Yeah,” Sarah said. “Rich boys out for a good time.”
Kate smirked at me. “She eats those for breakfast.”
Sarah shrugged. “It got us to the show, didn’t it?”
Kate gave me a sidelong glance. “So what’s your deal, Lacey? What brought you here? And where are you from?”
It was my turn to shrug, and I could feel my face color. “Nowhere, really. Total boonies. A little town outside Pottsville, Pennsylvania. You’ve never heard of it.”
Kate shrugged. “That’s a safe bet since I’ve never heard of Pottsville.” She paused. “How old are you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Me too. Are you going to go to the college when you finish here?”
“I…I haven’t decided yet. Maybe? Or maybe I’ll go straight for a job. I’m learning coding, so I’ve heard that’s possible. You?”
“I’m going to be a drama major,” Sarah said, beaming. “Gonna be a famous actress.”
Kate snorted. “Porn, maybe.”
If Sarah was annoyed, she didn’t show it. “Long as I wind up with a Ferrari.”
Kate slowed her walk to let Sarah get ahead of her by a few steps, and spoke to me in a low voice. “She’d kill me for telling you this, but she’s actually trying to decide between math or physics. But might wind up doing both.”
“Really?” I said, doing my best not to sound doubtful and totally failing.
Kate gave a low chuckle. “She’s actually super bright. Just a little wild at the same time. She got thrown out of some pretty good prep schools, then all the way down to the public high school, and then her parents kind of gave up. But she took her college entrance exams early and had phenomenal scores – that’s what got her in here. They didn’t even make her get a GED.”
So much for the accuracy of first impressions. We reached the car, and I caught a whiff of cigarettes and something else…a joint. Sarah sashayed over to the passenger-side window and leaned down to look inside. “Well, hello, boys,” she said, her voice theatrically flirtatious.
“Hey,” the passenger said, and grinned. “We thought you bailed on us.”
“On you?” Sarah asked. “Never. Just had to do some girl stuff.” She motioned to me. “This is our roommate Lacey.”
We went through some brief introductions as we girls piled into the back seat – Luke was driving, and then Kurt was next to him, and by the door was Kevin. Or Kenneth? Damn. Now I was going to have to avoid saying his name all evening.
Luke, a handsome jock with a dusting of stubble on his face, cranked the stereo and gunned the motor, and the big car roared off, speakers wailing over a thumping bass beat. Kurt offered us beers from a twelve-pack in the front, which Sarah and Kate accepted. I declined (beer tastes like dirt to me), and we sped along the road I’d just traversed on the bus only a few hours before.
We made it to the venue just before ten, and I was taken aback by the throng milling outside the hall. Who knew there were so many people in Maine? Make that “so many women,” who made up the vast majority of the crowd, many still asking anyone who would listen if they had tickets for sale. Luke pushed his way to the backstage area and spoke to one of the security guards. After a ten-minute delay, a tall muscular man in his mid-twenties, his arms covered in tribal ink, appeared and motioned us past the checkpoint.
Luke high-fived him, and he guided us through the backstage door and down a passageway below the stage. The opening band’s road crew was clearing equipment onto a loading area. We brushed past them on the way to a barricaded area at the front of the stage, where we’d have front-row views of the concert.
Drumming began pounding above us, and the crowd’s roar drowned out the beat, and then music blasted at high volume through the sound system as we neared the audience section. A guitar riffed over the din, and then a sea of female screams sliced through the concrete wall as a male voice began singing.
Sarah’s eyes were bright with excitement, and she grabbed Kate’s arm. “It’s him!”
“Shocker that he’d be singing at his own concert,” Kate sniped.
The security guards at the stage door nodded to Luke’s cousin, and one of them pushed it open. The volume of the music quadrupled, and then we were walking into the no-man’s-land between the elevated
