Face the Music

by Melody Carlson

  So Allie got over her little pity party, and we actually had a really good practice and even tried out a new song I’d written a week ago. Then to Allie’s delight, we packed it all up and hopped on the hotel shuttle and headed straight for Disney World. Willy and Elise and Davie came along too, but they decided to take the quieter route, so we split and promised to meet back up with them at the hotel later on tonight. Then Laura, Allie, and I stood in lots of lines and rode the wildest rides until Laura got thoroughly sick and threatened to throw up on us. We sat her down and made her drink a ginger ale and then headed over to the Epcot Center, where Allie had told the guys we might catch up with them by dinnertime.

  “You really think we’ll find them here amid all these thousands of people?” I asked her.

  “Sure,” she said with her perennial optimist’s grin. “Why not?”

  Then, just as we were watching the Japanese drummers (Allie, being a drummer herself, was totally spellbound by their fast-paced and physical drumming act), who should show up but the guys—all four of them.

  “Hey, it’s those groovin’ chicks from Redemption!” shrieked Brett, as he raced over to where we were standing and acted like he wanted to get our autographs.

  “No way.!” said Allie. Not missing a beat, she put on her best starstruck expression herself. “Look, you guys,” she cried. “It’s those hottees from Iron Cross.!”

  Well, that was all it took to get a number of people looking our way, and before we knew what hit us, there were a handful of kids who recognized the name of not only Iron Cross, but Redemption as well. So right there in the Japanese drum section (fortunately the energetic performers were taking a much-deserved break), we had a little autographing party and even informed the kids about our upcoming concert tomorrow night in Miami. All in all, it was kind of fun, and I didn’t even freak out at being slightly mobbed. I guess I have matured a little.

  Then the seven of us went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. It was good catching up with the guys’ latest bits of news, and it sounded as if they’d been having a pretty solid spring tour with three albums riding the bestsellers chart, in the top five, even! But in the midst of everything, I have to admit I still felt slightly amazed by all this. I mean, how weird is it that we three ordinary girls from Harrison High are hanging with Iron Cross? Go figure! And not only are we sharing a meal, it’s like we’re all old buddies enjoying a happy reunion. I still need to pinch myself sometimes. Never mind that we’re a band with a contract and doing a concert tour, but to be friends with the likes of Iron Cross! So cool. I know I should be over this by now, but the truth is, I still get a little starstruck sometimes. But hey, I’m only human, right?

  Allie and Brett and Isaiah decided to head back to Disney World to hit some more rides, but Laura and I stayed with Jeremy and Michael. The four of us just walked around and looked at some more of the Epcot exhibits, but I thought it was kind of interesting how we sort of paired off. Kind of like a double date. Fortunately, I got paired with Jeremy and Laura was with Michael. Okay, I realize that Laura and Michael had been discussing some new technique that Michael has been experimenting with on bass, and since Laura plays bass too, well, it’s only natural she’d want to hang with him. She actually thinks Michael White is one of the best bass players on the planet. But even so, I was pretty jazzed to be hanging with Jeremy Baxter all night. He didn’t seem to mind being stuck with me either.

  To say it was a pretty cool evening would be a serious understatement. But at the same time, I keep telling myself to just chill and not get too serious about Jeremy. Because that could ruin everything between us. Besides, I know for a fact that practically every Christian girl in the country (at least the ones who listen to Christian music) are either in love with him or his brother, Isaiah. And I also know it’s kind of silly and immature to be so stupidly smitten. I’m probably just having some sort of schoolgirl crush that will clear up eventually like a bad case of acne.

  But if the truth were to be known, I really hope it’s something more too. Naturally, I will tell this to no one. This is strictly a diary thing. I have no delusions here—I fully understand that God knows all about the condition of my heart. There’s no keeping secrets from God.

