Emmy And Me

Hotlanta lived up to its name when we exited the airport. It was a bit humid, but not terribly so. Mainly it was just hot. Mid nineties, if I had to guess. It made me question the wisdom of open-air venues in the middle of summer, but I guess the locals were used to it, and the shows would be at night, so that was that. Both nights had sold out, so at least eighty-plus thousand fans were fine with the heat.

We only had about an hour at the hotel before Emmy had to leave for the sound check. The suite’s balcony had an excellent view towards the stage over what would be right field in a baseball game, and even with the sliding glass door shut I could still faintly hear the tedious process of the sound check.

Ignoring the “Testing, 1, 2, 3,” Angela opted for a nap while I did some work in the suite’s living room until it was time to get ready to go to the concert. It was still very warm when the show started at eight- it had barely cooled down at all. In fact, it was too warm for Angela, and we wound up leaving about halfway through the concert- a first for either of us.

Angela was super apologetic, but if she was miserable there was no way I wanted her to continue to suffer. I’d texted Tiny and Grant to let them know we’d left as we exited the stadium, knowing they would tell Emmy.

Angela started to feel a little better once we’d left the confines of the ballpark itself. Walking across the fake lawn, past the beer garden towards the hotel’s special ballpark door, she kept apologizing for taking me away from the show.

Back in the cool hotel room, Angela finally managed to get her body temperature under control.

“I’m so sorry,” Angela said, nearly on the verge of tears.

“You don’t need to apologize,” I told her, kissing her still-sweaty forehead. “Little Angie should be the one apologizing to you.”

“Little Angie has been making things hard,” Angela said, cradling her tummy in her arms. “I don’t know why, but sometimes she just…”

“It’s O.K., baby,” I said, holding Angela close. “In just a few months she’ll be making life hard for the rest of us, too.”

This earned me a little laugh, which is what I was aiming for. I didn’t want Angela to feel like a burden in any way- especially not when she was doing the work of carrying our baby.

“Will you stay here with me?” Angela asked, her voice uncertain. “I just want you to hold me for a while.”

“Of course I will,” I said, kicking off my shoes and settling onto the suite’s couch, making room for Angela to cuddle.

Once she’d settled in to as comfortable a position as she could manage, she said, “If this is what the next three months are going to be like…”

“The baby will be here before we even know it,” I assured her. “And then we’ll have a couple of years of diapers, then eventually have to deal with two teenaged girls, and then worry about their boyfriends-”

“Or girlfriends,” Angela interrupted.

“Or girlfriends,” I agreed. “Then they’ll be off to college, and we’ll have an empty nest.”

“Is it terrible that I sometimes wish we were back to the way things were last year? Sometimes I just don’t feel ready at all to be a mamá,” Angela said, her voice soft.

“I don’t think anyone has ever felt ready for their first child, Ange,” I told her. “I know we’ve done everything we can to get ready, but I still sometime find myself thinking we’re forgetting something important. But we’ll have your mom, and she’s raised two lovely, healthy daughters, so she must know what she’s doing, right?”

“My parenting class teacher said that it’s normal to feel like that,” Angela admitted. “But knowing that everybody feels the same doesn’t mean that it doesn’t feel real.”

“We’ll be O.K., babe. We have loving, supportive family, you and Emmy are both in good health, you guys have been eating right, staying away from alcohol, all the right things. I’m not going to say it won’t be a lot of hard work, but our chances are extremely good. Better than most peoples’.”

“I know all that,” Angela said, snuggling in closer. “But knowing it and really believing it are different things.”

“I know,” I said, kissing her behind the ear.

When Emmy got back to the hotel she found us in bed, still just cuddling and talking softly. She took a quick shower and joined us, asking why we’d left the show early.

“Ange just got overheated, and little Angela wasn’t happy about it,” I said.

“Sorry we didn’t stay for the whole show,” Angela said, but Emmy kissed her to stop her from apologizing any further.

“Your health and the health of our baby is more important than any rock concert,” Emmy assured Angela. “I want you to know that you are far more important to me than anything. More than anything, Angie. If you think that you need to go home with Leah, I want you to do that. You should rest if you need to. The tour will only run for three more weeks, then we will be back in Los Angeles. If you need to, go home. I will be O.K.”

“Are you sure?” Angela asked, sounding about fifty per cent hopeful and fifty per cent sorry for even thinking of leaving Emmy by herself.

“I am certain,” Emmy said, giving her another soft kiss.

“Can we get Marie-Anne to come early, so she can travel with you for the rest of the tour? I hate the idea of you not having anyone…” Angela said.

“That’s a great idea,” I chimed in. “She’d be great for making sure you ate well and took care of yourself and the baby.”

“It is an idea,” Emmy said thinking about it. “There is a six hour time difference, so I will call and ask her in the morning.”

“If she can take care of you, I’d like to go back home with Lee,” Angela said.

“Bien sûr,” Emmy said, her voice tender. “We will work something out.”

We didn’t do any sightseeing the next morning. Angela felt better- well enough to use the hotel’s gym facilities, but none of us really felt like going out. There were things I would have liked to have seen in the area, but we just didn’t have enough time or energy. On the positive side, Marie-Anne did agree to come to be with Emmy on the tour starting at the next stop in Miami, so that took a load of worry off Angela.

“I would have liked to show you around Miami,” Angela said sadly.

“We will have time,” Emmy assured her.

