Fresh. New. Full of promise.
Despite the three month hide-and-seek from myself in Ireland following her funeral, I held hope that working on this album with my friends in a new place could bring me a sense of closure in Rae’s death. She would have been so excited for me. Despite being a student at UNH, with a few semesters left, I’m certain that if she were still alive and Bo presented me with this opportunity, she’d have told me to take it.
She always lit everything with positivity from the inside. Even when she’d spent a few hours one night filling me in on all the Bo and Ember Saga details in the middle of their bizarre breakup, she held on to the floating dandelion seeds of hope.
“They’re meant to be together. I don’t know how long it will take, or what it will take to get there. But ... they’ll get there.” She told me that one night in the sand under the stars. The Big Dipper was right over us, and I remember that because I’d looked up at the black sky and wished the constellation would scoop us up and hold us in that moment forever.
“Woo!”
I’d been wandering down the hallway mentally in the past, but CJ’s cheer summoned me back. He respectfully turned the handle to the studio and let himself in.
Not surprisingly, a few members of the Six were around.
“Hey, Natalie. This is my cousin, CJ.” I spoke to the ethereal blonde who was tightening the skin across the top of a large African drum.
She stood, and while I knew she was probably fifty years old, she looked like she could get away with telling people she was thirty-eight or younger.
“Nice to meet you, CJ. Please, call me Journey.”
CJ shook her hand, biting his lip to surely prevent the insidious laughter I knew was brewing. “Sure thing. Nice to meet you.”
I turned to the other woman in the room. “You’re still Magnolia, right?”
Both women came apart in soft, amused giggles. “Yes,” Magnolia answered. “Please, call me Mags. Don’t worry about Journey. She was just baptized under the seventh sun last week. Not everyone is used to the new name, yet.”
Mags, with short chestnut hair and wide set brown eyes, continued playing with the strings of her mandolin as Journey returned to her drum. CJ slowly turned his head in my direction, stupefied, and mouthed, “Seventh sun?” to me. I shrugged, miming to him to keep quiet.
That was all the reintroduction to Blue Seed studios that I needed. Now, all we needed was the return of Raven and Ashby, who were Ember’s parents, and their friends, Michael and Solstice Shaw.
“Hey there! Nice to see you again.” Sunshine seeped through the room. Not a person with that name, just to clarify, but the feeling that came when Willow Shaw spoke.
She was the daughter of Michael and Solstice, and had been childhood friends with Ember before Ember and her parents moved to Connecticut for Ember to attend high school.
“Hi, I’m just showing my cousin around the studio, if you don’t mind.” I held out my arm for a side hug as she casually conquered my personal space.
Something else I’d have to get used to over the next few months.
“No worries. Actually, I’m glad you’re here. My dad rewired for the new microphones last night, and we need to check some pitches. Can you get your vio-fiddle-whatever-you-call-it and play for a few minutes?”
She seemed to be nervous as she tucked a strand of her sandy brown hair behind her ear. Her hair was long and wavy, like Ember’s, and they had nearly identical jade coloring in their eyes. Guess growing up counterculture made you look like sisters. Her skin, though, was pure caramel. Her mother was black, from Haiti, and her father was white. I briefly wondered if, like the bartenders at E’s, she ever felt the need to dress in a certain way to get attention. Likely not...
“Yeah, Reeg, go get your fiddle-dee-doo, and I’ll show Willow, here, how this painfully forsaken drum set sounds. Does no one play this?” CJ stared at the abandoned set in horror.
Willow toyed with the ends of her hair. “They’re not really using that for this album but, um ... you can try it out...”
My brain tried like hell to beg her cheeks not to turn red during her exchange with CJ.
They did.
There was nothing more I could do.
“Be right back.” I attempted a look of warning to CJ, but he ignored me as he drew his sticks from his back pocket and sat on the stool, ready to strike.
The set, and Willow in due time I was sure, if he wasn’t scheduled to leave in a few days. Who was I kidding? That was plenty of time for him.
A few minutes later I was set up in front of the mic, with headphones on, and a mic hanging twelve inches from my strings. Journey and Mags were seated on the couch in the corner of the recording room, while CJ asked Willow questions I knew damn well he knew the answers to in the sound booth.
“Okay,” I interrupted Willow’s hair-tossing giggle with a clearing of my throat, “do you want me to play anything specific or...”