Sophie's Encore (39 page)

I had a huge smile on my face when I rang off. I hadn’t bothered to correct her mistaken assumption about the flashbacks, yet I was getting them, too. In fact, it felt like I was living in an alternative universe where I was about to be offered—perhaps? maybe? pretty please?—a chance to take the route I didn’t follow the first time around, in spite of, or possibly
because
of, everything else that had happened to me in the intervening years.

Even the stars were given a rare day off before the show, and Dan slept through most of it—as did the rest of the band, I assumed, for nobody surfaced until just before sound check. I felt like a pro during the Chicago gig when I expertly dispatched the kids to their touring beds and joined Richard at the sound desk again.

That night, he put me in charge of vocals. “You need to hear the vocals loud and clear,” was his motto, so his job—or mine—was to make sure this happened. This also meant that effects, such as reverb on the guitars, had to be “killed” between songs when Tuscq would talk with the audience. Richard was running the effects for the guitars through a special sub-console, and I was to mute that loop whenever the band wanted to interact with the fans.

“Dan has a habit of speaking out of turn, without warning, and you need to be on the ball when he makes an unscheduled little speech,” Richard advised.

It was a fantastic, if slightly nerve-wracking, experience being at the live mixing console, the best spot for listening to the show in the entire stadium,
and
being in charge of Dan’s voice, but I relished every moment and dearly wished the show would never end. Who would have thought that I would get such kicks out of this task?

Yet end, the show did, and it was straight onto the bus for us all again, off to the last stop of the tour, the grand finale: New York.

Chapter Fifty-Six

“This is it,” Dan told me on the morning of the last gig. “The biggest show of the tour. We’ll finish with a bang and some fireworks.” His eyes glowed with excitement while he helped himself to another croissant. We were in the hotel near the stadium, which was actually just outside of New York City, on the other side of the river in New Jersey. The kids had eaten their fill and were charging around the room, pretending to be airplanes while Dan and I finished up a late breakfast.

“How so? Are you doing something different tonight?” I poured more tea and sat back, pulling my legs up onto the sofa and reclining.

“You can say that again. For starters, we’ll have three support acts. The two bands who’ve been touring with us, and another, completely new local artist. I’ve heard their demo, and they rock.” He grinned. “I remember those days. This is our turn to give a new band the chance to play an arena. I’m telling you, those guys are a lot more nervous than we are right now.”

“Cool.” I had never really given much thought before about the reasoning behind the support line-up, but it made sense. A new, local artist, an up-and-coming band, perhaps slightly different in orientation—one of Tuscq’s support bands was of the punk rock persuasion—and a rising star.

“And fireworks? What’s that all about?”

Dan shrugged. “Jack’s idea. He got special permission for an end-of-show, farewell-United-States fireworks display in this arena, and he got a camera crew to video the whole show for a promotional DVD or…” He took a sip of tea and smiled. “Or perhaps even a big-screen, Tuscq-on-the-road kind of movie. Who knows.”

I spluttered. “My God, that would be
awesome
.”

“Wouldn’t it just? By the way…”

My cup of tea froze in mid-transit to my mouth. There was a mischievous, provocative glint in Dan’s eyes.
Uh-oh
.

“What?”

Dan cleared his throat. “Do you remember that New Year’s Eve gig?”

I laughed. “Of course I do. It was good to see you back on your feet.”

“No, not
that
one. The other one.” Dan shifted in his seat.

“Dan, I hate to remind you, but you do a New Year’s Eve show every year. You’ll have to be a bit more precise.”

“The one where you sang. With me. On stage. Remember?”

My cup of tea was still in mid-transit, and I made an effort to set it down on the table. “Yes. I do.”

Dan rose and came across to the sofa, lifting my legs and sitting down, then putting my legs on his lap and rubbing my feet. His eyes were soft and pleading. I knew that look.
Uh-oh
again.

“Would you? Again? Do me the honor of joining me tonight, on stage?”

A thousand emotions fought with each other in my head, the strongest being abject horror. I allowed myself a moment of contemplation before I spoke, not wanting to say the wrong thing. I could tell by the earnest look on Dan’s face that he hadn’t made this request lightly, or offhand.

