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- Jeri Smith-Ready
Shade 01 - Shade Page 4
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Brian lumbered onstage alone and casually picked up his drumsticks. He flipped one of the sticks, end over end, then rattled off a steady, superfast beat, stoking the crowd into a frenzy.
The tension in my shoulders loosened. I could tell by Brian’s rhythm that he was sober.
Connor and Siobhan came on next, taking their sweet time picking up their bass guitar and fiddle on opposite sides of the stage, while Brian broke into a serious sweat.
When they were in position, Brian hit the snare to signal them to start. Siobhan dove into the intro to the Pogues’ “Streams of Whiskey.” Connor’s tall, thin frame bobbed in time, his bass giving her melody a thrumming backdrop. The tempo was even faster than the album version, and I prayed Logan had done his tongue warm-ups.
The Keeley brothers themselves swaggered onstage, arms around each other’s shoulders, the energy between them crackling. They gave the crowd a quick fist-wave, then Mickey picked up his white Fender from its stand.
Logan leaped straight for the microphone. The first song was always vocals only-partly to calm his nerves, but also to mark his territory as the front man. He sent me a brief smirk, as if he knew I was even more scared than he was. Then he began to sing.
He clutched the mike and stared straight ahead during the rapid, tongue-twisting verses. Logan told me once that singing this song was like trying to run while tied to a car bumper-one misstep and there’s no recovering, just gravel up your nose.
But Logan let loose on the choruses, bounding across the front of the stage like his high-top Vans had springs in them, waving the crowd to sing along. With just a little less conviction, he would’ve looked like a complete asshat. But he sold it, and they bought it, lapped it up, and begged for more.
Me, I didn’t dance or even clap. My fingernails dug into the black drapery tacked to the front edge of the stage. Every muscle was frozen except my heart. It throbbed in sync with the song until I thought I’d pass out.
When it was over, Logan raised his fists to the screaming crowd, then winked at me, sharing my relief.
As he turned and knelt to pick up his gleaming black guitar, I thought I saw him cross himself-either to say, Thanks, God, for not letting me screw up or to ask forgiveness for the song choice. His parents hated when the boys “exploited the drunken Irish stereotype,” as if there were a huge selection of Celtic music not about alcohol.
But Mr. and Mrs. Keeley were currently on a cruise to Aruba. So Logan could sing what he wanted-and later, with me, do what he wanted.
“Thank you,” Logan said into the microphone, eyes gleaming at the volume of the shrieks. “Best crowd ever. Thank you.” He soaked in their attention another moment, giving Mickey a chance to trade his own guitar for a mandolin. “We’re the Keeley Brothers, and this is one of ours.”
Brian counted off, and they slammed into “The Day I Sailed Away.” I forced my fingers to let go of the stage.
“They’ve got it tonight,” Megan yelled in my left ear. “Come dance!”
“I’m too nervous!” I clasped my hands behind my head and turned back to the stage, my elbows blocking out everything but Logan.
As always, he wore the wristband with the black-and-white triangles-the one I bought him last year during my pyramid obsession. In the white stage light, the wristband blurred gray as he strummed the Fender Strat with a new ferocity. His calf muscles twitched and stretched as he kept time with his heel.
Sweat streamed down my back, tickling my spine. Around me, people bounced and swayed, but I kept still, as if I could shatter the pulsing perfection by breathing too hard.
The set continued. The band was like a thundercloud of chain lightning, each musician’s energy feeding off the others’ until it felt like the stage couldn’t hold them. I thought the strings of Siobhan’s fiddle would catch fire, and for a brief second, that all three guitars were doomed to be slammed into Brian’s drum set.
But even Mickey’s brilliant solos couldn’t steal the focus from my boy. Logan’s voice switched from a growl to a scream to a seductive whisper from one song to the next. As each new tune began, his face lit up, as if it was the first time he’d heard it. He looked like he was having a religious experience, one he wanted us all to share.
Was it because the A and R guys were watching that he had such intensity? Or was it something else?
All I know is that I was ecstatically, painfully in love with him, waiting for him to slip away, leaving me with my palms singed from clutching a blue-hot star. No matter how many times his eyes found mine, or how brilliantly he smiled at me, I could still taste the bitterness on the sides of my tongue. Because he loved the crowd more than he loved any one person, even me. He always would.
After the last song, Mickey and Logan bowed together. Then Mickey shouted into the mike, “Happy birthday to my little brother!”
That was our cue. All of us up front reached under the black drapery and brought out the plastic shopping bags we’d hidden there. Then Mickey held Logan in place as we pelted him with handfuls of multicolored birthday candles. Connor and Siobhan tossed them back into the crowd so we could hurl them again.
Once all seventeen hundred candles had been thrown (most of them two or three times), the band waved and dragged Logan away.
