Becky Wicks - Before He Was A Secret (Starstruck #3)

by Becky Wicks

  ‘Give the people some space, would you,’ a large lady says now, bustling into the hallway and shooing everyone away. The twins return Conor’s high-fives with huge grins on their cute faces before scurrying away with the kittens. ‘Conor my love, you’re looking gorgeous as ever, hi, I’m Sue!’ She turns to me, takes my hand. Her smile is big and warm, her teeth are slightly yellowed I notice and she has on an apron covered in flour. Her hair is all piled on the top of her head in a large purple grip.

  ‘Stephanie,’ I say as we’re ushered into the kitchen. It smells like baking. Sunlight is pouring through a large window across a big wooden table that’s covered in bowls, spoons, coloring books, Lego, crayons and several Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures. This woman, Sue, is obviously a saint, handling all these kids.

  Poppy scrambles down from Conor and rushes to the counter, where a batch of cookies is still on the wire rack. She picks up three, runs back and hands us one each.

  ‘They’re still hot,’ Sue warns, wiping her hands on her apron, ‘don’t burn yourselves.’

  ‘These smell incredible,’ I say, sniffing mine. ‘Peanut butter?’

  ‘With extra pecans,’ Sue confirms, piling some dirty bowls into the dishwasher, which I notice is already stacked to the brim. She adds more forks and wooden spoons. The twins rush in again, make a grab for the cookies and run out with at least three each before Sue can stop them. She sighs good-naturedly, looks at me over her shoulder. ‘So Stephanie, you’re a musician too, huh? How did you two meet?’

  ‘Just out and about,’ I say now. ‘We’ve been writing songs together.’

  ‘We just got offered a publishing deal, actually,’ Conor says, a little sheepishly. Sue drops the fork she’s holding, turns to us with her big eyes wide and her scraggly eyebrows almost in her hair.

  ‘Are you kidding me? Oh my Lord, you’re on your way to superstardom, no doubt about it!’ She throws her arms around him, then me. ‘That sure is the most incredible thing I’ve heard all day. Did you hear that Poppy, you’re being taught by a professional song writing team today!’

  ‘Sing, sing, sing!’ Poppy cries ecstatically, jumping up and down in front of us and dropping cookie crumbs all over the floor. ‘Will you sing for us?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ I say, laughing as I bend down to her. ‘Have you been good today?’

  ‘Yes! I cleaned my room, didn’t I, Sue? And I put the Nintendo games away.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘She did,’ Sue smiles, untying her apron and placing a lid over what’s left of the cookies on the counter. Emma is now pouring herself a glass of milk, balancing the kitten over her shoulder. I notice the way she keeps looking at Conor. Someone has a crush. I catch myself quickly, looking at him myself; messy hair and stubble, eyes shining, taking all this in with his usual air of cool and calm. She’s not the only one.

  ‘Well then, maybe we’ll sing,’ I tell Poppy. ‘Are you going to show me your guitar?’

  She squeals, grabs for my hand and pulls me out of the kitchen, into the living room, where the twins are now crawling round the worn out brown carpet in some kind of game. ‘Dominic, Timothy, you have to go now,’ Poppy orders and obediently they hightail it out the door.

  ‘Do they ever walk anywhere?’ I say now, just as I notice the piano in the corner. Of course, there would be a piano.

  The TV is blaring cartoons, but Poppy reaches for the remote and turns it off as Conor walks back to the hallway, comes back with our guitars and closes the door behind him, leaving the three of us alone. The guitar Poppy’s pulling onto her lap on the couch is almost as big as she is.

  ‘Can you remember how to tune it?’ Conor asks and she nods enthusiastically, starts fiddling with the strings. I do the same with mine. The piano is already bothering me. Of course, I couldn’t have come to Music City without encountering instruments of all kinds, but randomly I think of my mom and dad, how Conor said they’d be looking down on me and smiling. I wonder if through some weird cosmic twist they’re setting me up; putting pianos everywhere I look to push me… to help me in some way, to get me over the fear. They always did have a sense of humor.

