“Well, for all the badassery she manages, sometimes she forgets that the world isn’t in tune with her brain.” My mom had a process when she worked. It was one that you didn’t follow too closely. The best idea was to just sit back and watch her work her magic. Better yet, let her work and get out of her damn way.
“Modi, you’re saying she was wrong?” Aly’s smooth forehead became lined when she frowned. “About the song?”
“Maybe. I don’t think she got that this is a college audition and not a talent contest. Maybe it should be handled a little differently.” I closed the lid over the keys and moved my finger against the shine on the ebony wood until it smudged. In the reflection, Aly watched my face, as though she wanted to shake me a little to hurry up with my explanation. “I think sometimes Mom forgets that not everyone is a seasoned vet.” Aly blinked at me, making me feel like a jerk. After all, she was good. But even I could tell there was work to be done. “I just mean she hasn’t had to teach anyone for a long time.”
“You saying I need teaching?”
“Well, no.” I shrugged, feeling stupid, and moved my leg to the far side of the bench. The Hummingbird was just sitting there, still beautiful, still shiny, but the neck was worn with deep grooves from how much it had been played over the years, making it appear even older than it actually was. My mother had inherited the guitar from her father when he died, and despite a few dings and breaks over the years, it was still the guitar she used to compose with when the piano wouldn’t do.
I hadn’t touched it in months. Picking it up, cupping the neck and strumming along the strings felt like running into a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time. There were so many memories tied up in that guitar, so many tears and so much worry caught up in every string and fret.
The Hummingbird had a warm, crisp sound. The reverberation of the strings tickled my fingers like the practiced stroke of fingernail over my skin. It was comfortable and sweet, and I started to play a song I hoped Aly would recognize, moving through the melody until a hum bumped around in the back of my throat.
Two chord changes and I leaned over the guitar, closing my eyes. “I sort of picked up all of this on my own.” When she didn’t speak, I shot a glance up at her, stilling my fingers at her head shake. “What?”
“Is there anything you can’t do? Football, learning Kizomba after seeing it once, music.” She looked down when I smiled and started to strum again. There was no dimple on her cheek then, but her features had softened as I played. “You’re kind of intimidating.”
“Me?” I laughed and Aly looked up at my face, searching for what I might have found so funny. “Please. I just have a lot of energy to burn. That tends to make me focus when I’m learning.”
She made a chuckling sound deep in her throat and suddenly, it was Aly that I was focusing on. She had full lips, the bottom just a bit wider than the top and as I watched her, it was those full lips I thought about.
She didn’t shy away from me then. Still no damn smile, though, she seemed stingy with that. As I got caught up in the mesmerizing way she moved her lips together, Aly cleared her throat, and dropped her gaze to my fingers on the strings.
“So you think your mom was teaching me the wrong song?”
“She might have been too ambitious,” I stopped, returning my attention to the guitar and a different song. “You don’t have a lot of experience singing, right?” She narrowed her eyes at me and I couldn’t help but laugh. “Your pitch is natural, but not clean. Your voice is strong, but not that well supported. That tells me you haven’t had any lessons. Am I right?”
Aly shrugged yet again and distracted herself by picking up the cord to the amp coiled on the floor. She fingered the silver tip and kept her eyes down. “Everything I know I had to teach myself. Dance, music…”
“Wait. Dance?” I asked, not understanding that or why Aly only nodded. “But you teach.”
“Yeah. So?”
“You’re just, you’re good.” I liked that shrug/head dip thing she did. It made her seem humble. Not many people I know are remotely humble. “I’ve seen you with your students. You just…you’re self-taught?”
She made a small noise, similar to a soft grunt and then nodded at the guitar. “And your mom taught you everything?”
“No,” I said, smiling. “She didn’t.” Aly moved her lips together again and that time I didn’t let my eyes linger on her mouth. Instead I cleared my throat and started on another tune. “Anyway, she shouldn’t start out with one of the most popular and hardest songs on Broadway. Besides, I bet you those professors at the auditions will have heard something from Les Mis about fifty times before the auditions are over. You should try something unexpected.”
“Like?”
“Wild Horses” by the Rolling Stones was older, but perfect for what she’d need. Aly’s range and the sweet, high pitch of her voice would sound like a damn angel in that auditorium singing this song.
“You know this one?” I asked her, taking the plug from her. The pick up on the bridge of the guitar would give the tune an ethereal quality that would balance her high voice. When she didn’t answer and my humming got not reaction from her, I started in on the first line, keeping my voice low, watching her face until she moved her eyebrows up as recognition filtered into her mind.
“Sing,” I encouraged when I finished the chorus
“Um, okay, but…just let me…” and she turned, her back to me, returned her posture to that uncomfortable-looking too straight way she held herself. I let her try for a few bars, watching what I could see of her chin and long neck. She had a sweet tone, but her voice wobbled again as she rushed to get the words out before all the air left her lungs.
“Hold up,” I said, putting the guitar back on the stand.
“What?”
She tried to turn but I sat behind her, my legs on either side of the bench, putting my hands on her shoulders to keep her still. “I won’t give you shit about not looking at me when you sing. Although, you had your body pressed tight against me at the studio and didn’t look one bit nervous.”
Aly glared at me over her shoulder. “That’s different. That’s…” she turned back around. “That’s me in my element. I sort of get lost when I dance. No one makes me nervous in the studio.”
Despite myself, I smiled, feeling like a punk for thinking Aly singing in front of me made her nervous, but then she stiffened harder the longer I held her shoulders and I let her comment slide. “Um…everyone gets a song out in their own way, but this,” I squeezed her shoulders and ran a knuckle down her spine, “this isn’t gonna work.”
“Why not?” she asked, looking up at me over her shoulder again.
“Because…” my gaze slipped back to her mouth. Damn. Those lips looked so familiar. I thought for a split second that maybe Aly had been one of the girls I’d serviced at CPU, but knew immediately that wasn’t it. I shook my head to distract myself. “Because, you aren’t auditioning for the opera. This kind of performance is little bit like the Kizomba.” Her features relaxed, but those perfectly arched eyebrows lifted higher. “You have to feel it in your gut, and it can’t look like a performance. It needs to look like something that makes you happy.”
That didn’t have the impact I wanted. Aly frowned hard as though I’d insulted her. “I’m happy.”’
I was unable to keep the humor from my voice or my eyes from going wide. “This is you happy? Jesus, I’d hate to see you pissed.”
“Wi, Ransom.” She brushed off my hands and moved to the edge of the bench. “You would.”
I sighed, bringing my hands back to her shoulder despite the small attempt she made to jerk away from me. “Look, I’m just trying to help you out. It’s like what you explained to me about the dance. How it should be almost…I don’t know, like sex.”
That earned me another glare. “Me singing for a bunch of theater professors is like sex?”