  MY HEART

  an open book

  for You to look

  no way to hide

  what lurks inside

  You know me well

  and You can tell

  the way i feel

  You know what’s real

  You know my heart

  each hidden part

  the way i long

  God, is it wrong?

  is it from You

  what You might do?

  or is it me

  what i want to be?

  i lay it all

  the big, the small

  into Your hand

  You understand

  amen

  Friday, April 15

  Well, that Allie. She went and did it. Invited Brett to the prom last week. And guess what? She was right. He wants to go. And even more amazing, Iron Cross doesn’t have anything scheduled that same weekend, and he’s actually available to go. Well, who’d’ve thought?

  “Why don’t you ask Isaiah?” Allie urged me today. The three of us had taken our lunches into the practice room, and even though we were done eating, Willy hadn’t gotten there yet. So we were sitting around gabbing about pretty much nothing. But then she and Laura got stuck on the irritating subject of prom dresses. Naturally, I tuned this out (I think I was daydreaming about Jeremy). But I suppose they assumed that I was feeling left out, so they immediately tried to pull me back in with their ridiculous Isaiah idea.

  “Isaiah?” I stared at Allie as if she’d totally lost it. “Get real.”

  “Hey, I happen to think he’d really like to go with you,” said Allie defensively. “I mean, he was acting like he was all jealous after I invited Brett the other night. Isaiah said it was totally unfair that he didn’t get to go to his prom this year, and he’s even a senior. Unfortunately, it was the same night that we’d all performed in Tulsa.”

  “Too bad,” I said. But the truth was, I was thinking it was too bad that I couldn’t invite Jeremy to go to the prom with me. But then how would that look? A seventeen-year-old girl going to the prom with a twenty-one-year-old man! Oh, I don’t think of Jeremy that way, really. He doesn’t seem like an adult in that sense. To me he’s just one of us, only a little older. But I could imagine what my parents or someone like Laura’s mom might say about it. Besides that, I seriously doubt that Jeremy would agree to go with me anyway. I’m sure he’d probably think a high school prom was way beneath him. Crud, I think it’s beneath me, and I’m still in high school!

  “Why don’t you ask him, Chloe?” urged Laura.

  “Huh?” I was shocked. Had she been reading my mind about asking Jeremy to the prom?

  “Like Allie suggested, why don’t you invite Isaiah to the prom?” She said the words slowly as if she thought I was having a hard time following her.

  But I just shook my head.

  Suddenly Allie got that stubborn look in her eye. It’s how she acts when she thinks she’s come up with some brilliant idea, even if it’s totally lame. “Come on, Chloe. It’d be fun.”

  “I can’t ask him—”

  “Yes, you can,” said Laura quickly. “Allie’s right about this. I heard the whole conversation the other night. It was after the Atlanta concert; you and Jeremy and Michael were still signing CDs. But Isaiah sounded really bummed that he was about to graduate from high school without attending a single prom. He said the same thing happened to him last year. In fact, I think he said that Jeremy’s the only one in the band who’s ever gone to a prom.”

  “Jeremy went to the prom?” I realized at once that I’d said this with way too much interest. I hoped my disappointment didn’t show since I was really thinking, “Who’d Jeremy go to the prom with?” So I nonchalantly added, “That’s funny. Jeremy do
esn’t seem like the prom type to me.”

  “I know,” agreed Allie. “But I guess he has a girlfriend in his hometown. Apparently, she talked him into it when they were still in high school.”

  “Jeremy has a girlfriend?” I could tell my voice sounded kind of high-pitched and funny, but fortunately no one else seemed to notice.

  “Yeah, that was news to us too, but Isaiah said that Jeremy’s been dating the same girl for about four or five years now.”

  “That’s almost like being engaged,” added Laura, as if she was some kind of authority on these things.

  “No, it’s not,” I said a little too quickly.

  “It would be for me,” Laura retorted.