  I watch Conor start with his lesson. Poppy has a list of songs she wants to learn, specifically one by Katy Perry, which makes me smile. She doesn’t even know the meaning of the lyrics as we set about playing it, step by step as she struggles to stretch her fingers across the frets, but when I was her age, lyrics didn’t mean as much as the feeling of a tune soaring through me; the escape and solace I found in the music itself. I stare at Conor’s handsome profile. It’s obvious how much he loves to teach, how Poppy clearly loves to learn. My mind races back in time.

  ‘Sing Stephanie!’ my nine-year-old brother Cory pleaded. David, just twelve, right next to him, echoed his pleas. We’d been making something up on our guitars but I was distracted by some guy from school and I was staring at my phone.

  ‘Who are you texting?’ Cory asked, but before I could reply, my phone wasn’t in my hand anymore. My father had snatched it up, laughing.

  ‘Hey!’ I yelled. My mom was reading a book in the corner seat of our living room, legs curled up over one squidgy arm. Her hair, long and blonde like mine was braided over one shoulder. She tutted as I started chasing him around the room and my brothers both laughed and made fun of me, making kissing noises from the couch.

  Eventually I agreed my dad could keep the phone till we’d practiced our song for one more hour but he dropped it into his pocket, slid onto the piano stool, threw up the lid and started playing something crazy, letting out that mad energy I always loved about him. I flopped down next to him, played my part with my fingers flying next to his on the keys. I sang over the top till my brothers forgot the guitars and started singing along. Even my mom joined in from her chair.

  ‘What are you playing for the show?’ My dad asked me, stopping abruptly. I looked up at his smiling, bearded face, his bright blue eyes, so like mine. He meant the school show. I’d forgotten all about my phone, all about the boy; all I could think about in that moment was the music still flying through me and how I wanted more of it. I loved the piano. Playing it with my dad was my favourite thing in the entire world.

  ‘I need the music,’ I told him. ‘Bryan White’s This Town.’ Bryan White was one of my favourite country singers at that time: This town's full of narrow minds, can't see beyond the city limit signs, they close the bedroom blinds in this town…

  ‘You haven’t practiced yet?’ My dad asked incredulously. ‘Isn’t the show tomorrow? You’ll have to play something else. Maybe on the guitar?’

  ‘No, I can’t!’ I cried then. ‘Dad, I have to play that song. It was written for me. I need the music. Can we go get it now? I’ll practice all night, I swear. No more phone.’

  He laughed at me; his big loud laugh that I can still remember so clearly. ‘All night?’ he said, reaching for the necklace that matched his around my neck and twisting it round for a second.

  ‘Promise.’ I said. ‘I will sit here and play ALL night long. I won’t stop till it’s perfect. And I’ll win first prize tomorrow, for you.’ I flashed him my cheekiest but most charming smile then, batted my eyelashes and I could literally see him crumbling. I was a daddy’s girl, through and through.

  ‘We’d better go get this songbook then,’ he said with a sigh, standing up and looking to my mom. ‘Are you coming?’ He pulled my phone from his pocket, put it on the coffee table as my mom unfurled herself from the chair and went to grab her purse.

  When the police knocked on the door an hour later, I was still glued to that piano, making up a song and singing my heart out. I hadn’t even checked my phone to see if the boy had texted back. I remember two uniformed men stepping into the room, me slamming the lid over the keys as the world fell apart and never, ever opening it again.

  My dad had a framed poster of Bob Dylan with his quote on it: A song is an attitude to a situation. That stayed with me. My attitude t
owards my parent’s death was to sing through it, to twist melodies and words around the pain, till it subsided somewhat. It never went away completely, but the music carried some of it off, mellowed it, till at times it felt like all the horrors of my life were happening to someone else; some other girl sitting alone in her room with a guitar, ignoring the piano as it called to her. Always ignoring the piano.

  ‘Jackson?’ Conor’s voice drifts into my thoughts. I realize I’ve drifted off, my fingers moving on autopilot on the strings to whatever they’re playing. ‘Poppy wants to hear Stars. What do you think?’

  I stare at his face, his smiling eyes. A sudden rush of affection and desire and something else I can’t explain… perhaps defeat washes over me. I put the guitar down and stand up, start walking to the piano. ‘Stephanie…’

  ‘Is this in tune?’ I interrupt. Poppy runs up behind me, sits down on the stool before I can get there and pushes up the lid. My heart is a drum, bashing against my ribs. I hold my breath, sit down next to her.

