The Kid

Syl had to jiggle the old key in the lock a moment before the front door to the old beach house finally opened. As she stepped in, she gave out a long sigh of relief, and relished the oddly foreign sensation caused by knowing rest and relaxation were at hand. No politics. No tours. No shows. No crowds. No social hierarchy. No false friends. Just her, the sand, the sea, her friend's beach house and...

Her little girl burst in through the door, laughing as a black and white beagle chased her down the hall.

“Faith! Charlie! You're trailing sand into the house!” She tried to sound stern, but her tone betrayed her good mood. She felt too good to play disciplinarian today. Smiling, she sighed another contented sigh and walked down the front hall to find a broom closet, passing by the trail of sand that led into the living room. She could hear her daughter's voice through the doorway.

“Hi! I'm Faith! Who are you?”

The smile dropped from Syl's face and she back-pedalled to the living room. “Faith? Who are you talking to, love?”

“Oh, just him,” the girl replied naively, not at all finding anything odd with the situation. She nodded towards the couch as she sat on the floor beside the coffee table, playfully hugging the family dog.

A boy about 12 or 13 years old slouched back on the couch with his shoes kicked up on the coffee table. His angry expression told Syl he was definitely not in a good mood.

Her sigh this time as she approached the couch wasn't out of relief or contentment.

“Excuse me? Hi.” When he didn't respond, she tapped him on the shoulder. When he looked up, she noticed he was wearing the earbuds to an MP3 player and motioned him to take them off. He complied reluctantly.

She also noticed he wasn't looking all the way up at her.

“Hi, I'm up here, young man. If you're gonna have the balls to ogle someone, you should at least have the decency to be discrete about it until they give you permission.”

When his attention was finally on her face, she continued calmly. “Now I don't mean to be rude, but I'm quite certain this house doesn't belong to you, so you might wanna get your feet off that table. Also this house was supposed to be empty when I got here, so I'd like to know, who are you and what are you doing here?”

Friends and "Friends"

The way her daughter's face lit up actually broke Syl's heart.

“Are we gonna see Papa?” Faith asked, excitedly.

Syl sighed, “No, love, sorry. We're not gonna see Papa this time.” She wasn't even sure where the girl's father was at the moment.

“Aww... If we're not gonna see Papa, why are we goin' to Nu'york then?” Pouting with disappointment, the girl kicked her feet impatiently as she sat on the edge of the bed. She really couldn't imagine any other reason to visit the American city, much less understand the utter contempt and bitterness her mother held for the city she reluctantly called their 'home'.

Her mother packed the last of their bags and put their luggage by the door. “There's a... friend... I'd like to visit before we go on vacation in Rio.”

“Okay,” Faith chirped merrily, completely oblivious, as she hopped off the bed and grabbed her little child-sized backpack. “I hope my friends are there too. I wanna play with Ryan and Aaron again. They're so fun.”

The Solo Artist

She paid for her ticket at the door and slipped into the smaller room of the club. At venues like this, larger rooms were reserved for bigger gigs, like Dangerous Faith, Mama Roach or Running with Scissors, but for up-and-coming artists and exclusive, private performances, smaller rooms were available to provide a cozier, more intimate musical experience. This particular room could barely fit 500, and looking over the crowd, she guessed it was probably just under half full.

She grinned to herself. She had heard him sing before, so she doubted that rooms like this would stay half full once he got his solo career rolling.

As the lights dimmed, signifying that the show was about to start, she hung near the back of the room in an attempt to go unnoticed. They were friends, but she didn't know him as well as she'd like, and attending his concert uninvited, she felt like she was intruding. Hopefully, she'd be able to slip out after the show as quickly as she slipped in.

He burst onto the stage full of energy, and the crowd was eating out of his hands in an instant. Smiling, she suspected most of his fans were carry-overs from his previous career as the bassist for one of the top 40 rock bands in the world. His stage presence certainly showed his roots. An audience of 200 or a throng of 10,000, he probably would have gone all out for the crowd just the same.

The show progressed with the audience fully enthralled, chanting and cheering and lost in the energy of the performance.

For herself, she tried to keep her cringing internal. Being a musician as well, her own knowledge and experience, which would normally be beneficial in most circumstances, kept her from getting completely lost in the moment and fully enjoying the show. She tried to ignore it, but something was... missing.

He had the stage presence, the talent, the charisma, the skill, but she could hear it in the songs that his performance was suffering musically. His repetoire didn't fit his solo style. Designed for a larger band, his musical selection sounded empty, hollow, almost lonely. He needed a completely new repetoire; something customized especially for him, something to emphasize his skills and strengths, not bring attention to what he had lost by deciding to go solo with his musical career.

