Just a Girl (13 page)

The guys cheered, bolstered by a higher whoop from Kenzie. But Paul grabbed me by the elbow. “Presley,” he spoke in a volume only I could hear, “you don’t have to do this for me.”

I put my hands on both sides of his face, forcing him to look at me. The whiskey was starting to take effect, in all the right ways. “Actually, I think I do.”

Late that night, I lay in his arms, having delivered on the rain check we’d agreed on.

The rest of practice had gone by in a blur as I listened to Jukebox Bleu’s original songs. The microphone between us, Ronnie and I shared a music stand with his tablet on it. It had the lyrics to all the band’s songs, including the covers. The songs were simple, but catchy, and I didn’t have much trouble learning the basics. It would take a while to memorize the lyrics, but Ronnie had already promised to meet with me as much as he could over the next two weeks while he got ready for deployment.

As good as it had felt to be onstage with them a few weeks ago, it felt great to be back in a practice environment. I’d forgotten how much fun it could be to just mess around with music as a plaything. It was a pleasure to be among musicians who knew their instruments and had a broad knowledge of musical styles. One of them would start playing an unfamiliar riff and the others would build on it until we were doing a jazz cover of “Can’t Feel My Face” or a big band interpretation of Britney Spears, or improvising a new song on the spot.

Paul had become more relaxed once his being the lead singer was off the table. He didn’t suffer from the same type of stage-fright anxiety in the practice setting. He even took the lead on a few of the goofy sidebars we did. My heart fluttered each time he smiled at me in the middle of a song. This was the guy who’d belted out “Bennie and the Jets” with me in the store after dark. The one who’d nipped playfully at my nose when I left him in my orgasmic dust in bed. I just wished he could be this guy during a performance, so he could feel that same magic I did on the stage.

Now, however, he was relaxed and happy, rubbing his hand up and down my side as we curled together in his bed.

“Thank you for helping me earlier tonight,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

“I—I really wish you didn’t keep seeing me like that.”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind.” In truth, I felt helpless and wished there were more I could do for him, but I wasn’t upset with him for being anxious. That would be ridiculous.

“Well, thanks anyway. It means a lot to me that you haven’t written me off as a total nut job.”

I pressed a kiss to his chest. “What can I say? I like you.”

“I like you, too.” He smiled. “A lot. You sounded really great tonight.”

“It feels good to sing again,” I admitted.

“And can I just add that you are much more fun to look at while we play than Ronnie?”

I laughed, but poked him in the ribs. “Hey, don’t pick on Ronnie, he’s a really good front man.”

“Ronnie’s good shit. I’m totally aware of that. But you’re still hotter.”

“That’s a relief.”

He laughed softly, the sound resonating through his chest and into my body.

As if we’d agreed on it, we both fell silent, drifting toward sleep. As always, my thoughts tumbled like clothes in a dryer. Some of them seemed important, but didn’t make it to my lips. Then one demanded to be spoken aloud.

“You’re not nuts, Paul.”

He startled just a little. “Hmm?”

“You’re not nuts.”

“ ’Kay,” he said sleepily.

Sleep lapped at my brain like a tide coming in, and I don’t know how much later it was that I managed to speak once more. “I wish you believed me.”

I don’t know if he heard me, or if he answered, because then I was gone.

Replies:

@KenzieInk GOOD LUCK RONNIE! WE’LL MISS YOU! STAY SAFE!

@GTechSucks Good luck, man.

@TheHornet We’ll miss you, Ron.

@jukeboxbleu

The show must go on! We’re stoked for our Summerfest show with special guest Presley Mason at the mic. She’s gonna rock your world.

Replies:

@ theLum6Band Who the fuck is Jukebox Bleu?

@ theLum6Band Good luck with her. You guys will regret this.

@Jukeboxbleu @theLum6Band Thanks! Have a great day!

I had less alone time with Paul than usual over the next two weeks, since I had to learn all the Jukebox Bleu originals after work. Ronnie was true to his word; he gave me as much time as he could to teach me the songs. The band had recordings I could work with as well, but I think Ronnie liked being able to do something to make up for leaving them in the lurch.