  ‘Sue plays all the time,’ she tells me, tapping at the keys with her tiny fingers. ‘I’m better at the guitar though.’

  ‘We’re all good at guitar,’ I tell her quietly. ‘Sometimes you have to branch out, though, right?’ I turn to Conor, see him watching me with an eyebrow cocked but I block everything out, even Poppy, who giggles next to me. I put my fingers on the keys. It’s been so long but everything rushes back to me. I see the police officers telling me the car flipped, telling me my aunt and uncle were on their way, telling me the driver was drunk. My fault. At least I thought it was my fault for a long time. I sent them out there. I made them go.

  What am I doing? What am I even thinking? It wasn’t my fault. A quote from The Secret springs into my mind: Whenever you think you can or think you can’t, either way you are right.

  My hands press on the keys as I inhale again sharply. My foot finds the pedal beneath me. I can feel Poppy’s eyes on me, imploring to my side. I start to play. The melody seems to rush in from nowhere as my hands re-find their way over forgotten ground, till I can barely control what I’m playing. The music itself is guiding me, and not the other way around. Some lyrics I’ve been working on, ones I wrote in my book just yesterday start to layer themselves automatically on top. So I sing.

  It's twisted arithmetic

  Fractions of us

  All these multiple signs

  Adding up to one love

  But the sum of our parts

  Is a terrified heart

  Beating fast

  Heading straight to the middle

  of impossibility

  It's twisted arithmetic

  Me plus you

  You plus me

  Equal two halves of a mystery

  I’m still playing, lost in the song, singing the same lines over and over when I feel a hand on my shoulder and I realize my eyes are clouded with tears. I stop abruptly.

  ‘She's so good!’ Poppy cries out excitedly.

  ‘You’re shaking,’ Conor says, right behind me.

  I draw my hands from the keys and look at him as he squeezes my shoulder with his big hand. I didn’t even see him walk over. I feel like I’ve just crash-landed from another planet. Poppy’s clapping her hands next to me and I sit still as stone, getting my bearings, just breathing, till something in me forces my legs to move.

  I stand up. I’m so wobbly on my feet, but Conor steps to the side of the piano and lightning fast he catches me as I scrape the stool back. ‘You did it,’ he whispers and I can hear the pride and shock in his voice as I practically fall against him, wrap my arms around him. He hugs me tight against his hard chest, scrunching up the hair at the back of my head with one hand. ‘Two halves of a mystery,’ he repeats softly in my ear as my heartbeat thuds against his. ‘We should probably solve that soon, Jackson.’

  His lips are so close as I pull away and face him. He smells like peanut butter cookies and looks a lot like he wants to kiss me. I’m about to reply when the door opens behind us and Conor releases me as Emma walks in, still with the kitten draped across her shoulder. She looks at us in surprise and I can feel my cheeks must be beetroot red. I swear I see irritation cross her face.

  ‘We should go,’ Conor says quickly. ‘Stephanie has to work. Poppy, we’ll be back next week, OK? You keep practicing Katy Perry, you’re getting good! Oh…’ he stops, rests a hand on the back of the couch. ‘Before we split, Poppy, what are your thoughts on Noah Lockton?’

  Poppy looks up instantly, but it’s her sister who speaks from the doorway. ‘OMG, he’s amazing. Sue says we can go see him in Nashville on the new tour! Did you know he’s recording a new one right now? I read it on Chloe Campbell’s blog.’

  Conor raises his eyebrows. ‘I guess he’s looking for songs for that album, then, right?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she replies. ‘Why?’

  ‘No reason,’ he says, throwing me a wink.

  Poppy carries on strumming as we pack up the guitars, say our goodbyes to Sue and the kittens. She pushes a Tupperware box of cookies into his hands in the hallway. ‘I hope you’ll both be back,’ she says as we head for the door. ‘I haven’t heard that piano sounding so good in a while.’ She leans in to drop a kiss on my cheek. ‘You’re an inspiration, both of you. And Conor, I hope you know how much we appreciate everything you’ve done. How’s Grace, by the way?’

