Comet! (an Ell Donsaii story #5 ) (19 page)

Vic grunted, “Y
our
monitors are
earphones
that
don’t let
the
sound from the club back into your ears. The room here
has hard walls that are really reverberant. Y
ou’re not hearing
the mess of echoes it’s adding to your sound
. So you’ve all got reverb units sweetening your own sound
to make it sound good in your earphones
. Then this ‘reverb heavy’ sound is going out to the club’s engineer and I’ll bet he’s adding
even
more reverb at the console
‘cause he doesn’t know
any
better
. He hears a muddy sound and tries to sweeten it the only way he knows
. Then it goes out into this hard walled room where it
echoes
around even more. The end product is reverberating so much that
all
the sounds bouncing around muffle each other.
‘
Muddy.
’
” He turned to Ell, “I’ll bet you’ve been having a hard time understanding the lyrics, right Belle?”

Ell tilted her head
querulously
but nodded.

Gordon tilted his head, “What can we do?”

“Turn off your own reverbs. Tell the club’s engineer to turn his off too. This building is still going to have too much reverberation even without you adding any electronically. They need to add sound absorbent materials to the walls and ceiling but they ain’t gonna do it tonight. So, play a little simpler to try to keep your sounds from stomping
all over
each other.”

Gordon grinned and raised his eyebrows, “Is that
all
?”

Vic shrugged, “There’s a big slapback echo in the
club
because
the room’s
so long.” Vic looked at the drummer, “If you listen to it you can try to adjust your tempo
a little
so the beat matches the slapback.”

Ell stared at Vic, not sure whether what he’d said made sense or if he’d just made stuff up.
She looked around. Everyone else looked dubious or confused.

Vic raised his hands palms up, “Just one man’s opinion.”

The drummer said, “Where’d you learn this stuff?”

“My dad’s a recording engineer.”

“Can you take me out and demonstrate this slapback echo?”

Vic shrugged,
“Sure,” the two of them got up and headed toward the stage.

Ell tu
rned to Gordon, “So h
ow’s the tour going?”

“Great so far. Our manager laid out this plan for us to tour mostly the same 15-20 cities in heavy rotation, trying to build a following.
” He laughed, “We haven’t been around them all once yet
,
so I have no idea how it’s working.” He shrugged, “This is our first Saturday night gig.
‘Til now
we’ve only been getting weeknights ‘cause we’re not well enough known to draw the kind of weekend crowd the venues want.
” He laughed,
“
What we need is for
Ell Donsaii
to show up to some
more
of our gigs. When she showed up at the Cat’s Cradle it got us
great
publicity.”

Emma grinned at Ell.

Joe said, “Gordo, Emma here works at D5R where Donsaii works.
” He turned to Emma, “Do you ever get to see her?”

Emma caught her lip between her teeth and nodded.

“Do you know her?”

Emma nodded again, widening her eyes at Ell.

Joe turned back to Gordon, “
Maybe she could talk Donsaii into showing up at some of your gigs?”

Gordon turned to Emma, “
Really?! Y
ou know her?”

Emma
chewed
her lip and nodded, eyes sparkling
with amusement
.

Gordon said, “Wow, I’d really love to meet her! Do you think you could talk her into coming to a show
or at least introduce
me to her
?”

Emma shrugged,
“I’ll call her, I have no idea what she’ll say.”

The
recorded
music
the club had
been playing between
the
sets
cut off
out in the big room.
They heard the kick drum thump out on the stage.
Gordon got up and said, “Better get back out there.”
Even in the dressing room
Ell could
faintly
hear an echo that she assumed was the “slapback” echo Vic had been talking about.

As she and Emma went out the door to the main room
the kick drum started thump
ing regularly. Ell could tell when it got
in synch with the echo
because suddenly the sound had more “punch
.
”
The snare came in and then the hi-hat. Even through the wall, Ell
thought
it sounded cleaner.

Gordon
stood on the stage, one of his earphones hanging loose,
staring into space
as he listened to the sound in the room. He turned back to the amp for his guitar and adjusted something, then nodded to the bassist and keyboard player who also adjusted their rigs
.

Gordon began strumming his guitar
to the rhythm.

Vic turned to him and said something.

Gordon changed his strum so he was only striking the higher three strings for a lighter sound.

The bassist came in and Vic said something to him also. Ell could tell he
was
playing more simply, or at least
playing
fewer notes.

The keyboard player began playing a simple arpeggio
using
a piano tone, Vic just nodded at him.

Ell looked at Emma whose eyes had widened. The sound did seem a lot cleaner. Gordon leaned to the mike and started singing. Ell and Emma glanced at each other
eyes widening
...
the lyrics were clear and easily understood now!

