Chapter 16 #2
“Then there’s Moses and the Israelites when they got to the Red Sea. Stand still, and Pharaoh’s army kills you. Keep going, and you drown in the sea. God’s creative way: How about I part that sea and you walk through it on dry ground?”
“I can relate to drowning too.”
Blake lowered his voice. “Caleb, whether you want to or not, you have to talk to her. Make up your mind about your future, then grab it.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Dude, you think too much. ‘Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing.’ Go look that up in your Bible and run with it.”
Blake ought to know. He and Rachel had been perfect together.
“I’m going home.” Blake started toward the entrance, then stopped. “Sometimes we have to step out in faith. I was so terrified the first time I told Rachel I loved her, I literally hyperventilated. She loved me anyway. Maybe more because I showed courage in weakness.”
Courage in weakness…
Visibly swallowing, Blake held Caleb’s gaze, as if unashamed of the tear in his eye. “You’re wasting time you could have with her.”
His friend’s raspy voice cut through Caleb, tightened his throat.
“Fight for her, dude.”
Blake was right. If Ariel loved him, he’d find a way to make this work.
Aunt Dahlia’s tone told Ariel the bad news before she spoke the words the next morning.
“Uncle Clarence had another setback last night.” Over the phone, her aunt’s voice held a weary timbre, as if she’d stayed up all night. Which she probably had.
“Are you at the hospital now?” Ariel had rolled out of bed at six—a full hour before her aunt’s call—and now watched from her balcony as the other bands arrived at the Grand as the sun rose over the water.
After a moment, she moved to her closet and debated between wearing shorts and her Country Chick T-shirt or a sundress.
“I just got back to the hotel. I stayed all night so Aunt Winnie could go home.” She gave a little sigh.
Dear Aunt Dahlia. “You come to everyone’s rescue, and we all love you for it.”
“The audience might not love me when they find out. But you’ll do great. I already called the production team, so they know what changes to make.”
“We’re prepared, but nobody wants to play the concert without you.
” Still in her comfy bamboo pajamas the day before the concert, Ariel dropped ice into her pink Yeti tumbler, then cracked open a bottle of spring water and poured it in.
“This is a huge change for the band. When you first told me you wanted to mix things up, this is not what you meant.”
“I didn’t know what I meant. But this might be our shining moment. I might have an idea that will bring the change we want.”
Ariel knew exactly what she meant, and her chest squeezed at the thought. “You can’t leave the band. You’re the glitter and the glam. You’re a sister, mom, and auntie to the world.”
“Maybe, but Ariel, you’re the heart of the band. You’re every man’s sweetheart and every girl’s ideal.”
“I don’t know about that, but I busted out of my bubble, Auntie. For exactly one date with Caleb Kennedy. But it would never work out. And I don’t want to disappoint you either.”
“Well, Auggie trusts him, so I will too. And I trust you—with everything.”
Everything? “Like a new direction for the band?”
“Auggie thinks I might have held on to the band a little too tight in the past. And to you. So I want us to expand our franchise into two bands—yours and mine.”
She’d wanted this freedom so much it was hard to tell her she no longer needed it. “That sounds good. But Caleb still hasn’t decided between the inn and Drake Hamilton’s band.”
Aunt Dahlia laughed her great big laugh. “He’d better stick to music.”
“Right, and that’s his dilemma. He doesn’t want to disappoint his grandfather and the relatives before him who tried to keep the inn in the family.”
“I wouldn’t worry about the ancestors. They’re dead, aren’t they? It’s hard to offend a dead person.”
After she hung up with her aunt, Ariel finally settled on shorts and the T-shirt for their final rehearsal before tomorrow’s concert.
She grabbed her guitar case and straw handbag and started for the inn.
Since they hadn’t opened again after the jelly bean incident, Ariel wouldn’t bother anyone if she ran through a few songs in the parlor before nine o’clock rehearsal.
The town still slept this early Tuesday morning, with only one carriage and a few bikes on the streets, so Ariel carried her guitar the four blocks to Island House.
