Boring Girls(52)

xXx

When we arrived in St. Charles late that afternoon and found the Toe, a heavy, sober feeling came over all of us. The music was off, and we were quiet as we pulled into the parking lot. I saw six guys and a few girls milling around, standing next to a parked van.

“Is that them?” I asked.

“Probably,” Socks replied. I studied them through the window as Socks steered the van into a parking space near the other vehicle. They were all looking at us as well, and none of their expressions were particularly friendly. Every single one of them had long black hair, the guys and the girls, and they all wore black, some with wallet chains hanging from their pants, some with spiked wristbands.

“Don’t they look like a friendly bunch,” Edgar murmured.

“They’re probably thinking the same thing about us,” Fern said in as bright a voice as she could muster, but I knew by the way she stared out the window that she wasn’t getting the best vibe either.

Socks hopped out of the van and approached the group. As the rest of us dawdled in collecting our purses and knapsacks, I watched him shake a few of their hands, talking animatedly. I appreciated him making such a positive effort. They looked like a bunch of *s to me.

The inevitable couldn’t be postponed for very much longer, so I climbed out of the van and forced myself to approach the group. One of the guys walked over to meet me, flanked by two girls.

“Hi, I’m Rachel,” I said. “I’m the singer.”

“Paul,” he replied, making no move to shake my hand. “Singer and guitarist for Heathenistic Bile. These are my girlfriends, Kate and Jennifer.”

I smiled at the two girls, receiving only sour-faced responses in reply. They looked at me almost challengingly. Great. “Nice to meet you,” I attempted.

One of the girls flatly said, “I’m also Paul’s hairstylist.”

I quickly looked at Paul’s rather unremarkable hair and noted that it was long and black and dyed likely out of the same drugstore box as mine. “Girlfriends, huh? Like, you all date each other?”

“Yes,” the other girl purred, sliding a possessive arm around Paul and flashing me a dirty look. I resisted the urge to reassure her that I had no intention of hitting on her boyfriend — sorry, their boyfriend — and instead asked Paul, “So what’s going on?”

“We’re just waiting for the owner to get here so we can load in. He should be about ten minutes or so.”

I nodded. “Are those other guys in your band?”

“Yeah, drummer and bassist. The other three guys are our crew.”

“Crew?”

“Yeah. They load in our gear for us, help us onstage. Our show gets pretty insane. Where’s your crew?”

“We don’t have one.” I was getting pissed off.

“Right, it’s your first show. This will be our third,” he said. “We’re probably going to have a few hundred people tonight. Heathenistic Bile is really starting to take off. A few record labels have already contacted us.”

I swallowed and tried to infuse my voice with pleasantness. “That’s great. So maybe we should get our gear out of the van so when the owner gets here we’re ready to move it inside?”

“Sure. You know, my guys could help you if you need a hand with your gear — if you give them a couple bucks, of course.”

“Oh, I think we’ll be fine,” I said and turned back to the van so he wouldn’t see my scowl. There was no reason to make the gig go badly by screaming in his face that he was an idiot.

Fern and Edgar had already opened the back of the van and were gathering the gear. “That guy is a f*cking moron,” I hissed when I had rejoined them. “Those two girls are his girlfriends.”

“They’ve been shooting daggers at me the whole time,” Fern muttered.

“The rest of those dudes over there are their crew,” I said sarcastically. “They’re so big time after playing two whole shows.”

Socks had come back to us in time to hear my last comment. “Well, not really a crew — a couple of their friends. They seem like good guys. The band guys, though, well . . . I don’t know.”

“Apparently their live show is insane,” I reported.

“What does that mean?” Edgar asked.

“Oh, I’m sure we’ll find out,” I muttered.

The owner arrived and unlocked the back doors, and as we watched Heathenistic Bile’s pals start carrying in guitar cases and rolling in amps, the band stood with their girlfriends, smoking cigarettes and laughing amongst themselves.