The Song in My Heart Read Free Page B

the part of queen if I want . Queen Bitch, that is. I can still act like you’re wasting my precious time .
    “I’m going to make a pot of tea. Why don’t you play something for us?” Dess gestured at the baby grand piano, so shiny it looked wet. Clearly it was an order because there was no accompanying smile, no hint of a question or that it was a friendly suggestion. She might as well just have said, “Do it.”
    Erika ground her molars, hard, and took her time getting to the piano. She was used to performing on demand. Had grown up rushing to the piano at the snap of her mother’s fingers. Fine, she decided. As with her childhood recitals, she’d get this over as quickly as possible. It would make everyone happy—well, Sloane anyway—and then she could catch a flight back to Minneapolis and start some serious prepping for the summer circuit. The first festival was five weeks away, and she had at least a dozen more songs to learn with her band, such as it was. So far it was only herself on keyboards and bass or rhythm guitar and Sloane on drums. They still needed a lead guitarist, and she could kick Sloane’s butt for not securing someone yet, like she’d promised. They were cutting it damned close.
    At the piano, Erika flexed her fingers, stretched her wrists and admired the gorgeous Steinway & Sons instrument. Antique and top of the line, by the look of it. With rancor, she wondered if Dess even knew how to play it. She’d been in a few rich peoples’ homes before, knew it wasn’t uncommon for them to have an expensive, rarely played piano as a display of their wealth. Same thing, in her mind, as hanging an original Warhol or a Picasso. Look what I can afford to own!
    Without a word, she launched into the opening notes of Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain,” having decided to play something she liked instead of trying to guess what might appeal to Her Majesty. She closed her eyes, gave herself up to the words and the beautiful notes. She went to another place when she sang, a place somewhere between heaven and earth, where everything else fell away and the only emotion was pleasure. No, more than pleasure. Joy. And it came from her innermost being and reverberated through her entire body, pulsing a hot glow in its midst. It was almost like an orgasm, only longer and, more often than not in her experience, more fulfilling.
    She was belting out the chorus, feeling it course through her from her gut and up into her chest with hurricane-like force, shimmering past her vocal cords and out of her mouth, when she became aware of the distant shattering of a dropped dish. The intrusive noise took a moment to register, like awakening from a dream, and it was another bar of music before she stopped playing.
    Sloane leapt up from the sofa and ran to the kitchen. “Dess, you okay?”
    Erika turned and saw that Dess was bent over, picking up pieces of a china cup from the floor.
    “Shit,” Dess huffed. “Clumsy, that’s all.”
    Sloane had begun hopping around, looking panicked. “You didn’t cut your hands, did you?”
    “No, I don’t think so.”
    “Thank you, God!”
    “Jeez, Sloane.” Dess stood, hands on her hips. “What’s the big deal if I did? It’s not like I’d need stitches or anything. It’s just a cup.”
    Sloane fumbled with the broken pieces, leaving Dess to turn her full attention to Erika. She strode purposefully toward her, but when she stopped, she seemed wary, unsure.
    “Y-you,” Dess stammered. “Your voice.”
    “Yes?” This was going to be fun.
    “Where did you learn to sing like that?”
    “Like what?”
    Jaw muscles clenched, relaxed. A tiny glint ascended in Dess’s eyes. “Like you’re the offspring of Gladys Knight and Karen Carpenter. With a little Whitney and Wynonna thrown in for good measure.”
    Erika shrugged. Even from someone as famous and talented as Dess Hampton, the compliment meant little. For most of her twenty-eight years, praises for her singing and