Guitar Hero
Melinda Cassidy
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Melinda Cassidy
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
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Guitar Hero
You know, when I went to the café Saturday, I was only looking for good coffee and good music. I didn’t expect my life to change. Really, I was pretty okay with my life the way it was: no boyfriend, no job, no hassles. No money either of course, but enough from my music free lancing to pay rent on a one bedroom in the not so trendy neighbourhood where lots of artists got by like I did. Some of them had other reasons for being permanently broke, which is more or less why I was without a boyfriend and happy to stay that way. Charming, gorgeous, completely unreliable dope heads like my last boyfriend were the main demographic in my neighbourhood and since I seemed to have temporarily lost the ability to tell the difference between that and human, no more men.
My happily married suburban friends just added the boyfriend problem to their usual harangues on my life. You know - I’d clearly sent my judgment on a long vacation anyway when I quit my faculty job and my tenure track fiancé to just hang around and play music, so what exactly did I expect would happen to me?
Mostly, I expected to like my life, which I did. I dropped my lifelong professional persona of Margaret Westhaven, dug around inside for good old Maggie West and went for it.
So there I was, innocently sipping my latte, when Melissa, the café manager, hopped up on stage. “Welcome everybody to Sam’s Place. We have a special treat for you tonight. Richard Mooney is home right here in Winnipeg for a few weeks and he’s here with us tonight.” She held up her hands to quiet the applause. “Even better – he’s hosting our usual first set jam, so sign up now if you want to say you’ve played with –” big dramatic hand flourish “- Richard Mooney!”
Richard walked on stage to big applause, whistles, the whole bit, picked up a beautiful Benedetto archtop even more gorgeous than him and looked directly at me, all the way through the crowded tables, on the far side of the room.
“Hello, everyone,” he said, glancing briefly around and back to me, straight into my eyes.
Well. I knew about him, who didn’t? A whole lot out of my new musician for hire league and a good explanation for the hefty cover charge I’d had to pay. At least, I didn’t actually pay it since it would just come off the top next time they needed someone last minute to play, but still.
He smiled, and I felt a tingling rush that had been absent for years. Finally he looked away. “I have a few names on the jam list. Let’s get started.”
The thing is, I knew about him from a long time ago too. Big competition, crazy crush on this cute pianist from Winnipeg (I was from Toronto back then) and both of us in the finals, me too shy to get close to him and having the worst stage fright of my awkward teenage life having to play in front of him. I played terribly, my teacher was furious, and the only good part of the whole thing was that I didn’t run into him afterwards. I decided the moment I left the stage to get to work and win everything and just show everybody from then on. Which is how I ended up scholarshipping my way through a nice safe music PhD and forgetting my dream of spending a few years travelling around, playing jazz.
The first guest was a vocalist. Richard got her started (she was only moderately awful), looked out over the audience, and right back to me. This time, there was no mistaking it. A slow smile, the temperature went up at least five degrees, and a couple of complete strangers turned to see what he was looking at. I wondered too. Was I just his chosen eye candy of the night (I’m generally thought to be in that category in a skinny red head kind of way) or had he actually recognized me? That thought made the heat go up another five degrees. It was so long ago though, and really unlikely that he’d been following my unremarkable career the way I’d been keeping an eye on his entirely remarkable everything. I set myself to listen to his music, and forget about everything else.
That worked really well until I noticed Peter (the tenure track ex fiancé) and Susana few tables away. He’d never gotten over the idea that I could leave both him and worse yet, the faculty; she’d always hated me because – well, just because. That wouldn’t have bothered me except that as soon as I saw them, I remembered one of those tender true confession moments I thought fiancés should have: Peter knew all about my adolescent dreams of Richard.. I looked at them looking at me, and I knew they had nasty plans for me.
Sure enough, they were on it the moment the last of the sign ups played and Richard asked for more jammers. “Richard! Maggie should play. She’s too shy to sign up. The one in green at the back.” Other people recognized me and helpfully pointed while my stomach turned flip-flops. Richard shaded his eyes, looked across the front tables, again that slow smile. I shivered. At least I was Margaret back then. He might not figure it out.
“Maggie, come join me. What do you play?”
Now Peter and Susana were sitting back holding hands and looking unbearably smug, my stomach was training for Olympic Gymnastics, and quite suddenly, I’d had enough. Time for Margaret to get out of my head for good. I slipped off my jacket and stood up.
“I’ll start with bass.” I let them all get a good look as I walked up to the stage, and a better look as I bent to lift the big stand up bass. Long curly chestnut hair, slender body, strappy green cami blouse, low cut jeans, green eyes – and there’s something very sexy about a female stand up player, you know, wrapped around the big bass, fingers running up and down the neck - you get what I’m saying. Eat your heart out Peter. And look your fill Richard. He couldn’t possibly recognize proper classical Margaret Westhaven undressed like this and playing jazz bass.
“In B flat,” he said. Hah! I love B flat.
So we played. At first, musicianship took over and we watched each other in a purely professional way, but when he nodded to me for a solo, an obvious challenge in his look, Peter and Susana waiting for me to embarrass myself, I felt the warmth of the bass vibrating against my body, and something happened. The notes tumbled over each other, my fingers sizzled on the strings, I sizzled and I played the way I’d always wanted to. The place erupted when it was over; the heat in Richard’s eyes nothing to do with professional. It took a moment for him to stop looking at me and look at the audience instead.
“Thank you everyone, and thank you Maggie.” His eyes brushed mine again and I tingled all over. “I hope you’ll play again after the break.”
“I – I – yes.” Somehow I got myself off the stage, and slipped out the back to cool air. What was I doing? My crush was back bigger than ever, I was playing like a wild woman and I loved it! I took a deep breath to steady myself and yelped when a voice spoke in my ear.
“Just making sure you were still here,” he said. “Maggie-Margaret.”
I spun around, face burning – well, all of me pretty much burning, actually, what with his fingers trailing down my arm. He reached my hand and held it. “I searched everywhere for you after that competition, you know.”
“But,” I said, intelligently.
“Why did you leave?”
I couldn’t look at him. “It was so bad.”
“Hm.” He seemed so relaxed except for crushing my poor fingers in an enormously strong grip. “I thought you were the most musical person there.”
“You did?” I looked at him now, and had a hard time concentrating.
“I did. I’ve been googling you every now and then. Never quite had the nerve to get in touch, but when I found out you were right here in my home town, at my gig…and then you walked up on stage…”
I don’t know how long we stood there, staring at each other, touching, saying nothing, and when he finally kissed me, I’m pretty sure it lasted forever. Let’s just say, it was even better than playing that vibrating bass. In any case, Peter and Susana were gone when we went back inside. And over the past few months Richard and I have been so busy playing, recording, and you know, taking time for other things (lots and lots of time), I haven’t had a moment to notice if they’re still around. Mostly, I just notice Richard noticing me.
About the Author
Melinda Cassidy is a musician specializing in Irish harp, fiddle and vocals. She works part time in a music library and loves sipping foamy lattes in downtown cafes. She has always wanted to play upright bass. She invites you to check back soon for more romance titles involving music, libraries or latte.