Tomorrow will be a reprieve.She’ll turn off her phone and pretend her agent Logan and her personal woes don’t exist.Maybe she’ll drive down to Will Rogers State Beach with sunglasses, a book, and an enormous bottle of sunscreen, and relax for the first time in years.
More likely she’ll lie curled in bed under several layers of covers.
Grief yawns like a tiger at the back of her chest, but she quiets it.
“Elvie?”Maria says, breaking her reverie.“It’s time.They’re waiting for you.”
“Okay.I’m ready.”She isn’t.She’s never ready.She knows the songs, knows the motions to go through, but she is never prepared for the feeling of stepping onto that stage and pouring her heart out to strangers.Strangers who think they know her, who refer to her as “Elvie,” the carefully cultivated personality that has been created for her.Strangers who judge, strangers who take her music and make it their own.
She had something of her own, once.Something beautiful and fleeting.
Maria collects Jasper, and Hank flanks her as she leaves the dressing room and makes her way to the stage.The backstage area is a hive of activity, grips moving equipment and instruments, the opening act sitting in a circle with beers and weed, assistants running back and forth.Everyone has a purpose here.They’re here for her.The tragic sweetheart ofAmerica Sings!
What a fucking joke.
She has no one here she really wants to see, but she nods at everyone.With Abe out, maybe they should cut back the riff in “Water Teeth.”No, it’s the final night of her first-ever tour.She’s sold out the Agora in Los Angeles.She should stick to the rules.The rules have gotten her this far, even though it’s scarred her to follow them.
She teeters in the too-tight heels, but Hank grips her elbow, steadying her.“You okay?”he whispers.
“Of course!”She’s too chipper, but it can’t be helped.She longs for her guitar, Jasper, for the way its weight settles her.As long as she can find the thread of the music, her heart will slow and she will find her calm.
But after dropping Jasper while walking onstage in Milwaukee, she has to trust Maria to tote it to the stage.
She enters the wings, heartbeat throbbing along her scalp.This isn’t new, not anymore.Not since the sound check earlier that day, not since the Vendetta opened for the Lumineers here that one time.Even familiar, it’s more than enough to steal her breath.
The Agora is an LA icon, an open-air amphitheater nestled in the hills among some of the city’s most expensive and exclusive real estate.With the sunset imminent, with rainbow hues painting the landscape, it’s glorious.It looks like a place where miracles happen.A place for serendipity.It’s certainly happened here often enough.
From her new vantage point, the echoes of the crowd stomping their feet and clapping are too much to bear.Too loud, too violent.Like a skyscraper collapsing on top of her.
She adjusts the noise-dampening headphone in her ear.Last night of the tour.An unknown bassist.A postcard-ready LA night.It’s too perfect.It will all fall apart.
At that moment, Maria slips her guitar into her hands and Ellery can breathe again.Jasper’s been with her through everything—every loss, every heartbreak.Jasper understands her, and she knows every polished inch of him.
Her drummer Selene taps her sticks together, keeping the rhythm.Lorraine is on piano, running a progression of notes to amp up the crowd’s enthusiasm.
A thrill twirls up her spine.This is it.The last night of the tour.She can be done after this.
There’s only one change to business as usual, one possible alteration to her plan.
“Hank,” Ellery says as the lead singer of their opening act goes to the mic to introduce her.“You didn’t tell me who the bassist is.Should I know him?”
“Sure.”Hank checks his clipboard, but it takes him too long in the dim light of the wings.He activates the tiny flashlight clipped to the board, but it’s too late.
The Earth has already shifted on its axis; the sky has already turned and illuminated the one person she doesn’t admit she longs for.
What are the odds?
Her heart seizes and tiny bursts of color explode in her brain.He walks out from across the stage to take his place, his bass in his hand, the tattooed sleeve more expansive than the last time she’s seen him.He still looks so young, even though he’s two years older than her.His gray plaid button-down accentuates his compact frame, his walk slow and unhurried.In an instant, she’s transported to a dive bar in North Hollywood seven years before.
“Are you all right?”Maria asks, dabbing at her forehead with a microfiber towel.“It’s time to go on.”
She can’t speak.Her mouth has gone completely dry, and her pulse skips.“It’s Dante.Dante Baker.”
“Yes.”Hank sighs in relief, tapping his pen to the name on the clipboard, as if he had come to the same conclusion the second she saw him.“Yes, that’s right.Dante Baker.We’re lucky he just flew into town.He was in, like, Finland or someplace like that.Comes really highly recommended.”
Of course he would.He came.Warmth strengthens her legs, numbing the discomfort from her shoes.Her old sense of self taps against her skin, wanting out.Her lungs expand downward, making breathing infinitely easier.
From across the stage, he catches her gaze, his hazel eyes as soothing as a hot bath after a long hike.
