Getting Real

She nodded. They needed Jonas. They needed to get the show design and every on-stage moment perfected and locked down. That was one of the reasons she’d wanted to start in Adelaide, and why they’d allocated extra time to get this first show produced. A small city that often missed out on big name acts was more likely to be forgiving than a place like Sydney. Sydney was experienced. Sydney was sophisticated. She knew her stuff. She’d sniff out a poorly planned set list, or a flat spot in the show as soon as she looked at them. That’s why Sydney was last. Sydney was brutal. Sydney didn’t forgive. And Rielle couldn’t forgive Sydney.

If only.

“What do you think of Jake?” she asked. If Jonas was going to be unreliable, they needed a strong tour manager. If they didn’t think Jake had the goods they’d have him replaced immediately. She knew he looked good with his broad chest and well-worked muscles, his handsome face and short cropped hair that’d stood up in sweaty spikes in the gym, but no one knew better than she did how deceiving looks could be.

“He’s a good guy; he’s got a great rep, crew like him, and that tells you something.”

“I think he’s wet.” He was entirely too ‘boy next door’ and the tattoo, a star maybe, done with red and blue ink on his bicep didn’t make it any less so.

“You think everyone is wet.”

Rielle scuffed her boot heel on a piece of stage riser. “No seriously, he’s a nice guy and that’s the problem. We need a tour manager who’s a goddamn Godzilla, you know, rips into people, has them all afraid to put a foot wrong.” They didn’t need some cute guy she’d almost considered messing around with because he’d looked so deliciously normal, so easy going. Thank fuck she’d remembered messing around with cute boys was never uncomplicated and never worked in her favour.

“Nope, we don’t. We need a guy the crew respect. Respect is better than fear.”

“Tell that to the oppressed masses. I don’t like him.”

Rand flapped his arms in exasperation. “What’s not to like?”

“Someone whose main recommendation is that other people like him. I’m not other people.”

“Oh, don’t we know that.” Rand eye-rolled. “Get over it. Unless he fouls something up, we’re keeping him.” He gave her a shove. “Come on, let’s go see the view from the cheap seats.”

From the control booth, Jake heard Rielle’s impromptu performance and noted the approval of the crew. It was a good start. Not only had the two stars shown up earlier than most talent did and were interested in the set build, they appeared to appreciate the need to win the crew over. That was smart. Many of the big names scraped in on time for a rehearsal, issued a truckload of demands and then showed up just in time for the main event, barely conscious of the effort it took to get them on stage in the first place.

He watched brother and sister climb the stadium staircase, headed for the seats at the top, the ones with the worst view and the least atmosphere, but sold out like every other seat in the venue. That was smart too. It showed they cared about the punters.

He knew he should join them. The more time he spent with them early on, the easie

r it would be to interpret their wishes for the whole tour, but he hated those seats. He hated everything about them: the restricted view, the poor sight lines, the long climb, and most of all the long way down.

But it had been a while, so maybe it would be all right this time. He gritted his teeth and started out after them. At first it was fine, and if he kept his head down on the steps, didn’t look left or right and God forbid up, he’d be okay.

Half way up, he knew it was anything but fine. It was a horror story. He’d broken out in a heavy sweat that had nothing to do with the effort and everything to do with his racing heart. He figured Rand and Rielle had hit the top by now, so he knew he couldn’t take his time. Ideally he’d be up those steps two at a time, but the reality was, all he could do was focus on his feet, take one faltering step at a time and try to steady his breathing. It could be worse, much worse; the ground was solid; it wasn’t like he could see a steep drop, but he knew this was high and that’s all it took—just knowing.

He’d had this thing about heights since he was a kid. First it was just dopey stuff like wanting to jump off fences and rooftops pretending to be Superman and then it became this fear he might fall and hurt himself. No, not just hurt himself. Worse. He thought he might stop breathing, fall down and die.

Acrophobia—fear of heights. It was insane. It didn’t make any logical sense, but there it was. His heart raced; his breath got short; his head spun; he sweated buckets, and he could barely think straight when anything to do with heights was involved.

It was the reason he didn’t fly, unless there was really no way around it, and then he drugged up to get through it. It was the reason he quit being a spark fairy himself. There were just too many times when you needed to go up a ladder, or scaffold, or on top of a roof.

He hadn’t had this happen for some time and a part of him had hoped he’d grown out of it, but now, feeling the hammer of his heart and the sweat running down his face and stinging his eyes, he knew all he’d managed to do was avoid situations like this. Why else would you drive for fifteen hours from Sydney to Adelaide unless you had to?

Now he was stuck halfway up and not game to turn around, with his employers waiting, probably watching, not that he was prepared to lift his head to check. This really was something he needed to fix. There must be a trick to it: behavioural therapy, shock treatment, a well aimed kick to the head.

Meanwhile he was shaking from a flood of adrenaline and half mad from the insistent voice in his brain urging him to get out of there or die, die, die.

Rielle eyed Jake’s glacially slow progress up the stairs towards them. “Are we going to bother waiting for him? What is he doing?”

She and Rand watched as Jake mopped his brow.

“He didn’t look unfit. Maybe he’s an asthmatic?” said Rand.

“He’s not unfit.”

“He looks like he might expire any second.” Rand leaned forward as though his body posture might support Jake somehow.

“He’s fit as! He was in the gym. I saw him bench press a small elephant.”