Page 55 of Waiting for Gilbert

“Her project is due tomorrow. I’m sure she’d love to spend time with you after Christmas.” Why are these words slimy on my tongue? I lean forward and loosen the screw on my cello’s endpin.

“Do you have the set list saved from our last gig?” Dating conversation closed.

“I’ll email the updated set.” Endpin pushed inside the body, I lay my cello in its red-velvet-lined case. “What should we name the long one?”

John pulls out his phone then jumps to his feet. “Yes!” He pumps a fist. “Gil! Yes!”

I look at the screen over his shoulder. There’s an email from… I squint but can’t read the small text. “What is it?”

“This is the music supervisor I told you about. The Hollywood scout. She heard us play at the cattlemen’s banquet back in October. She says she likes what she sees on our website.” He gapes with either terror or elation. “She wants us to come to L.A.”

“When?”

He glances at his phone. “This weekend.”

“Christmas Eve is Sunday.”

“She wants to hear us in the studio on the twenty-third. Saturday afternoon.”

“Wow. That’s—wow.” This is huge. Blow-up-our-career huge.

“There’s more.” John’s focus flits along his screen, and I slowly lower myself to the stool. “Okay, here’s the catch… she’s invited three other groups. We each have… a half-hour slot. It’s an audition. She’ll have us perform for the producers who will make the final decisions.”

“What are we supposed to play?” We want to do this, right? We’re a band that plays music for money. People hire us. This is good. Why do I need to convince myself this is good? Of course this is good. It’s so far away. Who’s paying for the flights? Can we find a place to stay at such short notice? Hotels are outrageous?—

“They’re filming a new TV drama. Contemporary but with an old-fashioned flare. They’re pulling together some of the great entertainment styles from the 1800s in a modern story.”

I feel a glimmer of excitement as he continues to read to himself. That could be fun. As long as I don’t think about the city. We’d be in a studio. Studios are fine.

“Ha! It’s an eight-episode miniseries of a contemporaryPride and Prejudice.” He lowers his phone. “That’s why she wants us. She says we have the perfect blend of traditional and contemporary sounds.”

This is true. “So… what are we supposed to play?”

He sucks in a deep breath and tucks his phone in his pocket. “She wants us—that means you—to compose an original mash-up of Handel and something modern. She mentions Michael Jackson or?—”

“Jackson’s not modern. How old is this chick?”

“He’s more modern than Handel. But she also mentions Avicii or Black Eyed Peas.”

I nod. “Mash Handel with anything from the last fifty years that makes people move.” My knee’s nervous energy bumps the nearby card table.

We stare at each other. Our answer is yes. Despite my doubts, this is still the coolest thing that’s ever happened to us. It’s for star-wishers and the lucky few. Never in my life did I dream an honest-to-goodness Hollywood scout would hear me play and then contact me.

Reality slams like a gut-punch. “That’s a lot to put together in two days.”

John puffs his chest. “But you can do it.”

Can I do it? “I can do it.”Lord, help me.

He seesaws his shoulders and raises his fists. John makes a better musician than a dancer. He aims at me with double finger guns. “And you will do it.”

“I will do it.” I run a hand through my hair. “John, you’re amazing. Have I expressed how amazing you are? You’re amazing. She found us on your website?”

“Oh!” He stops his awkward celebratory dance. “Look who’s finally interested in myhobby. The website that you never pay any attention to gets 10,000 hits a month. And these are new hits that direct people to and from our YouTube page that currently sits with 3,000 subscribers. Yes, that website.”

“I am unworthy.” I fall to my knees in aWayne’s Worldbow.

He flicks both hands into the air to conduct an imaginary orchestra and shouts in an indiscernible foreign accent, “From ze top!”

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