Voices Carry: A Rock and Roll Fantasy (The Rock And Roll Fantasy Collection)

by Diane Rinella

  Bailey’s encouragement builds my self-esteem to the point where I feel invincible. I jump off of the hood to race to Katherine. Two steps in I stop, wait for her to exit the building, and then match her pace, meeting her halfway. Being next to her enlivens me as if I have been reborn. If all that has happened wasn’t proof enough, this feeling confirms she is the other half of me.

  Her eyes peer up enough to catch mine when she says, “Hi.” They go back to the ground in embarrassment for the nonsensical emotions she hasn’t been able to control. In an effort to show her it’s all going to be okay, I duck my head under hers and let the soaring of my heart show the smile on my face as I return the greeting. I damn near cheer when she smiles back.

  “You need to see this,” I say, handing her the phone. “I wasn’t honest regarding everything I know about Saleena. Remember how I was in contact with Julie’s sister? Turns out she was there the night Saleena died. I, actually Johnny, played a part in Saleena’s death, which is why you get angry with me. But read about how she died and why. It will explain those headaches.”

  Her eyes scan the email. When she gets to the part about the accident, her bottom lip drops. A few lines later her eyes pop up toward me, and it all seems to sink in. “I’m not mad at you; I’m mad at Johnny.”

  “In a way it’s the same thing. Keep reading.”

  “This matches where I get the pain in my head. Oh God, this makes so much sense.” Though she hands me back the phone, her eyes stay locked on the message in awe of its explanation. “So you think I am actually mad at Johnny for letting me be stupid?”

  “Yeah, but remember, he was stupid too.”

  “Oh, God. I feel the world has been lifted off of my shoulders.” And now it starts to happen. I see that look, that beautiful, glorious look a person only gets when they gaze into the eyes of someone they have fallen for. Her voice flows out like a gentle stream of hope. “I’d say this is the craziest thing I have ever heard but …”

  I can’t, and would not dare try to, hide the tears that come to my eyes. “I’ve heard crazier. I can’t blame you for being angry, and I won’t ask you not to be. But can you please see why and accept we are angry with Johnny for something we were both at fault for? I can’t even let myself get beyond tipsy, let alone wasted. Now I know why.”

  I’m unsure how delicately I should handle the situation, but this is my partner, and I am going to treat her that way. With that in mind, I take her hands. “Katherine, you and I were a team once. We probably were before that, too. Do you think we can ever get past what happened a lifetime ago so we can enjoy the gift we have in each other now?”

  She looks to the sky with a smile that is almost a laugh. “This is so insane. I knew my anger was irrational, and there had to be some explanation, but this takes the cake.” Her sudden radiance convinces me everything is going to be all right. Lord, I want to put this glow on her face every day, but for much better reasons. “Do you think this is why people who just met instantly feel a strong connection of love or hate?” she asks.

  “Yeah. I never thought about it before, but I get it now. Can you forgive Johnny for risking your life?”

  I sort of expect her to chuckle because my question is ridiculous on so many levels, yet we both get how serious it is. “I’ll make it happen. I promise. Can Brandon forgive me for being an irrational ass?”

  “Given the circumstances, I think I kind of owe you.”

  As if all we have discovered has not been enough proof, the sizzle of the kiss we share as it fuses our souls back together reinforces all I have come to believe. If you are willing to hop on to the crazy train, the universe will give you one hell of a ride!

  Trust Your Heart

  The glow of the clouds as the sun dips below the horizon tint Brandon’s bedroom gold. Though the scene brings about a sense of peace, the growing shadows remind me of a hidden truth, putting a part of me at war.

  Brandon mutes a sigh as he slips his arms around my waist, and rests his chin on my shoulder. The longer he stands here, staring with me at the sunset, the more I feel he is waiting for me to burst out with whatever I am holding back. Then again, I may only think he is able to sense my guilt.

