“Agreed.” Mrs. Chatham offered Rosie the can. She shook her head. “But you take what you get in this world. What else can you do?”
In reply, there was a burst of feedback from the stage, and we all winced. Rosie said, “Great. I already have a headache.”
“Now, now,” Mrs. Chatham said. “They’ve been working on some new stuff. It’s apparently very meta.”
I smiled at this, and she caught me and grinned back. I’d had a hunch before; now it was sealed. I was so, so glad I’d come.
Eric, now behind the microphone with his guitar, tapped it with a finger. “One, two, three,” he said, then played a few chords. Another guitar player, tall and skinny with an Adam’s apple you could see from a distance, climbed up on stage. “One, two.”
Layla rolled her eyes at me. “They already did sound check. I swear, he is such a diva.”
I looked back at Eric, who had turned to say something to Mac. “So you guys dated?”
“In my salad days, when I was green in judgment,” she replied. I looked at her. “That’s Shakespeare. Come on, Perkins Day, keep up!”
I felt myself blush. “Sorry.”
“I’m kidding.” She reached over, grabbed my arm, and shook it. “And yes. We dated. In my defense, I was a sophomore and stupid.”
Eric was back at the microphone, counting again. “He doesn’t seem that bad.”
“He’s not bad.” She reached up, pulling her hair back. “He’s just got a huge ego that, left unchecked, is a threat to society. So I try to do my part.”
“One, two,” Eric repeated, tapping the microphone. “One—”
“We hear you!” Layla yelled. “Just start.”
Mrs. Chatham hushed her, but it worked: after announcing themselves as “the new and improved renowned local band Hey Dude,” they began playing. I was no musical expert—and certainly did not have high standards—but I thought they sounded good. A bit loud, but we were sitting close. At first, I couldn’t make out what Eric was singing, although the melody was familiar. As soon as the chorus began, though, I realized I actually knew it by heart.
She’s a prom queen, with a gold crown,
and I’m watching as she passes by . . .
I leaned over to Layla. “Is this—”
“Logan Oxford,” she finished for me. “Remember him? In sixth grade, I had his poster on my wall!”
I’d had a notebook with his picture on the cover. As well as every song he ever recorded, a copy of his documentary/concert movie This One’s for You, and, although I was hugely embarrassed to admit it now, the kind of crush that made me imagine scenarios where we were married. Oh, the shame. And now it was all flooding back in this big, sticky club. I wished Jenn had come. She was even more nuts for him than I was.
“I don’t get it,” Rosie yelled across to us. “They’re playing retro top forty now?”
“I believe,” Mrs. Chatham said, picking up her Pepsi, “that it is supposed to be an ironic take on the universality of the early teen experience. But I might have that wrong. I will admit to tuning out at some point.”
“I loved Logan Oxford,” Layla sighed, eating another cheese puff. “Remember his hair? And that dimple, when he smiled?”
I did. Rosie said, “Didn’t he just get busted for drugs?”
“Look who’s talking.”
I felt myself blink. But Rosie, hardly bothered, just shot her the finger.
“Ladies,” Mrs. Chatham said. “Let’s be ladies, please.”
To say I was taken aback was a huge understatement. Who were these people?
Hey Dude was wrapping up “Prom Queen” now and, after a bit of a bumpy transition, launched into “You+Me+Tonight.” My inner thirteen-year-old was swooning as I looked over at Layla, who was singing along. She said, “Remember this video? Where he was in that convertible, driving through the desert all alone?”
“And the lights appear far in the distance, and then suddenly he’s on that busy street?” I added.
“Yes!”
“I wanted a car just like that for years,” I said.
She sighed, propping her chin in her hands. “I still do.”
The music just kept going, bringing every one of my awkward early teen memories with them. After another Logan Oxford song, they played one by STAR7 (“Baby, take me back, I’ll do better now, I swear”) and then a medley by Brotown, one of which I distinctly remembered slow dancing to for the first time. There were a few shrieks of feedback, and Eric kept getting too close to the microphone and muffling his own voice, but by the time they were done, a decent crowd had gathered at the base of the stage, most of them girls. When two brunettes ran past our table, singing along loudly and giggling, Layla narrowed her eyes.
“Uh-oh,” she said. “Eric might have groupies. Can you even imagine?”
“No,” Rosie said flatly.
He could, though. It was clear in the way he brightened, leaning into the microphone too close again before winding up the final chords with a flourish. The applause was actually loud, with a fair amount of whoops and whistles, and Mrs. Chatham looked around, smiling.