When the song finished the crowd erupted in wild applause. They could see Gordon smiling
even
from
way back in
the middle of the room
where they were standing
. As
the applause
died down Gordon started a rough distorted power chord but even with the distortion it sounded cleaner. For a moment something sounded wrong then Gordon subtly changed his tempo and the sound solidified again. Emma turned to Ell and said,
“So go take off the fat pants!”

Ell frowned at her, “What?”

“Belle needs to leave and Ell needs to come back
in
and make these guys day! Just think how impressed they’ll be with me
for getting her to come
!” Emma winked.

“You’re crazy!”

“Am not! I’ll just tell them I called you and you were in
Raleigh
anyway so you agreed to drop by.”

Ell laughed. “You
are
crazy. What are you going to tell them happened to Belle?”

“She had a hankering for ice cream?”

“Hey,
no
mak
ing
fun of my
oversized
butt!”

“Sorry,
”
Emma winked and
made a long sad face,
“
I know you can’t help it
...
Maybe y
ou got a migraine?”

“Besides, nobody’s dancing
now
. ‘Ell’ isn’t going to attract much notice just standing around.”

“Oh
,
I think she
would
. But if we need dancing, we’ll just need to get folks started
again
.” Emma grabbed Ell’s arm and pulled her to
ward
an
open area on the
floor
.

“You can’t be serious! No one else is dancing!”

“They just need someone to get
them
started. Don’t be so whiny.” Emma started the steps of the line dance that Ell had
taught her
at
the
dance club.

Reluctantly Ell matched her steps, feeling like everyone was staring at her but
still
enjoying the rhythm. To her surprise after only a few moments a couple joined them and started dancing
the line
with them.
Like crystals nucleating in a saturated solution more and more people came out to start dancing.

Ell was having a great time dancing when Vic
appeared
. He’d actually started doing their line dance in the spot behind her and when she turned to the next “wall”
she
looked to see who was
beside
her and there he was.
She shouted over the music.
“Hey, that’s amazing what you did with their sound!”

Vic shrugged and kept dancing.

Each song that Gordon and his band started, they began with just on
e
instrument playing until it found a rhythm that worked with the echo, then the rest joined in. Their sound was much better than it had been the first set and the crowd seemed much more enthusiastic. Emma caught Ell’s attention and pointed furtively outside. Ell rolled her eyes, then squinched them as if the lights were bothering her. She
put her hands on her temples,
leaned over to Vic and Joe and said, “I’m getting a migraine. I’m gonna go sit in my car until it goes away.”

Vic said, “I’ll go sit with you ‘til you feel better.”

“No, I just want to sit very quietly by myself, that’s the best way to make them go away.”

Outside, Ell
had Allan guide her to her truck
and was pleased to see that
it
was parked in a dim corner
of the deck
. As she walked to it she used her AI to tell Randy
—
who was leadin
g her security team that night—
that she was going out to her truck and would be back in a minute.

Approaching the truck she
told
its
AI to switch the dome light off so it wouldn’t come on
when she opened the door. Slipping into the passenger seat s
he glanced around again and pulled off the platinum blond wig
. After fluffing her hair sh
e scooted
down
and pulled off her “Belle” sized pants and the underlying silicone “fat pants
.
”
Fortunately
she wore leggings
under
the fat pants
to keep the silicone from sticking to her
. She examined them. T
hey looked pretty good
.
She took off “Belle’s” baggy shirt
leaving her in a t-shirt
that was
long
enough to pull down over her hips
.
S
he
put her
shoes
back on
and
looked
around. N
o one seemed to be looking her way.
A large moist towelette from the glove box quickly removed “Belle’s” thick makeup. Ell
opened the passenger door
and
walked around the back of the truck and
over several of the lanes
between the vehicles
before turning back
toward the
Lincoln
.

At the entrance she paid another cover charge and got a different wristband
. From the cashier’s widened eyes she’d been recognized
as Ell
,
but the cashier didn’t
create
a fuss. Ell wandered through the club and over to the bar to get a Coke
. She felt people’s eyes on her and wondered if she should have done something to make her identity as Ell less obvious.

When the bartender brought her the Cok
e she said, “Ms. Donsaii, this one’
s on me. Would you be willing to sign an autograph
for me?”

“Sure, as long as you don’t make it a big deal so
a lot of other people
don’t get the same idea?”

“No problem, just sign this coaster?”

Ell signed and slipped away with her drink.
She was getting close to the dance floor and wondering how to attract Emma’s attention when a man who’d
been intently
focused on her
suddenly stepped into
her path. “Ell Donsaii?”