Megan and I and a few other friends scrambled onto the stage to collect the candles. The view from behind Logan’s microphone showed a darkened room ablaze with cell phones and lighters-and along the edges, more than a few ghosts.
The Keeley Brothers came back for an encore, a cover of blink-182’s “Dammit,” with Mickey singing the chorus. Then their own “Ghost in Green,” which gave everyone a chance to solo while Logan crowd-surfed, and ending with Flogging Molly’s “Devil’s Dance Floor”-the hottest, fastest song yet, as if to prove they had the stamina to start over and go all night long.
Finally they took one last bow, then sprang offstage, this time with their instruments.
Megan pulled me into a long, tight hug. “Aura, they did it, they really did it. That was their best show ever by a hundred times.”
Over her shoulder I got a glimpse of Logan backstage. He waved at me, then flashed both palms wide to signal ten minutes. Then Mickey walked up and spoke in his ear. Logan’s smile widened, then he signaled to me twenty minutes.
“The label guys.” I let go of Megan, sweat making our shirts stick together. “This is it.”
“Don’t worry, they can’t sign anything until they’re all eighteen, or Mr. Keeley will disown them. No car, no college, no food.”
I watched Logan fade into the darkness, his golden hair catching the last shred of stage light. Adrenaline crashed through my veins, making the blood pound in my ringing ears. The last song ran through my head, backward and forward.
I knew Logan would give up cars, college, and food for a chance to be a rock star. He’d sell his soul and wou
ldn’t miss it for a second. Because until everyone in the world loved him, he’d have no use for that soul anyway.
My boyfriend’s onstage invincibility was a pale preview of his birthday party.
The news was good-both recording labels wanted to sign them, and they were willing to wait until the Keeleys (and Brian’s parents, since he was a minor too) could call their lawyers. I was glad the boys and Siobhan had played hard to get. I’d heard stories about bands getting crappy contracts that would never make them money no matter how many records they sold.
The reps’ attention gave Logan enough ego juice to act like he was turning seven instead of seventeen that night. He seriously proposed to Mickey and Siobhan that they finish off the night by making a music video in the local graveyard.
“I’m telling you, it’ll be huge.” Standing in the downstairs hallway, Logan looped an arm around each of their necks, barely holding himself up. “For ‘Ghost in Green,’ right? I got it all planned out. We go up to Sacred Heart, okay, and just shoot the video like regular.” He flapped his hand in my direction. “Aura and Brian can let us know when the ghosts show up, and tell them to jam with us. Like, not for real or anything, ’cause they can’t hold instruments. I mean dance along. It would be”-his gaze roamed the ceiling, looking for the perfect word-“tremendous.”
“Yeah, tremendous,” Mickey said, “and we still wouldn’t be able to see them, even on film.”
“That’s not the point, dumb-ass.” Logan flicked the side of Mickey’s head. “Post-Shifters’ll see them. You gotta think forward.”
I snagged a blue corn chip from Siobhan’s paper plate. “But ghosts don’t hang out much in graveyards,” I told Logan, “We’d find more inside the church itself.”
“Aw, yeah! Let’s do it! Father Carrick would go for it, right?”
“Sure he would.” Mickey patted Logan’s hand. “How many drinks have you had?”
“None.” Logan shook his head emphatically. “None drinks. Officially.”
I held up a half-empty pint of Guinness. “Officially this is mine, even though it’s never touched my lips.”
“She’s lying,” Logan told them. “Never trust a girl who hates Guinness.”
“And how many of those have ‘you’ had?” Siobhan asked me, with air quotes.
“This is his fourth-I mean, my fourth.”
“Right.” Mickey snatched the glass from me. “You’re cut off.”
“Thank you.” I took Logan’s hand and tried not to yank him in my annoyance. “Come dance with me.”
Siobhan sidled over to the stereo. “I’ll switch to something slow so he doesn’t puke on you.”
Logan took the lead, guiding me through the scattered partyers to the center of the living room floor, where he wrapped his arms around me. The music’s beat dropped to a slow throb.
He gave a warm sigh into my scalp. “This is better.”
“Much.”
“Let me know when I get too obnoxious.”
“ ‘Too’?”
“Okay, okay.” Logan kissed my forehead. “This is such an amazing night, Aura. We did something spectacular on that stage. I never felt that kind of energy before.”
“I know.”
“But it wouldn’t mean shit without you there.”
My heart thudded. I wanted him to promise he’d always feel that way. But I couldn’t ask that of him, and even if he said it, I wouldn’t believe.
“Wow,” he whispered. “I’m suddenly sober.”
I tugged one of the black streaks in his spiky blond hair. “You are not.”
