Summer of Secrets (3 page)

FIVE

Somehow it was already ten past one. Rhi roused herself with a start. The wedding started at two and she hadn't even begun to get ready. Thank goodness she and Brody had practised the playlist. Her stomach clenched uncomfortably as she remembered the strange way that Brody had made excuses and left their rehearsal that morning. They'd never parted like that before.

The tune and half-formed lyrics of “Small Black Box
”
played in a loop through her head as she hurriedly selected clothes from her wardrobe that would fit the wedding's sixties theme: a flowing white dress that contrasted beautifully with her coppery skin, beaded sandals and a floral headpiece that she positioned on her hair like a crown. She would have liked to paint some flowers on her face with make-up, but there wasn't time.

She still felt awful about what she'd said to her mother. It had been a tough morning, but Rhi knew that was no excuse.

Maybe she should try to talk to her again, she thought uneasily.

She headed downstairs and hesitated outside the closed study door. She could hear her mother inside, pacing from side to side, talking loudly on the phone. Further apologies would have to wait. Feeling mildly relieved, Rhi picked up her guitar and headed into the blustery afternoon.

Wedding guests were gathering in the reception area of the Grand Hotel by the time Rhi arrived. They had all stuck faithfully to the hippy theme, and were wearing an amazing assortment of velvet jackets, beaded tops, floral garlands and afghan coats that Rhi felt pretty sure were original. It was amazing to think of all these people dancing barefoot in meadows during those crazy days of the sixties when they hadn't been much older than she was.

“Rhi, you look so pretty!”

Rhi swung round to see Lila and Polly grinning at her.

“Hippy waitresses, I see,” she teased, feeling happier already at the sight of her friends. It was always more fun when they ended up working at the same wedding. “I like it.”

“What, this old thing?” Lila said. She smoothed down her short paisley smock and adjusted the strip of beaded suede tied around her head. “Actually,” she confided, “it
is
really old, it belonged to my grandmother and smells of mothballs.”

“Are all the canapés veggie?” asked Rhi, peering at the assortment of little spinach quiches and asparagus bundles on Lila and Polly's catering trays.

Polly giggled. She was looking very pretty in a long floral dress with daisies braided into her hair. “Don't tell Mr Gupta, but I've already scoffed a few in the kitchen. I didn't have time for lunch.”

“Waitress?” called a very tall old gentleman in a floppy green hat with a flamboyant pink silk scarf tied around his neck. “Is this sparkling dandelion wine organic?”

“Better go,” Lila giggled. “Brody will be pleased to see you, he's through there.”

Rhi tried to steady her nerves as she shouldered through the crowd to the room at the back of the hotel where the wedding party was being held. Her stomach turned as she saw Brody by the little stage, looking gorgeous in striped linen trousers and a fringed suede waistcoat.

“Hey,” he said as she approached. He sounded awkward. “I'm really sorry about running off this morning.”

“Don't worry about it. Hey yourself,” Rhi mumbled back. She realized she was gazing a little too intently at his tanned chest where it peeped out from beneath the suede waistcoat, and wrenched her eyes away in a fit of embarrassment. “You look very, uh, nice.”

She could have kicked herself.
Nice
was a word that grannies used around their grandchildren.
Nice
wasn't how Brody looked today.
Gorgeous
was closer. He suited the hippy look.

“Thanks,” he said, sounding even more awkward. “You look very nice too.”

There was an odd silence.

“I hope you fixed your guitar string,” Rhi blurted.

Of course he fixed his string
, she thought a little hopelessly.
I'm staring right at his guitar and all its strings are in place. What a stupid question
.

“Yeah, I did. All tuned now and ready to play if you are?”

Rhi hated this weird formality that had suddenly come between them. She wished they'd never started working on that stupid song about secrets. Somehow that was where the trouble had all started.

“So,” she said, making a show of looking around in a bid to avoid his eyes. “Which two are the happy couple?”

Brody pointed across the room. A very small, bent-over couple in matching patchwork coats were sitting at one of the tables with glasses of sparkling dandelion wine in their hands. They were both smiling so happily that Rhi felt a little swoosh in her stomach.

