I had to take a shuttle. A freaking shuttle. Everyone was directed to park in a massive parking lot a few miles from the location. There were signs, workers conducting traffic—I knew at the sight of bright orange cones and professionally printed ghost video signs that I was in over my head. I parked my car in a shimmering sea of vehicles, and I tried to blend in as I followed everyone else to where the buses were picking people up.
So many people.
Pink hair, blue hair, pierced noses, mohawks, dresses, Chuck Taylors, high heels, fishnets, leather pants, tutus, leggings, belly shirts, skinny jeans, choker necklaces, tattoos. I tried not to stand out in my faded blue hoodie, five-year-old Levi’s, and clearance-rack boots.
The buses eventually dropped us off at an access road on the opposite side of the pond from where our group hiked last time, and I once again had to swallow my nerves to keep my feet moving forward.
Trucks, everywhere. And not all small trucks, though I did think I recognized Mike’s cherry-red Dodge Ram. No, massive trucks, fit for hauling military equipment or full-grown trees. And tractors, all kinds. They honked for people to jump away from the narrow trail to the pond as they rumbled past us, carrying all sorts of equipment that once again reminded me how big this video is, how big the band is, how big Mike is.
How small I am.
I swallowed the growing lump in my throat and continued walking, and the crowd thickened . . . and thickened . . . and thickened. I knew even before I broke through the tree line that the scene was going to be insane, judging by the way the noises grew louder . . . and louder . . . and louder. But nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I stepped into that clearing.
Hundreds, thousands of people, and more still coming behind me. Most of them colorful extras for the video, but also tons of guys with headsets and black staff T-shirts, all buzzing around like single-minded worker bees.
I’m standing there, on the precipice of the clearing, frozen with paralyzing shock, when a hand slaps down onto my shoulder.
“How fucking sick is this!” a guy with neon-green hair and a barbell in his eyebrow cheers in my face, and I manage a mute nod that prompts him to hoot excitedly and bound away. He’s like a very high Mr. Tumnus . . . I’m officially in punked-out Narnia.
I fumble my phone from my pocket before any more woodland creatures can realize I’m a human girl where human girls don’t belong, and Dee’s name stays on my phone as it rings and rings and rings. “Oh God,” I worry out loud when I get sent to voice mail, staring around at dozens of faces I don’t recognize.
“Excuse me,” I blurt, catching a passing staff guy by the arm before I lose him in the chaos. He furrows his brow at me, and I rush to explain, “I’m supposed to meet with the band.”
“Yeah, kid,” he dismisses, already shrugging from my grasp. “You and everyone else. You’ll get to meet them later.”
“No,” I say, uselessly trailing him as he walks away from me. “Listen, I—”
“Hailey!”
Never so happy to hear Dee’s voice, I spin around and find her in the mess of a crowd. She’s not hard to spot, considering everyone else is looking at her too: at her bluish purple mini dress, her knee-high boots, her long, long legs. Long chocolate-brown curls cascade over her shoulders, and she wraps me in an excited hug. “I am so happy I won’t have to kill you for not coming!”
“This is insane,” I say, and her giddy laugh shakes us both.
“I know, right?!” She pulls away, smiling wider than I’ve ever seen her smile. “They told me it was going to be big, but, holy shit, just look at all this!”
With my trusted friend by my side, I finally take it all in, the massive scope of it all. The entire clearing has been mowed and manicured, the grass now cut to climb up only the edges of my boots instead of the legs of my jeans. Giant white generators can be heard buzzing faintly under hundreds of voices. And everywhere, breaking up the body count, is tech equipment: cranes and cherry pickers with gigantic spotlights, massive cameras attached to off-roading Segways, rolling tracks sunken into the grass. Dee starts pointing things out: Condor light, jib, Fisher dolly. I stare wide-eyed at her, and she flashes me a smile.
“What, like I can’t learn a thing or two?”
The whizzing of a drone steals our attention, and my eyes follow it through the sky and into the setting sun. I squint, raise my hand to my forehead, and try to see where it went.
“Alright, listen up.”
Adam Everest’s voice booms from every direction, from loudspeakers hidden in the trees, and the crowd goes absolutely wild. I can hear the distinct sound of Adam trying to cover up a laugh before Dee grabs my hand and starts dragging me in the direction everyone else is rushing as they clap and cheer and scramble for a better view. “We’re about to get started,” Adam announces as I struggle to hold on to Dee’s hand, getting swallowed alive by a mass of people much larger than me. She doesn’t let me go, finagling people out of her way and then mine to keep us moving forward. “So I just want to tell you a little about the song and what we’re going to be doing.”
Dee suddenly stops, and when I squeeze in next to her, I see why. A rope barrier blocks us from moving forward, and beyond that is the edge of the grass. And beyond that, the pond. And beyond that, Adam standing at the edge of the steel platform with a microphone to his lips. He looks every bit the rock star in distressed black jeans and a tailored black button-down, with bracelets strung around his wrists and hair down to his shoulders, but my attention is already moving past him, to the back of the platform where Mike is sitting at his drums.