Chapter 16

I curled the bottom of my hair – leaving long ringlets in place. I touched up my makeup and wore my navy-blue-verging on dark purple halter-neckline dress. It had some beaded and diamante ruffles of flowers around the neck and down the middle. My dress was fitted and then flowed at the bottom where it touched the floor. I was saving this dress for prom but I never went. I stayed at home studying, trying to get my grades up so Richard would hand me over the shop when he was ready to retire. I added my matching sandals which gave me some height and they were safe for the beach – unlike some shoes, where the sand gets trapped inside and never comes out and you end up throwing them away. I looked, for a change, as if I was going on a proper date.

The best compliment I got from anyone was my mum and that was just her saying I look “nice”. Thanks mum.

No one wanted to drive since all the spaces in the car park would be taken up thanks to the concert – also, because they all fancied a drink. So it was no wonder that we got weird looks from people on the bus when a big family of fourteen spread themselves out amongst the seats and standing area. I stood next to a buggy which had a tiny little baby in it. I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl as it was dressed in pale yellow. It was staring at me with its big baby blues. Feeling very awkward about it, I smiled at the tiny human.

And it smiled back.

Which made me feel all warm inside, causing my smile to brighten, and then it giggled. I wondered if the little baby would grow up to be another ordinary person, or whether the baby would grow up to be an angel – hopefully a white-soul. Looking at the baby, it was possible that even if it was a human, it would grow up to bring some much happiness to the people that it’ll meet in its life time. I mean, look, I’ve just met it – a stranger – and it’s made me feel a little happier.

Stepping off the bus, my tiny bubble of happiness popped as I realised that I was never going to see that baby again. Sure, there’d be other babies but they were all different in an individual way.

We sat out on the back decking of the restaurant. The stars twinkled as if they were a distant diamond blanket covering the sky and warming my thoughts. Our menus were already on the table when we sat down. I ordered the spaghetti bolognaise with chips on the side – I needed comforting. We could see the lights from the stage further down the beach. I had completely zoned out and didn’t realise until I caught the end of the conversation the others were having.

‘So, Sam was only acting to help Electra?’ Rosita questioned.

‘Yes. Luckily, Electra is quite smart as none of us could have done anything.’ Sonny replied.

My spaghetti and chips arrived a few minutes later along with everyone else’s meals. My stomach suddenly rebelled to eating food. I just kept twirling the strands around my fork. I didn’t even put salt and vinegar on my chips – that’s how they knew something was wrong.

‘Electra,’ Aura said from across the table, ‘are you ok?’ She then whispered, ‘what happened with Sam?’

Tears danced on my eye lines at the mention of his name. ‘Don’t worry... its not important.’ I said, but the glare she gave me showed she knew I was lying.

My powers which gave me the side effect of super-hearing automatically created a beautiful harmony of the sound of the waves crashing on the shore, people eating, laughing, talking and the concert down the beach. Inside my head was exceptionally beguiling.

After we had all finished our meals, the waiter came back and asked if we would like desert. Ryvre ordered a simple vanilla ice cream with a flake; the adults ordered some fancy crumble cake. Ashling ordered strawberry cheesecake; Ace ordered an apple crumble; Aura ordered a chocolate fudge cake slice and Taran wanted a strawberry, chocolate and vanilla ice cream with sprinkles; a flake; different flavoured sources and a cherry on top “just for decoration.” Lastly, the waiter turned to me and asked what I wanted.

‘Could I get a slice of chocolate fudge cake – but melted – with vanilla and chocolate ice cream around it, please?’ I asked and everyone stared at me like I was a criminal that had broken out of prison and had happily joined them for desert.

The waiter wrote it down as dad said, ‘someone’s hungry, huh?’ He then shared a look with my dearest mother.

‘Yeah,’ I smirked at them, ‘I guess.’ I used to have melted chocolate fudge cake with ice cream on the side when I was little and hurt myself or went to the dentist or wasn’t feeling well.

When my cake and ice cream was placed in front of me, I felt a little sick. I was forcing myself to eat so much. My head was lusting the comfort from the taste; my stomach was crying out, pleading me not to eat it. Oh, well, I didn’t like waste.