“Feels like it.” Logan slid his hand over my waist, following the curve of my ribs. “I’m nervous. I’m afraid I’ll do something wrong again tonight, like I did a couple weeks ago.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong then. It’s supposed to hurt a little the first time. I shouldn’t have wussed out and made us stop.”
“It was my fault. If I knew what I was doing, maybe it would’ve been easier for you.”
“I was probably just worried Aunt Gina would come home early.” I rested my cheek against his warm chest and watched Megan and Mickey dance, their bodies in perfect sync. “I just want to get it over with.”
“Don’t say that.” Logan pulled away a few inches, blue eyes bleary but determined. “I won’t be able to go through with it if I know you’re dying for it to end.”
“Logan, just shut up. It’ll be fine. It’ll be great.” I tried to coax my mouth into a convincing smile.
He looked strangely vulnerable. “You wanna get out of here?”
One last heart-slam. “Definitely.”
We headed for the stairs, making sure no one was following.
“Hey, birthday boy.”
Brian Knox stood in our path, flanked by Nadine Ross and Emily McFarland, girls I recognized from Logan’s school here in Hunt Valley. Brian held two glasses of a clear drink.
Nadine took one of the glasses and pressed it into Logan’s hand. He held it up to the light.
“What the hell is this?” he asked Brian.
“My new invention.” The drummer bowed. “I call it Liquid Stupid.”
Nadine giggled. “Liquid Stupid.”
“Guaranteed to lower your IQ twenty points with the first sip.” Brian put the other glass in my hand. “Aura, why don’t you take five sips and come down to our level?”
“Who’d be dumb enough to drink something called Liquid Stupid?” I turned to Logan, who was downing the first half of his glass. “What are you doing? You don’t even know what’s in it!”
Logan swallowed, then whooshed out a hard breath. “What’s in it?”
Brian counted off on his fingers. “Grain alcohol, Aftershock, and uh, some other stuff. Guess I should’ve written it down before I drank some.”
“You like it?” Nadine brushed her hand over Logan’s arm in a way that made me want to bite it off.
“Tastes like Fireballs and battery acid,” he said.
“The second half is better, after it kills your taste buds.” She lifted Logan’s wrist toward his mouth.
“Easy now.” He gently removed her hand. “I want to remember this night tomorrow.”
“I bet you do.” Brian threw a greedy glance over my body.
“Hey.” Logan stepped between us and poked Brian in the chest. “Don’t make me lose those sticks of yours up your ass.”
Brian barked a laugh. “If anyone here has a stick up their little diva ass, it’s-”
Logan shoved him against the wall, knocking off his cap. The thud of Brian’s shoulder blades caught everyone’s attention.
Brian lifted his hands in surrender, even though with his beefiness, he could’ve slammed Logan into the floor. “Dude, I’m kidding.”
“About what?” Logan snarled.
“Everything. Anything. Whatever.” Brian seemed amused but a little worried, and I sensed something was going on that I wasn’t aware of, that maybe I didn’t want to know. Emily looked as con
fused as I felt, while Nadine watched the guys like they were characters on her favorite reality show.
I put a hand on Logan’s back. “Come on. Let’s get something to eat.”
He blinked at me. “Right.” He let Brian go with another slight shove. “Sorry, man.”
“S’okay.” Brian picked up his cap, avoiding my eyes.
I led Logan through the kitchen.
“You still hungry,” he said, “after all that pizza?”
“No, but you need a time-out.”
“I’m not a little kid.”
“Yeah?” Without looking back, I walked through the side hallway toward the stairs. “Come prove it.”
“I wrote a song for you.” Logan picked up his acoustic guitar and sank onto his bed with a whump! that made the instrument hum. “For tonight.”
I sat beside him. “A private performance. I feel so privileged.” I didn’t mean it as sarcastically as it came out.
He strummed quietly with the pick, then adjusted the pegs. I twisted my hands in my lap, knuckles scraping my palms, wishing simultaneously that the night would end Now and Never.
Logan’s room was spotless-at least as far as I could see in the warm, dim light from his desk lamp. The Irish flag hung on one wall, a smaller version of the one in the basement. (The Keeleys’ ancestors left Dublin in the 1840s, but they acted like they just hopped off the boat last week. Their wet bar had a slow-pour keg tap specially designed for Guinness, and Notre Dame football was a second religion.)
Another wall was all shelves-CDs and music books. There was no obvious order, but Logan could always find what he needed in two seconds. In the far corner, his battered skateboard sat abandoned. I thought I could see a layer of dust on it, but that might’ve just been the angle of the light.
On the wall above his bed hung posters of his two heroes-the entire lineup of the Baltimore Ravens, and the Pogues’ front man, Shane McGowan. His parents didn’t approve of the second-anybody who could get kicked out of an Irish punk band for drinking too much was a bad role model, they said.