a random parts story

Author's Note:

I wrote this story for a group of friends at work. We each submitted a genre, a character, and a line of dialogue. From those submissions, we drew one randomly. The random parts were:

Genre: Romance (or just a love story, since a Harlequin novel isn't work place appropriate)

Character: Jeff, a scientist or wizard

Line of Dialogue: "Is that what it was?"

We had a month to write 1,000 words and post it before we got back together for lunch.

Also, a song is quoted. It is pretty much Brave Saint Saturn's "These Frail Hands."

***

Jeff Kaukonen had been playing guitar since he was a kid. He got an nylon-string guitar and started taking lessons and doing recitals of old European tunes. But late at night, he would go to the garage with his guitar, hi-fi set and headphones, and play along with Jimmy Page, Brian May and Eddie Van Halen.

By the time he was 17, he bought an electric setup, started a band, and was touring around the country. He almost didn't graduate from high school, but his mother made sure his band mates helped him get his homework done. By the mid-80s, he was doing world tours and had been on the cover of every notable music magazine (and some others) except Rolling Stone. After six albums, his band broke up. Through the early 90s, he continued to appear on records and in concert with other rock legends, but he knew his fifteen minutes was nearly spent.

***

While visiting his older sister in San Francisco, after years of being out of the limelight, he went to see his nephew's band play at a local college hangout. They showed up halfway through the opening act's set. As he was helping their band load their gear into the green room, he heard something he hadn't heard since he lived with his parents.

He walked out from behind the stage and just stood and listened to a 30-year-old woman strumming simple open chords on her steel string acoustic and singing sweet, melancholy melodies. She had bright blue eyes with just a touch of green and her wavy blonde hair was pulled back into a long pony tail.

She sang about an astronaut who, after saving his two crew mates and sending them back to Earth, writes a letter to his wife telling her good-bye; a letter he would keep on him until his body was recovered from the void of space.

And these frail hands tremble as the pen perhaps their last

And these weak words can never say what cannot be surpassed

You'll always have my love; let everything you are not decrease

You'll always have my love and I'll always be there to bring you peace

His nephew came to take the gear Jeff was carrying so they could set up and tune backstage before they had to go on. It brought Jeff out of what had come over him, and he returned to the green room.

When the woman finished her set, Jeff waited for her to come backstage, but she never did. He pushed through the second band while they were going back and forth between the green room and the stage getting set up. He got to the open area with couches and chairs for the audience, but before he could look for her, he was recognized as a guitar wizard from the 80s, and was surrounded by a dozen college kids wanting autographs. By the time he shook them off, she was nowhere to be seen.

After the show, Jeff spoke to the owner, Seth, about her.

"You mean Amy Churchill?" the owner asked. "She's a regular. Just finishing up a graduate degree over at the university. Comes here pretty often. I've asked her if she wants to headline, but she always prefers to open."

"What 'bout that second to last song?"

"Yeah, that's one of her staples," Seth explained. "It's about her old man, you know. The Apollo 18 accident was one of the main reasons they stopped."

"Is that what it was?"

***

He had returned to Seth's cafe every night for weeks. After the first few days of college fan boys coming to get autographs, he was mostly left to himself. He began getting to know some other regulars. After a couple impromptu jam sessions, he bought an acoustic; the first one he owned since he was a kid.

He had extended his visit weeks longer than he had planned. He returned to LA and began getting back into the local music scene.

***

A couple years later, his manager called him up with a cameo opportunity in a retelling of Jason and the Argonauts set during the Great Depression. Just before the climax of the film, he would back the main characters who would be pretending to be in a folk band. Jeff's change in musical style and resurgence into the local music scene had been noticed. And his status as a one-time celebrity made him financially attractive.

The movie ended up being nominated for two academy awards and winning three Grammy awards. The movie was such a success; a touring concert with all the musicians from the film was planned, starting at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.

The weekend before the tour was to begin, all the musicians gathered to rehearse together.

As Jeff walked into the rehearsal space, he saw a woman sitting with her back to him with wavy blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail.

"Amy Churchill?" he asked.

As she turned around, her bright blue eyes with a touch of green met his own.

"Hi," he said. "My name is Jeff."