▪️Thursday, November 26th, 2017▪️

▪️Chicago, IL▪️

If it weren't for my doctor's-rather exaggerated, in my opinion-insistence that I give my hand a rest, I would've been playing at my third outdoor festival in California this month. If it weren't for my planned three-day trip to perform at the event, my parents wouldn't have left for a Caribbean cruise to avoid feeling like empty nesters. If not for their absence, I wouldn't have been alone in Chicago for Thanksgiving for the first time in my life.

If not for my roommate Amelie's plea to do her a favor and join tonight's entertainment, I wouldn't have been in this luxury downtown apartment at Amelie's boyfriend's parents' Friendsgiving Bash. And if not for all of that, I wouldn't have been right here having the longest handshake in the history of humankind with this gorgeous man, who must be a Greek God come to life.

"I'm Mike, by the way." His deep baritone is low and commanding. Is it closer to a cello or a bass? Mike's dark-brown eyes ignite a fiery craving in my stomach. I escape his gaze by moving mine to the V of his neck muscles leading to the unbuttoned collar of his denim shirt. His darkly stubbled jaw lowers as if he's about to say something, and I long to hear more of his voice to find the right spot for him in the orchestra in my head.

His bearpaw-hand dwarfs my average-sized one, and believe me, I have wished for my hands to be freakishly large and grant me the ability to cover more than an octave on the piano. As a teenager, when other girls wished for bigger boobs, my secret hope was for my hands to hit a growth spurt and transform into Rachmaninov's big ones with long fingers. How would I fly through his challenging pieces, my average-sized hands otherwise struggled to play.

Mike doesn't let go. I squeeze-shake what has become a hot charged tangle of fingers enough to send oodles of pheromones through the palpable connection that has formed between our bodies. I have to learn more than his name. His thumb grazes my palm, and a wave of passion mixed with reckless abandon swells in me.

"Ben's friend," he says, as if his explanation would rationalize the chemical reaction between our bodies. Or would justify the way his pupils dilate as I rake his face for clues, like I'm not the only one relishing the surge that's escalating between us. As if Mike knowing Amelie's boyfriend is a perfectly logical reason why he doesn't let go of my hand either. But his friendship with Ben can not stop us from turning this into the most obscene handshake of my life.

"Follow me, Angie," says Ben. He might be the one person in the room oblivious to the silent conversation between me and his friend. Although Ben succeeds in breaking our contact and leads me into the depths of the palatial apartment to meet the rest of the musicians, it's like an invisible string is now in place between Mike and me. As I leave the room, it doesn't break, but grows longer, transmitting the attraction I want more of.

"This way." Ben brings me into what looks like a home office, with a view of downtown Chicago spreading before us like a page of a photo calendar.

"My young people," says Ben's mom, Marguerite. Delight written all over her face, she gives me an air-kiss, her silvery bob moving like a sleek curtain between us, and ushers me into the room. Ben's parents have been hosting the Friendsgiving Bash for years for their friends who have no family to spend the day with, and now that Ben and Am are officially together and for once I'm one of the people who has no family to spend Thanksgiving with, I got the invite as well.

Guests bring food and provide entertainment, and as there are several musicians at the Bash this year, Marguerite came up with a brilliant idea for a mini concert. She asked us to select pieces from classical or contemporary music and combined the musicians attending the party into groups to perform together. The fifteen people in the audience will get to hear us after one or two partial run-throughs, which guarantees loads of imperfections, but who cares. None of us could pass up such an artistic collaboration, and I can't wait to hear what we can create.

"Come on in." Marguerite leaves my side and waves more people with instruments into her impromptu rehearsal studio.

Music has always been part of me, like a constant companion. I've heard it every night since I can remember. It was in the pounding of my heart, in the swirling of the fan above my bed, in the wind of the trees beyond the windows of my bedroom. Around six, at a playdate, I touched the piano for the first time. I was in my Aladdin phase. I pushed the mysterious keys of the giant baby grand in the open living room of my friend's house and found the right sounds to match the melody in my head.

"A whole new world," I whispered as my index finger played the tune.

At the urging of my friend's mom, a piano teacher, I started coming over every week to take classes and then to play with my friend. From that moment on, the piano was my joy, a treat, and something to look forward to. At nine, I became the prodigy who was destined to play at the Carnegie Hall. At twelve, I was the rising star on the competition circuit. At seventeen, I was auditioning for Julliard. At eighteen, my parents, crying and hugging me for the hundredth time, dropped me off in New York to study at that very prestigious institution.

"Hi, everyone." I wave at the five people gathered in a circle around me, eying a raven-haired woman in her thirties with a guitar over her shoulder, who I'm certain I've seen before, but can't place. A guitarist wasn't on the list of musicians Ben sent me.

"I'm Angela Fisher," I say. "I sing and play the piano. Can you please tell us your names, and we'll jump right into practice."

Everyone introduces themselves-Ben and Marguerite, on cellos; Shawn, on keys; Lara, on flute.

