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Forty-five minutes later, after we’d each eaten a slice of Loren’s excellent pie, Brantley stepped halfway into the room and motioned for us to follow him.
“Now is the time for your sound check. I want you to make sure that everything is perfect for your performance. Mr. Harris is very particular and won’t stand for any problems during the concert.”
“Okay,” I said. What I didn’t say was that there were problems all the time during performances. There were a few dozen things that could go wrong during a show. A guitar string might break, a light bulb in the lighting rig may pop, an amplifier could decide to whine and emit some feedback. Once I forgot to plug in the laptop, and I ran out of battery right in the middle of a Reba McEntire medley. The most likely thing to happen would be that Bozeman would drop several guitar picks over the course of the night. I asked him once why he dropped so many during a show, and he said he played with them until they didn’t feel right anymore. The odd thing is, he’ll pick them up from the floor after the concert and use them for the next gig, almost as if the act of falling to the floor returns the original mojo to them.
Brantley escorted us to the ballroom. The servers, now in dark green cummerbunds that matched Brantley’s tights, were busy clearing the table. On the far side of the room, two women in tuxedos were setting up a portable bar.
“You have a half an hour to get ready. All the guests are in the drawing room,” Brantley said, bored with us. He gave us a dismissing wave, then let us be.
“Drawing room? I don’t even know what that is,” Bozeman said as he stepped onto the riser and started turning on the sound equipment.
“It’s something we don’t have room for on the bus,” I said as I took my place behind the microphone.
I picked up my guitar, gave it a couple of strums to check the tuning, then started playing the first song that jumped into my head, which happened to be an old Willie Nelson classic. As I worked my way through Angels Flying to Close to the Ground, Bozeman left the stage and walked to different spots in the room to check on the acoustics. Twice he came back and adjusted the soundboard, then he settled into a chair along the farthest wall from us next to a row of floor to ceiling windows.
When I finished, I received a smattering of applause, and looked over and learned it was the bartenders giving me love.
“Thank you,” I said. I waved to them and removed my guitar from my shoulder.
“Laurel, play something for us,” Bozeman called out without moving from his chair.
Laurel stepped forward, and after a quick mic check, launched into a short classical piece on her fiddle. It wasn’t anything that would fit into our normal set, but I have to admit, I loved to listen to her play anything. She was so talented; I felt lucky to have her as a part of the band. When she finished, she got more of an ovation from the bartenders than I had gotten, and I joined in as well.
“Do a mic check on mine,” Bozeman requested.
I picked up Bozeman’s guitar and from his setup started the song I’d just finished, but I only made it through half of the song before Bozeman stood and waved me off.
When I returned Bozeman’s guitar to the stand, and I turned back around, a large sonic boom rocked the room. I looked over at Bozeman, but he was staring out of the window. Laurel and I crossed the room and joined him.
The large windows faced west, and beyond a hundred yards of well-manicured lawn, the property ended at the cliff side. Out in the Pacific, there were large black clouds forming, blotting out the setting sun. Although dark was falling, I noted the raging whitecaps on the waves.
“Storm moving in,” Bozeman said.
Just as the words left his mouth, a bolt of lightning appeared over the ocean and a few seconds later, another peal of thunder rumbled through the house.
“I guess so,” Laurel said.
I saw Brantley walk toward us in the window’s reflection, and he stopped by my side and looked out the window just as another flash lit up the sky.
“Are you ready to go?” Brantley asked.
“Yep. We’re all set,” I answered. “Are we going to be okay here? Seems like a terrible storm coming.”
Brantley smiled to assure me. “We’ll all be fine. They built this house like a fortress, and if we lost power, the emergency generator would kick on so fast you wouldn’t notice the disruption.”
Brantley left us and I watched his reflection in the mirror as he walked to the bar and ordered a drink. By the time I’d turned around, he’d already downed it, and was holding his glass out to the bartender for a refill.
“I guess it’s going to be one of those nights.” I shook my head as I walked in his direction.
By the time I’d reached the bar, Brantley had retreated with his drink.
“What can I do for you?” the bartender asked.
“Do you have any bottled water for us? Preferably room temperature?” I asked.
“Not back here, but Stacy can get you some. How many do you need?”
“Six will do for now.”
The bartender turned and addressed her counterpart, and Stacy hustled from the room. “I like that song you played before. I’ve always been a Willie fan,” the bartender said.
“Thank you, um,” I hesitated as I looked for a name tag, since I always liked to address people properly. I didn’t see one, though.
“Ashley,” the bartender filled in as she smiled at me.
“Thank you, Ashley.” I smiled back.
Ashley looked over my shoulder and her eyes got brighter, and I knew what that meant. Bozeman was right behind me.
“Think I might get a beer from you?” he asked, putting down a southern drawl like a thick blanket.
“Sure thing. We have a bottle or tap, depending on what you’d like,” Ashley started.
As Ashley ran through the options with Bozeman, I turned away and headed back to the stage.