He came to the store a couple of times, and Paul stuck around as well to play the guitar while we rehearsed. My parents hung out one night to listen, which I was afraid was going to trigger a serious panic attack for Paul, but he did remarkably well. Maybe because they stayed behind him, so he couldn’t see how intently they were listening. Who knows? But he did it and I thought my face was going to fall off from all the smiling I did. I wanted to hug him and tell him I was proud of him, but I had a feeling it would embarrass him.

Ronnie was very chill about the whole thing, though he admitted later he’d been pretty intimidated.

When we were wrapping up for the night, my dad invited Ronnie to come back on Thursday for the After Hours jam session, and he immediately accepted.

“Holy shit!” he said under his breath when we were out of earshot.

“I can’t promise there will be anyone famous there,” I warned him. Sometimes After Hours was just a local group of my parents’ music friends.

“Uh, you mean besides Dinah Mason and Rick Schmidt?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, besides them.”

“That’s plenty for me, trust me.”

That Thursday, Ronnie arrived at the store before closing to get in a little more practice. We took over the guitar showcase room on the condition that we get the hell out if any serious buyers came in.

Ronnie was immediately enamored with one of the limited-edition Deans on display, and stood transfixed in front of it. Which put his feet just about in the spot where Paul and I had lain naked a couple weeks ago. I caught Paul’s eye and tilted my head toward Ronnie’s feet. Paul nodded, lips pressed together to smother any laughter. Not my most mature moment, maybe, but at least he was in the same frame of mind.

We got to work, managing to avoid letting Ronnie in on our private amusement. I found that I’d gotten to the point where I could sing most of the band’s songs from memory. I kept the lyrics nearby in case I needed a refresher, but we didn’t have to stop in the middle of any songs so I could find my place. Good thing, too. We were only four days from the show. And Ronnie was shipping out in two.

“All right,” Ronnie declared when we were finished. “I think you are officially me.”

I patted my long hair in mock confusion. “Wow, I don’t feel any different.”

He smiled. “Okay, I admit it. You’re better than me.”

“No,” I said immediately. “It should be you on that stage. I’m just a substitute teacher.”

He shook his head, his smile looking sad now. “I wish I could be there.”

Unexpected tears pricked at my eyes. I couldn’t imagine how hard it was to walk away from a band you loved that still wanted you around. To lose out on the biggest show of your life. And all of that was small potatoes compared with the natural fear he had to have over being deployed.

There was nothing I could say that would change any of that. So I just hugged him.

“Sorry, Ronnie,” Paul said, putting one hand on his friend’s back while I continued to squeeze him.

Ronnie crushed me in a return hug for a moment, then abruptly released me and pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand. He screwed up his face in concentration, and when he let go, he was a little red-eyed but otherwise in control.

“Fuck sadness. Let’s go see what’s going on out there.” He marched purposefully to the door and swept through it without a backward glance.

Paul, still wearing his guitar over his shoulders, leaned over it to kiss me. “You’re a good person.”

“Um, thanks, I guess.”

“You are,” he said. “You’re nice, and you don’t have to be.”

I didn’t know what to say.

He kissed me again, a swift peck. “Come on. I want to see Ronnie’s face.”

My parents had proven my warning to Ronnie wrong. The usual crew of locals had shown up, but there were plenty of surprise guests as well. It only made sense, with Summerfest in full swing, that there would be a few big names in town.

When Paul and I left the showcase room, we found Ronnie standing stock-still at the edge of the crowd with his mouth hanging slightly open. The gathering was bigger than usual, in fact—almost thirty people, I guessed. And onstage right at the moment was Jessie Kent.

“Is that…?” Paul asked.

“Yes.”

“Another one of your godmothers?” he teased.

“Ha ha.” Jessie was relatively close to my age, actually, although she’d been a star for almost as long as I could remember. She was a Nashville wunderkind, releasing her first album when she was only fourteen. Now she was one of the biggest names in country music, and one of those crossover sensations that record execs cream their pants over. I’d met her a couple times, since her bass player was an old friend of my dad’s.

She was headlining at Summerfest tomorrow. It wasn’t typical for a touring artist to spend more hours than necessary in any of her tour cities, but clearly Jessie was here.

I tapped Ronnie on the back. “Breathe.”

He nodded, and I felt his shoulders drop as he followed my advice. “That’s—”

“I know.”

Jessie was laughing at something one of the musicians said, and the sound carried through the mic. She checked the small cluster of chairs on the floor in front of her and spotted my mom.

