String Bridge Read Free Page B

rolls her eyes up in thought. “Medium-lots.”
    “Okay then. Medium-lots isn’t too bad, right? Can you wait another ten minutes until we get you to preschool?” If it is only ten bloody minutes.
    Tessa nods with a half-smile.
    “Great,” I reply, with a kiss in the air. “Soon. We’ll be there soon.”
    Now the car behind me does nudge my bumper as the traffic moves forward at a more reasonable pace. I accelerate in haste, making it to the next set of traffic lights just in time for them to turn red. I can’t be late for this presentation. I am the presentation.
    I turn on the radio to distract myself from the anxiety bubbling in my throat like baking soda in vinegar. Rock FM—the only station I enjoy in this country. Patti Smith is on. What a legendary musician—an inspiration. A rock goddess, who in my opinion, puts every other female rock musician of her generation to shame. I would do anything to go to her concert tonight. Perhaps if I hadn’t been such a social recluse lately, I would have heard about it sooner than yesterday and arranged to go.
    The lights turn green and we get moving onto a wider road where I can step on the gas. Finally . I take a fleeting look into the rear-view mirror again to check that Tessa hasn’t continued to dig up her nose. She’s bopping her head up and down to the music and twiddling her fingers around as if playing guitar. I sometimes wonder whether she’s seen Alex do it, or whether she actually feels the rhythm and can’t control herself. Unlike Alex, who does it consciously in fun, I catch myself playing air-guitar as if it were a common reflex.
    To be honest, it can be quite embarrassing. My favorite colleague, Heather, once caught me at it by the coffee station in the office with my headphones on. I imagine it would have been a funny sight—a professional-looking thirty-year-old woman, who attempts to mask her post-baby stomach flab with bulky male shirts, strumming an invisible guitar with her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth. Yes, I stick my tongue out when I concentrate. A habit I have recently become self-conscious about since realizing I will soon have to concentrate in front of a large audience of strangers. I’ll have to conquer this stage fright once and for all today.
    Deep breaths. Do what Heather said. Pretend you are practicing on your own in your bedroom. Windows and doors closed. Free from interruptions.
    Being a victim of stage fright is not easy, to say the least, for a woman with a passion for music sewn into her seams. In my world, the stage is a magnet. One side pulls me in, the other pushes me away, generating an involuntary psychological push-and-shove with no resolution in sight. Despite stage fright paralyzing me like a dose of tetrodotoxin, the overall thrill of performing survives the poison, and I wake up on the other side, ready to get back up on the stage and start all over again. I don’t remember the angst; and the craving to perform again overpowers me like drug withdrawal. If Alex hadn’t asked me to stop playing gigs would I be craving this now? Would I have become this tyrant of an editor who sports herself as a determined corporate ladder-climber? What if I followed this course in life because the stage fright had ultimately taken over? What if I subconsciously found an excuse to escape the fear? Should I really be putting the blame on Alex? Perhaps this is my fault. Perhaps it wasn’t Alex’s doing at all.
     
     
    Before I met Alex I earned enough money to feed myself and pay the bills through random solo gigging. And that’s not easy to do, especially in Greece where the mention of music generally sparks thoughts of bouzoukis and traditional dance in foustanela (male dress).
    My first live gig in Athens was at a tiny venue that comfortably held eighty to a hundred people. That night there were a hundred and fifty ticket stubs collected at the door. And that’s not counting the acquaintances of the promoter, venue