“What’s up?” I yelled over the music. “Why aren’t you dancing?”
“Nothing wrong,” she said in that girl way meaning there’s definitely something very wrong indeed.
“Tell me.”
“I just hate dancing. I’m too tall. Everyone’s looking at me.”
I looked around at the room full of people not looking at Amber. “No they’re not.”
“Yes they are.”
“Back in Black” finished and the band lurched into another rock-a-cheesetastic cover of “Walk This Way”. Everyone screamed and cheered.
“Come on,” I yelled at her. “It’s Aerosmith. Lottie is attempting to moonwalk.” Lottie cleared a space on the dance floor and was wiggling backwards while Jane took pictures on her phone.
Amber gave a strained smile. “I’m fine. I’ll go get us some more drinks.”
I tried to feel bad for her but the band was too good – the music too infectious. I shuffled over to Lottie and started a weird hip-hop move that had everything to do with alcohol and nothing to do with dancing ability.
“Woooo, go, Evie,” Jane yelled, and I pulled her in and we wiggled around each other – jumping up and down. I was having so much fun I didn’t really log I’d now touched two people’s hands.
“I love cover bands,” Lottie said, her matted hair swish-swishing. “It’s so much better listening to music you know.”
“Yeah, but a cover band can’t win, can they?” Jane said, leaning in close so we could hear her. “That’s not fair. Joel’s band writes all their own songs.”
“I’m sorry, Jane,” Lottie said smiling. “But ‘Die Bitch Die’ ain’t a dancey number.”
Even Jane laughed. Until Amber stormed back, looking even more miserable.”Your mate wouldn’t serve me,” she said to Lottie, her face as red as her hair again.
“Fret not, I will mend this,” Lottie said, and she sauntered over to the bar, doing her own hop skip. The three of us watched her dazzle Teddy into submission. He kept laughing at her and pushing his dirty blond hair off his face. Then Lottie crawled over the countertop and dropped to his side of the bar, helping herself to drinks. He just laughed harder and helped her pour. She planted a dizzying kiss on his lips before leaping back over the counter, clutching four plastic cups between her fingers.
“Voilà,” she announced, handing us each a cup of ill-gotten gains.
“I think Teddy may be a bit in love with you,” I said, taking my drink and downing most of it. We all looked over and saw him staring longingly at Lottie, ignoring the queue of thirsty people around him.
Lottie gave a smug side smile. “Well, he’s not bad, is he?”
“You over Tim yet?” I asked.
She stuck her tongue out. “Who?”
“That’s my girl.”
“Let’s dance.”
Ethan’s band launched into their third and final cover – Bon Jovi, “Living on a Prayer”. Everyone erupted, even reluctant Amber. I downed my drink, tossed the plastic cup over my head with abandon and did the most energetic hair flicking the world has ever known. I love love LOVED this song. It was all about making the most of what you have, and hanging on, even when the odds aren’t in your favour.
“Take my hand,” the lead singer sang, and Lottie and Amber and I, and even Jane, put our hands into the middle of our makeshift circle and clutched at each other before releasing our fingers into the air.
“WOAH-OOOH,” we screamed over the music.
You’re going to make it, Evie, I thought and I lost myself in the crazy guitar solo. Vodka and wine and cheesy rock pulsed through me and I twirled and jumped and grinned at my friends.
“OOOON A PRAYER,” I screamed at everyone, euphoria ripping through me like tearing sheets of tissue paper.
Then I was hugged from behind and it all went dark. He whispered into my ear, so close I could hear him over the band.
“Guess who?”
I lifted his hands down and turned to face him. “Hi, Guy,” I beamed. I was so glad to see him. I was so glad to see anybody.
“You look happy, gorgeous,” he yelled at me, giving me a full body scan that would’ve been leery if he wasn’t young and good-looking.
Gorgeous? He called me gorgeous?
“Dance with me,” I yelled back, grabbing his hand and twirling myself under his arm. But he stayed stiff and upright, giving me a weirdo look.
“I’m not dancing to Bon Jovi. Don’t tell me you’re enjoying this crap?”
I was, I really really was. But then I wasn’t.
“Everyone else is,” I said, gesturing to the girls behind me who were holding hands and spinning in circles, and all the people behind them who seemed just as dedicated to screaming along to every word as I was.
Guy did his best sneer. “I can’t believe they let an actual cover band into the competition.”
“It’s not really a competition, it’s a charity gig at college.” I realized instantly that that was the wrong thing to say. Guy’s sneer got sneerier, his nostrils all pinched.
“Well in that case, I don’t need you to wish me luck then, do I?” He turned and dissolved into the crowd.
My euphoria drained out of me, like a plug being pulled in the bath, and I sagged on the dance floor. Amber’s arm was around me first. “So, what did Mr Bell-end want?”
“Umm…nothing.”
Lottie’s arm draped on my other side. “Wow, Evie, it’s like you’ve had an instant mood transplant.”
Amber evilled the bit of the crowd Guy had disappeared into. “Guy is a professional mood transplanter. He should be a surgeon in mindfuckery.”
I shrugged. “It’s fine. He just doesn’t like Bon Jovi.”
“Which further proves his idiocy,” Lottie said. “Come on, love, there’s only a chorus left.”
They enveloped me into a hug and screamed the lyrics so loudly into my eardrums that I thought they would burst. I giggled and sang along and pulled Jane in with us but my heart felt like one of those balloons you buy at theme parks that sags halfway to the carpet in the drab interior of your house the next day.
The band was encored, despite it being against the rules. They pulled out “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers and there was no roof left to raise by the end of it. When they finished, the whole of college exploded into applause and wolf-whistles. The band bowed. Ethan rose up from behind his drum kit, smothered in sweat. Through the crowd he somehow found my face and, though we hadn’t talked in ages, he winked at me again.
Surprised, I waved back.
The lights came up and some dull background music came on whilst Ethan’s band dismantled their equipment and Guy and Joel’s band started assembling. The crowd recovered, blinking in the bright lights, and began swamping Teddy at the bar.
Jane flung her arms around me, her body all sweaty. “They’re on next, Evie, I’m so nervous for him.”
I looked over her shoulder at the stage. Joel didn’t look nervous, just bored by everything, which was standard. Guy wasn’t looking at me. At any of us. His lip was all pouted out like a toddler who didn’t get the Christmas present he wanted.
Sensible thought
Why do you fancy him, Evie?
But the vodka pushed it away. The vodka, or lust, or love, or his carrot dangly penis or whatever.
A sudden urge twinged in my stomach and I pushed Jane away, aware of all the things I suddenly needed to do.
“I need to go to the loo again,” I told the others.
“Oh, cool,” Amber said, “I need it too.”