I open my eyes again as I find myself almost dizzy, swaying along to the sea’s motions and the bumblebee’s movements. The piece is short and it’s coming to a climactic end.
Dum dum dum dum dum dum dum! Brad’s violin bee escapes the boat and disappears into the wind.
And then, without a breath of hesitation, Jez and Sebastian’s cellos soar to life. Bursting out of the restraint of the driving beat from the Korsakov piece, the sound swells like a twenty-foot wave, threatening to crash.
The boys have chosen Birdy’s “Wings” to combine with the bumblebee, and it is pure genius.
Birdy’s song is atmospheric and filled with a surging ache. It’s a song of hope but tinged with the darkness of life.
The stage floods with a soft pink light, then fades to blue, then purple, then retreats to illuminate the stage in a soft, sunlit glow.
The strings pull back and the spotlight falls on Cadence. She’s an angel in a shroud of white lace. Her hair is pulled to the side in a loose braid. Her fingers fall on each note, deliberate, fated to be there. She caresses the keys to play a single-noted melody. Birdy must have been channeling the goddess of melancholy when she wrote this piece, and Cadence is her confidante.
The addition of Cadence to the band for some of the pieces has been a game changer. For some epic songs like this it is undeniable-her female intuitiveness injects heart into the song, filling out those empty spaces between the strings. I am so proud to know her, even for the few days we’ve been friends.
I look around and the entire room is filled with wide-open mouths and closed eyes.
Brad’s sweet violin layers on top of Cadence’s piano, and it’s like voices were never needed for this song.
I can’t take my eyes off him. His blond bangs are matted with sweat, his shirt, pulled from the confines of his waistband where it was tucked in at the start of the show, is now drenched with sweat and clings to the expanse of his hard, strong chest. His bow strings are devastated, single threads pulled from one end, catching the light with their transparent silken ribbons. His eyes are closed, always closed, listening to every note from the four instruments around him, living in that audio sphere. In heaven.
I really can’t take my eyes off him.
And then, on cue, the single bumblebee light that has still been dancing over the crowd bursts into a trillion stars, mirroring the lyrics.
We lift up hands hoping to catch the fragments and we wave our illuminated cell phones screens in time, wanting to be a part of the star-studded ocean washing over us.
The music builds and builds, soaring as the guys become one with their instruments, and us with them.
And then suddenly, it is quiet.
And dark.
The bows move no more, and the piano is still.
But there’s a roaring in my ears.
Of a thousand people made into fans of the Rock Chamber Boys for life.
***
Fifteen minutes later, I’m still sitting in my seat amongst a sea of empty ones. The lights are on, and the empty water bottles and torn ticket stubs strewn on the dusty floor seem like an unfaithful description of what really happened here. I’m still in a stunned kind of silence.
I have seen the boys play before. Almost countless times, in our days at school. Heard them in their garage, with no one but me and their dogs as an audience. Seen them at monthly school assemblies and year-end graduations.
They have always been good. Prodigies.
But not until today, sitting through a one-hour show of their latest works, did I know that they really are stars. Unreachable.
But instead of being envious or intimidated, I am proud.
Proud that these men who I knew when their voices hadn’t yet dropped are fulfilling their own dreams.
And proud of my friend. Who made an unfair world his own. And my heart with it.
“Hey, you coming?” Hailey calls to me from the entrance to the backstage area. “We’re just making sure everything’s packed, then we’re going to rock on like there’s no tomorrow.”
“So, sleep then?”
“Fucking hell yes.”
I laugh and stand up, looking around this empty hall that to me, will always echo with the sound of Brad’s violin.
“What’d you think?” she asks as I catch up to her.
“Eh, it’s no Yanni.”
She laughs again and grabs my arm. “Come on, let’s go deflate some swollen rock God egos.”
***
“So, what’d you think?” I’m asked again an hour later. This time by Brad.
It’s midnight and we’re back on the guys’ bus waiting for pizza.
I’m not sure how to respond. Which seems wrong considering words are supposed to be my field. How do I tell him it was a life-changing experience, without telling him that I don’t really know how to go on from here? That’s how life-changing it was.
“It…It was really great.” It sounds so lame to me, I almost laugh.
“Oh, okay. Good,” he responds, a frown fluttering over his brow.
Which, of course it should. There was nothing just “really great” about the concert at all. But it seemed safe to leave it at that.
“Mommy?”
I hear Ben’s voice at the bus door and see him and Carrie, his nurse and nanny, step inside.
“I’m so sorry, Emily, he wouldn’t go back to bed once he saw the light on in this bus. He said he just wanted to come say good night.”
“It’s fine, thank you. Would you like to stay for some pizza? We’ve got plenty,” I say, pointing to the pizza boxes laid out on every surface. I hope she accepts; she’s been wonderful to Ben and it might be nice for her to have some adult company.
“If you don’t mind,” she replies and closes the bus door behind her.
“Of course we don’t, the more the merrier,” Jez smiles at her as he points to a recliner inviting her to sit down. I see Hailey nudge Marius out of the corner of my eye.
“Can I stay too?” Ben asks, holding his blankie, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
“Well, I guess you have to now!” I say to his excitement.
“Really?”
“Why not? You don’t have school tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Mommy!”
“Come here, Ben, I’ve got something you’d really like,” Sebastian calls over to Ben, who wanders over in his pajamas, leaving Brad and me alone again.
“So…”
“So.”
“I’m really pleased that your column’s done so well.”
“Thank you.”
“I told you it’d be a good move for you.”
My tongue feels like it’s welded to the roof of my mouth. This is ridiculous. I’ve never had trouble talking to Brad before, even in the weirdest of moments since we met up again. I cringe at the prospect that I’m starstruck. What’s changed?
You, you idiot, my brain tells me, and I take a sip of my wine to shut it up. I can’t control myself around Brad at the best of times, let alone when I’m apparently becoming weak at the knees at the sight of him. Time to run.
“Actually, Ben, maybe you should come back with me. Mommy’s tired and she’s going to get some sleep.”