Love on Stage Read Online Free

laughed. She was a stone fox herself, curves in all the right places, though not skinny enough to be a model. Gavin liked the way the three of them looked together.
    “How about you, Erica?” Gavin asked. “You seeing anyone?”
    She shook her head. “I’m getting ready to move to Madison in August and start graduate school. I can’t see getting involved with someone just before I leave.”
    They spent an hour or so lazily out by the lakefront; then the dope made them all sleepy, and they walked up to the house. Gavin sat up in his third-floor bedroom, under the eaves. He opened his laptop and found some old clips of the Singing Sweethearts, lyrics to some of their hit songs, and a lot of publicity stills. The most interesting link, though, wasn’t about them at all.
    It led him to a website for a concert called Yesterday’s Music, Today’s Sound, in the Wisconsin Dells on Labor Day. It was billed as “a return to old-fashioned choral singing, in the style of the Andrews Sisters, the Lennon Sisters, and the Singing Sweethearts.”
    None of those groups were performing, though. Instead they were younger, newer groups, many of them from the college a cappella world.
    Why couldn’t the Sweethearts perform again? Gavin wondered. Wouldn’t that be cool? He found a contact link for the concert organizers and wrote a quick e-mail, introducing himself as a member of the new generation of the Sweetheart family, asking if there would be any interest in having the Sweethearts themselves perform. He could be the emcee, he thought. It would be a chance for him to get on stage, see if that kind of role fit.
    He sent the e-mail and then went to bed. The next morning, he woke just at six, as if he had to get ready for a shift at Java Joe’s, but he turned over and went back to sleep until noon. By the time he descended the stairs to forage in the kitchen, most of the family had left the house to do whatever, but his grandmother was at the table playing solitaire.
    “What can I make you to eat, baby boy?” she asked.
    “Are there any eggs?”
    She stood up. “How about a cheese omelet? And there are some fried potatoes left over from breakfast I can reheat for you.”
    “Thanks, Grandma. That would be great.” As she began to cook, he asked, “Why did you all stop singing professionally?”
    “Oh, it was time,” she said. “I met your grandfather, and I wanted to settle down. My sisters weren’t happy, you know. Ida got married soon enough, but Myrtle tried to make her own career. Didn’t work out, though.”
    “Would you ever sing again, if you could?”
    “Oh, no,” she said. “Who wants to listen to the three of us anymore? All the music nowadays is that hip-hop and rap.”
    That reminded him of the Dells concert. “I’ll be right back, Grandma,” he said, and he sprinted up the stairs to retrieve his laptop. By the time he got back down to the kitchen, his breakfast was ready, and he dug in. His grandmother watched approvingly, and he remembered the times when he and his older sister had come out to Starlit Lake as kids during the summer with their mother, while their father stayed in Eau Claire running the family car dealership.
    His grandmother often made breakfast then for him and his cousins, and they’d all sit around the big table clamoring for attention. Sometimes Grandma Frances would sing for them as she cooked, and the grandkids would sing along. Those had been good times.
    He did the dishes while his grandmother sat at the table playing solitaire. When everything was finished, he opened the laptop and checked his e-mail, where he found a quick response from the concert promoter. He would be delighted to feature the Sweethearts, he wrote, provided that Gavin could prove that they could still sing.
    “You want to play cards?” his grandmother asked as he looked up at her.
    “Sure, Grandma.” He and Grandma Frances had been playing gin rummy since he was old enough to graduate from Old Maid.
    As