Samantha Smart (17 page)

They quickly spotted Jason outside, who greeted them and asked if Samantha had remembered to bring the tickets, which fortunately she had. Since it was early yet, the group decided to implement the dinner part of their plan and they set off down Third Avenue, Jason in the lead. The nearest Ray’s was down on Saint Mark’s Place, a chilly walk of eight blocks or so. There were closer pizza places, but Jason was dead set on Ray’s, and so the company made the trek, Brianna doing her best not to look totally inconvenienced.
Ray’s is okay,
Samantha thought to herself, but there were better places, and both she and Brianna knew that any ‘Ray’s Famous’ carried the New York stigma of a tourist trap. She wondered briefly if Jason had grown up in New Jersey, then shrugged and kept on walking; she was enjoying the stroll anyway, it relaxed her nerves.

Ray’s was, appropriately, filled with jock-ish guys in baseball hats swilling pitchers of beer and stuffing their faces with ridiculously huge amounts of pizza. Brianna looked positively mortified; her daily meals came from restaurants that sparkled with crystal chandeliers and where one person’s dinner would probably cost as much as twenty pizzas from Ray’s. Still, she did her best to smile and certainly wasn’t particularly averse to pizza by any means.

The wait was only about fifteen minutes, and soon they were seated at a comfortable corner table far enough away from the college-boy ogres that even Brianna felt she could enjoy herself. Jason ordered a pitcher of beer for himself and wine for Samantha’s mom, plus two diet sodas for the girls. Together they pored over the menu and decided on two large pizzas, one with pepperoni and the other with onions and green peppers. Their waitress was a pretty girl of about twenty-two, and it was obvious that she was happy to wait on them, probably seeing them as a nice, civilized break from the restaurant’s standard Saturday night customers.

After they had ordered, Jason, two beers in already, began to get talkative and, unfortunately, reminiscent of his youth.

“I remember coming here in college!” he chuckled, looking for all the world like he’d rather be yukking it up with one of the tables of college boys. “We used to just
gorge
ourselves on pizza and down
pitchers
of cold beer. Those were the days, I tell ya.
N.Y.U.!
” he yelled, lifting his mug towards the crowd of young louts two tables away. One of them seemed to raise his mug in response, though the girls were embarrassed and even Cindy looked a little perturbed.

“Is he going to be like this all night, Mom?” Samantha whispered in her ear.

“Um... hopefully not,” her mother responded in her own whisper-voice, uneasily eyeing Jason’s quickly-disappearing pitcher of beer. “We’ll try to eat fast.”

The pizza was fairly quick in arriving, thankfully, and the gang dug in, devouring the sinfully delicious slices of what was essentially salt and grease.
But mmmm... sooooo gooood
. Even Brianna put aside her usual manners and hungrily scarfed up the dinner, though she notably stuck to the more vegetarian of the two pies–pepperoni pretty much guaranteed some form of indigestion or gas, and she was a person who would probably rather die than release any gas in a public place. Still, she smiled and shrugged, grease dripping down her round but prominent debutante’s chin.

Luckily, or by some small grace of the gods of reputations, they didn’t have too much time to linger at Ray’s Famous, and so try though he might, Jason remained mostly sober and was shot down by Samantha’s mother when he tried to order another pitcher of beer.

“Really, we should get going,” Cindy smiled, her voice dripping with honey. “The girls are really excited for this show, Jason. I’d hate for them to have to miss a minute of it, you know?” Jason nodded and tried to maturely dab the grease and beer foam from his frowning lips.

“Of course, Honey,” he said. “Check, please!” He raised his finger, trying to get the waitress’s attention.

The bill was settled and the waitress was left a generous tip, and the group got up and walked back out of the restaurant. They strolled back up Third Avenue, more slowly than they had come down it as everyone was full of pizza and somewhat warmer for having been in a place that was warmed both by high-temperature ovens and the bodies of some hundred or so people. Fourteenth Street was bustling when they reached its wide thoroughfare, and when they turned onto Irving Place they could see a fairly large line forming in front of the club. Many of those in line were girls about Brianna and Samantha’s age, giggling nervously and chatting non-stop to each other, probably about Jordan or one of the other cute boys in the group. Samantha watched them with a hint of sadness, of regret–they had an innocence that she could not now regain. She exchanged a kind of knowing glance with Brianna as they slowly shuffled closer to the entrance.

