Laura Miller - Butterfly Weeds

I rifled through my purse, pulled out my wallet and then a twenty-dollar bill and handed it to the cheery boy.

“You can keep the change,” I said, smiling.

“Thanks,” the boy replied, handing me a white tee shirt with the words Support Flood Relief in red letters across its front. I looked at the top and then squeezed it on over the shirt I was already wearing. At least, I’d blend in.

With no visible distractions remaining, I set out again toward the throng in the middle of the pasture. Each step toward the crowd made my breathing quicken. And by the time I had reached the last row of white, plastic chairs, I noticed that my palms had grown clammy as well. I rubbed them against the hips of my jeans and stealthily slid into an isle a couple of rows up.

As quickly as I could and trying desperately not to bring any attention to myself, I claimed a seat as if just finding one made me safe from my own uneasiness. The plastic chair a couple of seats down the row was my temporary hiding place. Once hidden, I took a quick scan of the people around me. To my surprise, no one looked even the slightest bit familiar. I was in New Milford, right?

I situated my purse onto an open, plastic chair next to me and slid my arms into my leather jacket. The air was cooling now, though it was still fairly warm for October. I then pulled my long hair out from underneath the jacket and glanced forward toward the stage, peering in between the shifting heads and swaying bodies. I could just barely see the group of people who lined the front of the platform, but not enough to make anyone out. I rose up on tiptoes, still trying to catch a glimpse of Rachel’s head in the crowd.

Then, without warning, the soft background music stopped and the few lights that had subtly lit the makeshift stage grew dimmer and dimmer, until what was on the stage was no longer visible. And within seconds, several dozen beaming, bright ivory and blue lights that hung over the stage on little, metal structures illuminated four figures in the darkness — a young, tattooed drummer, a clean-cut pianist, a burly base guitarist and a tall, boyishly handsome brunette donning a cowboy hat and an acoustic six-string across his chest.

I hardly recognized the man holding the six-string. The lights, the crowd, the band — seeing him now made it all strangely real. And for the first time, he wasn’t the boy I had remembered him to be anymore. He wasn’t the boy who climbed old windmills for fun or even the boy I had watched grow smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror the day I had left for college. He wasn’t a boy anymore.

My heart fluttered as the figure holding the guitar sauntered up to the microphone stand in the center of the stage. He looked very similar to how I had remembered seeing him years ago on Good Morning Today , but somehow seeing him up on stage, live, and within a football-field length of me, made everything different — made me oddly breathless. He looked really good. He had on dark denim jeans and a white tee shirt that looked exactly like the one I had just bought from the freckled-face boy in the hut.

“How are ya doin’, New Milford?” Will shouted from the stage.

A wide smile lit up his face as he spoke to the crowd. I could tell that he was happy to be where he was. Even from a distance, I remembered that smile — it was as if everything in the world were right.

The throng cheered and screamed. Then, Will and his band started right in on their first song, and then their second, until they were cruising right along, hitting each song like they had done it a million times before. Every once in a while, though, Will would take a break, mostly to remind everyone why they were there, and then, another song would follow.

When I closed my eyes, I could almost picture myself on Will’s back porch at the end of a warm, July day, listening to his voice, believing that there was nothing in the world more soothing. In fact, his voice was just as beautiful to me now as it had been all those years ago. Although, something did seem a little different tonight with the way he sang. Tonight, he commanded so much attention. So many people seemed to love him and his band and their music. Though, I knew that most people still looked at Will like they always had. He was the same old Will to them — the same Will who still played pick-up basketball games in the high school’s gymnasium, fished on the weekends and put fires out during the week. I knew this much, mostly from Rachel, of course. However, to the few that didn’t know him that well — and I would suspect that was a lot of the people now standing around me — he was every bit as famous as the last celebrity. I could see in the faces nearest to me, at least, that that is exactly how they saw him. Those next to me donned tee shirts proudly displaying Will’s profile, and they gushed enthusiastically over his every word. And tonight, I had to admit, there was a tiny part of me that kind of felt like them. After all, he really was a celebrity in his own right, and he very much looked the part tonight. And I was proud of him and happy that he had gotten the chance to follow his apparent dreams thus far. Most of all, however, I was happy that the world had gotten a chance to hear him sing.

After the band wrapped up its last song, the crowd broke out into a loud round of applause. Will and his band members took a bow and walked off the left side of the stage, disappearing behind a long, black curtain. The multitude grew ever noisier, yet stood still then, waiting anxiously for the band’s encore. And not to disappoint, moments later, Will reemerged again from the left side of the stage. This time, however, he wasn’t holding his six-string, and not all of his band members followed him. Only the pianist trailed him, finally taking a seat on the bench behind the piano in the back corner of the stage. Will, on the other hand, walked to the front of the platform with only a microphone in hand and a spotlight guiding his path. He stopped at a stool centered on the stage and took a seat, anchoring one leg on the ground, the other on one of the stool’s rungs.

It only took a matter of seconds before the massive crowd’s buzz faded and then went silent. And then, he had everyone’s attention.

“I’ve saved this one for last,” Will finally spoke in a soft, deep voice. “I wrote it years ago, but this is going to be the first time anyone’s ever heard it.”

His words came out raspy and almost shy.

Then, he paused and removed his cowboy hat, while a melody from the piano began to play softly in the background.

It was his last song of the night, and his first words came spoken — not sung.

“ I couldn’t stop at one. This one’s for you too, Julia,” he said.

I stifled a gasp by covering my mouth with the inside of my hand. I swore my heart stopped for an instant — or at least, it came the closest it had ever come to stopping completely.

What had he said? My mind raced, and I panicked.

I could hear every breath I took, as if I were in some sort of strange space vacuum on some strange planet in another world. In reality, I had heard what he had said, but what was really real anymore? I couldn’t tell. The line was constantly blurring these days.

I couldn’t think of anything else but his last words. Nothing else mattered and nothing else came to mind.

I listened to the girls in the crowd scream and then grow quiet again before Will bowed his head in the center of the stage and a beaming ray of light left him and spotlighted the piano player, who continued his soothing solo.

A tear frenziedly slipped past my eyelid and slid down my polished cheek, at the same time, my legs grew strangely weak. I was melting — uncontrollably malfunctioning. I wanted to sit down, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of the singer, so I simply remained motionless — frozen where I stood — a tall weed in the all-too-crowded field. My stare never left him as my eyes strained to see his figure in the dark now. I could just barely see that his gaze now focused on a spot in the far distance. And as the piano solo drew to a close, the ivory light returned to Will, and Will began a soft melody: