Long Way Gone (17 page)

She relaxed a notch. “Well, did you? Believe?”

I laughed. “Yes.”

She smiled like she too had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. She eyed the doors and spoke softly. “Want to do it again?”

We played it through five times straight. Each time she grew more comfortable, making it more and more her own. On the sixth time she owned it altogether, and I both heard and watched her find her voice.

And her song.

When she finished, her eyes smiled in concert with her lips. “Thank you.” She gently closed my black book, handed it back to me, and slid her hands into her jeans. “Thanks for letting me sing your song. It's . . . yeah, just wow.” She pushed the hair out of her face and looked at her watch. “I better get going. Long day ahead.” She stepped off the stage and began walking toward the exit.

I hopped off the stage and walked after her. “Daley?” I shook my head. “I mean, Miss Cross.”

She stopped. A hardened exterior had returned, and she looked like she had already begun fighting the day's battles.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Sure. And it's Daley.”

“Do you like the music that you play?”

She shook her head matter-of-factly. “Not really. But I sing it in the hopes that doing so will allow me to sing what I like one day.”

I opened my book, tore out the perforated page, and handed it to her. “Your band shouldn't have any trouble. Everything they need is—”

She shook her head. “I can't. I mean, I couldn't poss—”

I held out a stop-sign hand. “You sing it better than I do. Unless you don't—”

“No.” She clutched the paper to her chest. “I do. It's just . . . words like these are . . . I feel like I'd be stealing something sacred.”

“It's yours.”

“You must let me buy it from you.”

I waved my hand across the stage. “Given my experience here in Nashville, I highly doubt anything will come of my dreams, but I think you should keep dreaming yours. I grew up in a world where music wasn't hoarded. It was shared. All the time.” I chuckled. “My dad used to say it's like that proverbial candle that you don't hide. You set it on a table where everyone can see it. Where it gives light.” I slid my hands into my pockets. “You're the only real light I've seen in a dark five years.” I paused. “I write the music that I need to hear. Only when I give it away can someone else sing it back to me.”

“That would make you different from most everyone else in this city.”

“Music is an offering.”

She held the song tight. “Where can I find you?”

“I'll be back here tonight. Cleaning up the mess you and your band leave. Preparing for the next act.” I pointed. “My day job is across the alley. Riggs's. I'm never far.”

A gentle smile. “What do you do?”

“Try to make guitars sound like the voices that own them.”

She laughed. “Figures.” She pointed at my notebook. “You also wait tables?”

“No. Why?”

“The way you tuck that thing behind your belt at your back.”

I turned it in my hands. It was worn, with tattered edges, and had taken on the natural curve of my lower back. “Old habit.”

“What all do you write in there?”

“Stuff I don't want to forget.”

A sly smile. This time I was pretty sure she was flirting. “You're being vague.”

“Just songs.”

“So you have more?”

“Yes.”

Her voice softened. “You always this honest?”

“No. Sometimes I lie.”

She eyed the single page in her hand, then extended it slowly into the empty space between us. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

I wasn't sure about a whole lot in life, but I was absolutely certain that Daley Cross was made to sing that song. “Keep it.”

I led her toward the door, unlocked it, and pushed it open, holding it while she walked through. When she did, she brushed my arm with her hand, then my stomach. It was a purposeful touch, as curious as her questioning. Something in her wanted to know if I was real. It was also an unspoken acknowledgment that we'd just shared something that words couldn't ever encapsulate. No matter how long we stood there and racked our brains and tried to come up with a synthesis, there were no words for what we'd just experienced.

People who make music together know this. Talking about it never gets at the heart of what's been shared.

When she turned, the breeze caught her hair and pulled it across her face. She tucked it behind an ear. “What's your name?”

I extended my hand. “Cooper. But folks 'round here just call me Peg.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Peg?”

“My dad used to say that my mom was his anchor. Like a tent peg. And I reminded him of her. The name stuck.”

“Sounds like a tender love story.”

“To hear my dad tell it, it was that.”

“I'd like to hear more about them.”

“That almost sounds like you're asking me out.”

“It's the least I can do.”

Something in me that had been frowning for a few years smiled. “I'd like that.”

“After the show, then.”

R
iggs kept me busy most of the day. After lunch, he noticed my good mood. I think I'd been whistling. “You're in good spirits. Got a hot date or something?”

I shrugged. “Or something.”

He smiled at me over a Martin he was working on. “Do tell.”

I waved him off and stared out in the alley toward the Ryman. “You wouldn't believe me. Better just wait and see how it pans out.”

