Infinite

It’s a small club in the basement in the Village, but Karl and Red assure us that it’s going to be packed with people tonight – The Grudge’s “rookie nights” are apparently popular. We meet the owner, a middle-aged thin man with greying hair who’s dressed like a rock star, at the bar. He tells us to call him Greg.

“So, you’re… Infinity? Is that right?”

We all nod, and then Greg turns his attention to Jamie, who is standing next to me looking cute in her black skirt, striped tights and Green Day t-shirt (I bought all of those clothes for her – you wouldn’t expect mom to dress her daughter in clothes like that). He gives me a questioning look.

“She’s our mascot,” Karl says.

Greg shrugs.

“Well, she’s your responsibility either way.”

None of us are 21, especially not Jamie, but the Greg says that he won’t tell if we don’t – they’ll even get us drinks if we promise not to get too drunk to play. Greg also informs us that there are two other bands playing tonight, and that our soundcheck is in half an hour. Then he shows us the dressing room located behind the stage were we can keep our stuff. After our most efficient soundcheck ever, we're pretty much on our own.

Ten minutes later, we have ended up in a record store on Bleecker Street on our way to Starbucks. I’m desperate for a latte, but Karl, Red, Noel and Jamie are gone in five seconds, swallowed by the wonders of the record store.

Not feeling like blending with the locals and the tourists, I place myself on a bench outside. Next to me is a girl my age wearing a My Chemical Romance cap, tying her shoelaces and talking to what seems to be her father in a language I don’t understand. Tourists. At least she has a good taste in music. I shouldn’t be thinking bad things about tourists, since I’m bridge-and-tunnel myself and the native New Yorkers think we’re vermin, but some tourists are really strange... We don’t get that many of them in Madison, “The Rose City”, but the ones we do get are always weird Germans or loud French students on road trips.

The lack of coffee makes my mind wander aimlessly. Knowing my bandmates and my sister, they will probably stay in that record store for over an hour.

Driven by the lack of lattes, I text Karl saying I’m leaving, and then look around for the nearest Starbucks. This area isn’t exactly full of them, but I manage to find one a few blocks away, and it’s not packed with people.

After ordering and getting my drink, I sit down by one of the window tables and start flipping through one of the magazines on the table. To avoid any more wandering of the mind, I plunge into an article about sport diving – I have forty minutes to myself before I have to be back at the club, and I’d rather not spend that time thinking about tourists.

Not that sport diving is very interesting. Nor is hiking in the Canadian wilderness, which is what the next article I read is about. Why don’t they have any good magazines here?

After ten minutes I’m bored out of my mind. Luckily, that’s when I hear in the middle of a gun fight, in the center of a restaurant, they say, come with your arms raised high from somewhere close to me. It takes me a good five seconds to figure out that it’s my cell phone (I’ve changed the signal again) and dig it out from my bag. I’m in such a hurry to answer it that I don’t bother to see who it is before I flip the phone open and put it to my ear, but I’m thinking that it’s probably the guys wondering where I am.

“I knew it was you!” a fairly familiar but still not recognizable voice says after my “Hello?”

“Uh… excuse me?”

“I’m coming over.” Click.

I peek to my right to see if anyone is approaching, and see a pair of black chucks walking towards me, attached to black jeans. Chucks are always a good sign. The shoes and jeans are followed by a black jacket and hands in fingerless gloves, and the hood of a black sweatshirt is pulled over the jacket’s collar.

And my breath is caught in my throat.

“Aubrey?” Gerard says as he pulls out the chair on the other side of the table, and puts down his coffee mug on it. “I tried calling your name but you didn’t hear me. I just wanted to see if it really was you.”

I’m currently at a loss for words, but Gerard just leans over to see what I’m reading. “Hiking, huh?”

Finally finding out how to use my vocal cords, I say: “Not really, I’m just bored.” Yay, I've managed to form a coherent sentence for once.

“Well, you seemed pretty into it…”

“Bored but concentrated, then. It’s latte literature."

Gerard makes a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a high-pitched giggle that makes me smile, and then he says:

“I should go hiking. Somewhere in like, what’s this from,” he takes a look at the upside-down article again, “yeah, Canada, that would be great. Take some time off and just climb a mountain or something.”

“By yourself?”

“Well, I could bring Frank but he’d probably hurt himself.”

“But if you’d go alone nobody could save you from the grizzly bears,” I say, and Gerard nods slowly, seemingly in deep thought.

“Yeah, you’re right… bears are scary. Maybe hiking isn’t such a good idea after all.”

We smile at each other, and I actually manage not to blush that much.

“Don’t you have like bodyguards or something?” I ask out of the blue. Gerard shakes his head:

“Nah, not today. Brian doesn’t like it, but I think I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

With my face emotionless and voice serious, I say:

“But what if I’m some insane fangirl… who has planned all this to be able to kidnap you?”

Gerard laughs, causing me to lose my straight face.

“I think I’ll take that risk.”

We sit in silence for a few seconds, me looking at him in the corner of my eye while he looks out the window. What is he doing here, and why is he even talking to me? I’m just some girl he met last week, he shouldn’t even remember me.

“So, what brings you to New York?” he asks, looking at me again, and I snap out of my confused thoughts.

“We’re playing here tonight,” I say, and Gerard looks surprised.

“You’re in a band?”

“Yes, I am.”

“And… you’re playing at The Grudge?”

“Yeah, why?”

“It’s just funny, ‘cause I’m going there tonight too,” he says. “We’re leaving for Europe tomorrow, just thought I’d check out some new music.”

I have to focus, so I won’t faint and fall off the chair or something.

Gerard Way is going to see us play. I managed to get the guys to agree to play Teenagers, but now it doesn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. I think Gerard senses my discomfort.

“But I guess I don’t need to come if you don’t want me to... Are you okay?” he says, looking concerned. I put my hands on the table to keep them still.

“Uh, I… no, of course you can come, it’s just… I suddenly feel a little… nervous. Nothing to worry about,” I say, managing a strained smile. Of course I want him to come, I want him to hear us because his band has been my inspiration and although his band hasn’t saved my life, it has had an enormous impact on it. I want to give something back.

But I’m not entirely sure I’m ready for this. Everything has happened so fast; we were unbelievably lucky just to get this gig and I’ve been incredibly nervous, and if I know Gerard is listening I will probably fall off the stage or something.

“Just a little?” he says. “We’ll keep in the background, I promise.”

“We?”

“Frank and Ray are coming too.”

“Oh God.”

I need air. I get up and is followed by Gerard, who asks me again if I’m okay. I smile weakly at him.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been more okay in my life.”