One (Bar Dance) (14 page)

Chapter Seventeen

One of the instructors that worked for Bray was at the reception desk when we walked in. It think his name was Greg or Gary. Maybe Guy? I couldn’t remember so I just waved as we walked through. He was quietly strumming his guitar and barely paid us any attention any way. As I walked in the studio my drink decided to run out and I made that annoying slurping sound that only a straw can make in an empty cup. I would have preferred coffee but Styrofoam coffee is disgusting. I refused to drink it.

I blushed. Bray didn’t have a friend there today. He had three. One woman and two men. I stopped cold. “Sorry.” I said.

Bray smiled at me as did the others. Rand just laughed from behind me. “Best entrance ever babe.”

I glared at him as he walked around me. He found a chair and sipped at his cup.

Bray had his guitar on his lap. “Terra, this is Alice.” He pointed to the woman who held a violin in her lap. “Tony.” He pointed to the man with the cello next to her. “And Mike.” He pointed to a man who stood near an electronic keyboard but not behind it.”

“Hey.” I gave a small wave. They all appeared to be a little older than me but not much older than Bray.

“Hey”. They all answered back.

“They are giving me a couple hours.”
Bray stood up and walked to his board turning a few buttons.

I slid my empty cup in my bag since there wasn’t a garbage can in the room and dropped it by Rand. I walked back to the center of the room. Bray sat back down. “I have two songs that I want you hear.”

I just nodded. I had loved everything that he had played for me so far.

“Alice.” Was all that he said and she started playing her violin. Tony joined in quietly with her.
Mike joined in shortly after even more quietly.

After my dad had left my mom I found her one day quietly crying on the back porch. She was listening to a song by Kathy Mattea called, ‘Where’ve You Been?’. It was one of those songs that you only listen to when you really need to cry. The only reason that I remember it was my mom had looked up at me and said. “I want a love like this song sings about.”

I found it so heart wrenching that I had never forgot it. This song had the same quality.

I was nearly in tears when they quit playing. Bray said quietly. “Want to hear it with words?”

I shook my head no but yet said, “Yes.”

He held out a sheet of paper that I knew had just the words on it. I took it as if it was a bomb and would go off any second.

“Alice.” He said and she started playing again. Bray sang and I
was
in tears by the end. The song title was One. It was of two people who were only whole when they were with each other. It was melancholy, yet poignant at the same time.

Bray knew that he had me when he finished and then smiled at me. “Angie explained that you couldn’t hear the music when you read the words.”

I nodded as I wiped off my face. He not only had me. I had to
own
this song.

I put my hands over my mouth with fingers against my nose and the outside of my eyes. I took a couple of deep breaths. Finally I had my emotions under control again. I pulled the sheet of words out from under my arm that I had pinned it against my body with. “This one may take me more time to get. I think that I may cry every time I go through it.”

“Let you in on a secret kiddo.” He smiled at me. “If everyone wasn’t here I would be crying just like you.”

That made me laugh. “Big strong Frasier man crying. That I would like to see.”

Just he and I ran through it three times before I felt comfortable with it. Just Alice joined us the next time. The time after that everybody was involved. Rand had left the room. He had looked a little misty eyed to me. He had claimed that he need to get another coffee. I was thinking that we needed to stop on the way home and pick up a couple bottles of wine. This was going to be one of those days where a bottle of tequila may fix it but wine was better suited.

We were on our third pass through with all of us when I stopped singing. I waved my hands to stop everyone. I walked to Alice and looked at her music. It had no words. Tony’s was no better. I walked to Bray and his did.
I pointed. “Here Alice needs to be stronger. Here Tony does. Here everyone needs to back off. I need to own this part of it. I can’t do it as it is.”

He made a marks where I had pointed. He sat his guitar down and walked over to the other two and made marks.

“What about me?” Mike asked.

“Stay consistent with where you have been for right now. So far you feel right.”

He beamed at that.

I rolled my eyes at him which he did the drum sound on his keyboard of ‘Nailed That One’. I rolled my eyes again.

Bray sat back down. “Alice.”

Twice more through Alice sat her violin in her lap. “That recorded?”

Bray nodded to say yes.

“Platinum.” Was what she said.

Bray nodded again. He gave her a look that I didn’t understand but made her laugh out loud.

“Next one.”
Bray started but stopped when he heard my stomach rumble and Angie walked in.

She came
over and gave me a hug. “Food’s in the foyer.” She said to the room in general.

Everyone shuffled out but she held me back. “You like the first one?”

“No.” I smiled at her. “It made me cry.”

She giggled. “Wait for the next one.” She winked at me then linked our arms together. “It will knock your socks off.”

“I doubt it. I think they’re drenched with tears. It may be impossible to pull them off.” I sniffed with a giggle as we walked out of the room.

**

Lunch was trays of sandwiches and miscellaneous salads. Bottled drinks and soft cookies were on another table. As social gatherings seem to do two groups formed. Three musicians and Bray, Angie and me. Rand walked back in so he joined the two of us.  I didn’t speak their lingo so I didn’t even try to go to the other group. They probably wouldn’t understand mine so they stayed away as well. It wasn’t like a stand off by any means. Just two separate groups. Comfortable in their own way. Bray made time between the two. His staff came and went. Mostly they went their own way with a sandwich in their hands.

A good number of students went through, surprising me.
I mentioned that to Rand. He shrugged at me. “I have no clue.” Was his answer.”

