Mr. Moneybags | jb

Chapter 18 - Sleepless in LA

Justin had shown me to one of the guest rooms. To my surprise his house seemed fairly low-key from the street. No huge gates and driveways or anything like that. Also it was extremely homey. For some reason I couldn't sleep and felt restless. I turned from side to side, but my eyes would barely shut. The alcohol once again didn't do it's deed. Defeated I checked my phone. It was 5am. I had been trying to fall asleep for an hour. Great!

The events of last night kept rushing through my head. Music - all I could think about was music. Elton's words from New York haunted me "...for people like us music is everywhere. It's in our blood, it pulses through our veins. You can chose to ignore that for a while, but it won't stop." He was right. I had tried to stay away from it and carefully built a life without music, but I was pulled back toward it like a magnet. LA did that to me. Here, everything was about music. Last night was a celebration of music, nothing else. The industry, broadway, they were all tugging at me and pulling me back into it.

"You need this, Emma!" Paris said to me that night after I told her I had sung again. Why does everyone feel like I can't live without music? It's just one of my talents, but I can chose not to pursue it and still live a good life. I proved that during the past year, didn't I? Was I fooling myself so badly, or did I really do just fine without music? I needed to get back to London to find out. There was no other way of finding out.

On the other hand there was this pull toward music and I couldn't deny it. I went to New York, and where do I find myself? On broadway! Okay, partly because of Elton, but still. I go to LA and here... well, I knew what I was getting myself into before I came here. I knew tonight was gonna be about the industry and still agreed to come here. The question is though, could I have made a different decision? Was it my decision to end up here being confronted with all that and lying here awake at night contemplating these things or did the music pull me here? Was it inevitable for me to end up here? Gosh, Emma! That's way too deep for 5am in the morning.

To distract myself from my thoughts I decided to go for a stroll. I draped the sheet around myself and sat outside in the garden enjoying the moonlight for a while. Then I watched the sunrise. It was beautiful and peaceful. Justin's place here was hella nice, I had to give him this much. Justin - right. Why the hell did he show up in my life? He wasn't making things any easier - that was for sure! Now London would know about my relationship to music, well at least about Elton being my godfather and Paris being an old friend. See, once again music was barging into my life unsolicited. London used to be my safe place. The one place without music. That sure as hell was now over. Dammit! Here I was contemplating these things again.

I went back inside and walked around the house. It was beautifully decorated, probably the work of a well-paid designer. Still Justin showed some taste here and there. I found a games room with table football and a pool table. That sure looked like fun. I continued along the corridors feeling a little intrusive, but I couldn't help myself and I didn't know what else to do. Still I wasn't tired and unable to shut down my brain. In an attempt not to be more intrusive than necessary I didn't open any doors that were closed. The only rooms I checked out were the ones to which the doors were open.

Eventually I silently made it up to the second floor. Justin's bedroom was probably up here, so I tried to be extra quiet. The last room I found was a sanctuary. Once again I found myself heavily confronted with music. The walls held shelves with awards, in the middle of the room a grand piano was situated and in a corner was a reck with five guitars. There was a small adjacent room with a drum set in it as well. I wandered around the room tracing my fingers across the inscriptions on the awards. He won a lot of those, that much was for sure. I passed the guitars and took a look at the drum set. All the instruments were only of the finest quality I could tell that much. Finally I made it to the piano. For a while I just stood there admiring it. My mom had one of those at the house in Germany - they sounded divine.