Chapter 39

We jumped into the limo and drove to my house. I was feeling nervous and a bit scared that mum was going to muck this up for me. On the other hand, Eve had this grin on her face, ready for a confrontation and looking forward to it. I think she was trying to keep me from freaking out by keeping a conversation going. We talked about music generally, favourite songs and artists.

When we arrived Eve strode confidently up to the door and rang the bell. I did have a key and was half thinking that I could sneak in and grab my stuff with no one the wiser, although arriving in a limo would probably have announced my presence anyway. I think mum was waiting for me as she answered the door pretty quickly. Not too surprising considering I had told her I was coming and even told her how long I thought it would take to get here.

The next encounter was almost funny to watch. Mum opened the door quite forcefully with anger in her eyes and an argument on her lips. Instead of encountering her wayward daughter, she was faced with Eve. I am fairly tall at five feet eleven, Eve is a touch taller and yet not enough to really account for the way she seemed to loom like a giant over my mother. Mum was only a couple of inches smaller than me, but right now, it looked like a confrontation between David and Goliath, I only it hoped it didn't turn out the same way.

Mum's expression went from anger, to confusion, to a half hearted attempt at a welcoming face. “Err...pleased to meet you. You must be Sophia's parent?”

“Eve.” Eve said, holding out a hand to shake, pretending that mum hadn't recognised her.

“Oh, err... I'm Regine.” Mum said, flustered.

I think Eve is a master of mental judo. She sort of looked like she was moving forward, which caused my mum to back away, making it look like she was inviting us in and then Eve and I went in.

“I think it is great that you are so supportive of your daughter and her life choices. I can't imagine how hard her school life has been considering how bigoted some people are. At least she has you to rely on, someone who loves her no matter what.” Eve said. I picked up on a subtle hand signal so I missed the rest of the talk as I went to gather my guitar and music notes and rushed back.

It was a bit of a shame really, I wanted to hear what my mum was going to say. I was pretty sure she had been going to tell me that I wasn't allowed to go back and had to stay home. Now, if she did that, she was going to look so foolish. I did manage to hear mum thank Eve for indulging my music fantasies. She managed to say it in such a way that the thanks appeared genuine while putting down my music ability, which was impressive considering English was not her first language. Normally I would have kissed her on my way past, but I really didn't feeling like it right then, so I hurried past her with a muttered 'see ya'.

I felt a great sense of relief as we were driving away. This was my first little bit of joy in my life for a long time and I feared mum was going to put a stop to it.

“See, that wasn't so hard.” Eve said.

For some reason that caused me to laugh. Maybe it was a way to relieve my tension. I knew Eve had gone into the situation with only one outcome in mind and achieved that effortlessly. I wish I had some of her strength and self confidence.

“Thanks, Eve. That was awesome.”

“No worries, kid, no worries.”

By the time we returned Gem was off out on her errands so the four of us gathered around the table with my music in front of us. First Eve asked me to pick out a song and then I sang it quietly. I got my guitar out and tried to express it as best a possible. Eve then pointed out, where the song was weak and between us we tried to make it better. When you write something, it is almost like it is a part of you and when someone criticises it, you feel wounded emotionally. But Eve did it so matter of factly, that all I felt was a desire to improve it.

Soph really came into her own. First she asked me to describe what I was trying express in the song and then seemed to come up with much better words. In the end, she almost completely re wrote the song, saying this bit didn't quite fit, and then the bit before it needed to change. Eve played with the guitar sound and then we all went to this stage which had a complete set of instruments on it. Eve then managed to add a piano sound while Laura practised singing it with Soph. Between them they came up with some background singing suggestions, while I was playing the guitar. I tried singing it, but it was much better with Soph singing it with Laura as a background singer, me on guitar and Eve on piano.

We then went to another room which was a miniature recording studio. Eve explained that she had a pretty good system, but would go to the record studio when she was ready to record songs for the public. She reckoned that we could get a good enough recording with what she had available to produce a demo CD for the record company. And yes, she did think it was good enough for her to present it.

We did our best to record it and then broke for lunch. I never knew producing music was so hard. Eve seemed hypercritical and we had to repeat ourselves so many times, but the end product, I have to say, I was very proud of.

Laura and Soph prepared lunch. I was so surprised that this mega star was doing her own cooking and cleaning that I had to ask. When I did Soph answered very weirdly.

“Don't mention the war!” Soph said. Which caused Laura to chuckle and Eve to smile.

Seeing my look of confusion Laura explained. “What Soph is trying to say is that it is a touchy subject. I used to have a team who did pretty much everything for me. They betrayed my trust so now I am very wary of hiring anyone new. We have a housekeeper who does the cooking five days a week, but never on a Sunday. I actually quite like doing a bit myself. I think it helps to keep me grounded.”

“Oh, umm... OK. Err... what has that got to do with the war?” I said thoroughly puzzled.

“Have you ever heard of 'Fawlty Towers'?” Laura asked me. Of course, I hadn't, which lead to an after lunch watch this old English sitcom session. Laura chose her favourite episode, which at one point had this guy beating up his car with a branch for not listening to him. I was almost rolling on the floor in laughter.

After that Soph wanted to do a gym workout, so we all ended up going to the gym. I couldn't believe how much Eve and Soph pushed themselves. Laura and I did more of a cardiovascular workout. Eve and Soph did that and then followed it with a weight session. For all that Soph was such a little thing, she sure managed some heavy weights. Then we had a warm down in the pool and a relax in the hot tub after. For the movie we ordered some pizza and Laura prepared some popcorn.

We watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Some parts of it, I just didn't get, other parts made me laugh so much my stomach hurt and others made me laugh and I had no idea why. The second movie was a romantic sweet sentimental movie. To be honest I spent most of it cuddled up to Soph, not concentrating on the screen. Soph was watching it and it was fascinating seeing all these expressions crossing her face and altering her body posture.

When we went to bed, this time, I stroked her, caressed her and kissed her. I kept to the rules and we managed to keep it relatively chaste, but I was, oh so tempted. In the end, I physically turned her away and cuddled her from behind to stop us from going further. I could feel her heart beating fast from excitement and just held her as we both came down from such a high.

The best two days of my life.