I’ve just finished my first paragraph when there’s a commotion at the front of the restaurant. I glance over to see a woman wheeling in a handcart stacked with speakers, electronic equipment, a small television, a stack of thick three-ring binders, and bundles of cords.
“You made it!” says Carlos from behind the bar, loud enough that suddenly everyone is looking at the woman. She pauses, blinking into the dim light, letting her eyes adjust from the bright afternoon sun. Carlos rushes over to her and takes the cart. “I’ll take that. I thought we’d set up right over here.”
“Oh, thank you,” she says, pushing back a long fringe of hair that’s been dyed candy-apple red. Other than the bangs that nearly cover her eyes, her hair is tied into a hasty topknot, showing her natural blond growing out at the roots. She’s wearing clothes that demand attention: worn and faded cowboy boots; dark jeans that are as much shredded holes as they are denim; a burgundy velvet tank top; enough jewelry to sink a small boat. It’s a far cry from the flip-flops and surf shorts that usually populate Main Street this time of year.
She’s also beautiful. Stunning, actually. But it’s kind of hard to tell given the coating of black eyeliner and smudged purple lipstick. If she’s local, then we would definitely have noticed her around, but I’m sure I’ve never seen her before.
“How’s this?” says Carlos, ignoring the fact that most of his customers are staring at the two of them.
“Perfect. Lovely,” says the woman with a bit of a southern accent. Carlos often hosts live music on the weekends, and they’re standing on the little platform where the bands perform. She takes a second to inspect the area before pointing at the wall. “Is that the only outlet?”
“There’s another behind here.” Carlos pulls a busing station away from the corner.
“Excellent.” The woman spends some time turning in a circle, inspecting the TVs that hang throughout the restaurant, almost always showing sports. “Yeah, great. This will work. Nice place you’ve got.”
“Thanks. You want help setting up, or…?”
“Naw, I’ve got it. Not my first time at the rodeo.” She shoos him away.
“All right, fine.” Carlos takes a step back. “Can I get you a drink?”
“Oh. Uh…” She thinks about it for a few seconds. “Shirley Temple?”
Carlos laughs. “Sure thing.”
He returns to the bar, and the woman starts moving tables around and setting up the equipment she brought. After a few minutes, she grabs the stack of binders and approaches the nearest table. Our table.
“Well, don’t you all just look like some upstanding Fortuna Beach youth?” she says, taking in our textbooks and computers.
“What’s going on?” says Ari, nodding toward all the stuff she brought.
“Weekly karaoke night!” says the woman. “Well, this is actually the first, but we’re hoping it’ll become a weekly thing.”
Karaoke? I’m immediately overcome with visions of crooning old people and squawking middle-aged ladies and a whole lot of drunks who can’t carry a tune and … oh no. So much for our quiet study session. At least the school year is pretty much over.
“I’m Trish Roxby and I’ll be your host,” she continues. Noticing our less-than-enthused expressions, she juts her thumb toward the bar. “Y’all didn’t notice the signs? Carlos told me he’s been advertising for a couple weeks now.”
I glance toward the bar. It takes a minute, but then I notice. On the chalkboard by the door, above the listing of daily specials, in messy handwriting, someone has scrawled the words: JOIN US FOR WEEKLY KARAOKE, EVERY TUESDAY AT 6:00, STARTING IN JUNE.
“So, think you’ll be joining in tonight?” asks Trish.
“No,” Jude and I say in unison.
Ari just bites her lower lip, eyeing the binder.
Trish laughs. “It’s not as scary as it sounds. I promise, it can be a whole lotta fun. Besides, girls like to be serenaded, you know.”
Realizing she’s speaking to him, Jude immediately starts to squirm. “Uh. No. This is my twin sister.” He tilts his head toward me, then gestures between himself and Ari. “And we’re not…” He trails off.
“Really? Twin sister?” says Trish, ignoring whatever he and Ari aren’t. She looks between me and Jude for a moment, before slowly nodding. “Yeah, okay. I can see it now.”
She’s lying. No one ever believes that Jude and I are related, much less twins. We look nothing alike. He’s six foot one and skinny like our dad. I’m five five and curvy like Mom. (Our grandma loves to joke that I took all of Jude’s “baby fat” when we were in the womb and kept it for myself. I never found that joke particularly funny when we were kids, and it has not improved with age. Insert eye-roll emoji here.)
Jude is blond and super pale. Like, vampirical pale. His skin burns within thirty seconds of stepping into the sunlight, which makes living in Southern California not completely ideal. I, on the other hand, am brunette and will be sporting a halfway-decent tan by the end of June. Jude has cheekbones. I’ve got dimples. Jude has full-on mood lips that make him look a bit like an Abercrombie model, though he hates when I say that. And me? Well, at least I have my lipstick.
Trish clears her throat awkwardly. “So, you ever done karaoke before?”
“No,” Ari answers. “Though I’ve thought about it.”
Jude and I exchange looks because, actually, we have done karaoke before. Lots of times. Growing up, our parents used to take us to this gastropub that had family-friendly karaoke on the first Sunday of each month. We’d belt out Beatles song after Beatles song, and my dad would always end “his set,” as he called it, with “Dear Prudence,” then call us all up together for “Hey Jude.” By the end of it, the entire restaurant would be singing—Naaaa na na … nananana! Even Penny would join in, even though she was only two or three years old and probably had no idea what was going on. It was sort of magical.
A little nostalgic part of me lights up to think of Dad’s slightly off-key rendition of “Penny Lane” or Mom’s over-the-top attempts at “Hey Bulldog.”
But then there was one time, when I couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven years old, when some drunk in the audience shouted—Maybe that kid should spend less time singing and more time doing sit-ups!
We all knew who he was talking about. And, well, the magic was pretty much ruined after that.
Come to think of it, that might have been the start of my public-speaking anxiety, and that all-encompassing fear that everyone will be watching me, criticizing me, waiting for me to embarrass myself.
“Well, you kids just think it over,” says Trish, setting the binder down next to the chips. She takes a pen and some slips of paper from a pocket and sets them down, too. “If you find a song you wanna sing, just write it down here and pass it up to me, all right? And if the song you want isn’t in the book, you let me know. Sometimes I can find it online.” She winks at us, then wanders off to the next table.
We all spend a few seconds staring at the binder like it’s a poisonous snake.
“Yeah,” Jude mutters, and starts tossing his things into his backpack. “That’s not going to happen.”