Excerpt from the California Girl Chronicles: Brea and the City of Plastic

Excerpt from part of chapter 1.

So I stood in place and bopped to the music when a short guy with stubby blond hair came out and went to the microphone.

“You all having fun?” he yelled into the microphone.

A limp and quiet, “Yeah,” came back to him in response.

Stubby blond guy was undeterred. “All right then give it up for Rigor Mortis,” he shouted and stepped away.

“Rigor Mortis? Really? Was he kidding? Who the hell chose that name?” I thought and frowned.

Lance caught the look on my face, but didn’t say anything. Now I was curious to see what a band with that name looked like. The first two guys with shaggy dark hair came out on stage to another limp reception from the half-interested crowd. It was the lead singer, a guy with sandy blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes that caught my attention. He didn’t quite fit in well with the other two. And my eyes went right to him almost like a magnet. He was dressed all in white — white t-shirt and jeans. He stood there momentarily and stared out into the small crowd. He didn’t say a word and started to play his bass and sing — words I could not hear. I wasn’t really sure if I liked the song or not. I couldn’t hear it well enough to form an opinion.

“These guys rock,” Lance piped up and said enthusiastically. He wasn’t looking at me anymore. The guy who wore white mesmerized him too.

I wondered if Lance realized he said a rock band rocked? I doubted it. I could have been jealous of the way he stared at the lead singer if I too were not just as spellbound. Some people you see you have this electric connection. You can feel it. I think you might call that kismet or here in California, experts would tell you that you shared a past life with that person, and he was like your dad, uncle or lover. I’m more pragmatic. I figured either reason seemed legit. Why not? The band played on, and I forgot about Lance’s attention being directed at a dude instead of me. I was watching the lead singer with a strong interest. I wondered momentarily if my fixation on the singer was rude on a date, but since Lance was just as consumed I let it go.

It was not long before a small entourage of sexy “skanks” gathered front and center, and all made eyes at the lead singer. Some were so blatant in their pursuit it was kind of gross. This one particularly ugly-ass brunette with bad teeth and a real tan. (Do people bake in the sun for real anymore?) She also wore a J Lo sapphire dress cut down to her snatch. I was sure I spotted pubic hair and grimaced. That sight was super, super slutty and nasty. Another one wore all leather and had this Joan Jet sneer on her face that made her look like she was bearing her teeth between ruby-red lips. I noticed red lipstick smeared on one of her front teeth. The lead singer didn’t seem interested in the groupie trash.

So the skanky chicks were doing their best bumps and grinds like strippers to get the lead singer to look at them. I saw him glance at them, but I wasn’t sure if it was because they looked like they belonged in a whore museum, and he was gawking or if he was into them. Since he was so mesmerizing and good looking, I decided to assume he had better taste than that. Now I’m a girl, though, and us girls tend to think all men have good taste in women. Not so. Some men have tragically bad taste and enjoy women who get overinflated boob jobs and wear rubber or spandex to pass as fashions. I can, without a doubt, tell you that no self-respecting California girl would ever wear so-called fabrics invented in the fashion house of cheesy, cheap and tasteless. But you know that’s just me talking.

The band played their last set. Lance never wavered his gaze at the lead singer. I pondered if he swung both ways or he was on the road to “Gayville,” which in either case, wasn't going to go over well with me. Yet the band stopped, and suddenly Lance put all of his attention on me. He unexpectedly grabbed and yanked me into a passionate kiss. I felt my temperature rise a degree. In the heat of the moment, I was also taken aback by his romantic gesture that bordered on aggression. I pulled away and moved a step over.

“Lance,” I said, “can you please take it down?” I didn’t want to bark at him, but now he embarrassed me in public.

And I don’t want to admit this, but I was thinking about the lead singer. He was much more intriguing. Before I could turn my attention back, the lead singer appeared right behind me — close enough that I sensed his heat on my back and turned around. He was standing there and looking down at me with his intense blue eyes.

“What did you think?” he asked me without an introduction.

“And your name is?” I countered.

“Drew,” he replied in a flat tone. “So what did you think?”

Lance, like an eager fan, stepped forward and said, “It was awesome dude.”

Drew didn’t even look at Lance and kept his attention on me. “We’re playing again at Barkley’s next week. You should come,” he said and looked at Lance and added, “without him!”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card with a logo of the outline of the band’s profiles — something you would see in a Disneyland portrait studio only with outlines of little kid’s profiles not grown men’s. He handed it to me and said, “Call me.”

California Girl Chronicles is going on pre-sale on the 3L Publishing website ONLY. Advanced hard cover special editions will be available for a very limited time. Book one in the series will be available on Amazon and eBook in Nook, iBook and Kindle in November 2011.