Dedication Takes a Lifetime

I stared at my ceiling, the flecks of glitter sparkling in the dark when outside headlights cut through the blinds and caught them, making them dance and twinkle in front of my eyes. My comforter was pulled up to my chest, my arms draped over it, fiddling with the loose strings. It was less than twenty-four hours before our first show. A million things were racing through my mind; a million things that could go wrong. We could forget the music, or the lyrics, or both. We could get shut down by the cops for underage drinking at a house party. We could be booed offstage. We could bust a drumhead or a guitar string in the middle of the set. And, for god’s sake, we didn’t even have a name yet. This was all wrong; we weren’t ready.

“Nettie?” My door cracked up a fraction and a voice floated through. Since Tomas had gone home for the night and only family called me by that nickname, I knew who it was.

“Jack.” After the dinner on Thursday, and the time we’d all spent together on Friday, the guitarist had already become like a big brother for me. True to that, he had adopted Tomas’s habit of calling me Nettie. I didn’t mind, though; it seemed fitting. I sat up and rubbed a hand across my face, “What’s up?”

“Were you sleeping?”

“No.”

He pushed open the door a little more so that I could see his lanky figure, decked out in his one-of-a-kind JAGK pajamas and hair a mess. “Close your eyes,” he warned, and I obeyed. Even with this warning, I could see the room brighten from behind my eyelids and it stung a little. I waited for this to subside before opening them again and looking at him.

“Everything okay, hon?”

He nodded and came to sit on the side of the bed, facing me, “I just wanted to check on you.” I must have made a confused face, because he shrugged and laughed, “I think you forget that I wasn’t always famous. Once upon a time, All Time Low had to play their very first show too.” He shook his head and ran a hand through his skunk-streaked hair, “Alex couldn’t stop pacing, Rian had the shakes so bad we didn’t think he could play, Zack got nervous diarrhea, and I threw up at least six times.”

I sighed, because I knew it was useless to try and convince him that I was fine. “I don’t know if I can do it, Jack; I really don’t. We haven’t been at this for two months. I don’t think we’re ready.”

“Listen, listen,” he covered one of my hands with one of his own and instantly calmed me. I liked this side of him almost as much as his carefree goofy side. “Jocelyn is the most badass, consistent drummer I have ever heard, and dedicated to a fault. Deveraux, while a little unpredictable, is incredibly dependable and steady and energetic. Kal is a beautiful, masterful, and freakishly innovative guitarist; better than me or…you know.” I knew he meant Alex, but he know not to mention the name. I appreciated that. “And you, my dear: I have yet to hear you sing, but if three musicians with as much talent as theirs are willing to put stock in you, then you have to be great, right? So just…do what you set out to do. Play music because you love it, and stop worrying about the details.”

I stared at him for a long time, letting his words sink in and work their magic. He was right, of course. One thing I was beginning to learn about Jack was that, despite his constant whacky behavior, he was usually right about the things that really mattered. Finally, I smiled and reached over to hug him, which he returned immediately--he seemed to thrive on hugs--and then pulled back to ruffle my hair.

“Just thought I’d give you that pep talk before you spent the entire night awake and worrying, and then were too tired to play tomorrow.”

“Great!” I exclaimed, rolling my eyes, feigning a panicked expression, “No sleep; one more thing to worry about!”

He saw through it, though, and pushed my head away playfully. He stood up and smiled a wide, toothy smile at me, “Go to bed, Darth.” He flicked the light off and ducked out the door quickly, before I had time to throw something at him.

I laughed quietly and collapsed against my pillows, letting sleep take me.

-- -- --

“Good morning, sunshine,” Jocelyn greeted me as she moved around the kitchen from refrigerator to stove to sink to island. She and Deveraux were sharing the fourth bedroom of the house for the duration of Jack’s visit, and we’d all quickly learned that she was an annoyingly active morning person. She reminded me of Tomas, in that regard. Only less endearing, because I wasn’t required to love her.

“It’s six o’clock,” I grumbled, glaring at her. She’d barged right into my room just minutes earlier, pulling up the blinds and mimicking a rooster noise in my ear.

She handed me a mug of hot tea and smiled, “You needed to be up anyway; we have errands today, remember?” She moved to the stove and quickly loaded a plate before passing it on to me; cheese, tomato, and spinach omelet with a side of turkey bacon and fried diced potatoes. Her cooking skills and ability to remember my favorite breakfast foods made her difficult to hold a grudge against.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I sighed, then thanked her and began to eat. It wasn’t long before I was joined by Deveraux and Jack, both looking a little sleepy, but not letting it get in the way of their usual chipper attitudes. Kal, on the other hand, was a different story.

The blonde in question stumbled through the threshold, wearing nothing but a Hello Kitty tank top and a pair of pink boy shorts, hair in a messy ponytail and glasses missing from her face. Jack dropped a piece of toast, along with his jaw.