Still, what he lacked in the music, he more than made up for in his presence and showmanship, she noticed as she watched the crowd surge towards the stage as he leaned down to shake hands with the audience. She wished she could captivate her own fans even half as well as he did his.

When the show ended, she began to make her way to the exit along with the other patrons, but stopped in her tracks when she thought she heard someone call her name. Looking around, she saw him waving as he approached. Escaping unnoticed was now out of the question.

They smiled as they greeted each other and talked a bit, laughed a little, but not for long. He had to leave for New York in less than an hour. Somewhere in that short conversation, they managed to agree to discuss 'price-gouging capitalists' over lunch.

As they parted ways, she couldn't help but wonder if that was his weird way of asking her out on a date.

How NOT To Remove An Ass From A Bar

Originally, she had thought herself or Cowboy held the title, but after struggling to remove the hooved 'guest' from the rooftop patio for the better part of the day, she had to admit the 'World's Most Stubborn Ass' was actually a real-life ass.

“What the fuck were they even doing with this thing up here anyway?” she asked one of the chefs who was trying to help extract the animal from the premises. She had very little patience for people or parties lately, so had skipped the pre-wedding festivities last night.

The chef shrugged and shook his head. Having had the previous night off, he hadn't a clue either.

“Right,” she sighed, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. She was going to need painkillers for the headache this was giving her. “Any more bright ideas?”

They had tried pushing it, pulling it, luring it, leading it, chasing it, scaring it, and other various attempts that had merely led to damaged chairs, tables and other patio fixtures. Nothing seemed to be working.

At least, the cost for the property damage wasn't coming out of her wallet.

Currently, the donkey stood at the far side of the patio, contently eating the leaves of the last living potted plant on the rooftop. Sighing, she pulled a small notebook out of her back pocket and scribbled on one of the pages, another note of what else had to be replaced.

As she slipped it back into her pocket, she spotted what appeared to be the last undamaged chair on the patio, toppled in a nearby corner. She went over, picked it up and set it on its legs, then used the opportunity to sit and think.

She didn't get to think for very long. The seat wobbled and creaked suddenly, before collapsing underneath her. Rubbing her sore rear, she picked up one of the wooden legs that had been loosen when it was knocked over during one of the failed attempts to get the creature off the roof.

Grumbling, she swore and, without looking, whipped the leg across the patio in frustration.

The shocked and angry hee-haw of the donkey told her what she had hit.

The shocked, scared look of the chef before he ran off confirmed what she suspected from the galloping thumps on the stone-tiled patio floor.

She looked up anyway.

“Aw... shit...”

She was on her feet in a second and sprinting for the stairs, silently thanking Neil for kicking her out of bed all those mornings to get her to go for a run.

She managed to vault down the first dozen steps, yelling “Open the back doors! OPEN THE BACK DOORS!” as she went, but lost her footing when she landed and tumbled the rest of the way down. There was a trail of heavy thuds and profuse swearing until she crashed into the PATIO CLOSED sign at the bottom of the staircase.

She lay there a moment, dazed, before the sound of hoofbeats on the wooden stairs shook her back to her senses. Then she was back on her feet in an instant. If she had sprained or broken anything in the fall, adrenaline and self-preservation wouldn't let her know until after.

“OPEN THE FUCKING BACK DOORS!” she screamed as she bolted past the kitchen. She didn't have to look behind her to know the mad donkey was gaining on her.

Two of the chefs from the kitchen were holding open the shipping doors that led into the back alley, when she arrived at the back of bar and grill. She couldn't spare the breath to thank them as she rushed past.

As she turned down the alley, she heard a loud, metallic crash behind her. She afforded herself a glance and slowed her steps. The ass tripped and stumbled over some garbage cans it had run into in the narrow alleyway. Distracted and disoriented, it lost its initial fury and began to wander aimlessly down the alley in the opposite direction.

Sighing in relief, she leaned against a nearby wall and sunk to the ground.

She really hoped everyday wasn't going to be like this at her new job.

A Moment of Freedom

There was definitely something about Rio.

She could never figure it out. Maybe it was something in the air, or maybe in the water, but there was something about the sea-side city that always made playing a show here different from playing anywhere else.

Their concert was supposed to be over. The crowd was cheering. Her bandmate was already making his exit as he bowed and waved to the fans. The final notes from their last encore still hung in the air. She could still feel her guitar strings vibrating under her fingertips.