“Do you know how they met?” she asked as the bride and groom clinked their glasses together and gazed into each other's eyes.

“Apparently they've been friends since the sixties, but only got together a couple of months ago.”

Rhi was startled. “A couple of
months
ago? And they're getting married already?”

“When you know, you know,” Brody said. He lifted his fingers in the classic hippy salute. “Peace and love, baby.”

Peace and love. Rhi decided she could use a bit of both. She stared at the newly-weds again.
At the rate I'm going, I'll probably be seventy before I sort out my love life too
, she thought with a sigh.

“Ready to play?” Brody asked.

Rhi climbed on to the stage. Brushing against Brody's warm arm by mistake, she jumped into the air like a startled horse.

“What's this then,
Riverdance
?” called an old man in the crowd, to a friendly roar of laughter.

Rhi smiled weakly out at the crowd. She had to keep it together. The guests may have been old, but something told her they weren't going to be easy to impress.

“What's first?” she asked Brody under her breath.

“‘Blowin' in the Wind'.”

Rhi played and sang the harmonies just as they had practised, but she couldn't seem to find the spark she usually had with Brody when they performed together. The strange events of the morning had cast a shadow, and Rhi felt out of sync. She was trying too hard, she knew. Her best music came when she went with the flow, but that seemed beyond her today.

Halfway through their set, Rhi's eyes were drawn to a figure by the door. She couldn't see his face on account of the hat he wore, pulled low over his eyes, but his hands and his clothes suggested he was younger by at least fifty years than most of the other guests. Someone's grandson, she guessed, although he seemed to be by himself, as if he didn't know anyone else in the room. She wondered how he had come to be in a wheelchair. Perhaps he'd been that way since birth.

Life in a wheelchair in Heartside Bay must be tough, Rhi thought. The town was a mess of cobbles, steps and hills. How did he get around? Did he have to rely on other people to help him all the time? In and out of shops, on and off buses? She couldn't imagine what his life would be like.

She was so busy thinking about the mysterious boy that she almost missed her cue on the next song. Feeling flustered, she rushed the first verse, only finding her stride at the chorus. Three more songs to go. It was important that she kept her focus, for Brody's sake.

Her eyes drifted towards the boy again. Perhaps it was the effect of the chair he was sitting in, but there was something slumped and sad about the way he held himself. It didn't look as if he was having much fun. His hat was still pulled down over his eyes, but Rhi felt sure that he was watching her.

I'll find him at our first break
, she thought in a fit of compassion.
I'll talk to him. He's probably desperate for some young conversation.

A smattering of applause greeted the end of their final song. Rhi stood and bowed beside Brody. As the clapping trailed off, Rhi laid down her guitar and left the stage, pushing through the crowd towards the door where she'd seen the boy in the chair. She wasn't sure what she was going to say. She'd figure that out when she had to.

When she reached the door, she stopped and looked around, puzzled. He wasn't there.

SIX

“Lovely singing.”

Rhi swung round. She had been so absorbed in searching the room for the boy that she hadn't noticed anyone approach. “I'm sorry?”

It was the old man in the big green hat who'd asked Lila about the dandelion wine. “I said, lovely singing,” he repeated. “You remind me of a girl I met in Morocco once. What was her name now?”

Rhi hadn't seen the boy leave the room – but then again, she hadn't been watching all that carefully. She had hunted pretty much all over the hotel, and now she was due on stage again. He had clearly left the party. Rhi felt oddly disappointed.
Typical of my luck
, she thought.

“Sunrise!” the old man exclaimed.

He was even madder than he looked, Rhi decided, suppressing a giggle. “I'm sorry?” she said politely.

“Her name was Sunrise,” the old man said. “Of course she was really called Anthea, but we all had silly names in those days.”

Rhi discreetly checked her watch. She needed to be on stage in two minutes. “I've got to get back,” she said weakly, gesturing to the stage. “Do you mind…?”

“Of course,” said the man, and doffed his hat at her as she slid past. “Good luck with the rest of your show.”

