Coin Heist (17 page)

“Let me get this straight. You know everything about everything but you don't know how to hit stop?”

FAIL.

“I don't, okay?” I paced back and forth, panicked sobs closing my throat. I could barely breathe. My brain was just beginning to compute the extent of the mistake.
My
mistake. This was the second mistake, and it was way worse than the first.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.”

I never make mistakes.

“Okay, you're sorry, but snap out of it. We have to figure this out.”

My whole world was going black. I couldn't see. I couldn't hear. And I certainly couldn't figure out what the hell to do next, because all I could think about was how freaking dead we were. And how it was all . . . my . . . fault . . .

Twenty-Four

JASON

“Is that what
you're wearing?” I asked Chaddie, pointing to the dry cleaning bag he'd set down on top of his amp case. Inside was a standard-issue tux. Black. Simple. Normal.

“Yeah, dude. I don't look good in patterns.”

“How about you?” I asked Max, who, like Chaddie, was still in a t-shirt and jeans.

He shrugged. “I couldn't find a plaid suit.”

So they'd both purposely blown off the costume idea, the idea that made Mixed Metaphors memorable, because—did I even have to spell this out?—it was itself a metaphor for our name. And here I was in a red tartan suit jacket, a canary yellow plaid tie, and green-and-brown plaid Doc Martens. “What's the point if we don't all do it? Now I look like an asshole.”

“Nah, you just look like you're Scottish,” Max said in his whiny little voice. “And maybe a little colorblind.”

I couldn't really complain, because I was on thin ice to begin with. I'd lost whatever power I'd had left when I had to go begging, practically crawling on my hands and knees to their lunch table, to get them to agree to play the prom after all. I'd had a whole speech planned.

“Listen,” I said. “Do you know about Chad Channing, the original Nirvana drummer? He left the band because he wanted to write more songs. Everyone said it was premature, that he should have stayed. And you know what? He missed the big time—he left right before they recorded
Smells Like Teen Spirit
.”

“Wasn't he like the third drummer?” Zack asked. “And he did play on ‘Polly' uncredited.”

“Whatever. My point is that's what you guys could be doing if you leave Mixed Metaphors now. We have the prom lined up. If it goes badly, fine, you never have to play with me again. But if we start working now, we can put together something great. Do you really want to give up before you even try? I mean, you never know, right?”

I had to wait for a moment or two, but finally, they all looked at each other and gave a reluctant nod. I deserved another chance.

“All right, dude,” Zack said, shrugging. Since I'd found out he was hooking up with Alison Stadtler, I'd started to question his motives for breaking up Mixed Metaphors to begin with. Had he been after her this whole time? “If it means that much to you.”

Like he was doing me a favor. Add that to my growing list of humiliations.

They'd agreed to do covers, so long as no boy bands were involved and so long as we could do them in our signature style. I'd even found us a new space to practice, in the Beany Baby's upstairs room, where they roasted the coffee beans. The owner said he was cool with it so long as my mom made sure we didn't mess with his equipment, and the big sacks of coffee actually muffled the sound from the rest of the coffee-goers. For the past eight days we'd been practicing daily, until we had a setlist we all felt good about.

I was proud of what we'd been able to accomplish, really proud. And now we were finally here. Well, Zack wasn't here yet, but I figured he was just running late as usual—and maybe he would show up in a plaid tuxedo.

Anyway, I didn't have time to obsess about my wardrobe. We still had a lot of work to do. We'd convened at the Franklin Institute at 3 p.m. By now it was almost 5, and the catering crew had arranged all the tables with white cloths and place settings and flowers while members of the prom committee walked around, surveying the scene.

I'd seen Dakota in the rotunda earlier as she oversaw the balloon tank. She was barefoot and wearing some sort of silvery blue, very tight dress that made everything pop in all the right places. As much as I hated to admit it, I did a double-take. “We wanted a laser show, but this was all the budget allowed,” she said glumly. “Look at this room! These stupid balloons will barely make a dent.”

“It'll look good,” I said, trying to make her feel better. She tried so hard all the time. It had to be stressful. “The room looks nice all on its own.”

