Best Girl by Sylvia Warsh Read Free Book Online Page A

go.”
    â€œTrust you? You lied to me about the most important thing in my life. I’ll never trust you again!”
    I pushed the button to disconnect. I felt stupid right away. I was on edge and taking it out on her.
    I poured myself another glass of peach brandy. It went down nice and warm.
    I took the guitar out of the case and put it down on the sofa. I looked over the papers inside the case. Sheets of music. Some Vandal Boss songs I recognized. Shelley had an old boom box she used to play in the salon. Those funny little audiotapes when I was a kid. I remembered hearing Vandal Boss songs for the first time when I came in to watch her cut hair. And here was their own sheet music! Notes in the margins, words underlined. Awesome!
    Underneath the pile was a big envelope, no writing on it. I took out the one sheet of yellowed paper inside. It was one of those pages that already had the staff lines printed on it. The musical notes were printed by hand. Not round like the printed ones. These were just strokes with tails, like someone going real fast to get it all down. Then below each bar, lyrics in small tight letters to fit them all in. At the top it said, “Best Girl.” In the bottom corner was a signature: Freddy Allan. For my best girl, Mandy .
    I just stared at it. My heart pounded. Tears rolled down my face.
    You came along and broke my heart
    Best girl, best girl.
    Without even trying right from the start
    Best girl, best girl.
    Now you’re walking
    Now you’re talking
    Girl, you’re sweet as candy.
    I never knew I could love so true
    My own sweet baby Mandy.
    For my best girl, Mandy. He loved me. My dad loved me! All the bad things I heard about him fell away. I read the words again through my tears.
    Hey, wait! Those chords, those words— they were the lyrics from “Playgirl,” Stu Van Dam’s hit song. A couple of lines were different. The rest of the song was the same. I looked for Stu’s name on the sheet. Nada. Then I saw the date below the signature. December 3, 1990 . My birthday! My dad wrote it for my birthday. I was four years old. A month later he was gone.
    A shiver ran down my back. Would Stu have killed him for a song? Not just any song. The song that made his career. I looked at the sheet, picking up the Gibson. I hummed it, then tried the rest of the notes. They went up and down in the same places as “Playgirl,” but it was hard to tell. There were letters of the alphabet above the music notes. Guitar chords. I strummed the chords slowly and sang the words. Wow! Now I recognized it. Stu had improvised to fit the song to his voice. But it was the same song! Stu had stolen it from my dad.
    I found the cell number Stu gave me when he came to the salon.
    â€œYo!” he answered.
    â€œStu?” I tried to control my anger. “It’s Amanda.”
    â€œYeah, babe. What’s up?”
    â€œI need to talk to you.”
    â€œLucky break. Come to Brooke’s tomorrow night. Rockin’ new artist playing his first gig. You’ll love it.” He hung up.
    I gritted my teeth.

CHAPTER TEN
    T he next day I photocopied the “Best Girl” sheet in the salon office. I kept myself calm the whole day, playing out what would happen that night. I would tell Stu I knew what he’d done. At first he’d deny it. Then I’d show him the photocopy. Finally he’d see that I had him. He’d confess. I would call the cops and they’d take him away. Okay, things probably wouldn’t go quite that smoothly. But my mother’s name would be cleared. I wouldn’t be the kid of a murderer anymore.
    Later that night, I changed into my knock-off designer jeans. They’d already seen my poofy skirt. Besides, I wanted them to take me seriously. I wanted to look grown-up. It’s hard to do that in a poofy skirt.
    Their rocking new star wouldn’t go on till after ten, the usual club time. I wasn’t interested