Ari sighed. “I know it’s not the same, but you can always ask me.”
Emily nodded. Her sister wasn’t a replacement, but for the past sixteen years she’d been the next best thing.
“How are you feeling?” Ari asked her.
“Pretty good, actually,” Emily said. “Just really emotional.”
“Does it make you think . . . ?” Ari didn’t finish the sentence. The two of them hardly ever had to.
“Yeah,” Emily said, answering what her sister hadn’t needed to ask. “All the time.”
viii
Your father was playing music everywhere he could, sometimes by himself, and sometimes with James or Tony or me or all of us together. It was his goal, his plan after graduation: to get a record deal, to perform all over the world, to share his music with everyone he could. We didn’t talk much about “after”—after he graduated, when I would have one more year to go. In the meantime, he’d become a favorite at a local coffee shop and had started writing his own songs. Songs about the dreams he had, the love he felt—for me, for music, for family, for life. In the song he wrote about me called “Queen of All the Keys” he sang about how he loved to watch me play piano. Honestly, even then I thought it was a little silly. His lyrics were mediocre at best. But the melody was beautiful. And whenever I walked into the coffee shop, everyone there called me the queen. To play along, I started braiding my hair into a crown around my head when we performed together. The coffee shop fans loved it.
Then one afternoon he got a call from a talent buyer at Webster Hall who had been to our coffee shop concerts. The opening act for Rilo Kiley had gotten stuck in a snowstorm in Michigan, and the club needed someone to replace them. Could he perform that night, the guy wanted to know. The show started in five hours. He could bring his band, or go it alone, if they weren’t available. They’d tried everyone else, but it was a rough night. The club just needed someone to warm up the crowd, fill some time before the band went on.
When your father hung up the phone, it was the happiest I’d ever seen him. Though he tried to play it cool, he couldn’t stop grinning. His beautiful dimpled smile had taken over his face. It was like he’d been blessed by the rock gods. Like the most perfect gift imaginable had fallen into his lap.
“You and me, Queenie,” he said, not even bothering to ask the guys to change their plans. “Let’s do this together.”
I couldn’t say no to that grin, to that happiness. Plus, I loved being on stage with him. The two of us together in Webster Hall was the best way to spend a Saturday night I could imagine.
We put together a set list, some songs he’d written, some covers that had a similar vibe, and I put on a pair of faux-leather pants with a tight black tank top and heels—high enough to look sexy but low enough that I could stand in them while I played. My hair was full and wavy, cascading down past my shoulders. I braided the top half in a crown and left the rest loose.
“God,” he said when he saw me. “How did I get so lucky?”
I kissed him hard, raking my fingers down his back as I told him I loved him.
I haven’t been on a stage in a while, but there’s nothing like it. When it’s working, when the audience is into you, the air feels electric. It’s like everyone’s consciousness has somehow connected in that room, like we’re all riding one big wave of emotion that rises and falls and crashes with the music.
That’s what it was like that night. It was perfection. It was your father’s dream become a reality. His energy fueled the whole room.
We ended the night with a duet inspired by Moulin Rouge’s “Elephant Love Medley,” and when your dad sang about how he was made for loving me, I could see how true he believed it was. And that was how I felt, too. We were made for this. We were made for each other. We were made to be together, up on stage, sharing a dream, sharing a future. In that moment, his dream became my dream, became our dream. The medley ended with a kiss, and the crowd’s cheers were so loud they made my ears ring.
Afterward, we were surfing on the high of it. We drank free cocktails and champagne, we shared a joint someone offered us, we accepted compliments from fans who wanted to know when our album was coming out.
“Soon,” your dad said. “Soon.”
“Really?” I whispered, when we had a short second to ourselves. If we could spend our lives like this, performing, being adored, creating music, loving each other—I didn’t even want to think about it because it seemed so wonderful, so perfect, so ideal.