Page 45 of AMS.TER.strum

Her hug is tighter this time. ‘I wish with all my heart that you do.’

Chapter nineteen

Now

Luuk

‘Have you turned superstitious all of a sudden like those hockey players?’ Aaron sounds intrigued and a tad terrified, as if I’ve just joined a cult or something.

‘What?’

‘You’ve been fiddling with this thing every time before you go on stage.’ He nods towards my hand, where Corrie’s magnet is tucked.

‘It’s his talisman all right,’ Gordon provides. ‘Special gift from a special person.’

I send him a murderous look, reminding myself to become even more tight-lipped about the information I reveal, especially on Corrie. I’m not an open book anyway, but sometimes I’m caught off guard and give away more than intended. Judging from Aaron’s look, this is one of those cases, and it makes me hackle up.

‘I need to know if there’s something going on.’ Aaron hates what escapes his control.

‘I don’t see how it’s any of your business.’

‘It will become my business if a girl suddenly announces she’s your baby momma.’

‘No such danger,’ I snap.

I love what I do, I truly do. I remember loving music since I was a kid, when Dad would obsessively listen to country music, driving Mom nuts, who reminded him we weren’t in Texas. To which he responded that with the amount of cowboy hats and boots he sees donned in Amsterdam, we might as well be. Although he didn’t know whether I would be any good at it, he did buy me my first guitar and paid for lessons, putting up with the noise I called music at first. When he realised I was onto something, he would tell everyone and their dog that his kid was making great music and people would pay good money to watch him perform one day. They do now, and Dad witnessed part of it, with a camera catching him drying his eyes during one of my concerts.

Although it couldn’t happen often due to the unpredictability of his condition, I still remember how good it felt to know he was there. I would look for him in the crowd at the seat reserved for him and another one that would have been for Mom, if she were alive, but is now for his carer. As his condition worsened, the two places remained empty more regularly, then permanently.

I miss him profoundly now; that familiar face of someone who cares for me as Luuk, not as Luuk Meiers the country singer. Someone who knows me from before. Who can see past the lights and the fame and shit that has nothing to do with writing music, but, as Aaron makes sure to remind me, has everything to do with selling it.

‘That’s what everyone says,’ my agent insists, and I shrug.

We’re playing in Bergen tonight, after having performed in Antwerp, Cologne and Belfast. We are a week into the tour already, my own week in Amsterdam gone much faster than I wanted, as always, and ended in a flop, like a collapsing soufflé.

My grand plan to take Corrie on a romantic date went to fucking hell. I can’t even be mad about it, because one of my favorite little humans ruined it—Otto, who got a fever, probably from a virus that Corrie prayed the rest of the family wouldn’t get. I knew already on the same morning, and she did promise to come to the show, if things got better. Finally, she had to stay at home and we video-called, since I was banned from approaching her house or going near them and possibly getting infected during a tour.

It absolutely sucked to not be able to say a proper goodbye, even though I’ll see all of them again in a few weeks when we go back to Amsterdam for our concert at one of my favorite venues—Paradiso.

‘You’ll be back before you know it,’ Corrie said, and I told myself this would give me time to organise the date better.

But tonight, I miss her a bit more after that stupid conversation with Aaron. I’d like to have her here, and at the end of the show, bring her onstage and show her off to stave off people giving me the looks of understanding and pity, wondering who caused the heartbreak that bleeds into my songs. That’s why, after we go through our setlist, I ask Joey for an “insert” song, which neither he nor Gordon know about as we have never played it. He looks at me confused and signals for the lights to dim, curious as everyone, and I wonder how it’ll be received.

‘Thank you for being with us tonight. I have a last-minute surprise for you.’

Gasps, whistles and claps emerge from the expectant crowd.

‘You know how music is an outlet for our joy or sadness, and every feeling in-between.’

There are agreeing hums and nodding heads.

‘But music is also a bridge, uniting us with those we love, no matter how far they are, making them feel a bit nearer, our connection a string of notes. Tonight, I miss two little people who asked me to make a song for them, and I want to share it with you.’

Awws dot the air, followed by a soothing silence flooding the concert hall.

‘It includes two of their favorite things: knock-knock jokes and cowboy boots.’

There’s a wave of laughter, then there’s silence again, as I strum the first notes of Knock-knock-knock boots, until the last notes fade away. For a moment, there’s absolutely no sound, and I wonder whether they hate it or I’ve put them to sleep.