  “You don’t have to give away any secrets,” he says, “but can you assure me that whatever keeps weighing your mind isn’t something that will send me searching for answers in an effort to save us again?”

  I can’t get anything past this guy. Sometimes I swear he can still hear me. “We are fine,” I promise. “Ever since you showed me that email last week, I’ve never been happier.”

  “Then why am I so worried about you?”

  If I learned one thing about myself while I was with Jason, it’s that I need to come out of the shadows of my past mistake. I can only do that by facing Brandon along with myself. I break away to take a seat on the bed, pulling him behind as I go. “You know how you have pain in your past with Amber?” He nods and sits next to me. “Well, I guess everyone has some kind of story that follows them. I’m no exception.”

  While Brandon’s tender touch on my knee brings comfort, it is the concern beaming from his eyes that calms my soul. Some of my tension vanishes as I see I am the only one here who will have a hard time accepting my situation.

  “I was a few months shy of finishing two years of junior college when both the excitement and the stress of knowing I was moving out to go to a major university was hitting me. At the same time, it suddenly seemed none of my clothes fit anymore. First I thought I was bloated because my period was due. Then I realized how late I was and … well, later that afternoon, a test proved the jitters that kept hitting me had little to do with going off to school.”

  Brandon reaches for my quivering hands. His slightly open mouth makes him look so worried I feel he is the one who needs consoling.

  “I’ll speed this up by saying eight months later I gave birth to a little girl I never got to see, let alone hold.” My voice locks on the words, and I sniffle back the sorrow that weighs my heart. Still, I press on. No matter how he reacts, I have to come to terms with this.

  “I hate myself for what I did. There’s no excuse, but I have come to face wanting to be in the spotlight drove me. I was all set to move to Detroit, but then the whole setback, plus feeling I owed it to her to be successful, spiraled me into moving to Los Angeles and bailing on school.”

  Brandon’s head snaps toward me. “You were supposed to go to school in Detroit? Which one and when?”

  “University of Detroit, about nine years ago.”

  His disbelieving stare probably looks like mine did when I discovered someone was actually hearing my voice. “That’s where I went. That’s also about when I went back after Amber died.” His voice softens as if he can’t believe the words he utters are true. “I was always meant to meet you.”

  How incredible would it have been to meet Brandon sooner? But thank God I have found a silver lining. In fact, I have found two, and they make my burden a bit lighter. “I’m glad that didn’t happen. Not only would we not have such a crazy story, but also chances are I wouldn’t have made it to LA, so I wouldn’t have gotten my job. Giving up on school paid off.” It’s about time I saw things worked out somehow.

  Why is Brandon shaking his head?

  “No,” he says. “The show started four years ago. You would have long graduated, so we would have already moved here.”

  Oh, no. He can’t derail me now. “How can you say that with such certainty? There is no way of knowing what we would have done.”

  “The past has already shown I would never let you give up on your dreams. Besides, I didn’t plan to move to LA, so maybe I was meant to be here all along.” How his words raced out flatten my newfound comfort. However, now Brandon’s voice grows distant. “I never gave it much thought, but the way I got my job felt more like a summoning than an offer. Why do I now feel I am here for a reason? I wonder what it is.”

  I constantly put myself in a bubble of excuses, but it h
as again popped. There’s no way my fate would have been the same if I made different choices. There just can’t be. “You think we would have gotten together, even if I had a kid?”

  Brandon tosses his hands up as if the answer is a no-brainer. “I know we would have.”

  My chest feels so dull—so heavy my lungs aren’t filling; yet I have no need to gasp. I have to go stare out the window because I can’t face him anymore. God, please show me I am wrong. “So there was no reason for me to make her feel unloved? I could have left her with my parents, finished school, and met you? We would have come out here anyway?” No, this can’t be right. There must be something that doesn’t fit the picture, and I have to find it. “But then I never would have been able to audition for the part, let alone take the job.”

