002

“Woo-hoo!” shouted June from the top of her lungs, clapping her hands as she held her arms up in the air. The concert was truly memorable, and since the songs were new to her she couldn’t sing along, but joined some of the popular chorus’ like Never say goodbye or Livin’ on a prayer. It was a warm spring night, and her skin was glowing with sweat from jumping and shouting. The band was incredible, and both the lead singer’s showmanship and his chemistry with the guitar player (together with both men’s good looks) seemed to deserve the credit for the success of the show. It usually took June more thorough listening to a band’s song to really get to like them, but this was a good start: the lyrics seemed honest, meaningful and fun at the same time. 

By the time the concert came to an end, June felt as close to the other girls as if she’d known them for her entire life, specially Adrianna. They exited by one of the service doors, outside of which they had arranged to meet Adrianna’s father, who, because of having to take care of the rest of the service backstage, couldn’t take them back to Kalamazoo personally, but instead, had arranged one of his employees to take the girls back to their hometown.

They waited for a few minutes until Adrianna's dad appeared through another service door, hands casually in his front pockets.

“Did ya have fun ladies?”, he addressed the group but clasped his daughter’s head and kissed her crown as she, in turn, wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Yes!” the girls answered in unison. “Thank you, Mr. Miller”, June’s voice could be faintly heard among the screaming and squealing of the rest of the girls, whose tall hairdo’s had become more and more damp and consequentially flat during the show. Except for Adrianna’s naturally curly hair that seemed to always be in perfect state.

“Don’t thank me yet, I have a surprise for you all”, announced Mr. Miller. “Wanna meet the ba-”

The last word of his question was masked by even louder and higher-pitched screams. June couldn’t help but laughing out loud, both out of excitement and amusement caused by the girls’ reaction to Adrianna's father's words. She could still feel the adrenaline running through her veins, her cheeks still bright pink and her eyes just a tinge glassy. Seeing the other girl’s runny makeup, she secretly patted herself on the back for not having worn any that night or she could have looked like them. She raked a hand through her damp thin hair and whirred it with both hands in order to make it dry faster, what caused the strands to stand pointing in all directions. As the sweat began to fastly dry on her body, and noticing that her T-shirt was damp as well, she put on her hoodie and pulled the zipper up until it covered the whole length of her neck. On their way to the backstage area she put both her hands inside the jacket’s pockets.

To describe the scene backstage as “hectic” would be a serious understatement. One person after the other flashed by them along the corridor at such a speed and with such hastiness that for safety purposes they decided to walk in Indian line behind Adrianna’s father. It took them between 15 to 20 minutes to make their way through the maze-like corridors to the room were the band was resting.

Just as she crossed the door, June stopped and took a few minutes to evaluate the scenario in front of her. The L-shaped room (some sort of huge locker room) was in itself quite depressing, but the lively attitude of the people that filled it made for the whole warm atmosphere. The band was clearly split in two, bass player, drummer and keyboardist on one of the wings, singer and guitar player on the other. Both teams equally taking pictures, hugging and kissing the swarm of beautiful women that surrounded them, but naturally one of those teams took up most of the attention both in quantity and in quality. Jon’s beauty and charisma were even more undeniable and imposing up close and personal, he was naturally the center of all the attention and played the part as a professional. June could tell that his smile hid a tint of tedium, but she wouldn’t judge her perception since she had the habit of putting herself in other people’s shoes, and in this case, she definitely didn’t want to be the human being that carried on his shoulders the responsibility for the operation of the gigantic machine that band was becoming.

A glimpse at the guitarist’s bare torso was about all it took for June to find herself forcing her eyes to look away. He was so beautiful she felt embarrassed for not being able to take her eyes off of him. Across the room, her deep stare seemed to have reached the tall brunette, since he looked up and found her eyes from the other end of the room. June couldn’t look away, his deep brown eyes were just exquisite, and the distance that separated them seemed to disappear for a few moments, until he turned his eyes to look into a photograph camera. He was charming and goofy as well, but that attitude seemed to be some sort of façade that shielded his probably more sensitive inner self.

