There’s a side door on the way down to the loading dock and a roll-up door at the end of it.
Both are locked.
So I head over to the panel truck.
“Wait!” Heather croaks out. “Where are you going?”
“To see how long that truck’s been here.”
“How are you going to tell that? And what’s it matter?”
“If the hood’s hot, it may have just gotten here. If it’s cold, that means it’s been a while and there’s probably no one coming back out here.”
“Why don’t we just knock?”
“On the door?”
“Yeah! We’ll make up some story, or—”
“They’ll think we’re groupies!”
“Of Darren Cole? He’s way too old for us!”
“Groupies don’t care!” I touch the hood of the truck, then head over to the cars to check them. “Or maybe the guitar player’s young and cute or something.”
“He’s the guitar player.”
“Okay, fine. The keyboard player, then.”
“Nobody knows who the keyboard player is!”
“Well, maybe you don’t, but a real groupie might.”
“No. Nobody ever knows who the keyboard player is.”
“They’re cold,” I say, changing the subject.
“For not knowing who the keyboard player is?”
“No! The hoods are all cold.”
“Oh. I thought you were talking about groupies.”
“I don’t want to talk about groupies anymore, okay?” I look around, feeling like we’ve hit a total dead end. I mean, we could knock on one of the doors, and I could try showing the pictures of my mother to whoever answered, but how in the world would anyone be able to pick her out of a huge crowd of people coming in to see the concert?
And that’s when something finally hits me.
And makes me feel like a complete moron.
My mother hadn’t been in the crowd outside the House of Blues waiting for the concert to start. It had never even crossed my mind to look for her in the line, because I was sure she was already inside.
But why was she allowed inside if everyone else was blocked off or kicked out?
And the guy in the fringed jacket had walked in like he owned the place, so maybe he did.
Or had something to do with managing it.
Or maybe he managed the band.
Or was the publicist or an agent or a label guy … or whatever band people had in their, you know, entourage.
Or wait. Maybe he was in the band.
Maybe he was the keyboard player!
Vaguely I hear, “What is going on in your head?” and when I snap out of it, there’s Heather, studying me like she’s looking through a microscope.
So I tell her, “Your dad said—no, he implied—that my mom was going to see the Darren Cole concert tonight. And Elvis said he saw her go inside the House of Blues with the Fringed-Jacket Guy, and since the Fringed-Jacket Guy went right by the velvet rope without getting tossed on his ear—”
“Or rear.”
“—that means my mother must have already been somewhere inside the concert hall.”
“That’s what you’ve been thinking? We knew that already!”
“But what that means is that the guy in the fringed jacket either works at the House of Blues or—”
“Is in the band!” She gasps and then covers her mouth. “Oh my God! Your mother’s a groupie!”
“My mother’s a …? No! My mother’s the opposite of a groupie. She is uptight and hates noise and blood and mice and has to be, you know, perfect.”
“Who says groupies like noise and blood and mice?”
“You know what I mean! The point is, I could see her with some big-shot manager or agent or producer or something. Maybe it’s some Hollywood hotshot who wants to put her in a movie. Or a video! He probably got them VIP seating and got let in early.”
She looks at me like I’ve got beans for brains. “So she takes a trip to Las Vegas with my dad, happens to meet up with some bigwig producer, and dumps my dad on Valentine’s Day to get a part in a movie?”
It does sound ridiculous, but the sad thing is, I could see my mother doing just that. “Why else would all this happen? She really liked your dad—she’s not going to dump him to be some groupie.”
Just then headlights turn into the loading bay and start coming toward us. Without a word, we both dive for cover behind the truck and hold our breath while the headlights get closer and closer … and then go off.
We hear a door slam and then the sound of another door sliding open, and when we finally peek out, we see a man in a turquoise shirt walking away from a van that says CONNIE’S CATERING in fancy turquoise lettering. He’s carrying two big deli trays and heading straight for the back door of the House of Blues.
“It looks like he’s working alone,” Heather whispers.
“And I think he left the van’s slider open,” I whisper back, because I hadn’t heard it close.
“Which means he’s making more than one trip?”
I nod. “That’s what I’m thinking.”