Brody was beckoning Rhi from the stage.

“Who were you looking for?” he asked curiously as she joined him again.

“No one important,” Rhi said, deciding it would be too complicated to explain. “What are we starting the second set with?”

The dandelion wine was flowing freely, and the guests had started dancing. Rhi and Brody did a couple of lively numbers, but it was the quiet songs with the sweet lyrics that got the crowd going, standing up with their hands in their air and their eyes closed as they swayed like grass in the breeze. Thinking about their youth, perhaps: girls called Sunrise, and ankle bells, and Morocco.

Rhi and Brody performed two more sets before the guests began to depart, drifting arm in arm out into the early evening sun. Rhi decided she liked early weddings. It meant that she'd earned some money, but still had the whole evening to do what she liked. That probably meant revision. She winced as she thought about her revision notes still lying in an unorganized jumble on her bedroom floor. No wonder her mother found her so disappointing. Her mood, which had briefly risen through the afternoon, was in danger of dropping like a stone again.

“Earth to Rhi,” said Brody in her ear.

Rhi jumped. “I … what?”

He looked curiously at her. “I was just saying, good work. Not our best maybe, but pretty good none the less.” He nodded at the departing guests. “They all seemed to like it.”

“It wasn't my best performance,” Rhi said, biting her lip. “I kept losing it in the first set. I have … a lot on my mind.”

Brody slung his guitar over his shoulder. “You and me both,” he said, almost to himself.

This was her chance, Rhi realized. To ask Brody what had happened that morning to make him run away from her. She wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer, but it had to be better than nothing.

“Brody,” she began a little hesitantly.

He spoke at the same time. “Rhi, I was thinking—”

They both stopped. Rhi smiled sheepishly.

“You first,” she said.

Brody rubbed his hands through his hair. “That song we were working on this morning,” he said.

Rhi's blood froze. She was right. He was going to ask her what she was keeping from him. “What about it?” she said, a little breathlessly.

“It was about secrets.”

Rhi felt sick. “Yes?”

He seemed to be steeling himself. “I want to tell you—”

“Rhi, come on! Polly and I have been waiting for ages.”

It took Rhi a couple of seconds to realize Lila was standing by the stage, looking expectantly at her.

“You have remembered, haven't you?” Lila said reproachfully. “About the sleepover at mine tonight?” Her gaze darted towards Brody. “You haven't arranged something else?”

Amid the stress of the day, Rhi had forgotten entirely about the plans she and her friends had made at the end of the previous week. She suddenly had a blissful vision of sitting around in a group with her girlfriends, wearing face packs, painting their toenails and talking. After the day she'd had, it was just what she needed.

“Lila, you're a genius!” she exclaimed. “I
had
forgotten, sorry – but I'm totally up for it. I'll have to go home and pack a bag, and then I'll see you at yours in about an hour. Is that OK?”

“Perfect,” said Lila happily. “We haven't had a catch-up in ages. We're all so sick of revision that any conversation about schoolwork is completely banned.”

“Fine by me,” said Rhi with feeling.

Lila waved and disappeared through to the kitchen.

“Nice singing,” said Mr Gupta, approaching them with two brown envelopes full of money. “There will be more bookings, I am sure. The guests loved you today, we've had a lot of compliments.”

Pocketing her envelope, Rhi looked at Brody again. He'd been about to tell her something when Polly had appeared.
Maybe he's going to say he likes me as more than just a singing partner
, she thought with a little shiver of hope. She could dream, couldn't she?

“I didn't mean to interrupt you,” she said, hoping she hadn't missed the moment. “What did you want to say?”

He slid his envelope into the top pocket of his waistcoat and adjusted his guitar on his back. “Just … do you want to meet tomorrow for another songwriting session?”

Rhi felt sure he had said he had something to
tell
her, not ask her.

“Uh, sure,” she said slowly. “If you want.”

“Great,” he said. “I have lots of ideas for new songs. Usual time at the Heartbeat? See you there.”

He gave her a brief hug and headed towards the door, the street and the sunshine. Rhi felt stupidly bereft.