See You Soon Broadway (Broadway Series Book 1) Page 4

  I laugh. I can already tell that I’m going to like her. “I guess not.” I agree. She continues on about the different companies that call her and I don’t want to interrupt her.

  “So, what can I do for you?” she finally asks.

  “Well, I actually wanted to talk to you about my grandmother. I guess you two were close friends, right?” I want to feel her out because I never heard of her before finding the journal, so I’m not sure if they stayed in regular contact.

  “Yes, we were—at one time. We met in college. Maris was a dear girl, very smart and talented.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. This may be easier than I thought.

  “Unfortunately, I can’t talk long now. My grandson will be here shortly to take me to an appointment.”

  “Oh, that’s fine,” I reply. “When would be a good time for me to call you back?”

  “Would you like to join me for lunch? How about Saturday?” she asks eagerly.

  “That sounds great!” I say excitedly. She seems really happy that I accepted her invitation. I write down her address, and we hang up.

  I can’t wait for Saturday.

  ~*~*~

  “I want to make a toast, to my amazing girlfriend!” Kyle says, holding up his wine glass. “You’ve always been so supportive of me. I can’t even count the hours that you listened to me go on and on about my work. I want to thank you for your patience because I even annoy myself sometimes. I’m so lucky that you continue to put up with me.”

  I stare at his handsome face; he really is so dreamy. I hold up my wine glass and we toast. We’ve had a great night so far. I decide to tell him about Beatrice because I was so excited about our phone call. I also tell him all about the journal, otherwise he would probably wonder why I was so excited to go to lunch with some old lady.

  “What a cool story. I can’t believe you never knew she was a radio performer,” he says. “So, what other information are you hoping to find out?”

  “I’m not sure exactly,” I say thoughtfully. “I guess I’m just really curious. I mean, it’s kind of fascinating to learn that someone I knew and loved had a whole other life. It’s almost like uncovering a mystery.”

  He nods his head. “Yeah, and you never know what else you may uncover.”

  He’s right, although I don’t know what else there could be. For all I knew, Grandma lived a normal life raising a family in the suburbs.

  “How are things at the studio?” he asks.

  I give him the up-to-date rundown about our recital, conveniently leaving out my excitement about the agents. I’m trying not to think about it, especially now with his big promotion. I know now that there’s no chance he will make a move. I just want to enjoy our night and being together. And what a night it is! Everything is perfect from the food to the company, that is until Kyle asks me something I’m definitely not expecting.

  “So, I’ve been thinking for a while and I wanted to run something by you.” He grabs my hand and starts caressing the top of it.

  Run something by me? For some reason my body completely tenses up. I’m sure this isn’t a normal reaction for a woman to have when her very dreamy boyfriend is being so sweet.

  “What’s that?” I whisper. Why am I whispering?

  “I wanted to run this by you because I think it would take things to the next level of our relationship.” Oh my gosh. My stomach starts to tie up in knots—I’m afraid of what’s about to come. “What do you think about us moving in together?” he asks so quickly I can barely make out his words.

  What? My eyes open so big I feel like they will pop out of my head.

  “Um, move in together?” I ask. “I, I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  I don’t really know how else to respond because I really haven’t thought about it. I guess it’s not a crazy question; it’s just so random considering we’ve never talked about it before. Admittedly, for a brief second, I thought he might propose. Thankfully he didn’t because I know I’m not ready for that.

  “I know we haven’t ever discussed it. I guess I thought since your parents were moving . . .” He stops. He must notice the shock on my face.

  “I mean, if you aren’t ready, that’s totally okay,” he says quickly.

  “I don’t know,” I say finally. “I mean, you know I love you. I just have to think.” Ugh, our perfect evening has become totally awkward. This should be an easy decision but there’s so much to think about, and it all seems to be moving really fast.

  “Oh, you don’t have to decide tonight,” he adds with a nervous laugh.

  I grab his hand. “I promise to think about it and I have to talk to Georgie—I wouldn’t want to leave her hanging.”

  Unfortunately, our date didn’t end on as high of a note as it started on. Kyle pretended that he understood, but I could tell that he was disappointed.

  When I get home, Georgie is still in her scrubs, eating pancakes on the couch. She makes the most amazing pancakes amongst other things.

  “Hey, wow, you look great,” she says as she takes another bite of her food. “What’s the occasion?”

  I tell her all about Kyle’s promotion and our perfect date.

  “You two are the cutest couple,” she says, teasing me.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know if he’s very happy with me now.” I tell her about Kyle asking me to move in with him.

  “He asked you to move in with him?” she shrieks. “What did you say?”

  She has a look of sheer panic on her face. I have no doubt that she’s already trying to figure out what she’s going to do if I were to leave.

