by Burke, Dez
My eyes meet Annie’s.
She smiles up at me, and for a brief moment the world stops spinning around us. I no longer hear the musicians playing behind me or the roar of the crowd. I block out the sound of my stage manager whispering into my earpiece.
Everything shuts out.
Right now, it’s just me and Annie.
The way it was always and forever meant to be.
My mind rushes back in time to the first day we met when I slid into a desk across from her in fifth grade. She’d given me a shy smile and from then on, I was completely lost in her blue eyes.
I grin at her and wink.
Suddenly I know in my heart that everything is going to be okay. A huge burden lifts from my chest and I feel lighter than I have in years.
My girl is here, and I’m going to give this crowd the best damn show they’ve ever seen. Six months from now, they’ll still be talking about it.
I lean into the microphone and begin to sing the opening line of my first hit song with my eyes never leaving Annie’s. It’s one of many songs I’ve written about her over the years, most of which are still sitting patiently in my head, waiting to be recorded.
I’ll never run out of songs to sing, not with Annie in my life.
The crowd goes wild when I reach the chorus, not realizing my muse and inspiration is the pretty blonde girl swaying to the music in the front row.
When the song ends, I glance over to check on my band and catch Maverick’s eye. He gives me two thumbs’ up. We’re in our element and on the highest of highs.
The concert is off to a roof-blowing start.
We jump right into the next song and play one right after the other, barely taking time to catch our breath in between. I sing until my throat is raw and my t-shirt is drenched with sweat.
I’ve always believed in giving the fans their money’s worth. They pay a fortune for the tickets, and I want to make sure they walk out the door believing it’s worth every damn penny of their hard-earned money.
Three hours later, it’s time to start winding things down. The final and closing song is coming up next.
Unlike many bands, we don’t do encores. Over time, we’ve learned the fans will never get enough anyway and if we keep running back on stage to do another song, we’ll be there all night. Instead, we play a solid satisfying set and call it a night. The fans don’t mind because they know the deal beforehand.
A crew member is watching from backstage for my signal. I turn and motion to him. He hurries out with a matching wooden stool that he places close beside mine.
The fans sense this is a little unusual, and they begin to quiet down. I reach for my water bottle beside me on the floor and take a couple of swallows before speaking. It wouldn’t do for my voice to give out on me now.
Clearing my throat, I reach over to adjust the microphone. The arena has gone completely quiet while they wait for me to speak.
“The next song coming up was written for a special person,” I say, while strumming softly on my guitar. “I call her the love of my life because she’s always been there for me. We met when we were little kids way back in elementary school. Over the years, she went from being a tough tomboy with pigtails who was my best friend to my childhood sweetheart. Then like many young couples, after high school was over, we were separated by the reality of life. I went on to Nashville to chase my dreams and she went off to college.”
I glance over at Annie, who is smiling through the tears streaming down her face. She hastily wipes them away with the back of her hands.
“I never forgot her though. Annie wasn’t the kind of gal a man could forget, no matter how hard I tried. One night, I was sitting in a rundown hotel room feeling broken and all alone. I grabbed a notepad out of the desk drawer and started writing down all the memories of her running through my head.”
The crowd is listening closely to my story, and I continue.
“See, like an idiot, I believed if I put down the words on paper, then maybe the memories of her would stop haunting me in my dreams. As you probably guessed, it didn’t work out that way. Those scribbled words became my first hit song, Blue Eyes of Heaven. Instead of forgetting her as I hoped, now I was singing about her every damn day. Forgetting her was impossible. This summer, our paths unexpectedly crossed again. By the grace of God, I was given a second chance. For that, I’ll always be grateful. The minute I saw her standing on my daddy’s front porch in a yellow sundress, I knew our destiny was to be together again. The girl I’m talking about is here tonight, sitting in the front row.”
I stand up and walk over to the edge of the stage and reach down my hand. “Annie, come on up here and join me. I want to introduce you to my fans.”
The cameraman zooms in on Annie’s face, which flashes up on the huge screens on both sides of the stage. The crowd claps and cheers for her in encouragement.
She gives me a trembling smile and takes my hand. I tug hard, and we both realize it’s not possible for me to pull her up five feet onto the stage without dragging her.
“I should have done a better job of thinking this through,” I joke into the microphone.
She laughs when the security guards step up to lift her onto the stage by her elbows. Taking her hand, I lead her to the second stool and motion for her to sit down while I settle on the other.
“What are you doing?” she whispers to me, her eyes wide.
I don’t answer and smile at her instead. “Everyone out there, this is Annie,” I say to the crowd, spreading my arm wide and motioning to them. “Annie, these are my fans. Take a minute and say hello.”
Annie gives the crowd a tiny wave. The crowd breaks out into cheers and whistles again, eagerly accepting her into my life, just as I hoped they would.
“To close out the show, I’m going to sing a new song that I wrote a few weeks ago,” I tell the crowd. “This is the first time I’ve sung it in public. I hope you like it.” I turn toward her. “Annie, this song is for you. It’s called One More Summer. I made you a little music video to go along with it.”