  Her words force my frantic heart to skid to a stop. I notice her squeezing his hands now; and how awkward and uncomfortable he looks as he glances my way.

  ‘She’s fine, thank you,’ he replies tactfully.

  ‘Will I see you at Hearts on Sunday?’ she says.

  ‘I’m not sure, I haven’t been for a while. OK, we really should go.’

  We’re quiet on the drive back to the restaurant. I just made the hugest breakthrough and I swear I could feel Conor crumbling into me at that piano. The way he held me, the way he’s been looking at me lately. I know what’s fizzing between us is real and growing stronger by the day but my head is still spinning like someone’s shoved me on a merry-go-round. Just hearing Grace’s name is enough to make us both go cold, I’ve noticed, and I don’t even know why her ghost is still lingering. If Conor is falling for me just the same as I’m falling for him; hopelessly, mind-screwingly, why the hell has he still not told Sue, or anyone else for that matter that he and Grace have broken up?

  Have they really even broken up?

  Is that why he won’t kiss me?

  I almost ask him, almost reach across and put my hand over his on the steering wheel. But I can feel him backing off, backing away. Defences kick in and I force myself to do the same; to ignore the storm that’s raging through me. I channel it, pick up my phone and dial the house. Cory answers and I blurt my news about the publishing deal, laughing when he shrieks into the phone and calls for Sandi. I can help them, I think as she babbles on in my ear about how proud she is, how my parents would’ve been so happy. I can really help them now, as long as I focus.

  When Conor puts a hand to my shoulder it sends a meteor shower through my body, but I don’t look at him. Everything that falls gets broken and I need every piece of myself intact. We need to make music now. Nothing else matters.

  10.

  Conor

  Stephanie’s sitting next to me at the table, talking to Tal and E-beth and pointing at one of the many framed photos on the wall; the posing music legends leaning over instruments and looking good in denim. A bunch of people showed up after we sent the message out that we’d been given a slot and a publishing contract, although the Bluebird is more of a big deal, I think. It’s an unspoken agreement between musicians in Nashville that if one of your friends gets a Bluebird slot, you drop everything and go support them. ‘Everything starts now, hot shot,’ Lou said when I texted her from the line.

  ‘No thanks to the success of the recent Nashville TV show, the Bluebird Cafe, right here in Green Hills has gained even more popularity, making this buzzing bar one of the hottest o
pen mics in the country and a go-to destination for visitors to this city…’ drawls the lady beside us in a sparkly red neckerchief, who’s been filming some kind of segment for a TV travel show since we got here at four-thirty. We signed some forms when she arrived with the cameraman, spoke a few words about how we just started writing together for Ace and they filmed us lining up for an hour with over fifty other singer/songwriters.

  They also filmed us singing Stars and the other songs we’ve been practicing. They filmed the way Stephanie and I sparked off each other as we stood up there on stage beneath the fake roof overhang and strung up lights; the way the three ladies ‘judging’ us voted unanimously for us to be given a good slot tonight from behind their plastic covered tables and condiments bottles. We go on at eight-thirty. The place is heaving already.

  ‘Did you know, Garth Brooks was booked for a showcase here, but he was filling in for someone else when he got noticed?’ I say to Stephanie as she turns to me. There’s excitement dancing in the blue of her eyes, but I know she’s nervous. This is a big deal.

  ‘Really? Bet the person he was covering for was pissed.’

  ‘Some A&R from Capitol Records saw him that night, signed him the next day.’

  ‘Taylor Swift was fifteen when she got discovered here, too,’ she says. ‘Maybe they’d been reading The Secret?’

  Lou frowns to my other side. ‘What’s The Secret?’

  ‘Only the most magical book in all the Kingdom,’ I reply and Stephanie smiles.

  ‘Did you get a reply yet?’ she asks, motioning to my phone on the table. I shake my head. I texted Mel when our slot was announced, like she asked me to, but she hasn’t written back. I haven’t heard a peep from her since we left Ace Music yesterday after four hours of writing and working on our set for tonight. We go into the studio on Monday to start the demo. I watch a flicker of disappointment cross Stephanie’s face before she sits back in her chair.