“We’ll make sure the execs and your family are seated in the front ‘row.’ That way they’ll be comfortable and they’ll hear you for sure.”
“Perfect.”
“I’ll get the crew on it.”
“Hey, Elle?” I stopped her as she started away. “Also, can you have someone announce that the drinks are on me and Yash? Just have the staff keep track of it somehow, and we’ll clear up the tab at the end of the night?”
Elle smiled. “You’ve got it. I’ll talk to the manager.”
I watched her get the crew going, moving a bar stool to the middle of the dance floor for me and surrounding it with candles. A stool was set up for Raf, too, along with the stands for our guitars. Then they started moving the audience of about a hundred people, table by table, relocating them to the dance floor, in a circle around the stools.
Elle really didn’t have to be this involved. She co-owned the place, but she could’ve had the manager and everyone else do the work. But there she was, helping move chairs and working with the crew to make sure the small audience was arranged for the best possible chance of hearing every note off my guitar and every word I sang.
Just like a loving, supportive sister-in-law. It really fucking got to me.
My stomach felt tight, but the tense fist was slowly melting into a warm excitement. Happy nerves and adrenaline.
Meanwhile, the bar staff kept the drinks flowing on that open tab. After the last guests were arranged around the stools and candles that constituted the “stage,” Yash walked into the middle of the circle and stood by my stool. He thanked everyone for coming. Then he told them there would be no video or audio recording allowed, and to please make sure their phones were on silent. He never liked being in the spotlight and got his part over quickly.
Then Elle stepped into the circle. “Thank you for coming tonight to hear our friend, Johnny O’Reilly, play some new songs. Johnny?” She looked over at me, and the small crowd applauded and whistled for me as I walked out, making my way through the bodies with Lamar’s guidance. I took my seat and strapped on my guitar. When I looked out at all the expectant faces, the fist clenched in my gut, but I took a breath and ignored it, just letting the warm nerves wash through me.
I saw Angeline. And my family. And my band. My friends. My peers. The faces of so many people who were important to me, whether I’d really done a good job of letting them know that over the years or not.
I just hoped I was half as important to them.
I hoped they’d like the new songs as much as Angeline and Yash and my band did.
And, I hoped no one would walk out when they heard the words in the songs. At least, no one who mattered. Dad. Shayla.
Angeline.
It was the worst pain I’d ever experienced, being left. When my mom left me alone in that car, then left my life, then left the world… I could see now how it all fit together. How it was all connected. I also realized that it was only because of Angeline that I’d somehow found the courage to start exposing my scars to other people. And to accept that I’d always have scars, but the music—and Angeline—could help me live with them.
Thanks to her, I’d written some incredibly painful songs. Cathartic songs. Freeing songs. And love songs, too. Beautiful songs.
“I’ve got about a half hour of music for you tonight,” I told my waiting audience. “A sampling of new songs. If the power comes back up, my band can join me. If not, well, wish me luck.”
There was applause and some sympathetic laughter.
I started to play, beginning with a song I’d written for my beautiful muse, Angeline. “The Way You Do.”
Because of the nature of it, even with the storm making a distant rumble, it was quiet in here. Everyone had to be silent in order for the music of my single guitar, and my voice, to carry. It felt like playing around a campfire or at a party in the old days, just me on a log or on a couch, or in the showers at school, playing to friends.
Only back then, I wouldn’t have been singing. I’d sit head down, hiding in the sounds of my guitar.
Today, I looked out into the crowd of faces around me and all those flickering flames. And as I played that love song for Angeline, the first love song I’d ever written for a woman, it felt like the start of a whole new era or something.
Then I tore right into it and played the hard songs, one after another.
“Words Can’t Say,” the song about losing my ability to speak and the stutter that kept me silent for so long.
“Blood on Glass,” the song to the man in the car.
And “Without You,” the song for my mom.
When I survived those, I just kept playing. Raf accompanied me on “Without You,” and then again on the next song, a lighter song. I called it “Pastel Dreams.” Angeline loved this song. It was sugary and optimistic, like her.
The crowd seemed to like it, too. I’d pretty much shut out their responses during the harder songs, but I could feel the undeniable energy in the room. That connection, when everyone was tuned into every word, every note. I knew the songs were going over. There was a flow in the room that only came when there was harmony between the performer, the songs and the crowd. They were stone silent at all the right times, and murmured or whistled at others.
