Backstage Smiles

Chapter 4 -- Brooke

Four — Brooke

Michael and I were having so much fun that I only realized the hour when my phone started to ring. The screen proudly proclaimed that an unknown number was calling me, but I answered it anyway.

"Hello?"

"Hi, is this Brooke Addison?" a familiar male voice asked.

"This is she," I replied. "This is...Ashton, right?"

He laughed. "Yeah, I just have a quick question. Sara just woke up screaming. What do you usually do when she has a nightmare?"

"I play the Sara song for her." Michael gave me a quizzical look, but I signaled that everything was fine. He and I were in line for funnel cakes.

"Sara song? Ya know, I know a lot of music, but I've never heard of the Sara song," he said.

"Sara Smiles," I explained with a grin of my own. "By Panic at the Disco? It's her favorite song, and the only thing that can calm her down in the middle of the night."

"Seriously? Damn, she has good taste in music," Ashton commented.

"It's the one world in which she is infinitely more mature than her peers," I agreed. "Is that all?"

"Yeah, thanks. Sorry to bother the two of you."

"Considering it was about my kid, you had every right to bother me," I said. "See you later!"

As I tapped the screen to hang up, we made it to the front of the funnel cake line. After we ordered and were waiting for our fried delicacies, Michael asked what the phone call was about.

"Sara doesn't like sleeping in places that aren't home," I explained. "So she woke up and started screaming."

"You play her Panic when she's scared?"

I shrugged. "She's kind of named after the song. It's what I was listening to when I went into labor. So, I just kept playing it and singing it to her when she was younger, and it's become her favorite song in the world."

We took our funnel cakes from the girl behind the counter and went to find a seat. The park was starting to clear out, so it was easy to find a space under a potted tree.

"She sounds like she has better music taste than any four-year-old I've ever met," Michael said before biting into his dessert. "I mean, my aunt doesn't let her kids listen to anything but the Wiggles...and they're eleven."

I laughed around a mouthful of fried dough. After I swallowed, I said, "Music is the one area that I refused to censor after she was born. I wanted to start her education early. It pisses off my mother to no end, which is an added bonus."

"Does your mum still live in the States?"

I smirked into my food. "The accent is still that obvious after 5 years here?"

Michael nodded with a smirk. "It's adorable though. I like it."

I sighed. "Yeah, my mom still lives in Chicago. She's actually never visited me here."

"But your dad's visited?"

I nodded. "He travels a lot for work all over the world. At least twice a year he arranges to be sent to Sydney so he can drop in and say hi without spending a fortune on plane tickets."

"That sounds nice," Michael said.

I waited a beat before I replied, "It is. I love when he visits. Sara does too. She's been to the States a few times to see my brother and my sister, but she definitely prefers her grandpa."