Five Years of Fame [COMPLETE]

45. The Lake House

Fall, Year 4, Month 9

A layer of mist hovered over the lake. The water was glass, still, reflecting the early morning sky above. A chill wind floated through the canyon, creating a cool temperature that the slowly rising sun would soon melt away, along with the mist. But that didn't mean the temperature hadn't existed.

Reeve shivered as she stepped out onto the cabin's back porch, wrapping her sweatshirt closer around her as she softly crossed the back deck and tiptoed along the stone path that led to the water. She was regretting leaving before the pot of coffee she had put on for Kelly was finished, shoving her hands deep into her sweatpants' pockets to keep them from going numb. She had left the industrial-sized coffee maker on to brew, sure that Kelly was soon to awake, dragging Dani, in the role of assistant, reluctantly along with her to start the day and her round of endless check-in calls. Today was not the day to sleep-in.

Reeve had found she had barely even slept. Everyone had stayed up late the night before, singing around the campfire until long after the crickets stopped harmonizing with them. There was a reluctance to break the magic they had found as a group these past four days. Even once Reeve and Gage stopped strumming and Anton, Leslie, and Bernadette, her back-up singers, gave up their flawless harmonies, the group of ten, with Noah as an honored guest, sat around chatting softly, looking at each other in the slowly darkening night as the fire died, experiencing for the first time what was waiting for them for the next eight months.

Reeve sat with her feet dangling over the edge of the dock, the bottom of her socks slightly damp from the dew on the ground. She pulled her leg up and rested her chin on her knee, looking out to the mountains across the way. It had rained sometime during the night as there was a faint layer of snow at the peak. It had been summer when she and her crew had left the city but now fall was making its way to the foreground.

There were nine people currently asleep in the house behind her. It was supposed to be a log cabin Kelly found, situated comfortably among a plot of woods, far enough off the main road that cell reception was spotting and wifi was non-existent. It was more of a log mansion and needed to be to accommodate everyone Reeve had invited for an 'end-of-the-summer' getaway.

Reeve had attended church with her mom and Dani, bringing Noah and Walter along with her, the Sunday after her final tour rehearsal. Her stage, which she had started calling Bertha, was already broken down and in transit and had been torn down as soon as the band walked off the stage and left the rehearsal space. While Reeve sat at the edge of the lake somewhere in rural New Hampshire, Bertha was being re-assembled in Boston's main basketball arena.

Reeve had said goodbye to her mom and Walter at the church, telling Noah she would see him later and climbed into a car with Dani at the wheel and Randy as navigator and DJ. He had even made a mixed CD of his favorite classic rock songs and everyone sang along while they drove north, Reeve laughing in the backseat with Leslie and Bernadette while they tried to give Dani singing lessons as she drove.

Kelly and Anton, Gage, Ember, and Ezra met them at the cabin. It was the first time the ten of them would be spending time together as friends, not just co-workers or bandmates. The small vacation was intentional on Reeve's part. She was tired of rehearsing. They had spent the last eight weeks, almost every day, in that chilly warehouse in Western Mass, running through the show, working it until they got it right and then again until they couldn't get it wrong.

She knew her nerves wouldn't be able to handle rehearsing until the day of opening night. And she was all too aware of what it was like to travel with people you didn't know. She needed to get to know her team, every one of them before they spent almost every waking hour of the next eight months together.