Stacey immersed herself in the song and her inner world.
She wanted to go home. She really did. If only she knew where she was and how to get home. But every person she had asked had no idea what she was talking about. They didn't recognise any of the cities or even countries that she mentioned. It was confusing. Almost as if she had been dropped on an isolated part of the planet or even landed on a different planet altogether.
Stacey had never learnt about the constellations or bothered looking up at the night sky at home to try and find stars or planets. She hadn't felt it was important but now it was. When she had looked up at the night sky the last few nights, she wished she had learnt a little bit, so that if she was on another planet altogether, she would at least know where the stars were meant to be.
The longing she felt drove the emotion of the song, emerging as the longing the lovers in the ballad had for each other. Stacey didn't really notice it though. She was lost in her reminiscence and thoughts of her parents and home.
She let the last note of the lullaby fade away. There was a slight feeling of loss and sadness now that the song was over. She would have to return to reality and she didn't want to. It would be preferable to remain lost in a dream world. Nevertheless, there was no avoiding it. She had to come back to earth.
Taking a deep breath, Stacey opened her eyes and tried to surreptitiously wipe her eyes with her sleeve without ruining her makeup. A makeup assistant hurried over to help her dab her eyes.
"Good job," the makeup assistant whispered. "You made us all cry."
"Huh?"
No way. The makeup assistant was just giving her empty praise to make her feel better. Stacey didn't think she was good at singing. It'd already be a fluke if she had remained in tune through the entire song.
Looking up and around, Stacey was shocked to find almost all of the people in the room wiping their eyes. Although Landen's eyes were dry, they were redder than before. His eyes were bright with excitement, while Mindy couldn't even sit down. She was hitting Landen on the shoulder with both fists, looking like she was about to burst but didn't have the words to say to let out her excitement.
"Very good," Landen smiled, pushing Mindy away so that she wouldn't keep punching him. "We can tell you've never been formally trained, which gave the song a bit of a raw quality - which actually sounded quite nice with this song. We'll still need to test your vocal range, but you will definitely do well with more training. You had excellent emotion and pulled your audience in. Well done. You might do well in a stage career after all. Do you know how to play a musical instrument? Can you play any of the ones in this room?"
There were various musical instruments in one corner of the room. Some of which she had never seen before and some that were more familiar. Landen seemed to have his eyes fixed on one particular instrument though. Stacey's eyes followed his gaze to the piano. A piano. She hadn't touched one since - almost ten, eleven years ago. Since that recital piece that she'd botched during a competition and had made her teacher so mad. Since that day she had quit playing the piano.
Stacey ran her fingers over the black and white keys, pressing them randomly and sat down. After so many years, would she still remember how to play it? She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening her eyes again.
A scale emerged from beneath her fingers and Stacey felt amazed at how smoothly they moved, purely following muscle memory. Glancing over at the watching people, Stacey saw their nods of encouragement and winced inwardly. Did she dare play that recital piece now? Should she play a warm up exercise first? Did she even remember how to play the Hanon and Czerny pieces she used to use to warm her fingers up?
Stacey played around a bit at first and thought back to all those years ago. Since she had now started, she couldn't bring herself to stop. She paused, remembering the images the piece used to bring to her mind. The music flowed.
Years ago, her piano teacher had told her parents that she was a budding concert pianist in the making. The teacher had pushed her into competition after competition, telling her that she needed the experience. Stacey had felt the weight of all those competitions stack up on her one by one instead. They had squashed much of the joy of music out of her instead, culminating in that final disastrous day when in the middle of her performance, she had suffered a sudden mind blank. She couldn't remember what to play but she had to keep playing or she would be disqualified. And so, Stacey had melded the classical piece into a popular pop song at the time that made some of the audience laugh and cheer, singing along with her sudden change in performance.
A weight had lifted off her shoulders that day. She had made the decision at that moment. Decided to quit the piano.
Backstage, her teacher had scolded her harshly. The words that might have once left her in tears slid off her like water off a duck's back. All through the scolding, she hadn't been able to keep the smile off her face, which had made her teacher scold her even harder.
In the end, she had cut her teacher's ranting short with just one phrase.
"I quit."
And then she had walked away and never touched a piano again. Never felt the want or the need to. Now that she was sitting back in front of what had once been her favourite musical instrument, she remembered the thrill and joy of hearing the music come alive beneath her fingers. She remembered that soaring, sweet feeling when she hit all the right keys in the right sequence with the right rhythm. Remembered hearing the music become shaped by her own emotions and be released from where they had been locked inside her chest out into the open air. Now, it undid the lock to let out the pent up emotion and feelings she had never been able to let out since she had quit music. Now everything gushed out through her fingers into the keyboard and out through the open piano cover.