The weather stayed above freezing all weekend and Grace decided it was time to get her car out of the garage. She grinned when the motor purred with the first turn of the key. So glad she’d bought a new car last year! The sporty red of the Ford Focus cheered her up too. Not to mention making it easier to find in a parking lot, sticking out like Santa’s cherry-red nose among all the white, black, silver, and beige look-alike cars and SUVs.
No Curves and no vocal therapy on Saturday! Grace felt liberated as she managed to get out of the slippery alley without dinging the car or anyone’s garage. She headed toward the Lincolnwood Mall, first swinging by the Salvation Army store on Devon Avenue to drop off her bags of gently used clothing. She’d never actually been inside the used-clothing store before and was impressed by how organized it was. A lot of shoppers wandered the aisles, including parents outfitting small children with everything from jeans and T-shirts to party dresses and winter coats.
Grace felt a tad guilty heading for the mall with its big department stores like Kohls and the tony Carson Pirie Scott, as well as dozens of specialty shops. But she had to laugh at some of the jeans in the store windows as she moseyed through the mall—hot brand names already pre-ripped and “distressed.” The teenagers snapping them up might as well go to the Salvation Army store—except the jeans at the Salvation Army were probably in better shape.
She came home with a good pair of gym shoes, sport socks, a sports bra, and some decent workout capris and tops. No more baggy sweat pants and sweatshirt. Almost made her look forward to her next session at Curves on Monday.
Well, almost.
As she dumped her packages on the couch and picked up Oreo, she noticed the black SUV parked in front of the two-flat across the street again. A while later she caught a glimpse from the kitchen of a young boy, maybe twelve or thirteen, bounding out of the house, followed by the man helping an elderly woman down the steps. Was that … could that be the Krakowski woman, home again? She scurried into the living room to get a closer look. No … this old woman was black, maybe the boy’s grandmother.
In spite of her shopping spree, Sunday loomed long and lonesome again. Grace still didn’t know where to go to church. She called her brother Mark, asked for the address of their church, and drove out to the suburbs in time for the eleven o’clock. Mark said the traditional service was at nine, but they usually went to the contemporary service at eleven.
Faith Chapel was a lot smaller than County Line Christian Fellowship, though she guessed there were at least two to three hundred at the contemporary service. She’d like something smaller than a megachurch. Maybe she should attend here for a while. It was nice being there with family, though her nephews had junior church and she didn’t see them till afterward.
Most of the contemporary songs projected onto the big screen were familiar, and the worship band was decent. Good drummer. The sermon was okay, a retelling of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, though it didn’t seem to have much personal application. Or maybe it was just her. She’d been having a hard time reading the Bible and getting anything new out of it.
But the people seemed friendly enough, greeting her along with Mark and Denise with a smile and handshake after the service. “Sorry I didn’t introduce you properly, but I’m not good with names,” Denise admitted as they walked out to the parking lot, trailing Marcus and Luke who ran ahead playing tag around the parked cars. Come to think of it, even though people greeted them, nobody had asked Grace her name or if this was her first time. Just “hello-nice-to-see-you.” Churchy greetings. And no one had recognized her. This didn’t really surprise her, though, even after the surprising success of her independent release. There were so many distractions competing for everyone’s attention these days. Not like when she was young and Amy Grant was grabbing headlines.
She accepted Denise’s invitation to join them at Old Country Buffet for lunch, so it was almost three thirty by the time Grace got home, feeling fuller than she’d like. Still, she was glad she’d gone. Sunday ought to be a day spent at church and with family. Maybe that’s what she’d do for a while, spend Sunday with Mark and Denise and the boys.
After cleaning Oreo’s litter box and putting the breakfast dishes she’d left into the dishwasher, Grace checked e-mail. A brief reply from Jeff said, Okay, will do, to her note suggesting “Grace Meredith in Concert” for her upcoming concert promo. And she had more fan mail. At least there’d be something for Sam to do when she came this week. If she hadn’t canceled the Norfolk concert next Saturday, there’d be travel arrangements and a zillion other details.
As Grace was about to shut down her laptop, another e-mail popped in. From Barry, the band manager. Barry was not happy with the cancellations. The band, he said, had spent a lot of time laying down tracks for the new songs she’d planned to sing at those concerts—Norfolk and Houston being too far and too expensive to bring the live band each time—and they still hadn’t been paid. But Bongo had hired them for the Midwest concerts, the ones within driving distance of Chicago with their van and trailer full of equipment. Could she guarantee that the two cancellations were it? That the two college gigs and the West Coast tour were still a go?
Grace’s stomach knotted. She hadn’t thought through how her cancellations would affect so many people.
But she couldn’t deal with Barry. Bongo did all the contract negotiations with the band. She clicked Forward and sent the e-mail to Jeff Newman with a brief note: Jeff, can you take care of this? Make sure the band gets paid for the work they did, even if we don’t use the tracks. Do what’s right for these guys. Even if it has to come out of my pocket.
