Radiant Eclipse

Wearing a pair of Daisy Dukes and a worn-in Slayer shirt, I walked through the empty halls of the studios in a pair of black and red Chuck Taylors, red laces tightly fastened, legs smooth and lotioned, glowing vibrantly with a sun-touched tint to them. I'd straightened my hair with a flat iron before leaving, letting it hang low as my bangs were rounded and brushed to the side. I wore a large pair of black Chanel sunglasses to hide my exhausted eyes, and had a thin layer of soft pink lip gloss on my lips.

It was only noon and I hadn't been able to sleep in due to the fact that my neighbors thought it necessary to mow their lawns even though they had no lawn to mow. Instead of moping around at my lonely and comfortable house, I thought it'd make Corey look good to head into the studios early. I didn't care that I wasn't going to be all nicely dressed like most girls were at these events, because it's not like any of them would actually be on tour with me for four months at a time.

"Vickie?" came Corey's voice as I whirled around in the main office. He headed towards me with a forced shocked expression on his face as I gave him the finger lovingly.

"Yeah, it's me, you jerk," I said, as he hugged me and pretended to cry into my shoulder. "Now get away before I decide to leave and go home. I have better things to do with my time, you know."

"Like what?" he laughed, pulling away from me as Joey entered the room, waved, and headed into a drum booth.

"That's besides the point," I joked with serious expressions. I rarely ever laughed or smiled, so people got used to my sense of humor even when I didn't show I was joking. "What you should do is tell me where the food is, because I am starving."

He shook his head and led me passed rooms where we kept things like assorted guitars and basses, as well as odd kinds of instruments that you normally didn't use everyday, like a sitar or marimbas the size of your whole master bedroom. We entered the main recording room, which had been cleared out and now looked like a giant warehouse.

I made my way to a fold-out lengthy plastic table covered in a purple cloth, food spread out all over the place as Corey placed some type of lanyard around my neck. Stuffing a few Doritos into my mouth, I asked, "Wow, what the hell is this? Why am I wearing a name tag? Like people don't know who I am."

"There's always those groupies who act like they own everything and everyone," he suggested, handing me a bottle of Miller Light as I took it with pleasure. Anything to get me feeling just a little bit lighter would do just fine. "Besides, it's so all of the band members can remember each others name before the tour starts and we all end up hating the others guts."

"Touche," I agreed, playfully dancing around Corey as our manager pressed play on the overhead speakers, a hardcore screamo song coming on with heavy vocals and double bass drum pedal. "So when do these people show up usually? I don't want to be here all friggin' day. I have a giant twelve pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade waiting for me at home in the fridge, and I think he's in heat."

Rolling his eyes, Corey wrapped an arm around my shoulders and gave me a smooch on the lips, though were definitely were not dating nor would we ever think about dating. He was like the gay best friend, only he wasn't into dudes. He eventually pulled apart and replied, "You know why I love you, Vick?"

"Because I have a pretty nice sized rack that could probably hold up your beer if I let you?" I joked.

"Because you tell it like it is and don;t give a flying fuck who might be listening," he said.

"Damn," I whispered.

"And you have a nice rack."

"Yes," I said with a forced relieved tone to my voice. The song changed to a very opposite taste in music, with the rap and hip hop underlays, but rock over it. I continued to dance though Corey walked away to help Joey out with something, and I gulped down a long swig of beer, the buzz not close to beginning yet. I was going to need a lot more bottles to get to that amazing feeling of invincibility.

As I was grabbing a chocolate chip cookie from the large platter of desert treats I heard a man ask, "Are you Vickie?"

I whipped around and found a man who was a whole head taller than me standing there wonderingly, his eyebrows raising a little bit as I nodded and answered, "Yes, that's me. You are?"

"Johnny," he replied, extending a hand for me to shake - which I did - as a faint smile rolled across his rounded face, brown-green eyes taking in only the details of my face, which shocked me. I was used to the ogling looks of the male gender of these days, and yet here was a gorgeous man in a black Harley Davidson shirt with the front tucked into a large metal belt buckle, wearing plain black jeans. He was home to many tattoos, and I couldn't help but wonder what lied beneath his rugged surface.

"Johnny," I said, more for myself to remember than to make sure I heard him right. "What can I do for you? Or...You're familiar."

He blushed and chuckled, saying, "Bassist for Avenged Sevenfold. Not that you'd notice me too much."

I rolled my eyes. "Bass players only look out for other bass players. No one puts bass in the corner without first hearing our complaints for at least three weeks. Believe me, I've read about your techniques on magazines," I complemented.

"So you like my techniques?" he wondered with a playful smirk.

"Said I read them, doesn't mean I like them," I explained, Johnny actually understanding my sense of humor. "Just not my style, I guess you could say."

"I know about your style," he confessed.

"Do you like it?"

"Just because I know it doesn't mean I'd use it," he argued in a mocking yet humorous tone.

I stared at him with a cocked eyebrow and asked, "How old are you?"

He laughed. "Twenty-nine. Why?"

