I Got Booked as a Taylor Swift Tribute Act to Save My Mom’s Daycare, But The Promoters Secretly Sold Tickets for the Real Thing
The Trap is Sprung
The venue wasn’t just a bar or a small club. It was a cavernous warehouse space in the arts district, the kind of place that smelled of polished concrete and expensive cologne. My stomach did a slow, sickening roll as the Uber pulled up. A line of people wrapped around the block—hundreds of them.
They weren’t wearing casual clothes for a local tribute night. They were dressed in sequins, cowboy boots, and friendship bracelets, their faces painted with glitter hearts.
“Driver, are you sure this is the address?” I asked, my voice tight.
“That’s what the app says,” he muttered, eyeing the crowd. “Looks like a big deal.”
I stepped out, clutching my garment bag like a shield. The air was buzzing with a frantic, electric energy. I kept my head down, sunglasses on despite the twilight, and hurried toward the back entrance the “promoter” had texted me. Every step felt heavier, like gravity was dialing up specifically to crush me.
Inside, the backstage area was a hive of activity. Techs were running cables, and I could hear the thrum of a massive sound system being tested. It was too much. Too professional.
“Everly! Finally.”
The promoter stepped out of the shadows. He was wearing a dark suit and a hat pulled low, his face obscured, but something about his posture was terrifyingly familiar. He didn’t look like a music guy. He looked like a shark in a pinstripe suit.
“Get changed. You’re on in ten,” he snapped, shoving a small box into my hand. “Blue contacts. Put them in.”
“Wait,” I said, looking around at the high-end equipment. “This… this is huge. You said it was a tribute night. A small gig.”
He ignored me, guiding me forcefully toward a dressing room. “Just put on the costume.”
My hands shook as I unzipped the bag. The dress inside wasn’t the cheap replica I’d cobbled together. It was high-quality, shimmering under the vanity lights. As I pulled it on, the fabric felt cold against my skin. I inserted the contacts, blinking tears away as my brown eyes turned an unnatural, piercing blue. I looked in the mirror.
I didn’t see Everly Grant. I saw a lie.
I stepped out of the dressing room, needing air. I walked toward the heavy velvet curtains that separated the wings from the main stage. I just needed to see the crowd, to calm my nerves.
I peeked through the gap.
The roar was deafening, a physical wall of sound. But it was the massive digital banner hanging above the stage that made my blood freeze solid.
It didn’t say Everly Grant: A Tribute to Taylor.
It screamed, in ten-foot-tall neon letters: TAYLOR SWIFT: SECRET POP-UP SHOW.
My knees buckled. I grabbed a flight case to steady myself. “No,” I whispered. “No, no, no.”
“Problem?”
The promoter was right behind me. I spun around. “You can’t do this! That sign—they think I’m her! You said tribute!”
He laughed, a dry, humorless sound. He stepped closer, and for a second, the light caught his face. My breath hitched. It was Brooke’s dad. The developer who wanted to bulldoze my mom’s daycare.
“It’s called marketing, Everly,” he sneered, his voice dropping the fake promoter accent. “And you signed a contract. Remember?”
“I—I didn’t read the fine print,” I stammered.
“Clause 4, Section B,” he recited, stepping into my personal space until I could smell the stale coffee on his breath. “Performer agrees to portray the character as directed. Failure to perform results in a penalty of fifty thousand dollars. Plus legal fees. Plus damages.”
Fifty thousand. We couldn’t even pay the rent.
“This is fraud,” I hissed.
“It’s show business,” he countered, shoving an earpiece into my hand. “You walk out there, you sing, you don’t talk. If you speak one word to that crowd that isn’t a lyric, I sue you, I sue your mother, and I take that daycare before the week is out. Do you understand?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He shoved me toward the stage manager, who was counting down on his fingers. Five. Four. Three.
The lights in the house went down. The scream from the audience was a terrifying, primal thing. In the front row, illuminated by the glow of a thousand cell phones, I saw a teenage girl. She was crying, clutching a sign to her chest, her face a mask of pure, unadulterated worship.
I was about to break her heart. I was trapped in a cage of light and noise, and the lock had just clicked shut.
