[stylist] {Spam?} Novel excerpt

[Alyssa Frierson]

Hello,
I'm not super active on this list but enjoy seeing other people's
writing. I thought I'd share a bit of a novel I'm working on. The
first chapter is pasted below as well as attached as a Word document.
I'm not sure if one method is preferred over another. I'd appreciate
any feedback anyone might be willing to give.
Thank you.

Alyssa

After the Hurt Runs too Deep
Chapter One
Brakes didn’t sound like angry violins anymore. Olivia Lawrence
fingered the ballerina charm on her bracelet, took a deep breath, and
willed herself to think of something else. She heard the vehicle
peeling away, racing down the street behind the theatre.
“Ready?” Her sister, Paige, appeared beside her. The light in this
back room of the theatre was dim, making the beige carpet look
chocolate brown, but she could see Paige holding her violin.
Olivia nodded.
“Are you okay?”
Olivia swallowed and picked up her guitar. “Yeah,let’s do it.” She
followed Paige to the stage wings, and they locked pinkies for luck as
they stepped on stage.
Olivia didn’t notice the size of the crowd until after they’d played
three or four songs. When she looked out, there were no more than
twenty-five people sitting in the first five or six rows. Was this
normal? Did Mr. Douglas always have such a small audience in his
theatre? Or was it because it was the middle of the week? Was this all
six months in New York was going to get them? She kept playing; she
had to sing her heart out as if the audience was standing room only.
She let herself imagine the room full of people. Way in the back, she
saw a face she’d almost forgotten. She took a breath and strummed a
final chord. Don’t let them see. The applause was quiet, reminding her
that the room was not full of people and none of the faces were
familiar.
She let out a breath and glanced at Paige as she started finger
picking the chords to a Judy Collins song. Whatever fears she'd had
moments before melted away as she concentrated on the notes and on
Paige’s harmony.
"Thank you," Paige said into her microphone. She smiled out at the
audience. "We're going to take a short intermission. Since this show
is all about the songs we grew up with, we'd like to know what songs
you grew up with. There's a box and some pens and paper up front here,
and during intermission we'd love it if you wrote some of your
favorite songs down and left them in the box. Near the end of
intermission, we'll take a look at what you wrote, and we'll try to
perform some of them for you in the next act."
Paige set the microphone in its stand, and Olivia led her offstage.
"Hey, did you notice there were a lot of older people in the
audience," Olivia asked when they were backstage again. She shivered.
The air was up way too high, even if it was summer. She wondered if
any of the audience members were cold, too.
"Yeah, I think I saw one guy who looked like he was under forty. Do
you think they'll request a bunch of songs we don't know?" Paige sat
on a carpet-covered bench, took off her left shoe, and rubbed her
foot. Some of her sandy brown bangs fell over her eyes; the hair spray
she’d applied earlier was losing its hold.
Olivia never understood why people covered indoor benches with carpet.
It didn’t make them any more comfortable to sit on, though she guessed
it did prevent people from getting splinters, and maybe it looked
nice. This one just made it blend into the beige surroundings. She
hadn’t seen many church pews in her life, but she knew they were
sometimes covered with carpet or at least cushioned. Cushioned benches
made sense. The pews in the church where… She swallowed, pushing away
the rest of the thought, and answered Paige’s question. "I hope not.
You never know, though. That’s part of the fun of asking for
requests.”
A few minutes later, she slipped back on stage and took the papers
from the box on the piano. She smiled out at the handful of people
still sitting in their seats before she hurried back to Paige with the
papers in her hand, declaring, "There were only five slips in the
box."
Paige took a sip of water and screwed the cap onto her bottle.
"Anything we know?"
Olivia looked through the selection quickly. "No…Do you know this
one?" She held out one of the pieces of paper.
Paige looked at it. “No.”
Olivia took the next one and held it out to Paige. “This one?”
Paige shook her head.
Olivia showed her one more piece of paper. Paige looked at it and
laughed. "Oh my God."
"I know, but there aren’t any others that we both know." She handed
the other slips of paper to her sister.
Paige looked at the other requests and nodded. "'There's a Hole in the
Bucket' it is, I guess."
"I guess." Olivia said, sighing. She took a drink of water.
She picked up her guitar and started to leave when Paige stopped her.
"Wait, I have an idea. Go out and introduce it, and I'll come out when
I'm ready."
"What are you doing?"
"You just play Liza and leave the rest to me."
With some hesitation, Olivia went onstage and stood at her microphone.
“Hello, everyone. I’m glad to see you all came back,”—she smiled
sheepishly—“We’re going to start out with one of your requests. Paige
and I grew up with this song. Our grandparents had an RV, and we used
to go camping with them in Sewell, New Jersey.” Paige hadn’t said how
long she needed, so Olivia decided to ramble a little to give her
time. “We stayed at this old campground where my mom and her brother
camped when they were kids. It was kind of this family-oriented, um,
lovely small campground in the Delaware River region. We were a
musical family, so we sang songs around the campfire. We sang this one
all the time.” She sat at the small piano on stage left and played a
few chords. Paige came out in a pair of jeans and a plaid shirt,
carrying a large red plastic bucket. They started singing the song,
and Paige immediately got into character. Olivia grinned and tried to
act into it, too, by giving Paige pencils and rolling up pieces of
paper to fix the hole in the bucket. The audience chuckled and
applauded.
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