I grinned, pullin’ my own jacket back over my shoulders and followin’ her out the door.
After dropping into an all-night convenience store for hot coffee and a bag of the freshest donuts I’d ever sunk my teeth into, we crossed the river and ambled through neighborhoods and rows of old homes.
She told me about the girls she’d gone to school with in Mississippi, how she kept in touch with none of them because the reminder of why they were all there was just too much. She filled me in on her favorite professors in college, and how she’d never spent so many sleepless nights as she did in the hours leading up to her biology exams.
And she kept writing.
Music felt like the one thing pullin’ us together. Was it the thing that would eventually pull us apart?
We watched the dawn come up over the horizon, church steeples as far as the eye could see, our bottoms planted firmly on the little front porch of the tiny white clapboard home Elvis was born in. She’d thought it was ridiculous that the museum didn’t open until nine, and when I pointed out that was pretty par for the course with museums, she stated defiantly thatIwas ridiculous.
Augusta Belle, tellin’ me the sky was green just to argue.
Augusta’d peeked into all the windows, hands up to the glass and nose pressed to the pane like a little kid, and hell if experiencin’ it all with her hadn’t made my heart skip a beat.
Being with her again felt like seein’ the world through new eyes, and damn if that didn’t feel good after living gig to gig all alone on the road.
Maybe that old man was right. Maybe I had seen too much, but who the hell hadn’t?
And what could we do about it?
Not a goddamn thing. My own crime had been spendin’ so much time dwellin’ on what I’d thought happened.
“It’s amazing all the things this guy did so young.” She referred to Elvis with a swipe of her hand, gesturing to the house behind us. “Some people are just born to break every mold.”
“My mama was always singin’ along to old Elvis songs when I was a kid—before she got hooked on things she couldn’t get away from. We’re only as strong as our weakest vice, I guess. This man made all that music in only twenty years. Changed the game the way he brought blues and bluegrass sounds together and created rock ’n’ roll. Imagine all the ways he could have kept revolutionizing if…” I trailed off, mind runnin’ wild as I thought about my own experience in Nashville. “If the machine wouldn’t have eaten him up.”
Augusta Belle edged herself a little closer, her soft scent invading my nostrils. “You excited for the show tonight?”
I was pulled from my thoughts, rubbing a hand through my beard. “Don’t really get excited anymore.”
“Really?” she asked. “Isn’t that a problem, then?”
“A problem?” I laughed. “Not that I know of.”
“I mean…” She uncrossed her legs, recrossing the opposite way as the shadows turned to light around us. “Aren’t you supposed to like your job?”
“I do.” I shrugged.
“Well, do you ever want to do something in music that excites you again?”
“Meaning what?” I rubbed at the back of my neck, the three hours in the truck finally catchin’ up to my old bones.
“I dunno. I guess I just mean you’re better than sticky dive bars and watered-down whiskey.” Her eyes focused on a point off in the distance.
“Those sticky dive bars are my home,” I replied.
“Sure, but maybe there’s something else.”
“Nah, there’s not.”
She shook her head, exasperation creeping into her voice. “One bad experience in Nashville doesn’t mean the whole industry is bad.”
“If you’d been there, you’d realize that, yes. Yes, it is.”
She continued on. “Carve your own way in this business, that’s all I’m saying. You have way more talent than even you know, Fallon Gentry. Whatever happens, don’t ever doubt that.”
I turned her words over in my mind, wondering if she was right. I loved being onstage, but maybe that time of my life was over. I suddenly didn’t feel the burning desire to chase something off in the distance—or to run from a past that wouldn’t stay there.
