“Ahhh!” Emily squeals, grabbing hold of my arm.
“Sorry, Mr. Windsor, Miss Butter. We’ll get you out of here,” the driver call out to us through his partition.
“Do what you gotta do, Frank!” I reassure him.
I grab Emily tight around the waist and make sure she’s settled on the chair, squeezed in next to me.
“Hold on, he doesn’t get to do this much, so he’s going to make the most of it,” I explain to Emily.
“Do what?”
“Pretend he’s in a car chase.”
As if on cue, the bus, in all its enormity, swerves to the left, and we can just make out the sound of car horn beeping as we whiz by.
“Does this happen often?” Emily asks through gritted teeth, her knuckles white as she tries to hold on.
“What exactly?”
“Being chased by mobs.”
“Ha-ha. No. We’re not Justin Bieber if that’s what you’re wondering.”
She screws up her nose and it’s all I can do not to kiss it. “I dunno, seemed kinda Justin Bieber Fever-y back there.”
“Ah, yeah, just what teenage girls like. Boring ol’ classical music band.”
“Pfft. Come on. You’re hardly that and you know it.”
I just smile at her.
“You’re… you’re really … well, you’re really something special.” There’s a serious look in her eye, and it seems like it’s important I take her word for it.
“Aw shucks, thanks, Butter,” I say, with a little tinge of sarcasm.
She pinches my arm again. She keeps doing that. “No. I mean, I mean it. You, all of you, you guys really did what you set out to do. You’ve turned it all on its head. This music thing. You took what everyone expects of rock, of pop, hell, even blues and hip-hop, and you took what everyone thought they knew about the violin and the viola and the cello and you just … made it your own thing. You guys work magic, taking these tired, overplayed songs, and make them into brand-new works of art. A whole new generation of people are going to enjoy Bach and Mozart and AC/DC and James Brown because of you.”
Of course, she would understand. She always did.
“Anyway, it’s, well, it’s really quite remarkable. And all done with those ugly-ass mugs of yours,” she concludes, with a dagger straight to the point.
“I know, right? If at least we were something to look at, you could understand our success,” I sigh, looking mournful.
She goes quiet and the bus is driving a little more smoothly now. It’s dark inside the bus, lit just by the LEDs that line the windows. We can see outside and the sky is clear.
“I’m sorry about what I said,” she suddenly says. “At the press conference.”
I squeeze her hand to know I’ve heard her. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.” She shakes her head to emphasize her the point. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Of course you did.”
“No, I didn’t. I mean, sure, on a totally simplistic level, what you guys do can be described as covers, but I never meant that all you do is just rip off other artists’ music.”
“Ah, that.”
“I don’t know why I said that.” She looks down at her hands and lifts one to nibble at a jagged nail’s edge.
“Sure, you do.”
There’s a brief furrowing of her brow before she asks me, “Why?”
“Because I’m Brad and you’re Butter, and we’re always going to challenge each other, always going to keep each other on our toes. Always going to make sure the other one’s doing the best they can.”
She lets the idea sink in for a moment, and a long sigh empties her lungs. “Am I? Doing the best I can?”
“You tell me, Butter.”
“I don’t know, Brad. I want to be. I want to be doing the best I can, so badly. I see you up there performing, and it’s like, you couldn’t want to be anywhere in the world. Doing anything else in the world.”
“So where do you want to be, what do you want to be doing?”
There’s a barely susceptible shrug of her shoulders, but I feel it.
“I don’t know. I think I’m doing it, but I just don’t know. Some days it just feels like it’s too hard.”
“Well, I can tell you this-it’s never going to feel easy. It might feel good, it might feel right. But achieving your dream is never going to feel like it just falls into your lap.”
Butter nods, and for the first time since we reunited, I think she really hears me. So, I take advantage of it.
“And another thing. Don’t envy me when you’re seeing me up there on stage. Sometimes there is somewhere else I want to be, something else I want to be doing.”
Her eyebrows lift from their heavy thinking. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“I’m doing it right now.” I reach over and run my finger down the soft curve of her cheek.
“Brad.” The one word carries a world of meaning. Some of it I don’t like. Some of it is telling me to stop.
“Butter. You say the word and I’m there. Or here…and wherever you want me to be. You coming back has shown me that.”
I know I shouldn’t be doing this. That going after someone in a relationship is lower than even what I will stoop to, but I want her to know. I want her to get used to the idea that maybe we came back into each other’s lives for a reason.
“It’s too late, Brad.” There’s a waver in her voice, and it gives me hope.
“It’s never too late, Butter.”
She goes quiet and I wonder if there’s anything I can say that would ever change her mind about dumping whoever the loser is she’s with and giving us another chance. On my own, I can’t think of it. So, I change the subject.
“Hey, why didn’t you continue with your piano and flute? I mean, I know why you stopped singing, but…”
“Ha-ha, excuse me, you should wonder why I’m not a professional vocalist!”
“No, really… you were so talented.”
“No, Brad. I wasn’t. I didn’t suck, but I wasn’t ‘so talented.'”
“Butter…”
“No, it’s okay. I mean, I enjoyed it.” She smiles and her fingers do some little movements, as if she’s remembering her years of music practice. “I’m glad I went to a specialized music school, but the whole time, I pretty much felt like an imposter. I mean, who goes to music school and dreads music class and looks forward to history and English Lit?”