"Your hair," Eric said. "It … how'd it get worse overnight?"
"It didn't," Daniel said, starting to smirk.
Trevor choked on his laughter. "Hey, dumb fuck," he said to Mitchell, who lifted his chin but still couldn't get his eyes the whole way open.
"Get out of the sun," Trevor said. "Man, I know plenty of girls who wouldn't stand on a street corner with hair that color."
"What are we going to do about it?" Eric asked.
"Bleach it?" Daniel suggested.
"Cut it off!" Trevor crowed.
"Same thing," the tour manager said, not looking up from his magazine. "I'll make some calls, see if we can find some beauty shop who'll fix you up."
Trevor snickered. "I want to see M in curlers!"
Mitchell growled at him and sunk into the bench seat behind the table. "If word about this gets out…"
Daniel played with one of his own curls. "That's a good point. Maybe we should see if we can fix this, ourselves, first."
"How?" Eric asked.
Daniel opened the mini-fridge and looked inside. "I'm sure we can find something."
Thirteen Things Mitchell used to get the green out of his hair
1. Lemon juice (Not only didn't it work, it made his hair so dry, it stood out from his head like he was plugged directly into an electrical outlet. You could smell it in the first few rows of the audience, too.)
2. Mountain Dew (Hey, it's the same color as lemon juice. Sort of. Mostly.)
3. Coffee (Brown and green make … ugly green.)
4. Milk (Gotta make the coffee less bitter, I suppose.)
5. Tea (Might have worked better had they brewed it instead of rubbing wet tea bags on Mitchell's head.)
6. Toothpaste (Mitchell smelled minty fresh!)
7. Beer (Made it shiny. Trevor said the shine made it look like pond scum. Mitchell promptly beat him almost senseless.)
8. Honey (Don't call Mitchell honey. Ever.)
9. Mayonnaise (Didn't do a thing for the color, but it gave his poor hair a good conditioning after all this stuff he's used so far.)
10. Mustard (What's one more condiment? And no, ketchup wasn't next, for fear of going from green to pink.)
11. Orange juice (Mitchell's always drinking it; maybe it'll help if he wears it, too.)
12. Vodka (Screwdriver, anyone?)
13. Corned Beef (This was Trevor's half-joking solution. At this point, Mitchell figured he had nothing to lose. Including, it turned out, the green.)
The last person Mitchell wanted to talk to about this was Trevor. But Trevor was his roommate, and Daniel and Eric were off in the hotel room they shared, probably with girls. Which meant Mitchell couldn't just go knocking. Even if the interruption would be welcome -- which there was no way in Hell it would be -- Mitchell didn't want anyone outside the band to see the green too closely. Not that he wanted the guys to see the green, but he was stuck on that one. They got to see it, in all its glowing glory.
"What else can we try?" he asked Trevor morosely.
Trevor held up the slice of pizza he was chowing on. "Anchovies? I'm still hungry."
"You hate anchovies, asshole," Mitchell said and flopped on his back on his bed. "And why the fuck would they work if nothing else has?"
"I still think you ought to cut it," Trevor said around a mouthful of the meatball pizza he'd special ordered, shamelessly using the ShapeShifter name to get what he wanted. For free, too, that fucker.
"Just shave it all," Trevor said. Mitchell could imagine his usual I'm-up-to-no-good expression. "It's hardly a chick magnet all green, but I hear chicks dig stubble. That could work for you for awhile."
Mitchell didn't even bother to snort. Trevor could shave his own damn head if he wanted to know about girls and stubble. But he was Mitchell Voss. He had an image to maintain as a long-haired rock god.
Which meant he had to get the blonde back.
Groaning, he reached for the phone. "Name your price," he said to the person who answered. "But you've got to get your ass over here and get the green out of my hair."
"What did you do now?" she asked.
"Are you gonna come, or not?"
"Are you going to pay for this?"
"Repeatedly," he sighed. But yeah, he'd pay for her flight down. There was no way she could get there if he didn't.
"I'll call you back when I book the flight."
