Not This Time

Jon: April 28, 1984

     We had just come offstage and Nina was coming out of the back hall where our dressing room was. We'd worked with her enough by now for me to know that she'd probably just taped our notes from show to our dressing room door. She darted past me, toward the stage as I took a drink of water.
     "You grab the inputs," I could hear her saying, "Leave the guitars for me. I'll grab them." I glanced over my shoulder to see who she was talking to, but as I turned, she exclaimed, "Shit! What are they doing?"
     I followed her with my eyes as she ran onstage and waved her arms at the crew members that were striking David's keyboards. The crewmen paused and waited for her to yank some cords from the instruments so that they could take the keyboards away. She turned back toward my side of the stage with a roll of her eyes as she coiled one of the cords she'd pulled out of the keyboard.
     I turned away to find Scorpions' guitarist, Matthias, sitting on one of the tech tables backstage. He wasn't looking at me; he was looking past me, at Nina. I stepped over to him, but he wasn't paying attention to me. I glanced at him as he watched Nina navigate backstage effortlessly with both mine and Richie's guitars in hand. She didn't even look our way as she passed.
     "Big crowd tonight," I commented to Matthias, "You ready?"
     He finally looked over at me, as if just realizing I was there. "Yeah," he chuckled, "I'm always ready." He watched Nina return to the stage before he added, "You guys rocked again tonight." He was talking to me, but his occasional glance over at Nina clearing our set from the stage made it clear that his words were pretty much small talk.
     I smirked. "We've got a great tech," I said. He turned back to me with a smile. I could tell he knew I'd figured out what he was staring at.
     "You do," he agreed with a chuckle, finally turning away from the stage a little so we could talk. "It was smart of you," he complimented, "Getting a girl. She's very focused, I've noticed. And she knows what she's doing." He glanced over his shoulder just one more time before turning back to me with a smirk. "Plus she's cute."
     I smirked, but the thought of him flirting with her made me want to sock him one. I couldn't blame him, but the thought of any guy getting close to her just made me wary. I wasn't sure why.
     "You think she'd give me a second look outside of tour?" he asked me. I blinked at him and then looked over at Nina for a second, thinking about it. From what I understood, Nina was younger than me, which made her just old enough to drink. Matthias was almost thirty. It wasn't impossible that she would date him, considering his role in Scorpions, but I couldn't see it. Not that I told him that.
     I shrugged. "She's gotta be into rock music if she's touring with us," I reasoned, "So I can't imagine she'd pass up the opportunity to date one of the musicians if he asked, y'know? Or at least give him a chance." Matthias nodded and I snickered, "And I mean, that accent of yours has gotta count for something, too, right?"
     He laughed and agreed. By this time, the rest of the band was backstage, stretching or grabbing a water, whatever was part of their pre-show ritual. Nina did one last check of the stage before running off with Alec's bass. She returned a fist bump that Rudolf, Scorpions' other guitarist, held out to her, and continued past Matthias and me. I watched Nina carefully set Alec's bass in its case.
     "Maybe I'll be able to ask her out once tour is over," Matthias said, though it sounded more like he was talking to himself. I didn't remind him that our tours would be splitting up later in the summer. Bon Jovi was heading to Japan in July. Whatever the Scorpions did after that wasn't any of my concern, but we wouldn't be touring together. I only shrugged and looked back over at Nina.
     Matthias jumped off the table and followed his bandmates onstage when the drummer called. The lights were all out and the crowd was buzzing with excitement. Nina appeared in the corner of my eye, watching the stage with her arms crossed. I glanced at her, back at where she'd been packing away guitars, and then back at the stage.
     At the sound of Matthias's guitar, the crowd screamed and cheered. I discreetly watched Nina's reaction. She was looking toward the stage, but it didn't look like she was watching the band. I followed her gaze the best I could, but I wasn't sure where it was going. It looked like she was looking at the audience. The lights swept over the fans, lighting up their adoring faces. I looked back at Nina. She smiled and turned away from the stage.
     I didn't look to see where she was going. I didn't want her to catch me looking. God, would that be embarrassing. I faced the stage and pretended to watch, but my mind kept drifting back to Runaway.
     Nina probably didn't know about her influence on that song. When George and I wrote the song, I'd been thinking about the girls I'd seen through the bus window on my way to work. Those girls, barely older than me, were working the streets because they couldn't get anything better. George and I hadn't really been sure how to tie it all together until Nina showed up in Sayreville.
     That rumor that spread around shortly after her arrival was just the little tidbit we'd needed. I brought it to George and we agreed that the girl in the song should have runaway from home; it made the song. Everything fell into place. I couldn't give her all the credit, but I sure as hell was glad to have still been in Sayreville when she got there.
     David suggested that it might have been fate for her to be there, in Sayreville. In some small way, I wanted to believe him. Why else would she move to a mud pit like Sayreville?
     I crossed my arms and tried to pay attention to what the guys onstage were doing. I'd seen their set what felt like a hundred times already. I knew I could be just as high-energy as them, as proven by the thrilled cheers of the Scorpions fans we'd turned into Bon Jovi fans earlier this evening.
     I turned when David and Tico came out of the shadows behind the back curtain upstage. I stepped over and joined them on their way back to the dressing room. I wasn't listening to their conversation. I was too busy trying to get the thought of Matthias hitting on Nina out of my head. I wasn't sure why it bothered me so much.
     "The notes are on the counter," Richie informed us as we stepped through the dressing room door. I looked over at the guitarist. His feet were up on the counter, mere inches from where the notes he's mentioned were. David picked up the index cards and handed me the one labeled 'vocals.'