"You're too smart for your own good," I told him, grabbing a second cookie as he copied my actions. "You need to dumb it down a bit for the rest of us. Maybe lay off of the hooked on phonics."

"You don't seem dumb," he said, as he followed along besides me towards the parking lot where they were supposedly grilling hot dogs.

"I never said I was dumb," I agreed. "I meant the rest of the world. Need to clean your ears, lad."

Leaving Johnny to deal with a group of scandalously dressed girls probably at least twenty years old, I made my way over to Joey, who had his arm around the woman I believed to be his wife, with blond hair and green eyes much like moss. Then again he was a rock star, so if it wasn't his wife it wouldn't have been a surprise to any of us anyways.

"How's life, Vickie?" Joey wondered, chugging a red plastic cup of what looked like rum and coke.

I shrugged and replied, "No better than it was five years ago. Why? Am I supposed to be peppy or something? We all know I quite cheerleading my second year of high school. I guess sleeping with the entire football team was a rule I wasn't aware of, so I said no. No means no, that's what my mommy always told me."

"You never had a mom," Joey laughed.

"Well thanks for crushing my dreams, Joey," I sighed. "Thanks for bringing back that burden of emotional pain I didn't want to deal with. Asshole."

He chuckled as I walked away, off towards a part of the building that wasn't occupied by horny college girls with fake breasts or their matching counter parts, only rich, cocaine addicted rock stars instead of them being in college.

The sun was still high up in the bright blue California sky, with no clouds evident but one, and there was a slight breeze that caused me to cross my arms and rub them with my hands. My teeth clattered as a heavy gust exploded from around the corner of the warehouse and towards me as Corey headed in my direction with a group of guys very recognizable.

"Hey, Vick," Corey called out.

"What dick?" I asked as he glared and tore the cookie from my hands, shoving it into his mouth as I slapped him in the face. "Don't touch a bitch's cookie, you imbecile."

"Sorry," he apologized with a laugh. "Anyways, I wanted you to meet the main band we're touring with. This man is Matt, these two are Synyster and Zacky, that's The Rev, and I guess you met Johnny."

I nodded, saying, "He's intelligent. That's about all I know."

Johnny smiled and blushed, looking down at the ground as I sipped my drink tastefully. I figured being conscience of how I drank was useless, so I chugged it down hurriedly before belching and excusing myself to go inside. Corey glared at me in the "Don't-you-embarrass-me" kind of way, and I stuck my tongue out just to piss him off a little bit more than I normally would.

The lady's washroom was home to five younger girls, all in some kind of tube top and mini skirt, the kind a pastor's wife wouldn't be caught dead in, even on their honeymoon. I closed the bathroom stall door behind me as I sat on the closed lid of the toilet, pulling my phone out of my pocket as I pressed the soles of my feet up on the stall door. I relaxed against the back of the toilet as I listened to a few girls wonder about who I was silently, their words barely audible over the hurling going on two stalls down.

Ignoring their stupid question, I texted my brother out east in Chicago, asking, "Is dad around, Marcus?"

I stared at the stall for a minute as a knock came on my little cubicle while I waited impatiently for my brother's response. "Can't a girl take a shit in peace," I said loudly as the girl made a sound of disgust and walked into the next one.

Yeah, why? Shouldn't he be? he wrote back.

No, I replied, adding, Just wanted to say I was going to be in Chicago in a few weeks. Maybe he'd want to see me for once. I could get you tickets if you'd like.

"Are you even using the bathroom?" asked a girl snobbishly.

"I'm giving birth to twins, so shut it before I kick the crap out of you, Blondie," I snapped back, looking back at my phone as my brother answered with, You know the answer to that.

Rolling my eyes, I wrote, Fine. Whatever. It's been like, eight years since the incident. You'd think you people would get over it by now. It's not like it was that big of a deal. Whatever.

"We have to use the stalls,too, you know," said Blondie.

I opened the door to the stall with my foot and yelled, "Hey, Paris Hilton, shut it. Unlike you I am supposed to be here for work. I'm kind of on tour with those men out there, and if you want me to spread rumors that you've got herpes and how they should stay as far away from you as possible, I sure as hell will. Got it?"

I slammed the door and forced it to stay shut with my feet as I received a new message from Marcus. Not a big deal? You tried to KILL yourself, Vickie. That isn't exactly an oops that can be fixed with a little bit of paint or something. You then decided, after getting healthy, that you weren't going to school, and at twenty you were broad casted around the damned country in nothing but your underwear for your dumb album cover. You brought shame to this family. I hope you know that.

"Fuck," I snapped, forcing my phone back into my pocket as I got up and opened the stall door, Blondie and a few of her photo copies standing around with cocky expressions on their spray-tanned faces. I smiled and asked, "Do you guys realize how orange you look? Forget being Blondie, you're now Carrot Top."

"You're such a snob," one of them stated.

I shrugged and asked, "And you're not? At least we have that in common. Now if you'll excuse me, I am going back stage where I belong, and you guys can stay up int he front of the building trying to get even a glimpse of the bands."