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McGuiness, Marin Kennesaw, Jason Hess, Scott Winn, and Ramiro Martinez began their aural warm ups upstairs, standing in a circle on the small, scuffed stage.
    â€œLo-leeeee-ta. Light of my life. Fire of my loins. Lo-leeeee-ta,” they all over-enunciated wildly and repeated the phrase several times.
    â€œBalcony,” Ramiro called, indicating that they should move on to a different exercise.
    â€œShe stood on the balcony inexplicably mimicking him hiccupping and amicably welcoming him in,” they said in unison. “She stood on the balcony inexplicably mimicking him hiccupping and amicably welcoming him in. She stood on the balcony inexplicably mimicking him hiccupping and amicably welcoming him in.”
    When they finished warming up their voices, they did their physical warm-ups, which included lots of mock karate chopping and the like.
    As Chelsey balanced on one foot, her arms raised up à la The Karate Kid, she asked, “Where’s Ana?”
    â€œShe had to work late,” Scott said as he boxed an invisible opponent. “She’s trying to finish something up. She’ll be here soon.”
    â€œFuck!” They all turned to see Ana race through to the dressing room. “I wanted to be the first one here and instead I’m the last one and we go on in fifteen minutes. Fuckedy fuckedy fuck fuck!”
    â€œFifteen minutes? Shit,” Ramiro said. He, Jason, Chelsey, and Marin walked backstage. Only five people performed each night, ostensibly to give one person the night off, but almost without fail, whoever wasn’t performing sat in the audience to watch the show. Because really, where else do you want to spend your Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights other than with your best friends? Also, no one wanted to miss out on a single laugh.
    Scott walked into the audience to sit next to Nick just as Darren, the host, unlocked the door to start seating audience members.
    Ana slammed the dressing room door behind her and threw off her work clothes to change into her Spur of the Moment uniform of black shoes, black jeans, and a black polo shirt with the Spur of the Moment logo on the left side. She retouched her lipstick—her trademark red that, she was convinced, lit up her amber-colored eyes. She threw her long, dark brown hair into a haphazard bun.
    Then she ran out of the dressing room to the handful of audience members who’d been seated. Ana was sweating from her sprint from the parking lot to the dressing room. Great. Sweaty and smelly was exactly how she wanted to meet the event planner from Qwest. And how had she become the delegate on this deal anyway? Steve Cuddy was the director, he was the one who should be handling this, but he didn’t have a day job, he could live off what Spur of the Moment made without getting them a whole bunch of extra corporate performances, so he wasn’t nearly as driven to get the group more paying gigs as they were.
    Ana addressed the audience with a big smile, covertly wiping the sweat from her forehead with the side of her hand. “Hi, are any of you Guy Moran from Qwest Communications?”
    â€œYeah, hi, are you Ana?” A man at a table close to the stage stood and offered a hand for her to shake.
    â€œI am. I’m so glad you could make it tonight. Let me introduce you to Steve Cuddy, the founder and director of Spur of the Moment.”
    Guy followed her backstage to the office where Steve worked. Steve had founded Spur of the Moment ten years ago, when he was in his early thirties. He’d stopped performing when he’d had to begin putting more of his time and energy into running the business side of things. He was the only person at Spur of the Moment who was over thirty, the only married person, and the only one with a kid. The rest of the Spur gang regarded him with reverence and more than a little awe. Someone who was raising a kid? Someone who had real, actual responsibilities? Such a life