AllFreeNovel
Share Us
An innocent question, but one that gnawed at my insides. I forced the corners of my lips up for her benefit.
“Wouldn’t you have been three years old when I was still performing? How do you know my music?” I asked, forcing a jovial tone.
“Oh, everyone in this house knows you, dear,” Christi answered. She slid an overly full glass of Moscato, smelling heavily of fruit, toward me.
“Really?” I laughed.
“Yes. In fact, I think Levi was about seventeen when I took him to one of your concerts. He just wouldn’t stop begging me day and night to let him go see you live,” she barked with laughter at her son’s expense.
“Mom,” Levi intoned. The black and white face paint hid most of his embarrassment, but the intensely red tips of his ears stood out.
And I loved it.
“I knew he listened to my music back in the day, but he never said he saw me live,” I admitted to his mother.
When I met Levi’s eyes, he bashfully shrugged, fighting back a sheepish smile. He accepted a beer from his dad, and heavily exhaled.
Mid-sip of wine, she nodded her head. Once she swallowed, she said, “Yeah. That’s where he got that poster of you. It’s still up on the wall in his room, too.”
This time, my ears turned red. I knew what he used to imagine and do to himself while staring at that poster. My face burned knowing that was in the house we stood in now.
“He accompanied me to a few of your dad’s concerts when he was a little fellow too,” John stated between swigs of beer. Though half of his attention was across the kitchen and on the game.
“Anyway,” Levi interrupted, fingers tight on his drink, “Diana isn’t performing with me. She’s helping me write music.”
“Oh, that’s so interesting. So, is that what you do now? You just write music?” Christi peppered with me questions I didn’t mind answering.
“It is. That’s what fits me best these days.” My next sip of wine might have been a bit too much to accommodate my nerves. They were quickly fading thanks to the Stark family’s warm welcome, but I still wanted the aid of liquid courage.
Ginny rushed toward the kitchen island and tossed her hands in the air. “I write music too, Diana. Can I show you?”
“Yes.” The word fell off my tongue without needing to think about it.
Ginny rounded the island and grabbed my hand. I stared wide-eyed at Levi as she tugged me away. He simply winked in encouragement at me.
I heard him answering more of his mother’s questions as his younger sister dragged me through the house. Up the stairs and through the first hall, I slowed down.
Levi’s posters, pictures of his awards, and newspaper clippings lined the walls, intermingled with family photos. I spotted Levi throughout his life, from family vacations to school graduations, smiling at me through the frame.
Ginny’s small hand urged me along until we passed an office room with a wall of guitars. At once I thought of Levi’s guitar wall in his personal studio.
“Oh, are these Levi’s instruments?” I asked her.
She paused and pivoted around in her fuzzy socks. “No, those are our dad’s guitars. He taught Levi how to play.”
“My dad taught me too.”
Ginny turned her round brown eyes to me and beamed brighter than a star. “Dad’s gonna teach me how to play, too. I want to be just like you someday, Diana!”
I choked on my next breath. Tears pricked behind my eyes, and my lips quivered. The young girl staring at me brought out something I’d lost a long time ago.
I reigned in the sudden influx of unwanted emotions and wrestled a smile onto my face. Squeezing her hand, I said. “You don’t need to be like me, just be the best version of yourself. Now, show me those songs you wrote. I’d love to see them.”
When Ginny radiated at me with her admiration, a small flower of hope bloomed in the broken crevices of my heart.
Twenty-Seven
Since we’d arrived late at night, the excited commotion through the house didn’t last much longer. After Christi freed me from Ginny’s grasp and wrangled her daughter into bed, I joined Levi and his family in their living room for another half hour.