Mitchell hung up and covered his face with his hands for a long minute, than sat up and lit a cigarette. Trevor was finishing the last piece of pizza. He'd eaten the whole thing by himself. Fucker.
"Drastic measures?" Trevor asked, smacking his lips and flicking some leftover sauce off his fingers. It splattered on the wall.
"As drastic as it gets."
"Good." Trevor stood up and burped. He looked over at Mitchell. "I'm tired of your mopey ass. It's too big a world to spend it hiding in a hotel."
"We could go swimming," Mitchell told him.
Trevor laughed. "There's hope for you yet, asshole."
"Cut my hair off while I'm sleeping tonight and there won't be any hope for you," Mitchell tossed back. That flight was being booked at that second. He damn well better have hair when she arrived, or Trevor would pay worse than he already needed to.
"A shower cap? You want me to wear a fucking shower cap?"
Amy glanced around, wondering if the walls were shaking. For a little brother, Mitchell sure could thunder.
"It beats corned beef," she pointed out.
"At least we could laugh about that!"
"Are you leaving this room?" she asked him, hands on hips. "I'm right here if anyone knocks. I won't let them see you," she promised even though under normal circumstances, if someone did knock, she'd shove him out into the hall and lock the door behind him.
This wasn't a normal circumstance, and they both knew it. Not if Mitchell had actually coughed up the cash to fly her down here to fix it.
At some point, she'd make sure that he paid for this with more than his wallet. But right now, Amy needed to restore his hair. The band could only ban photographers for so long, and they all knew that fans always managed, somehow, to sneak cameras in. Word would get out, if it hadn't already.
This could become legend.
Mitchell thrust the shower cap at her. "You fucking wear it. I'm sick of looking like a freak."
"You should see yourself right now," Amy told him. His hair was piled on top of his head like a turban, drips of mayonnaise-colored conditioner had spattered his bare arms and chest, and for some reason known only to him, he'd tucked a towel into the waistband of his jeans, as if to keep them clean. "You know, Mom wanted me to take pictures."
"You told her?"
Amy wanted to laugh at his scared look. Mitchell, ever the little boy who was terrified of being caught -- even when he'd been bad on purpose. "Of course I told Mom about it," she said. "I needed a ride to the airport, remember?"
He covered his face with his hands and stomped in a circle, moaning "no" over and over again. Amy actually felt a little sorry for him.
"C'mere and let's get this on you," she said, taking the clear plastic cap from him. "At least it's not pink."
He let her sit him down in a chair and put the shower cap on. "Let the warmth of your head penetrate the conditioner," she sing-songed, moving her hands over his head in what felt like a mystical way.
"I'm not sure if you're telling me I have a hot head or you're making some sex joke," he said, reburying his face in his hands, his elbows propped on his thighs.
Amy stopped, considering. "Both, probably. Speaking of sex, are any of you guys having trouble peeing yet? I picked up supplies just in case…"
Mitchell growled. Amy grinned at her little brother. He'd always been the one who'd made people smile, no matter what he'd done and how angry he'd made them. He'd always been the one people had been drawn to.
And now, Amy told herself, he was paying the price for it. A few dozen excited girls, toting bee
r and pizza money into the hotel's pool, slipping twenties to management to keep them looking the other way… When she'd gotten to the hotel and started to rescue Mitchell, Trevor had told her they hadn't spent a dime of their own money over the entire three days. In fact, Trev had bragged, they'd come out a hundred bucks on top.
Yeah, Amy thought, sometimes it sucked being such a people magnet.
"Hey, Aim?" Mitchell said, his voice muffled by his hands.
"What's up, Pipsqueak?"
"Thanks."
Backstage Party
It started out as an exercise to push myself toward better, stronger, more vivid descriptions. Add in a real-life experience of my own that I've since forgotten. Listen when Trevor says it's not over until the fat lady sings. Mix it together and I give you The Backstage Party, first posted February 25, 2007.