It took a full fifteen or twenty minutes for them to reach the ticket-taking entrance, but they were all pretty happy for the chance to digest their dinner. Upon reaching the ticket-taker, Samantha brought out the tickets and handed them out to everyone. Brianna inquired as to her backstage pass and eventually received it after a good bit of list-checking and I.D. showing. Her pass was neat looking; it was purple and glittery like the sparkles on Dorothy’s ruby slippers in
The Wizard Of Oz.
It also indicated something as to her status as a minor, i.e. that no one should give her beer or wine or anything.
Oh well,
Samantha giggled inwardly,
probably a good thing.
Brianna had some very important work to do.

The group walked through the doors and up some stairs. To Cindy’s dismay, Jason had quickly spotted a beer vending counter and had agreed to catch up with them at their designated seats. Samantha’s heart began to beat fast, strangely, she noted, more because she had never actually seen Heatwavvve
live before than for the fact that she knew Jordan was a time-traveling villain who wanted half the known world to be covered with water. She wondered to herself if she could still enjoy the music now that she knew so much about Jordan–she hadn’t, she realized, even once put on a Heatwavvve
CD since she’d returned from the alternate timeline. She wondered, in fact (and echoing a statement that Jordan himself had made upon first meeting her) if she had outgrown
it. The charm and style of a boy-band seemed rather pale and insignificant now that she had traveled through and even helped to alter time; it was like trying to be excited about performing in a local talent show after you’d just signed a major movie deal. Or something like that. (Anticlimactic was the word that popped into her head), and this reflected her general feeling about life even, lately; to have had the most exciting time of her life at eleven and three quarter years of age left her wondering if anything in her teens, twenties or thirties would ever compare to the experiences she was having now.
Ugh,
she thought, feeling her mind wandering.
I’m starting to feel like a washed-up child star whose T.V. show’s just been canceled.

They reached their seats, which were lower level and fairly close to the stage (thank you, Jason) and sat down, taking in the large crowd of people as it moved and flowed like some giant underground anthill. They had checked their coats at a coat room, which gave them more room to stretch out comfortably in their seats. Brianna looked a little twitchy as crowds typically made her a bit nervous, though she was smiling and craning her neck, trying to see down onto the stage, where a few technician people or stage hands were arranging the last-minute details of necessary props or sound system thingies.

It wasn’t long before the house lights dimmed, leaving the stage illuminated in rich hues of green and blue. Even these lights then dimmed to nothing, though, and the ambient murmur of crowd noise hushed as every single light in the place went out, leaving them all in total blackness. For a moment, it was absolutely terrifying for Samantha. She imagined Jordan as some grayish vampire creature, swirling in a mist out from the stage and solidifying his vaporous form just long enough to sink his fangs into her neck. She flinched, feeling a chill run down her spine. Then she almost bit through her tongue...

The darkness exploded suddenly. All of the lights turned on at once, blinding the audience. At the same time the music began, booming through the massive sound system–combined with the blinding flash of pure white light, it hit the crowd like a ten megaton bomb. There they were, Heatwavvve,
dancing in all silver outfits and singing into their wireless headset microphones–the song was “You Love the Bad Boy,” one of their more aggressive and dance-friendly numbers, and the crowd began to move like one huge, rhythmic organism. Samantha smiled in spite of herself and looked at Brianna, who smiled back. How many times had they danced to this song in their underwear, singing passionately into hairbrushes and trying to copy the boys’ moves from the video? As much as things had changed, they couldn’t erase all those times from their memories.

Somewhere in the middle of the third or fourth song Jason came stumbling down to their seats, carrying an armful of goodies. He handed the girls a soda each, a small drink of some sort to Cindy and kept what looked like a monstrous sixty-four ounce beer for himself. He had also purchased a large bag of chips and some licorice twists, both of which the girls tore into with a voracious appetite, despite their having just chowed a healthy amount of pizza less than an hour earlier. Cindy was a little surprised, but Samantha shrugged and looked at her as if to say ‘Hey, I’m young. I have a fast metabolism.’ Even though their minds were starting to absorb the feminine propaganda that they should fear sugar, fat and starch, their bodies were still mostly those of children and therefore still contained that extra pocket of stomach which could always hold more sweet things.

