My Butterfly

girls?”
    I laughed once and shook my head. Then, I tipped my baseball cap and started out toward Lou on the street.
    “So, I’ll see you tomorrow night then at seven?” he called out after me.
    I nodded my head and raised my hand in the air.
    “I’ll be there,” I said.
    I got to the driver’s side door and pulled on the handle.
    “Hey, Will,” Matt called out from the driveway.
    I looked back up in his direction.
    “It’ll be fun,” he said.
    I smiled and nodded my head. Then, I opened the door, set my guitar onto the backseat and slid behind the wheel. I found the key next and then stuck it into the ignition.
    “Fun,” I mumbled under my breath. “Yeah, I’ve heard that a couple of times before from someone else.”
    A wide smile battled its way to my face and eventually won.
    “And she just might have been right, damn it.”

Chapter Twenty
    The Gig
     
     
    “O kay, you guys ready for a sound check?” asked a stout man propped up against the side of the stage.
    I glanced over at Chris plugging the last cord into an amplifier and hesitantly nodded my head. We were on a tiny platform in a room a little bigger than New Milford’s corner bar. But the ceilings were high and unfinished, and they gave the place a more modern look than the little bar from back home.
    I watched the stout man take the three steps back down the stage and then make his way across the room again. He stayed as near as he could to the wall as he shuffled to his place in the far corner. There were people already sitting around tables and standing at the bar. They all seemed to be in their twenties and thirties mostly. Some were watching us, shielded behind their drinks and the darkness that filled the area below the stage. But most looked as if they didn’t even notice us. My eyes eventually fell again onto the stout man, squeezing behind a counter, lit up with knobs and buttons. He played with some of the knobs and then finally looked my way and gave me a thumbs-up. I turned then and found Matt.
    Matt caught my glance and paused from digging through a container full of electrical tape and pliers and whatnot.
    “You can go ahead,” he said. “I’ll go next.”
    I faced forward again and stared at the microphone resting at the top of its stand. Then, I looked back up at the man behind the counter. His eyes were turned down; his fingers were busy dancing over the lights and the knobs. I caught a pair of eyes near the stage, and I smiled an awkward smile. She smiled back, and then I went back to the sound check that was evidentially already in progress. Suddenly, I felt as if I were seven all over again and playing rock star with the kids up the street. I shook off another uneasy smile and then tapped the top of the microphone. A dull sound bounced off the walls in the little room. It seemed to attract only a few more faces. I readjusted the guitar’s strap around my body. Then, not really sure what to do next, I brought my lips to the microphone, remembering a movie I had seen once.
    “Test, test,” I said into the mic.
    My words came out soft. I could barely hear them over the constant hum of voices in the room.
    The guy behind the buttons and knobs pointed his finger in the air.
    I nodded my head and waited.
    “Test, test,” I said again into the mic after a moment.
    This time, I could hear myself.
    “That sounds good,” I heard Matt call out from behind me.
    I gave the sound guy in the back of the room an okay gesture with my hand and nodded my head in approval.
    “Song list,” Matt said, setting a sheet of paper onto the stage at my feet.
    I glanced down at the floor. The paper had a list of titles scribbled down the page.
    “Okay, thanks,” I said.
    Then, I played with the strings on my guitar, acting as if I hadn’t just tuned it, while Daniel tapped around on his drums and pedals and Matt and Chris worked with the sound guy. These guys were old pros at this stuff. I felt like a tadpole out of pond water.
    When the guys were finally satisfied with their sounds, several more lights appeared in rays from the ceiling. Some were white; the others were red. They were bright and caused me to squint until I got used to them, which took me about a minute.
    “You ready, Will?” I heard Matt ask.
    I turned and found Matt. Then, I glanced at the mic and then back at him as if to say, now?
    “Yep,” he said. “We’re ready.”
    I took a deep breath in and then felt it instinctively escape past my lips as a