“Come on up here, Dinah.”

My mom complied as the ad hoc band went into a twangy countrified version of one of my parents’ better-known songs, “Two for the Road.”

“We can go closer.” I nudged Ronnie in the back, a little harder this time, and his feet carried him to an empty seat.

Paul and I sat beside him. We were near the front, and my mom winked at me when she spotted us.

She and Jessie Kent dueted on the song, giving it a sweeter lullaby quality than the original. It took me back to being a kid, listening to my mother sing while she worked in her garden or folded laundry. I suppose not every child gets to hear songs performed by the original artist at home, but it seemed normal to me.

When the song ended, my mom hugged Jessie, then they conferred for a minute. Finally she spoke into the mic.

“Presley, baby, you wanna come up here and sing?”

For the briefest of moments, a wisp of the old fear gripped me. I hadn’t sung with my mother since I’d found my voice again, but it was something we’d shared my whole life. In a way, it seemed like the last hurdle to taking back my voice.

Paul put his hand on my knee. “Are you up for it?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah.” I stood, looking at the stage.

The smile on my mom’s face was all the incentive I needed. She hadn’t been this happy since I’d come home.

I climbed up and joined them onstage. Jessie gave me a quick hug in greeting as though we were old friends.

“What are we singing?” I asked.

“We were thinking of a little ‘Hotel California,’ ” Jessie said. “Think you can handle it?”

“Absolutely.”

We worked out who would take which parts and who would take each verse. It was one of those moments of stage magic where everything was settled in a matter of seconds, with barely any words.

Jessie had her tour guitar player with her, and he strummed the intro. Finally, the drummer gave us the cue and Jessie started on the first verse.

I took the high harmony when we got to the chorus, while my mom did the low. She and I always had a good blend. Jessie in the lead gave the song a definite Nashville flair, but it worked.

My eyes found Paul over and over as I sang, until I finally just gave in and focused on him. It was hardly a love song, but I sang it for him anyway. He watched with a half-smile on his face, seemingly unable to look away from me either. We might as well have been the only people in the room.

When the song ended, I felt almost embarrassed that we’d been in front of so many people. No one else seemed to notice, however, and my mom buried me in a hug. I saw tears on her cheeks when she pulled back.

“Thank you, baby,” she said.

I didn’t answer, just gave her another squeeze before exchanging kisses on the cheeks with Jessie.

“You could do country, you know,” she said. “They’d love you down in Nashville.”

“My girl’s got a little too much punk in her blood,” my mom teased.

“If you ever change your mind, call me,” Jessie said.

“Thanks.”

We left the stage and I took my seat beside Paul again.

“That was incredible,” Ronnie said, leaning over Paul to speak to me.

“Thanks.”

“Was it amazing? I would kill to sing with her,” he said.

“No need to kill.” I grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him up. “Hey, Jessie!” I called. “This is my friend Ronnie. You up for another duet?”

She propped her hands on her hips, giving us a look of pretend disdain. “You any good, Ronnie?”

He was stunned into silence.

“He’s great,” I said, pulling him onstage. “And his reserve unit is being called up in two days.”

“Well, in that case…” Jessie swept him in with a wide gesture. “Get on over here, Ronnie.”

That did it. He joined her at the microphone.

“What do you want to sing with me, Ronnie?” she asked.

“Uhhh…”

“I got an idea.” She turned to the guitar player and said something we couldn’t hear from the audience.

When he started to play “I Got You Babe,” Ronnie went wide-eyed, but grinned.

“You know this one?” Jessie asked into the mic, smiling.

My parents both got onstage, my dad to add another guitar to the mix and my mom with a tambourine to keep the beat. Ronnie was positively beaming.

Paul wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me close to press a kiss against my temple. “You may have just made his life.”

“I wish I could do more.”

“We should at least record it, don’t you think?”

“Definitely.”

So we snuck to the back of the room, and I held my phone up to keep the stage in the frame while Paul stood behind me, steadying me with his hands on my hips.

I wasn’t sure what Ronnie’s favorite part of the video would be—his performance with a group of famous musicians, or the kiss Jessie Kent planted on him to wish him luck when it was over.

As I hit Stop on the recording, Paul wrapped his arms around me and held me tight against him. “You really are amazing. I— Thank you.”