Brooklyn Baby - The Beginning of Lana Del Rey

Part 7 - Summer Wine

The sun blinded me through my windows. I squinted and buried my head into Arthur's shoulder.

"Shoot I have work today," I realized and scrambled out of bed.

"Skip," he said sleepily and tried to pull me back.

"I can't."

When I got out of the shower, he was leaving my room. "But do you work on Sundays?" he asked as I adjusted the towel around my body.

"Nope, I'm free all day."

"I wanna take you out. Anywhere you want," he said and stepped closer.

"Hmmm.." I breathed as he lowered his head to gaze into my eyes. "That sounds like a dream."

"I'll pick you up at 1 tomorrow. You can decide then," he smiled and walked out.

I drove my own car to work today, a beige 1981 Mercedes convertible. My father had bought it for my sweet sixteen, even though I didn't live with him at the time. Boarding school separated me throughout my teens.

The weather was dry and clear today. Seagulls flew inland from the coastal direction and the sun beat down on my open roof, baking my skin and my car's tan leather interior.

At work, I learned there was an open mic night, but I was going to leave before the evening, so I wouldn't see the performers. At lunch, Amelia and I went out to get junk food. The sun beat down on us as we sat in the bed of her truck and licked our vanilla ice cream cones, watching some boys playing basketball in the distance.

"You should sing tonight," Amelia said for the third time today.

"Remember last time? I was so nervous I almost threw up."

"Yes, but that was before you knew people supported you. Because we do Liz. I can tell you have big things coming."

"God, I don't deserve you."

"I really want you to sing tonight," she said putting her hand on my shoulder. "And I know you keep a guitar in your car in hope of opportunities like this."

"I do," I said admittedly. "You know me too well."

As spontaneous as I made the decision, I was already regretting it. I had overestimated my newfound confidence and didn't know if I was ready for this. I needed support, so I called up Arthur and asked if he wanted to watch me sing. To not sound desperate, I told him it could be a preview of my audition for his band. After happily agreeing, I hung up and went to my car to practice the song I had recently learned from my uncle.

I took a break an hour in, trying to distract myself, and tried to submit my songs for the songwriting contest. The mail-in deadline was tomorrow; I had barely discovered the contest on time. Some old pages from my songbook actually turned out to match the contest's guidelines and my own standards. After spending a few minutes revising what I hadn't already edited, I had myself a solid album's worth of lyrics. I was proud of it and felt confident in my actions as I sealed up the letter, and addressed it.

My nerves made the hours speed by. I somehow found myself still outside 2 minutes before the open mic night started.

In a hurry, I dropped my letter into the public mailbox on the way inside Ruby Tuesday. The walk to the side of the stage was hard to achieve, but I managed to successfully squeeze through the small crowd formed in front of the platform that I called the stage.

I looked into the audience and saw Arthur wave at me. As if my heart wasn't beating fast enough before. But it did give me a surge of confidence.

"You look beautiful," he mouthed across the room.

The stand-up comedian from before me that didn't garner much laughter from the crowd, stormed off the stage, signaling my cue. I walked on stage and looked out at the crowd. It wasn't too big, but I was still scared, so I focused on Arthur and Amelia. Suddenly, I was hyperaware of my impression. I hoped that I was good enough. Likable, memorable enough. Beautiful enough.

I broke the widespread silence with the strum of the first chord to Summer Wine. And that's the last thing I remembered, besides the memory of Arthur leaving midway through my performance, but he came back quickly, so I wasn't going to mention it.

The next thing I knew people were standing up and clapping for me. Arthur ran onstage and kissed me, which sent the crowd into a wild roar of whistling and shouting.

"You're in the band," he said simply and dragged me by my hand off stage, passing Amelia giving me a thumbs up, and out to the parking lot. The sun had already set and the night was cooler than the blistering heat of summer days in New York. He walked me to my car and stopped to lean against me.

"I would invite you to something tonight, but we're going to have a big day tomorrow and I want you to get sleep since we didn't get much last night," he said with a smirk.

I grinned and agreed.

"I have something planned after wherever you choose," he said.

"I like surprises," I said. He then kissed me on the forehead and left on his motorcycle, as I waved from the road.

You think I'm pretty and you like the way I talk 

You like my music and you like the way I walk