Suzie’s House 481 : Incognito

“I sound awful.” Emma covered her face with her hands. “Turn it off. Turn the TV off!” She flapped a hand at the TV in her living room.

“Oh. Right.” Tracy had been sitting on the couch next to Emma with a look of abject horror on her face.

Emma watched her through spread fingers. Tracy launched herself across the room to turn the advertisement off. “My song,” she muttered as though her firstborn had been swept away in a flood – probably too stunned to be angry yet. But Emma knew she would be. Tracy was really territorial about the songs she wrote.

“It’s not like we didn’t know she was going to do this.” Kate sounded half irritated and half bored. “It’s in the contract. Right? Or it should be. I just gave mine to my parents and didn’t bother to read it.”

“It’s in the contract that she has to let us say yes or no before she broadcasts anything. I made sure of it before I let my aunt sign for me.” Tracy lost a lot of her sickly look and started to get angry.

The three girls looked from one to another.

“She didn’t call me. You?”

“Nope. Not me.”

So Miranda hadn’t called any of them. Maybe one of the guys? But if it was Bruce he’d have said something to Emma. Probably. And Gene would have talked to Tracy and Justin to Kate. Wouldn’t they?

Tracy swore. “I knew she would do something like this. It’s just like her.”

“Yeah. I guess.” Emma didn’t really know the woman all that well, even if she lived in the house they normally hung out in. And wasn’t that going to be awkward.

Emma visualized everyone in the band sitting in the den watching the ads when Miranda came into the room. In Emma’s mind everyone’s heads turned to stare accusingly at the woman like puppets on a string or characters out of a horror movie. It could happen, actually.

When her mind started tossing out images of Tracy turning Valkyrie and chasing Miranda around the house with a flaming sword she shut the thoughts down. That was just silly.

“What would we do anyway? So no?” She glanced at Tracy.

Tracy got a stubborn look on her face. “Not to everything. But used cars? Really? Everyone’s going to laugh at us.”

“Everyone?” Kate sat up straighter.

“From school? You know? Everyone we know will see this thing. They’ll make fun of us.”

“But… no one knows it’s us?” Kate didn’t sound too sure of herself.

Tracy bit her lip.

“I mean, everyone’s underage, right? So they wouldn’t see our gigs in the bars.”

There was a thump from the kitchen. Emma glanced in the reflection of a decorative mirror to see her father picking up something from the floor. Oh great. Now se was in for another lecture.

“The park,” Tracy said.

“But I didn’t see anyone we knew there all summer. It was just all college students and businessmen.”

“I… I saw Caitlin once.” Emma bit her lip as soon as she said it.

“But you were wearing your mask right? So she probably doesn’t know it was us.” Kate sounded panicky.

Emma nodded, feeling like a bobble head. Tracy looked dubious.

Kate jumped to her feet and grabbed her stuff. “I’m going to go home and yell at my parents.”

“Yell?” Emma stared at Kate in wonder. She had no idea why Kate would yell at her parents over something like this.

“It’s a parents job to protect kids from ridicule and stuff. Right? They didn’t do a good enough job of protecting me.” She yanked the front door open.

“I’m going over to Gene’s house. Maybe Miranda will be there and I can yell at the one who should be yelled at. You coming, Emma?”

“N…n…noooo.” Emma gave her head a quick shake. The last thing she needed was to join that kind of confrontation. She stayed rooted on the couch as her friends let themselves out.

Her dad put a tray of cheese and crackers on the coffee table as the front door closed.

“I guess we won’t be needing these after all.” He looked at the tray like the food let him down. He sat down in the chair kitty-corner from the couch. ‘Do you feel I didn’t protect you well enough by signing the contract?”

“No! N-no! I would have been really mad if you hadn’t.”

“But the ridicule…”

Emma shrugged. “That’s days away. Any-anything could happen.”

But it occurred to her that school would be starting in just over two weeks. She was suddenly really, really glad she’d always worn a mask on stage.

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