“Thank you,” I replied, “but that doesn’t mean anything. Performing could never bring me happiness. I’ve known that for a long time. Maybe if Mom hadn’t pushed me so hard when I was younger…” I breathed, “no, it’s not fair to put it all on her. I just don’t think I’m the type of person who is comfortable with performing.”
“You could have fooled me, and everyone else in this bar.”
“That wasn’t just me up there. Mom was with me in spirit,” I said, smiling softly. “I could feel her presence.”
“Okay,” Rachel said.
“I know you don’t believe me, and that’s okay. But I did feel her. She was up there, singing with me. I know it won’t make any sense to you, but it does to me. Things like this…there’s more to the world than we understand. I know there’s a little bit of magic and I know that she’s still out there somewhere, at least her soul is, watching over me.”
Rachel offered a pinched smile. I know she didn’t believe me. Before all this I wouldn’t have believed it myself. She probably just thought that it was wishful thinking on my part and that it was due to me not being able to let Mom go. Maybe that was part of the truth, but I could feel that there was more to the world than what we could taste, touch and smell. There had to be. Singing was a way to bridge the magical world with the physical one. It was spiritual and deep and meaningful, and it was also draining. I felt exhausted after having performed, but also glorious and delirious. I closed my eyes and I could see a vision of Mom forming in front of me, telling me that she was proud of me. I gazed towards the stage. I could feel the pull of it, but I steeled myself against the desire. It was just the rush of emotion controlling me, I thought, when the sensations faded and the cold light of day shone upon my face I would be back to sanity and back to my usual self, realizing that this life wasn’t for me.
“I’m glad that you’ve made some peace with things,” Rachel said, leaning over, resting a hand on my arm. It felt comforting to be in close contact with another human, with a good friend after all that I had lost. Rachel had been at the funeral with me. I had been pretty broken up and barely made it through the eulogy. A lot of tears had been shed and even when I was standing over the coffin I found it difficult to believe that she was really gone. I almost expected her to leap out and declare that it had all been a performance to garner some attention, but she hadn’t. It almost seemed wrong that she wasn’t alive to see the crowd that had gathered there, but in some ways I suppose that death was always the grandest performance that drew the grandest crowds. It was morbid, but I started to think what my own funeral would be like.
At my age, death always seemed like a vague, distant thing, elusive, lurking in the shadows. It was something that was easy to ignore and worry about in the far future. But then someone inevitably dies and it casts light on this darkest of things. Thinking about it is unavoidable. You question your life; everything in it and everything you have done. Suddenly none of it seems enough and there’s a sense that time is running out. The world closes in and you know that, at some point, there’s going to be nothing.
As exhilarating as my time on stage was, it was impossible to not be dragged down by my sadness. My head dropped and tears started to form in my eyes again.
“So now that you’ve done this, what’s next for you?” Rachel asked. I didn’t respond for a few moments.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you said it yourself that you feel as though your life has been defined by your Mom. What are you going to do now that she’s gone? Does performing up there change anything?” she asked.
In truth, I hadn’t really thought about it. I hadn’t thought about anything other than today. I just had to make it through today, but Rachel was right. Now that Mom was dead, now that the funeral was over I had to move on and find another path. I had always lived my life in Mom’s shadow, even when we hadn’t been speaking to each other. Everything I did had been to try and escape the parameters she had defined for me, although I couldn’t say that I had done particularly well in that regard. When I spoke about her at the funeral it seemed as though she had done so much, and when I thought about what people would say in my eulogy I was left with a blank mind. In fact I didn’t know who would give a eulogy.
“I don’t think it does. I’m not going to copy Mom’s life and try to be everything she wanted me to, now that she’s gone. I wasn’t lying when I said that this was a one time performance. I’m never going to sing in front of people again,” I declared, probably a little too defensively.
“It’s a shame because people really enjoyed it. But if you’re not going to do that, then what are you going to do?”
“I have no idea.” I’d never really given much thought to what I wanted to be, only what I didn’t want to be. Mom had been so insistent on a single path that she had failed to teach me about all the other things I could do in life. She had been focused on one area, and so the world had seemed closed off and small to me. I had drifted for a while, working an ordinary job at an ordinary place, but I didn’t want to do that forever. I had yet to discover my passion in life, and I was starting to wonder if I actually had one.
“Maybe I’ll just continue as I am and see what happens for a little while,” I said.
Rachel pouted and tilted her head towards me. “That’s no way to live life. You can’t just wait for things to happen. If you do that then you’re never going to get anywhere, and you’ll only grow bitter as you see everyone else making progress in life while you get left behind. There must be something you want more than anything else in the world. You can’t just drift.”
I wracked my
brains to think, but there wasn’t anything. The only thing I had ever shown any real aptitude for was singing, and that wasn’t going to be an area I wanted to explore. I sighed and rubbed my temples. The band had returned and struck up a heavy, fast-paced tune that lured people onto the dance floor in front of the stage. The rest of our table went up. They tried to get me and Rachel to go, but I shook my head and told them that I was still recovering from my performance. They shrugged and went off, blending into the crowd, leaving Rachel and I alone. We were so close I could smell the whiskey on her breath. Our words were clear through the blazing noise that rumbled through the rest of the bar.
“I know I can’t, but I’ve never been someone who has had ambition. I’ve seen firsthand how much that can affect someone’s life, and their relationships with others. I’ve conditioned myself to stop myself from thinking in that way.”
“But there must have been something you’ve wanted,” Rachel said. “Even if it’s just a simple thing? Hell, I had a friend who all she wants out of life is to catch every Pokémon in every game. That’s all she lives for, and when she does it she’s happy enough and moves onto the next game. I wish we could all be satisfied so easily though…”
“You’ll get to France one day. I want to walk through Paris and see your restaurant. You can make it.”
“I’m not sure about that, not when I’m stuck working for Joe.”
“You’ll get there one day. It’ll just take time. Maybe you should just up and leave, go to Paris in search of your dreams and never come back. It’d be like a movie!” I said.
Rachel chuckled and shook her head. “That only ever works in the movies. I don’t speak a lick of French. If I went over there now I’d probably be laughed back to America, or I’d be stranded and I’d have to find some way to live on the streets. Besides, I could hardly leave you right now.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine, I always am,” I offered a weak smile.
“You say that, but you don’t even know what you want.”
I looked around at the bar and saw all the people who appeared to be happy. Their moods were fierce and there was nobody drinking alone. I searched my mind, diving back into the furthest recess of my psyche to try and pluck an errant ambition from my muddled mind. As my gaze drifted over the crowd, and a number of empty seats that had been vacated by people who had marched to the dance floor, I caught sight of the three men who had been looking at me on the stage. They were looking at me again, with such intensity in their eyes that I immediately looked away. My skin grew hot. Their eyes did not waver even though I had caught them. The thin hairs on the back of my neck rose and I turned back to Rachel, trying to put them out of my mind.
“There’s only one thing I can think of, and you’re not going to believe it,” I said.