“Why?” Eventually, I settled on a small diversionary tactic to investigate the cause of his plea.

He simply shrugged. “No reason. I haven’t even discussed it with the band. It just…kind of occurred to me right now.”

Emboldened by the fact that I wasn’t actually in the official program, I dared to argue. “Do you really think it would be a good idea? I mean, come on, I’m not a trained singer. And I haven’t practiced for years, not even in the choir.”

“But you sing at home, all the time.”

“I know.” I
had
to stop singing in the shower, obviously. “But that’s hardly the same. I…I don’t want to let you down, but I’m really not sure it would be a good idea.”

“You
have
done it before.” Dan’s voice sounded a little like Josh’s when I wouldn’t let him have a treat.

“That was a long time ago, and you ambushed me. Besides,” I changed tack again. “How do you normally perform this song? You haven’t played it all tour.”

Dan sighed. “Exactly. When we do perform it, I have to get a female artist to come join me, and…it’s never the same. This is your song, after all. It doesn’t work with anyone else.”

I came out in a rash of goosebumps. I recalled every line of that song so very clearly, even though I hadn’t given it any thought for years and years.

“
I will get you back
?” I quoted one of his lines, turning the statement into a question.

“
But our future’s bright,”
Dan responded, citing the very last line of the song, which happened to be ‘my’ line. Something shifted inside me and broke through the surface. We were still talking in riddles, but I had no doubt what he was suggesting.

Dan grabbed my hand. “It’s the perfect song, isn’t it? But don’t worry, I won’t do anything stupid like fall on my knees and propose to you in front of thousands of people.”

“Oh good,” I uttered weakly, not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed.

Dan massaged the back of my hand with his thumbs. “Look, I’ll get Rich to give you plenty of reverb to make your voice nice and clear.”

I laughed. “I know what he has to do, and I can jolly well ask him myself.”

“Touché,” Dan conceded. “I keep forgetting that you’re becoming an ace sound engineer. So, will you do it?”

“You still haven’t told me
why
. ‘No reason’ simply isn’t good enough for me to go out and make a spectacle of myself in front of thousands of people.” My heart was beating fast in my chest. Some weird, idiotic part of me actually
wanted
to do it. Besides, I knew he would talk me into it. I just needed a reason.

Dan let go of my hand and laced his fingers together. He exhaled sharply and looked me square in the eye.

“Because it would mean the world to me. Because I’d love to close this tour with you. Because I want to get to hold you on stage and plant a kiss on your cheek.” He shrugged. “Just because it would be wonderful, that’s all.”

I shrugged, too. What the heck. “Okay,” I whispered.

“Okay?” Dan asked.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” I said, louder than necessary.

Dan punched the air with glee and jumped to his feet. “You are the best. This will be perfect. And look, I can get you a voice coach to practice if that’ll make you feel better.”

And so it was that I spent the best part of that day ensconced in a studio with a voice coach who gave me a crash course in singing my lines, while Dan took the children to a radio interview, a photo shoot, and the sound check. When we met up just before the final rehearsal, Josh brandished several action hero figures while Emily had a gaggle of new Barbie dolls. I shot Dan a look and he chuckled.

“Unabashed bribery to keep them occupied for a half hour here or there,” he confessed. “But it worked.”

The rehearsal went well, much better than expected. The work with the voice coach had paid off—as long as I kept my nerve—and Richard was doing marvelous things at his desk to give me confidence. The other band members seemed excited about adding “Love Me Better” to the last encore, and Jack thought it was a stroke of genius.

The kids begged to stay up to see their mummy on stage and I promised to either keep them up or wake them just before it was my turn. All in all, this wasn’t exactly the relaxing last show I had anticipated. I was full of nervous energy and little butterflies, yet I enjoyed the sensation.

Chapter Fifty-Seven

The crowd was wild. It was a mild, clear evening, and stars twinkled in the velvet blue sky above the stadium. My four rock stars were doing a fantastic job of shining on the stage, and the first set of encores was over and done with. The band rushed off the stage for a two-minute break before the final set of songs for the night, for the tour, the last one of which would be ‘my’ song.

