Page 19 of Wassailing We Will Go
Harrison jumps back onstage for the next transition, which is quickly becoming the crowd’s favourite part of the show. Greg! Who knew? Not me! Who wants to follow that? Someone has to! And that someone is…Kate Donnelly! Wait, really? he says and looks back to me. Then, everyone looks back to me.
I freeze mid-pour and spill a large amount of cider on the counter.
Daniel hops up onstage beside Harrison and speaks directly into the microphone: Seventy-eight, Kate. Have fun! and then hops off again.
Daniel is fired. I can fire him, right? I will investigate wrongful dismissal criteria later.
C’mon up, Kate. Don’t worry, he’s got a good one for you!
As soon as he says it, the crowd starts chanting my name. I want to just say no, skip me, because that’s an option, too, but something stops me.
I always say no. Or, at least, I always go with the safe option. But I said yes to this whole insane karaoke thing, and it was a success. Could I, perhaps, also be like Greg the bank teller-slash-karaoke rock legend?
I take a large swig of the overfilled cider that I had been pouring for someone else and then walk up, giving an awkward little wave as I go by. The good news is the crowd is very buzzed. The bad news is I am not. Not enough, anyway. When I get onstage, I grab the cider out of Harrison’s hand, down it, and hand him back the empty glass, which elicits a hearty cheer from the crowd. Yes, I am so fun! Greg will be a distant memory in the minds of these people when I am done!
There we go! Now she’s ready. Kate, everyone! Harrison hands me the microphone.
Wait, what am I singing? I hiss, away from the microphone.
‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ he whispers. You know it, right?
I do, but now that I’m actually onstage, looking out at the crowd and having to perform it, I kind of want to barf the half pint of cider I just chugged. I look at him pleadingly, begging for an out.
I’ll help, says Harrison, just to me, and he grabs the second microphone.
This is an all-time best karaoke song, I can’t resist! he says into it. I’m jumping in—it’s too good! And then the first line starts, with absolutely no preamble, and I rush to sing them. Badly.
The next five minutes and fifty-five seconds are a roller coaster of emotion. I’m alright on the slow parts—I mean, I’m not a great singer, but I can muscle through it, at least —but by the time we get to the scaramouches, I am absolutely losing the plot. The good news is that Harrison has apparently memorized every beat of this song and does have a decent voice. Somewhere in between Gloria and Greg, at least, but with possibly even more zest than both. His highs are high, the lows are low, and all in all, it’s just some really incredible commitment to the memory of Freddy Mercury as he fandangoes his way over the finish line.
I am also there, doing my best. Not barfing. And by the time I’m done, Daniel’s firing and the potential wrongful dismissal lawsuit that would follow it have all been averted.
Whoo! I need a break after that, says Harrison from the stage. Daniel hands him another cider to replace the one I drank. Oh, cheers, Dan. He invites the next guest onstage, and the night goes on, my performance already a distant memory.
I go and sit at a high-top table with Wendy, who is taking a break, and Daniel comes over and hands me a lime Perrier, my favourite. Alright, so that was obviously Harrison carrying the team, but I consider us even, he says as he walks by, tray of drinks in hand to deliver to the busy tables nearby.
Oh, we’re going to talk about this, I hiss back. We are not even, Daniel!
I’ve worked with you for over a decade, and I didn’t know you had that in you, says Wendy, saluting me with her Diet Coke. Good job.
I scoff. I mean, I participated. I guess that counts, right?
Wendy laughs. Kate, when I first started working here, you were in grade ten, and it took you the whole summer to move from washing dishes to working the front of house because you were too nervous to speak to guests. As someone who remembers little Kate, sometimes you have to appreciate progress, is all.
I hold my glass up for a toast, and we clink them. I don’t think I would have done it without Harrison’s help, though, I admit. There was a moment where I was going to nope right out of there, but he jumped in just in time. Kinda carried the team, to be honest.
Wendy shrugs. My college roommate got me really into snowboarding, something I had never done before, and now I love it. My first kid is the only reason I’ve ever tried a climbing wall, and I loved that, too. Kiddo number two once got me to hold a giant snake, and I absolutely hated it, and I’ll never do it again. But I did it, and I have the picture to prove it. Some people get you to push your own limits a little, and it’s not a bad thing. And at the end of the day, you did the thing.
We clink our glasses again to that. While I am far from being a karaoke convert and I will likely never do it again unless someone has a literal gun to my head, I think Wendy is right. And I kind of think little Kate would be proud of me, even if I was slightly off key for the whole song.
CHAPTER NINE
I SPEND THE REST OF the night drinking water and eating french fries, and by closing time, I am back to being sober. When I go over to our POS system and check what our night looked like, for a moment, I think there’s been an error. Our gross is twice that of a normal off-season Thursday and more like that of a sunny day in July, and suddenly, I have a newfound passion for karaoke. Not performing it, of course—I’d rather walk directly into the currently frigid Lake Ontario than do that again—but I can definitely tap into a love for other people’s musical self-expression if our numbers stay like that.
Our staff have gone home, and only Daniel and Harrison remain. Daniel is doing a final close on everything for the night, including paying his cousin some cash under the table, something I will have difficulty explaining to our accountant later. Harrison has asked him for a ride home as he got slightly tipsier in his MCing duties than he had originally planned, and honestly, fair enough. He hadn’t known what kind of night he was stepping into, and one has to respect responsible drinking and driving choices.
The real question is, do we even keep open mic nights or convert fully to this new way of life after this? I ask the table. Daniel and Harrison are both drinking ginger ales and look absolutely spent but chipper.
Dan and I were just saying that, says Harrison. I overheard Harrison call Daniel Dan about a dozen times over the course of the night, something I know Daniel hates, but he has yet to correct him. What if we moved open mic night to Wednesdays?
