24. Breaking Barriers

                                    

                                          
Now it is the moment for Phase 3. We poofed into the studio next to a very desperate Julie. She threw us a billion questions.
                          
"Oh my gosh! What took you guys so long? Did Willie do it? Did you talk to them? Did they watch? Did they like us? Are we playing? Someone answer! Why is no one saying anything?" The anxiety was burning her on the inside and the outside.
                          
Reggie flailed his arms around. "Whoa! That's a lot of questions. Luke, you wanna take this one?"
                          
"Take a seat." We kneeled as the took her spot on the couch. "It's fine. Everything's fine."
                          
"Yeah. You should be getting a call right... now!" He pointed to her phone, which stayed on the usual black screen. Our smiles kind of faded. Although my brother tried the pointing thing again. "Okay, right... now!"
                          
Sooner rather than later, her phone showed an unknown caller. We did it! She called us! "Nailed it," I squealed. The ghost part of the squad high fived each other.
                          
The mix of wonder and excitement distracted us from the fact that Julie hadn't picked up the call. We looked insane as we encouraged her to finally answer back. "Hello?"
                          
Julie placed the woman on speakers. "Hi, this is Tasha from the Orpheum in Hollywood. Is this Julie of Julie and the Phantoms?"
                          
As she jumped in the couch, we danced like there was no tomorrow. I waved my arms frantically, my legs kicking everywhere in joy. In the midst of the celebration, Reggie unexpectedly hugged my waist and separated me off the ground. We spun around two or three times before Julie shushed us. In response, we froze.
                          
She grabbed her device, flipped her hair, and cleared her throat. "Yes, it is."
                          
The silent celebration continued, even happier than before. Reggie let me down, but placed me on the side so the boys could do their signature trick. "Hi. Are you available to open for us tonight?"
                          
"Yeah, totally! Thank you so much." Alex sprinted to the other's arms, being lifted in what I've named '90 degree Jesus pose'.
                          
"See you then," Tasha concluded. I joined Julie on standing in the table.
                          
She hung up, then raised her arms above her head. "We're doing it! We're playing the Orpheum, baby! Yeah!"
                          
They started turning my brother as he moved in the air. "I'm swimming!" Alex giggled.
                          
¸¸♬·¯·♩¸¸♪·¯·♫¸¸¸♬·¯·♩¸¸♪·¯·♫
                          
"Okayyy, listen up, gentlemen. Should I wear this one?" I placed on top of me the white leather pants and green oversized t-shirt. "Orrr... this one?" I exchanged it for the glittery black romper.
                          
Yeah, I usually don't ask for their advice, but this is maybe gonna be our last performance, so I wanna go out with a bang.
                          
Alex analyzed both outfits in careful detail. "The first one. And then tuck the shirt. Oh! And you should do dutch braids. Those look great on you."
                          
"You're the best!" I went in to grab his head and kissed his hair. He just rolled his eyes as I left them hanging on a chair.
                          
"Pushing that aside..." Luke circled repeatedly a page, "Julie and I were thinking we'd start with 'Stand Tall'."
                          
"Perfect."
                          
"Cool." I agreed.
                          
Reggie gave a small thumbs up. "Sounds good."
                          
"Sounds good? Dude! I wanna hear, 'It sounds awesome!' I know this isn't how we wanted things to turn out, but we gotta be all in tonight. This is our second chance at playing the Orpheum!"