The Music to His Lyrics [4] Night of Dreams

Emma jumped as she felt the buzzing of her phone in her back pocket the moment she was pouring another customer’s smoothie into the plastic cup labeled, “Rick’s Smoothies”.

Most of the smoothie found its place on her apron, her button-down shirt, and her favorite pair of green converse shoes.

“Em!” yelled Victoria. She placed down the smoothie he had been pouring himself in front of the lady he had been taking care of, handed her a straw, and shook her head as she went over to where Emma lay seated at a stool, scrubbing the splattered smoothie off of her shoes with a paper towel. “She didn’t let you sleep at all last night, did she?”

“She’s burning you out man,” said Bobby, who stood across from where Emma sat, pouring spoonfuls of fruit and yogurt into various blenders and pouring them into the plastic cups with ease. “Order twenty-seven!” he called, placing a straw next to the cup and thanking the customer, only to proceed to filling more orders as he contributed to their conversation. “You can’t keep going on like this forever.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Emma said, taking off her apron, and button-down shirt so that she remained in her jean shorts and a white t-shirt with red sleeves with a picture of Snoopy from the Peanuts comics. She still had her cap with her nametag to indicate that she was an employee. She put on a new apron she pulled out from a utility closet, and opened her cell phone, which still continued to buzz.

Victoria pulled the cell out of Emma’s fingers, and scrolled down the text message Joanna had sent Emma, her eyes scrolling down the page:

[Joanna Owens-Felucci-Sinclair] sent you a message.

Victoria’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped as she began to read some of the dictated duties aloud: “Scrub the entire terrace, dust the stairwell and all of the frames, organize and refill all of the spice bottles on the spice-rack, clean all of the windows from the inside of the house (we’ll find a way for you to clean the outside later), clean the pool, change the sheets on every bed and pillow in the house, pick up my dry cleaning, schedule an appointment for a dog whisperer for Thursday, and make sure to take the girls to their event today.”

“You’ve got to do something. Maybe you can move in with Travis when he gets that apartment,” Bobby suggested.

“We’re broke,” Emma said flatly. “I barely have enough money saved up for college. How are a struggling college student and broke girl about-to-enter-into-freshman-year-of-of-college supposed to support each other?”

Victoria looked at Emma, and handed her the phone, saying, “This has got to stop. She’s basically using you as free labor just because she can!”

“You know it’s always been that way, guys.” Emma muttered, shoving her phone in her pocket only to yank it out second later after the buzzing began again.

New text message: [Joanna Owens-Felucci-Sinclair]:'Don’t worry about babysitting Mrs. Reed’s kids tonight. I called and told her you had to cancel on account of running errands for me. You might want to call and reschedule.'

“Give me that!” Victoria snapped, once again taking the phone out of Emma’s hands and pressing a series of buttons until the screen went blank. She handed it back to Emma. “Leave it off. You could always tell her your battery died.”

Emma proceeded to dumping fruit preserves and spoonfuls of yogurt into a blender. She sighed, “I don’t know what to do, except do what I’ve been doing so far. There’s not really much I can do at this point. I really need that college money.”

“You still haven’t found your Dad’s will yet?” Bobby asked.

“No,” Emma muttered.

Victoria walked over to Emma and gave her a warm hug. “Look, I promise everything will be okay.”

“Hope so,” Emma said.

“Hey, Em?” Bobby asked, with a look of confusion on his face as he placed another smoothie on the counter. “Aren’t those you’re stepsisters?”

In the store right across from them, two girls could be seen in the store’s window, each yanking one end of a paisley scarf.

“Let go, Claire,” Audrey hissed, “I saw it first!”

“But you looked at it and put it down!” Claire said through her teeth, as she yanked the scarf closer to her aggressively, “So now it’s mine!”

People who were passing by the store paused for a moment and cocked their heads at the sight of the two girls screaming insults at one another while practically playing tug-a-war with the scarf. They were making a show.

Suddenly, each girl staggered back, each clenching a half of the scarf in their palms. A saleswoman approached them, pointed at the halves of the scarf, mouthed words that Emma could not hear from where she stood at the “Rick’s Smoothies”, and extended her hand towards them.

“A hundred and twenty dollars?!” Audrey shrieked.

“But its torn!” Claire whined.

Nonetheless, each shuffled through their purses and produced two platinum credit cards and handed them to the saleswoman.

Emma shook her head, “Figures.” Then she burst into laughter, and Bobby and Victoria joined her.

“Now that you’ve lightened up, we’ve got some good news.” Victoria said with a big smile, so that the dimples in her cheeks were clearly visible.

Bobby had on the same grin.

Emma glanced at the both of them with an eyebrow raised, “What is going on?”

Bobby pulled out a blank CD in a plastic case labeled, ‘demo’. “Remember when you sang that beat with my band at homecoming?”

Emma nodded.

“There was recording equipment backstage, and we decided to-” Victoria was cut short.

“You recorded it?” Emma said, a flicker of excitement flashed across her face.

“It sounds so freakin’ awesome!” Bobby said, dragging out the first set of syllables in the word ‘awesome’.“And because one of our audition tapes included this song, my band landed a major gig.”

“He’s going to be performing at the Night of Dreams, and out of all the opening acts, they‘re going to be opening up for…” Bobby beat boxed his own version of a drum roll, and Victoria squealed, “DOWNHILL MYSTERY!”

“On live TV, with you as the lead singer,” Bobby added, handing her the CD, and a flyer hosting the event.

Emma was shocked. She stared at the CD in disbelief.
“Oh, but that’s not all. Tell her, Bobby,” Victoria said, nudging him with her elbow.

Bobby cleared his throat and said in his best announcer voice, “The lovely Victoria suggested that the demo be sent to Downhill Mystery, who has serious connections to all of the major record companies in Los Angeles!”

Victoria jumped up, her brown curls jumping up and down. “What do you think?” she asked as she adjusted her classy red Jai-Kudo glasses.

“I really appreciate everything you guys are doing for me,” Emma began, “But I don‘t think sending the CD in is the best idea.”

“Why not?” Bobby and Victoria said in unison.

“What if they don’t like it?” Emma pressed. “Then it’ll just become another opportunity I can’t have,”

“You have an amazing voice, and you know it!”Victoria said.

“What about Night of Dreams?” Bobby asked, “Please tell me, you’re not going to bail on that.”

“I’ll do my best to make it, but I can’t promise anything.” Emma said, as she finished wiping up the last drop of smoothie off of the tile floor.

________________________________________________