Hitting the Right Notes (2 page)

Darya walked down the stage like the wicked kid who had managed to anger all the adults with her untamable spirit, but who couldn’t punish her openly. The only person for whom she felt guilty was her assistant, but Darya thought a nice lunch and some girly talk would cure her wounded heart until the next session.

Guilt was something well hidden under the ashes of the past and Darya had no intention to dig it out. Despite her will, some tiny sparks sometimes jumped out, piercing through the thick layer of hard memories and burned hopes – this particularly happened when she saw how much disappointment she could cause to Kiara with her single stupid deeds, which usually came so easily to Darya.

“I can’t believe you could be so ruthless and crash all of the wonderful impression you had built within just seconds. Darya, I really do my best to understand you...”

Kiara was not going to give her any rest. Darya offered to have lunch together in one of the most expensive restaurants in the city. She had been here once many years ago. It was right after her whole music career had collapsed and her mother had been trying to soften the blow by dragging her from one expensive restaurant to another, from one state to another, across the country calling it tourism and family vacation. It was not. It was pure torture almost like the one she had to endure right now.

“I mean, I know none of those were random mistakes – you did all of that on purpose. But why?”

Darya hid herself behind the menu trying to think about the question and at least come up with a reasonable answer for herself, if not for Kiara.

“Let’s get some beer to celebrate first.”

“What are we even celebrating?”

“I don’t know – today. It is a nice day to be alive, don’t you think so?”

If Kiara thought differently, she kept that to herself. Instead, she simply ordered their drinks while Darya continued looking through the menu as if it was the most interesting book she had ever read.

It had been four years already since they had started working together. The decision to start some entrepreneurial undertaking was just a random thought that occurred to Darya on the morning of her thirty-seventh birthday. That seemed to be a great solution to end the previous ten years of useless travel, miserable failures in relationships, and botched attempts to befriend her mother. On that day Darya thought, if she didn’t start anything to keep herself busy she would die of boredom and would not manage to misspend the ridiculously huge amount of money she had made during her twenties, when she was a rock star. That past career still annually filled her bank accounts with outrageous revenues.

With the mission to save her from almighty boredom, she posted an announcement that she was looking for a personal assistant to handle all the aspects of her life and future business. She did want a superhero, simply said. After discarding a few hundred applications and several dozen interviews, a timid woman appeared at her door with a resume as thick as a fantasy novel.

Darya smiled, the memory was so bright in her mind. After exchanging a few words with the young woman, she had realized that a strong and stubborn personality was hidden behind the slim short body, thick glasses, and brown hair picked up into a flawless bun.

“Darya, you are glimmering again. Should I be alerted for any new danger?” Kiara asked suspiciously. She had learned to read Darya’s emotions and the possible volcanic eruptions hidden behind various types of her smiles perfectly.

“Not this time. I was simply remembering the day you showed up at my mansion in your tiny menacing body and threatened me to be doomed for ages if I didn’t hire you,” Darya teased.

They both laughed and it seemed that the tension of the morning was gone at least for some time now.

“Now I can understand why you eventually hired me – my show was spectacular with just enough pinch of drama – something that you like.”

Kiara had refused to move from her place until she stated all of the arguments as to why Darya had to hire her. She had lived a totally different life from Darya, to whom success had come so unexpectedly - only because she had talent. Little she knew that it was to leave her in the same way – without prior notice. Kiara had graduated from two universities, completed all the possible internships and fellowships, volunteered for years and with all her experience she had been always used and tossed aside. She had been fired from her previous job simply because she was too smart.

On that day Darya thought they had a lot in common – both were broken in some ways, but while she had grown indifferent and arrogant, Kiara kept on struggling and believed she could succeed yet again.

“Exactly! I wonder where that lust for drama disappeared. I think I am going to skip the main course and go for dessert.” Darya basically lived on sweets and beer – a combination that seemed too gross for anyone unable to appreciate the power of both.

“My stomach refuses to obey you, boss. I can’t die on my kids because of some food poisoning.” Some things never changed. Darya had to admit her assistant was a great woman. She was the one who was carrying not only most of the workload at the company and constantly generating new ideas, but she was also managing to take care of Darya’s mess of a personal life and raise two kids as a single mother in addition. Darya behaved as her third child at times.

Somewhere deep inside of her little dark heart Darya envied Kiara. Sometimes, she asked herself whether she would be happier if she had a baby with Jay. Would she want to live with a constant reminder of the great love that once had flamed in her heart and died out as every flame was doomed to? She’d never know the answer, but the kids seemed to be the source of that endless hope that always kept Kiara going.

At moments like this, when Darya’s thoughts jumped back the long forgotten times of her rock star career, she truly and wholeheartedly wanted to break that hope and passion shining in Kiara’s heart for her own sake – only to make the disappointment that was bound to happen a tiny bit less painful.

Darya had stopped believing in any kind of happy endings. Those who believed in happiness and struggled for it were just fools. After all, nobody had ever promised that people were bound to be happy. Yet Kiara was the endless optimist. She always believed that happiness was only one step away. That belief was keeping her going, making one step and another and then the other.

Still, none of those steps brought her close to the imaginary happiness.

Darya knew she was so much happier now as she had stopped following that unapproachable fantasy. She wasn’t bound to find it anymore. For some reason, Darya thought it was her mission to do the same for Kiara - to save her from inevitable disappointment. Maybe she was selfish or maybe she was a good friend... Or perhaps she was a sad woman with a little dark heart, who hated seeing anyone try to chase happiness – an illusion she was once grasped and which was taken away from her so soon.