“You ready?” Dan’s body was drenched in sweat, and he hastily threw on a fresh shirt. I kissed his wet nose and dried his face with a towel.

“As ready as I ever will be.”

“Are the kids up?”

“The kids are up and outside in the family area with Pete.” Pete, the trusty roadie, had assumed quasi-babysitting duty that evening, and it appeared he didn’t mind in the slightest. Dan had told me earlier that Pete had three kids of his own, which explained a lot.

“Good. We’ll do it exactly as we rehearsed. Joe will count us in, and I’ll start—”

“I know, I know,” I interrupted, then backtracked. “Sorry. It’s only that, if you explain it to me one more time, I might lose my mind, that’s all.”

“Ah.” Dan grimaced. “It’s like
that
. I get it.” He hugged me briefly, then gulped down some water and lined up the band to go back out. This was it.

There were two songs to go before “Love Me Better”, and I barely took them in while I waited in the wings for my cue. Excepting, perhaps, the one previous occasion where I had let myself be talked into an appearance on stage, this would have to class among the most surreal moments of my life. Time seemed to be simultaneously speeding up and slowing to a crawl. My ears felt as though they were full of water, and the echo of my own breathing inside them drowned out nearly all other sound.

The dark stadium was drained of all color, yet I saw bright white and pink sparks everywhere. I felt hot, but my hands were clammy, and my feet were cold. My lips were dry, and I resisted the urge to lick them. Right at that moment, I wasn’t sure I could speak, let alone sing. And yet, there it was, my cue. The song had started and been interrupted, the stage was dark except for one spotlight, searching for me, and the crowd was chanting.

I fought the urge to cry as I took the first tentative step onto the stage. The last time I had done this, Steve had been watching, cheering, jollying me along. This time, I was on my own. Well, not quite. I was fairly sure the kids would be going mad with excitement in their seats right now. And of course, there was Dan, right in the center of the stage, and now also illuminated by a spotlight. He held out his hand, and I took another step.

The stage didn’t look nearly as high when you were in the audience, but from up there, I seemed to be towering above the crowd. The auditorium was in darkness, and with the footlights glaring up at me, it was impossible to discern faces. The effect was not dissimilar to being alone in the stadium. I raised my eyes, letting my gaze follow the oval curve of the stands then out onto the night sky.

Swallowing hard, I kept walking with my eyes still trained on the sky. Dan followed my gaze, and when I finally reached him, he put his arm around me for a second and held me close.

I whispered very softly in my head. “I’ll always love you, Steve. But I’ve got to move on. I—”

Before I could finish my mental goodbye, the stage lights came back on, and the crowd cheered. Dan held my hand aloft and introduced me, inadvertently yanking me out of my somber moment.

“Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for my good friend, Sophie Jones, who is here tonight for a very special, one-off appearance to close this tour with the biggest Tuscq hit ever…”

Joe tap-tapped away for the intro, the guitars came in, Dan sang, and my moment arrived. The last few seconds before I had to sing stretched to an eternity as every action, every moment slowed to a near-standstill. Blood roared in my ears and dulled the sound of the musicians around me. Once again, I experienced that familiar, strange sensation of hearing without hearing, of not knowing whether my voice would emerge when I opened my mouth, and what it would sound like if it did.

Dan squeezed my hand to heighten my cue. He looked at me and smiled, tilting his head in a small gesture of encouragement. I opened my mouth.

“You and me…were never meant to be…”

There. My voice. It emerged, loud and clear and in tune. I heard a cheer rising from the audience, but it seemed to come from a long way away as the dull sensation in my ears hadn’t yet cleared. I ignored it and focused on my lines, my notes, and the words rolled off my tongue.

The first verse over, Dan and I joined our voices in the chorus and my heart soared. Inexplicably, tears pricked at the back of my eyes, but they were tears of purest joy. I was
doing
it, I was really doing it. Now that I had survived the initial moment, I would be all right. I wouldn’t forget my words. I would stay in tune. I would totally carry this off!