A Week With Ray Summers

Prologue

 She wore a red headscarf and purple lipstick. Dark purple, like blackberry juice.

 It didn’t feel like a turning point at the time. When I saw that girl singing on the streets, I didn’t think she’d change my life. She was just a pretty girl, collecting coppers on the street and earning less than she deserved for her efforts.

 I’m not sure why at the time I stopped to listen to her. I was on my way to the book store when I saw her. She had a good voice; tender and sweet, but powerful. She was singing something by Adele. But something else drew me to her. Maybe it was the paint splattered jeans she wore with red Converse trainers and a black band top. Maybe it was her smile. She never stopped smiling as she sang. Perhaps I fell a little in love with her beat up acoustic guitar, and the colour of her nails as she plucked the strings. Turquoise, they were. Or maybe it was the hand painted sign by her guitar case. She’d written her name on cardboard in glitter and pink lettering. She’d drawn a rainbow beside it.

 I watched her a while, feeling a little creepy, just stood there in the middle of the street. So I went and grabbed a coffee in Starbucks and sat outside, watching her. Her hair was long. Ash brown. She had a scatter of freckles across her nose. And that smile. Her smile was incredible. She smiled like life was perfect and free and amazing. Maybe it was for her. She just never realised.

 After a couple of songs, I walked up to her and slipped a five pound note into her guitar case. And even when I didn’t think it possible, she smiled a little brighter, catching my eye.

 “You want change?” she asked. When she spoke, her voice was husky, like a heavy smoker. I shook my head.

 “It’s for you,” I insisted. She smiled so hard her face must have ached.

 “Thank you,” she said “Have a great day, beautiful!”

 When I saw her again, she didn’t smile anymore, and she’d long abandoned the glitter and rainbows. She’d swapped her acoustic guitar for an electric one, and she didn’t sing love ballads anymore. She wasn’t some street singer anymore. She was a rock goddess. But she still wore red headbands and blackberry lipstick.

 Her name will haunt me forever.

 Ray Summers.