I pick a few chords on my guitar then begin to sing…
When I close my eyes at night in a lonely hotel room, I can still see her.
Her bare feet up on the dashboard of my truck.
Laughing at my jokes.
Sharing a beer with me when we weren’t old enough to be drinking.
Way back then we thought our summers would be endless.
That our life would be spent counting stars.
As I sing, the massive video screens alongside the stage flicker to life. The first image that fills the screens is a shaky clip taken from an old movie film of Annie and me when we were little kids.
We’re riding together bareback on my horse in a field behind the farmhouse. We couldn’t be more than ten at the time. Her arms are wrapped tightly around my waist and she’s leaning against my back, holding on for dear life.
We’re both laughing hysterically as the horse gallops full speed into the yard then suddenly stops to nibble at a patch of grass, causing us both to almost be thrown off the side.
Dad zooms the video camera in on our faces, so innocent and carefree.
Happy and full of life.
I jump off the horse and carefully help Annie down. She grins at me and the love we feel for each other shows clearly on our faces, even way back then.
The next screen shows me and Annie riding around and around the cornfield together on a big red tractor, then a quick shot of us sitting on a split-rail fence with our faces turned away from the camera. Annie’s long blonde hair is braided into two pigtails that go all the way down her back. My arm is draped around her waist to keep her from falling off the fence.
The video fast forwards years to our first prom together. Annie’s wearing a beautiful light blue dress to match her eyes, and I’m stiff and uncomfortable in my white tuxedo with color-coordinated blue trim.
Mama is standing beside Annie on the front porch of the farmhouse, bea
ming proudly while I try to pin a white flower corsage on Annie’s dress without poking her.
The last clip is of our high school graduation. This time, Cole is the one holding the camera instead of Dad. He films Annie and I together after the ceremony in our caps and gowns, with both sets of our parents proudly gathered around us posing for pictures.
We’re smiling and excited about the future.
At the time, we didn’t know graduation would be one of our last good memories together for a very long time.
The last shot is one that I never knew my dad had taken until I started going through the old family videos this summer. He’s standing on the front porch filming my last few moments at the farmhouse before I left for Nashville.
The camera follows me to my old beat-up truck as I toss my guitar on the seat beside me and drive away. Dad doesn’t turn the camera off until my truck is long gone out of sight and the dust settles down behind me.
Then I left her to chase my dreams in Nashville.
Never dreaming I’d lose her along the way.
The video clips slowly fade out to the end, and then the screens change to a live shot of us now on stage, sitting on the two stools together.
I turn to Annie and sing the last verse directly to her.
Now I’m back in town.
She might be years older, but she’s the same pretty girl I fell in love with.
With the same blue eyes of heaven, I’ve been lost in a million times before.
This time I’m not leaving without her.
All I ask is for her to give me one more summer.
Just one more summer...
The spotlight trained on us fades and then goes out completely as I sing the last word, leaving us alone together in the shadows. Reaching over in the dark, I grasp her hand tightly in mine.
“I love you, Annie. I’m coming home.”
She reaches up to touch the side of my face tenderly with her hand, her eyes overflowing with tears.
“No, Levi. I’m here because I was coming to you.”
51
Annie
Our wedding day on the farm…
There are times in life when a place becomes a living, breathing character. This is one of those times.
There’s no place in this world I’d rather hold my wedding than on the farm. Not only is the setting beautiful and peaceful, the farm has always been a huge part of our lives together.
I can’t possibly count or remember all the good times we’ve shared here, both as kids and now as adults.
Once Levi and I realized we were both willing to sacrifice everything to be with the other, we knew we could find a way to make our relationship work.
He’ll keep working on his music career and I’ll stay in Monroe to make a stable home for him to come back to. We’ll grab time together whenever we can and make every second count. We know it’s not the quantity of time couples spend together that matters, it’s the quality of those special moments.
No one says it will be easy or that our time spent apart won’t cause issues. But there’s nothing we can’t get through together. Our love can withstand any test if we’re both willing to try.
And we are.
My only regret on our wedding day is that Levi’s mother can’t be here with us. She would’ve loved being included in the wedding planning details.
I can imagine her spending the evenings sitting at her sewing machine making fancy tablecloths for the reception and gathering fall wildflowers from the pasture for floral arrangements.
Since she can’t be here in person, we’ve tried to incorporate as many of her special touches and memories in the wedding as we can. Her family Bible will be the one Reverend Smith uses for the ceremony, and we’re serving a few of her special dishes at the wedding reception.
After tearing the farmhouse apart searching for her secret recipes, Cole finally found where she’d written them down on folded scraps of paper. She’d tucked them safely in between the tattered pages of an old Betty Crocker cookbook, knowing they would eventually be found one day.
On the front row at the wedding will be her favorite rocking chair along with photos of her. The back of the chair will be draped in a handstitched quilt she made from Cole and Levi’s favorite t-shirts when they were kids. Levi carved a wooden sign to hang on the front of the rocking chair that says, ‘Mama, we know you would be here today if heaven wasn’t so far away.’
