بخش 05 - فصل 33

33 “Why isn’t the show starting, Mrs. Robinson?” Dinah Scott asks. “It’s already ten past seven.” Tanya thinks of telling them about the Stevie Wonder

concert she went to when she was in high school, the one that was scheduled to start at eight and finally got underway at nine-thirty, but decides it might be counterproductive. Hilda’s frowning at her phone. “I still can’t get Gail,” she complains. “All the darn circuits are b–” The lights begin to dim before she can finish. This

provokes wild cheering and waves of applause. “Oh God, Mommy, I’m so excited!” Barbara whispers, and Tanya is touched to see tears welling in her daughter’s eyes. A guy in a BAM-100 Good Guys tee-shirt struts out. A spotlight tracks him to center stage. “Hey, you guys!” he shouts. “Howya doin out there?”

A fresh wave of noise assures him that the sellout crowd is doing just fine. Tanya sees the two ranks of Wheelchair People are also applauding. Except for the bald man. He’s just sitting there. Probably doesn’t want to drop his picture, Tanya thinks. “Are you ready for some Boyd, Steve, and Pete?” the DJ host inquires.

More cheers and screams. “And are you ready for some CAM KNOWLES?” The girls (most of whom would be struck utterly dumb in their idol’s actual presence) shriek deliriously. They’re ready, all right. God, are they ready. They could just die. “In a few minutes you’re going to see a set that’ll knock your eyes out, but for now,

ladies and gentlemen–and especially you girls–give it up for . . . ‘ROUND . . . HEEERRRRE!!!” The audience surges to its feet, and as the lights on the stage go completely dark, Tanya understands why the girls just had to have their phones. In her day, everyone held up matches or Bic lighters. These kids hold up

their cell phones, the combined light of all those little screens casting a pallid moonglow across the bowl of the auditorium. How do they know to do these things? she wonders. Who tells them? For that matter, who told us? She cannot remember. The stage lights come up to bright furnace red. At that

moment, a call finally slips through the clogged network and Barbara Robinson’s cell vibrates in her hand. She ignores it. Answering a phone call is the last thing in the world she wants to do right now (a first in her young life), and she couldn’t hear the person on the other end– probably her brother–even if she did. The racket inside the

Mingo is deafening . . . and Barb loves it. She waves her vibrating phone back and forth above her head in big slow swoops. Everyone is doing the same, even her mom. The lead singer of ‘Round Here, dressed in the tightest jeans Tanya Robinson has ever seen, strides onstage. Cam Knowles throws back a tidal wave of blond hair and

launches into “You Don’t Have to Be Lonely Again.” Most of the audience remains on its feet for the time being, holding up their phones. The concert has begun.