When she arrived, she set her music on the piano stand and took the bench.
While leafing through the music, Ariel found Earl’s “Mercy Song.” She played through it twice, singing along softly.
The world needed this song.
Caleb’s distinctive, sophisticated clicking sounds of wingtips on the wood floor leading to the carpeted parlor rang in the hallway. Moments later, Caleb came into the room, carrying a tray.
Caleb—unreachable now. If only things had ended differently…
“The song sounded great.”
“It sounded better with the whole band.”
He set the tray with her regular breakfast on a nearby table and sipped his creamed coffee.
“How sweet.” Ariel stood from the piano and took a place at the table, the good aromas of fresh, hot bread and peanut butter drawing her. “Thank you, Caleb.”
He sat next to her but kept his thanksgiving private, which hurt a little. Ariel gave her own thanks silently as well.
“You need to play and sing ‘Mercy Song’ at the concert.” He took a long drink of his almost-coffee.
“Tomorrow? I haven’t practiced it much, and it’s pretty complex. Lots of jazz chords.”
“It’s right for you.”
Maybe…
“You should also include the song you sang on your porch that morning.”
“‘You Come to Me at Night’?”
“It has a jazz flavor, like ‘Mercy Song.’”
This man certainly liked to stretch her.
But Ariel had reduced the song to chords the day she’d sung it on the fly. She could have it ready to play in no time. “Aunt Dahlia won’t sing the new jazz songs. So if we use them, we’ll have to divide the band.”
“There are ways to do that well.”
Her mind raced with possibilities as she sipped her tea. “We could have both a country band and a jazz/gospel band.”
“You could lead the gospel band.”
“I didn’t do so great last night, but I’d try again.” At once, she remembered she was hungry and took a bite of her toast. Plenty of peanut butter and the toast had cooled enough so as not to melt the butter and peanut butter. “Caleb, this is a perfect piece of toast.”
“I wouldn’t be such a bad innkeeper if I could make good toast every time, right?”
She smiled at his little joke, checked the time on the bookcase clock. Almost eight. The band would trickle in soon. “Tomorrow at this time, the stage crew will start setting up. The next morning, I’ll leave. By myself, if my aunt hasn’t come back.”
“Looking forward to going home?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe.” She nibbled at her toast, stalling for time. How much more of her personal life should she share with a man who wouldn’t consider a relationship with her?
If she wanted to tell him, she had to do it now, before the band arrived. “I thought the island, or at least the farm, would feel like home. I came here looking for a sense of heritage, but it didn’t happen.”
“You’ve been gone a long time.”
“True. Maybe my hopes were unrealistic. But I also wanted to connect with my family. I didn’t realize a working vacation would amount to a lot of work and not much vacation.”
Caleb laid down his fork. “You didn’t get to spend much time with them.”
“I feel disconnected. I’m a lot younger than my siblings, but I still want a relationship with them. It’s hard since we’ve had separate lives since I was ten. Most of the time, I don’t feel important to them.”
“Things would be different if you lived closer and were in each other’s lives.”
“Right. Charlotte can’t come to the concert, and I had to beg Ethan for a maybe.
Mama calls me two or three times a week.
But I never hear my father’s or my siblings’ voices unless I call them, and then it’s awkward.
” She hesitated. “It’s not their fault. We simply don’t have a lot in common. ” It felt good to tell someone, though.
The longing for a home of her own crept up on her again. She wanted to push aside the feeling. Instead, she embraced it, acknowledged that she wanted—needed—to live the life the Lord intended.
Time to stop longing for closeness with siblings she barely knew. To stop living in Aunt Dahlia’s giant shadow.
The thought surprised her. Maybe it meant she really could lead a new band, one with more of her personality and less of Aunt Dahlia’s.
It was time to become—truly become—Ariel Denton Sullivan.
Ariel Denton Sullivan…
Wasn’t that her true essence? A Sullivan by birth. A Denton in scope.
And Ariel? That was her core, her heart. The intangible that defined her, set her apart from her father’s heritage and her aunt’s legacy.
And wouldn’t it look nice on a record?