We watch as he beats on the regular door, and when no one answers, he goes to the roll-up door and beats on that. It makes a lot more noise than banging on the regular door did, and after he does it twice, someone inside rolls the door up.
The music goes from thumping to loud, and the combination of an open door and a rock concert must have overloaded Heather’s logic circuits, because she starts to make a break for it.
I yank her back. “No! You’ll get busted!”
“So what are we going to do? Sit here and watch the door close?”
It turns out that’s exactly what we do. Only before it closes, a big guy in a red SECURITY T-shirt steps out from inside and looks all around like he’s making sure nobody’s out in the loading dock planning to infiltrate the House of Blues.
“So now what?” Heather says after the door’s rolled down.
I tap her arm as I move out. “Come on.”
“Now?”
“Shh! Just follow me.”
So I lead her around to the van’s open door, and what do we see inside?
A whole bunch of deli trays and bakery boxes and baskets of fruit.
I also see some turquoise polo shirts on hangers, dangling from a hook on the side of the van.
“We’re wide-open here!” Heather whispers. “What are we doing?”
So I grab two of the shirts and we zip back around to the far side of the van. “Here,” I tell her. “Put this on over your clothes.”
She doesn’t say, That’ll look dorky! or anything like it. She just puts it on.
And yeah, she looks dorky.
But then, so do I.
Anyway, I peek up through the van’s side window, where we’ve got a clear view of the building. And we don’t have to wait long before the regular door starts to open.
Heather grabs my arm. “There he is!” And as we’re watching him stoop over to wedge some paperwork down by the threshold so the door won’t latch, she suddenly looks at me and says, “Is this what it’s like to be Marissa?”
“Huh?”
She shakes her head a little. “Never mind.”
But it does sink in, so I tell her, “Actually, yes. I’m always dragging her into something.” I eye her. “Not so much dragging going on with you. I’m more having to hold you back.”
“Yeah, well, you were right—this is definitely a better plan.”
If we had been doing something less, you know, adrenaline-intensive, I would probably have fainted. But seeing how we were about to dive into some security-infested waters, I didn’t actually pass out from shock. I just let her words kind of ring in my ears.
Anyway, the catering guy is heading back for another load now, so we duck down, and when we’re sure he’s walking off with the second load, Heather whispers, “We’re grabbing a tray, right? And going in?”
“That’s the plan. We’ve just got to time it right.”
“We want him to be in long enough to be far enough away—like in the greenroom, right? But not so long that he’s on his way out when we’re coming in with his trays?”
“Bingo.”
The catering guy goes back through the regular door, and even though it looks like it closes, I can tell the door’s not latched.
“So … when?” Heather whispers.
“Not yet.”
Ten seconds go by.
“Now?”
“Not yet.”
“Now?”
“No.”
“So … when?”
“Going by his last trip, I’d say”—I give her a grin—“now.”
So we zip around the van, grab a deli tray each, and beeline for the door the catering guy went through. Sure enough, it’s not latched.
Since the roll-up door is to the right, I whisper, “Once we’re in, I’m planning to go to the left and walk like I know where I’m going.”
She nods. “Let’s do it.”
Opening the door and stepping in is like entering a dark cave with a searchlight behind us. I can see a tall slice of light to our left, but where we are is dark except for the light coming in from outside.
“Quick, close it!” I tell Heather.
She does, and as we hurry to the left like we’d planned, she nods at the tall slice of light. “That’s the stage!” she calls over the music.
And yeah, there’s no doubt about it—we are backstage at a rock show.
There’s also no doubt that we’ve been spotted by security. “Gorilla at two o’clock,” I tell Heather.
“Two o’clock?” But then she sees him. And where he’d just been watching us before, now he’s coming at us.
“What do we do?” Heather says in my ear, and I can tell she is freaking out.
“We stay cool!” I tell her back, and instead of trying to ditch it through the dark somewhere, I move toward him.
“Third door down!” he shouts over the music.
“Thanks!” I shout back, and even though my heart is beating louder than the drums onstage, I head off in the direction he’s pointing like everything’s cool.
When we’re in the clear, I sneak a grin at Heather, and she sneaks one back.
We have infiltrated the House of Blues!