Daylight

Viv’s POV

I am too old to be a fangirl, I told myself.
But in my head I was making the *squee* noise, thinking, Tim Karan liked my interview!

He told me so himself, after seeing the footage of me with the Madmen.
“This is great, Viv,” he said, beaming. “They seem really friendly and unaffected.”
I smiled back. “They are, and it shows.”
Then Tim showed me his interview with the Daylight Bathers. I couldn’t help smiling with absolute pride while watching it.

He looked at me. “So, Viv,” he said, a little too casually, “I hear you have a family connection to these ladies?”
I played it cool. “Yes, that’s right; Petula’s my niece. Why do you ask, Tim?”
“Just wondering,” he answered, seemingly absorbed in some other task. “And I hear also that you seem to be good pals with Jenny Eliscu?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say pals, exactly,” I downplayed it. “Jenny and I have a professional connection, and we like and respect each other as colleagues. Again, why would you want to know?”

He turned his whole body to look me directly in the eye. “Well, I’m sure you can see the issue: she’s a colleague, but her magazine is a rival publication.”
I waited for him to finish.
“…And some people…maybe not me personally…might view it as your loyalties being somewhat…divided.”
“I see,” I said coolly. “And have I given anyone that impression directly?”
“Not that I know,” he responded. “But appearances sometimes fool people.”
“Uh huh.” I cocked my head and rested a hand on my hip. “You know, I can understand the question about Petula and her band. That’s why I suggested someone else interview them; I knew I couldn’t be as fair as I needed to be. And thank you for speaking to them personally, Tim.”
He nodded, waiting.
“But as far as Jenny goes…we’ve worked together in the last couple of years, and there was never a problem.”
“You were a freelancer then,” Tim remarked. “No need to worry about a conflict of interest. But now there is.”
My eyes narrowed. Was I really hearing this? “Is that a threat of some kind, Tim?”
He seemed to back off, his manner switching from cool to warm in a matter of seconds.

“Not at all, Viv,” he smiled at me. “Just some friendly advice from a concerned party.”
He patted my shoulder. He fucking patted my shoulder!
“I just want your experience at AP to be a good one,” Tim said reassuringly. “I know you’ve been working toward this for a long time. I would hate to see anything get in your way.” He checked his cell. “And I better get going; I’m late for a video conference. Take care, now, Viv.”

I gave him a brief wave, and then he was gone.
The asshole.

Joe’s POV

“Loads of hits on the website, gents!” Peter bellowed as he woke us the next morning.
Bryan rolled over and groaned. “Jay-sus, Peter, could ya please not bloodyfuckingwell do that in the morning? We’re tryin’ to sleep here!”

Peter tore open the privacy curtain and gave our guitarist a sour, stern look.
“Well, excuse me for trying to spread some good news for a change!” he yelled. “I just wanted to make sure that my boys were aware of the fact that they now have even more people who’ve pledged themselves as devotees!”
Tom spoke up softly, to try and calm Peter down.
“That’s great, Peter, we love it,” he said. “But maybe in future, you could do it a bit more quiet? And maybe after we’ve had summat to eat, and some coffees?”

Our manager strode out of sight and sagged onto a couch; we could hear it sinkin’ under his considerable weight. I pushed me curtain further open and looked over at Bryan, who shrugged and rolled onto his other side.
I sighed and got out of me bunk. I wandered into the lounge room to see Peter with his head in his hands, and sat down next to him.
“What’s the matter, then?” I asked. “You’re so happy, so what could be wrong? I thought you were bringin’ us good news?”
“I was. I am,” Peter answered. “But I worry.”
I chuckled. “Isn’t that yer job, then?”
Now he sighed. “That it is, m’boy, that it is. But we need those fans, we need every one of them.”
“But we haven’t lost any…have we?”
“Not as I can tell,” Peter remarked. “We have to show the record company how serious this is, though. I’ll be lining up more interviews for you four as the weeks go by. It’ll be hard work, but I’m sure it can’t be harder work than playing in this weather.” He mopped his brow. “Has it rained even once yet? I can’t remember.”
Glenn staggered in and said good morning, and started fiddling with the coffee pot. “Yeah, it did rain, a few days ago. We didn’t have to play in that shit, though; we were travelling,” he answered.
“Ah, that’s right,” Peter sighed. “I lose track sometimes.” He slapped his hands on his thighs and stood. “Well, I’d best be off to see what I can arrange. Good day, lads, see you onstage!”
And he was gone.

Tom padded into the lounge.
“Maybe a tour manager would be a good idea,” he remarked. “I think we’re killin’ the old man.” Then, to Glenn: “Jay-sus, man, let me deal with the coffee! You don’t know how to work that. You’ll burn down the fucking bus.”
I had to laugh at that.

Pet’s POV

We were so excited about our interview, but we were worried that we hadn’t said all we wanted to. I did know we watched it about a million times, though. I didn’t realize, till Viv told me, that Tim Karan was the online editor at AP, which meant…what, exactly? That they were taking a strong interest in us because they hadn’t sloughed that chore off onto a lesser employee, or an intern?
All this uncertainty was driving me nuts.. Not a long trip, by any means.

I was also really concerned about Shoshi. She didn’t seem to be bearing up well under all this heat; but of course, I reasoned, who is?
The weather sucked, no matter how you looked at it. We were almost twenty years younger than our manager, and while we seemed to be doing okay most of the time, we’d obviously had our moments. And we’d seen plenty of very young Warped fans carted off to the medical tent in just the first two weeks.
When we weren’t onstage Shoshi wasn’t enjoying the scene at the various stages, as we’d kind of expected her to. She would just chill on the bus most of the time, chatting with Tito. He was a good guy, and very good-natured despite the high levels of estrogen on our bus. He wisely left it to Shoshi to referee any fights that broke out.

We got offstage at Davenport and high-fived the Madmen on the way to backstage and blessedly cold beverages of all sorts. Mo and Sal clinked a couple of beer bottles, and we all looked around for Shoshi.
We were suddenly alarmed to discover that she wasn’t there.
Panicked, we ran off to the bus to find Shoshi asleep in one of the bunks. Tito came and stood behind us.
“She’s been there for about twenty minutes,” he informed us quietly. “She came back here and was complaining about heat and thirst, so I got her something to drink. Then she said she was gonna lay down….”

We sat in tense silence in the lounge area till Shoshi eventually woke up. She wandered in among us and sat down on the couch next to Tia.
“Hi babies,” she said in a sleep-drenched voice, her eyes at half-mast. “I’m so sorry…I just couldn’t keep my eyes open. How’d the set go?”
“It’s been over for more than an hour,” Mo remarked.
Shoshi’s eyes flew fully open. “Oh, girls, I’m so sorry! I never….”

She stopped short when she saw the hurt looks on our faces. Just as suddenly, her pretty blue eyes filled with tears, and in moments, she was sobbing. Tito had gone back to his seat.
We all looked around at each other, wondering what the hell was going on. Sal, not the most sensitive of us, was moved to kneel down in front of Shoshi, and rubbed her back as she cried.
“Shoshi…hey…don’t do that,” Sal murmured. “Whatever’s wrong, we’ll do whatever we can to make it right. Won’t we?”
The rest of us nodded, though our manager was still sobbing with her head down.

“Ladies,” she finally choked out, “I didn’t want to worry you all, but I think it’s time you knew what’s going on with me.”
She raised her face, and for a minute we were all afraid. But we weren’t prepared for what came out of her mouth next:

“I’m pregnant.”