Page 6 of High Notes & Hail Marys

“‘Sup?” you say, since he’s very clearly headed straight for you. (Cal still terrifies you.)

“Evening, Mister Reinhart. Mister Grayson wanted to know if you would meet him backstage after the show and go with him to dinner.”

There’s that stupid flipping-flopping thing in your stomach again. You blame it on the truffle oil.

“I would love to,” you say.

“Very good.” Cal puts a meaty paw to the earpiece that, before now, was completely invisible, and mutters something to whomever’s on the other end. You hear your name under his breath. “Just stay put, and someone will come get you shortly after the finale.”

Not too long after, the opener takes the stage. Gabrielle Rose is a perky blonde with five-inch heels and a massive bow in her ponytail, and she’s riding the wave of her first entry on the BillboardTop Ten. She bumps and grinds through a twenty-minute set, and the crowd noise is already loud and excited. Gabrielle is the perfect hype person for Sterling, whipping the girls and gays on the floor into a frenzy with every flip of her hair and swivel of her hips.

Halfway through Gabrielle’s performance, you grab your phone nervously, like it’s something you forgot, and text Sterling. Hesitantly, because you’re not sure if he will answer this close to going on stage.

You:good luck. I would say break a leg but I think there would be a riot

Sterling::)

The emoji is a vague enough reply that you spend entirely too long wondering what it means, or even if it was Sterling himself who answered—his PA team does almost everything else for him—and soon Gabrielle is being shuttled off-stage on the up-stretched arms of her backup dancers, who are musclebound guys in bunny ears and sequined banana hammocks.

The wailing starts some time right around then. Ear-piercing shrieks cut through the air. There’s over seventy thousand asses in seats, and it shouldn’t be possible to hear any individual shouts or screams, but they somehow rise above the buzzing, frenetic hive-noise.

Sterli-i-i-i-ng!

I love you!

STERLIN-N-N-G!

OH MY GOD!

Feet bang the floor, and the flashes of ten thousand phone cameras are sparks winking through the 200s and 300s like lightning bugs. It would feel vaguely ominous—such a crowd, with suchenergycould conceivably turn into a deadly mob in no time flat—but there is a drunken, permeating haze of lovey, sororalhappinessfloating over the crowd. They are hugging strangers, singing in packs, and exchanging friendship bracelets strung with pastel pony beads and emblazoned with acronyms that only make sense to fellow Graylings.

You have a limited view of the crowd from the tent, as your view is supposed to be ideal for the stage, not people-watching. But there is a coterie of teenagers hanging over a rail in the 140s, and you can’t help but observe them as the lights go down and Sterling’s entrance music starts playing. There’s five or six girls and one guy, all of whom are decked out in bespoke costumes. Wigs, lashes, boots, the whole nine. Each one has a heart drawn on their cheek. On stage, an immense screen is playing a rapid-fire montage of clips from Sterling’s career. He’s not even up there yet. The kids are allsobbing. Tears track their eye makeupdown quivering cheeks, fucking up their mascara and flooding away the glitter on their skin. Their shoulders quake and their knees buckle as they lean on one another for support, keening like they are having a full-on religious experience.

And then Sterling rises up from a platform beneath the floor, and the placeerupts.

You are close enough that you can see him on the stage, the lights picking up the flyaways of his otherwise perfect hair, but he’s reflected at twenty times his size on the screen behind him. Bashful smile, white teeth. He’s wearing an iridescent purple two-piece getup.

“Hi, guys,” he says. It sounds almost like the voice you hear on the phone, but different. You realize that this must be his public-facing tone. “Thanks for coming out tonight.”

The crowd answers with a wall of sound. A sonic roar.

You are slightly worried about the kids by the railing in the 140s. It’s dark and the lights from the stage are throwing shadows all over the crowd. At least two of the teens—the boy and one of the girls—look like they are about to either faint or throw up in the greenish glow. One of their companions is waving and screaming soundlessly in the direction of the stage like Sterling could hear her impassioned shouts, which he cannot. Youhave to tear your attention away, since you don’t want to be caught staring.

What happens next can only be described as a spectacle of the highest magnitude. Sterling holds the crowd captive for three hours, marching like a spangled five-star general through a set list encompassing fifteen years of music, hits and deep cuts alike. The Graylings don’t differentiate between the two; they know every word, every note, and every hitch in Sterling’s breath. He plays the piano and the guitar; he talks with the crowd like he’s addressing several thousand of his best friends. There are no fewer than ten costume changes. There’s even a segment that sees Sterling flung high above the stadium on an aerial rig as he sings, fifty feet high and cool as a cucumber. Pyrotechnics sizzle through the night. Sweat gleams on his brow, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He doesn’t so much as miss a beat.

You are so mesmerized that you lose track of the time. Somewhere in your vicinity, Sandy is trying hard to be attentive and Jamie is crying her eyes out—you think that she’s going to have a hell of a headache in the morning—and the noise of the crowd is like the ocean, breaking over the top of the tent. Their whistles, whoops, and screams fade into the background.

There is, you had previously realized, something very sexy about seeing someone do somethingvery well.The guys on the Food Network chopping vegetables into perfect matchsticks and handling flaming pans fearlessly. Guys like Sandy—not that you think that way about Sandy, despite him being a full-fledged Italian Stallion—throwing a football sixty yards downfield in a geometric spiral. That’s what you are thinking about Sterling: he’samazingat what he does. He sings. He dances. He holds the crowd in the palm of his hand.

You may or may not be slightly hot and bothered when someone appears from behind you and taps you on the shoulder.

“Mister Reinhart!” they say, yelling over the crowd, “Are you ready to come back with me?”

You try hard to avoid her eyes, but Jamie is staring at you pointedly as you are whisked out of the tent.

***

They bring Sterling to you fresh off the stage. He arrives in a crowd of people, laughing, in one of a convoy of golf carts that zip through the tunnels of the massive stadium. He’s stripped to the waist and his hair’s all fucked up. It takes a split second before he sees you. If it’s possible, his smile gets even huger. He jumps out of his cart.

---