In the middle of the sixth number (“Only For You, Babe,” a slow, sappy love song), their wrist-communicators went off. Thankfully the adults hadn’t noticed, and they excused themselves to go to the bathroom.

“Oh, wait,” Cindy began to say, “I’ll go with–”

But the girls had anticipated this and were up the aisle and into part of a lobby before Cindy could even completely rise from her seat. They turned a few corners and then found a stairway that appeared to be not much in use at the moment and Samantha answered the transmission.

“Professor?” she spoke hopefully into the little microphone. “We’re here–go ahead.” She tapped the talk button off.

“Samantha,” said a voice that came back through both of their communicators. “Brianna?”

“Right here, Professor,” Brianna tried to get the hang of the device, learning to tap on and off.

“Good. Listen, now–you need to get backstage and place our device. Do you know where to go?”

“We can find it,” Samantha assured him.

“All right,” Professor Smythe continued. “But you need to get back to your seat after you help her find the stage door, Samantha. Are we clear?” His tone was very firm and serious.

“Clear,” both girls said in unison. Brianna reached into her purse and pulled out the little spy device, turning it over in her fingers. “All right,” she sighed nervously, putting it back. “Let’s go find this place.”

Locating the backstage area was fairly easy as many staff were willing to help direct them once Brianna flashed her sparkly pass. At the door, the uptown girl turned around and hugged her friend, shaking a little.

“Good luck,” Samantha said, hugging her back. “Be careful.”

“I will,” Brianna replied, somewhat dramatically.

“If there’s any trouble,” Samantha pleaded, “you know how to contact us.” She pointed to the wrist-communicators and Brianna swallowed and nodded. Then she was gone–inside the door.

The man at the door was large and initially tried to keep Brianna out, but then noticed her backstage pass and let her through, though with a conditional approval.

“I catch you drinking and you’re outta here, little girl,” he said. “And you ain’t gettin’ back in. Got it?”

“I won’t,” Brianna promised. She flashed him her patented princess smile and started mingling with the stylists, stage hands and others who were lucky or well-connected enough to have acquired a pass like hers.

The backstage area had an air of general chaos; each member of Heatwavvve
had at least three stylists: one for clothes, one for hair and one for make-up. These bustled around like hens, touching up the outfits for the second set, trying out hand lotions on themselves or consulting fashion magazines for the latest tips on hair fixatives or selections of theatrical jewelry or colored contact lenses. There were also sound technicians, stage hands pre-programming fog machines, reporters sipping drinks and hobnobbing with agents and managers, photographers, caterers and a bartender at the far end of the large room who wore a red blazer and was flirting with some girls a few years older than Brianna. She smiled inwardly.
This is going to be easy,
she thought to herself.

It wasn’t hard to locate Jordan’s section of the backstage world–it was the biggest and most decorated of the dressing stalls, and came with at least one extra stylist. Brianna edged toward the area and started to form a plan in her head.

“Hey!” she said excitedly to one of the stylists, a tall black woman - or perhaps a man made up to look like a woman. “Is this where Jordan Anderson sits?” She tried to play up the part of an infatuated twelve-year-old girl.

“That’s right, Honey,” the stylist replied, now obviously a cross-dressing man. “And it’s Rita’s
job to make sure he looks his best!”

“Wow.” Brianna nodded, smiling and still playing the excited little girl. Her eyes scanned the area until they stopped on a nondescript-looking gray rectangle on one of the counter tops surrounding the large centerpiece mirror. “So, like, does Jordan wear, like,
make-up
and stuff?” she patronized the stylist.

“Oh, Honey, they
all
do. Just because they’re boys doesn’t mean they don’t need a little cover-up, or a slight hint of eyeliner for emphasis!” The drag queen was gesturing as he/she spoke, making Brianna honestly giggle. Another stolen look at the counter top confirmed that the suspicious gray rectangle did indeed have a cord coming out of the back of it - it had to be Jordan’s laptop computer.