  “So how about it, Chloe?” pleaded Allie. “Why don’t you ask Isaiah? It’s not like you guys need to be involved or anything. You can just go together as friends and have a good time.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Laura. “We could triple date. It would be so cool.”

  “I don’t know.” I was looking at the floor now, tracing the diamond pattern of the carpet with the toe of my Doc Martens.

  “Just think about it,” said Allie. “It’s still about three weeks away.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “I’ll think about it.” And thankfully, Willy arrived and then we started to practice. But to be honest, I had a hard time focusing on our practice, and I’m afraid it didn’t go too well, which I’m sure was mostly my fault. Ironic, since I’m the one always pushing for perfection.

  Finally, we finished and I told them that my stomach didn’t feel too great. “I think it’s something I ate.” Although I knew that wasn’t true. Unless you can ingest a conversation, which I suppose is sort of true. And that’s sort of what it feels like. Like I swallowed a bunch of foul-tasting words. Anyway, I excused myself and went up to our room in the hotel.

  I lay down on my bed and cried myself to sleep. I know it’s stupid. It’s not like Jeremy and I actually had anything going on, or as if he’d led me on at all. It was all just in my head. I guess that’s what comes of letting your mind run wild about things like guys and romance.

  Well, when I woke up, I wrote this all down in my diary. Kind of like I just needed to barf it out so I could feel better. And then I read my Bible and prayed. I’ve decided that I need to just pull myself together and put this whole thing into God’s hands.

  I can see how a girl could let something like this totally devastate her and just emotionally wipe her out for days, maybe even weeks. But I also realize that, like I’ve been telling Allie and Laura, we have a job to do. And we have a big concert tomorrow night where Redemption is the main event, so I really need to get my head and my heart together—for the sake of the band, our recording contract, and most of all for the audience who has paid good money to hear us. Hopefully, they’ll be touched by God when they do.

  So I’m making this commitment to myself and to God: I will not let this disappointment about Jeremy mess up my music. If anything, I have decided that this whole thing can just make me stronger. Like that verse I memorized in James. Maybe it will become my “life verse” since Pastor Tony says that everybody should have at least one Bible verse that they take with them through everything. Perhaps this is mine.

  “…count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”

  Now how cool would it be to become perfect and complete and lacking nothing? And if that comes from going through trials, well, I guess I should just say, “Bring ’em on.” Okay, let’s not get carried away. I’m not asking to be hit by a truck or suffer from some horrible skin disease or anything too dramatic. But I do recall Pastor Tony preaching about how we should greet our trials as we greet our friends. We should welcome them as we realize how they’ve come to make us bigger and better people.

  BRING ’EM ON

  here we go, God

  bring on the crud

  pour on the rain

  sling on the mud

  bring on the hard times

  fling on the bad

  bring on the tears

  heap on the sad

  pile it all up, Lord

  it won’t be long

  ’til all these trials

  help make me strong

  cm

  Three

  Wednesday, April 20

  Is it possible that I have deceived myself into believing that God would change my personality in order to make me more acceptable to Him? Okay, I realize this sounds a bit crazy, but I’m thinking, God did give me my personality (even if some people think it is a pretty weird one!). Anyway, I assume He did since He “knit me together in my mother’s womb,” and I figure that means He created my DNA which makes me who I am. Right? So if this is the personality He gave me, then He probably doesn’t want to change it. I mean, I realize He wants me to become more like Him. But it’s not like He’s going to give me a spiritual lobotomy and turn me into something completely different.

  So I have to ask myself—just who’s doing the changing around here? I mean, people used to call me a wild child, a rebel, a nonconformist. But in some ways, I think I’ve been trying to conform myself. Like I thought maybe that would make God happy. Now I’m wondering whether that was God’s plan? Or mine?

