Ransom(47)
Chapter Sixteen
Daisy
“Hey, Karen, do you have any more of the black V-necks over there?”
“Which black V-neck? There are three.”
“The one with Daltrey’s face in shadow.”
“Hang on.” Karen bends down under the merchandise table to open a cardboard box. “Yeah, there’s a whole mess of them here. What size?”
I turn back to the girl on the other side of the table. “What size do you need?”
“Medium, please.”
Karen tosses the shirt to me, and I hand it to the girl, who grins as if I’ve just given her the best Christmas present ever.
“Thank you,” she squeals. “I tried to get this one at the show in St. Louis, and they were sold out.”
“We got a new shipment yesterday,” I tell her. “We can’t seem to keep that one in stock. You’re lucky to get your hands on one.”
She does a little happy dance and thrusts a twenty-dollar bill at me. “Thank you so much!”
I grin back. Her excitement is endearing, even with a line stretching out at least twenty people deep behind her. “You’re welcome.”
The next customer steps up. Karen, Paige, and I are starting to develop a good rhythm. When Levi first suggested we sell merchandise before concerts, I had my doubts. I saw the kind of lines the merchandise table generated. Though I’ve actually sold plenty of CDs and shirts at their old gigs back home, this is a whole different league. Plus, there was the not-so-minor issue of my difficulties with interacting with strangers. I wasn’t sure how I would do with that many people looking at me, talking to me, asking me questions. It didn’t seem like the best job for a girl with so many social-related freak-outs under her belt.
But I was determined that the girls and I earn our keep, and they agreed with me. After our retreat to the warmth of his dressing room at the Hampton Beach show, Daltrey convinced us that we should consider ourselves part of the backstage crew for the duration of the tour. He’d get us all passes, and we could hang out whenever and pretty much wherever we wanted. We’d also be able to continue on with the tour as it made its meandering way down and back up the east coast rather than leaving after the three weeks we’d budgeted for.
Karen and Paige freaked out, of course. They were basically being offered carte blanche to be with their favorite band. The setup irked me, though. Everyone else in the backstage crew was there because they were actually part of the crew. When Levi called to tell me that he’d made arrangements, at Daltrey’s request, for us to stay at the same hotels as the band, I knew we needed to do something in return. Karen’s suggestion that we turn into groupies was not what I had in mind.
“Call me a whore if you want,” she said, “but I have zero qualms about servicing any of those boys in any way they need. Even if they weren’t going to pay for our hotel rooms.”
Paige said, “Hush, Karen,” but there was something in her eyes that told me that if push came to shove, she would totally agree with Karen’s assessment.
“Daisy, you don’t have to do anything,” Daltrey told me when I brought it up. “You’re here as my guest, and that includes your friends. Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not going to let you pay for our hotel room, Dalt. Not without us doing something useful.”
He grinned. “Why can’t you let me just flash my money around, huh? I haven’t been able to show off to anyone since I hit it big.”
I rolled my eyes. “You can buy me a really big cheeseburger for lunch tomorrow, okay?”
He laughingly agreed and instructed Levi to find work for us.
Levi immediately begged us to help sell merchandise. They’ve been slammed the entire tour with the demand for Ransom shirts, posters, and even playing cards far exceeding their expectations. He’d had to pull another roadie off the job to help, and the lines were still uncontrollable, to the point that they’d been getting some flak from fans online. Because he genuinely seemed relieved to have the help, I agreed, reservations about my anxiety be damned.
And to my surprise, I’m enjoying it. The lines are crazy, which keeps me way too busy to worry about my anxiety. Working with the girls is fun. They argue over everything, Karen insisting on setting up an organized system for dealing with customers and handling the merchandise—a system which invariably falls apart the minute Paige gets to talking with a fan and forgets that she’s supposed to be taking product out of specifically numbered boxes.
I also really like talking with the fans. In spite of our experiences with the crazies from the beach, I soon find that most of the Ransom fans are pretty cool. They all seem so happy to be here, so excited about the music and hanging out with their friends. I’ve chatted with quite a few, and it’s amazing the sheer size and scope of the fan base the band has built. The population of the fans skews slightly female, not surprisingly, but there are plenty of male fans as well. And they come from all over, some on road trips, some from the different venue areas.