Welcome to Starlight Shores

Well here I am.  I’m in Starlight Shores, my third new city.  Over the hills you could see the sign.

I’m all packed and moved into my new digs in the hills area.  I left my dog, Honey, with Francisca, and Honey’s daughter, Bitsy, is with my niece, Sage. 

My friend and ex-boss Kristy Verhoeven came and visited me and helped me unpack.  She also wanted to go over what she had of the Moon Colony script.  The Moon Colony movie is based on my aunt’s book series.  Kristy is dead set on getting this movie made, despite all the setbacks it’s had with funding and also the fact that Emmitt Stanley (Alan’s son by Emmy Starr) is writing his own version.  “This is a great house,” I whispered while she was biting into my new butler’s key lime pie. 

“Yeah, it’s fab,” she muttered.

“Let me guess – you miss Bridgeport.”

She shrugged her shoulders.  “No, it’s not that, it’s –”

And there is the other part of the story.  Remember Madi Westley, the girl I met in Hidden Springs?  Turns out she lives here, in Starlight Shores, and she’s kind of giving me the lay of the land. 

“You know, Sebastian,” Madi said, “there is this one karaoke bar here that you guys HAVE to check out.  It’s always busy and there’s always something going on here.”

That’s the other part of the story.  You see, Kristy and Madi don’t like each other very much.  And it’s not hard to see why, given how night-and-day different they are.  

Early the next morning, after work, Kristy asked me, point blank, “What’s going on between you and her?”

I had to laugh.  Is she jealous?

“There’s nothing going on between us,” I replied.  “We hardly even know each other.”

“That’s not what she says.”

“Well, she’s not exactly telling the truth.”

Kristy gave me a knowing glance.  “You wouldn’t know what the truth is if it stared you in the face.”  She said it in a joking manner but she was entirely serious. 

Night and day she works on that script.  Obviously it means a lot to her. 

Meanwhile, I whipped out my keyboard and continued to practice a few bars.  I took up piano in Bridgeport and because I inherited my parents’ virtuoso trait, learning wasn’t that difficult. 

That evening I went to Verdi Park to see Madi perform in concert.  Have to say, she’s pretty good.

“You were great out there!”

“Dude, you could do exactly what I’m doing.  Probably better.”

“What do you mean?  I’m an actor.”

“You’re more of a musician than I could ever be.  And you know it.  I’m a singer, I’m not a musician.  C’mon, I hear you at night strum that guitar and tickle those ivories.  You’re really good at it.”

I explained to Madi that I’d grown up in a musical home and I’d been taught to play the guitar before I went to school.   

“You know, dude, you need to figure out if acting is really what you want.  Cuz you know what I think?  I think your real thing is music, and you’re running from it.  You can’t run anymore from who you are.”