Mind the Gap (In Too Deep) (8 page)

A
ll in all it was an ideal week. Everyone was stoked about the results of the trials, and excited at the thought of bringing home some Olympic hardware in a few weeks.

Chapter 9

Brit

I stood in the
cereal isle and stared blankly at the box of Wheaties in front of me. I couldn't
believe
little Rachel Coleman, who used to make homemade retainers out of paperclips, was married to a guy whose photo was on a box of cereal. Collin Blake was
the
most popular American Olympic athlete this year. A female gymnast named Molly Hayes hit it pretty big, and a female swimmer named Sabrina or Serena something—but
no one's
face was plastered in the media like Collin's. It was truly surreal to be staring at my childhood friend's husband on a freaking box of cereal at Price Chopper.

Amazing
.

I didn't go to the Olympics, but Rachel and most of the friends I'd met through her were there. I recorded everything. My DVR was almost completely full of Men's Olympic swimming coverage, and I replayed the races several times, watching the guys I knew personally as they set records and won medals.
It was like a dream, and I was so proud to know them.

Collin won gold in
four out of five of his events, making him a total rock star. He won silver in one of the relays, but gold in the one he swam in with Zack. That was an extremely exciting race to watch. I replayed that one at least ten times. Zack won medals in all of his races also. He won two golds, a silver and a bronze. Ethan Erickson, who I gathered was a bit of an underdog, beat all odds and medaled in all three of his events. He got silver in both of his individual races, but gold in his relay. That one was exciting as well, but not quite as close as the one where Collin and Zack came from behind for the gold.

Rachel
emailed once while they were there, but they had a lot going on, and I was able to see everything on the television anyway. Trevor had gotten into it with me since he had met them all in Portland. He came over most nights to watch, and we'd jump up and cheer and scream when someone we knew was racing. Trevor even bought me a T-shirt with a U.S. flag on it, so I could be a bonafide fan. I wore it every time I watched, superstitious that it would somehow help them perform their best.

Almost as fun as watching people I knew swim in the Olympics was looking for my friends in the audience. I watched the crowd for Rachel
and the rest of the gang. Every time they cut to Collin, Zack, or Ethan's parents, I'd be able to find Rachel and Emily close by. Trevor was over one night when I kept rewinding one shot of the audience that showed my friends for several long seconds. The announcer was talking about Collin's parents, and the cameraman scanned over to them. Trevor thought I kept rewinding it to see Rachel. I did notice her there, but as if it were beyond my control, my eyes went straight to Josh. I studied his face on the television screen. He was sitting in between Collin's mom and Rachel. I laughed, knowing Rachel probably had him there as a buffer. I replayed the shot several times trying to figure out why Josh looked so different to me. His style hadn't changed, but something was definitely different about him. It wasn't until about the fifth time I replayed it, (and yes, Trevor was looking at me sideways by then) that I realized it was his hair.

Josh had hair! It had been a few months since I'd last seen him and his hair had gone from totally shaved to a short, messy mop of dark brown waves. It looked really good on him. I'm not ashamed to admit that I saved that segment and watched it
a few more times after Trevor left that night. I paused it when his face was on the screen and relived the kiss we shared in that hallway.

And here was
the scary part… The Olympics had been over for two weeks now and I
still
had that piece of footage saved to my DVR. I told myself I saved it because the race was exciting, but the truth was, I was still nursing that tiny crush on Josh, and I wanted to look at him any time I felt the urge. He was smiling and talking to Collin's mom, and I thought about how good a smile looked on him. I'd rarely, if ever seen him smile, and I loved how it looked. The new haircut didn't hurt matters either.

"Excuse me," a voice said, startling me out of my thoughts, "I'm just
gonna grab one of these." I realized I was blocking the Wheaties. A handsome, young, professional looking guy wearing a shirt and tie and carrying a hand-held grocery basket reached in front of me to take a box with Collin's face on it.

I was too proud to
stop myself.

"He's a friend of mine," I said pointing at the box.

"You're kidding," he said. "You know him?"

"Yep, his wife is one of my best friends. We've known each other since we were kids."

He looked me over as if to gauge my likability. I knew just by looking at him that I wasn't his type, but I could tell he was trying to like me since I knew the Wheaties guy. If he only knew he wasn't at all my type either and I was just telling him that to show off a little, not to score a date.

"What's your name?" he asked.
Nice one, Casanova.

I stuck out my hand and told hi
m my name but then smiled and walked off before the situation could get any more embarrassing. I figured maybe it wasn't such a good idea to stare at Wheaties boxes in Price Chopper while daydreaming about Josh Rand in the audience at the Olympics.

****

The next night I had a gig at a local bar called Digg's. Even though I had a band behind me now, we made pretty mellow music. Our sound worked perfectly in Digg's, because it was a laid-back place famous for a huge selection of beer from obscure microbreweries.

The three guys backing me up were really good musicians who
helped me improve each time we got together to rehearse. That was something we did a lot because we were gaining fans at a faster rate than we were ready for. We called ourselves Brit and the Bellyflops, and to our own shock, we'd packed the bar even though it was only our second time to play there as the headliners.

So,
Digg's was packed, and the sight of that huge crowd made me feel nervous. Just before the show, my band and I (plus the sound guy) stepped outside for a little attitude adjustment. We were in the middle of adjusting said attitude when a huge Chevy pulled up in the parking lot. I knew before anyone got out that it was one of my parents. The huge black Chevy was easy enough to recognize, but I'd never seen anyone else with a bumper sticker that said, "If you're against logging, try using plastic to wipe your ass." My family lived in Oregon, and yes, my dad was a logger. I had one little brother, who indeed wanted to carry on the family tradition of clearing the earth of its forests. I suddenly felt extremely paranoid. I ducked into my car and began searching for some gum or some smelly lotion or ideally both.

