A mother's love

Chapter 31

Michaela warned Brian not to expect too much from her show but there was no dampening Brian's excitement, going with Michaela to watch her perform was too many firsts all rolled into one for him to be anything but excited. When Michaela came to their house to pick him up and while they driving to the café Brian feigned nonchalance when in reality a thousand butterflies were fluttering out of control in his stomach. The crowd at the café was as disappointing as Michaela had predicted it would be; fewer than twenty people had turned out. Michaela wasn't disappointed by the disappointing turnout; she surveyed the crowd for a few brief seconds before she started setting up her stuff. While she was setting up five people who were already in the café came up to her and greeted her warmly with hugs and kisses. Brian stood aside and was introduced to all of them by Brenda after she had received their greetings and good wishes. Two of them—Sarah and Vince—were struggling musicians like her, the other three—Grant, Aubrey and Jessica—were fans of hers that attended her shows whenever they could to lend her their support. Brian was too nervous to sit with them; he sat on his own on a stool by the counter, preferring a seat that afforded him a certain expectation of personal space in an environment he was experiencing for the first time. Brenda had given him $10 to spend and he used $1.50 of it to order himself a plain coffee, which he ordered because he was too nervous about making a fool of himself by ordering something he knew nothing about and because he wanted to return as much money to Brenda as possible. The butterflies in his stomach were fluttering even more uncontrollably in the café than they had been in the car as the reality of being alone in a social situation for the first time in his life started to press in on him from all sides. All he thought about was remaining in his own small space without drawing any attention to himself which would encourage his small space to be encroached upon in some way, that is until Michaela leaned into the microphone, thanked everybody for coming out, told them she hoped they enjoy themselves and announced her first song, Into the Light, which she explained was about a break-up she had gone through that had been especially hard for her because she had been in love with the boy who had dumped her.

Michaela performing for an audience was nothing like what Brian had seen of her playing in Wal-Mart or in her room for him. Sitting on her stool behind her two microphones facing the crowd, she could not have been any more in her element. Her immersion in her music and in her performance was such that she looked like she had entered a transcendental state and the music was emanating from her as if flowing uninterrupted from the very purest source of her artistry.

Michaela aroused feelings in Brian he couldn't make sense of. He was in awe of her; when he was with her he struggled for the right words to say to her and when he was away from her he spent his time going over what they'd talked about the last time they'd talked in search of ways to improve the way he spoke when he was with her. His feelings where Michaela was concerned were completely different from his feelings for Brenda and yet Brian was of no doubt that what he felt for Michaela was love. He sat on his stool watching her perform growing only more captivated by her, so much so that the doubling of the crowd inside the café went unnoticed by him.

"Hey, you came with Mickey, right?" Sarah came over to him and asked him.

"Erm, yeah," Brian quavered.

"Why don't you come over and sit with us, instead of sitting over here by yourself."

"Oh, erm, I don't know..."

"We're not gonna hurt you, come on."

Brian could tell that Sarah wasn't going to take no for an answer so he got off his stool and followed her to the table where she was sitting with Vince. Everybody was focused entirely on Michaela so Brian was able to join them quietly and unobtrusively, and from his new vantage point was able to appreciate how much the crowd had grown and how much they were all enjoying Michaela's performance.