Lance
It was the following Friday afternoon when Lance received a text from Sidney. She had taken her class to the aquarium that day. He wanted to meet them there, but had been on a job in Coral Gables and couldn’t get away.
Sidney: "Thanks so much for making this happen! We all had an amazing time!"
There was a video attached to it, and Lance hit the button to make it play. It was a group shot of her class huddled together in the aquarium. "Thank you, Lance!" they yelled.
The video cut off right away, the 'play' button appearing in the middle of the screen. It was only a five-second video, but it made his day. He smiled down at his phone as he watched it a second time and then a third. He grinned when he spotted Matt, but he didn't pay much attention to anyone besides Sidney. She was on the far right side, and she yelled and waved really big just like the rest of them.
He couldn't get the girl out of his mind.
He hadn't seen her since the day of the wedding. He had talked to her several times since then, but he wanted so badly to see her again. He kept reliving moments—the way she moved freely on the dancefloor like nobody was watching, the way she went to the back room to help Matt with his insulin and then came out a minute later, both of them smiling. He thought of the way she laughed instead of cried when Matt accidentally dropped his cake onto her lap. He could imagine her face when he closed his eyes, and he couldn’t wait to see it again.
It was too bad he had no idea when or how that was going to happen.
He had talked to her on the phone several times that week, but their conversations always revolved around getting tickets to the aquarium or hooking up a meeting with Dale, the music producer.
This type of desire for a woman was uncharted territory for Lance. He had dated casually, but this girl was different—he liked this girl in a different way, and because of that, he didn't quite know how to approach her. He wanted to surprise her by showing up at the aquarium, but he just couldn't pull it off with the trip to Coral Gables.
She had a meeting with Dale the following day, but he had already told her that he wouldn't go. He wished he hadn't done that.
He texted her back once he got home.
Lance: "Love that video… looks like you had fun!"
He heard back from her within minutes.
Sidney: "Can I call you?"
Lance: "Sure."
His phone rang right away, and he picked it up.
"Hello?"
"You really didn't have to do that," she said.
"Do what?" he asked.
"You know what. The tickets were already enough. You didn't have to give them each twenty-dollars to spend at the gift shop."
"I didn't pay for the tickets," Lance said. "The owners comped them for me."
"Still," she said. "I can't believe you did that with the gift shop. It was really unbelievable to see how excited they were about it. They had so much fun just seeing the fish, but you should have seen their faces when I handed them each twenty-dollars to spend on a souvenir. You would have thought I handed them each a check for a million dollars. They had the best time trying on hats, and sunglasses, and t-shirts."
He let out a laugh. He loved imagining that.
"Seriously, Lance. It was a really thoughtful thing for you to do."
"I'm glad they liked it," he said. "I loved the video you sent. It's nice to picture the class."
"You'll have to come meet them sometime. If you want. No pressure or anything—"
"I'd love to," he said.
"We'll go to the park next Friday. Abigail and Ash usually meet us, but they'll still be on their honeymoon."
"What time?" he asked.
"One-ish."
"I'll have to check my schedule and make sure I'm not out of town or anything, but I'd love to."
"No biggie if you can't," she said. "I mean, we're gonna be there, anyway, so you can just come by if you want."
Lance wanted to see her before then. A week seemed like a long time.
"Are you excited about going to the studio tomorrow?" he asked, wanting her to say he could meet her there.
"I am. I thought I would be out of my mind with nerves, but I'm not. Not too bad, at least. I'm actually more okay with it than I thought I'd be. Dale's bringing in a band. He's gonna have me perform the regular song, and if everything works out, I'll do the new version. He emailed it to me last night. It's just a verse and chorus, right?"
"Yeah, he's working it out with Jonah, but I told them it had to be around forty seconds."
"Dale said if everything goes well and I get the job, we'll try to record the vocals tomorrow, and then Jonah will film Sunday afternoon. I thought they would do all that at the same time, but I guess I'd pretty much just be lip-synching for the video."
Lance loved that she was excited about it, and he prayed that her voice was as good as he thought it was. He figured there was a certain amount of magic an engineer could work with audio tricks, but he had heard Dale say, "You can put lipstick on a gorilla, but it's still a gorilla," and Lance knew that he ultimately wouldn’t work with Sidney unless she was a decent singer.
Lance just hoped his physical attraction toward her wasn't fooling him into thinking he heard something when he hadn't.
"I'm excited about it either way," she said. "Even if I don't get the job, it'll be a fun experience. And I'll always know in my heart that me singing the song at the aquarium that day was what gave you the idea for the commercial."
Lance agreed with Sidney, saying how cool the commercial was going to be and it was all on account of her belting that song out at the wedding that day.
They stayed on the phone for the next three hours. Neither of them meant for it to happen that way; it just did. Sidney put in earphones while she took Sheila for a walk on the beach, and Lance did the same thing, wearing his AirPods while taking care of some work he needed to do around his house. They got off the subject of the commercial and began talking about other things—things people talked about when they were getting to know each other.
It was a natural, easy conversation where hours flew by and neither of them realized what time it was or even thought to get off the phone. Sidney's mom came over to her condo, which was what finally resulted in them hanging up. It was well past dinner time, and Lance was starving, so they said their goodbyes, agreeing to touch base the following day in regards to the meeting with Dale.