“Does that always happen?” Laurel asked. “He steps into the picture and every female eye around gets diverted his way?”
“Usually. You’ll get used to it, though. And to be honest, sometimes it’s nice that the attention goes to him.”
Stacy came back, wheeling in an entire case of water on a small hand truck. She parked it by the stage, ripped through the plastic, and pulled out two bottles. “Here you go.”
I took the two bottles and put them on Bozeman’s stool, then grabbed a couple more and handed them to Laurel. Finally, I took two more, cracked the seals, and put them next to my station.
“I can leave the rest of these here, but I’ll have to find a tablecloth or something to cover them,” Stacy said. “Mr. Harris doesn’t like any trash sitting about.”
“I can put it behind our gear back here. No one will notice,” I offered.
Stacy smiled, lifted the rest of the case, and put it on the stage. “Thanks,” she said, then she turned and wheeled the dolly from the room.
“You need help with that?” Laurel asked, pointing to the bottles.
I smirked at her. “No, but thank you.”
I picked up the remaining six bottles in the case and moved the whole thing to the back of the stage, where we’d stacked up our cases and other gear. I dropped it behind Bozeman’s guitar case and stepped back to my position.
“Oh, boy,” Laurel said. “Live one coming in hot.”
I looked up and saw Jackie coming toward us. Her dress tapered inward the farther down it went, so she had to do a quick shuffle to get to us.
“Are you ready to go? I’m so excited!” she screeched.
“I can tell,” I said. “Oh, here’s something I promised you.” I moved back to the gear and found the shirt I’d pulled out for her. “Would you still like me to sign it?”
“Of course!” she blurted, as if it were even a question.
Laurel did a half eye roll and handed me a marker. I set the shirt flat on my stool, removed the cap, and signed the shirt. “To Jackie, with love, Codi Cassidy,” I said aloud as I wrote.
I returned the pen to Laurel as I gave the ink a few seconds to dry, then I handed the shirt to Jackie.
Jackie opened the shirt and stared for a moment at the signature, as if she hadn’t believed her eyes when I’d signed it a few seconds ago. She squealed with joy.
“I’m going to go put this on right now.”
“I don’t think it will fit over your snake,” I said. “And it doesn’t go with your pretty dress. You should save it for another time.”
She pouted for a couple of seconds, then her smile returned. “Okay. I’ll go put it in my room, so it doesn’t get lost or dirty.”
“Good idea,” I said. She didn’t need my permission, but she seemed to appreciate it, and shuffled away with her prize in her hand.
“You sure made her day,” Laurel said. “Can I have your autograph, too?”
I thought about giving Laurel a punch to the shoulder, but then the doors opened wide, and the costumed guests started filling the room. Bozeman noticed it as well, so he stopped flirting with the bartender and joined us on stage. Bozeman and I donned our guitars, and we both put on our hats to complete our stage personas.
The guests filed in and half of them headed to the bar. The other half took seats at two-person tables that replaced the main table, which the staff had disassembled and turned into side tables that lined the walls.
Once everyone had drinks in their hands and seemed to be settled in, we prepared to jump right into our set. I began a rhythm count and got as far as two before Hawthorne Harris scrambled to his feet and started waving his hands at me.
“Wait! Wait! I want to say a few words!”
Since he was the one footing the bill, I moved back from the mic and made way for him. As he stepped onto the riser, his sandaled foot caught the lip and he fell forward. I thought he would slam right into my Gibson, but Bozeman caught him before he did a face plant. Harris approached the mic like it didn’t even happen.
“Thank you again everyone for coming to the party tonight, and thanks for playing along with the costume theme. There’s a prize for the best costume, and I’ll announce who the winner is later.”
As Harris spoke, I looked around the room to catch the reaction of those listening. Brantley was finishing yet another cocktail, and based on the way he eyed the bar, I assumed he wanted a refill. Danny Ewing stood directly behind Helen Troy, and I noticed by his line of sight that he was more interested in her backside than Harris’ speech. Meanwhile, his wife was clearly watching Danny watching Helen. If it were physically possible for steam to come from someone’s head, Amy would be hot enough to power a locomotive. The rest of the room, except for Jackie, was watching the speech, mostly with disinterest.
The guests clapped, so I brought my attention back to Hawthorne, who was holding a hand toward me. I gave him my stage smile, shook his hand, and thanked him. He left the stage and took his seat. When he did, three servers appeared from nowhere, each with a tray of champagne flutes. Once each of the guests had a glass, Hawthorne gave a toast, and everyone drank. Then he waved at me, and I took that as a sign to start the show.
I turned around to face the band. “Ready? Again?”
Laurel and Bozeman both nodded, so I faced the audience, began the rhythm count again, then swung into the set. As usual, we started with a couple of songs from my first album, and then Bozeman performed one of his. The first few songs we always played acoustically so that the audience knew it was really us behind the guitars and the vocals. After that, I kicked on the computer to use the backing tracks.