We’re all thankful that Levi’s Dad is temporarily doing better and will be well enough to attend the ceremony. That’s the main reason we decided not to delay the wedding.
With Levi’s insane concert tour schedule and my work, it would’ve been easy to put the wedding off until next summer. But we all knew at the rapid rate his dad is going downhill, things wouldn’t be the same by then.
We quickly settled on a wedding date in mid-October and agreed to do whatever it took to make it happen. Once we had a definite date to work with, I enlisted Taylor’s help with the preparations. She was thrilled to be included and jumped in full-force to help me.
I don’t know what I would’ve done without her.
Probably screwed up everything.
I’ve always been a no-frills kind of girl and was completely lost when it came to choosing a wedding dress and the other details. When it began to be overwhelming to me, Levi and I agreed to keep the event to a simple country theme. We aren’t trying to impress anyone, and his money doesn’t change who we are inside.
Rather than throwing a huge wedding with a massive guest list filled with country music stars, we decided to limit it to only close family and friends in Monroe and his band members. Harry will be here too, but Levi made him promise not to speak one word about business for the whole day.
My parents both jumped in to help with the preparations. Though I assured them we would be hiring caterers for a country barbeque, Dad insisted on cooking massive batches of his famous Brunswick Stew for the reception.
Mom wanted to do something special for Levi since she’s always adored him from the time he was a kid. She volunteered to make his groom’s cake instead of ordering a professional cake from a bakery.
After much discussion with him, she decided one special groom’s cake wouldn’t be enough. Not with a ton of hungry country boys attending the wedding.
When they couldn’t narrow down the flavor to one, she offered to make three: a simple vanilla pound cake, German chocolate cake, and of course Mississippi mud cake in the shape of a huge guitar.
When Levi casually mentioned that he also loved pie and cookies, Mom came up with an idea to do a separate bar at the reception for cookies and another one for pies. I didn’t attempt to stop her or try to talk her out of it. Thankfully he didn’t tell her how much he adores donuts, or she’d be doing a six-foot tower of those too.
The worst thing that can happen to a Southern woman is to run out of food when you’re serving a crowd. There’s no way my mom will let that happen on her only daughter’s wedding day.
To my surprise, Levi insisted on being involved in the wedding preparations too. He gave me strict orders not to go into the barn where the reception is being held under any circumstances.
Not that I needed my arm twisted to stay out of the old barn.
I’m curious to know what he’s up to though.
He’s been flying back home at every opportunity while on tour, even if it’s only for one night. Several times, I’ve caught him and Cole huddled up in corners, whispering in low voices where I can’t hear.
Whatever Levi has cooked up, my parents and Taylor are in on it as well. I trust them, so I don’t pry or ask questions.
As hard as it is to do.
Mom eventually persuaded me to turn over all the reception details to her and I gladly agreed. Entertaining is her forte, not mine. Between Taylor helping me with the ceremony and Mom handling the reception, things are going smoothly.
So far, so good.
The moment I’ve waited my whole li
fe for will finally be here in a few minutes, and I couldn’t be happier.
My dad knocks on the bedroom door then tentatively sticks his head inside. I’m holed up in a spare bedroom in the farmhouse with Mom and Taylor.
“It’s almost time for the ceremony to start,” he says, smiling at us. “They sent me to fetch you. Can I come in? Or is this room for womenfolk only?”
I walk over and kiss him on the cheek. “You’re always welcome, Dad,” I say. I take both his hands and step back to give him an inspection. He’s dressed in a new dark suit and is distinguished with his grey hair and wire-rimmed glasses. “You’re very handsome,” I say, squeezing his hands.
“And you’re absolutely breathtaking,” he replies, happy tears springing into his eyes. “You’re the spitting image of your Mama when she was your age. I swear, you’re going to make your old daddy cry.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handkerchief to wipe his eyes.
Mom laughs softly and moves around behind me to fluff out the long train of my white wedding dress. She’s lovely in a light peach linen dress that complements her short blonde hair and blue eyes. One day when I reach her age, I’ll be a mirror image of her.
“I hear the music starting up,” she says. “Which means it’s time to go. We’d better move on out to the front porch. You don’t want to be late for your own wedding, honey.”
Through the open bedroom window, we can hear Levi’s guitarist, Maverick, softly strumming on his guitar.
“Everyone is already seated and waiting for you,” Dad says. “Levi is a nervous wreck. Poor fellow.” Dad lets out a chuckle. “I dropped by the barn to speak to him. I also offered him a shot of whiskey to calm him down, but he refused.”
“Where’s my shot of whiskey, Dad?” I tease. “I’m the one who needs a drink.”
“There’s nothing for you to be worried about,” he says, giving my hand a reassuring pat. “You and Levi have been working toward this since you were little children. Your Mom and I always knew we’d be standing here doing this one day. And here we are. Levi’s a fine man, and I’m proud to call him family.”