I worked through lunch, but my mind was next door. When Riggs came back from lunch, he said the place was buzzing with people. A producer named Sam Casey was crazy about a new song that his new girl Daley Cross had sung for him early this morning. He heard it once, got on the phone, and immediately began making major changes to the set. Trucks were brought in. The place was crawling with electricians and audio-video people. Set designers from one of the top touring rock-and-roll big-hair bands had been paid a lofty fee to drop everything and oversee the overhaul.

I didn't know what limitations the Mother Church of Country Music put on its shows, but it sounded like this one would push the boundaries.

By the time I showered, slapped my face with aftershave, and walked through the back door of the Ryman around seven thirty, the seats were full and folks were standing up along the wall in the balcony. Word had spread, as evidenced by the number of cameras and glad-handing
glittering celebrities. I'd only seen it like this a few times before, and that usually involved folks who'd been in the business awhile. This could be one to remember.

When the show started at eight I was mopping up a spilled Coca-Cola in the foyer. From there I moved to the men's upstairs bathroom where a toilet was in the process of shooting stuff the wrong direction. Not pretty. That kept me busy the better part of an hour, so by the time I exited the men's room, Daley only had a couple songs left.

I stood in the balcony against the back wall and watched the whirlwind of lights and sound envelop her. She looked as though she was struggling to find purchase amid an avalanche of stimuli. The heels she was wearing couldn't have been comfortable, and her clothes looked more appropriate for a Super Bowl beer commercial than a girl standing on a stage singing a song. After seeing her so relaxed, so comfortable early this morning, it was tough to watch. It was like watching a voice I'd heard walking around in skin I'd never seen.

Sure, it was technically perfect, and I was sure a lot of people would go crazy over it. The media had found their next darling. But selling out had never been too attractive to me. And, sadly, Daley Cross was selling out right before my eyes. I exited the balcony and made my way backstage, where I knew I'd be needed as the show came to a close.

Daley had played fifteen or so songs, including a few well-known covers that endeared her to some of the older members of the audience. The concert ended, the applause faded, and I heard Daley's voice. She was breathing heavily. “Thank you. Thank you very much.” A pause. “Phew. I need to start working out if I hope to make a career out of this. The guys in that booth up there are about to kill me.” She put a hand on her hip. “Does it look hard? It feels hard.”

The audience laughed.

“Sure glad my mom wouldn't let me quit dance lessons. I'm exhausted. And I need to apologize to you folks in the front; I think my deodorant wore off an hour ago.” More laughter. She lifted her head and spoke to the folks in the sound and lighting booth. “Guys, could you bring the
lights up, please? I'd like to make sure everybody didn't leave six or eight songs ago. Right now you've got the sun shining in my eyes.” The lights were adjusted. Daley smiled at the audience. “Oh, hi.” She sounded surprised. “You're still here.”

A guy in the audience screamed, “Daley, we love you!”

She was quick to respond. “You should see me at four a.m.”

The same guy responded, “Your place or mine?”

Everybody laughed. She strolled across the stage. “Guess I walked into that.”

The crowd quieted. She slid a stool onto the stage and sat down. “These shoes are killing me.” She looked at the glittering headliners seated in the first few rows. “I don't know how you all do this. I mean, is there a secret?” More laughter. “Matter of fact . . .”

There was a pause while she took off those ridiculous heels. Daley stood and walked down the steps to a young girl in the front row. You could hear her voice away from the microphone talking to the mother. “Mom, is this okay?” Daley's voice returned to the microphone. “Here, baby, you keep these. In about five minutes you'll be big enough to wear them. Maybe you can teach me how to walk in them.” She hugged the girl, walked back up onstage, and shook her head. “They hurt my bunions.”

More laughter and energetic applause as the star onstage became one of us.

“I'm a California girl. Grew up barefoot on the beach. See no reason to change now.”

Another voice in the audience shouted, “Take it off!”

She laughed and aimed her face in the direction of the voice. “This is not that kind of show.” She pointed. “But if you head that way down Broadway you might find what you're looking for.”

She possessed a seasoned stage presence for someone so young and had those folks eating out of the palm of her hand. “If you're wondering what's going on, I'm stalling while the guys do whatever they're doing back there.” The spotlights circled the stage and highlighted several men dressed in black working furiously.

“Over the last several months some very talented people have taken me under their wings, and we've worked really hard to find the right sound. Right song. Or songs. Some you've heard here tonight.” She paused for applause. “During that time, I've listened to several hundred songs penned by some of the best songwriters in the business. During this process, I learned something interesting about myself. My management team was listening to those demos trying to find the sound that could identify me to you. The type of sound that when you heard it, you'd immediately think
Daley Cross
and then sing along.