“You know what, Darya, despite anything you do, I know you want this company to be successful and trust me, I am going to undo all the damage you have managed to cause today.” Kiara declared it as a toast and sipped her beer with determination.

Darya said nothing and tried a spoonful of her chocolate mousse and washed it down with her dark beer. The combination of both tastes made her think about the strange friendship and understanding she and Kiara shared – they seemed to be as different as her beer and chocolate were, yet, it took a genius mind to put those together to get an irresistible delight.

“I bet you’ll do that,” she said eventually, “and right now I’m going to leave you to that and disappear.”

“Where are you going? What about the evening session of presentations?” Kiara raised an eyebrow.

“Well, the whole point of disappearing is that nobody knows where I am going. I’ll be back before our appointments tomorrow morning. I promise.”

She needed to find her peace, sort out the mess, which was troubling her from deep inside – turning her into the vulnerable creature that she hated to be.

Streets are keepers. They collect and carry memories of moments long gone, steps once walked along them, memories buried in their hidden corners. People trust them. Though I have never understood what that trust is based on. It is foolish to believe that the streets don’t talk and won’t tell one’s secrets to anyone else.

They will. I know that for sure now. As I talk in the city, I talk to it and I listen to its stories.

I have learned to trust my secrets only to canals. Those swallow the secrets, drown them in their waters and never let those float on the surface.

Darya found some kind of relief in her wanderings. Years after her rise and fall, it was finally now that she could walk in the streets obscured under the veil of anonymity. Nobody knew her; she was simply one of them, a woman – maybe one who was still shining to bright, one with too many colors, one too brave to challenge her life.

Was she brave?

Not really, she had simply learned to hide safely behind the mask of indifference and venomous sarcasm, which had never been a part of her true nature. It was something she had discovered much later in her life to protect her, to hide, to feel safe.

To a certain degree she missed her fame of course. She wasn’t ready to admit it to herself, but every now and then sharp pain would pierce through her heart. She knew too well it was still too fragile to take another shock like that, though she would’ve given anything right now for a stranger to come up to her and ask for an autograph. She safely sealed the thought behind seven locks in her mind and kept on walking.

Keep on going – that’s all I have to do,
she reminded herself and that seemed to work.

Usually when she wandered around new places, she never paid much attention to the city vibe. She let herself be carried away by some posh pastime – like shopping of insanely priced pleasant uselessness or endlessly harmless small talks holding a glass of bubbling champagne. Today, she couldn’t help but open herself to the city, to breathe in its air, let its lights blind her, celebrate the life beaming from every corner of it.

Somehow, all of those experiences reminded her of 17yearold Darya – a totally different self. She had been avoiding remembering her for so long, that the imagery in her mind seemed blurred.

“One day we’ll stand on a roof of a tall building like this and sing our songs and everyone will be listening to us,” she heard Jay’s voice ringing in her ears. His words were the biggest promise anybody had given her in her life.

It was a warm summer night in 1991. They were sitting on the roof of Jay’s house singing a song they had composed together. Jay was playing his acoustic guitar and Darya singing. Their dreams were big and that gave them wings. A pair of wide shimmery white wings for both of them. They shared those and could fly together – hand in hand.

Darya believed in his words back then. And they had come true.

“I know. I believe you.”

So much trust in a person.

They never gave a rooftop concert though. But some of the biggest stages and stadiums in the country had shined and screamed for them.

And they did shine and they did fly. Eventually, that same person crashed her wings.

Suddenly, the day felt a lot chillier than it was and Darya felt small – even tiny. Being tiny and alone in a huge city was a daunting experience. She considered ringing somebody just to talkand fished her mobile from her purse. Ironically, her recent call list featured only one name – Kiara. Well, there was also her lawyer and her financial manager, but she usually forwarded their calls to Kiara as she wasn’t interested in what they had to tell her. And there were some friends who occasionally called to check in, but that was more out of habit than actual interest. She could call her mother…

But even now, after more than 20 years, she could still hear some slight sting in the voices of those who were close to her during her success. The sting of failure. It was a very bitter sensation and lasted for quite a long time.

At that very moment when the pit of endless loneliness opened to swallow Darya in its cold claws, like a sign from above, like a prophesy, music came to her rescue again.

Things like that never happened accidentally.

Things like that could not be ignored.

If the music was there to claim her, she was ready to thrust herself into its arms.

The poster of DaBlazers’ gig in the frames of their 25
^th
anniversary US tour hang huge and dominating over the street. It was hanging on the front wall of a tall building. Darya could remember the A3 size posters they used to design themselves and glue to the side walls of pubs when they were just starting. This poster looked magnificent – even if they put together all those hundreds self-made posters they would never get such a die-hard poster. The guys stood like gods, who had descended to the city to rock it for one night and leave. They would change thousands of lives, make hundreds of kids scream that this was the best day in their lives, dozens of them would tattoo the name of the band on their bodies, dozen others would discover their true calling of becoming musicians inspired by them. But these guys would simply move on – never remembering the faces of their fans.

And that poster will still stay here – for weeks and months to remind the city of the dark gods in rock star makeup. Darya laughed. Even in the poster they had made sure to put extra glitter on Drake’s eyes. He always loved it. On this huge poster the glittery stars around his eyes made the street lights look dull. Darya smiled again – she had missed them so much!

Darya could not tear her eyes off the tremendous image. The guys had aged. She had not seen her friends in probably15 years. She had basically sunk into the underground to sulk and lick her wounds for years, and after that, when she felt partly healed, she never had the heart to meet any of her old friends from the music industry again.