"I love shoes," Keely moaned as she and Rachael sat down in Rachael's car. She found she was getting quite frustrated with having a driver, but Keely was sat demurely in the passenger's seat after a long day of shopping.
"I know, right?" Rachael giggled, pulling out of the parking lot.
Leaning down, Keely laughed, "I'm so taking off my shoes." Without waiting for Rachael's answer, she pulled off the high heels. Honestly, after a full day of walking around a mall, her feet were throbbing.
"Where do you live? I'll drop you off."
"I live in a hotel," Keely smiled, dropping her head against the seat."But, for the moment you can just drop me off at a music store."
"You want to do more shopping?" Rachael asked incredulously.
"No," she laughed, "Well, yeah. I guess, kind of. Just drop me off when I say, you don't have to drop me off all the way at my hotel. I just need to talk to someone and I think I might walk down to the studio because Marco said he was going to be there late tonight."
"You have bags," Rachael's voice had a worried tone as she across the car over at Keely.
Keely just rolled her eyes. Rachael was an okay person, although she doubted she'd be able to handle the girl for more than a day at a time. Seriously, how much optimism can you take when it's mixed with a bubbly person? "If you don't remember, I only have one pair of shoes and you have ten bags of clothes. I can walk with one bag, or you could just give it to me tomorrow at dinner."
"I'll give it to you tomorrow," she agreed, but still had a apprehensive expression on her face. "But I still don't want you to go walking around in the dark, I mean walk in the dark all you want, but just don't do it alone."
"Rachael," she smiled reassuringly, placing a hand on her arm, but in truth the concern was starting to grate on her nerves. Usually Keely didn't mind worry about her when it was from her friends and family, but - for some reason - when it was Rachael, she started feeling overburdened and edgy, just wanting to get away. "I'll be fine, I'm not walking butt naked down a boat dock in 1743, I think I can handle this."
"Fine," she said grudgingly.
Smiling, Keely couldn't help but realise that Rachael was already getting a big-sister attitude towards her. Well, it was fitting, because most sisters didn't like their big sister's boyfriend. "Here we are."
"Keely," she said worryingly.
Now exasperated, Keely didn't bother to hid her annoyance as she leaned down to look through the car window at Rachael. "The streets are still crowded and the studio isn't far Rachael, I can handle walking on my own. I'm not hopeless."
With that, Keely turned away from the car and stormed up to where the almost falling down music store was.
Maybe she had been just a little too short with Rachael, but just because she was a couple years older than her didn't mean she could boss her around. Keely had done much more dangerous things than walk down a dark road alone.
And it wasn't as if she was going to aim for dark alleys!
Still annoyed, Keely pushed open the door to the old record store. Her aggravation passed instantly, suddenly she felt guilty.
The old man might have had seen a million customers and probably didn't care about one sixteen year old who had come into his store once. But that didn't mean Keely didn't remember how she had promised him that she would be coming into his store almost daily, so even if he could care less about her coming in, Keely would have to, she just kept all of her vows.
But her shame left instantaneously like her frustration, because just walking into a music store could sooth all of those raw edges. Most people went into churches to find peace, but Keely could find the same calm by walking into a music store, sitting in a room playing a record loudly or in undertone or having a guitar in hands and her voice.
There wasn't room in her mind to grab a record quickly and going up to talk to the old man. Instead she wandered down the aisles slowly, fingering through the voluminous music.
Falling into the trance that so commonly came when she looked at music, Keely couldn't help thinking back to her father. She'd tried to call him again, but he hadn't answered. Maybe he was just missing her by accident, because it wasn't as if she was leaving messages, and if there was one thing she knew about her dad was that technology wasn't his strong suit, he probably had no idea she'd called.
Still, it felt strange that he hadn't tried to call her. After all, he was still her father, whatever had happened in between the years since she'd be born, there was still a blood relation there.
And just like that, her mood began to drop from annoyance to sadness.
"You looking for a good album?"
Glancing up from where she was looking slowly through every record, Keely saw the old man. His long steel grey hair was pulled back into a pony tail behind his head, his dark eyes were searching and upon her and his brow was furrowed. Even with the holey faded jeans and Queen t-shirt, he reminded Keely of the old man people used to go to for answers... But not in a bad way, his eyes seemed wise and knowing.
A smile twitched on the corner's of Keely's mouth, and she answered simply, "Always."
Smiling he said, "Bottom row, far right fourth album in."
Doing as he said, Keely found the album. "Poison's Flesh & Blood, glam rock, this is what you're giving for a good album?" she raised an eyebrow as she passed him the record over the table.
"Something to Believe In," his voice was calm as he rang up the purchase. "People underestimate the band, mostly because they were a glam rock band in the 80's. But just listen to the track. I saw them play it live in '91, and even I was surprised, it's a great song if you want hope and courage or hope."
"I'll take your word for it," Keely murmured.
"So," he leaned on his elbows over the counter. "I thought you promised to be my most loyal costumer."
Wincing, Keely answered with a defensive, "I've been really busy!"
Now he just laughed, "I would expect, rock star. Did you really think you'd have time to run down and come here everyday?"
"I guess not," she admitted. But started laughing at his expectant look. "Okay, I'll tell you. I've had a three day marathon of photo shoots, which are surprisingly not that bad, even though I think I had to change ten times each day. I went to the U2 concert with a few friends."
"Who are you going on tour with?"
"Ah... don't laugh, but Marissa James and N.S.R," she felt cowardly about how scared she was to tell him so.
He just raised an eyebrow.
"Okay," Keely settled in to talk to him. "I met the boys from NSR, and they're actually nice, well... mostly, even though their music is kind of crap. So, I just started hoping that this tour would be over quick. But then they introduced me to Marissa James, and we became really good friends, even though her music is worse than theirs.
"But she convinced me to do some recording with her, and I re-wrote almost the entire song, so it's actually good now. Plus, NSR is helping me record my album, well a third of the band is along is and they asked me to do a duet with them. Convincing me that they didn't like the sound they had right now that they only had that sound from necessity. But I said I would only do it on the condition that I would get to listen to the song first."