“Me, on the other hand? That wasn't my primary motivation.” She glanced at her producer. “Sorry, Sam.”

Back to the audience. “I was listening not for the song that identified me to you, but identified me with me. I was looking for a sound, a song, that resonated within me. Something that would take on a life of its own inside me. That's not as easy as it might sound, and as a result, I haven't been sleeping much.”

The same guy in the balcony interrupted her. “I can help with that.”

Daley didn't skip a beat. “Does your parole officer know you're here?” She waited while the laughter died down.

As if on cue, the lights dimmed, save a lone hazy spotlight on Daley. The image brought to mind that single swaying lightbulb the night of the storm and how it circled above the piano. I thought of my father and Big-Big and how I wished they were here to see this. Then I thought of the money, the truck, and Jimmy, and I knew they would not be.

“I'm going to sing one more song. It's new.” For some reason Daley turned her head just then, taking her eyes off the audience, and looked to her right, where she spotted me standing in the shadows just offstage. She continued speaking to the crowd, but she was looking at me. “I hope you like it.” The way she said it suggested that I would not.

The lights cut to black, and Daley walked off the stage, where she was met by a woman wearing a headset and holding a shirt in one hand and a headdress that resembled a tiara in the other. She accomplished an eight-second costume change and then stood just a few feet away from me as
the intro began to play. When the lights began to flash and thunder crack, Daley turned to me, grabbed my hand, and whispered, “I'm so sorry.”

What surprised me was how someone so confident in the spotlight had become so fragile in the dark. The transformation was immediate, and I wondered which was the real Daley.

Compared to other venues, the Ryman stage is not that big. Originally designed for a preacher and a choir, there's not a lot of room to maneuver. Nor was it originally wired to handle large productions. The stage had its physical limitations, and from where I stood it looked like the guys in the booth were pushing them.

The manufactured thunder and lightning lit up the back of the stage, along with a giant video screen showing a dark storm rolling in. Smoke machines blew white smoke from both underneath and above, blanketing the stage in a cloud. Fans created wind, swirling the smoke. When they'd achieved total whiteout, Daley walked to the center of the stage, where the wind tugged at her hair. She stood in the storm waiting for the smoke to clear and the music to crescendo.

She never got her chance.

The increased load of lights, electric, smoke, and wonder overtaxed the already overworked motherboard and, with one giant cluster of sparks and bang, blew every fuse connected to light and sound. In response to what sounded like the first cannon shot at Armageddon, the stage went black. Immediately, the yellow-tinted emergency lights lit the auditorium. Daley stood on a silent stage in a clearing cloud staring out at a snickering audience. A voice a few rows from the front said, “Reminds me of my ex-husband.”

The band exited the stage, leaving a disbelieving Daley alone with the audience and a few remaining sparks. A music critic with a camera snapped a few photos. She spoke around her camera: “Honey, you're only as good as your last song.” She slung the camera over her shoulder and said to no one in particular, “It'll be awhile before she recovers from this one.”

Daley tried to speak into the microphone, but it too was dead. So she stood there, frozen, unsure what to do.

The only word to describe the activity backstage and up in the sound booth was
pandemonium
. The same cold breeze that had blown through the Ryman earlier this morning blew now across the stage. Daley crossed her arms to ward off the chill.

The only light in the balcony came from the On Air sign above the radio broadcast booth. Evidently the panel that handled radio transmission hadn't been affected, and the microphones hanging from the ceiling were still capturing the sound onstage and broadcasting it across radio waves.

There was still hope.

I walked out onstage and found a tearful Daley just seconds from meltdown. I lifted the stupid-looking tiara off her head and pitched it back behind the drum set. Then I took off my flannel shirt, exposing a stained white T-shirt, and wrapped the flannel shirt around her. I said, “You want to sing that song?”

Her eyes were darting five different places at once. “Yeah, but—”

“Yes or no.” I glanced at the people walking out. “You've got about three seconds.”

Her eyes searched mine. “Yes.”

I pulled up two stools and slung her guitar around my neck. Then I turned to Daley, whose eyes had grown large and round. I leaned in close so she could hear me. “Just take my words and sing them back to me.”

Her hand bushed my arm. Another touch. A sonar ping. She nodded.

My fingers hit the strings and I began making a series of seven repeating whistles that grew louder—like the wind. In my mind I heard the echo of my father . . .
The great players aren't great because of all the notes they can play, but because of the ones they don't play.

Given years of practice, and the mystery of the beautiful, cathedral-like acoustics of the Ryman, I created a cacophony of noise to grab everyone's attention. Whistles by their very nature do that. And while I might have stopped the exodus, it was Daley who turned the people around and pulled them back into their seats.

That was the night the world changed.