Page 32 of Beautifully Used
The unusually slow evening at the bar dragged, so I made good use of my time and wiped down the countertop as I waited for Derrick to come in and relieve me. The door to the bar swung open wide as Jackson came in carrying his guitar. It was Wednesday night, and the band wasn’t scheduled to play. “What are you doing here?”
He glanced up at me on his way to the stage. “I hoped you’d still be here because I didn’t have time to call you. I have some news. The rest of the band is supposed to be here in a few minutes. I just brought my guitar in case anybody wanted to jam.”
“What sort of news?” My mind raced with all kinds of things from new songs to, God forbid, not babies. I wasn’t prepared to be an uncle quite yet.
“Good news. You’ll just have to wait for the rest of the guys and Lena.”
I threw the damp bar rag into the bucket with the rest of the dirty ones and headed toward the stage. The front door swung open again as Lena and Kipper strolled in, laughing at God knew what. Denny entered a few minutes later. We all sat on the stage staring at Jackson, waiting for this news he had to share. I think everyone held his or her breath in anticipation because it was so quiet you could even hear the hum of the refrigerator all the way from the back room.
Jackson smiled. “It seems that we’ve been hired by a Hollywood celebrity to play at a bash down in Malibu. That is if you are all interested.” Everyone nodded profusely.
“Who,” Kipper, our drummer, asked.
Followed by, “Yeah, who,” a grinning Denny, who played a mean keyboard added. Lena simply sat with her hands in her lap. I bet she already knew.
“Gerard Butler.”
“The 300 guy?” I said.
“Yep,” Jackson confirmed. “That’s the one.”
Lena smiled and added, “Don’t forget P.S. I Love You.”
“This is awesome! I can’t believe King Leonidas invited us to play at one of his parties.” Kipper said and I smirked.
“Actually, we aren’t being hired by him, but for him. His event planner called me today and offered us the gig. She was apparently up here a few nights ago, came into the bar and heard us play. It was one of the nights Lena and Gabby did some of their great harmonizing.”
“I guess we’d better have Gabby come with us then,” Lena suggested as her eyes fell upon mine. She quickly added, “If we take it, that is.”
“Of course, we’re going to take it. Right?” Kipper looked around hopefully at everyone as if to say, ‘you’re crazy if we pass this up.’
“When is it?” I asked.
“Next week. I know, I know,” he said with his hands up and palms out when everyone just gaped at him like he had green skin. “But we can get it together by then. We just need to spend some time getting songs together.”
“We’ll have to practice every night until then,” Kipper suggested. “But I’m still in.”
“Well, what say the rest of you?” Jackson demanded.
“Hell, yeah. I’m in,” Denny piped up as Kipper clapped him on the back.
“Okay. What about you?” Jackson gestured toward me.
I shrugged. “Sounds fun.”
Jackson turned to Lena. “Lena?”
“Of course! Yes!” She jumped up and flung her arms around Jackson. “This is going to be so great! Gerard Butler. He’s so … so … wait! He can sing! He is the phantom. He can sing circles around all of us. I don’t think I can sing in front of him.”
“You’ll be fine, and Gabby will be singing with you. Do you think Gabby will want to come?”
“She’d better.”
Lena had that right. If Gabrielle didn’t go with us, I didn’t think I’d feel real comfortable leaving her home alone. Not with psycho Jeff out of jail.
The house was quiet when I came home. Gabrielle must have set the three-tiered floor lamp in the corner of the living room on the lowest setting, which gave the room a soft romantic ambiance. I almost wished I had someone to enjoy it with. It was still early, not quite past eight o’clock. I wondered if Gabrielle was still up. This was the first night in about two weeks that I’d stayed at the bar past six. I’d been covering most of the day shifts so I could be home at night, and had hired another guy to help fill in some of the shifts that Derrick and I juggled. Jackson had even come and worked for a few hours on the nights Lena waited tables and the nights before the band started playing. I didn’t like the idea of Gabrielle being in the house alone at night. The evenings that the band played, Gabrielle came in to listen and was invited up to sing with us several times by Jackson. Gabrielle and Lena had a great harmony going on that the crowd went ape-shit over every time they sang together. I had to admit, their sound was unique, and I enjoyed playing with the band those nights more than the usual.
The house seemed unusually quiet. I wanted to call out to her, then considered that she might be sleeping and that it would be rude of me to wake her. I peeked in the kitchen, but she wasn’t there. Hunger pangs tugged at my stomach, but I needed a shower first, so I walked quietly down the hall toward my room. Passing hers on the way, I glanced in since her door was open. There she was, sitting, head bent over her laptop as her fingers flew over the keys, her long brown hair pulled back into a long ponytail that draped over her right shoulder and kissed the top of her bare thigh. She wore a t-shirt covering a small portion of that thigh, but it looked to me like the t-shirt was the only thing she had on. “Hey,” I said.
