Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Joe was standing on the porch when Cece opened the door, a small bouquet of daisies and greenery in one hand, a bakery bag in the other. He smiled the moment he saw her, then leaned in and kissed her gently, careful and unhurried.
“How are you doing?” he asked, searching her face as if already trying to make that determination himself.
“I’m okay,” Cece said, and realized it was true. Still a little tired. And also a little sore. But that wasn’t going to hold her back. “Better than I was yesterday.”
“Good.” He handed her the flowers. “For you. I thought they might be nice in the house.”
She took them, smiling at his kind gesture. “They’re perfect. Thank you.” She stepped aside to let him in, then added, more quietly, “And thank you again. For yesterday. For going with me.”
“Of course,” he said, like there had never been any other option. He shut the door behind him and followed her into the house. “I was glad I could be there.”
She carried the flowers into the kitchen and set them on the counter while she filled a vase with water. Her movements were maybe a little slower than usual, but she didn’t mind that. She’d get back to her normal routine tomorrow.
Joe leaned against the counter, watching her. “You sure you’re up for recording today?” he asked. “We can wait a few days if you want.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “And I want to do it. If I don’t, I’ll end up sitting around thinking about how I feel and that is not how I want today to go.” The daisies really were pretty. She trimmed the stems, slid the flowers into the vase, and turned to face him. “Besides, this is important to me.”
He nodded, accepting that. “All right. Then we do it your way.”
“Good, because my way involves coffee first.” She’d only had one cup and was in desperate need of another.
Peanut jumped up on the counter to sniff the flowers. “Oh, no, you don’t,” Cece said. “You eat those and you’re in big trouble.”
Peanut gave her a look, then jumped down.
Joe laughed. “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. She’ll be a good girl, won’t you, Peanut?”
The little calico cat wound around his legs.
“Anyway,” he said. “Coffee sounds great. And I came prepared,” he said, lifting the bakery bag he was still holding. “Low-sugar lemon poppyseed almond flour muffins.”
She laughed softly that he’d found something that sounded so healthy. “You know me well.”
They had coffee and muffins, chatting about everything but the interview and yesterday’s procedure, then refilled their cups and walked into the room Cece had converted into her podcast studio.
Joe took it in, nodding. “Looks great. Looks official.”
“It feels official,” she said. “Which helps me get in the right headspace, you know?”
The space was calm and familiar. The worktable was cleared except for her laptop, microphones, headsets, and the printed list of questions she’d sent him earlier. Everything was exactly where she’d left it.
“I’ve got everything set up,” she said. “I just need a minute or two to adjust the sound levels.”
“Take all the time you need,” he said. He settled into the guest chair. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She set the flowers behind the laptop where she could see them, her coffee next to the laptop, then checked the microphone levels out of habit more than necessity. She turned to look at him and grimaced, caught off-guard by a twinge in her neck where she was still sore.
Joe frowned. “You sure you’re up for this today?” he asked. “I’m really fine to reschedule if you want.”
“I don’t,” she said. “I’m a little sore, that’s all.” She shot him a smile that she really felt. “I want to do this interview with you. I’ve been looking forward to it. I think you’ll be a great second episode. A solid follow-up to Blaise.”
“I don’t know,” he teased. “From supermodel to retired lawyer?”
She laughed. “We both know you’re a lot more than that.”
He nodded, eyes twinkling. “All right. If you’re sure.”
“I am.” She took a breath, squared her shoulders, and pulled herself closer to the desk. “Okay,” she said, handing him a headset. “Let’s make this a good one.”
Joe set his coffee cup down, took the headset and put it on. “I’m going to do my best.”
Cece hit Record and glanced at the waveform as she spoke a few test words. Levels looked good. She adjusted her mic a fraction, then settled back in her chair.
“All right,” she said, giving him a nod so he knew they were starting.
“This is Real Life: Take Two. I’m Cece Davenport, and today I’m sitting down with Jonas Preston.
He’s a retired attorney-turned-songwriter and musician.
He’s also the man behind the music you hear at the beginning and end of every episode of this podcast.”
Joe smiled, a little self-conscious but relaxed. “That still sounds strange when you say it out loud.”
“I think the music you wrote for this show is perfect,” Cece said. “I bet most of the listeners would agree.” Assuming there would be listeners, but she had to have faith.
She waited a beat before she continued. “So let’s start with the question that seems the most obvious,” she said. “You practiced law for decades. You had a solid career and a stellar reputation. Why walk away from that to pursue the dream of being a working singer-songwriter?”
Joe leaned back, hands resting on his thighs, his expression so serious that she thought she detected a little pain in his eyes.
“Because the profession was turning me into someone I didn’t want to be and someone I didn’t like,” he said.
