Sing for Their Supper - 45

 

"Sure, I'll do it," Ricky said when Tuck told him that he wanted to add him to the workhouse scene. "'What's another song to learn?"

 

Sam snorted. "You already know the lyrics to all of them I bet—yours and everyone else's'."

 

"Well…yeah. And?"

 

"Just saying."

 

"Okay, let's get started," Tuck said.

 

The afternoon rehearsal went about the same as that morning's. By the time it was over, everyone was drained. So when Tuck suggested they have a barbecue on the beach, no one objected. Andy and Fran volunteered to go to the closest grocery store to get what was needed in the way of food.

 

"Don't forget marshmallows," Ricky called out.

 

"Of course not," Fran replied. "What's a barbecue without them?"

 

While they were gone, the kids gathered enough branches to make a roaring fire. Then they realized there was no way to cook hamburgers. "Hotdogs we can do on sticks," DJ said, "but it's hard to hold a burger on one."

 

Fran and Andy had apparently figured that out, because when they returned, they not only had food but also paper plates and tin foil. They showed the kids how to wrap the burgers and set them in the fire—and retrieve them with split branches after they were cooked.

 

Jolie and Roma brought blankets from the unused beds in their cabin for all of them to sit on. Soon, everyone had food on their plates and sodas or water to drink.

 

"Who knew," DJ said to Evie as he started to work on his second burger, "that we'd end up here, in the middle of nowhere, with people who treat us like human beings."

 

"I did. The minute we started singing together that day by the campus, I knew we had a future doing something like this. Well, maybe not acting. But music? Yeah."

 

"Sure you did," he replied, giving her a one-armed hug.

 

She looked innocently at him. "I did. I saw it written in the stars."

 

"It was the middle of the day, silly."

 

Putting down her plate, she leaned back on her hands, staring up at the sky. "It doesn't matter what time of day it is, the stars are still up there and they say we're going to be famous. You. Me. All of us."

 

DJ looked up at the sky, then at her, smiling. "I think you're right. When our kids are old enough, we can tell them how you predicted—"

 

"Excuse me? Our kids? What kids?"

 

"The ones we'll have someday. Not soon. We're too young. But someday."

 

"DJ, are you trying to say something?"

 

He nodded. "I like you a hell of a lot. I think we're good together, don't you?'

 

"Well. Yeah. But"—she chewed her lip—"I…I don't even know your real first name."

 

He leaned in, whispering, "Don't laugh. Delbert Jarvis. My mom insisted on naming me after her grandfathers."

 

"No wonder you decided on DJ." She kissed his cheek. "So. Do you want to know my real first name?"

 

"Duh."

 

"It's almost as bad as yours. Evangeline. My mom had a thing for the poem by, umm, Longfellow, so that's what she named me."

 

"It's a pretty name."

 

"You think so?"

 

"I said it, so I do." DJ smiled at her. "But I promise never to tell."

 

"Thank you." She hugged him, then they went back to eating.