I forced myself to turn back to Zane. He had been calm and assured when he walked out. But now the mic trembled in his hand.
“Some people said I’m too young to be funny,” he said. “But I think we’re funny from the time we’re born. I mean, what’s funnier than pooping in your diaper?”
That got mild laughter. Someone in the back shouted, “Go change yours!”
Zane blinked but didn’t reply. “My girlfriend didn’t want me to go onstage,” he continued. “She said I’m not good-looking enough. She said I have a good face for podcasts.”
More polite titters.
I flashed him a thumbs-up to help encourage him. But I don’t think he saw it.
Where was Zane looking? It took me a few seconds to realize he was gazing past our table. He had his eyes on that beautiful girl behind us.
He muffed his next joke completely. I could see he was distracted by her. I turned and saw that she was gazing up at him, too. But she wasn’t laughing at his jokes. She wasn’t even smiling.
Zane seemed to get shakier as he continued. Finally, he finished his act. “This was my first time onstage,” he announced.
“Gee, we couldn’t tell!” some guy shouted. It got a huge laugh.
Why are people so mean?
I could see the hurt in Zane’s eyes. I wanted to rush onstage and give him a big hug.
“How would you rate me on a scale of ten to ten?” Zane asked the crowd.
Some people chuckled. The same guy shouted, “Minus ten!”
Zane waved good-bye, walked to the side of the stage, and handed the mic back to the host. He squeezed past a few tables and dropped down beside Amber with a loud sigh. “That went well,” he murmured, shaking his head.
“I thought you were solid,” I said. “I mean, for the first time.”
He squinted at me. “Solid? What does that mean? What about funny?”
“That’s what I meant,” I said.
Zane tapped Winks’s arm across the table. “What did you think? How was I?”
“Did you start yet?” Winks replied.
Amber slapped Winks’s hand. “You’re not funny.”
Delia rolled her eyes. She sipped her Pepsi and didn’t say anything.
“I’ll bet her name is Darlene,” Liam said.
I turned to him. “What are you talking about?”
The beautiful girl. She was shaking out her coppery hair, tossing her head as if she had just washed it.
“Why Darlene?” I asked.
“She’s got to be a Jacqueline,” Winks said. “But no one ever calls her Jackie.”
“Have you both gone crazy?” Delia cried. “You’ve never seen a pretty girl before?”
“Not like that,” Zane chimed in. “I think her name is Shannon. It goes with her red hair.”
Amber grabbed my arm. “Let’s go, Julie,” she said, trying to pull me up. “We don’t have to sit here and listen to these morons. They are obviously hypnotized.”
Onstage, the emcee, Stanley D, waved for attention. “Hey, everyone, let’s give our next performer a Chuckles welcome. By that, I mean totally ignore him! His name is Bernie Glaser, everyone. Here he comes. Feel the Bern! Feel the Bern!”
Bernie Glaser was maybe in his thirties, but looked older because he was balding and kind of stooped over, and had a large Adam’s apple that bobbed at the neck of his gray turtleneck sweater.
“Can you imagine this? My girlfriend is so cheap,” he started, “she’ll only take me out to dinner two or three times a week.”
Liam’s chair clattered loudly as he jumped to his feet. The wine bottle on the floor started to topple over, but I caught it. “I’m going to ask her to come sit with us,” Liam said. “I’ll tell her we were betting on her name.”
“Let’s bet on whether she’ll come over,” Winks said. “I bet yes.”
“I bet no,” Delia said. “Look at her. You can see she wants to be alone.”
“She hasn’t smiled once,” I said, watching her as she sipped a sparkling water. “She looks so sad. Don’t bother her, Liam.”
“My girlfriend is angry with me,” Bernie Glaser said up on the stage. “She caught me cheating on her with my wife.”
Big laugh, mostly from the men.
Liam signaled to us with his fingers crossed. He rested his hand on Winks’s head as he slid past and moved to the girl’s table.
We all turned around to watch as he pulled out the chair and sat down across from her. Onstage, Bernie Glaser must have wondered what was going on.
Liam had his goofy grin pasted on his face, and he was talking a mile a minute.
The girl still didn’t smile. But she didn’t motion him away, either. A light beam from the stage caught her big green eyes and made them flash like emeralds.
Liam gestured to our table. We all quickly turned away. We didn’t want to be caught staring.
“I think she’s going to do it,” Zane said. “I think she’s going to come over here.”
“Scoot over,” Winks told Delia. “Make some room.”
“You can make some room for my fist!” Delia exclaimed. The threat sounded funny in her mousy little voice. But I didn’t think she was joking. She was totally possessive when it came to Winks. And the big idiot never really seemed to notice.
Then I saw the girl brush her hair off her shoulders and stand up. She had a smile on her face for the first time.
“Whoa. Liam dropped the charm on her,” Zane said. “Here she comes.”
Yes. She adjusted her short black skirt and tugged down her silky green top as she followed Liam to our table.
And as I watched, I felt a chill.
A cold tightening at the back of my neck.
I put a warm, welcoming smile on my face. But I turned and whispered to Amber, “There’s something strange about her.”
Amber didn’t react. She just kept her eyes on Liam and the girl as they approached.
“You know I’m always right about these things,” I whispered. “I have a very bad feeling about this.”