Despite his weed-induced mellow and years of personal experience, Trevor was still proud of the destruction they'd just wreaked on the dressing room. Beer bottles on every possible surface. Foil wrappers wherever they'd been tossed. Towels draped over the beer bottles, under the bottles, in one case even wrapped around the base of a bottle, anchoring it upright. Potato chip crumbs -- among other things -- ground into the carpet. Food everywhere. The couch washed down with shaken-up soda and beer, and people still dumb enough to try to sit on it. Garbage cans overturned; at one point, Mitchell had been wearing one instead of a lampshade, the wanker.
One rather enthused and satisfied girl had taken the squeeze mustard and written ShapeShifter on the wall behind the disaster called the catering table. All the food had either been knocked over, pushed aside, rescued by a frantic local roadie or two -- Trevor hadn't bothered to watch -- or relocated; it didn't matter. It wasn't the lovely little display of tempting usualness it'd been when they'd gotten there.
Two girls had decided to see if salami would stick to the wall if they threw it just right. Intriguingly, a couple of slices actually had, at least until they'd slid down, leaving a lovely grease trail in their wake. The rest made a path -- like stepping stones, Trev thought with a snicker -- across the room. One or two had been trampled; a brunette had slipped and fallen on her ass, then limped out. She'd looked more in pain than upset that her party with ShapeShifter had ended so soon. If that wasn't an insult, Trevor didn't know what one was. No girl should be so blasé about leaving. They should all be upset -- or at least too satisfied to care.
Trevor didn't doubt that he'd been the only one who'd noticed her leaving. He also didn't doubt that he'd laughed the hardest at her fall. Her arms had flailed, her eyes had gone huge, but she'd let out this kittenish, barely audible scream. It hadn't fit the picture. Pretty fucking cool.
"Come on," Charlie, their tour manager, said, tugging on Trevor's arm as if he was the one who'd be able to get everyone motivated and moving. "Party's over. We need to get out of here."
Trevor pulled his arm free. The guy wasn't entirely sober, himself. Settlement must not have taken long -- although who the hell knew what would happen once this mess got discovered. Trevor told himself not to care. They'd be gone. Long-fucking-gone.
Charlie burped a beery-reeking gasball, giving Trev the feeling that he was the only sober one in the room. For a change. If it weren't for weed this good, he'd have hated the fact that he was afraid to drink.
"The party's not over," he told Charlie.
"The party's not over?"
Trevor gave him a blessedly stoned, placid look. He stopped himself from folding his hands over his belly. "The party can't be over until the fat lady sings and if you look around, all the fatties showed sense and left already. No fat girl sings, no party ends." He nodded. It really was pretty simple.
"We've got to clear out," the tour manager whined.
Trevor curled his lip at the guy. "So clear the fuck out. But in the meantime, we have a party to finish up." He nodded at the rest of the band. "They're still standing. There's still a few girls here. Party's not over."
"Move it back to the hotel," Charlie called, raising his voice over the drunken slurring that passed for chatter. Even if most of it was directions about what felt good. The slurping of deep kisses.
When no one gave any sign of hearing, he turned the radio off. "Move it back to the hotel," Charlie repeated.
The guys looked around their girls at each other and shrugged. One spot was as good as another. So long as there was beer, they'd be happy. Besides, there were beds in hotels. That meant less complaints about sore knees and backs and other body parts.
Maybe.
Trevor wondered if there'd be any fat chicks at the hotel they could pick up. And if there were, what would it take to get them to sing?
Buying Chicken
I am often inspired by my own home life, and Buying Chicken is proof of that.
One thing I want to point out: this is the first outtake in which Kerri appears, at least chronologically. Everything up to this point happened in the lives of Trevor and Mitchell before Trevor's Song takes place. We've now entered the Trevor's Song era, so think of these next outtakes as scenes that didn't make it into the book. Some of them wanted to be in, but most were written just for you guys.
Buying Chicken was first posted at the blog on June 14, 2006.
In the end, Trevor couldn't complain. He was riding shotgun as usual in Mitchell's truck. Rusty fit between them with just enough room for Trev to move aside to show his dislike of her -- but she was still close enough that Trev could smell her. Strawberries. Very faint, as if that, like everything else about her, was nothing more than a tease.