Kal glanced at him, but wasn’t quite awake enough to blush or have any sort of reaction at all. Instead, she just slumped onto the stool next to mine and buried her head in her hands. “Hey, Jocelyn,” she mumbled, “Guess what?”

“What?”

“I hate you.”

Jocelyn rolled her eyes and passed a plate to her, “Oh yeah? Well guess what?” Before Kal could answer, the drummer shot a pleasant little, “You snore like Satan,” before turning back to fix her own plate and join us at the island. We all fell silent for a long beat, eating our food and drinking our drinks. Finally, Deveraux’s fork clattered onto his plate and the four members of our band all looked up at the same time, matching expressions of panic and excitement across our faces.

“Our first gig is tonight!”

-- -- --

After we finished our breakfast, took showers, and played a few rounds of World Tour, we all split up to run our designated errands. Jack and Deveraux went to hit up a few liquor stores and put confirm the keg orders. Kal had to go check in at the academy, since she’d spent the night away from the dorms again, and then was going to meet up with Jocelyn to do some grocery shopping. I had to go to Mitch’s Music Shop (Mitch Cradder was an old friend of the family that owned the largest music store in town) to pick up an electric guitar and two extra microphones for our PA system, then go home to meet the people that were supposed to be setting up the temporary stage in the backyard. On top of that, I still had to talk to all of the neighbors and let them know what was going on, clean up the house, put away any breakables and valuables, lock up the bedrooms, and set up.

I’m not sure how I ended up with the longest To-Do list, but I was already stressing by the time I pulled out of Mitch’s parking lot, mic stands securely in the hatch of my mother’s minivan and guitar across the backseat. I wrestled my Blackberry out of my purse and hit number one on my speed dial.

“Hello?” Tomas picked up on the second ring.

“Hey, bro, can you do me a favour?” I carefully merged into traffic with one hand, listing a finger to thank the driver that had made room for me. Before he answered, I went on, “Could you head over to the house and clean up a bit? You know, make it Party Friendly?”

Without even a pause, he came back with, “Sure, no problem; I’ll head over in a few.”

I sighed in relief, “Thank you so much.”

“Mhm,” I could practically hear him smile, “Love you.” Then he hung up. I smiled and tossed my phone back into my purse. Best little brother ever.

When I got home, barely even fifteen minutes later, Tomas had already cleared the living room, locking the video games, movies, and CDs in the closing entertainment center, and was now loading all the glass and ceramic from the kitchen counters into cabinets. I put down the guitar case I held and immediately went to pull him into a hug.

“You are amazing,” I told him with complete sincerity, handing him the bag from McDonalds that I’d picked up on the way home.

He shrugged and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, then opened the bag and began picking out fries and chewing them as he cleaned. “Some guys called the house phone a couple minutes ago,” he informed me after swallowing. “They said they’d be here at one to start constructing the stage.” He stopped cleaning to fix me in a serious gaze, “Nettie, how are you paying for all of this?”

I waved it off, “Jack and Deveraux are paying for all the alcohol, and Kal and Jocelyn are paying for food. Really all I’m doing is hosting it.”

He crossed his arms, “And renting electric guitars and microphones, and having a stage built in the backyard.”

I sighed, stealing one of his fries and mumbling, “I dipped into my college fund.”

“I knew it!” He exclaimed before I’d even finished the sentence. Every penny that I earned at the diner that didn’t go toward bills, food, and the car went directly into my college fund. So, needless to say, there wasn’t much in there to begin with. “Annette Luanne Vader, what the hell?!” Uh oh; little brother can turn into big brother in the blink of an eye.

“It isn’t as expensive as you probably think it is,” I argued.

“Still,” he grumbled, placing another mug up into a cabinet, “You should have just taken some money out of--”

“Stop,” I commanded, throwing up a hand. “I don’t even want to hear that, because you know it’s not an option.”

He shut the cabinet door with a little more force than necessary, now refusing to look at me. “I’m your brother, Nettie. And I’m 16; I’m not some stupid little kid. Someday, you’re going to have to explain to me why it isn’t an option.”

“Not today,” I snapped at him, snatching up the guitar case and heading for the garage to check on our instruments. Once I heard the door click shut behind me, however, the tears came and I never did get around to checking anything.

-- -- --

“I’ve got the feeling that this will never cease; living in these pictures, it never comes with ease. I swear, if I could make this right, you’d be back my now.”

With my earbuds in and Kenneth Nixon’s voice at top volume, I didn’t even hear Tomas enter my room. It had been three hours since our little spat in the kitchen and since then I’d done everything to avoid him. I’d checked the instruments, talked to all of my neighbors, and then shut myself in my room with the Framing Hanley playlist on my iPod. I figured he’d probably left a while ago.