Angie gave me almost the same shoulder shru
g. “All I know is that his home is nicer than yours and mine combined. I think that he does well with what he does. Really well if you get my meaning.”

That was saying a lot. Mine was nice. Angie’s was better than nice.
It wasn’t any of my business so I put it out of my mind.

I was the first one back in the studio with Rand at my side. He gave me a kiss that was meant to be done alone. Which I thought that we were
, until he broke away and I looked around the room. Bray and Angie were cuddled close watching us with smiles on their faces. That alone made me blush. Then I looked around and saw the other three trying to look busy but still watching us. I planted my face in Rand’s chest.

“Get out.” I whispered to his t-shirt.

He rubbed my back. “I’ll be back in a while.”

I nodded and stepped back. He gave me a heated look and walked out the door.

Angie gave Bray a quick kiss then she followed Rand out.

Bray walked a sheet of paper over to me with a wicked grin. I was blushing from the roots of my hair to the soles of my feet.
“Not one word.” I said to him as he got close.

“I wouldn’t dare say one word. Fifty of them wouldn’t even cover what I wanted to say to you.” He stated playfully.

My blush faded quickly with that. I rolled my eyes.

He chuckled.

I started lifting the paper to read it. He stopped me. “Listen first, then read.” He knew what he was doing so I stood patiently waiting.

This song started as polar opposite from the last one. Mike played one long note and then started playing softly.

Tony followed the same way.

Then Alice. One long note then more softly.

Bray started singing nearly the same way. The song was titled ‘Not One More’.

It was
meant as, not one more hurt. Not one more time. Not one more chance. Not one more tear. In less than four minutes it showed how two people could do so much damage that there was not one more thing to fix it. The song ended with all three musicians holding their one note. The same note that the song had started with

I stood open mouthed at the end. My heart was beating in my neck. Bray just stared at me.

“Why the hell haven’t you recorded this song already?” I yelled at him.

“It wasn’t my song to sing. I think that I was waiting for you.”

My hands were on my hips and I was breathing hard. “Are you insane or just fucking crazy? You could have made millions just selling that song.”

“She’s right you know.” Alice said.

Bray shrugged. “So I make millions when she sings it. Same difference.”

I stomped my foot. I knew the routine now. I took a c
ouple of deep breaths to calm myself down. “Mike.” I said. He nodded and started playing. I didn’t need Bray to lead me in to this one. This one was mine more than the last one was. One time through and I looked at everyone. “It needs to be,” I held up my thumb and forefinger so that they were nearly touching, “Either this much slower through the chorus or that much faster. I don’t know which but it needs one or the other.”

“Which one first beautiful.” Mike asked me.

I looked to the ceiling for divine intervention. It didn’t come. “Start with slower. Only a miniscule bit. Enough to add twenty seconds, maybe thirty to the overall song. No more.”

When we were done I stood staring at my shoes. “What is it?” Alice asked.

“I’m wrong about the speed. It isn’t the chorus that needs to change. That needs to go back to what it was. It’s the story as they go. Each hurt needs just a bit more time to happen. The changing lyrics need to be what slows down but it needs to be so minute that it can’t be noticed. Does that make sense?”

Mike nodded at me. “How about this?” He added a few more notes to the beginning before the words started and a few more as it ended singing a bit off key as he went.

I looked to Bray. “What do you think? It’s your song.”

He just stood up and walked over to each artist adding notes to the papers in front of them. “Try it.”

We did and it felt right. It felt good in a bad sort of way. The song was kind of an angry ballad but not quite. It was a fighting song about taking your life back one tear at a time.

I finished and looked towards Bray. “That’s a wrap.”
He stated. Then he looked at me. “Now it’s your song.”

And guess what happened. One more tear ran down my cheek.

I walked over to him. Gave him one kiss on the cheek and then thumped him, hard, against his chest. “If you write another song with the word one in the title I am going to seriously kick your ass.”

He bent his knees so that we were eye to eye then he wrapped his arms around me before I had time to even register what he was doing. He swung me in a few circles laughing
so hard that I could feel it. “You just named the album.”

He sat me on my feet and put his arm around my shoulder. All three of the others had their phones out and were searching for something. They were conferring between one another when Alice spoke for all of them. “Next two weeks or we all have to wait unt
il the first two weeks of July.”

I wasn’t tracking exactly what they were saying but I had a feeling that I was going to be using some of my accrued time off the first two weeks of
July.

Bray started to ask. “Can you…”

“I have a ton of vacation time stored up. If I ask now I can take two weeks off.”

“Who you got for drums?’ Mike asked.

Alice snickered, “Perry is always available.”

“Nope.” All three men answered in unison.

“What’s wrong with,” I hesitated trying to remember the name.

“Perry likes his partners young
.” Mike said with a sneer.

“He also doesn’t care what flavor
they are as long as they’re young.” Tony supplied.

“Nope.”  I finished for all of them. “I work as a care nurse in a children’s section. Not going to happen.”

They all looked at me oddly. Bray helped me out. “She’s a nurse. Children’s cancer at LaBra.”

“Wow.” Mike said.

Tony just had his mouth open as if to catch flies.

Alice tilted her head. “You found a nurse
who can sing like that?”

Bray related the whole Dakota incident to them. I was staring at my feet as he walked to his board and played me singing at the memorial. Again I was blushing from the roots of my hair. I finally looked up. I
don’t know what look I expected from them but what I got was three huge smiles. Four if you counted Bray’s.