"Can someone please explain to me just why it is that we've got to stop and pick up food if we're on our way to dinner?" he half-whined as Mitchell pulled the Bronco into the parking lot behind the grocery where the lovebirds had met.
"Ma needs us to pick up extra chicken," Mitchell said. "Sounds like the guest list grew by my sister and her dork husband." He grimaced as he parked and turned off the ignition. "Man, that's a way to ruin a night. Making the three of us be nice to him."
Trev glanced out the corner of his eye, half-expecting Rusty to tell Mitchell that it wouldn't be so bad. "At least Amy's fun to be with," she said.
"For you two." Mitchell opened the Bronco's door. "I'm the one who always gets the short end of whatever gets cooked up."
"You do?" Rusty asked, fluttering her eyes in an innocent act that Trev didn't buy but probably left Mitchell drooling.
"Are you two gonna do some sappy shit in front of the tomatoes?" Trev asked as he hopped out and looked to make sure Rusty had gotten out on Mitchell's side. He gave the door a satisfied slam, half wishing she'd stuck something in his way. A hand, a foot; didn't really matter. Just something so Mitchell would get all pissed and work him over good for being so fucking careless with the princess.
Like Rusty was some prize or something.
Like Trevor would have hurt her on purpose.
"We could get sappy," Mitchell said. He winked at Rusty as he slipped an arm around her shoulders. "We could buy us some tomatoes, grill 'em up…"
She shook her head at him, all business now. "Your mother was quite specific that we not show up with anything but chicken."
Mitchell waved her off. "Yeah, like washing the dishes before we split won't shut her up. Remember that, Ker. If you do the dishes, she forgives all."
Trevor had to agree with that. Sonya Voss was as devoted to mothering as a woman could get, but there was nothing she despised more than cleaning up after dinner. It had probably been the only chore Trevor had done on a regular basis, plastering a smile on his face and telling himself repeatedly that if he did a good job, she'd forget about whatever it was he'd done lately to piss her off.
Inside the grocery, he beelined for the tomatoes as the other two trailed behind, probably absorbed in some lovers' babytalk that needed to be stopped before he heard it and puked. There was only one thing to do: stuff two of the biggest and freshest tomatoes up the front of his charcoal g
rey t-shirt. "So the truth comes out. Tomatoes are round like tits -- especially yours, Rusty. You thought M here was all about the fruit, but really, he was thinking how much they looked like your nice round tits." He leaned toward her, leering.
Before she could do anything but look a bit shocked, Mitchell cuffed the back of his head, making him bobble one of the tomatoes. He breathed out hard as he settled it.
Rusty just laughed, the way you do when you're looking at something pathetic.
Trevor looked down, then gave her a death glare. He wished those things really could kill. One of his hands was still at tit-height, the other was down by the waist of his jeans. He wasn't coming off as a clown, just a fool. A pathetic fool. No wonder she was laughing like that.
He put the tomatoes back, trusting that if Rusty wouldn't conveniently forget he'd done this, Mitchell would shut her up. M was good like that, always looking out for Trev's pride. As if it was too precious to be abused.
Trevor wished it was that simple. It was more that his pride had been the first to get beaten away but like a loyal, stupid puppy, it kept coming back. And back. And back.
Maybe it was a good thing it had, Trevor thought as they tromped through the rest of the grocery, toward the meat case in back. If it hadn't been for pride -- okay, and fear for Eliza, too -- he never would have gotten the balls to get his hands on that gun. He'd probably be dead now instead of being the most constant, most revolted, and most unwilling viewer of the Mitchell and Rusty show. Hardly something to celebrate.
"Hey," he said, "why don't we go out and hear some bands after dinner's over?"
"If anyone good's playing, sure," Mitchell said. "Ker?"
"You guys can go," she said, wrinkling her nose. "Remember I told you I wanted to swing by that opening tonight?"
"We can do both," Mitchell said.
Trevor wanted to smack him for sounding so fucking desperate.
"We need some chicken," Rusty told the guy behind the meat case. "How much again, M?"
"Whaddya need?" the guy asked.
"Umm… five double breasts," Mitchell said. "Wait. No. Make it four. Four singles, so I guess that's two doubles…"