The Accidentals(75)

While techies swap the opening act’s equipment for Frederick’s, Henry paces like a jaguar at the zoo. “Are you ladies staying here, or do you want seats?” he asks Norah and me.

“I’ll stay here. If that’s allowed,” I say.

“Me too,” Norah agrees.

“Somebody bring Norah a chair,” Frederick says, tuning his guitar one more time.

Henry brings two. “Three minutes,” he calls.

A young man crawls around onstage, taping down Frederick’s guitar cord. The PA system plays a Springsteen tune. When I peek around the curtain’s edge, I can see the crowd. There are so many people, the rows seemed to stretch back forever. Yet Frederick referred to this place as a small venue.

I watch my father, who looks entirely calm. He hands his guitar to Henry, who walks out on stage to put it on the stand. Frederick puts his hands on Norah’s shoulders, his thumbs on the bare skin of her neck.

Norah looks giddy. “What am I supposed to say to you? Break a leg? Merde? Good luck?”

He slips an arm around her waist. “I already have the good luck.”

I turn away while he kisses her neck.

In the theater and onstage, the lights dim.

A warm hand lands on my shoulder, and it belongs to Ernie. Then Frederick says, “Let’s do this thing,” and Henry barks something into the earpiece he wears.

The PA system rings with an announcement. “Let’s hear it for Freddy Ricks!”

My father passes by me, the stage lights reddening his hair as he steps onto the stage. The audience roars when they see him, his confident walk bringing him center stage. The ferocity of their cheering startles me. It’s like a tsunami of love crashing over him.

He tosses the guitar strap over his head and waves to the crowd. Ernie and the others take their positions behind him. My father sets his hands against his instrument and begins to play the introduction to “Watching in the Rain.”

I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment. From the wings I can only see his profile. Between verses, he looks in our direction and smiles.

At Norah, probably.

But as he keeps singing, I forget everything else. I become a student of the look on his face during “No More Paradise,” eyes closed, squeezing out the high notes.

I love watching him work. And it really is work. There’s sweat pouring off his face in rivulets. His fingers never stop moving on the guitar, and the songs just keep coming. I can see the crowd swaying before him, deep inside the sound.

I wish I knew what that feels like—to do a thing so well that thousands stand before you, drinking it in. It’s magical.

When he finally says goodnight to the crowd, they clap and stamp their feet until he goes back onstage for an encore. Now that it’s almost over, I remember to take out my phone and snap a blurry picture of my view from the wings.

Finally the curtain falls after his final encore. And after that, things aren’t as fun anymore.

There’s a party onstage, and I don’t quite know what to do with myself. Frederick is surrounded by well-wishers, and I don’t feel like introducing myself to strangers. I’m exhausted from the experience, and don’t want idle chatter.

A boy in a green STAFF T-shirt brings me a beer. He tries to talk to me in a thick French accent. Usually, I find beer repulsive. But this one has the benefit of being ice cold. I drink it and listen to the boy tell me about his job in the theater. I understand about a third of what he says.

When I finish my beer, he brings me another.

“You want to zee zeh catwalk?” STAFF asks me.

“Sure.”

Backstage, we have to abandon our drinks at the bottom of the ladder and climb. The theater looks even grander from the fly space than it does from the stage, a great oval under shimmering lights. My perspective on the partygoers shifts to the tops of their heads. My father is surrounded by what looks like a great flowering of people. At the center of the blossom are Frederick and Norah, in her vibrant red top, his arm around her. Music people ring him in layers according to some hierarchy I can’t understand.

STAFF says, “I have to take a pisse. You must come with me down from here.”

Descending the ladder makes me feel woozy. I wander the outskirts of the little mob onstage until STAFF brings me another beer. “Salud,” he says, and we clink our plastic cups together.

Time passes, and I have only STAFF and beer for company. But the more I drink, the less it matters.

“Oh… Rachel! Yikes. I think it’s time to go back.”

I squint upward, and it’s Norah’s face that swims into view. I’m still holding a beer, but its predecessors have already done their work. I am half leaning on STAFF, who is whispering something in my ear. I’m not sure what.

“Rachel, come with me.”

I shake my head. “You’re not my mother.” One of the benefits of having a dead mother (and there aren’t many) is that any time I invoke her name, people always back off.

Except for Norah.

“That’s true, I’m not. Would you like me to fetch your father instead?”

Well played, Norah.

Unsteadily, I consider my options. Norah is not going to let it drop, and now that I feel so sloppy, it’s no longer half so appealing to have my father seek me out. “No.”

“Then come with me. Actually—stay here for just one second while I tell him we’re leaving. Don’t move from this spot.”