Quite frankly, if Lucy hadn't won those all-access passes, I would have gladly pretended to be a 10-year-old girl. Maybe whipped up a sickly cough for extra sympathy points. She could be my big sister. Maybe my hard-luck mom.
Mind you, unlike her, I wasn't hot to trot for anyone in the band. As far as I was concerned, I'd already hit the jackpot. I had a sweet, funny husband who happened to be a doctor (OK, a resident, but considering I had a sociology degree I'd never used, he'd had me professionally outgunned for a long time) and the father of my gorgeous 2-year-old daughter. It's just that when you spend all day sitting at home with said daughter, you crave a little more...excitement.
"How many people do you think get backstage passes, anyway?" I said to Lucy as we walked toward the gate, where women were streaming steadily inside. Heat rose off the pavement in waves.
Lucy shrugged. Her long, dark hair blew in the warm breeze. She clutched her all-access pass in one hand, cord wrapped around her fingers. "I don't know. Few enough that we had to win them in a contest," she said.
I thought of what Phil had been watching on TV for what seemed like roughly the 30th time this year, little Mena whining about the absence of Pinkie Pie, when Lucy had come to pick me up. "Think it'll be like Wayne's World?"
Lucy looked down at me. Not for the first time that evening, she lowered her red-rimmed sunglasses just enough to stare at me over the tops. "Like what?"
I stopped in my tracks, trying not to wobble on my straw wedges. The question seemed too insane to be real, but I couldn't resist staring up at her. "You've never seen Wayne's World?"
"With a concert? Are you maybe thinking of Wayne's World 2?"
I shook my head and started walking toward the gate again. "I don't know why we're friends."
"Because I do random shit like win concert tickets for us?" Lucy matched my stride easily with her longer legs.
I was only half-listening as we got in line. Damn Phil and his Wayne's World kick...
**
The beefy, red-haired security guard ushered us around a corner, wordlessly leading us. The narrow hallway was packed full of people, but they parted for him like the Red Sea. He pushed open a door. And suddenly, there they were, lounging on leather sofas in a green-wald room. The five guys we'd lusted after throughout our adolescence.
Brian was plucking away idly on a guitar, Nick air-drumming on a table as he sat next to him. Kevin, Howie and A.J. were playing cards. Kevin was the first to look up at us.
"Kevin!" I blurted out, my voice half an octave higher than normal. I thought I heard a squeak escape Lucy. This was unreal. And here I was, just shouting their names like they were my best buds.
I cleared my throat and held up my all-access pass. "Is this cool?" Is this cool? Jesus, and I hadn't even really been watching Wayne's World before I left. I suppose I should have been happy to be able to form words at all.
"Yeah, come on in." Kevin stood up, his height dwarfing me.
A.J. stood up, too. "I'm not sure if it's douchier to introduce ourselves or not introduce ourselves, but what are your names?"
"I'm Kelley." I inclined my head toward Lucy. "This is Lucy."
Lucy didn't speak. Her blue eyes had gotten as big and round as dinner plates.
"We won the Y98 radio contest," I continued, when it seemed clear that Lucy wasn't worried about getting a word in edgewise. "We're excited about the show. We've never seen you guys before."
"Well, hey, that's cool." A.J. grinned at us.
Lucy still hadn't said anything coherent. She appeared to have regressed straight past high-school age to infancy.
Howie looked up from the cards he was shuffling. A note of alarm registered on his face. "Hey, is your friend OK?"
Part of me really wanted to tell them she was my mentally handicapped older sister. It would be the world's greatest comeuppance for all those times she had sent me on beer runs just to laugh at me. Instead, I said, "She's just a little star-struck. We're not mental or anything, so don't be afraid."
Somewhere, my husband was laughing hysterically at me. The guys all chortled.
"Well, it's nice to meet you ladies." Brian stopped strumming and smiled at us, waving us further into the room. "Y'all from St. Louis originally?"
"My mute friend here is," I replied, subtly pulling Lucy into the room by the elbow. The guys' friendliness and easy charm set me at ease, so that the words came surprisingly well. "I grew up out in central Missouri, and we both went to college out there, but my husband's a resident at a hospital here."
Howie nodded, his thumbs fanning the deck of cards. "That's cool. We like St. Louis. We're pretty regular visitors, y'know."
Kevin sat down on the arm of the couch. "St. Louis has certainly had its share of visitors, though. There were people here long before the French traders landed here some 250 years ago."
"Hey, isn't St. Louis a French name?" Nick stopped drumming and looked at Kevin over his shoulder.
"Yes, Nick, it is," Kevin said. "Named for St. Louis, King of France. Don't you guys have a statue of him outside your art museum?"
"I was not aware of that," Lucy blurted out finally. The hell she wasn't, I thought.
A.J. leaned against the other couch, hands in his armpits. "I've always found it interesting that St. Louis is the only major American city to have elected three socialist mayors," he mused.
"Nah, dude, that's Milwaukee," Brian said without looking up as he tuned his guitar.
A.J.'s face fell. "Oh."
Lucy looked down at me. "Do these guys know how to party or what?"
Silence fell. Everyone looked at her. My jaw was practically scraping the ground.
"Well, uh, we should probably go," I muttered.
Brian set down his guitar and grinned. "Well, hey, we've got some time before the show. Why don't you ladies sit down, make yourselves comfortable? Hang out for a while?"
And here I'd thought the meet-and-greet would earn us just a couple photos and autographs. Otherwise they'd have called it a meet-and-hang. I heard Lucy squeak again. My heart had all but stopped beating.
"Cool," I heard myself say. "Yeah, we'll stick around and hang out with you guys. The Backstreet Boys. Yeah."
If you've seen Wayne's World as many times as my husband had by then, you know what comes next.
Before I could stop myself, we were both on our knees, bowing in the doorway with our hands in the air. "We're not worthy! We're not worthy!" we screamed.
"Aje, you maybe wanna run and get these ladies a couple of Howie's Xanax?" I thought I heard Kevin say.
"Bite me, dude..." Howie shot back.
In the midst of our worship, Lucy turned to me and said, "You're gonna run into the..."
**
The curb seemed to pop up out of nowhere, catching the toe of my wedge. I pitched forward and broke the fall into the grass with my hand.
"...curb," Lucy finished lamely.
I straightened up, unconsciously wiping my grassy hand on my jeans. A few women around us snickered.
"Bitches," I muttered as I held out my ticket to be scanned.
Chapter End Notes:
Yes, this is a Wayne's World spoof:
