Love on Stage Read Online Free Page A

she dealt the cards, he asked, “Have you heard about this concert at the Dells over Labor Day weekend?”
    “What concert is that, dear?” she asked, picking up her cards.
    Over the next couple of rounds, he explained the concert to her, showing her the website and the response from the promoter. “Wouldn’t it be fun for you guys to sing again?” he asked.
    She shook her head. “You don’t realize what hard work it is, baby boy. And none of us have the voices we used to.”
    “I thought you sounded great last night.” He laid down three queens on the table.
    “You heard what you wanted to hear,” she said. “Erica was singing the high notes that Ida can’t reach anymore. And Myrtle doesn’t have the breath control. Archie had to pick up her line.” She laid down the fourth queen to Gavin’s three and then the rest of her cards in a run of hearts. “And I know my voice isn’t strong enough to carry the tune. You were the one who did that.”
    “Then we could all sing together,” Gavin said. “Come on, Grandma. Wouldn’t you like to perform once more on a big stage, like you used to?”
    She had a faraway look in her eyes. “I do miss it sometimes. Especially since your Grandpa Al passed away.”
    “Do you think Aunt Ida and Aunt Myrtle would want to?”
    She laughed. “They’ve never stopped wanting to perform.”
    Gavin jumped up from the table. “Where are they? Can we ask them?”
    Aunt Myrtle and Aunt Ida were out on the front porch in rocking chairs, facing the water. “Gavin has an idea,” Grandma Frances said, taking the third chair.
    He showed them the concert website and a couple of videos.
    “Gavin thinks we could all sing again, if he and Archie and Erica joined us,” Grandma Frances said after he was done. “What do you all think?”
    “Could we?” Aunt Ida asked.
    “Absolutely,” Gavin said. “This promoter says he’d love to have you, as long as we could send him a video that proves you can all still sing.”
    “Wally has a video camera,” Aunt Myrtle said. Her oldest son, Archie’s father, was a computer nut and always had the latest equipment. “He could make the movie for us.”
    “And Jim could play the guitar,” Aunt Ida asked. Her younger son usually accompanied the family when they sang.
    Grandma Frances looked at Myrtle and Ida. “It’s not that easy,” she said. “We’d have to rehearse. Archie has his job, and Erica’s getting ready for graduate school in the fall.”
    “We could make it work,” Gavin said. “At least can we make the video? Please?”
    “We’ll take a family vote this evening,” Grandma Frances said. “If everyone agrees, we go forward.”
    “This is going to be so great!” Gavin said. He kissed his grandmother’s cheek and then those of her sisters. “I’m going to go find Archie and Erica.”

Convincing
     
    Gavin found Erica curled up on a window seat in the living room, facing out at the lake, with earbuds in. When she pulled them out, he heard a few bars of what sounded like opera. She turned sideways so that Gavin could sit cross-legged beside her on the window seat. “What’s up?”
    “I was talking to my grandma,” he said.
    He explained the opportunity, but she shook her head. “I don’t think so, Gav. It’s way different from the kind of singing I do, and I need to be careful not to strain my voice before I start school.”
    “But it won’t work without you. Your grandma can’t hit those high notes anymore, not the way you can. And it’s just one performance. How could it hurt?”
    “Just the one?”
    He nodded. “Probably just a single song too. We already know ‘Apple Cider Time,’ so we wouldn’t even have to rehearse.”
    “You always have to rehearse, Gavin. And singing on the porch here is way different from singing in front of an audience.”
    “But it would be good for you, wouldn’t it? Singing in front of a big crowd? I mean, you get crowds for opera, don’t you?”
    “Of course we