Page 39 of On the Beat

“If you could even call this a rehearsal,” she mutters before we start singing.

Twenty minutes later, I think we have a reasonable grasp of the song, and Isla has scrounged up an evening gown in a dark red colour that makes her look like a femme fatale in a noir movie. The makeup artist comes in to give her a last-minute touch-up and to fix my face, which has been marred by excessive sweating.

“Are you ready?” I look at Isla.

She bites her lip, pausing a moment before nodding.

Then I step out onto the stage and sing my first song, a solo. The one I wrote for this concert–the one Isla helped me write. Or at least the one that she pushed me to write.

“Thank you for having me,” I say into the microphone. “During my brief stay here, I’ve seen how beautiful this country is. But more importantly, I’ve seen how wonderful the people are. This is for… For all the friends I’ve made here.”

Then I strum my guitar and start to sing.

The first song goes off without a hitch, and I see people waving their cellphone lights, some even singing along by the time the second chorus comes around. It’s a song with a simple enough melody, but the words feel anything but simple.

By the time I am finished with the first song, my nerves have dissipated and I remember why I’m doing this. Not for me, not to entertain people, but to help people. To help the little boy who lost his mother. To help Paulo’s family.

“I’d like to invite a special guest to sing the next song with me,” I say, before pausing. Should I introduce Isla by her real name? She’s not a celebrity, so it’s doubtful that anyone would recognize her. No, the press would likely dig up her entire past in half a second if I say her name, so I decide not to. I’ll give her the privacy that I hope she would extend to me. “Please welcome her to the stage.”

Isla steps out from between the parted curtains, her dress trailing behind her and she nearly trips over an electrical cord. I grab onto her elbow just as she nearly face-plants on the wooden stage, and she gives me a murmured thanks.

Away from the microphone, I lean down, lips brushing the shell of her ear, and say to her, “You’ll do great.”

She nods like she wants to believe me, before turning away.

I sing the first verse, the song something cheesy and cloying about being united with friends and family, and finding hope for a new day in those you love. She joins in on the chorus; her voice is not sweet or gentle like I might’ve imagined, but steady. Sure. Unwavering. It complements mine somehow. The chorus finishes, and she sings the second verse by herself, her eyes tightly shut as though she wishes she were in a dream, not on a stage performing for a stadium full of people. Still, even if she doesn’t acknowledge them, they acknowledge her; cheering, clapping, and waving signs in the air.

We sing the last part of the song together, and everything seems to be going fine until something tickles my throat. I fight the urge to cough, a deep-seated, dormant frisson of panic rising in my chest, tightening my lungs. I used to have asthma when I was a lot younger, but I thought I had grown out of it.

But something about the dust in the air… Maybe it’s just the pressure of the moment. My head starts spinning.

Then, something grounds me to the spot, not paralyzing, but anchoring me. Isla’s hand in mine, squeezing. Her voice continues even when mine cannot.

I take a deep breath when I can and belt out the last line of the song along with her. The audience breaks into even more raucous applause, and I give myself a moment to let my pulse slow down.

“You did OK,” Isla teases me, as I help her off the stage, lifting the train of her gown.

“Just OK, huh?”

She shrugs as we make it back to my dressing room, the hem of her dress pooling around her ankles now that she’s stepped out of her heels. “Are you sure you’re not the one with stage fright?”

“I thought you wanted to hear about my brother, but now I see you just wanted to hear about my traumatic childhood,” I try to joke before I chug half a bottle of water, before sitting across from Isla.

She stands in the doorway, eyeing me for a moment with an expression I can’t quite place before saying, “I’ll take whatever you can give me.”

Chapter 19: Isla Romero

We’re still in the beach house, and I still can’t sleep. Not just because he still hasn’t told me the sordid tale of him and his brother.

Why did I say that to Ryder?I’ll take whatever you can give me? It sounded like I was flirting with him. And I would never flirt with him.

For the following reasons:

He’s a celebrity, and none of them can be trusted to be faithful, except a tiny minority.

He’s probably dated more girls than there are grains of sand on the beach, and even if anything came of the flirtation, I would be nothing more than a fling to him.

I’m writing an article on him, and my article headline is not going to beHOW I FELL IN LOVE WITH RYDER BLACK.

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