Some Kind of Miracle Read Online Free PDF

him.
    Jamie Reiss was tall and lanky and handsome enough to be a country-western star. He’d had his own radio show in Nashville for years and had recently moved to L.A. to act in a TV pilot for a show that never made it past the pilot stage. He had always made music and wanted to write songs but didn’t have a lyric idea in the world.
    “Ah lahk this one,” he drawled as he looked at one of the pages of lyrics Dahlia handed him.
    “Great,” Dahlia said, then watched him as he casually picked up a guitar and strummed out a tune at the same time he looked at the paper on which she had transcribed the lyrics to “My Kids Are My Life” from the napkin.
     
    The pictures she showed were of faces that glowed,
     
    One was Matt, one was Josh, one was Jenny.
     
    I asked her to tell me what work she was doing,
     
    But she told me she didn’t have any.
     
    “MY KIDS ARE MY LIFE, I keep busy with them,
     
    And the grandchildren love when I visit.
     
    My kids are my world, and they need me so much.
     
    Now, that’s not so terrible, is it?”
     
    I remember I thought, What a sad life she lives.
     
    There’s no man, there’s no job, there’s no money.
     
    But twenty years later I pull out my wallet,
     
    Show pictures, and think, Gee, it’s funny.
     
    MY KIDS ARE MY LIFE, I keep busy with them,
     
    And the grandchildren love when I visit,
     
    My kids are my world, and they need me so much.
     
    Now, that’s not so terrible, is it?
     
     
    Jamie Reiss’s tune for her words was tender and understated, and the melody was simple and easy to remember. It was a tune Dahlia never would have thought of for those words. But best of all, Jamie knew Naomi Judd’s manager, and in a few weeks Naomi was recording it and singing it with so much heart that Dahlia wept the first time she heard it.
    Dahlia lived on the money from that song for a long time, and she’d never sold another since. But tomorrow she was going to. Marty Melman needed her song, and she had found the tape, and pretty soon he’d be begging her for it. Tonight, eight years after the one time she’d had a song recorded, she couldn’t stop talking about what she was going to do after Marty Melman wrote her a big fat check for her second one, babbling to Seth as they made dinner together.
    “Once my song’s recorded, I’ll have money coming at me from two directions, like I did with my last one. A check for record sales from the publisher and another from ASCAP for airplay. It’s going to be rolling in, and then I’ll be set. Then I can get a publishing deal where they give me money every month, and I’ll sit here and turn out the hits. We can move into a better place. We can go on vacations. When was the last time we went on a trip?”
    Seth washed the lettuce and wrapped it in a dishcloth, letting her ramble. Then he chopped a tomato, peeled a cucumber and diced it, and poured some olive oil into a mixing bottle.
    “Why are you frowning?” Dahlia asked as she turned over the chicken breasts in the broiler.
    “Because you’re too psyched. Marty Melman isn’t going to buy a song from his masseuse.”
    Dahlia bit the inside of her lip to stop herself from saying something mean. But it occurred to her that this was why she and Seth had no future. He was a small-time thinker.
    “I wrote a hit once,” she said, unable to keep the anger out of her voice.
    “You wrote a nice song. Naomi Judd put it on a C&W album. It did nicely. The Marty Melmans of theworld are looking for huge songs by happening rock groups for their movies. Not a sweet little song by two women in their late thirties and early forties, one who’s in a nuthouse somewhere and the other one who’s his masseuse.” Seth caught sight of her tight jaw. He knew that the reality check would annoy her, but he also knew how she could spin out on fantasies and then get hurt. “Sorry, honey, for the cold light of day. But somebody has to tell you the truth, and I hate to see you do what