  “Don’t worry, I just told him that I would think about it,” I say as I get up to get a glass of water.

  “So, you’re considering it?” she asks worriedly.

  “I don’t know,” I say as I plop down on the couch and lean my head on the back. I’m about to tell Georgie how I’ve been thinking about moving when her cellphone rings.

  “It’s Dr. Scott!” she yells excitedly. She clears her throat, fixes her hair, and takes a deep breath. I have no idea why she fixed her hair but whatever.

  “Hello,” she says calmly as she walks to her room and shuts the door.

  I sit there for a few minutes and look around the living room. I think about everything that has happened in the past few weeks. With my parents moving, learning more about my grandmother, and now Kyle asking me to move in with him, I realize I have never been more confused in my life.

  Chapter 5

  I really have to start going to bed earlier. Between working on my music and reading Grandma’s journal, I have been staying up until the early morning hours. Admittedly, Grandma’s journal entries have lost some of their excitement. I’m really tempted to skip ahead, but I don’t want to miss a single thing.

  Today is a day I’ve been dreading; I promised my mom I would come over to go through my boxes of stuff. Cassie even called to give me a pep talk; she went on and on about how important it is that we stick together as a family and that we need to support our parents as they spread their wings. Sometimes she’s so annoying.

  I wish I could call in sick to going to the house. I’m starting to wonder if my attachment is unhealthy? I’m usually not a person who looks at the psychological aspect of things. When I was discussing it with Sophie at the studio the other day, she seemed a little surprised at my devastation to my parents’ big move. I guess most people aren’t attached to their childhood homes. Granted, I didn’t realize I was either until they decided to move.

  I finally force myself to get ready. When I arrive, I quietly walk in the door. Sadly, I don’t feel like running and sliding on the wood. Maybe it’s because I’m not wearing any socks but still.

  “Is that you, honey?” Mom calls from somewhere. “I’m in the den.”

  “Hey, Mom,” I say. When I walk in, she is emptying all the contents of the bookshelves into boxes. This is so depressing.

  “There you are; I was wondering if you were still com
ing,” she scolds me.

  I give her a curious look. Hmmm . . . something looks different. I stand back to get a better look at her. She looks kind of . . . orange?

  “Mom, what’s wrong with your face?” I ask worriedly.

  “What do you think?” she says as she hops off the step stool. She does a little twirl and bats her eyelashes.

  “I got one of those spray tans,” she says excitedly. “It’s about time, right?”

  I don’t believe it, she did! The woman has lost her mind, or maybe she’s having a midlife crisis? Not to mention it’s pretty much the worst spray tan I’ve ever seen. I look at her calves below her navy capri pants and her legs are streaked with orange spray.

  “Who did this to you?” I ask in horror. There’s no way she asked for this.

  “Sandy’s daughter. She spray tanned a few of us after our book club the other night.”

  I don’t know what to say next. I want to be honest but she seems really happy about it, so I’m not sure if it’s worth it to hurt her feelings. Luckily, spray tans usually wash off in a few days.

  “It looks um . . . good.” I lie. “Just to let you know, I have a friend who works at a salon in town, maybe next time you could try her place.”

  Mom shrugs her shoulders. “Well, maybe, but why pay when I can get it done for free. I have to get ready for beach-living of course.” She takes a sip of what looks like one of Cassie’s green drink concoctions.

  “Your father is coming with me next time to get his spray tan. We will be styling for sure.”

  I knew it. I should have never gotten out of bed today much less come over here.

  “Um, great. So, where are my boxes?”

  Mom leads me upstairs to the guest room, which is Cassie’s old room. On one side, there are boxes labeled with a C. I can tell Cassie has already started looking through them. On the other side are my boxes. I’m really surprised because there are a lot more boxes than I thought. I guess I better get started.

  “So, how is everything going with you?” Mom asks.

  “Fine.”

  “Are you sure? I know the news of the move was hard on you, and I do understand. There are some days that I wish it wasn’t happening.”

  Then, why are you doing it? I think to myself.

  “I know you may be wondering why we’re doing it,” she says, reading my thoughts.

  “Well . . .”

  She grabs my hand.

  “It’s simple. Because we can,” she says with a smile.

  That’s it . . . because they can? What kind of answer is that?

  “So, tell me about Kyle,” she says, dropping the whole moving subject. “How are things going with you two? Will I be hearing any big announcements anytime soon?”

  Crap! There’s no way in hell I’m telling her about Kyle asking me to move in with him. Even this newly spray-tanned version of my mother is still very conservative.

  “Not anytime soon. We aren’t in a rush,” I say as I sit down on the floor. Come to think of it, Kyle and I have barely ever spoken about marriage, maybe once or twice? The idea of marriage would only confuse things even more for me right now.