“Yeah. Maybe. How are things?” she asked, and I knew what she meant had absolutely nothing to do with prom preparations.

“So far so good,” I said. I hadn't gotten any dispatches from Alice or Benny, but no news was good news, right? I had confidence in Alice. She knew what she was doing. Still, I wasn't going to be able to relax until they texted me that the work was done. Add that to my stage fright—our first gig! In front of the entire school! And I was wearing a clown suit.
Awesome.

Now I paced the floor, taking stock of the situation. We had most of our gear unloaded, the amps for the guitars and bass plugged in, but we still had to mic the drums, tune up, and all set up and test the sound system. Chaddie was plucking his guitar. Max was thumping the bass drum:
one two, one two.
It was a huge, cavernous room, which was both cool and completely terrifying.

“You guys look like you're ready to rock,” Rankin said. He was carrying a round table, moving it from one end of the room to the other.

“Hopefully,” I said.

Prom started in an hour. I knew I would feel better once Zack was here. He could manage the mics better than I could. I was pretty sure he could manage everything better, actually, without even trying.

“Are you sure you want to have your kit so far back?” I asked Max. “Because where it is, no one can see our logo on your bass drum.”

“Everyone knows who we are,” Chaddie butted in. If the past couple of weeks had been our honeymoon reunion period, we were now back to the dysfunctional marriage. “That's the best position for acoustics.”

“I was asking Max.”

Max shrugged. “Chaddie told me to put it there.”

“Yeah, but it's a question of branding, of making ourselves known.” I realized I sounded just like Dakota. I guess listening to her order us around the last few weeks had rubbed off on me. “We want people to remember who we are.”

Max nodded, and for the first time I felt like he might be listening to me, and maybe even taking me seriously.

Then he reached into his pocket to get his ringing phone. As he listened, he nodded slowly with a look of resignation on his face. I heard him say “uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah, okay dude. If you think so . . .”

He turned to us. “Zack ate a bad pizzaco. He's been puking his guts out all day. Listen.” Max held up his phone to me, like I really wanted to listen to Zack bowing to the porcelain goddess.

“Jesus, no thanks,” I said, trying to absorb the information, my head spinning. “What the hell is a pizzaco?”

“A pizza and a taco, wrapped up together with an extra layer of cheese around it and deep fried,” Chaddie said, his face reddening with the stress. “It's got, like, one hundred grams of saturated fat.”

“They're really good,” Max whispered. “What are we going to do? He says he's sorry.”

Sorry was all fine and good, but sorry couldn't carry a tune. Sorry couldn't hold an audience's attention. And sorry was definitely not making me feel any better about our decision to reassemble the band.

“Give me the phone,” I said. “Now!!”

“Hey man,” Zack said in my ear, his voice husky. “This sucks. I'm on the floor over here.”

“No way you can get here? No way at all?” I had to try.

“Dude. I'm dying. But you know, it's probably for the best, right? Alison said—”

Screw what Alison said. “Yeah, all right,” I talked over him, feeling whatever energy I had drain away as my brain collapsed in on itself. “Stay hydrated.”

I hung up. I didn't even . . . I couldn't think. Of all the potential disaster scenarios I'd imagined, not having Zack here wasn't one of them.

When I came back to earth, Max and Chaddie were going back and forth.

“We have to cancel,” Chaddie was saying. “I mean, what can we do without our singer? None of us can really sing.”

“So what do you suggest?” Max asked.

“I'm not getting up there and embarrassing myself. I refuse. This is prom. I'm not going to ruin it.” Chaddie's eyes were wide with indignation, his voice, wavering, and as he talked, he seemed to get more and more undone. “Do you know what happened at prom four years ago when the band never showed? I do, because my sister was a junior. They canceled the whole thing.
The whole thing.
And you know what will happen to us if
we're
the reason they cancel prom? We'll be, like, the people who ruined HF. It'll be worse than Jason's dad. You guys can do whatever you want, but I'm not helping.”

“Jesus. Do you really have to bring my dad into this?” I was so sick of hearing about it. I was sick of all of his bad decisions hovering over me.

“Face it, Jason. The guy's an asshole. He bankrupted your family, left you holding the bag. And this is the same thing, morally speaking.”