We were halfway through our fifth song. Bozeman was crooning about having Friends in Low Places, when I spotted a flash of lighting that cracked loud enough to be heard over our music.
“Holy crap,” someone exclaimed. Although it was a male voice, I couldn’t tell where it came from.
Our speakers lost sound, and the lights in the room flickered, then dropped out. A woman screamed. Another bolt of lightning flashed outside the window, and a few seconds later, a rumble of thunder shook the house.
“Don’t worry folks. The lights will be on in a second,” Hawthorne said. As if on cue, two counts later, the lights popped back on as bright as before. “Nothing to worry about. That’s why we have a generator. Let’s get back to the party. Bring back the music!”
I looked out into the crowd and caught lots of expectant eyes staring back at me. When I did a mic check, I discovered my first problem when I heard nothing from my amp. I stepped from mine to Bozeman to apologize. “I’m sorry, but it’s going to take us a couple of minutes to get back to the show. We need to do a quick equipment check to make sure everything is good. I promise, it will only be a brief break.”
Several from the crowd moaned at the announcement, and I could tell from the daggers Hawthorne Harris was shooting at me from his eyes that he wasn’t happy. But what could I do? Electronics and power snafus have never gone together well.
“Let’s get back up and running, as fast as we can, okay?” I said to Laurel and Bozeman.
I did a fast check of my amp and guitar, and determined my problem was the power strip I used popped a fuse. After I reset it, I moved over and checked the computer. Something had happened to it, since the screen displayed a black screen with a blue circle spinning around. Since my hardware technical knowledge only spanned as far as rebooting the machine, I pressed the power button until the display darkened. I counted to ten in my head before I turned on the laptop. I waited with bated breath until the screen popped up and informed me that something terrible had happened, but it asked if I wanted to continue as normal. If only such things occurred in real life. I opted for booting up as usual, then checked on how the others were doing.
“How’s everything?” I asked Laurel first since she was the closest one to me.
“All good,” she answered. “It looks like Boze has a problem, though.”
I looked over at Bozeman, and he displayed the red ears he got every time he was getting frustrated. I joined him to see if I could help.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Amp is dead,” he answered.
“Did you check the fuse?”
“I was about to.”
Bozeman bent over and popped the fuse out and passed it to me. I held it up to the light and determined it had fried.
“Yep. It’s dead. Got a spare?” I asked.
“On the bus,” Bozeman answered.
I looked out the window in time to see another flash of lightning, and it was raining hard.
“I don’t suppose you brought a spare amp?”
Bozeman smiled at me. “Of course. It’s also on the bus.”
I handed him the fuse. “Looks like you’re going to get wet, my friend. You have the keys? I locked it when I left.”
Bozeman checked his pocket, nodded, and rushed from the room. I turned around to find Brantley waiting for me.
“What’s the delay?” he asked. I could tell by the way he slurred his speech that he’d been drinking too much.
“We’re almost ready to go. We’ve got a blown fuse, and a couple of other things to check. Give us ten minutes, and we’ll be back at it.”
Brantley glared at me for a second. “Okay, but you need to know that Mr. Harris isn’t happy.”
He left without waiting for a response. That was probably for the best because I could feel the snark monster that lives in my brain wanting to take over the conversation for me. Instead, I returned to the computer, saw everything had booted up as normal, so I called up the program. Once I did a quick check to see it was working fine, I returned to my stool and had a seat while I waited for Bozeman. He appeared five minutes later, dripping wet, with a new fuse in hand. A couple of minutes later, we were back in business.
“Sorry for the delay, everyone. We’re back. Bozeman here is going to take the last song from the top.”
Bozeman started playing the opening riff of the song, inhaled a breath to start the lyrics, and the dinner gong sounded. It was a distraction, sure, but we were seasoned musicians used to distractions, so we kept on playing. Out in the audience, I saw Hawthorne call Claude Garrison over, and based on the body language and the flying arm gestures, I could tell Claude was getting a reaming. Near the beginning of the first chorus, the gong sounded again, and Hawthorne seemed to get even angrier. I could hear an argument brewing, but since I was singing backup in the chorus, I couldn’t make out the words. He pointed at Claude, pointed at the door, and a millisecond later, Claude the vampire headed for the exit.
Things settled down, and when Bozeman finished the song, he got a nice round of applause.
I stepped up to my mic. “I’m going to take things back, and here’s a nice slow dance number, so if you want to grab a partner and hit the floor, do so.”
I took a moment to swallow a mouthful of water while people paired up, then I stepped up to the microphone. Bozeman started the opening riff, and I had barely opened my mouth to sing the first word when the lights went out again.
The woman who had screamed the first time screamed again. Clearly, she wasn’t a fan of surprises, summer storms, or the dark. The dinner gong sounded five times in a row, and thirty seconds later, the lights came on again.
There was another scream, this time from a different woman. When I looked out at the audience, I saw Hawthorne Harris face down on the floor, with a bright red spot widening on the back of his white emperor robes.