  “Why not? Besides, something tells me you make enough where we could have hired a nanny. Shoot, I could have been a stay-at-home dad.” He snickers, and I think I need to puke. “I’ve always dreamed of owning a record store and having my kid help out. How awesome would it be to watch customers get outwitted by a six-year-old?”

  He can’t do this to me. For years the feeling I am a terrible person who abandons people to get what she wants has chased me. Now he is tackling me with the reality that it didn’t have to be a one or the other situation. My arms curl over my head for fear of catching my reflection in a mirror. I don’t even want to see my own shadow. “Oh God, I could not have screwed up more.”

  Brandon offers his embrace, but there is no comforting me. When it comes to this, there never has been. “Honey, I don’t see it that way.”

  He doesn’t have to. This is my pain. I have a right to feel it. “A person, Brandon! I gave away a person, and I did it in exchange for a crapshoot at a career that may fail because Jason is about to tank the entire show. God, how can he do that to everyone?” I feel so buried in emotions I can’t see how I can ever get out from under. No amount of prayer has put an end to this nightmare.

  “Honey, you gave a child to someone who wanted one.”

  My words scream out at him. He’s pushed me over the line, and he needs to stop. I can’t face this anymore. “Because I didn’t want to be bothered! What kind of person does that make me?”

  Brandon halts as if my words have slapped him. Everything about him takes pause and then … softens. With a look to Heaven he releases a breath, and I feel he has pulled a bit of the stress out of my body and sent it into the ether. His words remind me of a prayer filled with awe. “It makes you an extension of God.”

  “What? How can you claim what I did put me anywhere near being a deity?”

  The calm in his voice continues to prevail. “Do you believe some things are so incredible the only way to explain them is by the existence of a greater power?”

  Him taking my hands in his steals my vision. There is no doubt in my heart that I have to listen. “Yeah, so.”

  “So do a lot of others, and some of those people have been told their dream of having a family is impossible. One of those families adopted your daughter. They were given a blessing—a gift from God—therefore making you an extension of something greater.”

  Brandon’s crazy, and I don’t want to face him anymore, yet the insistence in his eyes draws my gaze back to him.

  “We didn’t meet as intended because a greater purpose came along. You brought joy into another couple’s life. Now I am grateful for the time I spent waiting for you because I know why it had to happen. If that couple is half as thrilled as I would be, it was worth every bit of my suffering. I hope you can find it was worth yours too.”

  Tingles ripple through my body, making it difficult to breathe. Others have told me I did something beautiful, and I have tried saying it to myself, but something in this man’s words makes him sound like a messenger—as if the words come from a higher source. “Why didn’t you have an abortion?” he asks.

  Those words bring heat to my eyes. The answer to that has never been simple or even clear. “I could never decide how I felt about it.”

  Brandon raises my chin, drawing my eyes into his. His sincerity reminds me of all those paintings you see of saints addressing one who is suffering. “So instead you chose to sacrifice part of your life to bring joy into the world. In other words, you got the honor of playing God by responding to two people who prayed for a miracle. Don’t you think they see you as a means by which prayers were answered?”

  I want to tell him he is wrong—that no man could ever understand what it is like to carry a child, not only in his body but also in his soul, only to never get to hold her in his arms. But as much as I want to scream he is clueless, he has me stopped dead in my tracks. Brandon’s words have hit my soul.

  The big picture becomes clear. I could have had an abortion and saved myself the horror of people congratulating me on my pregnancy and telling me how wonderful my life was about to become—only for me to have to hide my tears of truth. I’ve now come to learn I could have had the baby and possibly had my career and Brandon anyway. But in neither of those scenarios does the true gift present itself. For years that family prayed like crazy for a baby. Jason reminded me they used the word miracle, but it never held meaning until now.

  The tears streaming down my cheeks are because I have come to see one miracle, but another puts a rock in my throat. This man has shown me the light; much like my gut tells me he tried to do with Saleena decades before. Now I truly understand what she meant when she wrote, “Are you the one who dares to stand in my way? For if you are, I just may be saved.”