The real clown seemed to be the keyboard player, whose deep laughter echoed throughout the room every few minutes. The drummer, however, struck her as a perfect gentleman in a rockstar outfit. His deep manly voice was mesmerizing and reminded June of her own music heroes like Johnny Cash or Leonard Cohen. In the meantime, the bass player was all over the place and in no place in particular at the same time, moving around and never staying put in one place for more than five minutes. In total, there were easily more than 40 people in that room, between band members, press, service staff and visitors - which included a considerable number of hardcore groupies.

There was also all kinds of food and alcohol, but the band members could only manage to take a sip from their bottles every once in a while. Their eyes looked tired, their cheeks red and long hair still dripping from the hot showers they had taken. After that long, lingering look, June admitted to herself that she wasn’t particularly excited about meeting the band, what was the point? They must be exhausted and she didn’t want to add to their stress. She felt happy for her friends, though, who looked genuinely thrilled, and were already approaching the singer-guitar player duo. June, instead, decided she’d rather sit back this time.

“June!...June!...June!...”. In fact, June was so deep in observation that it took Adrianna three attempts to finally get June's attention. Then she gestured with her hand indicating for her to come over and join the group that was lining up for a picture.

“Oh nononono I’m fine”, said June, leaning against the door frame and crossing her arms.

“Come oooooonnnnn” replied Adrianna with a sheepish smile, smile that June couldn’t resist, since they were waiting for her and she didn’t want to make anybody uncomfortable or wait any longer than they had to. Adrianna had one arm around Jon’s waist, he had his left arm around Adrianna’s shoulder and the other around Shirley’s. Adrianna pulled June closer to her and Jon included her in his embrace. June could feel the warm steam that oozed from his arm reach her skin through her clothes, and his masculine smell made its way straight through her nostrils and into her brain.

As any teenager she was baffled by the sensorial experience she was subject to. And as any regular teenager, she’d too had her share of dates and boyfriends, but none of those experiences could compare to this one, the warm touch, the charisma, the masculinity. She felt awkward beyond the point of bearable discomfort, so as soon as the picture was taken she resumed her position by the exit door.

…

“You sure this is it?”, asked John with a frown as he stared at the four boxes that contained every material thing that June truly valued in life besides her book collection.

“Yup, that’s pretty much it”, nodded June, shrugging her shoulders.

“Alrighty then…” John squatted to pick the first box and his sister followed.

As they both carried the boxes to their parents’ car, June inquired casually:

“Remind me why are we doing this first thing in the morning? Mom and dad are leaving late in the afternoon”.

“Is it OK if I’m not here to see mom and dad off?” John closed his eyes tightly in anticipation of his sister’s reaction and quickly added “I have to meet Jon for dinner tonight”.

“John!” June complained, stopped and waited for her brother to turn his back and look at her.

“June…”, John tilted his head to aside and turned around reluctantly with an apologetic look on his face.

“You know how mom’s gonna be…this is tough for her, I thought you’d be backing dad and me up…”

“Yeah, I know, but I can’t. Jon arrived a day earlier than expected and I need to meet with him, the album’s coming out next week…and you know how he is”, explained John before adding, “…he said it was urgent…”.

That was enough for June to understand her brother’s choice.

Once breakfast was over, June spoke with a teasing pout as her brother kissed her goodbye, “When will I see ya again then?”. They lived fairly close to each other, less than an hour’s drive, but the fact that this was going to change in the near future and despite the turmoil that had been her life recently, had caused June to feel a little more anxious than usual when it came to spending time with her brother.

“You gotta be kiddin’ me” John chuckled and knocked on her sister’s head as he spoke, “Tomorrow night? Dinner party at my place?”

“Geez!” June exclaimed and covered her mouth with her hand, “I completely forgot, I’m so sorry”, she added with a sheepish smile and an apologetic grimace. That was nothing but the truth, and she knew exactly why she’d forgotten – she had different plans for Saturday night.

“S’alright, just be there, OK? Bye mom, dad” John answered and kissed both his parents, then headed for the door, but halfway through he turned around and looked at June “And Jon’s comin’ too, so you guys can catch up”

“Oh, good…sure”, nodded June with a careless and faint voice that poorly disguised the way her blood sizzled when she heard Jon’s name, though she didn’t appreciate the suspicious undertone in her brother’s comment. “Say hi to him from me”, she managed to say above her effort to hide her excitement.

Abrupt changes of plans from Jon weren’t unusual at all, and unlike others, this one sounded like fun. Of  the dangerous kind.

“Will do!” said her brother a second before he closed the door behind him.