"You going to be singing any of them for me?" Blue Girl had asked.
She wants me to sing for her...
Jack waved his red flashlight towards the stage from his perch at the soundboard in the back, letting them know they were at time. She looked at Steve and he nodded to her holding up a finger. One more song.
So, Blue Girl liked songs from Captain Marvel, huh? No reason not to give her one more thrill tonight.
She looked over at the rest of the band, waiting for a cue. Jo called out, "Celebrity Skin." It wasn't the greatest song for dancing, but playing it made her feel like a rock goddess. Suzanne nodded, resettled her bass around her shoulders and stepped up to her mic.
Jo killed the echo with her foot, spun the knob on her distortion pedal all the way up with the toe of her sneaker then spun the volume knob on her Telecaster to ten.
This is when I wished it went to eleven,
she thought, smiling at the old joke. The first chords of
Celebrity Skin
by Hole felt like a slap in the face from the amps; like she was assaulting the audience with sound.
Predictably, she saw Blue Girl yell,
"Yes!"
and start jumping up and down so hard her hair completely obscured her face, like an indigo version of Cousin It.
Layla, her guitar, was screaming the chords from the stage, like the old girl knew it was the last song of the night and she wanted to vent the last of her energy before she had to go back into her case. Jo had wanted to be a rock star before she became a pilot, and the guitars on this song were extremely her jam. Suzanne's voice wasn't the best for Courtney Love, but she was giving it her all.
"
You know, you could sing this song just fine if you weren't such a pussy,"
Little Voice told her.
Shut the fuck UP!
she snarled to herself and bent to the chords. Little Voice had been more annoying than usual lately.
They wound up the song and Steve thanked the crowd. Despite the cheering he called out, "Sorry folks, no encore tonight! We have to be set up at Cape May tomorrow morning. Hope see some of you on the beach tour!" He and Suzanne leaned down to exchange some high-fives with fans. It was already past eleven o'clock.
The courtyard lights came up as Jo pulled out Layla's case and gently laid her into the velvet cushions inside. "Thanks for another great night girlfriend," she whispered to her guitar. "You were amazing as usual." She picked up the lid to her pedal case and turned back to the front of the stage.
Steve's girlfriend Sara was coming up on stage, pulling Blue Girl by the hand. Blue looked a little like a startled deer in the stage lights. She'd said she played piano, but Jo was guessing she'd never performed much in public. She seemed shy just being on the stage in front of a crowd that was now far more interested in last call at the bar. The band quickly started breaking down their equipment, Jack jumping on stage to help. Steve was rolling up cables, while simultaneously showing Sara and Blue Girl the tricks of packing everything so they could help on the road.
When they finally pulled their cars up to Steve's house in Falls Church it was almost one o'clock in the morning. The women started getting showered and changed while the boys unhitched the trailer from Steve's truck and hooked it up to the tour bus.
Steve had befriended a country artist of moderate success who had chartered some helicopter flights from Collins Aviation. He took every July off to spend the month with his family on a houseboat, and was kind enough to loan Steve his tour bus for the beach tour, in exchange for a few free helicopter rides. It was what that made their summer tours as nice as they were.
By the time they had all the bags and a couple dozen boxes of Rotors t-shirts and hats loaded into the bus's cargo lockers underneath, it was almost two A.M. Steve locked up his house and they all piled onto the bus.
"This is amazing, it's almost bigger than my apartment!" Blue gushed. It must have been her first time on a tour bus. It was a pretty sweet ride, Jo had to admit.
There was a bedroom in the back with a queen-sized bed. Outside the bedroom, there was a tiny shower room on one side of the hall and a room with a toilet and sink on the other. Next, four twin-sized beds, stacked two-high on either side of the hallway, were built into the walls of the bus. Each bunk had sound baffling curtains, a small TV on the wall with a headphone jack, a reading light and even white noise generators. Up in the front half of the bus there was an area with a deep, plush couch on one side and a big flat screen TV. On the other side of the salon there was a small kitchen and dining booth with a table that seated four. Finally, two big, comfy captain's chairs for the driver and copilot.
"Who's taking first shift driving?" Steve asked.
Jack, who did most of the driving on past tours, said, "Man, I'm beat. I was up at six getting shit at work ready for me to be gone for two weeks. Can I get a pass tonight?"
"I'll drive," Jo said. "I got a nap this afternoon." She left unsaid that she was probably the only person on the bus who was used to operating vehicles on little or no sleep.
Larry and Steve played rock-paper-scissors to see who got first pick of the sleeping facilities. Larry wrapped Steve's rock with paper, which got an enthusiastic, "Yes!" and a fist pump from Suzanne. They said their goodnights and closed the door behind them as they claimed the bedroom. Jack went straight to the bunks, claiming the bottom one on the left and pulled the curtain. They could hear him snoring within minutes.
Steve and Sara stayed up for a while talking to Jill and Blue until they passed over the Potomac River and crossed into Maryland. Steve stood up and stretched. "Ok, sis, we're going to crash. Pull over and wake me up when you need to switch out."
"Night," Jo responded, her eyes never leaving the road. She reached over to the driver's control panel and turned off the lights in the lounge area, leaving the interior of the bus fully dark as Steve and Sara climbed into the lower bunk on the right. Jo wondered if they were really going to 'sleep' in the twin bunk but then figured they probably would. Everyone seemed wiped out.
Everyone except Blue, it seemed. As Jo watched her in the mirror, she got up from the couch, put her backpack into the bunk above Steve and Sara, and then came back up and sat in the passenger's captain chair. She dropped down the armrest and curled her legs up under her.
Jo glanced over and said, "Not sleepy?" Blue Girl had showered as well at Steve and Sara's house and changed into yoga pants and a teal long sleeved t-shirt that said 'Bitch Planet' in big purple letters on the front. She'd put her hair into a thick braid.
"No, I'm wired! I don't think I could sleep at all right now. I've never been on a trip like this, it's going to be so much fun." Jo made a wager with herself that Blue would be asleep before Baltimore. "How far is it to Cape May?" Blue asked as she kicked off her sneakers.
Jo looked down at the display in the console. The bus had Apple Car Play and she had connected her phone as soon as she had sat down behind the wheel. A screen to the right of the steering wheel was showing the Waze app.
"It says a little under four hours from here. We'll probably get in right about sun-up as long as the assholes out there can keep their cars in between the lines." She touched the screen to switch over to her Spotify app, touched a playlist labeled 'Calm, Cool and Collected', and then switched the screen back to Waze. Jazz guitar started playing over the speakers in the forward cabin.
Blue cocked an ear at the music for a minute. "This won't make you fall asleep at the wheel, will it?" she asked.
"Not a problem," Jo answered. "I'm normally a rock-and-roll girl. But when I'm task focused, I just need some background noise that doesn't intrude. This is Larry Carlton, possibly one of the greatest jazz guitarists currently alive. He's half rock-and-roll anyways, I could never drift off listening to him."
