Catastrophic Happenings

“Come on Cade, open up!”

“No!”

Sammy and Rick continued to pound their fists against the door.

It would be fine by Rick if they couldn't convince Cade to go to the audition. However, he currently was in possession of the keys to the van.

“Stop being a baby !” Sammy was getting frustrated.

“It’s just an audition,” Rick repeated. “Nothing is even close to final yet.”

“I bet that Austin and Sammy are already fucking in love with her and are just dying to make her part of the band!”

“I haven’t even met her yet!” Sammy defended.

Rick told Sammy to get out of the way and he pressed himself up close to the door, “I don’t think that the band is going to get much further with you as our lead singer Cade. If I thought it would work out, I wouldn’t have even considered Azalea. With a girl like her as singer, you guys have the chance to make it big-time. Don’t jeopardize that without even looking at her. So please, give us the keys.”

Twenty seconds later, the door gradually opened. Cade stood there, face red with hair that looked like he’d ran his calloused fingers through too many times. He tossed the keys to Sammy, who caught them one-handed.

“Are you gonna make me go with you?”

“I would you to,” Rick calmly responded. “But I don't think I can force. I'll just mean that you won’t get a say when Sammy and Austin decide.”

Cade quickly went back into Austin’s bedroom, grabbed his cell phone from the floor, and quickly ran a comb through his hair several times.

“Let’s go.”


“So what’s she like?”

Rick was driving the band’s van to Azalea’s house. Cade was riding shotgun and Sammy was in the back.

“If you didn’t hate her for this audition, you’d probably have hit on her by now,” Rick said.

Cad scowled, “So she’s hot?”

“Her voice is hot,” Sammy joked. Cade didn’t find it funny.

“So you want her to be the new lead?” he said in an accusatory manner.

Rick turned to him, “Calm down, Cade.”

“Do you want the full truth?” Sam asked nervously.

Cade slumped even further in the worn down seat, “You might as well kill that little bit of hope I have left in me.”

Rick sighed, “Stop being so melodramatic."

“Now that I've thought about it, I think that it might be great to have a girl lead,” Sam admitted.

Cade scowled, “What, am I not good enough?”

Sammy sighed, “This could make us different. Maybe now we'll be able to stand out."

“Am. I. Not. Good enough?” Cade repeated with a sharp tongue.

Sammy’s eyes focused on the back of Rick’s seat. With a tone unlike his normal voice, he evenly replied, “No Cade, you’re not.”


Austin and Azalea were sitting on Mrs. Under’s room couch, three feet away and snacking on a bowl of chips. MTV music videos served as background noise as the two pretended the television held their intrigue.

“It’s times like these that I wish I let Marty Crotner teach me how to do the awkward turtle in sixth grade,” Azalea joked.

Austin’s hand stopped mid-gesture of sticking a chip in his mouth. The glance he shot over to Azalea screamed ‘What the hell?’ Azalea shrugged it off and brought both of her legs up to sit Indian-style on the couch.

“So what kind of band are you guys?”

Austin chuckled, a surprisingly rich and soothing sound. “Isn’t that question a little late formed?”

Azalea shrugged. She had a feeling that most of Austin’s questions would come out in a patronizing manner. “Eh, probably. But Rick was cool with me singing Paramore, so I figured that you guys at least weren’t screamo or super-weird indie. Which is fine by me.”

“So what kind of bands are you into then?”

“Uh, All Time Low, Cute is What We Aim for, Hit the Lights. That sort of deal.”

Austin chuckled, “You’d be perfect for Sammy then.”

Azalea thought for a moment, “The drummer, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Who else is in the band?”

“Just Cade. He plays guitar.”

“Oh, okay,” Azalea nodded.

An awkward silence settled in, so Austin took the time to look around the family room. Austin’s eyes landed on the sleek fifty-five inch television with Bose surround sound, the porcelain figurines in the corner, and the oriental rug his vans rested on. And even though Austin had only been in Azalea’s house for a few minutes, her house was not all that different. Their houses were so unlike Austin’s. It wasn’t that he grew up poor, but this was one of the best neighborhoods in Silver Spring. Austin didn’t think Azalea would volunteer to spend months in the back of a tattered van, eating a number of foods deep-battered and fried.

‘She can’t tough out life on the road,’ he was sure. ‘I can’t let Sammy and Rick put their hopes in her just to have the band lose another lead singer.’

Just as he finished his thought he heard the shuffling of Mrs. Under’s slippered feet against the hardwood floor

“Rick just called,” she said to her two guests. “He told me to tell you that they will be here in five minutes, and to go outside and help unload.” Mrs. Under’s annoyance was clear on her face, which made Azalea smile in amusement.

“Thanks Mrs. Under,” Azalea said as she stood up. She nodded before returning to the kitchen.

“The equipment is pretty heavy, you don’t have to help.”

Azalea turned to Austin, eyebrows scrunched together in confusion, “I’m stronger than you think. It’ll be faster with more people helping.”

“You can just hold the door open for us.”

Her mouth dropped with offense. “What is wrong with you?”

Austin didn’t understand her hostility, “What are you talking about?”

“Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean that I can’t lift things and move them all by my little old self,” Azalea huffed.

“It’s not that,” Austin defended. “I just didn’t think you would want to help set up.”

She scoffed, “Didn’t I say I would help?”

“Yeah, geeze, sorry.” Austin apologized out of frustration. “But…”

Azalea became further annoyed at his unfinished sentence, “’But’ what?”

Austin did not want to hold in his concerns anymore. He couldn’t let her hurt the band. He stood up so that he easily towered over her by more than a foot. “Do you know how hard it is to live on the road? Going from tour to tour, staying up late at night only to sleep on the torn chairs of an old van or the unwashed sheets of a run-down motel, sharing fast food meals just to buy that extra gallon of gas. We aren’t freaking Fall Out Boy. We don’t have a tour bus and millions of adoring fans. I don’t think you would be able to stand our type of lifestyle. I think you’d quit mid-tour and royally fuck the band over.”

Azalea’s face became hotter and two shades more red. The only thing she hated more than sexism was being classified as a rich kid that couldn’t do an honest day’s labor if she tried her hardest. Her lips scrunched together as she jumped up to stand on the couch. Azalea was now taller than Austin, and through glaring eyes she stared down at him.

“Just because I go to prep school and live in a big house in a nice neighborhood doesn’t mean that I am a spoiled little brat that can’t be bothered to live without Italian leather under my ass and on my feet. You’re talking to me as is I’ve never even eaten a Big Mac and that I take caviar on my pizza. Well, screw you. I am going to stand outside and wait for them to get here. And then when they do, I’ll lift an effing fifty-pound speaker if I have to. I’ll carry all the goddamn speakers you guys have in that truck! But when it all comes down to it, and I’m in front of that mike, you better base your decision off of my voice and not off of my designer clothes.”

And with that she hopped off of the couch and stomped into the foyer. Austin watched long enough to see her open the door and forcefully shut it closed. Having heard the conversation, Mrs. Under peered into the family room, giving Austin a look full of judgment. He released an agitated sigh as he allowed his body to fall back on the couch. He needed a minute to think everything through and take it all in.