Suzie’s House 281: Stage Fright – Preamble

“I can’t do it. I can’t. I just can’t.” Emma caught herself scratching her elbow and made herself stop. She itched all over, and had since even before she and Kate left that old house where Gene lives.

“But Emma, you’re really good at it.”

“M-m-me?!” Emma shook her head hard. “I didn’t mean to do that. I didn’t. I….”

She was breathing too hard, and the cold night air make her lungs hurt. She stopped and doubled over, staring at the eerie gray of frost covered sidewalk at night.

“Oh no. Don’t tell me you have to throw up again.” Kate rolled her eyes.

“See. I told you I couldn’t do this.” She forced herself to straighten. The air was brisk, not killingly cold. Brisk, not cold. It wasn’t really shredding her lungs, even if every breath came out a frosty cloud. “It’s soooo cold!!!”

“Yeah. Kind off. Come on, I don’t want to stand around so close to Gene’s house.” Kate tugged on Emma’s arm, but looked at the bright windows of the house down the block that they’d come out of.

“You’ll tell them why I can’t sing in the band, right?” Emma let herself be dragged down the street toward the school. Both she and Kate lived on the other side. Eight, nine blocks at the most. She could make it. She just had to put one foot in front of the other.

“What? That you would get stage fright? They already know that.”

How could Kate act so detached? Didn’t she know what a disaster it would be for Emma to get on stage? And not just for Emma. The whole band would get laughed at. Emma bit her lip hard enough to make her eyes prickle. Or maybe that was the cold. She tightened her arms around herself and hurried to keep up with Kate.

“We’ll come up with something.” Kate smiled as if just saying it made everything all right.

“N-no. It won’t work.” Emma caught herself rubbing at her elbow again. It wasn’t like she could really scratch it through her pea coat. “I’d pass out.”

“I said we’d come up with something,” Kate snapped.

Oh no. Now she was mad. What was Emma going to do? She wrapped her arms around herself more and scrunched up her shoulders, feeling utterly miserable.

Imagine her on stage singing. What would that be like? The way everyone in Gene’s living room looked at her like she’d done something amazing had felt so good, but that was only because she’d closed her eyes right? If she tried to sing while everybody looked at her, she’d throw up for sure. Right there on stage. It would be worse than Justine Bieber.

But if she didn’t… She could rock out. The thought made her smile. Everyone in the band was so amazing. Even that super scary Bruce guy could make the best music. Emma’s head filled with the images of stage lights flashing and everyone in a crowd smiling and shouting, her right in front singing her heart out. God, if only.

“What are you smiling about?”

“N-nothing.” Probably somebody in the audience wouldn’t be smiling. And then Emma would lose it and everyone would know she wasn’t really a singer and they’d boo her off the stage. The thought made her shiver.

She thought she heard footsteps behind them. She couldn’t help herself. She glanced behind them. Bruce was there, walking behind them.

“What?” Kate looked behind them. “Oh, it’s just Bruce. Hey, I’ve got an idea. When you were singing, you had your eyes closed, right?”

Emma nodded.

“So how about we have you do it with a blind fold?”

“Um… huh?” Please, tell her it wasn’t what Emma thought. Surely Kate didn’t expect Emma to stagger around on stage with a blind fold on. What could be worse? Knowing all those people could see her, but she couldn’t see them?

She had a full blown vision of what it would be like. She’d probably knock over a microphone, and bump into the drums. Or maybe Kate planned on guiding her up to the microphone like she was blind. And then she’d start sweating and itching because she could hear people moving around and knew they could see her. She’d get scared, and everyone would know it. And then tomatoes would fill the air and make the stage slick so it was hard for her to run off to the bathroom fast enough.

“N-n-no!!!”

“Oh, come on. It’s perfect. Just like when you closed your eyes in the room with us. I’m sure you’d sing beautifully then.”

“No! No, no….n…” Emma shook her head. Hard. She stared off into the windows of the school as they walked past.

“You aren’t being reasonable,” Kate said. “You should at least try it.”

“I would… know. When I closed my eyes, I didn’t know. But a blindfold, I would know. And then I’d get too nervous.”

“Well, we’ll come up with something. Just don’t say you won’t try, all right?” Kate stopped at the corner. From here she went off to the right toward Lake Monona while Emma had to go straight up the isthmus.

“All… alright.”

“Good. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. I’m sure between all four of us we’ll come up with something.” Kate waved merrily and went off her way.

“Oh, God,” Emma said. Some people thought she was swearing when she said that, but really, it was always a prayer. Lord knew she needed salvation all the time every day. And this… this was the worst.

As she turned toward home – only a few blocks away and the temperature getting colder every second – she noticed that Bruce was still following. But he didn’t live this way.

Kate would probably have said hi and started talking, but Emma knew better. She knew all about Bruce and the nasty things he did to people. No way she wanted to get caught by him. She turned away and hurried toward home, listening as his foot steps drew closer and closer. Within seconds she’d broken into a sweat.

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