After we all had finished our deserts and paid for the bill. We paid for some drinks – the restaurant was allowing, as a one-off, customers to take their drinks to the concert – and walked along the beach, heading towards the concert. I took my shoes off as the sand kept flicking up at the back and sliding in and out of the sandals. Mum offered to shake them off and put them in her huge “handbag” – more like a holdall.

It was hard to believe I had been talking to Sam about personal stuff and what it’d be like to see Music Fleet’s festival together. Now, I was at the Proud ‘N’ Loud festival with my family and without Sam. My family found a table and chairs for Arella, Sonny, mum, dad, Ashling, Hugh, Rosita and Ryan to sit on. Mum pulled out some blankets out of her big holdall for the rest of us.

Ace and Ryvre sat cuddled up together on one blanket; Aura and Taran sat together on their own one and I sat by myself, looking at the empty space next to me where Sam would have been sitting if he hadn’t screwed everything up. If...I hadn’t messed everything up.

‘Hey, guys,’ the lead singer of the band said into the microphone, ‘we’re going to take a break now but the floors open for anyone that wants to perform.’

They have never done that before. Opened up the floor for others, I mean. Something peculiar was going on behind the scenes. I saw the band talk to a man in a smart suit point towards me, meanwhile a young man – it was hard to tell his age from this view of the stage but his height made him look around my age. The band made their way over to where I was sitting and I stood up on instinct.

‘Excuse me, miss,’ the head speaker of the band – the singer – asked me, ‘are you the lady who runs the music shop here in town?’

‘Yes,’ I smiled, trying to present myself as professionally as I could, ‘what can I help you gents with?’

‘We were wondering if it would be possible to give you copies of our CDs,’ the singer answered, ‘and sell them in your store.’

‘I’ll give them a trial of two months for free,’ I told them, ‘if they sell the shop gets forty percent of the sales, deal?’

‘How would you feel if we said thirty-five?’ He counter-offered with a winning smile.

‘I guess that’d be fine too,’ I shook hands with each band member, ‘if you become infamous then I want you to do signings and bookings at the shop.’

‘Yeah,’ said the guitarist, ‘of course we will. We won’t ever forget our home town.’

‘We,’ the drummer agreed, ‘owe everything to this town. We’re not just going to abandon it.’

I smiled at them; it was nice to know that, even though people have dreams that are bigger than this town, they’d never forget this place. It just has a sort of... magic to it. ‘Shouldn’t you lot get back on stage?’

‘We thought we’d let others – who may not be dreaming big, but love performing – to have their chance to shine.’ The guitarist answered.

The man in the suit that had pointed at me spoke to the person on stage and then came over as the person disappeared in the crowd. The man whispered something into the drummer’s ear whilst looking up at me. The drummer nodded and smiled, and then he looked at me too.

‘We’ve just found out that-’ he pointed to me as he didn’t know my name.

‘Electra,’ I filled in for him.

‘We’ve just found out that Electra, here,’ he made sure he pronounced my name right, ‘can sing and play.’

‘Oh, um,’ I was taken aback by that, ‘I’m not any good. I prefer to stay backstage if you-’

‘It’s not about whether you’re good or not,’ the singer told me, ‘do you love performing?’ I nodded, too embarrassed to use my words. ‘Then get up there and show the world just how much you love it.’

‘Do you know any of our songs?’ the guitarist asked.

‘Only on guitar,’ I answered, truthfully, ‘I can’t really sing.’

‘How about,’ the guitarist suggested, ‘you play with me on stage to one of our songs?’

‘Actually,’ the man spoke for the first time to me in a deep, gruff voice, ‘there’s been a request for Electra to sing Love Story.’ I glanced at my family, knowing they probably told them.

‘Look, thanks for the offer and that but I don’t want-’

‘Miss Electra,’ the man cut me off, ‘please. The council are here and they want us to keep the audience entertained and the band will get bad publicity and we won’t be allowed to perform here again if the audience doesn’t get what it wants.’

He was guilt tripping me.

‘It’d be fun to play with you,’ the drummer explained, ‘we can advertise your shop that way.’ He had a good point.

‘And besides,’ the singer added, ‘none of us know Love Story. We can get the track but none of us can play or sing it.’

My white-soul angel-ness was kicking in. ‘Fine, I’ll do it,’ I suddenly was very nervous, ‘but don’t blame me if I’m not very good.’