She didn't care.

She reached for her mic.

She closed her eyes.

She began to sing.

A hush slowly enveloped the sea of fans, as her unaccompanied voice drifted over the crowd like morning mist, strong and sad and solemn. After the long set, she still had perfect pitch; there wasn't a hint of a tired, wavering rasp in her spur-of-the-moment singing.

Somewhere in the back of the club, somebody started clapping to the rhythmn, which quickly caught on. Soon, the rest of the room joined in, with cheers and whistling punctuating the beat. Several voices rose from the crowd to sing along with her.

She kept her eyes shut and blocked out the noise.

She didn't care. She wasn't singing for them.

For once, she was being selfish. She was singing for herself and didn't care who was present to hear.

And for one very rare, very sweet moment...

...she was free...

Plip, plip, plip...

She slowed her pace as she began to yawn. It was late, but she didn't feel like going back to the hotel.

Her personal assistant had expected her to stay at the beach house, so he hadn't booked her a room in advance. Now the hotel was already full, but he had managed to make arrangements for her to share the accomdations her bandmate had already booked. Gareth was kind enough to let her take the bed, while he took the cot room service had brought in.

But as it turned out, her violinist talked in his sleep.

And being probably the only virgin in the world, (not counting groupies, which meant she could probably make a fortune off of selling him to the Dark Cult of Kobe for use as a ritual sacrifice,) the content of his sleep-talk was... loud... to say the least.

Sighing, she slowed to a walk, as she scanned the nearly-abandoned beach. After another long day of interviews, rather than listen to the late-night play-by-play of her bandmate's subconscious fantasies, she had made a quick change to her workout gear and had gone for a run. She couldn't remember the last time she went out for a run, much less one along the beaches in Rio.

She had only seen a couple of other runners and a pair of lovers walking hand-in-hand take advantage of the full midnight moon. Otherwise, all the sane people in the city were asleep.

The tide lapped lazily in time with her steps, the shifting sands whispering underneath the soles of her shoes. Pausing, she approached the water and bent down to pick up a small, flat rock.

She hadn't done this since she was a kid.

She straightened, and deftly flicked her wrist. She watched the tiny ripple-rings erupt along the ocean's ebb-and-flow surface.

One. Two. Three. Four. She counted as she listened to the plip, plip, plip of the stone.

Inspecting the beach again, she picked up another stone of similar shape and size and flicked her wrist again. Her mother used to always take her to The Lake to skim stones, when she was upset. Usually after she was bullied by the kids of one of the other celebritites her mother used to hang out with. It was her mother who taught her how to skim stones.

She always used to say that anger was like skimming stones. Anyone can take a rock and chuck it in the water, and make a big, ugly splash. It took patience and focus, concentration and a little bit of luck, to take the same power, the same anger, the same action and accomplish something graceful and meaningful, use that same energy to make something to be proud of instead.

Plip, plip, plip, plip, plip.

She stared out over the water, watching the last tiny ripple expand before fading into the tide. Then nothing but the surging-receding ocean.

Suddenly, she growled and unceremoniously grabbed at the ground, pulling up a handful of sand and rocks. With an angry yell, she whipped it into the water so hard she lost her footing.

Falling heavily to the ground, she closed her eyes and heard rather than saw the loud, ugly splashes of stones and clumps of sand tumbling into the sea.

She didn't have to look up to know that the water had swallowed up the ugly splashes as indiscriminately as the graceful plips a moment before.

No Vacancy...

She should have realized the beach house was occupied by the varying and numerous tracks that littered the sand around it, but she wasn't completely coherent at the moment. With an early morning flight arrival, followed almost immediately by a rehearsal and two interviews with the media, it had already been a busy day. She was still getting used to the fact that she didn't have to cram her time catering to the demands for everybody else except herself, and her scheduling (or lack thereof) reflected this. She felt like there was always something that needed to be done.

This would be the first time she'd actually force herself to relax in years.

Slipping the key in, she unlocked the front door, but didn't even manage to open it halfway before it got jammed on a stray shoe one of the kids had left by the entrance.

She stared at the shoe and sighed. He said she could borrow his beach house whenever she liked. She just never told him when that would be. Obviously, now wasn't a good time.

She wasn't about to intrude on the happy family life.

Thinking some of the kids would appreciate the treat, she left a package of cookies that were meant for the restaurant by the entrance and silently closed the door.

As she made her way back down the beach, she felt in her pocket the old key with the incription 'Neil J' and wondered if she should have just left it in the lock when she left.