     Her handwriting always made me smile for some reason. My notes generally consisted of the same things each night. Except for that one night that I accidentally tore out one of David's connection cables when my foot got tangled while I was up on his platform hanging with him during his solo. She'd ripped me a new one in the notes that night. I learned my lesson.
     "I wonder why she doesn't talk to us," Tico stated, opening up conversation for anyone to answer.
     "Probably starstruck," Richie snickered. I shook my head. I didn't see how she could fist bump Rudolf Schenker, one of Scorpions' founders, but be too starstruck to talk to us, a relatively new band from Jersey, where she lived.
     "Doc never really introduced us, did he?" Alec chuckled. We all paused. As a matter of fact, he hadn't. We'd never actually had a formal introduction with our audio tech. Maybe, for that reason, she thought she couldn't talk to us? That wouldn't make sense, though.
     Richie dropped his feet off the counter and stood. "Who knows," he sighed, "I'm gonna go find a beer. Who's with me?"
     I smirked and tossed my notecard back onto the counter. "I'm in," I said. David pushed off the wall where he'd been leaning, and Tico hesitantly pulled himself out of the chair that he'd just plopped down in. We all looked at Alec expectantly. He groaned and relented, lazily rising from his chair as well.
     We all shuffled out of the room and down the hall to the hospitality room the venue had set up for the acts. Some guy who looked like he worked for the venue stepped out of the room, apologized for almost running into us, complimented our performance onstage, and then continued down the hall. Richie went ahead into the hospitality room as I glanced over my shoulder at the man.
     "Where'd you get that?" Richie's voice asked. I followed the band into the room to find him talking to Nina, who was leaning against one of the counters. She had a bottle of wine in her hand and a startled look on her face. Richie reached for the wine, but she held it away from him.
     "Ah uh," she said, shaking her head, "I arranged to have this bottle delivered for me, you're not getting any of it." She nodded to the refrigerator in the corner. "You can help yourself to the beer." We all stepped into the room, watching the scene before us, but trying not to look too interested. I opened a bottle of beer and took a sip.
     Richie stepped toward her with a mischievous smile. "Aw, come on," he coaxed, "We could share it. You and me." Nina side-stepped along the counter and away from him.
     "There is no 'you and me'," she assured him, "There will never be a 'you and me.'" She stepped around him and he turned to look at her, still grinning. She was backing away from him slowly, holding the wine bottle behind her back.
     "It could be the best night of your life," he tried again before she had taken two steps backwards.
     "Oh, I doubt that," she retorted confidently.
     Someone behind me snickered. She glanced over at the rest of us. Alec was looking anywhere but at her. Tico was staring at the floor trying not to laugh. David was unashamedly watching the two of them. I looked down at my beer trying very hard to contain my amused grin. She rolled her eyes and shook her head.
     "You'll never know until you try," Richie taunted, "You scared?"
     "What's to be afraid of?" Nina replied without missing a beat, "It couldn't be you."
     David stifled a snicker and I looked back at him. I had to bite my lip to keep from doing the same. Tico was trying so hard not to laugh. Alec turned around completely and took a drink of his beer.
     "Just picture it," Richie said, continuing toward her slowly, "You, me, a nice-"
     Nina put a hand on the middle of his chest to stop him coming any closer. I hadn't noticed at first how uncomfortable her edging away from him was, but now it almost seemed like he was making her nervous. I might have been imagining it
     "I already told you," she said evenly, "There is no 'you and me.' There will never be a 'you and me.' You know why?" If she had any anxiety, she was keeping it well hidden in her voice. She sounded cool as a cucumber, despite how tight her grip was on that bottle of wine.
     Richie tilted his head, waiting for her to continue.
     Nina brought the bottle of wine in front of her, gave him an oh-so-fake smile, and told him sweetly, "This bottle of wine is going to leave a better taste in my mouth than you would."
     Before I could stop it, I burst out in laughter. I could feel her looking at me, so I turned away slightly, but I couldn't stop laughing. The guys behind me were laughing too. Richie looked over at us with a grin and even joined in, laughing at himself as Nina walked away from him. He turned back to her before she got to the door.
     "You know where to find me," he called after her, still laughing slightly. She didn't even turn to look before flipping him off and leaving the room. The gesture only inspired more laughter from the rest of us. We were falling over ourselves, laughing so hard. I'd never seen Richie get turned down so flat.
     "Shot down!" David howled. Another burst of laughter.
     Richie shrugged and reached for a beer. "She'll come around," he said, "They always do."
     I shook my head, finally catching my breath as I sat in one of the provided arm chairs. Richie was too confident for his own good. He was gonna get himself in a lot of trouble someday.
     I finished my beer and started another over the hour and a half that we sat there talking about one thing or another. The conversation varied from the hot chick we'd all noticed in the front row, to which of Scorpions' members we thought she'd gotten a front row ticket to throw herself at, to Richie's suggestion that she'd come to see him.
     "They gotta know you can play before they want you," Alec scoffed at him.
     "And sometimes even then they don't want you!" David joked, obviously referring to Nina. We all laughed, even Richie.
     "Nah," Richie disagreed, "All you need is a pretty face. I mean, look at Jon."
     I laughed and threw the closest thing I could reach, an empty water bottle, at him.
     "I don't know," Tico argued, "Have you seen the way those chicks act when he turns around? We should put a mirror on my kick drum."
     Everybody laughed at that. I shook my head and took a drink of my beer. There was a brief silence between the five of us, enough so that we could hear Scorpions' last song.
     I downed what was left in my bottle and stood. "I'm gonna help them tear down," I announced, grabbing a water bottle, "You guys coming?"
     Everybody slowly got out of their chairs and followed me down the hallway, back toward the sound of the screaming fans as they cheered for an encore.