The day of Evie's gig at the karaoke bar had arrived and she was just as nervous as she had been for her Christmas performance at the coffeehouse. She wondered if the stage fright would ever go away. She didn't even get to rehearse during the day as she still had school and after school she stayed behind to finish her homework there since she'd been too worn out by the time her performance was over. From school she just went right over to the karaoke bar, she wanted to make sure she had plenty of time to spare as she had barely made it to her Christmas performance. It was excessively early when she got to the karaoke bar, but she grabbed a bite to eat some nachos from the bar, she wished she could grab a drink for her nerves too.
Though, with her nerves she could hardly eat. Marcos, the proprietor seemed to notice. "Nervous?" He asked as she absentmindedly played with her food.
"yeah."
"You shouldn't be. You'll do great. You wouldn't even have the gig if I didn't have faith in you. Besides I heard you killed it at the coffeehouse."
"I did not. I totally screwed up the beginning."
"I didn't even hear about any screw ups, it can't have been that bad. And it's probably just because you were nervous, don't be."
"Thanks, that's helpful..."
"I'm just saying, you have nothing to be nervous about. You'll do great. Even if you do mess up, it's unlikely anybody will notice or care. You know, my friend, she saw you at the coffeehouse and she's going to be here tonight too because she really wants to see you again."
"Really?"
"mhmm you have quite the fan already."
"Cool."
"See you're doing fine already. You'll rock it. Don't worry."
"Thanks, that actually helped a bit."
"Good. Now if you'll excuse me I have to get back to business, but good luck tonight. Not that you need it."
"Thanks."
Feeling a bit better Evie managed to finish off her nachos before going to watch a couple karaoke singers singing a duet. They were both pretty awful but Evie still joined the girl for the next song. She guessed by her excitement that she was the friend Marcos mentioned. That and she always seemed to be there whenever Evie was in performing a sing-a-gram or something often chatting with Marcos. Evie had thought all along that she was his girlfriend. She seemed really nice though, and Evie had fun singing with her.
Soon enough it was time for Evie to take the stage, by which point her father, brother, and twin sister had shown up to watch. Aside from her family and Marcos' friend, who she'd learned was named Allison, it was a pretty small turnout. She wasn't really sure if that made it better or worse, but was still determined to put on the best show she could.
Aside from one guy in the front, everybody else was already clapping and dancing along when she pulled out her guitar for her first song. Of course her family would be so supportive no matter what, but it still helped to know they were there for her.
By the end everybody was dancing along and having a great time. Evie hadn't messed up at all, and she was feeling really good about the performance. She could easily have gone over her scheduled time for the show, she and the audience were having such a great time, but her dad gestured to her that they needed to get going so she wrapped up on time. She knew that likely he'd been called into work and it was no use protesting.
Evie had left thinking that she already wanted to get another gig there. She didn't think it would be an issue if she'd done as well as she thought. But, it seemed, she'd done better than she thought. After school the next day there was a message from Marcos offering her a weekly gig. Of course, she called back right away to sort out the details.
Her performances would still be on Wednesday, but the time would change to 7:30-10:30 so that she didn't have to worry about curfew.