  My little girl’s new family may see me as their savior, but this man is mine. That, in and of itself, is a miracle.

  Starting Over

  The noon rays of the California sun shine down as I walk in the path of my tire tracks that are still impressed on Darla’s lawn. Though life now seems perfect, one nightmare will always haunt me. I want it to, because I don’t think I could stand myself if it didn’t.

  The Amber Pink rose bush is now as sparsely flowered as its neighbors. I take a seat before it and pull the symbol of Johnny’s burden out of my shirt pocket that sits over my heart. This rock used to seem so jagged and heavy, but accepting its existence and bringing Johnny into my life has taken away the harshest edges and given it a touch of sheen. I want to find the forgiveness our soul craves, but I can’t let myself be at peace, nor can I forgive the driver who took Amber’s life.

  People make foolish mistakes every day. Most of the time the consequences are minor. Sometimes lives are altered. The driver that killed Amber never meant to hurt her, just like Johnny only wanted to give Saleena everything he could. However, it doesn’t change the fact that his actions killed her, or that her friends and families continue to hurt. Johnny’s cross is mine to bear.

  I look up to the bush and focus on the last rose that seems full of life. Love pours out of my heart as if the woman it reminds me of were before me. “Amber, you’ve done so much for me, and in some ways I feel this is a horrible request, but I need you to ask the angels to hold onto Johnny’s burden. I can’t let something I would handle so differently rule me, so ask them to keep his pain concealed so I can live my life. But if I am ever about to put someone in harms way again, please have them remind me it is here. Thanks, honey. Thank you for looking out for me.”

  With regret for my past actions in my heart, I bore a hole into the ground and bury the pebble along with as much pain as my heart can release. In life Amber showed me a new world, but long after she has gone she has given me a precious gift I honestly never felt she could. My voice cracks as the words from my heart surface, and I see more than ever why we worked as a team and why I loved her. “Thank you for helping me see who I truly am and who I was. Thank you for loving me so much that you wanted me to adore and feel passion for someone again. May the angels always carry you on their wings, just as I will always carry you in my heart.”

  Tears fall from my eyes as I stand and bring my nose to the lovely bloom. The aroma sends a whiff
of peace to my soul, further easing my load. With a smile to Heaven, I head back to my car, ready to return to work and the life I have built.

  Silver, Blue & Gold

  There is a certain charm to Mulligan’s, the favorite watering hole of Brandon and his friends. While I totally get why they like having a place to hang out, relax, and share stories, I also couldn’t quite grasp the exasperation in his voice when he told me, “Yeah, it’s a special party to celebrate Bailey’s arrival and Darla’s departure from Endeara. Of course, that means we are going to Mulligan’s, you know, the place we always go.” I’ve also become so fond of these Cherry Lemon Drops I may have finished my first one a little quicker than I should have and thus find myself at the bar, eager to try another one of their new concoctions.

  With my Strawberry Basil Margarita in hand, I head off to join Bailey in our booth. However, when I catch sight of the look on her face, I stop dead in my tracks.

  Bailey’s eyes are locked on a tall man who is exactly her type—a man with dark skin, short, black, slicked-back hair with a classic wave in it, and eyes deep as sin. Dale tries to conceal how he can’t stop looking at her by taking a sip out of his highball glass. Interesting. Dale has yet to strike me as shy. Right now, if he were a cat, I think his tail would be spiked.

  Dale takes a couple of steps towards her, only to stop a few feet away as if asking permission to approach. It’s so damn sweet, and there is no way I am interrupting it. Before Dale can see me, I detour and slip into the booth next to them.

  Softly, he clears his throat. “Hi. I’m Dale.”

  “Hi. I’m Bailey.”

  The chuckle he lets out seems driven by nerves. “I’m sorry,” he says, “I have absolutely no idea what to say that doesn’t sound like a terrible pick up line. Got any suggestions?”

  God, that sounds sweet.