Sinful Ella (Seven Ways to Sin 6)

My phone pinged with a text from Martine, pulling me out of my daydream. Be ready to go in two days, it said, and I grinned. This was going to be amazing.

2

Ella

All the Dramamine in the world couldn’t have prepared me for the car sickness I experienced on our first day on the road. Miserable, I curled up in the back of the van, taking tiny sips of ginger ale and praying that it wouldn’t all come up again.

Susanna and Liz, my bandmates, cast the occasional glance back at me as they whispered and giggled amongst themselves, apparently immune to the motion sickness that had laid me flat.

“You look terrible,” Liz said finally. “Are you going to yak?”

“Ugh!” her sister, Susanna, sniffed. “Don’t do it in the van; we have to be here too, and I don’t want to have to smell your puke for the next month.” Liz nodded her agreement, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

“I’m not going to,” I assured them weakly. I hoped that was the truth. “I think I’ll just take a nap, maybe I’ll feel better when I wake up.” I closed my eyes, willing my stomach to settle. The strong scent of whiskey that emanated from Martine’s “coffee” thermos did nothing to help my queasiness. So far, my adventure was not off to an auspicious start. Tears pricked the backs of my eyelids, but I refused to let them fall. Not in front of Susanna and Liz.

I had met Susanna and Liz in church, where we all sang in the choir. Physically, the Gaitly sisters were polar opposites of each other: Susanna towered over most other women, while tiny Liz existed, quite literally, in Susanna’s shadow. Susanna was loud, some might say bossy, and had found a willing lackey in her mousy younger sister. I’d known them since we were all children, but we had never been friends. I had been surprised, then, when Susanna approached me after choir practice one day last year, Liz tagging along behind her, as usual.

“We’re starting a band,” Susanna had announced, Liz nodding like a bobblehead beside her. “We’ve already got a manager and everything.”

“That’s . . . cool,” I’d said. “Congratulations.”

Susanna sniffed. “Martine—that’s our manager’s name—says we need another girl to fill out our sound. So do you want in, or what?”

I’d said yes, of course, but it had quickly become obvious that Susanna had invited me under duress. I still remembered the mutinous look in Susanna’s eye when Martine had insisted that I be made lead singer, in place of Susanna.

“But it’s my band,” Susanna had whined. “The Sinful Sisters—she’s not even one of the sisters!”

“You’re already the lead guitarist,” Martine had wheedled. “We need you to focus on that, so you and Liz are backing vocals.”

Susanna had eventually relented, as it became evident that Martine would drop us if we didn’t go her way. But I knew that Susanna had never quite forgiven me, and she rarely spoke to me directly if she could help it.

“Ella, babe.” Martine leaned toward me, her sun-weathered face inches from mine, the whiskey on her breath making my stomach curdle. I focused on one of the patches on her leather jacket, trying my best to breathe through my mouth. “You’ll be alright, won’t you? We need you at your best for this tour, and that can’t happen if you’re puking out the window.”

“I’ll be fine,” I insisted.

“Good,” Martine said, leaning back. “Because I have it on good authority that there’s going to be a producer at the show tonight, so we really need to give it our all.”

My stomach gave a queasy flip, whether from car sickness or nerves, I couldn’t tell. “I just need to rest for a while,” I assured her. Squeezing my eyes tight, I did my best to block out Susanna and Liz’s chattering in the front seat. Eventually, I managed to drift into an uneasy sleep, waking just in time for our first stop on the tour: a little venue just outside DC.

To my relief, my stomach seemed to have finally settled during my nap, and I prepared for the show quickly, trying unsuccessfully to drown out Susanna and Liz’s incessant chatter around me.

“You look better,” Susanna said, sounding disappointed. I suspected she had been hoping I would be too sick to perform, and she’d be able to take my place as lead singer. I smiled.

“I feel much better, thanks,” I said.

As we took our place onstage, I felt the familiar calm descend on me that I always felt when I sang. Before long, I had lost myself in the music, in the response from the crowd. This was where I belonged, what I was meant to do with my life. I was sure of it.

Martine, drink in hand, beamed at us as we left the stage. “Wonderful job, girls,” she said, her voice a little slurred. “I knew you could do it.”