Angela Morrison - Sing Me to Sleep

Not that we haven’t been singing. We already spent a week in France, Italy, and now Switzerland. We sang at the base of the Eiffel Tower, flew to Rome and performed in the middle of that huge square in front of St. Peter’s in the Vatican. Then to Geneva. Now we’re settled in our quaint little hotel in Lausanne. The room is way tiny, but the whole place is utterly clean. Even my neat-freak mom would approve. Our hotel in Italy was a total dump. Paris was worse. My only complaint about this one is the sign outside. A giant blue mermaid who forgot her seashells. At least she makes it easy to find. And she’s nothing like the saggy middle-aged women sunning themselves down by the lake that we ran into. I can’t imagine being seen like that. Meadow’s mom said sunning keeps them firm. Yuck. Didn’t seem to help for those ladies.

When the train rolled to a stop about an hour ago, Terri came into our car. “Bundle up ladies.” We tumbled out, and I pulled my coat tight. We’re all wearing the same tan pants and cream raincoats with our Bliss logo embroidered on the collar, fleeces underneath for warmth up here in the mountains.

Meadow clutched my arm. “I thought it was going to get better.”

We were still in the guts of the mountain. Dark, brooding stone. So cold.

“Scarves.” Terri wrapped hers around her face. “Quickly now.”

Meadow planted herself. “Where are we going?”

Leah got on Meadow’s other side, supporting her. “We’re obviously not singing in the train station.”

We hustled down a stone corridor, breathing through our scarf-covered noses to protect our throats. We broke through big double doors into an open, airy space, warm and glassy. Up close and personal with mountain peaks every way you look. But that didn’t cheer Meadow up.

But now, she looks like she’s just had a miracle transfusion. An undocumented Amabile sighting right here in our restaurant. They aren’t supposed to be up here. They must have changed up their schedule to outrun the groupies.

“Hurry up. He’s getting away.” Those poor guys. They will not outrun Meadow. Gorgeous guys are her element. She’s excited, for sure, but possessed, ready to spring. Now I’m the one hyperventilating.

She can’t expect me to go along. “No way.” I know Meadow. She’ll actually talk to them.

“Oh, yeah. Miss Star, you get that tall guy with him, Blake. I looked him up specially for you.”

“Please,” Sarah tears her eyes away from the door the guys disappeared through. “You’re not giving that to Beth. She wouldn’t know what to do with him.”

Thanks, Sarah. I think.

“Come on, Beth.” Meadow’s on her feet, jumping around.

“I’m not going to make a good impression if I faint when we sing.” I keep eating, slowly, pretending I’m calm, not embarrassed, not nervous. Totally indifferent. I tell myself I’m not interested in guys like that. Guys like Derek loathe me. He’s the enemy. I glance out the window behind me to make sure the bright-white mountains aren’t melting in the glow of Derek’s smile like I am. I should be creeped out that he made me feel like this, swirled into a panic.

Meadow watches me take every bite. As soon as I get the last noodle in my mouth, she grabs my arm, jerks her head at Leah and Sarah, and the chase is on.

Just outside the restaurant, there’s a stairway that leads us to a busy area directly off the entrance. There are counters where you can buy touristy stuff and racks of postcards over to one side. The rest is glass and blazing, white rugged mountain peaks.

Meadow spies the two guys looking at the postcards. “Come on.” She goes right up to them, zeroes in on Derek. “Hey, are you guys Amabile?” I would be embarrassed to say something that stupid, but from Meadow it sounds like poetry.

The tall guy looks at the back of his jersey that’s plastered with their logo. “What tipped you off?”

“We’re your neighbors.”

The tall guy gives her a blank look—guess they get this a lot.

She doesn’t balk for a second, turns to her boy. “ From Ann Arbor. Michigan? You know that place just across the border? Bliss Youth Singers . ”

Derek grabs the hand she’s sticking in his face. “You really are Bliss?”

Meadow lights up. “Yeah. That’s us.”

He lets go of her hand and looks at the three of us standing behind her. “Do you know Beth? The one who sings the ‘Take Me Home’ solo on your Web site?”

Sarah and Leah drag me forward. Meadow isn’t pleased. Neither am I.

“Hey.” He shakes my hand now. “That’s Blake. I’m Derek. Nice to finally meet you.”

I’m surprised I don’t faint, but I almost throw up all those buttery noodles churning in my mortified stomach. My reply isn’t an intelligible word. I can’t speak or even breathe, can’t look at him. I just stare at his soft, pale hand touching my rough, bronzed one.

“Sorry I was such a turd that night online.” He’s not smirking at me. That smile is genuine, so heartstoppingly genuine.

I manage, “Me . . . um, me, too.”

“Truce?”

“Sure.” He draws his hand away from mine.

Blake turns so poor Meadow gets shouldered out. “Derek’s over the top with his counterintelligence duties.”

Sarah laughs up at him and oozes closer. She’s well-endowed with natural assets and isn’t afraid to invest them. I don’t know how she communicates all that to Blake with a single giggle, but he obviously gets the message.

Derek flashes me another grin. “I have a confession to make.”

More heat pours into my face. Maybe it doesn’t show through my foundation.

“I downloaded ‘Take Me Home’ from your Web site, which,” Derek’s smile opens up to include the rest of the girls, “really needs pictures.”

Leah’s eyebrows draw together. “I didn’t think you could do that.”

“Pictures? Easy.”

“Download the song.”

“You can’t but—”

Sarah giggles again. “You stole our song?”

“Borrowed?” He gives me this sweet forgive-me look.

Blake tears his eyes away from Sarah to add, “So he can spy on you.”

“Shut up.” Derek elbows Blake in the ribs. “I’ve always loved that piece. We did it in chamber. And the way you do it—so much feeling. That needs to go on Bliss’s next CD.”

“CD?” I am so lost. Meadow and her mom forgot one thing when they remade me. I’d give anything for a personality transplant right now. I am so out of my depth.

Derek tips his head, talks low, like it’s just the two of us. “Our conductor makes us listen to our numbers at night when we go to bed. Some flighty hypnosis trash. Sometimes I cheat—slip in something soothing.” His deep brown eyes capture mine. “You sing me to sleep.”

Blushing, sweating—what a mess. At least I keep my lunch down. Who could possibly answer that? He must be doing this on purpose, take perverse delight in reducing tall, awkward girls to puddles.

Meadow comes to my rescue. “Now you’ve met Beth.” She maneuvers me to the side. “Here’s Sarah, Leah, and I’m—” She pauses and smiles at him like he’s won the lottery. “Meadow.”

Blake and Derek mumble polite stuff.

Meadow keeps after Derek. “I’ve got your CD.”

Blake says, “The new one or the old one?”

Sarah laughs at his elbow, catches his eye again. “All three. I even got the new Primus recording.” Primus is the name of their special group for the older guys.

Meadow picks up a postcard. “We all do.”

Derek turns to where I’m pretending to look at fuzzy gloves with “Top of Europe” and mountain peaks embroidered on them. “How about you, Beth. Do you listen to us?”

I nod. “I have all the AYS CDs, too.” My tongue seems to function better if I don’t look at him. “They, um, set the standard.”