Juliet overheard me, rolled her eyes. “Don’t be getting too big for your britches,” she scolded. “We’re not at Madison Square Garden yet.”
We were meant to go on at seven-thirty, right after the 4-H contest winners were announced, but there was a problem with one of the generators and it was fully dark by the time Olivia hopped up onto the makeshift stage, the end of summer coming. The platform was only about two feet off the ground, no barricades set up between her and the crowd, which was a few hundred people this time—a handful of kids who’d heard Olivia and my songs on the radio and come specifically for us, sure, but mostly folks who’d been hanging around the fair all afternoon and wanted to see what the fuss was all about. It occurred to me that there probably wasn’t a ton to do around here, other than this.
It was a weird, tense-feeling set, Olivia’s mic shrieking feedback out into the crowd at one point, plus a cluster of drunk college-age dudes off to one side who kept howling like wolves and yelling shit, catcalling all the way through her first couple of songs. They’d obviously been drinking and baking in the sun all day, their faces gone red and their eyes slightly glazed. “Yes, gentlemen,” Olivia said at one point, trying to make a joke of it, but I could tell by the expression on her face and the way she was sticking mostly to the other side of the stage that she didn’t think it was funny at all. “I see you over there.”
“You wanna see some more?” one of them called back, grabbing his crotch.
“What the—” I whipped my head around to look at Juliet. “Did you—?”
“She’s all right,” Juliet told me, laying a hand on my arm like she was worried I was going to charge out there and punch the guy in the face, which in fact was exactly what I wanted to do. “She’s handling it.”
I wasn’t so sure. When I glanced over, I was glad to see Guy on the other side of the stage—the bulk of him reassuring, like nothing truly bad could happen as long as he was here. Still, I watched the rest of Olivia’s performance uneasily, arms crossed and spoiling for a fight.
The set seemed to go on forever, though finally Olivia made it to her second-to-last song, an up-tempo number called “Rush” with a bunch of complicated turns and spins in the choreography.
I had just turned to get miked for my own set when one of the guys in the front row reached up and smacked Olivia squarely on her ass.
For a moment I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening; I felt the rush of pure white terror as clearly as if it had happened to me, this tidal wave of adrenaline like my whole body was on fire. Up onstage, Olivia froze. The guy was just grinning at her—pleased with himself, his face tomato-red and shiny. His buddies were laughing like he’d gotten to the punch line of a particularly funny joke.
That was when Olivia bolted off the stage.
I met her almost before she made it down the steps and behind the makeshift curtain—her backing track still clanging out into the audience, sounding tinny and artificial without her voice out in front of it. Guy was making his way across the stage with security by now; they grabbed the guys roughly, hustled them quickly away. Olivia was shaking. “Are you okay?” I asked, catching her face in both hands and forcing her to look at me, to focus over the noise of the confused, rowdy crowd. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she said, and her voice sounded like she was at the bottom of the ocean. I thought maybe she was in shock. “I’m okay.”
“Are you sure? I’m going to kill those guys, I can’t believe they actually—I’m going to go out there and find them and rip their spines out like a video game.” Then, again: “Are you sure?”
Olivia nodded slowly. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, I was just—I’m okay.”
“Olivia, sweetheart,” Juliet said, coming up behind me and placing her hand on Olivia’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry that just happened, that was terrible. Guy’s taking care of it now, all right? They’re gone.”
“Okay.” Olivia nodded again—compliant or just dazed, I couldn’t tell. “Thank you.”
“So what I need is for you to go back out there and finish your set, all right?”
Both of us whirled to stare at her. “Are you serious?” I asked. “After what just—you want her to go back out there?”
“It’s not up to me,” Juliet explained, looking sorry. “We’re contracted for a six-song set from each of you. Olivia’s only done five.”
“Who the hell cares?”
“The promoters care, Dana,” Juliet said, slightly testy now. “The same ones who have booked your last dozen performances, not to mention Tulsa’s entire tour.”
“I can’t,” Olivia said, sounding frantic. “Dana. Tell her I can’t.”
Tell them I can’t. I thought of the radio station performance a couple of weeks ago. I thought of her audition for Daisy Chain, and last spring’s talent show. Normally it was my job to convince Olivia that she had what it took to perform, that she could push past her fear and anxiety and stage fright and get the job done. But there was no way I was doing that today.
“She can’t,” I told Juliet flatly.
“Well, that’s not a call that she gets to make.”
“Well, she’s making it,” I countered. “End of discussion.”
Juliet stared at me for a moment, pissed and baffled. Neither of us had ever rebelled this openly before. “Fine, Dana,” she snapped eventually. “Have it your way. Go get miked, then; you’re up next.”
I barked out a laugh, I couldn’t help it. “There’s no way I’m going out there,” I said.
Juliet wasn’t amused. “Dana, I don’t know what you think you’re up to here today, but I’m not screwing around.”
“No,” I told her evenly. I was tired of this, tired of being bossed around and prodded. Tired of feeling like everyone else’s interests were more important than ours. “Olivia’s not going back out there, and neither am I.”
“What is this, a mutiny?” Juliet’s eyes narrowed, her gaze flicking back and forth between us. When neither one of us answered, she sighed. “All right, girls. That’s fine. Let’s see what happens when I bring Guy back here, how about.”
“Fuck her,” I muttered when Juliet was gone. “Guy can come and say it to my face if he wants.” Olivia was looking at the floor now, hugging herself a bit.
“I shouldn’t have been so close to the edge of the stage,” she said.
“What? Bullshit,” I told her. “You did everything right. That guy was an asshole. That guy was a criminal!” I said, loud enough that everybody around us looked over, and Olivia started laughing, and then as soon as that happened she burst into tears.
“Hey,” I said, wrapping her arms around me. “Hey hey hey, Liv, you’re okay. I gotcha. You’re with me,” I promised, holding on tight. “You’re safe.”