It's So Easy | Buddy Holly

Crowd

January 26th, 1959. 4:21 pm, Fournier's Ballroom, Eau Claire, Wisconsin

Buddy and I walk into our dressing room and he sighs. "I wanna go home."

"Me too. We can power through, right? We've been through worse...I think."

He sets down his bag and sits in one of the chairs infront of the vanity/counter/whatever. "As long as I have you, it'll be fine. If you weren't here, I'd be even more of a disaster."

"I'd be so bored at home." I sit in the chair next to him.

He leans forward and looks into the mirror. "I need t'shave."

"You look like you're a runaway teenager who is trying to rebel by growing out his pathetic facial hair."

"You're right, I've never been able to grow anythin' worthy."

"You would look weird, anyway."

"I know."

"I would still love you, no matter what."

Buddy smiles and looks at me in the mirror. "I love you no matter what."

8:36 pm

"The wire in the amp is snapped!" Waylon says to the stage manager, Fabian.

"We're more than a half an hour late starting, can you fix it?!"

"You gotta give us a few minutes, we need more wire and some tape and probably more."

"The crowd is getting rowdy, someone has to entertain them!"

All eyes in the room turn to me. Well, I guess it's not a room as much as it is behind the curtian to the side of the stage.

I feel my face turn red. "Um, what?"

Fabian grabs my arm and drags me onto the center stage before I can protest. He lets go of me and as soon as he's back behind the curitan, the crowd goes silent.

After a few seconds, there's murmurs. I barely make out things like "Is that his wife?", "That's Violet! From the newspaper!", "Doesn't she play drums or something?"

My eyes go wide and I cautiously step up to the mic. "Uh, ahem. Hello?" I hear my voice come through some speakers around the auditorium. I look to the left and see Fabian motioning for me to continue. "I'm Violet and I don't know why I was pulled out here."

"To entertain!" Fabian calls from the side.

"I mean, I'm supposed to entertain you guys? I don't know how to entertain, that's the other's jobs."

"Why is the show late?!" Someone calls from the crowd.

"Techincal difficulties, I guess. Some equiptment is broken, but it's all being fixed."

"Tell us a story!" Someone else calls.

"Oh God, um. Okay. About what?"

"You're married to Buddy Holly, right?" the same person calls.

"Yeah, that's me."

"Tell us how you met!"

I smile and shake my head. "Oh! Okay, I can do that." I absentmindedly start to tap my foot. "So I first moved the the United States when I was eleven and my family and I lived down in Chicago until I was fifteen. We moved to Lubbock, Texas because my dad got a better job offer or something,"

"What does your dad do?" Someone calls.

"Orthopedic surgery. Fixes broken bones and such. Well, it was my very first day of school in Texas. The first day of my Sophomore year...well, our sophomore year. My sister, brother and I were trying not navigate the school. It's built really weirdly. It was like a circle, but a square at the same time. It was hard to figure everything out, especacially when you're brand new to the Texas culture and honestly not neccecarily fluent in English, let alone sounthern English. But basically Buddy offered to help us and we accepted. Ever since we've been reallg close."