***
Lance ended up hearing from Dale before he heard from Sidney.
It was two o'clock the following afternoon when he got a call from him. He was doing some work at the store, but he was listening for his phone, and he picked up on the second ring.
"How's it going?" was how he answered when he saw the number.
"Well, she's no Ann Wilson, but I guess you knew that already."
Lance's heart dropped. There were a few seconds of silence before Dale said, "She might be better."
Lance let out a long sigh. The relief he felt literally tingled. He ran his hand through his hair, smiling and shaking his head even though Dale couldn't see him.
"So, it went well?" Lance asked.
"She was nervous at first. It took her about an hour to warm up to us all, but once she did, she really came out of her shell, and yeah, it went well. She's got that upper-register like Ann Wilson. She sounds different, but it's real similar. It's gonna be great. She's already learned the new lyrics. We took a break for lunch. She'll be back any minute, and we're gonna use the rest of the afternoon to cut the track."
"Oh, that's awesome news."
"Jonah came up here earlier to see her. He had her bobbing her head and dancing around with the microphone and everything. They were cracking each other up."
"What was so funny?" Lance asked, feeling a surge of annoyance.
Jonah was an excellent videographer, but there was no need for him to get too close to the clients—especially when the client was Sidney.
"Jonah's got a good grasp on what you're wanting. He's got a vision—late seventies rock video with real Barracudas in the background or whatever. He knows just where he's gonna stop the song and have your logo come up and everything. He said your girl's gonna be perfect for the role—not just vocally, either. She was really getting into it. Jonah's good like that. He really knows how to coax things out of his actors."
Lance didn't want him coaxing anything out of Sidney. His chest tightened as he imagined all the ways Jonah got her to loosen up. Jonah was single—a hipster, artsy type with a moustache and trendy clothes. He carried around an expensive video camera, and made all sorts of cool movies and shorts. He had a gigantic following on social media and knew all the young artists in Miami.
The ladies loved him.
Lance was annoyed just thinking about it.
"I better go," Dale said. "They'll be back any minute."
"Who's they?"
"Everyone. Sidney and Jonah and them. The whole band went to grab lunch, and Jonah went with them. He knew of some taco truck he wanted them to try. I stayed to set up. They're bringing me back something."
Lance took a long, slow breath before letting it out. He never, in a million years, dreamed that he'd be having jealous thoughts and feelings, but here he was, thinking of all the reasons Sidney should not be having lunch with Jonah and the rest of the band, whoever they were.
"I just thought I'd call and let you know everything was on track."
"That's good news," Lance said. "When did you say he's shooting the video? Tomorrow?"
"He's gonna talk to you about that. Yeah, it's tomorrow, but I think he was gonna talk to you about where. He was originally planning on doing it here in the studio, but I think he wants to consider doing some of it on location at the aquarium so the fish are actually in the background. I don't know for sure. I just heard him talking about it. He'll probably call you."
"All right, man. Well, I appreciate everything. And thanks for the update. I'm glad she can sing."
"The girl can sing, that's for sure."
"That's good," Lance said with a smile in his voice.
They hung up the phone, and Lance breathed another sigh. He had been in the retail section at the shop when the call came in, and he stared absentmindedly at the shelves full of treasure chests—the most popular aquarium accessory. There were probably a hundred styles of them to choose from, everything from a tiny plastic one, meant for a Betta fish bowl, to ones that were huge and detailed and looked like actual treasure chests. Lance straightened them without even thinking about what he was doing.
He wanted so badly to go to the studio.
He knew he would be welcome. It was, after all, his project—he was the one signing their paychecks.
He kept doing what he was doing—straightening the retail shelves even though he had other people who would do it if he didn't. It was mindless work, though, and that was what he needed right then.
It was about twenty minutes later when he got a call from Jonah. Obviously, he answered without hesitation.
"Hello?"
"Lance, the man!" Jonah said.
"What's going on?"
"Just up here at Oceanside, hangin' with Dale and the crew. I gotta tell you… that Sidney's a little firecracker."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Jonah laughed. "Nothin' bro, it just means, she's funny. She's awesome. We all love her. The commercial's gonna be really classic."
In spite of the fact that Lance should've felt good about everything Jonah was saying, he felt annoyed. "That's great news," he said, faking it.
"They're about to get going on recording the tracks. Dale said he's gonna try to cut most of it live. I think he hopes to wrap it up by six or seven. I’m about to get out of here, though. I'm not doing any video until the band's got hair and makeup and everything."
"When are you planning on shooting?" Lance asked.
"That's what I was calling you about. We're hooking up tomorrow afternoon. I guess Sidney's got church in the morning or whatever. We were planning shooting it here, but I was thinking about trying to do some of it at the aquarium… you know, so we can get some live barracudas in the background."
"I could probably set that up, but they're open till six or so on Sunday. It'd have to be after closing time. I thought you were just gonna superimpose fish into the background."
Jonah sighed. "I know. I was. I still might. I haven't decided yet. I'm gonna go home and think about it. I just wanted to see if the aquarium was an option."
"I'm sure I could make it happen."
"I knew you could," Jonah said. "Thanks, bro. And thanks for putting me on this project. It's gonna be awesome. Have you thought about where you're gonna run it?"
"A few local networks," Lance said. "I'm sure some internet stuff, too. I'll just hand it off to my marketing people and let them handle it."