Ouch. That was going to hurt.
Grace shut down her laptop and got up to draw the living room drapes—and saw that it was snowing. Oh no. Not more snow. She was really ready for the snow to go away and spring to come.
Now that her sabbatical was official, her routine fell into an easier rhythm. Grace began to feel results from the regular physical exercise, and Dr. Erskine seemed pleased with the progress she was making in her vocal-therapy sessions. Sam showed up on Monday and again on Friday. “Uhhhhh,” she yawned, arching her back and stretching as she finished answering the last of the fan mail Friday afternoon. “February’s almost over. Wonder what Norfolk is like this time of year? Can’t imagine they get all this snow.”
Grace cut her eyes at her assistant. “Sam … don’t.” She didn’t want to think about the canceled concert in Virginia. Except … she had been thinking about it, almost wishing she and Sam were leaving for the airport that afternoon. It would’ve been her first concert at the large Baptist church in Norfolk, which was known for hosting big-name Christian artists. It would have been a nice boost for her career. The weekend-from-hell in Memphis was almost four weeks ago, and the painful edges of her memory had muted somewhat. Maybe she shouldn’t have canceled Norfolk and Houston—
“Sorry.” Sam busied herself shutting down the computer. “That was selfish.”
“Selfish? What do you mean?”
Sam looked embarrassed. “Oh … I miss the excitement of the concerts. I love traveling with you. Dream job. Probably as close to my fantasy as I’ll ever get.”
Grace studied her assistant. She’d been a music major at Fisk University and her music background had certainly weighed in her favor when she’d applied as Grace’s assistant. But Grace hadn’t given Sam’s own career much thought.
“Do you do any singing … now, I mean?”
Sam shrugged as she packed the laptop into its case. “Well, sure. I sing with the choir at Salem Baptist when I’m in town, sing the lead sometimes … but, look. Sorry I brought the whole thing up. I know you need time for your voice to recover. You’ll be back on the road soon enough.”
“I’d like to come hear you sometime.”
Sam grinned. “Sure, if you want. Uh, you still want to go out to eat? We could try that new restaurant on Western Avenue—Belly Shack or something. Heard it was good and not too expensive.”
Both of which turned out to be true. But even while laughing helplessly as she and Sam tried to figure out how to eat the messy meatball-and-rice-noodles pita sandwich, Saturday’s canceled concert loomed like a black hole in Grace’s consciousness. Maybe she’d overreacted to the emotional trauma. Four to six weeks of “house arrest” in the middle of winter wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. She missed doing music, missed the excitement of a concert, missed feeling like her days had a purpose …
Those days would soon return. Greenville College was coming up in mid-March, just a few weeks away. She still needed to decide what songs she would sing and send the scores to Barry so he could line up practice times with the band.
“Definitely not too soon to prepare for the Greenville gig,” Sam agreed. They doodled a to-do list on a napkin as the waiter took their plates away and brought two cups of strong Korean coffee. “I can come three days next week—more if you want. But, Grace, better check with Dr. Erskine first, ask what she thinks about practice for these concerts. You don’t want to strain your voice before you’re ready.”
Deciding to start preparations for the Greenville College concert should have perked up Grace’s spirit, but for some reason she woke up Saturday feeling depressed and anxious. Could she really pull it together in time? If all that crap hadn’t happened in Memphis, she and Sam would be in Norfolk getting ready to head over to the church to practice with the band. She’d been told the auditorium could seat two thousand. She pictured the concert she was missing—the dimming lights, walking onstage to loud applause, the hush settling like a mantle as she started to sing.
She loved that feeling—loved sharing her songs, loved knowing there were young people in the audience who needed another voice cutting through the sexual babble from the media world, who needed to hear they were worth waiting for, who came for her music and got a double dose of encouragement to become the men and women God had designed them to be. And afterward … the excitement of meeting her eager fans, basking in their delight as she signed autographs, shook hands, made little jokes, gave hugs …
It built her up. Gave her purpose. Made her feel special. And worthy.
But none of that today. Just another weekend slopping around the house with only Oreo for company.
Not even sure she’d be ready for the concert at Greenville.
But who was she if she couldn’t sing?
Dragging herself out of bed, Grace plodded into the kitchen, started the coffee, and wandered back into the living room to open the drapes. A large rental truck was parked in front of the old lady’s two-flat and a crew of burly guys were hauling furniture and boxes—and what looked like a whole lot of junk—out of the house. Some of the stuff disappeared around back—must have a dumpster or something back there.
The crew worked most of the day, and once when Grace looked out, she saw the same little RAV4, parked this time on her side of the street.
When the truck and little SUV were finally gone, Grace realized the For Sale sign was gone too.
Well, they’d done it. Sold the house right out from under the old lady.