“My soul struggled with the things I saw. The way people treated each other. The amount of betrayal. The kind of pain people were willing to inflict on someone they’d professed to love, all in the name of money. ”
He shook his head. “It was damaging parts of me.” He touched his chest. “I knew I was going to have to make a change. And soon.”
Cece nodded, encouraging him to keep going. “Just to clarify, you were a family law attorney, correct?”
“Yes. Some of the divorces were cut-and-dry, but some of them were like the human equivalent of muriatic acid. They destroyed everything they touched.”
She winced. “Was there one particular incident?”
He took a deep breath. “Yes. There was. And for the sake of my client and because of privacy laws, I can only talk about it in the most general terms but suffice it to say that I did what I thought was in her best interests. For that, I was almost disbarred. I chose to retire and save my firm the embarrassment, but I know in my heart it was the right thing to do. I sleep just fine at night, and that’s more important than any job, I promise you that. ”
“It sounds…heroic,” Cece replied.
“I’m no hero. I’m just a human being who found the courage to do the right thing. We should all conduct ourselves that way.”
“No argument from me.”
“I loved parts of my job,” he continued. “Helping people. Solving problems. But once I retired, music called to me. I’d always fooled around on the guitar a bit. Once I had the time to take it seriously, I thought, why not? It helped heal me, in a lot of ways.”
“So music was the antidote, or maybe the thing you’d been missing?” Cece said.
“I think what I was missing was making something,” he corrected gently. “After years of destroying marriages, being able to create was…” He smiled. “Life-changing. In some ways, music and songwriting saved my life.”
She made a note on her pad about that because it touched her. “You play at Shooters, a small local bar, once a month now,” she said. “That’s not exactly Madison Square Garden.”
Joe laughed. “No. But it’s real and people show up. They listen. They clap. Sometimes they sing along. I don’t need more than that.”
“It’s still pretty impressive,” Cece said. “Especially when you consider how many people never let themselves even try.”
She glanced at the clock, then back at him. Plenty of time. She could afford to go deeper.
“Was there a moment when you almost didn’t do this?” she asked. “When you thought, ‘This is ridiculous. I should stick to what I know.’”
Joe didn’t answer right away. He looked down, considering.
“Yes,” he said finally. “More than once. Mostly when I thought about what people would think. Or when I worried I’d fail publicly. People have a lot of pride about that sort of thing, but men especially. Some of my colleagues thought I was nuts.”
“What changed?”
“I decided that not trying felt worse than failing,” he said. “At least failure means you made an attempt. I didn’t want to live the rest of my life thinking what if?”
Cece felt that hit deep in her soul. She kept her face neutral and her voice steady. “You didn’t just start playing again,” she said. “You write. You record. You really committed to the whole process. That takes more than just a desire.”
“It does,” he said. “It takes discipline. And humility. I’m not twenty-five anymore.
I don’t bounce back the same way.” He looked at his hands.
“Took a while to build these callouses from the strings. But at this age, I know who I am. I’m more patient with how long things take.
I understand good takes time and it rarely, if ever, turns into perfect. And I’m okay with that.”
She smiled slightly. “That’s not something people talk about enough. The trade-offs. Being able to get to a place where your own personal satisfaction is enough.”
“No,” Joe said. “Everyone wants to focus on the grind. Or they talk about what you might lose. They don’t talk about what you gain. About the joy. The happiness.”
Cece gave that moment a second, then shifted gears. “You also helped me with this podcast,” she said. “You wrote the theme music. Why say yes to that?”
Joe glanced at her, his smile barely contained. “Because you needed some and I wanted to help. Because I believe in what you’re doing. And maybe I wanted to see if I could. I do love a challenge.”
“You nailed it,” she said with a touch of pride. “And I appreciate that you wanted to support this podcast.”
His smile blossomed. “What you’re doing is important. You’re giving people space to talk about who they are now. People of a certain age. The kind of people that are often dismissed as no longer interesting or important.”
She felt a flicker of emotion and tamped it down, the way she always did. This wasn’t about her.
“So if someone listening is sixty, or seventy, or just tired of where they are in life,” Cece said. “And they’re thinking about doing something they put off for years—what would you tell them?”
Joe didn’t hesitate. “Start small. It might be scary, but so what? We’ve lived this long, right? Just start. Waiting for confidence is a mistake. Confidence comes after.”
Cece nodded, already knowing that line would stay in the edit. It was so good and so true.
She glanced at her notes, then back at him. “That feels like a good place to pause,” she said. “When we come back, I want to talk about what it’s like to be seen differently when you change course. Especially by people who knew you before.”
Joe took a breath and exhaled. “That is a very real thing.”
Cece reached for the mouse and marked the break, satisfied. This was exactly the conversation she’d hoped for. Joe was plainspoken, thoughtful, and honest.
And they were only just getting started.