If anything, the evening was hotter than it had been the day before, but Angela did fine with the temperature. It helped that she had dressed for the heat in sandals and a pretty little sun dress that showed off her growing belly. She’d gotten past the point where she tried to hide her condition, and now seemed proud of the roundness of her tummy.

I might have been a little bit too concerned about her, judging by how she kept assuring me that she was fine and she would let me know if anything changed, so just please shut up and let’s enjoy the show, alright? I took the hint, as obvious as it was, and quit pestering her about how she was doing.

We did enjoy the concert, too. It was a great show, and The Downfall put on their usual quality performance. Yeah, it was a hot night, but the mood was good and Angela seemed to be holding up just fine, so I let myself just relax and listen to Emmy and the boys do the thing they did so well. The warm air, the beautiful woman leaning up against me and holding my hand- it was just one of those perfect nights.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and children of all ages,” Jackson said, his smooth Texan drawl filling the ballpark. “We only have one more song for y’all, but don’t be in any hurry to leave after we’re done for the night- the fireworks show is gonna be somethin’ else. So, to help celebrate this here Fourth of July, we’re gonna finish off with a song I guarantee y’all know by heart. Don’t be shy about singin’ along, either. Sing it loud, sing it proud,” he said, turning to watch Lee leave his spot behind the drums and take position at the keyboards.

Lee ran up and down the keys, then started a simple melodic chord progression.

Jackson nodded his head in time, then turned back to the microphone. “A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile,” he sang in a tender, melancholy voice, and the forty-one thousand people in attendance all had to admit that yes, they did know that song. Jackson continued singing through the roar of the crowd’s approval, and when he sang “I drove my Chevy to the levee”, well, so did forty-one thousand other people, too. ‘American Pie’ is a really long song, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone. The audience knew they were having one of those ‘once in a lifetime’ moments, and were smiling through their tears.

Angela might have been the only person in that stadium with dry eyes when Jackson (and a sizable portion of Atlanta’s population) sang, “this’ll be the day that I die,” for the last time.

“Thanks for helpin’ us out on that,” Jackson said when the crowd finally quieted down. “Y’all made it really special for us. I just want you to know that we loved playin’ for you here tonight. But ya know what? I lied about that being our last song tonight. Well, kinda lied, anyway. That was the end of our Big-Ass Arena show tonight. So please, give it up for The Star Geezers, and maybe a little round of applause for The Downfall, while you’re at it!”

After the opening act took their bows and left the stage, so did all of The Downfall’s touring musicians, leaving just Emmy, Lee (still at the keyboards) and Jackson.

“Like I said, our concert is over and done,” Jackson said. “It’s just us three amigos here to play this little thing to start off the traditional American sky explosions,” he said, as Lee played the opening chords of The Star Spangled Banner. Jackson and Emmy joined in, but kept their playing a bit subdued, leaving the piano as the dominant instrument. The three played it simply and cleanly, with no over-the-top embellishments, and no vocals. As the last notes faded away and the capacity crowd cheered, rockets shot up into the sky showering down red, white and blue sparks.

Angela and I did stay for the fireworks show. It might not have been all that big a display, but the fact it was relatively close in to the stadium really did a great job of making it impressive. With every explosion we could feel the concussion in our chests, followed by the crackle of the sparks as they rained down. It was really as good as fireworks shows get, and sharing the experience with Angela made it all that much better. She’d never really experienced a Fourth of July fireworks show like that, up close and personal, and it really knocked her metaphorical socks off. Mine, too, to be honest.

When we found Emmy backstage Angela asked if she gotten to see the fireworks, disappointed when Emmy said that she hadn’t.

“It was amazing!” Angela told her. “The way it coordinated with the music, too!”

“I wish that I could have seen it with you,” Emmy said, her smile mirroring Angela’s.

“Next year, we’ll just have to go somewhere to watch a fireworks show together,” Angela declared.

“It is a date,” Emmy agreed.

There was no official afterparty that night either, but somehow word made its way around that people were going to gather at the poolside bar at the hotel, so that’s where we all headed. Even that late at night it was still very warm as we walked across the fake grass towards the ballpark door of the hotel. There were still a lot of people milling around, and we gathered a bit of a crowd once people recognized Emmy and the boys. Well, mainly Emmy, since she stood out in any crowd in a way that Jackson or Lee never could.

As we neared the hotel’s door, something seemed a bit off with the way the crowd was acting. I didn’t have more than just a moment to recognize that a number of people were moving a bit too determinedly, a bit too coordinated.

When I did recognize the threat, I shouted, “Emmy! Look out!” and shoved Angela behind me.

Grant had reacted in just about the same moment I did, but Tiny was just a hair slower. This could have cost him his life, as quite a number of people in the oncoming group suddenly produced knives in their hands.

I didn’t pause to think- I leapt forward and slammed into the guy that had just stabbed Tiny, stomping hard on his throat once he was down. The next few moments were a blur as I did what it took to eliminate the attackers. I caught an occasional glimpse of Grant, bloody but fighting hard as I did the same. The fight seemed to go on forever, as time ceased its normal flow.

Looking around in a pause in the action, I saw that Emmy was doing her best to keep back a knife-wielding man who had gotten past the three of us. I spun a roundhouse kick to the man’s head, laying him out. That threat eliminated, I looked around to try to find any more opponents.

That’s when I saw her- a woman sneaking up on Angela, who was frozen to the spot in shock and terror. I ran for her, but before I could close the distance the woman grabbed Angela’s long, dark hair, yanking her head back. With the knife in her other hand, she reached around and cut Angela’s throat from ear to ear.