The Unsinkable Greta James(79)
Conrad shrugs. “It’s what you do.”
“What?” she says, bracing herself, waiting for him to say that what she does is choose her career over her family. What she does is choose her music over everything else.
But he doesn’t. Instead he says, “You play the fucking guitar,” and it’s so unexpected, so uncharacteristic, that they both laugh in spite of themselves. “How many people get to do that for real?”
“Thanks,” she says, which feels at once too small and too big. She wipes her eyes and lets out a long breath, then straightens the messy pile of cards and pushes the deck toward her dad.
“Here,” she says. “Try again.”
Later, they find Eleanor and Todd waiting outside the auditorium. He’s wearing a tux and she’s wearing a sparkly ball gown with a tiara-like hairpiece. It’s the kind of ensemble that makes you want to roll your eyes, but you can’t, because on Eleanor, it actually looks beautiful.
“Listen,” Eleanor says from inside a cloud of perfume. “I had a word with Bobby.”
Greta frowns. “Who’s Bobby?”
Eleanor laughs, then realizes Greta is serious. “The cruise director,” she says, clearly unable to fathom not being on a first-name basis with such an important figure by the final night. “He promised to save a slot for you. Just in case.”
It’s clear she’s bracing herself for another no. So she looks surprised when, instead, Greta folds her into a hug.
“Is that a yes?” Eleanor asks, confused.
“It’s still a no,” Greta says. “But thank you for asking.”
In the theater, they settle into seats near the front and listen to Bobby explain how things will go. Around her, everyone but Conrad is nervous; Davis plays an invisible piano with his fingers, Mary hums under her breath, and Eleanor and Todd keep tapping their feet.
“This was a terrible idea,” Mary whispers to Greta as the first act—an eight-year-old kid nervously clutching a set of juggling balls—steps onto the stage.
The poor kid drops the balls a total of twelve times in three minutes, two of which could be chalked up to the swaying of the ship, the rest of which he just fumbled. But when he’s done, the audience claps enthusiastically anyway, and beside her, Greta can feel Mary relax.
After that, there’s a family of Irish step dancers, a sixty-something guy who lip-syncs to “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” and a magician, whom Conrad watches with a slightly judgmental frown.
“Amateur stuff,” he mutters, but he looks riveted anyway.
Next up are a couple of Christian singers with ukuleles, followed by the old lady Greta has run into everywhere. She reads an original poem about feminism and the resistance that’s so powerful and so full of curse words even Greta is blushing by the end. Greta applauds madly and swears she sees the woman wink at her as she leaves the stage.
“So much talent on one ship,” Bobby says after pretty much every act. When it’s their turn, Mary and Davis scoot out of their row and walk up to the stage, where they launch into a medley of songs from the sixties—everything from Marvin Gaye to the Beach Boys—that gets the whole place clapping along. It’s been years since Greta has heard Davis play the piano, and Mary’s voice is clear and strong. The whole time, they never take their eyes off each other.
Afterward, a comedian does a too-long bit about fishing, and an old man gives a dramatic reading from Ulysses. Then it’s time for Eleanor and Todd, who glide around the stage to huge applause, so graceful it almost seems like they’re floating, and Greta realizes she’s actually enjoying herself at this stupid variety show on this stupid cruise ship.
Later, she’s so busy whispering with Mary about the eighty-three-year-old identical twins who did a scene from Much Ado About Nothing that when Bobby introduces the next act, she almost misses the announcement. But then she sees Preeti climbing the steps, an acoustic guitar already strapped over her shoulder, and she goes very still.
There’s no reason for her to be nervous. Preeti certainly doesn’t look it. She walks straight to the center of the stage, where she stands behind the microphone, adjusting the guitar. The excitement radiating off her is almost palpable, and when she looks up, it’s to beam out at the audience, all confidence and enthusiasm.
She takes the pick from between her teeth and leans close to the mic. “I’m going to play a song by one of my musical heroes,” she says, her eyes raking the crowd. “It’s called ‘Birdsong.’?”
Whether or not she expected this line to be met with applause, Greta doesn’t know. But there’s only silence, and a bubble of laughter in Greta’s throat. Because it’s her song, and nobody here knows it. Of course they don’t. Even her own group has no clue. Conrad scratches his ear. Mary digs in her purse for a mint. Todd yawns once, then again.
Preeti plays the opening chords, and Greta doesn’t know whether she’s more flattered or anxious. Probably a bit of both. The song is old by now, the fourth track on her EP, her very first recording, and one that she rarely even plays herself anymore. It’s more like a study of a song than a song itself; she was fiercely proud of it at the time, but she knows now that it’s too self-consciously flashy, full of complicated riffs and tricky sequences. It’s not a crowd pleaser, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun to perform, and she feels a twinge of pride as she watches Preeti—her eyebrows knit and her tongue sticking out—tackle the first progression, and realizes she’s having fun with it too.