So when a hand grabbed my shoulder, I spazzed, dropped the iPod (which resulted in the buds ripping out of my ears) and spun around with a little scream.

“Whoa, whoa,” Tomas held up his hands to calm me, then reached down to pick up my iPod. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” His voice was gentle now, which meant he had no intention of reviving the previous topic, and was sorry for having said anything in the first place. This put me at ease.

“It’s okay,” I breathed, pressing a hand to my chest to steady my heartbeats, “What’s up?”

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, “There’s a guy at the door for you.” I nodded, thanking him, and then wandered down the stairs to greet my visitor.

“Hello, Miss Vader!” The guy at the door turned out to be Gregory Gavin, the man I’d hired to build a stage for me. He was a nice man, maybe forty-five years old, with the kindest blue eyes I’d ever seen.

I greeted him with a handshake, “Mister Gavin, it’s nice to see you again.” I took the clipboard he handed me, signing my permission signature on the bottom, “You got a stage for me?”

He smiled, “Boys are unloading the supplies right now. Is it okay if we go ahead and take it all to the backyard?” I nodded. He’d been by on Wednesday night to scope out my yard and take measurements, so I felt comfortable in simply allowing him to go on his own accord. I ducked back into the house and joined Tomas in the living room, where he was watching music videos on my computer.

“You have an unhealthy obsession with William Beckett,” I told him a little while later, when he pulled up yet another The Academy Is… music video.

“Shut up,” he told me as the into played. Then he started humming along, “My life reads like the classified; pages of what’s for sale, what’s on the auction block.” I rolled my eyes and wandered away; Tomas tended to lose himself in their music, and it was best to just leave him be when that happened.

I got out my phone and sighed. Jack and Deveraux had taken the alcohol back to Deveraux’s apartment and were now rewarding themselves with a few games of miniature golf while Kal and Jocelyn were doing some last minute promo for the party. I’d also finished everything on my list, short of moving instruments to the stage (seeing as it had yet to be built), but I was too restless to just sit down. So finally I decided to fix some iced tea and take it out to the men working in the backyard.

-- -- --

“Ho…ly…shit,” Kal said breathlessly, while the rest of us could only nod in agreement. Everything was set up, and all of the sudden, it was all real.

The men had constructed a simple platform stage, sitting barely two feet off the ground, but they’d also constructed four posts, with one on each corner. They’d then been kind enough to help us hang white Christmas lights around the posts and then across the top. Then while the band set up our instruments on the stage and Jack fiddled with the PA system, Tomas and my parents hung more lights all around the spacious backyard, as well as a few tree lanterns and tiki torches. Now, at six o’clock, with everything pulled together, it was all catching up to us.

In an hour, my house would be full of teenaged strangers. Two hours after that, our band would play for the very first time ever. A thirty-five minute set list never felt so daunting.

“This is really happening, isn’t it?” I said, slightly embarrassed when my voice shook.

Jack just slung a thin arm around my shoulders and pulled my close, “Yep! And I finally get to hear you sing!” After I forced a weak chuckle, he became serious, “And you’re going to be great; everything is going to go perfectly.” All I could do was nod, trying to make myself believe him.
Kal bit her lip, obviously sharing my nervousness, and said, “Okay, well we better go finish setting up.” We all agreed and went back inside, where my parents--though disapproving of the idea of underage drinking--helped us set up the food and drinks and double check the house.

Like clockwork, people started showing up at seven. At first they just hung out in the living room, where my iPod was connected to the stereo, playing loudly. But as more people showed up, they began walking around, talking and goofing off, drinking and having a good time. Someone designated the living room as the Dance Area and I’d graciously pushed the couch and coffee table back to accommodate this. Despite my nervousness over performing, Jack wouldn’t let any of us get away with not enjoying the party. Like that night when we first met, he pulled us all to the dance floor and made us move, and soon we were laughing and momentarily forgetting our future.

It came back quickly, however, when Jack disconnected my iPod and jumped up onto the coffee table, drawing everyone’s attention. “All right, people!” He shouted with a goofy grin, “Start making your way to the backyard for the live entertainment!”

As people obliged, I couldn’t help but laugh at the number of “that seriously looks like Jack Barakat”s I heard as people passed. He’d signed surprisingly few autographs because, hey, who would expect some nobody high school Senior to know an actual famous person?

Jack hopped off the table and grabbed Kal’s hand, then mine, tugging us toward the backyard with Jocelyn and Deveraux close behind. We were among the last to get there, and went straight for the stage. Jack let go of my hand as soon as we were there, but took a little more time letting go of Kal’s. “Um,” he stuttered a little, “You’re going to be great. I know it.” Then he leaned in to give her a quick peck on the cheek and headed for the soundboard, flashing the rest of us a big smile and a thumbs up. And with visible shaking knees and trembling fingertips, we took the stage.