Wonderwall

The Perfect Day: Shopping and a Show

The next morning, I woke up startled by a loud knock at the door. I tried to get up but my arm was pinned to the couch behind Alex's back. I moved my arm and slowly made my way thought the debris of empty soda bottles and room service trays to the door where the knocks had now become frantic. "Reina, have you seen the boys," asked Sarah practically shouting, "they aren't answering their phone or the door!"

"Calm down, Sarah. They're in here." I opened the door wider for her to see inside.

"What are they doing sleeping in the girl's room," Sarah asked suspiciously. She raised an eyebrow at seeing Kyle slumped over asleep with his head on Dani's lap.

"We all hung out last night trying to get to know each other better. Nothing unsavory happened I promise," I said reassuringly. "Well, besides the trashing of the room," I said looking around.

"Well can you all be ready in 20 minutes? The band wants to have breakfast with you guys."

We scrambled to get ready and we met the guys at this 50s-style diner. "They have the best pancakes here," said Patrick. We ate and talked cheerfully. We were much more used to each other today; I was even starting to get used to the video cameras. After breakfast, the boys took us on a mini-tour of L.A. since some of us had never been there before. Of course, Patrick wanted to go into every shoe store we passed, so we ended up getting off of the bus to go shopping. I didn't have a lot of money and to be truthful L.A. was more expensive than I expected. All I bought was a pair of $20 earrings for my mom and hoped no one would notice that I wasn't really buying anything. Patrick and Dani in the meantime were collecting shoes like postage stamps. And everyone else bought a few things: jeans, hoodies, t-shirts etc. Alex noticed. "Hey Reina how come you haven't really bought anything," he asked gently away from everyone else.

"Oh, um...well my mom makes most of my clothes, being a fashion designer and all, and...I don't really have a lot of money with me for shopping and stuff," I said truthfully. Somehow I knew he wouldn't make fun of me for it.

He nodded. "Well if you...you know, need anything just ask."

"Thanks." It was sweet of him to offer but if I learned anything as the daughter of a single mother it was to never depend of other people to take care of you.

After shopping we headed to, Chain Reaction, a small venue in L.A. "What are we doing here," Alex asked Sarah.

"Well...Fall Out Boy is playing a secret show tonight. You guys can hang out and watch them set up, look around backstage, and pick your spots before the rest of the crowd comes in." We bolted inside the venue and started snooping around like curious puppies in a new home. I followed Kristin to the stage, we stood and looked out at the almost empty room. I couldn't imagine being up there all with all of those people looking at me; I'd die of embarrassment and this was a tiny venue compared to the places they usually played. The five of us went backstage and found the band playing board games in a back room.

"Hey guys, you wanna play," asked Joe. Of course we did. We reorganized teams and played Taboo. I was on a team with Pete, Kristin, and Dirty. It was bound to be interesting.

"You're not playing?" My question was directed to the blonde girl sitting between Pete and I. Ashlee.

"No I'm terrible at board games so I'm just the resident cheerleader," she said laughing.

"I'm Reina."

"Ashlee. You're one of the contest winners right? How are you enjoying the week so far?"

"It's great! I still feel like this isn't quite real."

After we finished the game the five of us left to go get our spots, in the front row of course, before the doors opened. The show was amazing. The crowd was great and they played all of my favorite songs. During "Saturday", Pete came right to us and when he came into the crowd at the end he even held my hand. After the show we were elated. We said goodbye to the boys, who stayed really late afterward to talk to the fans. I was in such a good mood that Dani didn't even get on my nerves flirting shamelessly with Kyle back at the hotel that evening. The boys stayed in our room again; I even let Alex share my bed on the condition that he keep his hands to himself. We didn't do much more clowning around, we fell asleep fairly quickly exhausted from the show.