"Poppy, last-minute addition here...was supposed to fly out to meet my band in Nashville but got stuck on a layover here in Chicago till tomorrow...and knew Marguerite in my cello playing days... So she told me to come over. This is my acoustic guitar"-she lifts the instrument hanging around her neck- "and my electric one is in the case." The extra woman I couldn't account for earlier sounds English and a bit apologetic. The nagging whisper at the back of my head insists I know Poppy, but I swear I've never met her before. With some luck, she's not awful, and we won't spoil the selected pieces by adding a guitar.

The motley crew grabs the music sheets with their names on them I printed out the night before-all are pieces they've previously performed. Poppy points at the brace on my hand. "I can play for you." She lifts the sheets with the first two popular songs from my music stand. "I know these, but I've never heard about this Latitude song." She peers at the last one.

"That's one of mine," I say.

Poppy strums a few cords. Her interpretation fits, and my mind starts composing a drum line to punctuate some of the beats when, as if taken out of my head, the missing beat is plucked on a cello-it's Marguerite. Without planning, we transform Latitude into a quintet for voice, piano, guitar, flute, and cello.

Poppy pulls me into a corner when we take a break. "You have more songs like this, kiddo?"

"Maybe a hundred." Not that I've counted. "Not all sad, mind you."

Every one of my songs is an invitation. My lived experiences shaken and stirred to fool the listeners into thinking I'm them, and they are me. Instead of listening to my life, I want us to share a universe where the hurt, the longing, and the happiness are happening to each and all of us. Shared yet unique.

"You make it sound so easy." Poppy's eyes search my face for something.

"It is what it is. Once I started, I couldn't stop." I still can't. There's not enough time in the day for me to transcribe the waves of melodies and rat-a-tat-tat of words as they beg to come out into the world.

As a group, we play with the tunes, and I layer my voice on top, in places the original music didn't call for. I note the changes and watch the seed of a music fever bloom on everyone's faces. The rush of collaboration when the things you propose actually work, when the final product is better than you heard it your head buzzes in my veins-composing is my addiction.

The bizarro jamming session is over. Time to wow our tiny audience with an acoustic blend I've never served before.

"Before I forget, luv." Poppy digs in her guitar case and stretches a business card my way. "Have your agent send me some of your songs. We're always looking for fresh material."

Her card has a very familiar name on it.

The Whats.

Poppy Thompson.

Lead guitarist.

Her face clicks into place. Poppy's the only woman in The Whats, the hyper-popular pop-rock band. Her stage persona has a truckload of eyeshadow and fake lashes on, but the raven hair, the skill with the strings. Oh, wow. "Poppy, I . . ."

I catch a glimpse of her retreating back, clutch the card in my hand and wince in pain. Thanks to Shawn, I didn't even touch the keys, but my fingers feel more like swollen sausages on searing hot skewers instead of bones. I remove the restrictive brace and cradle the pulsing digits. The last dose of the meds I took was supposed to last me until I went to bed. On a normal day, I'd give myself another hour and a cold compress to sit with the pain, but today I'll be performing with a member of The Whats. Not bringing my A game is out of the question. I palm the pills I tucked into my pocket. Ben and the flautist are still in the room, and they probably won't pay attention to me, but no. Not here.

Marguerite's bathroom could be on the cover of Architectural Digest, nothing like the functional at best quarters Amelie and I share. My hand, under the coldest setting the tap allows, is giving me a finger without actually lifting one. The sharp jabs start in my palm, shoot up into my elbow, radiate into my shoulder, and land square in my left temple. I brace my right hand on the wall next to the mirror. My options are to look for ice and ibuprofen, or to ask to delay the mini concert. Or ... I could also take an extra dose. Just this once. As needed was one of the doctor's recommendations. If there ever were a time I needed it, it's now.

The pill falls out of my shaking hand onto the edge of the sink. A pink circle I graduated to three months ago, when the white ones were not cutting it. The noise of my teeth crunching duets with the stabbing pick in my brain. I need the relief now, and not in an hour. I cup my right hand under the stream of water and drink. The taste of Oxy lingers on my tongue, and I open the medicine cabinet, squirt a dollop of toothpaste on my finger and focus on the minty flavor. I look in the mirror. My long braids are still tight, and with some water on my fly-aways, I look ready for the show.

Poppy and Marguerite are the only ones in the corner of the living-room that serves as a stage. "Angie, come here-it's time." Marguerite waves me over. I move my shoulders down, my shoulder blades almost touching, and turn the voltage to the maximum. It's show-time.

The performances in Marguerite's great room, which could fit Amelie and my entire apartment, is the essence of my whys: why sing, why write songs, why share a piece of me with strangers who I will most likely never see again. The energy a receptive audience feeds me is better than any drugs: their eyes full of wonder, joy, or tears, as I lead them through the emotional journey. Each piece tells a story that resonates with this a-little-drunk group of friends readying for a food coma.

I catch Mike's eyes on me, tugging on our invisible tie. The elation his hand created earlier fuels me to conjure raw images with my voice and wrap the listeners in a trance where they feel because of me, through me, with me. These songs are for all the guests, but also only for him. My body shivers in anticipation, and I sing to make him want me, smiling at everyone but him, taunting with the absence of my attention.