I had about twenty seconds to compose myself and shake the paranoia before I had to say something to Mom and Dad. I probably could have hidden and let them walk into the bar without saying anything,
but I was too curious about why they were here. In spite of my parents being a little close-minded, we had a good relationship and I wasn't sad they were here, I was just curious as to why.

"Mom?" I said, coming from behind them as they started to circle the building to get to the front door.

My mom turned with a start, but relaxed as soon as my voice registered. "Hey baby, I never dreamed we'd see you out here." Her assessing gaze swept over me (and my delinquent band mates who were in the distance). She didn't miss a beat, thank you, Jesus. "Dad and I were just gonna go on inside and surprise you in the audience," she continued. Then she looked at her watch. "What are you doing out here?" she asked, concerned. "I thought you had a show at—"

"No, it's fine, we're good on time. The owner knows we're out here. We were just having a little band meeting before we go on stage."
My mom just squinted into the shadows at the guys she'd just learned were my band mates. "Thanks for coming guys," I said, hoping to distract them. "Where's Paul?" My little brother was nineteen, but still lived at home.

"He stayed at home," my dad said. "Your mom and I wanted a date." He smiled at her and offered his arm, and she accepted. They headed for the front door of the venue wishing me luck from over their shoulders.

All of a sudden, I was more nervous than I'd ever been in my whole life. Performing in front of strangers is much easier than performing for family because when you perform in front of family, you worry about their total experience—not only just what they think about your performance, but also things you can't control. I was worried that someone in the audience would say something rude about me or the music and my mom would overhear. I knew that was crazy, so I took a few deep breaths and decided to have fun. If I couldn't have fun, then what was I doing there, right? "Let's do it boys," I said as I made my way to the back door.

I spotted my mom and dad right when we came
up on the stage. They were settled at one of the high tables built for two that were scattered along the outside edges of the bar. My mom and dad had both heard me sing, obviously. I'd been doing it all my life. They hadn't until now, however, heard me play guitar, much less with a band backing me up. Trevor was also there with a group of our friends. It took me a couple of songs to get over the packed crowd and into the music, but once I did I hit a stride, I felt really good with how we sounded.

During several songs, I'd seen my mom and
/or Trevor holding up their phones to video, and I was looking forward to checking them out later to see what I could do differently next time. Not that I was worried about our mistakes, really. I had a freaking blast on that stage. The crowd was into it and the way they responded to the music made me feel the oddest sense of euphoria. It was good old fashioned fun to perform in front of hundreds of people, and I looked forward to continuing the trend (if I could) after moving to L.A.

My parents left during the set break. They were planning on staying in a hotel on the outskirts of the city since it was a five-hour drive to our home in Oregon. They went on and on about how much they loved it, and how proud they were of me. I was excited
to have their approval, even though their lack of it wouldn't have stopped me from pressing forward. My mom did have one critique. She was concerned about the name Bellyflops ending with the word "flop". She didn't want us to accidently curse ourselves. I assured her that the Bellyflops would be a short-lived project anyway since I was moving to L.A. soon. "You're just so far from a 'flop', Brit," she'd said, "so don't call your next band that." I agreed, and she was content not to mention it again.

Before they took off, my mom told me she'd have to get my little brother to email me the videos she took of the show since she didn't know how to work her phone. I told her if she could understand how to take the video, she could grasp sending an email, but she didn't want to hear anything about that. "Paul will do it, no problem," she
'd said. I probably could have used her phone to mail them to myself, but I didn't want to get into all that when we only had a few minutes between sets. I hugged them both and thanked them for coming, and they set off into the sunset.

We finished strong. I felt
at least
as good about the second set as I did the first. The bar manager offered us a regular gig, and we accepted. We figured it was best not to mention my plans to move until the time came. The members of the band knew about it, of course, but there was no reason we shouldn't have a little fun in the meantime. The only problem was, the more and more positive feedback we got, the harder and harder it would be to break up the band. We told the manager we'd play every third Saturday, and he acted like he was excited to have us.

I'd gone from practicing guitar with
YouTube in my living room to packing the house at Digg's once a month. It was almost as surreal as Collin's Wheaties box.

****

The next morning at eleven, a text came, waking me up.

Rachel: "We're at the hospital! Gretchen had her baby!"

There was a photo of a precious, wrinkly newborn attached to the text. I took a few minutes to wake up before I responded.

Me: "OMG that's the cutest thing I've ever seen. It's a boy, right?"

Rachel: "Yep!
His name is Luke James and he's perfect. Gretchen's doing great, although we haven't seen her. She had to have a C-section."

Me: "Sorry about surgery, but happy to hear all is well. Please give Gretchen and Joel hugs for me. Also, give me the name of the hospital, and I'll send some flowers."

Rachel: "We're at Sacred Heart, but we don't know a room number yet. Stuck in waiting room. ;)"

Me: "I'll forward you a video of a song from last night's show to help you with the wait."

Rachel: "Haha, sounds great! Sorry I forgot to ask how the show went. I forgot you had that last night."

Me: "No worries. It went great. My parents came."

Rachel: "You're kidding! What'd they think?"

Me: "They loved it. Trevor got a shot of the audience in the song I'm sending, so see if you can pick them out."

Rachel: "Oh, how fun, a challenge."

My next text was just a video.

It was at least ten minutes before she text me back.