I found myself jumping forward, reminding myself not to bring the tomato into the scene too quickly.
“Honey?” I said. “You said this place would be good for hook-ups, but being this far underground is not sexy.”
“That’s because you’re not sexy,” came the female voice again. My heart sunk. We had a heckler in the crowd.
Paul seemed determined to ignore the heckler. “Just relax, honey. A lot of people have sex in a sewer. I was conceived in one.”
“Still not funny,” came the same voice. And then I saw the look of absolute desperation on Paul’s face, and I knew what was happening, without him saying a word. His mother had been barred from coming to his home, so she’d come to his show. She was here to humiliate him.
Paul looked at me, determined to keep going.
So I tried. “Well, I just wonder if we should have brought something to lie down on.”
“Wait a minute!” Mark cried, jumping into the scene. I could have hugged him. “I can’t believe you’re here with him.”
“Lenny!” I said. “How did you find us?”
“Because this was our spot!” he cried.
“So,” said Paul, turning on me. “You’ve been here before, have you?” The audience laughed.
“Only a few times,” I replied.
The voice came from the audience again. “This is garbage,” it said.
“Hey, shut up!” Brett, Charlotte’s boyfriend, had managed a full sentence. He took a step toward the corner where the woman was heckling us. “Let them do their damn show!” A murmur followed from the crowd.
“Who would want to sleep with her?” came the older woman’s voice.
A flicker of anger crossed Paul’s face, and suddenly he was walking off the stage. I had never seen him so angry.
My breath was in my throat. I could feel the situation spinning toward disaster. Someone—Ellen, the manager?—had flicked on the house lights, and I got a look at the woman Paul was approaching: an attractive woman in her sixties wearing make-up, with dyed blonde hair. She was more put together than I had expected, and she had definitely dressed up for the occasion, in white jeans and a white top, so that she wouldn’t be easy to miss. The room was silent, now, so their whole conversation was audible.
“Can we talk outside?” Paul was saying.
“I’m not allowed to talk to you.”
“Come on. Mom. Let’s go.”
“I paid for a show. Even if it’s bad.”
Brett was standing next to Paul, now, looking ready to back him up with physical violence if necessary. Ellen approached them with another heavyset man who spoke to Paul’s mother and then grabbed at her elbow.
“Fuck off!” she cried. “Fuck all of you! Fuck you all.”
“Mom, please…” Paul’s voice was very low.
“I need my fucking coat!” she cried.
“Mom, please come outside. I’ll talk to you outside.”
Paul’s mother gathered her things and left. Paul glanced at me, his expression stricken, and then followed her out.
There was a moment of stunned silence. I wanted to rush after Paul, but I was also scared of making things worse. I could hear his mother beginning to yell at him outside the doors.
Mark took a breath and stepped forward. “Well,” he said, “we like to do a ritual human sacrifice at every show, and this time it was Paul. So since that part of the show is over…” Mark met my eyes, and I could see a combination of sympathy and ‘I told you so,’ in his expression.
“At least she wasn’t throwing tomatoes at us,” I said, bringing back in the tomato. And we got faint chuckle from the crowd.
