Hold the Forevers

Trish held her hands aloft. “Hell yes!”

The crowd went wild. I liked Trish, but she was something else. It made me miss Marley and Josie.

“Oh! Karaoke!” Trish gushed.

“Oh God. Not karaoke,” I said, stepping backward.

Mazie and Trish clutched my arm and dragged me inside Cat’s Meow. The place had two tiers with a small stage at the front. A man played a piano on the stage, and someone sang an atrocious chorus of Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.”

“I’m going to sign us up,” Trish said and then headed for the stage.

“I’m not singing.”

Mazie laughed. “Me neither. We’ll just send Trish.”

“Deal.”

“But drinks?”

“Definitely.”

We ordered a round of something to wash down the terrible test-tube shot.

Trish appeared a few minutes later. “We’re slot number ten. They said thirty or forty-five minutes.”

“Sounds good.”

We stood around with the other girls, singing every song that you could possibly imagine someone would want to karaoke. Between Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” a truly uncomfortable rendition of Whitney’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” and a Freddie Mercury lookalike who strolled in and sang a flawless “Bohemian Rhapsody,” I realized I was actually having a good time. No one could hear that I couldn’t sing when we were all shouting the lyrics into the abyss. And by the time Trish got on the stage to sing “… Baby One More Time,” I was drunk enough to agree to get onstage with Mazie as Trish’s backup dancers.

Luckily, due to one too many dance team rehearsals in high school, I knew the original music video dance. I hadn’t ever performed it drunk and in heels, but being onstage felt right, and soon, people were coming in off the streets to hear Trish’s amazing vocals, coupled with my dancing. We finished to an unprecedented volume of cheers. People on the streets were screaming for us to give an encore. And then in the sea of faces, I saw two that I recognized. Cole and Tony were standing in the street. Tony’s jaw was nearly on the floor despite the number of basketball games he’d seen me perform at. Cole had his arms crossed. I couldn’t read his face from this distance.

I hastily took a bow and hurried offstage. The MC gave me a high five as I passed.

“Killed it, Britney!”

I flush of embarrassment hit my cheeks. Not from being onstage, but post-dance mortification.

Trish was jumping up and down. “That was amazing! Where did you learn to move like that?”

“Uh … actually, I was on the dance team at Georgia and a Falcons cheerleader.”

Trish’s eyes bugged. “What the fuck, Lila? Why didn’t I know this? I mean, I knew you wanted to work at the Falcons, but I didn’t know you were a dancer.”

I shrugged. “Ancient history.” I gestured toward the door. “I think I saw my friends from last night outside.”

“Oh! Introduce us,” Trish said.

And before I could say anything, Trish dashed toward the door. Mazie and I jogged to keep up with her as we stumbled back out onto the humid New Orleans street. The crowd had dispersed some after our performance, and people had gone back to drunkenly wandering the street.

But Cole still stood outside with Tony along with a short, freckled woman with curly red hair—presumably Tony’s fiancé, Gina—and another tall Black guy that I didn’t know.

“Is that them?” Trish asked.

I nodded. “That’s them.”

“Hey!” Trish said, walking right up to them.

“Britney Spears!” Tony said with a laugh.

Trish grinned and held out her hand. “That’s right. I’m Lila’s friend, Trish.”

Tony shook her hand, and Gina stepped a little closer to him. A reasonable assessment based on Trish’s outgoing behavior. You’d never know she had a super-steady boyfriend at home. She just liked people.

“You looked like you were back out on the field,” Cole said to me.

“Felt good to be back … except drunk and in these heels.”

Cole frowned. “Are you not dancing?”

“There’s not a place to dance in Savannah as an adult. I taught a master class at my old studio, but it wasn’t the same.” I shrugged. “Hard to feel inspired to teach high school students after dancing professionally.”

“Well, are you going to introduce me to the infamous Lila?” his friend asked.

I gritted my teeth at that word. Infamous. Oh boy.

“Sure. Curtis, this is Lila. Lila, this is my business partner.”

Business partner. The one whose wife had set Cole up with her best friend, Harper. Great.

“Nice to meet you.”

We shook hands.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Curtis said.

I had no idea what to say to that. Curtis was likely his closest friend back in San Francisco and that Cole had bitched a lot to him about everything that had happened. I couldn’t imagine that it was a positive image.

Cole butted in before I could say a word, “Where are you headed next?”

“Oh, Pat O’s for real Hurricanes and dueling pianos,” Trish answered for me.