Holy crap. Seriously? So Zack had told him.
Ass
hole.

“You can't compare my dad to us not playing prom! You just can't. I mean, blame my dad for whatever he did. It sucks. We all know it.” I was finally coming clean with these people—what did it matter anymore? “But can we just move on already?”

It occurred to me as I said it that
I
was the one who needed to move on. I needed to stop lying, to just accept it and go forward.
I'm Jason Hodges and my dad is a goddamned thief.

“What do you think, Jason?” Max asked, his tiny voice breaking through the bickering. “It's your call.”

Now they were both looking at me, waiting for my answer, because I was supposed to be the leader. I rubbed at my forehead. First Zack and his intestinal explosion, then Chaddie's emotional meltdown, and now realizing Zack had dimed me out, no pun intended. I couldn't deal with this.

I should've known. This prom gig was doomed from the beginning. There had been so many signs it wasn't going to work out, and I'd ignored them all. I had no more optimism, no more fake-it-till-you-make-it left.

“Let's break down,” I said quietly. Screw it. Screw all of them. I'd tell Alice I'd tried, but in the end I didn't have what it took to see this through. Dakota would be furious, but then, I'd dealt with her wrath before. “We can make a playlist or something. Plug in an iPod.”

I put my guitar away first, then unplugged my amp. It was a relief, actually. As I dropped the cable, it made a terrible shrieking sound, punctuating my sense of suckitude.

I went backstage to where I'd left my cases. Dakota was passing by just then, carrying her iPad like a clipboard. “What are you doing? Aren't you supposed to be setting up now? Why are you putting things away?”

I shook my head, and my voice was almost robotic. “Zack just called. He's sick. You have to find a replacement, I guess. Or we can make a playlist.”

“No,” she said. “No freaking way, Jason.”

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry we're ruining prom. Maybe try to get a DJ?”

“No, I mean, we're not calling anyone. You wanted to play, so here you are. You can't just give up, Jason. Plus, you and I need an alibi, badly. So you're playing! End of story.”

“I'm not going to fight about this.” I didn't want her to start with the usual lectures. “We can't play without a singer. It's just that simple.”

“Well, what if you got a new one?”

“Now? An hour before prom? I don't think so.”

“We could do it karaoke style—” she paused, and I gave her a look. She shook her head. “No, you're right, that's a terrible idea.”

“You wanted covers, anyway. Why not just play the music as everyone knows it? We'll make a really good playlist, I promise.”

She looked up at me with a funny little smile. “What if I did it?”

“You?” I asked, incredulous.

“Why not? You're playing covers, right? I know you don't think I'm cool enough to be in your band, but I can sing.”

I'd seen her in school plays and stuff, and she could definitely carry a tune, but singing with a band was different. “I don't know if it's our style, though. I mean, we have an aesthetic . . .”

“You know Jason, I still have all the music you ever gave me.”

“You do?” I was surprised.

“I listen to it all the time. Stone Roses, Blur, Ocean Colour Scene? Look, I know we're not BFFs. But, if I'm hard on you, it's because I know what you're capable of. You're so good at so many things, and I hate to see you give up so easily. Let me help you pull this off.”

Wow.
“What about the prom? Don't you want to hang out with Dylan or whatever?”

She shook her head. “He just called me from the limo, and he's already drunk. I hang out with him every day.”

“Your friends are going to be really freaked out.”

“I don't care. Benny and Alice are the ones who are really putting their asses on the line tonight while we're stuck here. I just want to
do
something. And I don't know . . . maybe it would be kind of fun?”

I cast a glance at our equipment and thought how depressing it would be to just pack up everything and walk away now, without even trying. Failure was getting boring. It was just so predictable.

I looked at Dakota's face, and I could see that she was totally and completely serious. Maybe we were actually friends now. This was what real friends did for each other.

“You're sure it would be okay?”

Dakota nodded. “Just give me the setlist so I can look it over.”

I rummaged through my backpack for the copy of the setlist I'd saved for Zack and handed it to her. “Nothing too stage-y, okay?”

She rolled her eyes. “I think I can handle it.”