  “I understand that.” She agrees. ”Well, when you two do start discussing it, I just want you to know that we all really like Kyle. So we would be thrilled to have him as a son-in-law.” That’s no surprise because this is not the first time my mother has said this.

  When she leaves to get us some drinks, I start looking through the first box. This is awesome; I feel like I’m traveling back in time to the 90s. I find a shoebox full of old Wet ‘N Wild makeup (gross) and a half used bottle of Debbie Gibson’s Electric Youth perfume. I’m careful not to spray that because, honestly, I have no idea what it would smell like after so many years. I think that was actually Mom’s and she gave it to Cassie and I to play with, making it even older than I thought. The coolest thing I find is a whole bag of cassette tapes, including Madonna, Shania Twain, and Janet Jackson. I remember standing on my bed with a hairbrush and belting out songs for hours. I owe a lot of my passion to listening to these amazing artists.

  At the bottom of one of the boxes, I find a stack of songbooks. These will definitely come in handy for my students.

  “Did you find anything to sell?” Mom asks after she finally comes back with drinks.

  “A few things,” I say, pointing to a very small pile. “A lot of garbage and lots of things

  I want to keep.”

  “Oh, honey, your songbooks,” she says, picking one up. “I remember you made me drive all over the city to find some of these. You’ve always loved your music.” She smiles thoughtfully.

  I smile at that memory. I remember begging her for days to find the book that had every song from Annie.

  “Do you ever wish that you had pursued your singing career?”

  Well, that question came out of left field. I wonder if Cassie opened her big mouth and told her about our recent conversation.

  “Why do you ask?” I’m trying to act nonchalant but she’s always been pretty good at seeing through my acts.

  “No reason really. All this stuff just brings back memories, even at a very young age you said you wanted to be a singer.” She smiles again as if she’s reliving the moments of my childhood.

  I don’t say anything as I continue to empty boxes. Truthfully, I don’t know the answer.

  “Anyway, all that matters is that you’re happy, and I know you are,” she says as she rubs my back.

  “Yes. I am.”

  I’m still looking through boxes when Cassie arrives still in her yoga clothes. She looks as if she just arrived off a beach in the islands.

  “Why do you look so relaxed?” I ask.

  “I’ve told you that you need to take some classes, little sister, it would do you a lot of good.” I roll my eyes.

  “Did you find any good stuff?” She starts looking through my trash pile. “Electric Youth?? I can’t believe you still have this.” She holds up the bottle to her nose to smell it.

  “No, I don’t still have it. Technically, Mom and Dad still have it,” I say, growing more annoyed with her by the minute. She continues looking through the piles on the floor.

  “Cass, did you say anything to Mom about what we talked about the other night? About me thinking about moving to New York?”

  She looks up from a pile of T-shirts.

  “No. Why? Did Mom say something about it?

  I tell her about my conversation with Mom regarding Kyle and then her random question about my performing career.

  “It doesn’t surprise me that she asked you. She’s becoming very in tune with her surroundings. We work on that in my meditation class.”

  I ask her if it was her advice for Mom to get that horrific spray tan, and of course she denied that. I felt bad when Mom walked in and overheard us laughing about it. Thankfully, Cassie manages to change the subject by finding some old pictures of her and her girlfriends. We laugh for a while about how high they teased their hair, and Cassie cringes at the amount of aerosol hairspray she used. She feels really guilty about her contribution to the hole in the ozone layer.

  It turns out that we have a lot of fun looking through our stuff, and Mom makes us her delicious lasagna for dinner. She excitedly shows us pictures of the condo they’re looking at. Cassie nudges me to act excited and I do my best to pretend but, with as much fun as we had this afternoon, I’m feeling even sadder than ever.

  Before I leave, I tell Mom about my conversation with Beatrice.

  “I’m so glad she’s doing so well. Mother would be really happy that you’re going to see her.”

  “Were they really that close? I don’t remember Grandma ever talking about her.”

  I want to find out as much as I can about Beatrice before I go over there.

  ‘They were very close at one time. I believe they grew apart as they got older, but they still kept in touch. I don’t know exactly what happened between them or if anything did. Sometimes lif
e takes people in different directions.”

  Hmmm . . . This is more interesting than I thought. Did Grandma and Beatrice have a falling out? If they were as close as they seemed in the journal, then what happened? I feel like I’m going back in time to solve a mystery. Now I really can’t wait for Saturday to get here.

  ~*~*~

  “What do you think this means?” Georgie asks as she falls back on my bed. I just arrived home from my parents’ house when she practically jumps me as soon as I walk in the door. Apparently, Dr. Scott told her, or at least hinted around, that he wants to date her exclusively. She seems to think there’s a deeper meaning to his request.