  The reason I’m so concerned about this is because I think it’s affecting my music. And this scares me. The last thing I want is to end up sounding like everyone else, to lose my creative edge. I guess this is something I admire about Jeremy. He doesn’t seem to be affected in this way. It’s like he doesn’t compromise who he is. He remains his own self. Oh, I didn’t mean to start going on about Jeremy again. In fact, I’ve been doing a pretty good job of blocking my thoughts about him. Or at least I thought so.

  But speaking of Jeremy, I now have a new problem. I suppose it’s not fair to call Isaiah Baxter a problem. Sheesh, I know there are millions of girls who would love to have such a problem. But it seems that Allie and Laura are playing matchmaker for me. Oh, not matchmaker exactly. Rather, they are still trying to set us up to go to the prom.

  “He said he wants to go with you,” Laura said last night when we stopped in for a fast-food dinner after pleading with Elise. (She thinks fast food will kill you, and she’s probably not far from the truth.)

  “But only if you ask him yourself,” added Allie. “He doesn’t want a middleman.”

  Fortunately, we three girls were seated at our own table because I’m not sure I’d want the “grown-ups” (Willy, Rosy, Elise) listening in on our conversation. I’m not even sure why. “I don’t even want to go to the prom,” I told them for like the umpteenth time. “I’m not exactly a prom sort of girl, if you remember.”

  “Oh, come on, Chloe,” said Allie. “It’s not like you have to put on a pink Cinderella dress and wear pumps.”

  “You have a problem with pink?” demanded Laura.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “Doesn’t your mom have a pink dress all picked out for you to wear to the prom?”

  Laura scowled at me. “It’s not so bad.”

  “I know.” I attempted a smile on her behalf. “But the thing is, I do NOT want to go to the Harrison High prom.”

  “Not even with Isaiah?” asked Allie.

  “Yeah,” said Laura. “Now you’re going to hurt his feelings.”

  “Hey, it’s got nothing to do with Isaiah—”

  “Try telling him that,” said Allie.

  I knew they were quickly getting me cornered between that proverbial rock and a hard place. “You guys are impossible.!”

  And so now I’m stuck here trying to decide what to do. Do I just go with the flow and invite Isaiah to the prom? I know it really doesn’t mean anything from a romantic standpoint. I’m sure he knows that, too. Still, it feels like it must mean something. Shouldn’t you go to the prom with someone you really care about? Like Jeremy? Or even Cesar? It wasn’t that long ago
that I would’ve imagined myself going to the prom with Cesar. But true to his word, the guy is still kissing dating goodbye. Well, good for him. Maybe I should do the same.

  But that brings me back to my earlier question. Like who am I? I’m afraid that I’ve been conforming myself into what and who other people think I should be. And the only one who should be conforming me is God. Or rather transforming me. But what if I keep getting in the way?

  YOUR PLAN

  change me

  rearrange me

  but according to Your plan

  make me

  just don’t fake me

  into something i can’t stand

  mold me

  even scold me

  if it makes me more like You

  fill me

  Jesus, heal me

  make me real and true

  amen

  Friday, April 22

  Okay, it’s a done deal. I am officially going to the prom. And yes, I am going with Isaiah. I’m not sure if it was a compromise or what. But to be honest, I don’t feel bad about it, so it’s probably not such a big deal. Sometimes I think I make more of something than it really is. Like I kind of blow things out of proportion in my head. Maybe that’s why it’s good to talk about things with your friends.

  Anyway, here’s how it happened. We just finished our concert in Savannah tonight, and I was heading out from the ladies’ restroom, of all places, on my way out to the foyer for a little “M and S” (that’s Meeting and Signing for fans seeking autographs) when I ran smack into Isaiah, also heading out from the bathroom.

  “Hey,” he said with a funny grin. Now why is it slightly uncomfortable to see someone of the opposite sex emerging from a restroom? Is it like we think they don’t go?

  So I nodded to the bathroom sign above his head. “Hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go.”

  He laughed. “Kan, is that ever the truth. I thought I’d be standing in a puddle before our last song was even halfway finished.”